The Brooklyn Rail

NOV 2014

All Issues
NOV 2014 Issue
Poetry

from It's Time

 

Our house is

made of

mismarked

boxes

conflating

body language

w/ the act

of building

Let’s celebrate

uncertain

structure

& move

around again

 

+++

 

Each second

of the real-life

event erupts

from a fictional

period   Stones

mistaken

for walls of

tombs are viewed

as individual

things living

side by side as

a family   Tempted

to keep the light

out we pretend

the world might

be just us   Burned

to life by a past

collapsed we see

the disappeared

women are here

If destruction is

inevitable then

deforest

the lynching trees

to build shelter

It     Is     Time

 

+++

 

A triumph

of life

unfinished

is dramatic

& short &

you are

the drag 

king I love

Blaspheme

tested

& so so

lit beyond

my naked

vision

direct action

afterglow is

fog then

dazzle from

may day’s

jaguar sun

 

+++  

 

Happy

space age

now blow out

candles

The heaven/

haven question

pushpins the

map of pain

Strings connect

a bank of

targets

cursed since

the very

first book

Primitive yes

& not in

a good way

This was life

now let’s get

back to

dirt & sea

& air

 

Contributor

Frank Sherlock

FRANK SHERLOCK is the author of SPACE BETWEEN THESE LINES NOT DEDICATED (ixnay press, 2014), OVER HERE (Factory School, 2009), THE CITY REAL & IMAGINED (w/ CAConrad) (Factory School, 2010), and a collaboration with Brett Evans entitled Ready-to-Eat Individual. Por Aquí, a Spanish-language collection of works translated by Carlos Soto-Román, will be published in Chile in 2015. Poems beyond the page have found their forms in installations/performances/exhibitions, including Refuse/Reuse: Language for the Common Landfill, Kensington Riots Project, Neighbor Ballads, and B.Franklin Basement Tapes. Sherlock is a recipient of the 2013 Pew Fellowship in the Arts for literature. He is currently Poet Laureate of Philadelphia.

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The Brooklyn Rail

NOV 2014

All Issues