Issue #26.6 A Triple Issue: Susan Gevirtz, Andrew Cox, and Jenkin Benson
A Poem by Susan Gevirtz
from The Guides
Registrar
detour wanderer wait
fight for or choose to be stateless non assimilant
I am not you but still we meet on the path of paved mirrors
keep your job sanctioned sealed eloquent shut
reception the reconciling ask nothing
carve containers in air walk into
ledger meticulous registrar paid to track the fearsome by shine of timid cursive trace who without birthplace born without state taxed without border contained mourn for stranger members swimmers in their lanes speake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book
To the orchard in the wilderness
On the day of the firstfruits Spread a cloth Do no ordinary work The expense of the journey is itself a tribute
Come forward
Feast without roof
Offer the burnt
Cauterize lines between stars but
the still points move
while
the hand
races to follow
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Susan Gevirtz’s recent books of poetry include Burns (Pamenar), Hotel abc (Nightboat) and Aerodrome Orion & Starry Messenger (Kelsey Street). Her critical books are Narrative’s Journey: The Fiction and Film Writing of Dorothy Richardson (Peter Lang) and Coming Events (Collected Writings), (Nightboat). Gevirtz works with Prison Renaissance and Operation Restoration as a writing mentor to incarcerated people. In 2004 she and Siarita Kouka, Greek poet/restorer of maritime antiquities, founded the Paros Symposium, an annual translation and conversation meeting of Greek and Anglophone poets. She is based in San Francisco. Her latest book, The Guides, is now available from antiphony press.
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Three Poems by Andrew Cox
Demolition
The crows are anxious About the trees
And their wisdom of the unknown I am here
Where parallel lines cross And the dangerous buildings stand ready
For demolition Up there where the buzzards coast
You wait (it was always you) For the explosion
While those tagged as prey Wonder why they are the wrecking crew
The crows complain And the trees say tear it down
Crash
The mothers migrate north While the fathers grow
Black flowers in the sky
Trumpet vines provide the soundtrack As the hummingbirds
Helicopter in for a drink
The hands nest In the land only they know
Where the children are an afterthought
I look up to see The great flocks of mothers
Blot out the sky While the fathers spiral down
Ready for the crash
History
The foxes are history’s soldiers
And know their footsteps Must not be heard
As they raid the coop
And worship the night’s Imponderable weight
While the mothers and fathers Watch history
Rain on the children with no umbrellas
As the sun’s corona warns them
The skulk of foxes cannot stop history From sending rain
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Andrew Cox is the author of The Equation That Explains Everything, (BlazeVOX [Books] 2010), and the chapbooks, This False Compare (2River View, 2019) and Fortune Cookies (2River View, 2009). He edits UCity Review.
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Two Poems by Jenkin Benson
buzzwinkle, moose who wandered downtown anchorage, killed humanely
meter parkslipped report moose slumped senior found outhind lot back there northomic Anchorage Printing eyes onyxloss turned their celebrity did Buzz and I
cross em in paths ‘07 back was I by straits too Prince Willthracked gulfed puffinfull of lights mass annointed russet like adornering allfestal allantlers
Buzz surely I met dithering had to have mom swangpush so soswung where did you close Buzz crabtangled of the apples got yardbillowing I did
and dad bungalowed past Bernie’s offyoung walk way too lounge too slurry for the spotpour I could keep bet I could his Buzzpace now keep him sauntry
pristine drifthaunch far and snows farthing no inletologists binocular him less lawed bus path no rudetour Lake no oriented Clarke trudgesnout Buzz
lumbers to and to I want to join the mostmoose
why are tires being dumped onto property along sw 9th Street?
for south des moines
glasswound viaduct ramps fractward to faultholes rutfenneling all fill and foil
pass graziano’s crudostained stoop the traffic craves value the marlayer mouth smacks “afanabola ” steers
sidewalklessly towards maxilla puddles so little pity for possums and proles and other plugdestrians
eluding twodoor coups musclebirds leakletting myolately your tar actins
maneuvers taut flat car flit don’t stir igdrive don’t gear throttled girth fuel lit no park now park you pay
you lurch keep it sadosouth til you get here get lead get hit
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Jenkin is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Notre Dame. He primarily studies the literary interchange between Ireland, Wales, and the Black Atlantic, focusing on writers like James Joyce, David Jones, and Claude McKay. He is also a poet and a musician interested in bending and estranging language. You can find his work here: https://linktr.ee/jenkinbenson
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