I won’t be around
when our coastal cities
turn into Venice,
only without
all the statues
and the amazing pastries,
when lucky is he
who now has a canoe.
But still, I hope
the water doesn’t rise
over the mouth
of the angel kneeling
on top of my tomb,
and my heart goes out
to that oblivious sparrow
singing on her concrete head.
when our coastal cities
turn into Venice,
only without
all the statues
and the amazing pastries,
when lucky is he
who now has a canoe.
But still, I hope
the water doesn’t rise
over the mouth
of the angel kneeling
on top of my tomb,
and my heart goes out
to that oblivious sparrow
singing on her concrete head.
Billy Collins is the author of twelve collections of poetry including The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Florida with his wife Suzannah.
Under the hypnotist’s video
someone has posted the comment:
Now hypnotise a hypnotist to hypnotise you!
The internet is hungry for itself.
Not a snake but a reply-guy, legs
in the air, straining to kiss his own genitals.
Clicking through I end up watching
two very macho chiropractors, each
with their own cult following.
Due to the ‘sheer number of fan requests’,
they’ve met up to manipulate one another.
Us chiros need adjustment too —
been takin’ care of all those peeps.
There’s an atmosphere. The taller
chiropractor elicits the loudest cracks.
My man, he says tenderly in response
to every sound, my man.
When they swap, the shorter touches
the taller uneasily. He fails to get his neck
to crack. The taller chiropractor stands,
straight as a rake, and rests a hand
on the shorter chiropractor’s shoulder.
I need some green trainers like yours, my man.
Remove a rib and let the poem have itself
for breakfast, I type in the comments section,
then click back to that first video.
The hypnotist tells the girl he’s put under
that when she wakes, she’ll find the word
hypnosis hilarious. There will be nothing
funnier, he says snapping his fingers, before
asking, how are you finding hypnosis? She laughs,
hard and full and right in his face.
And he laughs too, but in the manner
of someone who doesn’t quite get the joke.
someone has posted the comment:
Now hypnotise a hypnotist to hypnotise you!
The internet is hungry for itself.
Not a snake but a reply-guy, legs
in the air, straining to kiss his own genitals.
Clicking through I end up watching
two very macho chiropractors, each
with their own cult following.
Due to the ‘sheer number of fan requests’,
they’ve met up to manipulate one another.
Us chiros need adjustment too —
been takin’ care of all those peeps.
There’s an atmosphere. The taller
chiropractor elicits the loudest cracks.
My man, he says tenderly in response
to every sound, my man.
When they swap, the shorter touches
the taller uneasily. He fails to get his neck
to crack. The taller chiropractor stands,
straight as a rake, and rests a hand
on the shorter chiropractor’s shoulder.
I need some green trainers like yours, my man.
Remove a rib and let the poem have itself
for breakfast, I type in the comments section,
then click back to that first video.
The hypnotist tells the girl he’s put under
that when she wakes, she’ll find the word
hypnosis hilarious. There will be nothing
funnier, he says snapping his fingers, before
asking, how are you finding hypnosis? She laughs,
hard and full and right in his face.
And he laughs too, but in the manner
of someone who doesn’t quite get the joke.
Read Ella Frears on “Rabbit Hole” and “Hole Manifesto.”
Ella Frears is a poet and artist originally from Cornwall, based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
Ella Frears is a poet and artist originally from Cornwall, based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
Available one hour on day of issue only.
Not valid in trains. Not transferable.
To be given up when leaving platform.
For conditions see over.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Available one hour to watch trains
and wonder at the fates of strangers
to be given up when leaving platform.
For complications not over.
Available one hour to meet arrivals
who are known and not transferable
and not given up when leaving platform.
For cohesions not over.
Available one hour to sit in a café
and transfer melancholy to coffee
given up to the cracked cup on leaving.
For conditions not over.
Available one hour to walk to the end
and transfer the gaze to the long way
beyond to be given up when leaving.
For visions now over.
Available one hour on a day no other
use for the hour is valid or transferable
so it is just to be given up to a shrug.
For convictions now over.
Available one hour to belong to long
for valid and not transferable love
and not to give up the hunger
For complicities now over.
Not valid in trains. Not transferable.
To be given up when leaving platform.
For conditions see over.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Available one hour to watch trains
and wonder at the fates of strangers
to be given up when leaving platform.
For complications not over.
Available one hour to meet arrivals
who are known and not transferable
and not given up when leaving platform.
For cohesions not over.
Available one hour to sit in a café
and transfer melancholy to coffee
given up to the cracked cup on leaving.
For conditions not over.
Available one hour to walk to the end
and transfer the gaze to the long way
beyond to be given up when leaving.
For visions now over.
Available one hour on a day no other
use for the hour is valid or transferable
so it is just to be given up to a shrug.
For convictions now over.
Available one hour to belong to long
for valid and not transferable love
and not to give up the hunger
For complicities now over.
Note:
‘A local loss
Across and off the platform ticket found . . .’
from ‘Strike’ by Veronica Forrest-Thomson.
Mark Valentine writes ghost stories, essays about old odd books, and modernist poetry. His work is mostly published by independent presses, including Tartarus Press (UK), The Swan River Press (Dublin), Sarob Press (France) and Zagava (Germany).
‘A local loss
Across and off the platform ticket found . . .’
from ‘Strike’ by Veronica Forrest-Thomson.
Mark Valentine writes ghost stories, essays about old odd books, and modernist poetry. His work is mostly published by independent presses, including Tartarus Press (UK), The Swan River Press (Dublin), Sarob Press (France) and Zagava (Germany).
A grave doesn’t require a body to be a grave.
But it does require the idea of death.
How kind of you to dig me this deep, rectangular pond.
What you really want to know is whether the centre
of a Party Ring is consumed along with the Party Ring.
The waiter lifts the cloche, Your hole, sir.
(I’m the waiter).
Did you hear the one about the topologist who
dipped her mug into her donut?
That’s what we’re like when we’re in love. A couple
of seven-holed donuts, unsure if we’re dipping
or being dipped. Look, I didn’t dig this pit. I didn’t
puncture your tyre. It’s not my fault water is escaping
from your bucket. If you’d just stop burying me
for one second, and check the bureau,
(top draw) you’d find a diagram like the one
for The Evolution of Man, in which I,
slouched and incapable of using tools, gradually
straighten, pick up a shovel, and become you.
But it does require the idea of death.
How kind of you to dig me this deep, rectangular pond.
What you really want to know is whether the centre
of a Party Ring is consumed along with the Party Ring.
The waiter lifts the cloche, Your hole, sir.
(I’m the waiter).
Did you hear the one about the topologist who
dipped her mug into her donut?
That’s what we’re like when we’re in love. A couple
of seven-holed donuts, unsure if we’re dipping
or being dipped. Look, I didn’t dig this pit. I didn’t
puncture your tyre. It’s not my fault water is escaping
from your bucket. If you’d just stop burying me
for one second, and check the bureau,
(top draw) you’d find a diagram like the one
for The Evolution of Man, in which I,
slouched and incapable of using tools, gradually
straighten, pick up a shovel, and become you.
Read Ella Frears on “Rabbit Hole” and “Hole Manifesto.”
Ella Frears is a poet and artist originally from Cornwall, based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
Ella Frears is a poet and artist originally from Cornwall, based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
Is there anyone who hasn’t,
as a child, stood alone in a yard,
training one eye and closing the other,
toggling like a see-saw
to watch a log or a raised finger
dash back and forth, asking:
Have I been two people in one
skull this entire time?
She was left-handed, a body-double.
I went through my day alone, eyepatched
like a crowd: emperor of chickens,
god of gadflies and tomato seeds,
pissant of backaches and capricious
weather. By dinner time, I faced
an equal––scale descending
on a person not so unlike my own.
Sun sets like an epiphany,
heavy, ringing in its horns,
leaving the great crater
of night in its landing grounds.
And then the humanizing tumble
into a single bed you’re much too
capacious for, and the hearing
of someone else’s ecstasy and dread,
manifold, striving to be unified
like belligerents retiring
for an epoch or an evening,
sewing white flags into sleeping gowns.
as a child, stood alone in a yard,
training one eye and closing the other,
toggling like a see-saw
to watch a log or a raised finger
dash back and forth, asking:
Have I been two people in one
skull this entire time?
She was left-handed, a body-double.
I went through my day alone, eyepatched
like a crowd: emperor of chickens,
god of gadflies and tomato seeds,
pissant of backaches and capricious
weather. By dinner time, I faced
an equal––scale descending
on a person not so unlike my own.
Sun sets like an epiphany,
heavy, ringing in its horns,
leaving the great crater
of night in its landing grounds.
And then the humanizing tumble
into a single bed you’re much too
capacious for, and the hearing
of someone else’s ecstasy and dread,
manifold, striving to be unified
like belligerents retiring
for an epoch or an evening,
sewing white flags into sleeping gowns.
Jake Goldwasser is a poet and cartoonist based in Iowa City, where he is an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poems can be found in Grist, The Spectacle, and elsewhere, and you can sign up for his newsletter here.
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