May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
I watched Rebel Without a Cause on TV late one college night when I learned …
Pulled out, alive,
from beneath the rubble
of mud, slumbering lumber,
oppressive concrete clumps,
you are a poem
a poet has fashioned
with a hallelujah ending,
a song that simmers
then explodes with mirth,
a canvas splashed
with dashes from every
rain-color-bow that ever arched
over the Amazon, the Mississippi,
the perfumed Nile.
Shiny fellow,
new as the dawn,
novel as a ghost,
your footsteps
don’t thud
but ring out—
a surprise—a steeple gone wild.
Listen to Austin Alexis read his poem here:
About the Author
Austin Alexis
Austin Alexis has published in Barrow Street, the Journal, the Pedestal Magazine, Six Sentences, and other journals and has work forthcoming in Quill and Parchment, Lips, and an anthology about Frédéric Chopin. His second chapbook, For Lincoln and Other Poems is forthcoming from Poets Wear Prada. At Manhattan’s Judson Memorial Church Performance Space he recently performed a dance/theatre piece based on one of his poems.
Susan Lilley
May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
Mary Van Denend
May 3, 2011 / Creative Writing
May 3, 2011 / Creative Writing
Mary Van Denend reflects on Simone Weil’s “Waiting for God,” a seminal piece on Weil’s understandings of grace, affliction, and our “sacred longing” for God.