The Brooklyn Rail

DEC 22–JAN 23

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DEC 22–JAN 23 Issue
Poetry

two


[gold-given give of fat]

gather, girl, the roses - Ausonius or Virgil
YOL∞ - Anonymous


gold-given give of fat
that giving back
gives more than given
more than metal
loans abundance
the wasting blessing
wreathing bone and want
to breed an interest
unlike seedless
manna unlike
folding futures
markets promises
a yield that firms
returning glut to glut and life
whatever life is meant to mean
count no one happy once they’re dead
amassed and spent
outgrown and bare
reformed once more
in conjugation
in this loose-bodied circulation
the windfall
ripe and rotting
free-born to a sweet corruption
is resourced
in full
subliming mind
pandemonic as creation
the universe of dust









The Sky’s Portrait



Once, before light
Was domesticated and forgotten,
I would pour out the shadow bath
And seed the forest mind.
There was a dark retreat in living
Off the land. The birds were mad
With flight.

My nursery still crowds with wind,
My memory with colored earth,
But in the mouth of Time, it seems,
All prayers melt to breath.

Rivers tell the ice-clean truth
Of it: Everything intersects,
Root and branch, wolf and dog.
The fat moon turns to sickle and back.

A lack of windows is not a lack,
Is what is
Before it is a thing.

Contributor

Jacob Bromberg

Jacob Bromberg is a multi-media poet and translator. His work has appeared in/been exhibited at The Paris Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Believer, Le Monde, The Palais de Tokyo, the Fiorucci Art Trust’s Volcano Extravaganza, and Yvon Lambert Bookshop among other venues. He was The Brooklyn Rail’s inaugural Poet-in-Transit, and his collaboration with Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, won the Silver Lion at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

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The Brooklyn Rail

DEC 22–JAN 23

All Issues