In these verses, poets Andrew Badr and Sam Reichman explore the inevitable pain of existence while weaving in our quiet longing for meaning and understanding in a tumultuous world. They offer glimpses of private bargaining and reckoning — looking for guidance in promises to ourselves or the universe, seeking possibilities for peace that may or may not exist as we imagine. Through gorgeous imagery, these poems probe the world for answers and truth wherever they might be found.
Thank you for reading!
—The Editors
Thanksgiving Turkey
As Nassim Taleb had it, waiting for the ax,
a man stretching past the farthest tendrils of his ken,
lovers of liars, stargazers in the war,
candles burning bright and so on.
The truth is that we pity the Thanksgiving Turkey not for the ax
but for the easy life before it,
or not the ease exactly but the haplessness
of livestock,
fenced off from meaning,
a cave life,
perhaps seeing truth for the first time
in the specular shine of an ax already
night skied with the blood of her sisters,
when on a November day, amid the colors,
the turkey in fact learns that the past was prelapsarian,
that the axhead shines like fruit atop the haft,
that exile is an extraordinary bliss,
that today is the best day of her life.
Repeat this prayer:
Dear God, show me the truth long before I die.
Dear God, show me the truth long before I die.
I am doing yoga naked in a municipal soccer field
in a lightning storm, stretching my elegant and supple foot
towards a savage sky, and God says,
you already know what there is to know,
and I’m so so ready to hear that, and I gobble it up.
Andrew Badr is a Lebanese-American poet who grew up in Nashville and now resides in NYC. His work has previously appeared in Poetry is a Team Sport and Hot People Read Poetry.
Madame X’s Lesson
They say learning to draw is learning
to see, but I don’t agree. It’s more
learning to let go, learning what to leave
behind. Thin black threads, for instance,
or slowly closing doors
fading into light
and shadow in the long corridor
of memory. It’s been years
since I dreamt of wars, boiling
sensation blowing white
out the top
of my skull, a hole
where otherwise there’s
only the thin stroke of pain.
Sam Reichman is a writer, translator, and visual artist. His work has appeared in Washington Square Review, Cagibi, and elsewhere. | A guest post by
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"Night skied" is an amazing choice of words.