by Pierre Joris

It is the blue of the sky
holds those beech trees
& branches right up

it is the wind tries to
knock them down I
know this but I know

nothing of the yellow
ship at anchor of the
orange ferry hiding behind

it, though I know how to switch
on my desk Off lite lamp
which I need as I don’t

know how to switch day back on.

by Pierre Joris

is back,
one came as if called
— I did and I did not —
young, slightly hasty
movements, but an eager
steady beat like the best
drummer around, steady
line southward too,
just fifty yards off
shore & straight}
down along it all the
way around the slight
bend at the 80^th street
bridge, not so fast
young bird, I tried to
say to the cormorant as
I walked faster but re-
assured saw its f light curve
& dip just as I reached
the bend, clearly landing
& I got there 2 minutes
later, scanned the surface
for my bird, couldn’t see
the long neck, waited in
case it had gone under
to catch dinner, counted
the seconds to 136, but all
there was now was a
gaggle of ducks or
whatever you are supposed
to call 20 plus ducks
floating on the Narrows
Wednesday 10 January 2018
around 3:25 in the p.m.
& I didn’t see the young
cormorant again, gone South,
probably belonged to the
Verrazano Bridge tribe their
settlement just a bit more
than ½ mile further along
— or maybe it was hiding
among the ducks like
Achilles was it among
the young girls and I no
Odysseus out to find or
to trick him out — no
ball to throw, no knees to
close or open — this here
& now is a different
world even though
sea & land here too
mix & link.

by Brenda Coultas

I take a book
in hand and
want to sleep.
I belong to the
daylight, and
to the smallest
species of
woodpeckers:
which during
mating season,
make a racket
drilling into a
dead oak, I be-
long to a fami-
ly of tiny
noise makers
it took more
than a year to
quiet my mind
to be a beast
of daylight
rather than a
nocturnal
(drunken) ani-
mal, I became
the daylight
beast of
spiral note-
books, wear-
ing a candy
necklace with
the vowels
chewed off.

by Yuko Otomo
     from “Sunday Poems”

looking up
my eyes catch
the frozen details of tree tops

in washington square park

I am f loating
upside down
in the Prussian blue sky

“we are like underwater creatures!”
I ask for your agreeable smile

being poetic or not
does not give us the privilege
to ignore traffic lights

we all stand in a straight line
& wait

a tree trunk
crosses the room
full of conjunctions, particles & opinions —

a clear dark ceiling f lickers
the monotony of a winter night

I tilt my view
to escape from words
to stay unnoticed

in the middle of the room
goldfish swim
expressing their muteness —

at least I don’t romanticize
the life of these underwater creatures
too one-sidedly

exit signs on the windows
a mountain trail sign in the stairway —

someone I know makes a joke
saying “a cover charge for paradise!”

a father & son walk in
red balloons in their hands

interior plants exist
in their own tired mannerism

“I am beat!”

but no one believes me
because I have a sweet & un-scarred face