I Am Learning to Abandon the World by Linda Pastan I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me. Already I have given up the moon and snow, closing my shades against the claims of white. And the world has taken my father, my friends. I have given up melodic lines of hills, moving to a flat, tuneless landscape. And every night I give my body up limb by limb, working upwards across bone, towards the heart. But morning comes with small reprieves of coffee and bir

Ode to a Drone by Amit Majmudar Hell-raiser, razor-feathered risers, windhover over Peshawar, power's joystick-blithe thousand-mile scythe, proxy executioner's proxy ax pinged by a proxy server, winged victory, pilot cipher unburdened by aught but fuel and bombs, fool of God, savage idiot savant sucking your benumbed trigger-finger gamer's thumb Today's blog poem was first published in the book, Dothead , published in 2016 by Knopf Doubleday. You can also read it again here

Things on Fire by Fatima Van Hattum A flat, so small, the stove was also the counter, the rice cooking on the back burner and the cutting board, balanced on the front, red peppers sliced thin one time, I turned my back for a minute to finish the climax to a story, you yelled the cutting board was on fire the door to the shower hit against the toilet and
 you had to turn sideways to get in 
the bathroom was through our bedroom 
I hid under the covers in the morning so your br

ABC by Robert Pinsky Any body can die, evidently. Few Go happily, irradiating joy, Knowledge, love. Many Need oblivion, painkillers, Quickest respite. Sweet time unafflicted, Various world: X=your zenith. This poem was first published in 1999, in The New York Review of Books . Click here to read it there and definitely look around--they publish lots of great poetry and review more books than any of us could possibly ever read. I love reading well-written reviews, and this s