Party Ship

Kay Ryan (2013)

You are a
land I can't
stand leaving
and can't not.
My party ship
is pulling out.
We all have
hats. I try to
toot some notes
you'll understand
but this was not
our instrument
or plan.

What It Means To Stay Here

Wendy Xu

I lie in a bed and away from all
my thoughts. I pledge all kinds of things
to the moon, how it speaks but not
to me. Giant land snail, you
are my friend. African prairie buck, you king
of going unseen, black horses moving
through the night. The wilds mean
many things and often we go on
into it. We put our precious bodies
in a tent. We have a lifespan and O how
we live it out. I don’t know much
about anything. I drink my coffee and wait
for what is next. My fine house blows over
on a Tuesday and the anthem of what
this means is awfully sweet. Where
shall I wander before I finally
am gone? What do I bring back
in my careless hands to show you?

Grace and the Chilcot Inquiry

Nick Laird (2013)

My daughter's two weeks old tonight
and my wife wants me to talk to her more
so I started to explain how the answer
I did the thing I thought was right
was enthymematic, and meant to obscure
another rather major conjecture viz.
I do the thing I think it right to do.

Her slow blinks mean that in democracies
the leader's not allowed to operate
according solely to what he or she decrees
is just or necessary; and my brand new
constituent looked appropriately cross
when I began to sing 'Amazing Grace'
to the tune 'The Sash My Father Wore.'

Untitled Poem

Hafiz (Persian, c. 1320-89)

All I want to do
is get drunk with my wife

An endless glass of wine
both of us on the floor

So what if squares
Look down on us?

Boring and misguided
are their miserable lives

When my wife is in the city
and I'm home
I want to cry

The moonlight
on the cypress tree
is a bitter light

No book has ever kissed me
like she does

Girl Watching

Dan Brown (2013)

In the years I've been at this
(Lots, not to be precise)
You'd think that once or twice
At least I would have seen
Some anomalies. I mean
Some major ones. As in
Not feet but little wheels,
Or crests like cockatiels'.
Where are they keeping the girls
With a chrome exterior,
Or and extra derriere?
Apparently nowhere.
Assuming my sample's valid,
The pool is limited
To the standard types I've tallied;
Such variance as there is
In the usual congeries
Of physiognomies—
And yet enough of it
To be worth looking at.
The walking by, for that,
Of the same girl over and over
Would be no cross to bear
If it were that one there.

My Weather

Jane Hirshfield (2012)

Wakeful, sleepy, hungry, anxious,
restless, stunned, relieved.

Does a tree also?
A mountain?

A cup holds
sugar, flour, three large rabbit-breaths of air.

I hold these.

Cheerios

Billy Collins (2012)

One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.

Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.

Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude's older than Cheerios
the way they used to say

Why that's as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,

I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.