Elizabeth Robinson is the author, most recently, of Excursive, from Roof Books. Her book, On Ghosts, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in poetry. She has recently received a Pushcart Prize and Editor’s Choice Awards from Scoundrel Time and New Letters. On Love “As the crow flies” suggests that flight is linear and direct.
But wings on air follow unpredictable currents. Cliché mistakes destination for meaning.
And meaning is oblique.
The crow eats the seed as it finds it. Within the fires
of its gut, the seed’s flesh is burned away. Within the bowels
of the bird, fecal matter gives the seed a hit of nitrogen. Which is to say that love is an assignation
that accepts shit as enrichment. The seed drops to the dirt wrapped in excrement.
It sprouts. Weedy, but weeds are hardy,
prickly, impervious to weather,
a growth fallen randomly into its inevitability. Randy Prunty grew up in West Virginia and North Carolina and has lived in Atlanta and Boulder. He now lives in California with his wife, poet Elizabeth Robinson, and works as a bus driver in the San Francisco Bay Area. His collection of poems, Test Camp, was just published by BlazeVOX. When he’s not writing or working, he’s birding or biking. Earth Elegy: Figures into ground Let all red dots be red herrings
in a barrel believing they’re on firm ground What was thought
and what was done inscribed on tectonic plates beneath the ocean All out of innateness
we flail from figure to figure in a whirlwind of cutouts ALEX MATTRAW is the author of the poetry books Raw Anyone (2022), We fell into weather (2020), and small siren (2018), all with Brooklyn’s Cultural Society. Her most recent poems are featured or forthcoming in Lana Turner, Tupelo Quarterly, and VOLT. A frequent collaborator with other writers and artists, Alex is also the founder and curator of the San Francisco reading series, Lone Glen. http://alexandramattraw.com. Dear Thought Climate,
Where are we?
Hinge close : lose
rock : paper : Pfizer
leans diurnal dreams.
Verdant : you gridlock
face to erase
my static abrasion,
clock step-wounds.
I field you,
my liminal aviary.
Read this mirror :
dive in windsong.
Stop : drop : coral
emporium, I am.
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