Weekly Edition #4
Absence by Jeffrey McDaniel
On the scales of desire, your absence weighs more
than someone else’s presence, so I say no thanks
to the woman who throws her girdle at my feet,
as I drop a postcard in the mailbox and watch it
throb like a blue heart in the dark. Your eyes
are so green – one of your parents must be
part traffic light. We’re both self-centered,
but the world revolves around us at the same speed.
Last night I tossed and turned inside a thundercloud.
This morning my sheets were covered in pollen.
I remember the long division of Saturday’s
pomegranate, a thousand nebulae in your hair,
as soldiers marched by, dragging big army bags
filled with water balloons, and we passed a lit match,
back and forth, between our lips, under an oak tree
I had absolutely nothing to do with.
Art by Jarek Puczel
Other poems I enjoyed reading this week: (Links attached for the full poem)
"So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea."
"You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam."
-To Whom It May Concern by Adrian Mitchell + Listen to the poem here.
"If you can’t eat you got to
smoke and we aint got
nothing to smoke:come on kid
let’s go to sleep
if you can’t smoke you got to
Sing and we aint got
nothing to sing;come on kid"
"Let me now sleep, let me not think, let me
Not ache with inconsistent tenderness.
It was untenable delight; we are free–
Separate, equal–and if loverless,
Love consumes time which is more dear than love,
More unreplicable. With everything
Thus posited, the choice was clear enough And daylight ratified our reckoning."
Recommended Listening:
Hold Back - The Living Sisters Myth - Beach House Baby you got it - Brenton Wood City of the Sun - Intro (The xx Cover) | Sofar NYC Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People
Links of the Week:
Illustrations and poems go on blind dates in DF’s Monsoon Editorial The Art of Making Noodles by Hand Cry, Heart, But Never Break: A Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Loss and Life Boas that eat bhakarwadis, lazy goldfinches and anxious Scrimmlers by Rucha Dhayarkar
Feminine Hairstyles From Popular Folklore Embroidered on British and American Currency