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Falling from windows
might have been better
than this sudden
sleep
people falling in twos, threes
by the office-load
by the building-full
to sleep
with battened-down eyes
twitches of dream
unscheduled restfulness
immense
cloud-vistas opening
great dawns of inner mornings
the yawning darkness eating
all sense
leaving nothing
but the silence and the absence
and the hollow sleep-sounds
and grief
among the waking
those lost by being left out
of this drifting, sighing calamity
beneath
a beleaguered sun
beneath the streetlights of sense and order
beneath the analytical heat-lamps
our time
defined now by disaster
of cities falling: one, and then
perhaps another, their falling being
the sign
of an end-time, of a loss
of an unwilling relaxing of grasp
of an unbearable surrender
to sleep.

 

Copyright © 2002 Mark Rich

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In addition to his alternative-rock CD "Drive," recorded by his band Mad Melancholy Monkey Mind, and his various books on toys, Mark Rich has published poetry and fiction in magazines including Poem, Manhattan Review, Analog, Happy, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Electric Velocipede. Visit his Web site (or this one) for more about him.



Bio to come.
Current Issue
16 Dec 2024

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.
exposing to the bone just how different we are
a body protesting thinks itself as a door out of a darkroom, a bullet, too.
In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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