Poetry | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
Poetry | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
PUBLISHING NOTHING BY BILLY COLLINS SINCE 2003 | IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
Poem by Catherine Theis: “On Not Understanding Greek”
Post-election poem by Catherine Theis. "I’m in the thicket / of deep listening / where understanding / my decadence / and re-living it / are two different things."
Poem by Arisa White: “Two Days After 11/9”
Post-election poem by Arisa White: "I took a walk outside today, / the helicopters are done / with surveillance, protestors / left burning roofs smoldered, / the tears of motherfuckers, down. // Bright nigger stars cause novas / in the parking lot, dice roll, / they exhale their Prop 64, / and I want someone to say / something magical to me, / like they’re a bouncy house / ready to soundbite their way / into believing this was not / our country a week ago."
Poem by Rodrigo Toscano: “relay alpha, bravo, charlie”
Post-election poem by Rodrigo Toscano: "there’s ENOURMOUS gaps in my education / there’s ENOURMOUS gaps in your education / there’s a lil’ wee lack of giddyup in my wuh uh uh / there’s a lil’ wee lack of giddyup in your wuh uh uh / swing-dancing the most remotest thing to trumpism are we? / still swing-dancing the most remotest thing to trumpism are we?"
“Poem to America,” by Felicia Zamora
Post-election poem by Felicia Zamora: "skin peeled away, how defense fails; & my eyes, oh eyes, in uncontrollable wet; to witness, to experience decimation in the aortic sack; oh society oh; what you cull, piece by piece; what you strip..."
Poem by Lauren Russell: “11-9-16”
Poem by Lauren Russell, following the 2016 US Election. "Distraught in possibility, the men are afraid of becoming redundant, the whites are afraid of going extinct. I say this to my mother, who is white. I say 'they,' not 'you,' not her, a part of me. 61% European by the DNA test = 0% white by the one drop law, a ghosting."
Poem by Brenda Sieczkowski: “| holding cell |”
Poem by Brenda Sieczkowski, following the 2016 US Election: "...we hold onto these truths for dear life we hold these truths hostage we hold a torch for a mirror up to bar no holds on hold the line of the fort of the grudge of these truths we are losing our hold on these truths we are holding a gun to these truths..."
Evan Gray, excerpts from “Wretch Poetics”
"as the river / floods to the horse’s / bridle. with blood. / yes lord. it will never / run dry."
Five poems by Biswamit Dwibedy
"to the glories of the dark longing you see in an aspirant on the path of devotion. Often used to bring the inner organs into control. You breathe in one image and breathe out a different night..."
Four poems by Martin Corless-Smith
"It took a century to realize / Earth had died inside / a tin cup left upon a wall / the slowworm struggled in the glare until the hawk arrived."
Joshua Corey: excerpts from “Hannah and the Master”
"Widescreen nativity: nativity of the eye. Ringed by lashes and flames. // Endgame cinema, Nuremberg hypothesis, the present unforgiven by both past and future...." -- from Hannah and the Master, a finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prizes.