(for 1 to 6 players) One child is the Stomach. The other children are the Aches. A rectangle is drawn in the dirt & the Stomach is blindfolded, ear-plugged & made to lie inside the rectangle. The Aches run in an oval around the rectangle & scream. As they scream the Aches bump into one […]
Poetry 80
Mathias Svalina: Animal Chase
(for 5 or more players) Two bases are marked off, at either end of America. Each child takes the name of an Animal. One child is It. He stands in the center of America & writes newspaper columns about the decline of America. He starts a radio show & becomes tremendously influential. He begins to […]
Josh Rathkamp: For the First Time in Years
She reached in to the second drawer down, the one beneath her socks, the one that held everything: Nyquil, allergy pills, a bag of spare toothbrushes, and in her hand she offered a green one to me, led me down the hallway, showed me the toothpaste behind the bathroom mirror, the shelf above the toilet, […]
Yvonne C. Murphy: Nests
I can’t get settled, the floor scattered with boxes, each day filled with unpacking, placing and building. Pigeons shuffle on the fire escape or sleep with heads tucked into iridescent necks, pacing on the windowsills, gray bodies anchored by pinkish feet. Zut, zut – nests plastered with shit, feathers and dirt, flu and viruses levitate […]
Marilyn McCabe: In Vino Veritas
I. Sacred as a blessing, profane as a drunk; we always break the glass: Just as the pulp slips from the skin so the ferment bares something in us. Opens us, a cave mouth. Angels stream in as the whistle of wind through mallards’ coasting wings; or demons issue out in gaping voiceless howl, depending […]
Teresa Leo: The Heart has the Capacity to Break and Reset a Million Times
But it’s the million and first, say, that begins in a cab to Woodside, Queens with a hockey player, who’s also a musician and a city planner, who might be a one-night stand, but he’s the best kisser you’ve come across in years, with a face that’s all elegy and nostalgia, edges but smooth, the […]