Poetry
This is Thin Air Online’s Archive of pieces that are classified as poetry, both long form and short.
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Time Does Not Exist by Ahrend Torrey
but aging is real. Like leaves descendfrom the sycamore, how they turn a deepumber, then crisp, curl, crunch—when passersby step over them. Take your own skin for example: how itscrevices become more pronounced,how it begins to thin, bruise more easilywith age. Look deep into the mallard’s eye: it’s somehowreached an astonishing number; its colornot as…
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Finding the Words by Deron Eckert
Watching from afar, horses jumpwith what I would call grace,but it’s more than that wordcould possibly affordthe kind of beauty that couldstop gravity for whole seconds,granting a thousand poundsfreedom to glide through the airand land as light as a blossomreleased from a locust tree in May.If I were French, I’d say gracehowever you say grace…
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“Tournament of Roses” by Karen Holman
A lake told me she defines skyas where I go when I leave my body: dictionary, my astrolabe: compass to pinthis New Year’s second to its focusbefore it winks into the future. Words ask, what are our definitionswhile tongues of flame undulate abovetheir apostolic heads, “Like each of you,” I explain,“an egg lights up at…
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“Viewfinder” by Dennis Cummings
I watch you now as I look backward throughthe decades that flicker like shuffled frames.Your brothers are all at war, gone in the battleshipsthat glide past empty atolls. Your sisters vanish on the backs of motorcyclesor fade into the lives of grocery clerkswith Coke bottle glasses.Your father stares into the abyss of his fedora. At…
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“Do Not Eat My Grassy Flesh” by J Alam
Do Not Eat My Grassy Flesh Buttonhole scissors in handssnipping on the tip of the leavesLike a barber with a thinning shearbehind a man on a revolving chair.Pruning the sepals in the flower base.Chopping off little stems. Thinlygrown trunk ready to fall upon the grave.Groaning. An agonizing voice heard.Do not eat my grassy flesh. my…
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“aubade, winter” by Josh Corson
aubade, winter morning melts down the window.fog stalks the alley like a gang of strayshunting ghosts. the dog groans, monday, again.will i remember the great gatsby is overrated?my buddy made a loaf last week. he loves me.see how well each slice accepts the jelly. Josh Corson is a literary artist from Tampa, FL. He holds…
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“Love poem #1” by Sean Cho A.
Love Poem #1 once there were three. then it was tuesday. birdsin the branches. branches on the tress. we? wein the river. or yesterday over the phone youwanted to talk about the future. then for a whilewe thought we were horses desperately wantingour bodies to be useful. you or i or i and you give…
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“November minus nine days” By David P. Miller
So I’m outside like dad-of-autumn, rake-scraper between gate and curbside, as if I were a man with leaf-covered grandchildren.
