Some poems I liked this year, part 1

Jasper Bernes, "Two Walts (Whitman Contra Disney)"

It's a small world after all, after the relief-deep wells barf up their prisoners,
after the exhaustion of credible souces, empiricism's
expiration date, a flash of rich, ferocious prose and eroded roses.

Coral Bracho, "Water's Lubricious Edges" (tr. Forrest Gander)

Water of jellyfish,
lacteal, sinuous water,
water of lubricious borders; glassy thickness--Deliquescence
in delectable contours. Water--sumptuous water
of involution, of langour

alternative translation

Kamau Brathwaite, "Kumina"

on the first day
of yr death it is quiet it is dormant like a doormat
no one-foot touch its welcome. its dust on the floor
is not disturb nor are the sleeping spirits of this house

i sit here in this chair trying to unravel Time so that it wouldn't happen twine

Jordan Davis, "Dust"

If you start to imagine
You feel the magnetic fields
The colander and the aluminum
Are in the lower cabinet on the right

This is gravity coming for us

Peter Gizzi, "Untitled Amherst Specter"

a sound of open ground having been taken

now a silver wisp winking on the roof

silver imp waving from a long shaft ago

I am a leaf storm night

I have seen the long file of mule trains and metal

the cavalry

these sounds we live within speaking to you now

sir, I was a soldier in these woods