abstract – Page 5 – Chris Bronsk

Flagged

Poverty is what happens at the end of any story, including this one, When there are too many stories. When you can believe in all of them, & so believe in none; When one condition is as good as any other. —Larry Levis, from “Elegy with a Thimbleful of Water in the Cage“

Small Enough to Save

“There are ducks at Howard Beach, and herons farther on at Jamaica Bay, and odd watery vistas all the way from Broad Channel to Far Rockaway. The train travels on a causeway past sleepy fishing villages and wood frame houses, and it’s all ducks and geese until the train reaches the far side of theContinue reading “Small Enough to Save”

Taciturn, Alit

“In the mid 1970’s, I began to be drawn towards places of cultural tension: borders, the edges of societies, worlds that have been transformed by an outside — often northern — culture. I was intrigued by the rawness, the tensions, and the emotional immediacy of the streets in these places. I was working in blackContinue reading “Taciturn, Alit”

In the Doorway, Empty Handed

“Franco, my kind Italian upstairs neighbor, just came by and knocked on the door. Some of my mail had been delivered to his box by mistake. I asked him if he thought smoking with sex was different for men than for women. He said no, but he doesn’t speak perfect English. Then he confessed howContinue reading “In the Doorway, Empty Handed”

Celluloid

“I’m not capable of describing my own liberation as a series of plausible events; I lack the ability to convey the evolutionary history of my own resurrection–I present only these epiphanic stanzas, though my resurrection too was like an epiphany, like a haiku; it was like a single line of poetry, unerring as lightning.” —JerzyContinue reading “Celluloid”

Exeunt

All cries are thin and terse; The field has droned the summer’s final mass; A cricket like a dwindled hearse Crawls from the dry grass. —Richard Wilbur, “Exeunt”

Diamond on a Windowpane

“It is as big and depthless as the sky itself. You can see the curve of the earth on its surface as it stretches away for miles to the far shore. Sunset has turned the water to the color of unripe peaches. There’s no wind. Sandbars and wooded islands stand on their exact reflections. TheContinue reading “Diamond on a Windowpane”

Scrim

“So often We are Missing Out on it— Ill-equipped To imagine The day any Different than We hoped it Might be…” —Alex Lemon, from “Marooning,” in The Wish Book (Milkweed Editions, 2014) I shot these through the window scrim in our city art museum. In a room of wall-sized, technicolor abstractions, these street scenes caughtContinue reading “Scrim”

The Wave Receding

The rocks here are volcanic. They rise from the sea— stand above it—only to be covered by it, and then disclosed again in the wave’s receding. The waves sheathe the rock’s face with departure’s pattern— then the pattern goes too…Earlier, when the tide was low, you could have seen a lone egret walking the zonesContinue reading “The Wave Receding”