The Blog

If It Pleases

Christopher J. Adamson

I first am an impostor,
Then an improper vacationer among the ruins of error,

Then am porous in the mouth— violent, redundant.
Land of heartless brothers. Land of the unwed.

Of the callous and the harsh climate, or so they have said. Of the why and un-why-ed.
I have kept my promise to the sky, she lied. I have lied for you, she lied.

And in the eye of the undusted daughter, anointed and unbothered, was I.
Flawed from all of this I have fled. It was awfully unlawful to flee,

But me, I cannot keep to laws. I could not see to see.
Unwilling witness, bodies outsourced to the sea.

Superior, by which I mean the lake was not
As much as we imagined
It, a synonym, or else the surface
Cold because the light
Was catastrophic
In the distance, no, the water made of its
Appearances, the presence of
A promise formed
The shore, the waves repeating
And repeatable. I had thought
That I was thinking
Up, was therefore under it, the sky

Was strange within
The world at once upon
But not itself
Belonging. We looked away,
Were other than
And then the day was not of what between us
Edged, growing
Into sand the dark dissolved
To something less
Than brilliance, the wind within
Itself a distance
Yet again, a distance. I had to ask it

During the Middle Ages

Camille Guthrie

O God I am so fat
I cry all the time
A kitten scrubbed with a toothbrush online makes me sob
I’m so heartless seven species of bees
Are now endangered and I didn’t do a thing
Didn’t even send any money
To anybody doing any good
And I can’t lose any weight I skipped yoga
I’m so hot all the time so broke
So pathetic no wise investments
Should’ve bought a 7-Eleven on a busy corner
When I was seven or eleven
Nobody wants to lick my neck
Nobody wants to hold my hand at the doctor’s office
Nobody to grow old with me I’m so crabby
To pluck my beard feed the cat I don’t have
And read me endless Russian novels at night
All the ones I still haven’t got to so greatly depressing
Where are you handsome? Are you
Driving in your car to come visit me

Iowa Blues / Iowa Greens

Jonathan William Stout

A mosaic of all possible greens becomes
a premise in your eye
—James Merrill

Dune Song

Elaina Ellis

Towards the height of the mountain
Was the question of gifts
And who should get to keep them

I sat between a downward slope—steep as no
—and a climb I couldn’t make except to crawl
I crawled on sand and sweated in my hat

Though G-d believed I crawled for G-d
I crawled to know the height of my own rage
I carried myself I cursed myself up

Slid down—and named the day adoption day
I didn’t bring my gifts to G-d
I kept them all

I crawled I stood I fell
I kept them all

If It Pleases

Made Line

During the Middle Ages

Iowa Blues / Iowa Greens

Dune Song

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