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Maureen Thorson

@maureenthorson.bsky.social

986 followers 365 following 1.2K posts

Poet person. New poems in The Bulb Region here: bulbregion.com/Three-Poems-by-Maure…

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Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 17h

“Like silent naked monks.” A poem by Laura Kaschichke.

Mushrooms

BY LAURA KASISCHKE

Like silent naked monks huddled
around an old tree stump, having
spun themselves in the night
out of thought and nothingness—

And God so pleased with their silence
He grants them teeth and tongues.

Like us.

How long have you been gone?
A child's hot tears on my bare arms.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

“There is no snow in Hollywood.” A poem by Frank O’Hara.

POEM

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Getting excited for this Friday!🤩 If you’re near Yarmouth, like poems with moose, mud season, and apple trees in them, and Maine-themed music, I hope to see you at 317 Main St at 6:30!

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“Thank you for the good intentions.” A poem by Nicanor Parra, translated by Patricia Rachal.

PONCHARTRAIN CAUSEWAY

Excuse me, I am extremely sorry
I have nothing to do with these unforgettable bridges
I admit they are long. Infinite? O.K., infinite
But I have very little to do with these beautiful sunsets.
Thank you for the sandwiches and the Cokes
Thank you for the good intentions
(And also the bad ones)
My stomach is full of joy:
Can't you hear the thundering of the guts?
As long as there is nobody to prove the contrary
I will go on calling myself myself.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

“Bed goes up, bed goes down.” A poem by Rod Smith.

Summer Poem

The artwork provides the sensuous idea of freedom.
Bed goes up, bed goes down.
Just tie me to me to you.
For clarity's sake.
For a full length feature.
For, or just, orgasmic, like they say.
I have now provided the sensuous idea of freedom.
I'm very pleased you were able to attend.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

“I dreamed it, the thick braid roped over my hands.” A poem by Diane Seuss.

Self-Portrait with Sylvia Plath's Braid

BY DIANE SEUSS

Some women make a pilgrimage to visit it
in the Indiana library charged to keep it safe.

I didn't drive to it; I dreamed it, the thick braid
roped over my hands, heavier than lead.

My own hair was long for years.
Then I became obsessed with chopping it off,

and I did, clear up to my ears. If hair is beauty
then I am no longer beautiful.

Sylvia was beautiful, wasn't she?
And like all of us, didn't she wield her beauty

like a weapon? And then she married,
and laid it down, and when she was betrayed

and took it up again it was a word-weapon,
a poem-sword. In the dream I fasten

her braid to my own hair, at my nape.
I walk outside with it, through the world

of men, swinging it behind me like a tail.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“I'd never felt so sensual before.” A poem by Michael Waters.

Wedding Dress

BY MICHAEL WATERS

That Halloween I wore your wedding dress,
our children spooked & wouldn't speak for days.
I'd razored taut calves smooth, teased each blown tress,
then—lipsticked, mascaraed, & self-amazed—
shimmied like a starlet on the dance floor.
I'd never felt so sensual before—
Catholic schoolgirl & neighborhood whore.
In bed, dolled up, undone, we fantasized:
we clutched & fused, torn wins who’d been denied.
You were my shy groom. Love, I was your bride.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“ I hope this poem is worth a great deal financially.” A poem by Peter Davis.

POEM ADDRESSING ECONOMISTS

The problem with this poem, from your perspective, must be its lack of financial value. I guess my problem with you, from my perspective, is how you insist on putting a financial value on everything. But you're right, I guess. In fact, despite the odds, I hope this poem is worth a great deal financially. And, if that's not possible, I want it to pay off emotionally. Perhaps you can come up with some financial incentives or deterrents that will move this poem into the commercial marketplace. Everyone, including you and me, would have a lot more respect for this poem if you could.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Next Friday, October 2, I’ll be reading some Maine and memory-themed poems for Songs from Here. If you’re in the Yarmouth area, please come check it out. ❤️

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“Where bloodroot and belladonna insist.” A poem by Charles Wright.

Stone Canyon Nocturne

BY CHARLES WRIGHT

Ancient of Days, old friend, no one believes you'll come back.
No one believes in his own life anymore.

The moon, like a dead heart, cold and unstartable, hangs by a thread
At the earth's edge,
Unfaithful at last, splotching the ferns and the pink shrubs.

In the other world, children undo the knots in their tally strings.
They sing songs, and their fingers blear.

And here, where the swan hums in his socket, where bloodroot
And belladonna insist on our comtorting,
Where the fox in the canyon wall empties our hands, ecstatic for more,

Like a bead of clear oil the Healer revolves through the night wind,
Part eye, part tear, unwilling to recognize us.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

“Imagined lions guarding the gate.” A poem by Linda Gregg.

Arriving

BY LINDA GREGG

What do they say about the land of the dead?
About the ceremony of the body?
About women in long dresses?
What do they say about the innocence of the flesh?
What about the endeavor in nature
at ease with the dance and music?
Long ago beyond graves are worlds in state.
Walled gardens surrounded by desert.
The cities still there in ruin. The neck of the ibex.
Imagined lions guarding the gate.
All as it was before.
Worlds out of time still exist.
Worlds of achievement out of mind and remembering
just as the poem lasts.
In the concert of being present.
I have lost my lover and my youth.
I want to praise the meadow, the horse
rolling over in the river with me
as a girl underneath it. Surviving to see
the ferns in the woods, sunlight on blond hills.
And the aged apple trees
in a valley where there used to be a cabin.
Where someone lived. And where small inedible apples
grow. That the deer will eat.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

“The more arms the more power.” A poem by David Shapiro.

Tattoo for Gina

BY DAVID SHAPIRO

Some see a dove
And think Pigeon
Others see pigeons
And think Dove

Some know that all pigeons are doves
Some angry as if pigeons were not doves

But the city lover knows
And I try to reconstruct
The tattoo on one of your many branches

The more arms the more power
I think of you, O pale tattoo
All pigeons, all doves
You friendly cliff-dwellers

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“And how they pawed the prairie sod.” A poem by Carl Sandburg.

Buffalo Dusk

BY CARL SANDBURG

The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“If I blow on the flame it blazes up.” A poem by Tove Ditlevsen, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell.

Solely for You

A candle burns at night,
burning solely for me.
If I blow on the flame it blazes up,
blazing solely for me.
But if you speak softly, whisper sweet words,
it grows brighter than any light,
and deep in my breast
burns — solely for you.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“A gold dust of pollen and petals.” A poem by Amy Clampitt.

NONDESCRIPT

There comes, in certain latitudes, a season
no one would call the fall,
when the year-old foliage of live oaks,
green once but now a nondescript
dun or ocher, goes innumerably twiddling
and twirling down

in the midst of a mist, a gold dust
of pollen and petals no one,
so far as I know, has yet written of
as amounting to spring in the middle
of fall, or vice versa: the very notion
of spring being mainly

defined, come to think of it, by the English,
at least since Chaucer put it
in-betweenness, this process that's less
in the month of April, ignoring all of this
an advent than it is a wandering vaguely
“nel mezzo del cammin”:

not to speak of an April brown down under, or
a perennial tropical zone,
in Italy also not only the live oaks' non-
descript but the camphor trees' untimely
crimson keeps on coming down, coming down
in the midst of the green.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“As purple as we go.” A poem by Harryette Mullen.

Wipe That Simile Off Your Aphasia

BY HARRYETTE MULLEN

as horses as for
as purple as we go
as heartbeat as if
as silverware as it were
as onion as I can
as cherries as feared
as combustion as want
as dog collar as expected
as oboes as anyone
as umbrella as catch can
as penmanship as it gets
as narcosis as could be
as hit parade as all that
as icebox as far as I know
as fax machine as one can imagine
as cyclones as hoped
as dictionary as you like
as shadow as promised
as drinking fountain as well
as grassfire as myself
as mirror as is
as never as this

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“High in the solitude of sheer animal peace.” A poem by Katie Ford.

Little Goat

BY KATIE FORD

God is not light upon light, no more
than goat is need upon need
although there, where it grazes, it is sun upon coat
within which ticks and stray-blown feed burrow
into the pocked skin of such foul scent
covering the underflesh heart that could eat
this farmer's grain or the barren mountain's bark
high in the solitude of sheer animal peace
laid over sheer animal terror.

We ask the animal afflicted by its time,
its impoverished American meadow
that drove it to find birch from which to strip its casy feed
to abide with us.
It does not need us. We think it needs us.
We must forgive God God's story.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“I must take off my rings and swords.” A poem by Frank Stanford.

Planning the Disappearance of Those Who Have Gone

BY FRANK STANFORD

Soon I will make my appearance
But first I must take off my rings
And swords and lay them out all
Along the lupine banks of the forbidden river
In reckoning the days I have
Left on this earth I will use
No fingers

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

“The pines support heaven upon their needles.” A poem by Lyudmyla Diadchenko, translated by Padma Thornlyre.

"If you smell iodine, the captain is nearby"

BY LYUDMYLA DIADCHENKO
TRANSLATED BY PADMA THORNLYRE

If you smell iodine, the captain is nearby.
The pines support heaven upon their needles.
An aquamarine July strolls along the seashore,
Its ever-returning feet massaged by pebbles.
You dilute the climate with tears. Carving melons
Smells of vacation ... just as the inevitable captain.
Hello! I know this well: summer has come. Henceforth,
It will knock at my threshold. I will prepare. I change
Unnecessarily so many times cach day. The soul
Immaculate gasps when you bring her to the glassy sea.
When summer ends, I will spill iodine. Let it smell,
To make the captain believe his sea is my flat.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“Leaned against the big oak tree as if it were my mother.” A poem by Dante Di Stefano.

With a Coat

BY DANTE DI STEFANO

I was cold and leaned against the big oak tree
as if it were my mother wearing a rough apron
of bark, her upraised arms warning of danger.
Through those boughs and leaves I saw
dark patches of sky. I thought a brooding
witch waited to catch me up from under
branches and take me, careening on her broom,
to her home in the jaundiced moon.
I looked to the roof of mom and dad's house
and wondered if the paisley couch patterns
would change during the day. My brother peeked
from a window and waved. When the bus came,
I pawed away from the trunk, fumbled,
and took my first step toward not returning.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

“I add more flowers than there were.” A poem by Brendan Constantine.

Last Edits

This afternoon I rebuild a house,
a street, and your body, leaving out
the sickroom, the neighbor's wakeful
dog, the blur in your lung. I add

more flowers than there were,
more fits of laughter, the two
deck chairs you never got round
to buying. I'm on the fence about
the fence—I want it to be higher,

that dog farther from your ear,
want more space between you
and your last day. But then
you'd lose the view, the sound

and color of the apricot tree,
the burnt-sugar smell you said
you could live in.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

“Each one sees a different confusion.” A poem by Joseph Kidney.

JOSEPH KIDNEY

The Camperdown Elm

Described as having a “weeping habit,”
the Camperdown Elm, naked before spring,
looks more like a microwaved chromatid
than an origin of color. I bring
visitors up the hill, and each one sees
a different confusion in the limbs
which make an agony of inwardness
where other trees expand. Somebody thinks
it is turned upside-down: these are the roots
extorting from the air its poverty
of water. Somewhere below, that must mean,
the foliage, in soil, elaborates
upon its green potential. Reaching to
the core of earth which is a second sun.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

“When my scattered mind needs herding.” A poem by Linda Parsons.

Valediction

BY LINDA PARSONS

I hear before seeing, no need to see
to know morning's ocarina, plaintive
call, soft strut on leafmeal. It was the first
creature I saw when the needle was done
and my sheepdog limped into last night.
That dove, I thought, will house his sable
spirit, coat feathered like joy in the wind.
Dove comes when my scattered mind

needs herding—bitter anniversaries,
leavings dire as tornadic rumble. Comes
when sky rivers blue, cooing “all's well”
after all. Comes not to forbid mourning,
but trills core deep, beyond the senses,
glances back to make sure I follow
its white-tipped tail. Plaintive ocarina,
call me to bear all the light coming.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

“An idol of awe in the garden.” A poem by Kenneth Slade Alling

THE TOAD

His silence inside him
His language on his back
An idol of awe in the garden
The toad
His orbs older than Jupiter.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

“Holding up the soft-backed black like buttons in a love seat.” A poem by Alice Friman.

STARS

Heraclitus said
“stars are bowls of inverted fire.”
In Delos, yes, where they hang from ropes
or Kyparissia, holding up the soft-backed black
like buttons in a love seat. Here
the world's infection makes them dim.

I remember a Greek night,
counting the spread of stars above my head
plus the two broken in his eyes—
a Peloponnesian beach and me
clinging to him, “Alekos,” saying
“Alekos,” until the moon rose
bleaching the sky tame. Even I
turned alabaster. While behind him, the waves
hunched and groaned under their fallen cargo—
the gleaming crockery of the drowned.

Now, the sky is filled with ghosts:
ashes in the bottom of their bowls
too deep even for the winds
that prowl down the skies sniffing at rims,
howling for a wildness that burns.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

“A thought skips ahead, plays out, pauses, starts again.” A poem by Adam Clay.

MIXTAPE ARCHIVE CIRCA 1997

The sun like a hubcap through the clouds
because coarse light can come from
many places. Some scratchy guitar solo
disappears into a wrecked piano, later
tossed to sea. A thought skips ahead, plays
out, pauses, starts again: searching
the cassette for some familiar strain.
I dreamt the middle of the boulevard
was fragmented into gravel and dust,
and sure enough it happened the next day.
The silence between the songs,
it turns out, was all I needed to hear.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

“The mind becomes a field of snow.” A poem by Dean Young.

The Invention of Heaven

The mind becomes a field of snow
but then the snow melts and dandelions
blink on and you can walk through them,
your trousers plastered with dew.
They're all waiting for you but first
here's a booth where you can win

a peacock feather for bursting a balloon,
a man in huge stripes shouting about
a boy who is half swan, the biggest
pig in the world. Then you will pass
tractors pulling other tractors,
trees snagged with bright wrappers

and then you will come to a river
and then you will wash your face.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

“In yet another room not designed for my body.” A poem by Sara Elkamel.

The Days Are Coming in Abundance

Outside, even the one-
eyed dog is braying

at god. Men are stripping
the trees. In yet another room

not designed for my body,
I am sleeping through

another winter heatwave;
I am delivering

a litter of martyrs.

Who says the dead
do not dream?

The night goes
in every direction—

even backwards.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

“Though bread be sweet no more.” A poem by Helen Hunt Jackson.

Poppies on the Wheat

BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON

Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.
The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,
But I,—I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

“What they have now they once longed for.” A poem by Jean Valentine.

The River at Wolf

BY JEAN VALENTINE

Coming east we left the animals
pelican beaver osprey muskrat and snake
their hair and skin and feathers
their eyes in the dark: red and green.
Your finger drawing my mouth.

“Blessed are they who remember
that what they now have they once longed for.”

A day a year ago last summer
God filled me with himself, like gold, inside,
deeper inside than marrow.

This close to God this close to you:
walking into the river at Wolf with
the animals. The snake's
green skin, lit from inside. Our second life.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

“Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space.” A poem by Walt Whitman.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

BY WALI WHITMAN

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’s where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

“So delicious he grew to an unthinkable size.” A poem by Michael Metivier.

The Wine

BY MICHAEL METIVIER
When the townspeople

gave the teenaged Buddha
a glass of wine
so delicious he grew
to an unthinkable size
and froze into a blue statue
that shielded the town
from a wave that broke
upon his back
and would have swept away
the town if he’d not tasted
the wine and afterward the people
were overjoyed and said
they would do good deeds
like carpool their children to school
more often and plant lettuce
everywhere while the Buddha
melted into water and receded
into the calm sane sea.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

“Let love be at least one corruption we chose together.” A poem by Carl Phillips.

Almost Tenderly

It had the heft of old armor—like a breastplate
of bronze; like a shield, on hinges. It swung apart
like a door. Inside it, the sea was visible—the sea
and, on the shore, a man: stripped; beaten. Very
gently—tenderly, almost—as if to the man, to
calm him, but in fact to no one, the sea was singing:
“Here, in the deepening blue of our corruption, let

love be at least one corruption we chose together.”
But the man said nothing. “Why not call restlessness
our crown, and our dominion,” sang the sea . . . But
the man was a brokenness like any other: moving,
until it fails to move—the way, over time, suffering
makes no difference. His wounds were fresh; still open.
Where the light fell on them, they flashed, lilke the sea.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

“A great cross in man's imagination.” A poem by Richard Brautigan.

Private Eye Lettuce

BY RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man's imagination
and his desire to name
the objects of this world.
I think I'll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

“I want no thing except to turn time back.” A poem by Ruth Stone.

Mantra

When I am sad
I sing, remembering
the redwing blackbird's clack.
Then I want no thing
except to turn time back
to what I had
before love made me sad.

When I forget to weep,
I hear the peeping tree toads
creeping up the bark.
Love lies asleep
and dreams that everything
is in its golden net;
and I am caught there, too,
when I forget.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

“And the beautiful texas lemons.” A poem by Fred Moten.

causal theory barbecue

that designate an underwater shadow
named querelle and in my tongue urban.

curved and flew out an old baptism
turned to compose the original dub

brushed up screaming on my witness.

god shammgod shammond mcgriff mnccracklin
struttin mcintyre dmitry sitkovetsky bettye
lavette the onions and the beautiful texas

lemons boudin the other devilish sausages
msg and cripke down on slauson

lemon texas minnie sliver nine.
that metallic fade no blues all blues aw

the syntactical law within fills me with law
then gasp at the flavor and run on again

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

“Think twice before causing just anything to be.” A poem by James Merrill.

ALESSIO AND THE ZINNIAS

One summer—was he eight?—
They gave him the seed packet
Along with a 2' by 4'
Slice of the estate.

To grow, to grow—grim law
Without appeal!
He, after all, kept growing every day. . . .
Now this redundant chore.

Up sprouted green enough
For the whole canton, had one known to thin it.
Michaelmas found him eye to cye
With a gang of ruffians

Not askable indoors,
Whose gaudy, wooden attitudes
("Like pine cones in drag")
There was scant question of endorsing

—Much as our droll friend, their legatee,
Would reap from them over the years. For instance:
“Think twice before causing
Just anything to be.”

Then: “Hold your head high in the stinking
Throngs of kind.
Joyously assimilate the Sun.
Never wear orange or pink.”

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

“Dazed with moonlight, contented with perfume.” A poem by Amy Lowell.

The Garden by Moonlight

BY AMY LOWELL

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafing through the snow ball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring.
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

“I thread the outskirts of mandate.” A poem by A.R. Ammons.

SQUARE

The formulation that
saves damns:
consequently (unsavable)
a periphery riffler
I thread the
outskirts of mandate,
near enough
to be knowingly away &
far enough away to
wind and snap through
riddling underbrush.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

“In the charred ruins of their intricate city.” A poem by Eamon Grennan.

SHARD

After the ravages that took the bees by storm
and cleansed the clotted ceiling space
so they'd be no danger to the kids who slept
in the bedroom there all summer, I discovered
in the charred ruins of their intricate city
a hand-size fragment of honeycomb, still
clear gold and filled with pure honey celled
in its stiff, papery hexagonals, which I took
the tip of my tongue to and tasted the true
spirit alive there, like words from a letter
you'd thought destroyed—just a scrap of
common phrases, but enough to call back
exactly what happened, and the good of it.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

“Whose ring was that, whose the wiry hand?” A poem by Heather McHugh.

Deposition of the Seer

I burned the arrows
then I burned the air.

I burned the boats
the bay was taking

for a mere mirage. I took them for
a fact. I saw a sway rise up

from gold to red, and red to black—
I saw the sway, I couldn't hold it.

Whose ring was that, whose the wiry hand? And
by the bye who added good? To hell who added

0? The curves went wavery, and lit the whole
world's neighborhood. And then the sun went

out. That was a message from
the bull's-eye to the bow.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

“We, whose bodies crave the clutch.” A poem by Forester McClatchey.

Forester McClatchey

Ambivalence of Birds

The beak, the claw, the green reptilian eye
induce the wind to mindless buoyancy,
and we, whose bodies crave the clutch and clog
of soil, sew our thoughts into their wings.
We’d love to slice the air, to slip our slog
and scythe through fog, but birds are fickle things:
they're fragile, too. One morning in my yard
a window thudded, so softly it seemed shy.
I saw a blur of blue descend, land hard
and lie, an iridescent flake of sky
spasming on the stair. It fanned its tail,
one final spray of nerves, and died in terror.
It hit the glass not knowing itself. It failed
to stop itself from rushing to the mirror.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

“The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls.” A poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

“An empty street like an invitation.” A poem by James Brunton.

ADVICE

Walk big, my dad told me,
& I have never
stopped wanting
to shrink into nothing
rather than be
that child with a bowl cut
& bowlegs walking
with my fists pushing
against my coat pockets
down an empty street
like an invitation, mistaken
by older men, drunk men
for some version
of exactly what I am:
boy made of missing parts.
Walk big
my dad told me, so
alone, at night,
men will see
another man.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

“Love affairs, fast lies, and you.” A poem by Denis Johnson.

SURREPTITIOUS KISSING

I want to say that
forgiveness keeps on

dividing, that hope
gives issue to hope,

and more, but of course I
am saying what is

said when in this dark
hallway one encounters

you, and paws and
assaults you, love

affairs, fast lies, and you
say it back and we

blunder deeper, as would
any pair of loosed

marionettes, any couple
of cadavers cut lately

from the scaffold,
in the secluded hallways

of whatever is
holding us up now.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

“The night is cold for love.” A poem by Carl Rakosi.

SEALIGHT

After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the windows
I work in cut glass and majolica,
and hear the plectrum of the angels.

My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral,
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.

The night is cold for love.
We favor the chorus
and the antistrophe of the sealight.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

“Take heart, hopefully, in the world unavoidably present.” A poem by Robert Creeley.

THE WINDOW

There will be no simple
way to avoid what
confronts me. Again and
again I know it, but

take heart, hopefully,
in the world unavoidably
present. Here, I think,
is a day, not “a”
but “the.” My hands are

shaking, there is
an insistent tremble
from the night's
drinking. But what

was I after, you
were surely open to me.
Out the far window
there was such intensity

of yellow light. But love,
love I so wanted I
got, didn't I, and then
fell senseless, with relief.

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

“The blue potato has no rules.” A poem by Robyn Schelenz.

Blue Potato

The blue potato
has no rules

I fell asleep reading its fine print
and it was gone

I checked my body; it did not disappear on me
although I had an indentation on my left shoulder

into the night I traveled and felt afraid
I sought out my day companions

who confirmed lilies exist.
No good reason to build a pit.

The irregular rain plays no game
I hear it clinking off the backboard

Someone yells through the darkness but in such a way
as though someone could turn around

and change a destiny—but rain doesn't fall in rings
so never sticks around

My representatives
hold the line so they can

open the city gates for surrender—
You don't have to

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

“Woods assemble themselves.” A poem by Marcella Durand.

circles for wheelmakers

the wren sings in circles for wheelmakers
and its song trails through the deep woods

song may not be perfect circles but is circular
or at least looping and how without our hands

on a wheel do woods assemble themselves
how does complex randomness come

to be beautiful, dangerous, wonderful
how do we know the woods or soil

or circles to be without us? our eyes
already change what we pass through

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

“The vain matters a life gathers.” A poem by C.K. Williams.

Fire

An ax-shattered
bedroom window
the wall above
still smutted with
soot the wall
beneath still
soiled with
soak and down

on the black
of the pavement
a mattress its ticking
half eaten away
the end where
the head would
have been with
a nauseous bite

burnt away
and beside it
an all at once
meaningless heap
of soiled sodden
clothing one
shoe a jacket
once white

the vain matters
a life gathers
about it symbols
of having once
cried out to itself
who art thou?
then again who
wouldst thou be?