#couplets

Photo by Peter Holmboe on Pexels.com “Take a spider’s web and spin it, Spend an hour, not a minute, Spin it gossamer-thin as breath Breathed by sinners close to death, Twist the thread as light and airy As the wings borne by a fairy Till it’s fit to form a yarn There will be no need to darn When I sew it with a needle For a king, who’s come to wheedle Me to make a rainbow coat Weighing less than…

He plays a paradiddle on the drumswhile his lover sleeps. The room is dim, no heat at the ending of the day,although the weather has stayed dry. She really wanted to go for a walk,but he focused on his drumsticks, work took precedence, with a new world tour.She turned her back on him, a tear about to spill. She is not innocent,their relationship is far from nascent. The drummer scratches his…

Starting with the obvious: iPad, cell phone, cannabis, Mitochondrial DNA— but science changes every day— sushi, pad thai, jasmine rice, almost any kind of spice, zipline, snowboard, kayaking, tongue or belly-button ring. Then, things she’d heard of, so she knew, but not imagined one could do: Go to Iceland, make French bread, care what anybody said, watch a sunrise, touch a bug, want to…

मैं मतलब परस्त हूँ, बहुत मतलब परस्त हूँ।बात तेरी जहाँ आ जाए, वहाँ मैं मतलब परस्त हूँ।आईना तुझे कम हसीन दिखाता है।तू देख ख़ुद को मुझमें, मैं मतलब परस्त हूँ।मुझे कोई गिला क्यूँ कर ही हो अब?तुम मेरे बस, मैं मतलब परस्त हूँ।मैं मान जाता हूँ तेरी हर एक बात,दुनिया के लिए बस मैं मतलब परस्त हूँ।चुपके से किसी की मदद करके, मुशरान,कहता फिरता है, मैं मतलब परस्त हूँ। Thank You! Take Care! Smile Always! Stay…

  Echoic       In the absence of Enucleate       Act-ion   Exhaling       Alphabet Tunicate       — word not understood   Estray       Advised in error Excogitate       All   Oarlock       In hands of Narratory       Fate   Strewment       At sight Riptide       Position (Standing)   Roam       As far as possible Urceolate       2025

—

ex The American Bankers Association Code “ABACO” (1951) i-xii, 1-340

Something there is that likes a wall, that likes it spiked and likes it tall, that likes its pikes’ sharp rows of teeth and doesn’t mind its victims’ grief (wherever they come from, far or wide) as long as they fall on the other side. *****Michael R. Burch comments: “I wrote ‘Not Elves, Exactly‘ thinking of Trump’s border wall and Robert Frost’s mischievous elves in ‘Mending Wall‘.” The poem…

Sometimes I visit bodies where I almost roamed and the curves are made of clouds I almost dreamed, a consummation missed by just a touch, an air-to-air refueling broken off, the hose retracted and the thirst abandoned as both planes bank in opposite directions. I hold my almosts in a contact list of hands I never held, and never lost, my store of acorns, little lids on ache, my unmates boarding,…