Jonathan Mayhew trans. Jonathan Mayhew

ANÉCDOTA RECORDADA EN VANO

Escuchaba yo un disco - en la edad de los tocadiscos -

entró mi padre, me comentó, extrañado y despectivo, que le sonaba a piano de cóctel

En vano habría sido contestarle, avergonzado, que se trataba del gran Bill Evans

que sí tocaba en esa época algo parecido a la música de Cóctel

***

I was listening to a record - in the age of recordplayers -

when my father came in, surprised and dismissive, telling me it sounded like Cocktail piano

It would have been in vain to tell him it was the great Bill Evans

who was in fact playing, in that period, a form of Cocktail piano

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Guest Editor: David Shapiro

David Shapiro

Song for Another Envelope



The fatal exceptions occurred

without exception and not fatally.

They stole my throne from me:

it was a tree, or a tree

stump as they rotted it,

cut it to a chair,

democratic as a T

then sank it into the ground

and I forgot to take last snaps

of a serious mossy thing.

Fire at evening, or was it the

evening on fire?



Reader,

butterfly,

migrant drunk, ally,

unemployed luminosity,

mirror in the air, feather,

scrawny light--

You decide.

Andy Carter

start with the last line or end with the beginning

I have left
that resembles what courage
bruised bananas mashed
up against the nothing
days spent rubbing
stainless steel kiss
fuck hole on my new computer
shooting smack between its toes, our future
unable to stop
I know, I let go
as they ought to
high school couples holding on
they don't speak and they choose not to
cows in a slaughter queue
for the ants to contemplate
a damp pink splotch
into the plum so cold and sweet
I'm going to insert explosives
when not, the victim of it
when convenient the author of history
they buried Ronald on a sunset drenched hill
buried Ronald in Topeka, how inappropriate
lately, I've noticed silence cutting itself
with each shrug the official offer increased
slid across the table, apocryphal
I scribbled on the back of the photo
and only one computer screen
if there were only one extension cord
I love the new Sleater-Kinney
red grows nervously on the tv, the radar, my city

Maggie Nelson

Morning Prayer


This morning I awoke with a fresh sense

of the total, desperate hell



Our failure to love each other well



O let a jesus come down and make it sweet

Let a jesus take an axe to the wheel



Part the fire with tongs