By Richard Levine A barking arrowhead of geeseshot the moon on a rainy night.Warm and dry in our dreams, we heardtheir barks and wet-feathered crossing,and shivered and held each otheragainst their miles of drenching risk. They could have been war or climaterefugees, fleeing from the ruinsof once happy, fruitful lives.Or like us, glimpsing ourselves inshop
by Richard Levine For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: John, 5:4 I can’t baptize or immunize youwith my nod or smile, passing in thispig-pink rural town, where your skinis as double-take out-of-placeas the blood-colored tearson a waxwing’s shoulders.And you don’t need protection to walkhere, nor anyone’s
by Richard Levine I think of us, of how, at first, being kind seemed enough. Though we didn’t say it, we thought, if forests grow from red-clover meadows, why not love? But like and care are not strong enough to send down roots deep enough, or carry water far and high enough to make them
by Richard Levine Dear Reader, We must be changing, adapting or evolving in significant ways, in order to live with Covid confinement, the effects of a wooden cross being driven into the heart of American democracy, the zero-sum economy, the black & white ballistics of social justice and racial inequality, the sport of mass-shootings as
by Richard Levine and Michael T. Young These poems were written in response to each other, following the jazz impr0vizational style called Trading Fours. Like jazz musicians improvising, keenly tuned to the possible variations in melody and the rhythm of the melody, these poems play off each other’s words, sonics, syntax, images and/or themes. There