Poetry | Page 57 | The Common

Bella Figura

May 19, 2018 Poetry

The best garden in Brooklyn is like Fred Astaire
Charming but inaccessible.
A private creation for public viewing.
I look down into it from my living room,
Its spilling vines and spruce hedge-tops lend cachet to my garden.
Yet a high fence keeps us
Properly separate.
As does the rusty chain link gate on the street side,
which is only opened for
Tree-trimming and the like.

Digging Out Potatoes

May 11, 2018 Poetry, Translation

By BESIK KHARANAULI
Translated from the Georgian by ILAN STAVANS with GVANTSA JOBAVA

“We should dig out potatoes tomorrow!”
you told me,
pulling the chair close to the bed
where you were planning to place your clothes
after switching off the light.

Scarpia (Aside)

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By RICARDO PAU-LLOSA

Tosca

I heard those ripened, muted swoons, although
that was no kiss—a dagger sunk into my chest.
What use authority if it cannot impose
a hidden will? The songbird, let her muse
the painter in his cavern, his mettle at the test,

Wholesale

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By MACEO J. WHITAKER

In the village, we survey the damage:
every cedar lockbox smashed,
every pillow coated with blood, spit, snot.
The houses have crumbled.

Besmellah

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By SARA ELKAMEL

1. They said that hiding in a pomegranate is a grain that opens the gates to heaven.

2. Habayet el-janna or grain of heaven.

Stella’s Children Look Out From a Photo Faded Gold

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By NED BALBO

For my adoptive mother Betty and her siblings

No matter where you vanished, you’re vanished still.
Astonished, pointing out your childhood face,
whatever I felt, I know I always will

Fog Trench

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By DIANE MEHTA

A sea-gap opens as surf crumbles
onto shifting sediment that pretends to be a beach
but has the bones of 13,000 years;

Passages

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By TEOW LIM GOH

Ten miles of concrete can bring you
to different places. Your feet carry you
across the ground, let you

January’s Child

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry

By RANDOLPH THOMAS

When winter set in, they came
to see us with their baby,
a beautiful child about a year old
who was learning to walk
and stepped proudly
across our living room,
waved her fists and hands
and shook her straw colored hair.

A Complicated Letter to Sándor Ferenczi

April 30, 2018 Issue 15, Issue 15 Poetry, Poetry

By JESSICA LANAY

It may be cliché to say this now, but how people treat themselves can show you how they treat those closest to them, then other strangers. I often forget to water my flailing herb garden. I often force my body—muscles hard from the lactic acid produced in my anxious panics—to be pleasant to my lovers, who expect pleasantries.

All posts tagged: Poetry

Bella Figura

Digging Out Potatoes

Scarpia (Aside)

Wholesale

Besmellah

Stella’s Children Look Out From a Photo Faded Gold

Fog Trench

Passages

January’s Child

A Complicated Letter to Sándor Ferenczi

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