By Michael Palmer
I know a silent movie star named Jane.
She speaks without moving her lips.
She once starred in a film …
She speaks without moving her lips.
She once starred in a film …
Explore Poems: Indoor Activities
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- By Robert HaydenAt Dunbar, Castle or Arcade
we rode with the exotic sheik
through deserts of erotic flowers;
held in the… - By Josh BellKung-Fu, a couch, and I might reach
emptiness tonight, stuck on that Midwest
hoo-doo, counting cemetery… - By Sarah RuhlSome say: to do the necessary task is greatness;
I say: do the least necessary thing first.
I don't want a frozen living room,
a room where nothing happens.
I don’t want my labors tied in string,
a prelate hovering over, declaiming.
I want a treasure... - By Lynn EmanuelLove is boring and passé, all that old baggage,
the bloody bric-a-brac, the bad, the gothic,
retrograde, obscurantist hum and drum of it
needs to be swept away. So, night after night,
we sit in the dark of the Roxy beside grandmothers
with their shanks... - By Patricia SmithDear ferocious dreamer. Dear maven of song and surveyor of every flung star. Dear meandering romantic, audacious witness, dear listener with the whole of your covetous heart. Dear listener to the air’s brutal and gorgeous music, soft dancer to ballads...
- By Kiki PetrosinoSo I lean back & Redford asks, “Water warm enough?”
& I don’t answer because I’m holding my breath.
I don't know why he asks.
He never uses the faucet to shampoo my afro—just an old clay jar.
Redford fills the jar at the... - By Norman FinkelsteinI have built a machine to visit the stars.
I have built a machine to outlast the stars.
There is a glass ball inside a copper egg.
There are dynamos and turbines, Tesla coils and magnets.
There is a boy in Brooklyn, Wisconsin
and a... - By Haki R. MadhubutiFrequently during my mornings of pain & reflection
when I can’t write
or articulate my thoughts
or locate the mindmusic needed
to complete the poems & essays
that are weeks plus days overdue
forcing me to stop, I cease
answering my phone, eating right, running my miles,
reading... - By Nikki GiovanniI watched Mommy
Cook
Though I cooked
With Grandmother
With Grandmother I learned
To pluck chickens
Peel carrots
Turn chittlins inside out
Scrub pig feet
With Mommy I watched
leftovers for stew
Or vegetable soup
Great northern beans
Mixed collards turnips and mustard greens
Garlic cloves Bay Leaves
Very beautifully green
Stiff so fresh
With just a... - By Elizabeth TheriotHead tilted back, eyes to the light, I squeeze single tears of moisturizer from the glass jar: forehead, cheek, cheek, a cross, martyr mystic blessing that promises to unblemish me.
//
After the hospital everyone brought facemask sheets. In meager bursts of... - By Uma MenonMy first instinct is to translate
the word. Make it easier to understand
without saying the word itself.
I feel guilt for this mistake—
for changing languages instead
of describing. Isn’t this an easy way out?
My mother and I are playing charades
alone. We make this... - By Anuradha Bhowmik
BUDDY INFO: CANDYDANDY24
Personal Profile:
*~iF yOu GoT mY nAmE
iN yOuR mOuTh
//
... - By Hyejung KookAgain this year I’ve failed the peonies that came to us
when we bought our house in summer, not knowing what
pink and white glory grew in the northwest. After the first May,
still childless, seeing how a single bloom could overflow
the cup... - By Julia EdwardsBehind me, a man retrieves waterfalls
of coins from a vending machine while
laundry owners fold cloth, hold a crying baby.
I’m across the street from a restaurant
we drove to in the haze of motion meant to
anticipate grief—gallons of water, a burnt
quesadilla. What... - By Nikki GrimesI come home,
feet about to bleed
from angry stomping.
“Boy!” says Mom.
“Quit making all that racket.”
But what does she expect
when, day after day,
haters sling words at me
like jagged stones
designed to split my skin?
I retreat to my room,
collapse on the bed,
count, “One. Two.... - By Marilyn NelsonA doll was forgotten in a bedroom
when the old owners of the house moved out
and G-ma and Gramps moved their family in.
There’s an old photograph in an album
of boy Uncle Roy laughing, holding it
in a jumble of moving-in boxes.
It spent... - By T.J. ClarkThe sea in the wind in the half-light, clearing its throat of pebbles,
Cloud shadows coming down the mountain with the steady speed
Of a paddle wheel. Light on the foothills already gone,
So that you need not look at the seminary on... - By Marcus WickerSome of you future motherfuckers oughta be
ashamed about the state of your ply count.
Ol’ hologram square, skid tread-
bare, pressed-dandelion-dust-on-a-roll-having
jokers. Bet you’re allowed to have company over.
For shit’s sake, fam. What you know about Chanel
Cottonelle? Perfumed & powdered
as your Great Aunt... - By Nancy WillardNow, said the cook, I will teach you
how to stuff a pepper with rice.
Take your pepper green, and gently,
for peppers are shy. No matter which side
you approach, it's always the backside.
Perched on green buttocks, the pepper sleeps.
In its silk tights,...