Paul Hostovsky

by Paul Hostovsky
There’s a poem in Gerald Stern’s mouth.
If you’ve ever gone to see him read
you’ve noticed that thing he does
with his lips, pursing them, flaring them,
wetting them like a pair of water birds
come to drink and mate in the middle
of his face, preening themselves between
the words, making love between the lines.
And between his two [...]

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by Paul Hostovsky
There used to be
a live chicken
in this poem,
there was a glacier
and a sailboat,
the Pacific Ocean
sloshing between stanzas,
and me like Adam
saying, Here am I,
to God who was also
near.

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by Paul Hostovsky
When there’s nothing to say there is still
this to say, still there is this like a
birdbath in someone’s yard in your
childhood, not your birdbath or your yard
and no birds now, or rainwater yet, just this
palm, this listening for the rain, this memory
of a waiting place made of stone for the birds
–if they come–to [...]

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by Paul Hostovsky
Remember this poem? Its simple
rooms? Its window full of trees? The white
gable which you loved about this poem,
how its lone triangle seemed to encompass
all humanity? And the spiky yellow sun
exploding somewhere outside this poem?
Of course you do. In fact you’re reciting it
right now, standing on one foot in a room
of a different poem.

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Paul Hostovsky has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, the Muriel Craft Bailey Award from The Comstock Review, and chapbook contests from Grayson Books, Riverstone Press, and The Frank Cat Press. His first full-length collection, Bending the Notes, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. To [...]

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