Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

March 1, 2021

cropped-headersmaller-1.png

en temps de peste

Since March 16th

  • poetry
  • journals
  • guides
  • fiction
    • The Valour of Quinn McFoule
  • interviews
  • art
  • about us
  • donate
  • submit
  • contact
  • poetry
  • journals
  • guides
  • fiction
    • The Valour of Quinn McFoule
  • interviews
  • art
  • about us
  • donate
  • submit
  • contact

Opening Lines

  • March 17, 2020
  • 6:53 pm
  • New Orleans
i am never lost if words/ are not what scrapes belief
aaron-burdenMeganBurns

Megan Burns

If you enjoy this piece, please consider a small donation to the author. You can find the link to their personal Venmo/PayPal profile (or a donation fund of their choice) in the byline below.

for JS Makkos

 

spilling watercolors, the orbit of design

pixels a code so fine, it mirrors our nature

and is it survive? is that what the lover coos

under wing, under threadbare nights 

 

delta of where we traveled and what i 

have learned about being safe is who 

arrives to see us, who shows up at the center,

a coring of delight, a lover’s something else, a tinny 

call that verbs the slid escape of blindness

inside the dream of moments: You

 

send a link to an image of Louisiana 

taken by an astronaut, blues wipe into eye-

lets of gulf familiar & we landed here 

gentle folds of image fog, image absent

 

let us consider untranslatable, a bridge, lately

we cut from time, how far can we hide in language

i can say nothing & make it beautiful 

to poet is control, i am never lost if words

 

are not what scrapes belief, the undone spool of mine

i wanted & what is enough, we danced on the dying 

of our land, in the trespass of being human, we danced 

& stole joy in the colored lights as if disease or night’s 

mare had not ridden us exhausted, had i not

 

been able to breathe in the vacuum, i might

have cleared sooner, had i known how far 

i could rise from where i was pinned to cruelty 

i might have flown too fast, a melting occurs in light 

that sorrows love: look at this image

our home, where we stacked moments, so delicate

madness is the instrument of such intelligence 

will we travel far enough to spiral distance  

become what we are meant to be: echoes 

there is no time outside knowing this 

 


 

Megan Burns

Megan Burns is the publisher at Trembling Pillow Press (tremblingpillowpress.com). She is the co-director of the New Orleans Poetry Festival (nolapoetry.com) and has been hosting the Blood Jet Poetry Reading Series in New Orleans for the last six years. She has been most recently published in Jacket Magazine, Callaloo, New Laurel Review, Dream Pop, and Diagram. Her poetry and prose reviews have been published in Tarpaulin Sky, Gently Read Lit, Big Bridge, and Rain Taxi. She has three books Memorial + Sight Lines (2008), Sound and Basin (2013) and Commitment (2015) published by Lavender Ink. Her recent chapbooks include: her Twin Peaks chap, Sleepwalk With Me (Horse Less Press, 2016), Beneath the Drift (Red Mare, 2019) and FUCK LOVE: I’m sorry someone hurt you (Shirt Pocket Press, 2019). Her fourth collection, BASIC PROGRAMMING, was published by Lavender Ink in 2018. Her forthcoming collection is called PLURALITY.

Help IH and our writers: share this piece!

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
PrevPreviousThe Shutdown
NextSt. Patrick’s DayNext

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

siteitcon
  • about us
  • donate
  • submit
  • contact
Menu
  • about us
  • donate
  • submit
  • contact
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

“If you don't have a seat at the table, you're probably on the menu.” -Anon "We cannot create what we cannot imagine." - Lucille Clifton “Peace is not merely the absence of a negative force, but the presence of positive force: justice, goodwill, and the kingdom of God.” -MLK “Ideas stand in the corner and laugh as we fight over them.” -Marty Rubin “Justice will not be served until those unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” -Ben Franklin “The most dangerous creation of any society is a man who has nothing to lose.” James Baldwin “The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.” -J. Conrad

Send us your quotes here.

©Infection House 2020