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Poetry

Paula Cisewski

By September 26th, 2020No Comments

A Philatory

 

***

Can’t pick up right now, sorry.

Haloed by this next sorrow, sorry.

 

Still nostalgic for now, even

as it slips away naked.

 

 

 

 

***

Here and here

the Internet will report this

week’s sorry-ass golem lying under

oath, and so what? So sorrow.

I still need a home to

home to

 

 

 

 

***

Sowing   sorr

ow    sorr    y

 

so    ng

worry    wrong

 

 

***

All our hair is falling out, and so what? It gets in our art

I mean heart      same thing      the cramped space

left for Philando Castile to live.

His murdered hands healed, relic-nested.

 

 

 

::

Nurture, harbor, tend:

that’s how the wishes grow

 

hallowed, misshapen, portentous:

so much more than us.

 

 

 

***

So much love in this

world I want to live

 

in it twice, let the next

moment’s passing crush

 

my committed heart doubly.

Is that selfish? Sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

***

Demonstrate        :      a monstrum           :       a monstrous want

Here, and here, my hope demonstration

 

I blow my nose, sweep the floors.

The physical remains of my hope demonstration

 

 

 

 

 

***

The past just pounded down my door, pointing its dumb rubber

sword at me, accusing me of plagiarizing its pain. So pitiful, I faked scared.

 

God, I used to be so intimidated by the past.

In this double-edged day, who recognizes it?

 

 

 

 

 

***

In the future I imagine

two of me living—here,

 

and here— practically

a set of wish windows.

 

One of me is

you.

 

 

 

 

Dream-Pop-Press-Paula Cisewski

Paula Cisewski‘s fourth poetry collection, quitter, won Diode Editions’ 2016 Book Prize and her third, The Threatened Everything, was selected for publication in the 2014 Burnside Review Book Contest. Both are newly released as of early 2017. Cisewski is also the author of Ghost Fargo (selected by Franz Wright for the Nightboat Poetry Prize),  Upon Arrival (Black Ocean), and a chapbook of lyric prose, Misplaced Sinister (Red Bird Chapbooks).