Alexander Long’s first two books are Vigil (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2006) and Light Here, Light There (C & R Press, 2009). With Christopher Buckley, he is co-editor of A Condition of the Spirit: the Life & Work of Larry Levis (Eastern Washington University Press, 2004). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in […]
– for James Wright Like I’ve been saying All along, I’m not sure Where they’ve gone Off to. Why can’t I think Of that place as full Of lovers secretly kissing In unmodified light? This afternoon’s rain settles Along my jaw. I hope my bus is late. Three beers by noon, And now I […]
I’m thinking that whistling far off in the distance there Is something to hum along with. It’s history’s little anthem, And we hum its one note as long as we can breathe It through, don’t we… And when the whistling stops, There’s no city of fire, no blackened glass, no girders Curved around and through the village’s last and […]
1. “O Holy Night” I would give almost anything to understand why You threw the leftover wedding invitations we made by hand Into the dumpster, and why, before you did it, You kissed them. And how we argued for hours Over the RSVP, what it really meant and the cost of it all. It was […]
Maybe it's worth it: no one dies More alone, more slowly than the suicide. They have become their desire, their own admirers, they are no longer Clichés of our own grief and narcissism. But why does this poem feel otherwise, why have I placed my friend B. Inside a still life, the moment before He […]
I. Because B.’s a line break that hasn’t come yet. Simply because. Because grief stills his image, his image that breaks like a silver wave or a blue vase on a gray marble floor. I will always have words to fall back on, though they‘re rarely right. They form after they shatter in the eye […]
Look, my grandmothers would float out Of themselves and into me nearly Every day the weeks after they died. I’d find myself pickling eggs, Making a pot roast, polishing Silver spoons and china, caring. Once, I stole tomatoes right off The Maltese’s vines. I wanted Something fresh for once. I hate tomatoes, And the Maltese’s […]
As if these words could alter wind’s lucid course And make the trees wave hello again; As if the wind had something new to bless, Confess; that, finally, today’s losses were palpable, explicable Even; as if there were a reason for this self-pity To descend again like shade From the maples and lilacs and palms, […]