In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 06 contributors Oliver de la Paz and L. S. Klatt read and discuss their poems “Labyrinth 76” and “Apple.”
LEILA CHATTI
Around me, the stubborn trees. Here / I was sad and not sad, I looked up / at a caravan of clouds. Will you ever / speak to me again, beyond / my nightly resurrections? My desire / displaces, is displaced. / The sun unrolls black shadows / which halve me. I stand.
TREY MOODY
My grandmother likes to tell me dogs / understand everything you say, they just can’t / say anything back. We’re eating spaghetti / while I visit from far away. My grandmother / just turned ninety-four and tells me dogs / understand everything you say. / They just can’t say anything back.
CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON
There is no justice here, he’s believed / to have said before being proven / correct, after the mob descended on his jail cell / with cocked weapons, wearing black masks, blacker / even than those that frame ivory teeth trained / to curvature by the terror.
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.