IN THE HAIRY ARMS OF WHITMAN
poems by Bill Kushner

FANCY CLOTHES

Don’t let the fancy clothes fool you.
Underneath I wear nothing but the 
truth, but what is true? That I grew
raised on macaroni & dreams, you
can bite me anywhere, & ouch you 
do. Do you always eat naked in
your socks, or what? Sometimes
when I look up, your face explodes
sun here, moon there, so I have no
idea. Sometimes, when I wonder 
who you are, really are, a you hand
me an olive, wet & green, & I bite
hard down, mmm delicious, oh pardon
my stare. Me, I’m just one lip, waiting
for one other. This is my story. This
is my song. Times when you’re awful 
& running, & when you tell me just of
enough to, & I can appear visibile, but only
to you. Then we put on our best shoes. Then
oh, we do put on airs, the music of the spheres.

SPINOZA DOESN’T COME HERE ANYMORE
poems by Colette Inez

UNLIKE MINDS

“God is not a mathematical diagram,”
Blake shouted, grappling with Newton’s 
insistence on reason.

The poet preferred cavorting
with cherubim and foolish virgins
in his garden.

What affects the apple affects the moon.
The vigil of science and the church 
converted to dust while worms grooved

their path towards Sir Isaac,
inventor of the laws of motion
before naked Blake claimed he and his Catherine

were Adam and Eve when the pastor came
and all conferred in the garden
of imagination with six-winged angels.

By Heart, 101 Poems to Remember
101 Sonnets
Sounds Good, 101 Poems to be Heard
The Funny Side, 101 Humorous Poems 

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Poetry Anthologies by Faber and Faber, now available at BooksActually!

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

The Thought-Fox
by Ted Hughes

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Part of Sounds Good, a poetry anthology of 101 Poems to be Heard

Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.

A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.

Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;

Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.

Crossing The Water
by Sylvia Plath

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Part of By Heart, a poetry anthology of 101 Poems to Remember

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Prayer
by Carol Ann Duffy

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Part of 101 Sonnets, a poetry anthology

When he came in
she gave him a flower
called ‘Welcome Home Husband
However Drunk You Be’.

I am not drunk, he said.
this is not my home,
I am not your husband. 

‘Three mistakes
do not change the name of a flower’
she replied.

Life on Earth
by Ian McMillan

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Part of The Funny Side, a poetry anthology of 101 Humorous Poems 

Math Paper Press’ latest publication, Chasing Curtained Suns by Jerrold Yam !

Math Paper Press launches its latest selection of poetry by Jerrold Yam !

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“Jerrold Yam’s poems sparkle, yet underneath all that lustre is a fledgling spirit eager to build bridges out of uncertainty, loneliness and self-doubt, before arriving at a still point of equipoise and wonder.”
~ Cyril Wong


( click here for more details )