Isaac Pickell

At least it’s got one on the front for him!

Oh! And I should mention! It's coming from @blacklawrence.bsky.social on August 18!

A book cover. Two black birds of unknown species ponder a flash of light rising from horizon. One bird says "The Smallest Mistake We Call Human." The cover is lovely and everyone you know will like it.

PRESALE TIME!!

The best time to order small press books is during presale, when there are author incentives and awards buzz begins.

So order one, or order ten for all your friends. I mean look at that cover — who wouldn't want this on a coffee table.

blacklawrencepress.com/books/the-sm...

Topical—Prompts Inspired by Isaac Pickell — LeAnneHunt.com Sorry, everyone, for the long delay. Once I missed a couple of weeks due to the holidays and a new job, I just couldn’t get myself writing again, the blog or poetry. I have been in a bad headspace in ...

I love poetry prompts and am so pleased with the ones LeAnne Hunt — @ennael.bsky.social — came up with after reading my work.

Check these out and if you write through any of them, I hope you share!

Any review that helps you think about your own work in a new light is probably a pretty good review.

<<>>

Thanks to Kent for these words. If you like the poems I post on here, I hope follow the link and check out my book from
@blackoceanbooks.bsky.social.

<<>>

www.blackocean.org/catalog1/its...

Fuck! Fuck! Everything is so bad!! There’s an auction on dreams — Bonanza! Palooza! Extra- vaganza! Our one reverie sold for cents on the dollar. We got to be so good just to hold on to what we got — they have us rung like trees, growing half a centimeter a year and calling it progress. In the century it takes to see a difference, we’re all dead. Fuck. I just want to say something true that doesn’t hurt — palms and love handles say perfect ain’t the only way to stay alive. If I’m wrong, let me down easy.

Fuck!!!!

Or you can commit to the Hebrew and end up with "mavet mitzvah"... which really has a nice ring.

that's no reason not to use it!

Ars poetica The long history of the hyoid bone, the u-shaped hull of a chin that supports the rudderless tongue, suggests humans have sung for a million years. Or at least developed the physical ability to sing. But, scientists agree, who wouldn’t sing that could.

A little science for #smallpoemsunday

@tomsnarsky.bsky.social

I ask: where is our voice? where are the ghosts wearing our lips and our sound? so that we can do something about this amnesia calling: all ghosts who spit with fury at our fear of being awakened from this coma calling all ghosts. calling all ghosts …

Leslie Reese

[from “Upside Down Tapestry Mosaic History” printed by Detroit’s Broadside Press, 1987]

<<>>

#smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

We really, really do need those chances. Thank you, Angela.

Thank you, Audrey — I guess it's just one paw in front of the other.

Tapetum lucidum My dark circles get so bad you used to think there was something wrong with me other than everything you already knew was wrong with me. Sleeplessness, smoking, salt, and bittergrief years — I made this mask honestly. Raccoon eyes can turn a yawning dark delicate enough to hold, glowing blue and silver, or red as warning: a mirror behind the retina gives fugitive light a second chance to be seen. Scientists called it bright tapestry, this iridescence hiding in animal gaze. For bitter years — we weren’t built nocturnal, but we were designed for adaptation. I see midnight unfurling and forage on.

Wrote a poem about the bags under my eyes.

What are we but ciphers for our cities.

That's a great distinction, between dwelling and dwelling. I've been to the area twice, once during crane season. It does feel like somewhere worth missing.

Thank you, it means a lot.

Endurance poem Winter hangs on until April. Bruised and slightly faster than normal, the heart stands out in the last snow and won’t shut up until it stops — I denied myself what I didn’t want. My peach tree throws good luck leaves into cold air. The tree isn’t well: dwarfed fruit, brown branches even in spring, xylem like a dried up pipe smooth as blister. I am engrossed by objects that may hide my longevity in theirs — most sick people do try to get better. Most people wake up wishing blue skies, our soothing refracted light a fracture of physics and simile.

Most people are trying to get better.

Diaspore (n.) botanical: that which scatters from the source I would choose no state but like gardeners bend to water, what fails us we must set to mend

(the text of the body of the poem moves up and down with every word like little ripples) Crystallography at its nadir, cold saps moisture from snow until it’s light enough to be swept back up into air. eddies sparkle gold blue pink, effervesce unlikely tints we must have once called magic. schools closed for cold and protest. the big news of the day: history is screaming, literally screaming, and the men who know insist that you can’t hear.

Essay on tragedy after Sandra Simonds it is good to have a lover. to move upstate, any state. to trust water will find its stream. a naked shoulder will give you perspective to watch stampede from a distance, bones cracked before death. in bed, dark cocoons the viscera of bent limbs, each trample seen for what it is: someone refusing to surrender their time. some shoulders have the right give. only some lovers gasp the same tenor. but everyone’s seen the lion king. indignity can be quiet or it can be endlessly paying attention.

An essay on tragedy

after @sandmansimonds.bsky.social

So glad you found me! & thank you.

In the footsteps of giants...

One poet cow addresses a room of listener cows. The cow recites the following poem: Distant Hills The distant hills call to me. Their rolling waves seduce my heart. Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys. Oh, how I want to run down their green slopes. Alas, I cannot. Damn the electric fence! Damn the electric fence! Thank you

The poem we're all trying to write right now only Gary Larson did it better, and with cows.

rez dogs know.

Maybe the end is extremely nigh any poem that tries to catch old prophets up to speed disappoints the centuries— we’re running out of time to be running out of time; now the fires can husk whole countries [yes, we still be having countries]; people freeze on streets, starve in their homes, die for no better reason than someone else wants it; but we also tend hopes that are quietly alive: shoots plume under the hum of central heating, dirt breaks for life, tendrils take leaf, and kings will come to thresh them; leafless industry pumps death into sky; no one names the dark age because we see too much; a melting world won’t mend us.

sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet.