31 Jul: "Before She Died" by Karen Chase

When I look at the sky now, I look at it for you. As if with enough attention, I could take it in for you. With all the leaves gone almost from the trees, I did not walk briskly through the field. Late today with my dog Wool, I lay down in the upper field, he panting and aged, me looking at the blue. Leaning on him, I wondered how finite these lustered days seem to you, A stand of hemlock across the lake catches my eye. It will take a long time to know how it is for you. Like a dog's lifetime -- long -- multiplied by sevens.

30 Jul: "I FInally Managed to Speak to Her" by Hal Sirowitz

She was sitting across from me
on the bus. I said, "The trees
look so much greener in this part
of the country. In New York City
everything looks so drab." She said,
"It looks the same to me. Show me
a tree that's different." "That one,"
I said. "Which one?" she said.
"It's too late," I said; "we already
passed it." "When you find another one,"
she said, "let me know." And then
she went back to reading her book.

29 July: "SIX ONE-LINE FILM SCRIPTS" by Tom Andrews

Tom Andrews

SIX ONE-LINE FILM SCRIPTS 

Film Noir
Everyone on earth is asleep – except Robert Mitchum.

French Flic
The camera is an emptiness that longs to be a camera.

Historic Epic
Thousands of extras…reset their alarm clocks.

Stéphane Mallarmé Counts the Buttons on the Hangman’s Vest
Mallarmé: Two, three…no…two…no…wait, two, three…one, two…

God, Guilt and Death
This will not work on film.

The Needle
Medium shot of a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle.

28 Jul: "To Earthward" by Robert Frost

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air 

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of—was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk? 

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they’re gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle. 

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung. 

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain 

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove. 

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand, 

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

27 Jul: "Music, When Soft Voices Die" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, When Soft Voices Die

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

26 Jul: "My November Guest" by Robert Frost

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise

25 Jul: "Talking" by Kahlil Gibran

Talking

And then a scholar said, "Speak of Talking."

And he answered, saying:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.

The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered

When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more. 

24 Jul: "In Some Other Life" by David Jones

In some other life 
We are standing 
Side by side and 
Laughing that, in 
Some other life

We are apart.

23 Jul: "Self-Portrait With No Flag" by Safia Elhillo

Self-Portrait With No Flag

i pledge allegiance to my
homies      to my mother’s
small & cool palms     to
the gap between my brother’s
two front teeth      & to
my grandmother’s good brown
hands       good strong brown
hands gathering my bare feet
in her lap

i pledge allegiance    to the
group text      i pledge allegiance
to laughter & to all the boys
i have a crush on      i pledge
allegiance to my spearmint plant
to my split ends      to my grandfather’s
brain & gray left eye

i come from two failed countries
& i give them back      i pledge
allegiance to no land    no border
cut by force to draw blood    i pledge
allegiance to no government    no
collection of white men carving up
the map with their pens

i choose the table at the waffle house
with all my loved ones crowded
into the booth     i choose the shining
dark of our faces through a thin sheet
of smoke     glowing dark of our faces
slick under layers of sweat     i choose
the world we make with our living
refusing to be unmade by what surrounds
us      i choose us gathered at the lakeside
the light glinting off the water & our
laughing teeth     & along the living
dark of our hair    & this is my only country 

  - by Safia Elhillo

22 Jul: "Slow Dance" by David L. Weatherford

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,

or listened to rain slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight,
or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
time is short, the music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,
when you ask "How are you?", do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,
with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
time is short, the music won't last.

Ever told your child, we'll do it tomorrow,
and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,
'cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
time is short, the music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
it's like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn't a race, so take it slower,
hear the music before your song is over.

21 Jul: "The Printer's Error" by Aaron Fogel

The Printer's Error

Fellow compositors
and pressworkers!

I, Chief Printer
Frank Steinman,
having worked fifty-
seven years at my trade,
and served five years
as president
of the Holliston
Printer's Council,
being of sound mind
though near death,
leave this testimonial
concerning the nature
of printers' errors.

First: I hold that all books
and all printed
matter have
errors, obvious or no,
and that these are their
most significant moments,
not to be tampered with
by the vanity and folly
of ignorant, academic
textual editors.
Second: I hold that there are
three types of errors, in ascending
order of importance:
One: chance errors
of the printer's trembling hand
not to be corrected incautiously
by foolish professors
and other such rabble
because trembling is part
of divine creation itself.

Two: silent, cool sabotage
by the printer,
the manual laborer
whose protests
have at times taken this
historical form,
covert interferences
not to be corrected
censoriously by the hand
of the second and far
more ignorant saboteur,
the textual editor.
Three: errors
from the touch of God,
divine and often
obscure corrections
of whole books by
nearly unnoticed changes
of single letters
sometimes meaningful but
about which the less said
by preemptive commentary
the better.
Third: I hold that all three
sorts of error,
errors by chance,
errors by workers' protest,
and errors by
God's touch,
are in practice the
same and indistinguishable.

Therefore I,
Frank Steinman,
typographer
for thirty-seven years,
and cooperative Master
of the Holliston Guild
eight years,
being of sound mind and body
though near death
urge the abolition
of all editorial work
whatsoever
and manumission
from all textual editing
to leave what was
as it was, and
as it became,
except insofar as editing
is itself an error, and

therefore also divine.

20 Jul: "Gratophoph" by Andrew Zawacki

This is not a waiting room

for souls. It is modern,

totally unwindowed.

The sun threw a ray away,

               lost two rays it’s

raining here in the room.

On the beach it looks very

evening already, money

removed from the world:

if one travels somewhere

and back again, one is

always different—we are not

separated on the journey.

My mouth keeps spr-

      inging open.

Everything does not

have to have

a limit

: varnish out,

dooryear—winter

ice is caught in winter,

I plunged myself but not

under. (I can’t

pull it out of my head,

      can I.) Godthrough:

a word with a star tied around

      it, it

has to hit someone.

Was such a storm

the trees fell over,

there was a storm

against. I have got a lot

more songs in my mouth:

Shudderhorror.

      Souldoll.

            Shiverbeard,

            is there much enough snow?

            is that supposed to be lakes

for the chessmen have

reached the bank?

Mother shakes the little tree.

Otherwise the darkness

will read it and will

remain dark forever.

A dream falls off,

a little shirt—

the sky is red. And

blue. How do the bones

get into my foot?

Ung-Ung-train,

                           Puff-Puff train

afraided me away.

No everything does not have a limit:

I saw that I lived

here. That there is a spider

      in the window here.

      That there is a mirror

here. Twinslight, the

      tongue, the garden flowers painted

      —almostyou: to

walk where it is very dark

and the small bell is

already hanging

in the air—

x

19 Jul: "Snow" by David Berman

Snow

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.


Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.


When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.


But why were they on his property, he asked.

—David Berman

18 Jul: "She Didn't Mean to Do It" by Daisy Fried

She Didn't Mean to Do It

Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad.
She didn't mean to do it.

Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs,
go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces,
but no more. Certain thrills knock you flat
on your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade
and they fade. You falter and they're gone, gone, gone.
Certain thrills puff off you like smoke rings,
some like bell rings growing out, out, turning
brass, steel, gold, till the whole world's filled
with the gonging of your thrills.

But oh, she was sad, she was just sad, sad,
and she didn't mean to do it.

—Daisy Fried

17 Jul: "Late Melt" by Melissa Broder

I had not vomited in so long

Someone put the hex on my true-to-selfness

Some sorcerer kept me far from my guts

The guts I feared would choke me

And make me ashamed of having no wings

And drown my own heart

I know how to survive a feeling

But I forgot that I knew it

A manic forgetter froze my meats

I kept asking for help when I didn't need it

My demons stared out from the ice

When they finally thawed they'd been dead all along

And now I am the walking thawed

You survive yourself if you wait long enough

And vomit your guts down your defrosted breast

And bathe in your mess and say baby it's fine

16 Jul: "Advice from the Experts" by Bill Knott

Advice from the Experts

I lay down in the empty street and parked
My feet against the gutter's curb while from
The building above a bunch of gawkers perched
Along its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.

15 Jul: "Cartoon Physics, part 1" by Nick Flynn

Cartoon Physics, part 1

Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know 

that the universe is ever-expanding,   

inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies 

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it 

acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning 

the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock 

only he can pass through it.   

Anyone else who tries 

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds 

should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,   

ships going down—earthbound, tangible 

disasters, arenas 

where they can be heroes. You can run 

back into a burning house, sinking ships

have lifeboats, the trucks will come 

with their ladders, if you jump 

you will be saved. A child 

places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,   

& drives across a city of sand. She knows 

the exact spot it will skid, at which point 

the bridge will give, who will swim to safety 

& who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn 

that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff 

he will not fall 

until he notices his mistake.

14 Jul: "Moth" by Atsuro Riley

— Candy’s Stop, up Hwy. 52

I been ‘Candy’ since I came here young.

My born name keeps but I don’t say.

To her who my mama was I was

pure millstone, cumbrance.   Child ain’t but a towsack full of bane.

Well I lit out right quick.

Hitched, and so forth.   Legged it.

Was rid.

Accabee at first (then, thicket-hid) then Wadmalaw;

out to Nash’s meat-yard, Obie’s jook.   At

County Home they had this jazzhorn drumbeat

orphan-band ‘them lambs’ they — 

They let me bide and listen.

This gristly man he came he buttered me

then took me off (swore I was surely something) let me ride in back.

Some thing — 

(snared) (spat-on) Thing

being morelike moresoever what he meant.

No I’d never sound what brunts he called me what he done

had I a hundred mouths.

How his mouth.   Repeats

on me down the years.   Everlastingly

riveled-looking, like rotfruit.   Wasn’t it

runched up like a grub.

First chance I inched off (back through bindweed) I was gone.

Nothing wrong with gone as a place

for living.   Whereby a spore eats air when she has to;

where I’ve fairly much clung for peace.

Came the day I came here young

I mothed

my self.   I cleaved apart.

A soul can hide like moth on bark.

My born name keeps but I don’t say.

13 Jul: "I will tell you the truth about this, I will tell you all about it" by Tracy K. Smith

I will tell you the truth about this, I will tell you all about it


Excellent Sir, My son went in the 54th regiment–

Sir, my husband, who is in Company K, 22nd Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops
(and now in the Macon Hospital at Portsmouth with a wound in his arm)
has not received any pay since last May and then only thirteen dollars–

Sir, We The Members of Company D, of the 55th Massachusetts volunteers
Call the attention of your Excellency to our case–

for instant look and see
that we never was freed yet
Run Right out of Slavery
In to Soldiery & we
hadent nothing atall &
our wifes & mother most all of them
is aperishing all about & we
all are perishing our self–

i am willing to bee a soldier and serve my time
faithful like a man but i think it is hard to bee
poot off in such dogesh manner as that–

Will you see that the colored men fighting now,
are fairly treated. You ought to do this,
and do it at once, Not let the thing run along
meet it quickly and manfully. We poor oppressed ones
appeal to you, and ask fair play–

So please if you can do any good for us do it
in the name of god–

Excuse my boldness but pleas–

your reply will settle the matter and will be appreciated,
by, a colored man who, is willing to sacrifice his son
in the cause of Freedom & Humanity–

I have nothing more to say
hoping that you will lend a listening ear
to an umble soldier
I will close–

Yours for Christs sake–
(I shall hav to send this with out a stamp
for I haint money enough to buy a stamp)

12 Jul: "Wade in the Water" by Tracy K. Smith

"Wade in the Water"


One of the women greeted me.
I love you, she said.
She didn’t Know me,
but I believed her,
And a terrible new ache
Rolled over in my chest,
Like in a room where the drapes
Have been swept back.
I love you,
I love you, as she continued
Down the hall past other strangers,
Each feeling pierced suddenly
By pillars of heavy light.
I love you, throughout
The performance, in every
Handclap, every stomp.
I love you in the rusted iron
Chains someone was made
To drag until love let them be
Unclasped and left empty
In the center of the ring.
I love you in the water
Where they pretended to wade,
Singing that old blood-deep song
That dragged us to those banks
And cast us in. I love you,
The angles of it scraping at
Each throat, shouldering past
The swirling dust motes
In those beams of light
That whatever we now knew
We could let ourselves feel, knew
To climb. O Woods—O
Dogs—O Tree—O Gun—
O Girl, run—O
Miraculous Many Gone—
O Lord—O Lord—O
Lord—Is this love the
trouble you promised?

11 Jul: "Romeo and Juliet Sonnet" by William Shakespeare

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

10 Jul: "Out of the Womb, Into the Tomb" by Jake Drew

"OUT OF THE WOMB, INTO THE TOMB" by Jake Drew

Give life.

Take life.

Live life.

Await death.

A wasted birth.

Tasted Earth.

But what's it worth?

A last breath.

A wife, a husband, a bride or a groom.

To what we consume; impending doom.

The mow of a flower just after its bloom.

Out of the womb, into the tomb.

9 Jul: "Mount Shasta" by Joaquin Miller

To lord all Godland! lift the brow
Familiar to the moon, to top
The universal world, to prop
The hollow heavens up, to vow
Stern constancy with stars, to keep
Eternal watch while eons sleep;
To tower proudly up and touch
God's purple garment-hems that sweep
The cold blue north! Oh, this were much!

Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt
I knew thee, in thy glorious youth,
And loved thy vast face, white as truth;
I stood where thunderbolts were wont
To smite thy Titan-fashioned front,
And heard dark mountains rock and roll;
I saw the lightning's gleaming rod
Reach forth and write on heaven's scroll
The awful autograph of God!

8 Jul: "Sojourn in the Whale" by Marianne Moore