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Baffler Archives: Poems

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Spheres
There is a globe of rainy air clasped in the fingers of a tree outside a balcony. Squadrons of bees cruise through in formation, humming with a cool yellow majesty. Squirrels thrash at branches beyond, spin around in panic at the pale slivers of sky. The tree rustles this secret ...

Downtown on the First Warm Day
The air unclenches, buzzes, swells the city like a blush, cracks the ice around my lungs. There are colors to breathe again. I suck them in: a voice, the blue pull of the crowd, her breath red on my hip once. Below,   the river sparkles as if about to sprout fountains. The ...

Teen Idol, Found O.D.’d
You were a marvelous infant, a golden Aussie egg,   your falsetto destined to saturate fern bars worldwide. You grew   to hear yourself pour out doors on Dodge City Drive, and your reverb   washed over the mermaids in Santa Maria dei Miracoli. You said ...

Opulence Lost
Once upon Kalispell, Montana   redwood bars scarce scored by spurs shone in saloons,   chandeliers cast brilliants with open hands—   but the wax and the wane and again   has left but gleaming steeds.

Anatomy Course
Consider the margarita glass: among the hundreds of cups it stands like the four-eyed geek you were ten years ago in the headlights of a high school kegger. It has none of the weight of a beer glass nor its fundamental thick-sided dishonesty. It has not the whiskey glass’ ...

Remember, We’re in the Duck Lot
Sunday after Church the parking lot fills and people drive circles to save those 50 steps to the mall entrance. When peasants gathered Sundays around Notre Dame it might’ve been like this–what they found is what we get: Madonnas and images of a heaven where everything’s ...

Learning English
Ginta: Excuse me, that is your cat? Sanita: Hm.… G: I ask: That is your cat? S: Yes, yes. G: Whose? You unknown? S: Who? Where? G: That was only moment. S: Who? G: That self. S: You over event the yesterday. G: no S: What about you? G: Only about today. S: Who is happen? G: ...

Freddy’s Lament
I took a swim in the sea. my life started over.   my boner lasted longer. my appetite swelled.   my hunting skills were sharper. although I never hunt.   I wanted the hurricane-watch software package advertised on tv.   I called the toll free number: sold ...

A Dress
its warm bodice and intricate lace tells nothing of its past which I know from a black and white sign hung on an outlet rack. “smoke damaged garments, price reduced.” a bubbly clerk, “from a building fire in the L.A. riots; they smell fine.” “much sweeter than ...

Dancing to Silent Movies
[contributor id=”598″] An old man slumps before the screen where flickering light plays. Empty film tapdances at reel’s end– ta-lac, ta-lac, ta-lac, ta-lac, until stiff fingers fumble with the switch, labor to rewind the worn print. When he is ready, film ...

Nautical
June 13, 2012
Other people’s lives sink and swell around you, lapping at your shifting rim, leaving their debris. Billowing on every side, they rush and then recede. They wash across your beaches. You feel a slow erosion. Shoring up your sea walls, you study the morning sky. You listen to ...