Thursday, March 20, 2014

How Strange They Arrive at All, Nights on Planet Earth


Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and
rue nothing. You did, you loved, your
feet are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.


Campbell McGrath


—Susan Brind Morrow, Wolves and Honey


Gravel paths on hillsides amid moon-drawn vineyards,
click of pearls upon a polished nightstand
soft as rainwater, self-minded stars, oboe music
distant as the grinding of icebergs against the hull
of the self and the soul in the darkness
chanting to the ecstatic chance of existence.
Deep is the water and long is the moonlight
inscribing addresses in quicksilver ink,
building the staircase a lover forever pauses upon.
Deep is the darkness and long is the night,
solid the water and liquid the light. How strange
that they arrive at all, nights on planet earth.




In the night I will become an infant before your flag.


  1. The new Coover arrived with a PLUNK on my doorstep yesterday! It's only about 6 inches thick, weighing about 4lbs.

    Thank dog for drones!

    1. That reminds me - I got halfway through *Origin of Brunists* then left it in a hotel room in Bellville Ohio - good thing I can walk up two flights of stairs and get a copy out of the stacks.

      Not that I think I have the ambition to attempt his new one at the moment. Also, it's out via Kindle in April for a third of the price. It's not the price, it's the six pounds and trying to read it in bed. Great, a moral quandary.