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

Nocturne

1.

memory licks
as waves may lick
the flesh of a man
bound waist deep
to a post in the sea
away
over a day or two

it’s a complicated figure
and belabored with
at least one flawed wheel

he won’t disappear

2.

there’s a wire
where the spine goes
that radiates a preharmonic music

it pulls the glass and copper beasts
without fear from the forest toward him

a fugitive continuance

his flesh
curious endures

James Loop is a writer from Central New York and the author of several chapbooks. His work has been published in the Brooklyn Rail, Hot Pink, Hyperallergic, Lambda Literary, and Prelude. Audio/visual iterations of poems have been exhibited at Art-o-rama (Marseille), CRAC-Occitanie, Frieze London, and the Material Art Fair (Mexico City). For Belladonna* Collaborative, he has curated readings at Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public Library, Montez Press Radio, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and works as Publicity Director for World Poetry. His first full-length poetry collection, Metronome, is forthcoming from Winter Editions in April 2026.

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