Poetry

This is Thin Air Online’s Archive of pieces that are classified as poetry, both long form and short.

  • Letter to You About Making Electricity from the Wind

    Letter to You About Making Electricity from the Wind

    We sat in a train leaving Hamburg with the wordsummer on our tongues. All around us people spokebut only you understood. The world green and greyand close through the streaked glass movedat remarkable speeds. You read about the Middle Agesas a mirror to understand now. I read Carver writingabout Switzerland, grief. Along the hills, bladeslet…

  • Where the Earth Breathes

    Where the Earth Breathes

    The languid splendorof the Salinas Valleyopens itself up,spreading widebefore the steering wheel—unfurling in hot, golden glory. We speed out of central Paso,heat glossed thickacross the two-lane blacktop.Winding deeper into wine country,amber hills cradlesun-warmed grapevines in rolling rows,bursting expectantof the gentle harvest. Rusted iron signshang from leaning posts,marking red dirt driveways asShooting Star Ranch,Kokopelli Vineyards. Powerful…

  • STUTTER-STEP by Uma Phatak

    STUTTER-STEP by Uma Phatak

    he stuttersbetween / rooms asif in search of a foil-wrappedsweet / stops andstammers his feettap-tap-tap tryingnot to fall / suddenlydisease makes my baba a baby / animal /helpless thing he issmall / inhappiness unspoiledyellow glowbut yells whenhe is / sad andafterwards expects the wind torush in / breathlesslyand apologize forhim Uma Phatak is a Marathi…

  • Grief Settles Like Crows on My Bed by CL Bledsoe

    Grief Settles Like Crows on My Bed by CL Bledsoe

    The man I knew is long gone. He canno longer hold his liquor. I spentso much time cowering from his voice.He never knew what to do with me. Now,I don’t know what to do with him. Swellingfeet and crossword puzzles filled in fromyesterday’s paper. Heart scaling down.Around-the-clock nurses until the moneyruns out. I left a…

  • Window Sitting by Michael Roberts

    Window Sitting by Michael Roberts

    There is somethingabout the sun crested treesin early spring mornings that awakens the mindto the deep peaceof the moment. While my dear onerises from our bedI sit in windows like a catand watchleaves begin to unfurl slowly at firstthen graciously.Wherever I live in the forest or the cityin the moments when desirearouses in me a…

  • Tongue of Abuelo’s Grief #3 by Angelina Leaños

    Tongue of Abuelo’s Grief #3 by Angelina Leaños

    [I still don’t understand what made your hands so sweetmolding gingerbread into pigs before devouring.Why then did you consume my youth so harshly? no crecimos con ningún papá bienDid you forbid us from locked kitchen as you workedso only one room could bear witness to your gentleness? porque nunca estuvo casi con nosotrosWhen you were…

  • Guppies by Grace Mathews

    Guppies by Grace Mathews

    Your voice caught whenyou tried explainingwhat happened.Most likely chemical residue in the bucketwhere you kept themwhile cleaning their tank.I would not let youflush them. We duggraves in the dirtpatch out back, placedsmall stones on topto mark their bodies.The soil grew aridand pale. Feral catsdug up the fish.You dragged a tarpover the dirt andgave the tank…

  • In the High Desert by Edward Baranosky

    In the High Desert by Edward Baranosky

    When I found the beautiful white bones on thedesert, I picked them up and took them home.I have used these things to say what is to methe wideness and wonder of the world…Georgia O’ Keeffe 1Chiming timeOf the old frontier clockHangs in the silence,You hear your own voiceThrough the howling wind. 2Sifting sandDrifting throughA broken…