The Daily Reviewer | gravity and light

In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden

Feb 20, 2010 8:33am

IHe disappeared in the dead of winter:The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,And snow disfigured the public statues;The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day.Far from his illnessThe wolves ran on through the...

How to Teach Grammar by Chella Courington

Jan 19, 2010 12:18pm

How to Teach Grammar for denis johnsoni don’t care about their commasrarely can’t follow an essay with a run-on sentenceor is it run-away words colliding in white space f r a g m ...

Museum Pastel by Chella Courington

Jan 4, 2010 11:29am

Girl, just look at those painted orchids. Green and yellow swimming together, spilling over the edge like rainbow sherbet Mama made in July and spooned into glass cups. They slipped from sticky hands, crashing on black & white linoleum.Just look at those petals fringed in lavender. Feather boa she tossed...

Feliz Navidad

Dec 18, 2009 8:42am

Feliz Navidad Feliz NavidadFeliz NavidadProspero Ano y Felicidad.Feliz NavidadFeliz NavidadFeliz NavidadProspero Ano y Felicidad.I wanna wish you a Merry ChristmasI wanna wish you a Merry ChristmasI wanna wish you a Merry ChristmasFrom the bottom of my heart....

She Gets What She Came For by Chella Courington

Dec 14, 2009 9:32am

No matter what you do, I sing “Stairway to Heaven” without end. Amen. Sugar on my tongue, chameleon-long, you raise your cotton shirt, spitting sticky rain. Over the Dutch Elm, Chagall’s wedding couple link hands and catch us in their drift, or is it their draft? Our stretchy limbs angel...

Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson

Dec 10, 2009 10:19am

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -In Corners - till a DayThe Owner passed - identified -And carried Me away -And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -And now We hunt the Doe -And every time I speak for Him -The Mountains straight reply -And do I smile,...

Blood Moon by Chella Courington

Dec 9, 2009 9:38pm

Sophie tickles my cheek with her tongue, and I give her my right arm. Like the Virgin’s mantle sliding over my shoulder, she rolls her muscles to the drummer’s heartbeat, washing me in light. Mama calls my boa a serpent, and me a dirty coochie dancer. Jesus is in covered-dish...

Tonight, Listening by Chella Courington

Nov 30, 2009 4:30pm

It wasn’t the tumor but the tumor rememberedbeing cut from the breastthe breast chiseled from bonewhen, startled, she felt ithow it might pull again at her nippleslip through the ribslike a cat prowling.First Published: Survivor’s Review (December 2008). Ed. Sheree Kirby....

September by Chella Courington

Nov 11, 2009 9:35am

1Fog on the horizon hides hard island edges. Close to the patio sprinklers swish: streams rise in sun before falling in the garden. Six plastic-pink flamingoes parade by the sago palm.A pair of dolphins, togetherstill after twenty years, watchfrom the granite fountain.2Stripping an apple, peel swingingin air, I think of...

Forty by Chella Courington

Nov 7, 2009 11:56am

Dust devils swirl to Beethoven’s Fifth and sun burns my eyes between Albuquerque and Grants. Living in this forsaken land is unimaginableuntil I see shadows on desert hillsand think of Georgia O’Keeffe traveling across New Mexico—water colors dislodging dark New York her lover old...

DEFINING THE ORGASM by Nin Andrews

Nov 5, 2009 1:52pm

Perhaps you don't want to admit you've never had an orgasm. Maybe you don't even know what orgasms are, much less what style they come in, and how they might become available to you. That is why you are reading this guide to orgasms. You want to enter the realm...

Lynette’s War by Chella Courington

Oct 30, 2009 1:03pm

My cousin Lynette says she’s tired from cleaning East Main houses of rich bitches. They don’t even shit like us, got toilet seats that float to the bowl, never make a sound, & she hands me the baby over the front seat. Days off Merry Maids we like to drive...

Spiderweb by Kay Ryan

Oct 16, 2009 8:42am

From otherangles thefibers lookfragile, butnot from thespider’s, alwayshauling coarseropes, hitchinglines to thebest postspossible. It’sheavy workeveryplace,fighting sag,winching upgive. Itisn’t everdelicateto live....

THE SHEEP-CHILD by James Dickey

Oct 11, 2009 11:01pm

Farm boys wild to coupleWith anything with soft-wooded treesWith mounds of earth moundsOf pine straw will keep themselves offAnimals by legends of their own:In the hay-tunnel...

Medley by Chella Courington

Oct 6, 2009 10:43am

MedleyIHi, don’t hang up, my name is Meredith Medley.What?Meredith Medley.What kind of name is that?Oh, my mom teaches piano at Waverly High.Waverly? I went there.Me too, graduated in 85.I graduated in 88. Are you calling me about the reunion?No, I’m calling about your favorite TV show.My what?Favorite TV show.I don’t...

When Berryman Died by Chella Courington

Oct 2, 2009 5:41pm

WHEN BERRYMAN DIED He left his shoes, scuffed loafers, on the bridge. A cordovan pair he could have shed anywhere: at the university beside his desk, under Tate’s coffee table,at the foot of a lover’s bed. Every night he thought, tomorrow. Mornings, he rememberedhis suit at the cleaners, his essayon...

Queen's Bird by Chella Courington

Sep 7, 2009 5:35pm

Two of each—cup, saucer, bread platein lukewarm water, I wash away thirty years of dust since Mother died.At 42, ovarian cancer like Queen Mary. Bloody Mary quite contrary why leave your subjects crushed?I thought I’d run into Mother if I traveled: Chicago, Barbados, Edinburgh. Against the sun, I raise the...

I See He Sees by Chella Courington

Sep 1, 2009 1:26am

I See He SeesAn upward draftcatches Mama’s hem at 41st & 12thraising it in wavesaround her knees & over her thighsa pink-striped dressdances like the awningat Lida’s Cantinawhen a man at the cornerclutching a boy’s hand sees Mama nakedunder her flying skirt& I see he sees wondering why she doesn’t...

Rebekah & Christina

Aug 20, 2009 2:33pm

ah, i am breaking pattern, speaking! my dear friend rebekah is now in london on a fulbright teacher exchange. her blog that i've linked: my year in the purple house. sounds like a novel to me. remember julie & julia. so it's a year of living vicariously as i read...

from RELUCTANT GRAVITIES by Rosmarie Waldrop

Aug 9, 2009 10:36am

PROLOGUE: TWO VOICES Two voices on a page. Or is it one? Now turning in on themselves, back into fiber and leaf, now branching into sequence, consequence, public works projects or discord. Now touching, now trapped in frames without dialog box. Both tentative, as if poring over old inscriptions, when...

The Writer's Almanac by Garrison Keillor

Aug 8, 2009 8:01am

August 8, 2009It was on this day in 1946 that Harold Ross wrote a memo about John Hersey's Hiroshima story that began "A very fine piece beyond any question; got practically everything. This will be … the classic piece on what follows a bomb dropping for a long time to...

VII by Wendell Berry

Jul 16, 2009 8:33am

I would not have been a poetexcept that I have been in lovealive in this mortal world, or an essayist except that I have been bewildered and afraid,or a storyteller had I not heardstories passing to me through the air,or a writer at all except I have been wakeful at...

Paper Covers Rock by Chella Courington

Jul 4, 2009 2:32pm

II can’t stop buying scissors. I walk into Home Depot for geraniums & lilies, leave with gardening shears, green ergonomic handles. Gelson’s for halibut. Shiny poultry shears. At a garage sale I find a pair of hedge clippers. By December paper cutters, pinking shears, hair trimmers—any blades you want are...

Dream of New Mexico by Chella Courington

May 25, 2009 10:05am

In La Madera, you find melate afternoon sun at my back hips wider than yours, gathering skulls. We roam red hills: ocher, orange and purple earthcracked by hot blowing sand. A solitary penitent, dark veil over torso, trudges near us. Bulky black crosses cover the desert.You kiss my scars, ghosts...

Skin by Chella Courington

May 18, 2009 12:31pm

geckos, iridescent-white zigzag on the ceilinglick their way clear humming fan bladescut hot air never sever scales they’re harmless there’s nothing we can do please don’t call the desk there were snake skins dry diaphanous coils grandmother...