Music Arises from Component Parts or The Dream of a Clarinet
By Tobias WrayOnce done,
my father pulled
the instrument apart.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Tobias WrayOnce done,
my father pulled
the instrument apart.
By Lisbeth WhiteAt the end of the field are tracks
train metal iron sound called whistle
to me a blare that splits air before it
By Azura TyabjiIf the meaning of the prayer was not passed down to you,
find it through holier means than translation.
Cling to the rhythm instead.
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-SamarasinhaI wish you swift wind.
I wish you a changed phone number
that stays changed.
By Ching-In ChenMy people – I see you across street, porch people, huddled under brick archway, watching what pours from sky. Wading in water, what circuits it carries – mostly numb, small, what might feel like circuit’s end.
By Laura Da'I do desire—Chillicothe, Piqua, Lima
that you remain—Shawnee, Lawrence, Olathe
Wyandotte, Tecumseh—on the other side
Junction City, Fort Leavenworth, Lenexa—
of the river.
By Ely ShipleyThe neck of the guitar stretches
out, every other fret painted with a sharp
dot or dash, flash after flash
of reflected light, marble or pearl, the shape
of a fingerprint, ...
By Tara HardyThey call it dissociation.
I call it THE NINE (children)
who live inside me.
Each of them encased
in amber, frozen in a mosquito-pose
By Lena Khalaf TuffahaBehind the walls of your jails we wait
heartbeats audible now, muffled thuds
above the current of blood running thin
By Anastacia-Reneethe cedar tree could not comprehend
the crime could not comprehend a leaning
a lynching a love gone wrong