Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

 

Poem

                                                                               In memory of Pierre Joris,

                                                                               And for Liz Gray

 

She said the Mighty
are falling. It must
be coming on our time.

 

I said when
do we get to be Mighty?
Now, she said. This

 

is what Mighty looks like,
I think. How bittersweet
the world, I said.

 

How lost we are in these
evil times, how many
are our losses.

 

The world cries out
to be translated.
Where is

 

the translator, who
will carry us across?
I ask it of the Mighty.

 

Do they answer?
Do they answer
with their silence?

 

One said
“Stop reading—look!
Stop looking—go!”

 

So we were carried
across. Into what?
It was a track

 

and so all unfolded.
We are here.
We are back.

 

Norman Finkelstein is a poet, critic, and editor. His most recent book of poetry is Further Adventures (Dos Madres Press, 2023). A selection of his critical essays, To Go Into the Words, appeared as a volume in the Poets on Poetry series from the University Michigan Press in 2023. He writes and edits the poetry review blog Restless Messengers (https://www.poetryinreview.com/

 

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx