Trending »

THREE POEMS – Paul Genega

on July 12 | in Poetry | by | with No Comments

FOR A FRACKING GOOD TIME

There is a general consensus among scientists
that the spike in Oklahoma’s earthquake activity
has been triggered by disposal wells used to dispose
of waste from oil and gas drilling operations.

Is their seismology
bigger than yours
 

do they get more
kick and buckle
 
out of earth, wider
smiles from fissures
 
stronger roll
and rain of rock?
 
Send today for
a no fault solution
 
to your state’s shame
Scott Pruitt’s
 
Oklahoma
Earthquake Kit.
 
Guaranteed to put
tremors back in
 
the humdrum
quicken what had
 
slackened, give your
bucks a bang. No
 
muss or fuss to cuss –
you just add water.
 


IN MIGRATION

 

Swyer Preserve
Stuyvesant, New York

 
Inside mud skin
heavy winter
 
run-off quickens
the creek into froth
 
Wet-footed
forest offering up
 
skunk cabbage
anemones
 
the seductive
blush of new vines
 
A phoebe calls
from a budding
 
alder where
one year ago
 
today stretched
over the sibilance
 
I held a wake
on the water
 
and let fly
my sister’s ashes


DOG AUBADE

 

The doe scissors
away from us
 
you, as always
a yard or two ahead
 
free of the lead
gay tail waving
 
Not so shy
these deer fly
 
orbiting our heads
like hungry halos
 
I swat
You sprint
 
At the far end
of the field
 
a fawn slips
through silver birch
 
The sun rises
A welt rises
 
Crushed flies
stud my matted hair

 

Paul Genega has published five chapbooks and five full-length collections of poetry. His sixth full-length collection, Sculling on the Lethe, will be launched by Salmon Poetry (Ireland) at the AWP Convention in Tampa, March, 2018. Over a forty-plus year career, his poetry has garnered numerous awards, including the “Discovery Award,” five Pushcart Prize nominations and an individual fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his work has appeared in leading magazines and journals such as New York Quarterly, Poetry, the New York Times, The Nation, and The Paterson Literary Review. As a playwright, he has co-authored two works with Emmy Award winning composer/filmmaker Patricia Lee Stotter: Haven’t We Met?, which was presented at the Writers Theater in New York, and Paging Doctor Faustus, which is currently being readied for workshop production. In 2014, Genega assumed directorship of Three Mile Harbor Press upon the death of its founding editor Antje Katcher. He taught for many years at Bloomfield College, New Jersey where he founded the creative writing program and served as Chair of Humanities. His legacy continues at Bloomfield through the Genega Endowed Scholarships in Creative Writing.

Pin It

Related Posts

« »

Recent Posts

News

THE SACRED GROVE –  [...]

[new_royalslider id="17"] Ana Flores is a sculptor and ecologist. Her work is informed by how pla

Safia Elhilo

2 Poems

Michele Robinson\'s Art [...]

Let Me Straddle Your Mind

X.J. Kennedy

The Crusader

Why did you leave bring m [...]

Yeah bring our electric shaver back, I bought it we shaved each others back it was important to me

Kwame Dawes

Kwame Dawes

BEFORE YOU – Kwame  [...]

1 Yes, we were country, lived in shotgun shacks, where the road loses its way to dirt and live

MENSTRUAL FLOWERS – [...]

[new_royalslider id="11"] Courtesy of the artist and Mizuma Art Gallery  

WHAT THE WOMB ISN’T [...]

         "Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to lea

JUNOT DIAZ

Junot' Diaz and Edison, NJ

EDISON, NEW JERSEY – [...]

The first time we try to deliver the Gold Crown the lights are on in the house but no on

Rachel Eliza Griffiths [...]

Elegy & Poem

The March on Washington:  [...]

OTHER WORLD: A Conversati [...]

"We are all the other."

I OPEN A BOX

…and find inside a picture, of myself as a child, sitting on a small chair, wearing overalls an

Naive Paintings

Raphael Perez

CIRCLES OF THE MOON & [...]

To Alex, on turning two Some say the Ring of Brogar is the Circle of the Moon. There is n

In This Issue

March on Washington An Interview with Cheryl Evans

5 POINTZ: GRAFFITI MECCA  [...]

In a strange twist of what seemed like reverse vandalism, the Graffiti Mecca was painted over.

In This Issue

Forest Gander A Translation

In This Issue

Quassan Castro, poem Grandson to Grandmother

URBAN CANVAS: Wynwood Wal [...]

Wynwood Walls, of Miami has been called "a Museum of the Streets."

Pulaski Skyway

Low like the mean dream of Newark the sky must have seemed to its builders. Rickety now, unhingin

THE SPAN & OTHER POE [...]

At last, the extremes of his present methods seemed to offer the happiest avenues. The strengthe

Paul Latorre

5th Limb Poems

Joan Larkin

Poem, Knot

Gina Loring, Def Poetry [...]

Poem, Look This Way

In This Issue

Xue Du, Poem

AT THE END OF THE DREAM I [...]

A woman      in a black kimono      dyed black hair disappeared      behind a black curtai

Marge Piercy

Poem: Behind the War On Women

Naive Paintings

Raphael Perez

Marie Miazziotti -Gillam [...]

Maria Mizzotti-Gillan

Vicky Dantel

Short Story

In This Issue

Pilar Fraile Amador poem

Quassan Castro

Poem

Lugensky Durosier [...]

Lady Haiti

In This Issue

David Trinidad

In This Issue

Landzy Theodore

In This Issue

Angelo Nikolopoulos

Scroll to top