Michael Ryan The steady time of being unknown, in solitude, without friends, is not a steadiness that sustains. I hear your voice waver on the phone: Haven’t talked to anyone for days. I drive around. I sit in parking lots. The voice zeroes through my ear, and waits. What should I say? There are ways [...]

Tags: saturday stanzas
Filed under: Poetry

Lisel Mueller If an inaudible whistle blown between our lips can send him home to us, then silence is perhaps the sound of spiders breathing and roots mining the earth; it may be asparagus heaving, headfirst, into the light and the long brown sound of cracked cups, when it happens. We would like to ask [...]

Tags: saturday stanzas
Filed under: Poetry

Derek Walcott The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling [...]

Tags: saturday stanzas
Filed under: Poetry

John Berryman Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because [...]

Tags: saturday stanzas
Filed under: Poetry

Lost David Wagoner Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave [...]

Tags: nature, saturday stanzas
Filed under: Poetry