Editor’s Note: Marcus Bales responded to the CPR’s recent series of articles on Richard Blanco’s Inaugural reading with this poem.
Identity Poetical by Marcus Bales
Identity Poet:
I am the very model of identity poetical,
My bio and my craftsmanship are blankly antithetical.… continue reading...
… continue reading...“Effulgent” by David M. Katz
Part seemed she of the effulgent thought —“Her Initials,” Thomas Hardy
Glitter, brilliance, candor, dazzle;
Luster, splendor, lambent lightness;
She evokes a lucid ghazal
All shot through with flashing brightness:
Of those words, he chose “effulgent.”
[private]her night thoughts
My baby wails. That I may rest
I offer him a rubber breast
And soon as waves by oil suppressed,
He quiets. An underhanded trick
Yet practical and politic-
He cries for bread.… continue reading...
Here
in the dusty malarial lanes
of Cuttack where years have slowly lost their secrets
they wander
in these lanes nicked by intrigue and rain
and the unseen hands of gods
in front of a garish temple of the simian Hanuman
along river banks splattered with excreta and dung
in the crowded market square among rotting tomatoes
fish-scales and the moist warm odour of bananas and piss
passing by the big-breasted, hard-eyed young whores
who frequent the empty space behind the local cinema
by the Town Hall where corrupt politicians still
go on delivering their pre-election speeches
and on the high road above the town’s burning-ground
from which gluttonous tan smoke floats up
in the breeze, smacking of scorched marrow and doubt.… continue reading...
