Category: Poetry
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Katsura
And for a flower to wither under ice andbloom at daybreak, it has to be taken. FromJapanese gardens, it has traveled backto us; now caramel leavestell White Mountain skies: “Everythingyou could want already exists,” and gifts us with a reminderof how odd it is to be anything livingat all. Original poetry and photography. Featured in…
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People will proclaim it’s beautiful and
they may never know it’s a tupelo. New Hampshire is known for itsliving gold in early October, just aswe are known for missing theindividual trees for the swathes of red and orange andvibrance; we consume the colors of the tupelo.It tastes sour,oily and bitter andexpensive—the costof berries fit to feedan entire forest. Original poetry and…
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Coming Up on Migration Season
I wonder if the same thing that tells a bird:“Go, you cannot stay”, talks to my father’s wood pile.If this is why we throw a plastic tarpover the meticulously stacked mound every fall. We trap our logs as though the wood wishes to leave.As though the wood knows what ‘wishing’ is. It’s migration season,so we’re…
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An Alchemist’s Guide to Making Insulin
It does not have to be precious;let’s create matter out of nothing. Let’s turn to this matter of nothing:the diabetic body lives off pinpricks and needles. My mother taught me how to use pins and needles;now I embroider the edges of my bruises. I have tried to put my pancreas back together with stitchesbut there…
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Ghazal for the End of Time
The ghazal is a closed poetry form; here is a brief overview. The global temperature might go up a few more degrees before the end of time.I tell myself, “At least we will stop treating oil fires like dogs on leashes; they will be set free before the end of time.” I wonder how we…
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Be Gentler Still, Unquiet Sea
Be gentler still, unquiet sea; again shesees her city days. She only ever saveswhat memories are not too heavy to carry. The pigeons want to know is she happyor does she ache? How many of her daysis she still in the unquiet sea?Just buy the ticket overseas already;forsake those days on planes and the acheof…
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Poem by the River
I don’t want to write about the river / that can’t smooth stones / nor the bird drawing he gave me / on Valentine’s Day / I don’t want to write / about the poems I put down / the poems I ran out of words for / the poems I buried / in the…
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Generational Love
Mama says,“it’s time to keep on drowning in the soul bleach; our shared memories bloodied the clockwork bends and aged us into laundromat cycles— I don’t rememberif I was dreaming when my mother and I filled the car with soap of if we are what hangs on the clothesline. But I do rememberwhen the grass…
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Fishbowl Brain
Remember how you loved melike a goldfish; behind the glassof your eyes I sawmy heart was never born in Junebeside the peonies and the lilac,nor at the bus stop where you showed methe cigarettes in your body.Body, tell me about forever.Tell me how to see in 1080p, how to get backto thinking in pictures knowingthere’s…
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Poem of what goes through my mind when she tells me I don’t have to be brave and I try to believe her
Beneath the wood we stacked in the takeout containers—to save money on the heat bill—is the life we’ve made. A life made of letters, made of all the ending lines, of all the poems I never sent you. I flinch at your touch but eat your frozen udon and day-old empanadas like we still have…
Hazel J. Hall 