Poetry
Silent Pictures Recognize the World II
13
in neon
“aceptamos visa”
above “botanica
consultas esprituales
aqui” car hood passes
blocks most of window
tiny white horses
climb the right wall
various statues of saints
line the bottom shelf
and peek straight
through one side
of the car
to the other
heavy and boggy
a swamp-like stroll
through a door
to secret prayers
chants and speaking
in tongues
voices in head also
a kind of possession
heaviness in flight
spirits solidify
trapped in brightly
colored figurines
14
a child’s bust white
plaster curls
mouth half open
glancing at the
bronze chieftain’s head
just above
the glass hits
a strip of gold
a stretch of white
a silver bulging disc
then another strip
of white
brown tiles
three small rectangles
alternating with
three identical
white rectangles
until edge above
the child’s head
an old fisherman
yellow slicker
hat and pipe in mouth
still frozen
no hint of movement
anywhere except
the movement
out of this moment
and into the next
history briefly rests
then is not quite forgotten
but carried in little bursts
little flashes of light
15
screaming yellow pipes
front scrapped wall
white patchy plaster
globules against
weathered uniform grey
bits of black graffiti
white washed brick
cutting a sharp clean
line to the left
spontaneous madness
so close to
maddening conformity
straight jacketed chaos
imagine now
the walk by
arguing couple
locked in anger
bubble of pain
carrying them
through vacuum tube
envelope of impenetrability
from departure to destination
oblivious
Contributor
Wanda PhippsWanda Phipps is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of six books of poetry including Field of Wanting: Poems of Desire (BlazeVOX) and Wake-Up Calls: 66 Morning Poems (Soft Skull).
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
from THE MINGUS POEMS
By Mona KareemJUNE 2019 | Poetry
Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections in Arabic and the 2019 Poet-in-Residence at Poetry International in Rotterdam. These poems are from her first poetry manuscript in English.
László Krasznahorkai’s
The World Goes On
By Veronica Scott Esposito
FEB 2018 | Books
The best writers endure regardless of when or why their work is written. Unerringly honing in on the core of our human condition, these writers’ instincts lead them toward this unshakeable truth again and again, regardless of their subject-matter. Were there not already enough evidence that László Krasznahorkai is such a writer, his latest book in translation, his 2013 prose collection The World Goes On, proves it.
If This Is Paradise Why Are We Still Driving
BRENDAN LORBER with Todd Colby
DEC 18-JAN 19 | Poetry
Over two decades in the making, Brendan Lorber’s first full-length book just came out. It’s called If this is paradise why are we still driving? and is published by the Subpress Collective. He’s also written several chapbooks, most recently Unfixed Elegy and Other Poems (Butterlamb). Since 1995 he has published and edited Lungfull! Magazine, an annual anthology of contemporary literature that prints the rough drafts of contributors’ work in addition to the final versions in order to reveal the creative process. He lives atop the tallest hill in Brooklyn, New York, in a little castle across the street from a five-hundred-acre necropolis.
Todd Colby is a Brooklyn-based poet and artist. Colby is the author of six books of poetry. His most recent book, Splash State,was published by The Song Cave in 2014. His writing and art have recently appeared in Bomb Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Denver Quarterly, Dizzy Magazine, and Poetry Magazine
Abdellatif Laâbi, In Praise of Defeat: Selected Poems
By Pierre JorisAPR 2017 | Critics Page
It is this struggle, what he calls his “solitary-solidary struggle,” deeply committed, deeply political, yet situated outside any ideological system, a struggle toward the construction of an ethics able to equal the complexities of our world, that has been his compass. The rest is poetry.
