“The Two Worlds” is a central theme in many poems written by American poet, author, and translator - Robert Bly. I have been fascinated by Bly’s poetry since I was first introduced to it many years ago. There is always the image of a “world” or “the Two Worlds” in his work. And, along with the image of “the Two Worlds” is the implication that somehow there is a battle or tension between two worlds or a conquest of one world over another. He speaks often of an “internal/inner” world and an “external/outer” world.

The 3

potted plants

I bought to comfort me

on the day you left,

have died.

“Executive Summary. Marketing Strategy. Financial Analysis. Management and Advisory Personnel.”

As she made her way from her West Campus dorm to her Advanced Marketing Seminar on the Quad, Tran Huong Giang ticked off the sections of the business plan she had written for her final class project.

The shroud fatigued

Busy gatherings draining mass beneath

Hiding immobility, burdening its whispers in the untold

Furrowing as wings folding around failing bonfires

Curling against the troubler in knowing ignorance

Lift the curious protrusions and hold in place its pasty platforms

Alan pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the blood at the corner of Amanda’s mouth. She whispered an apology before lapsing into another coughing fit. Only the black clock in the otherwise completely white hospital room watched them. Seconds marched past, each tick ringing in Alan’s ears like a funeral toll.

She is made of toilet pipe rust.

She is shaped like a snake.

The first thing she did when she crawled out of the bowl is strangle a man and call it a hug.

She buried him in a prestigious cemetery and said she had made it possible for him to fulfill his dreams...

The ocean has always enchanted me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m a Pisces. Maybe it’s simply that, near the ocean, I experience levels of awe, peace, contentment, and hope that I don’t experience on a regular basis during my day-to-day life.

A cumulus cloud drifts across a clear spring sky. To Alana, resting on her sofa, staring out of the window, it seems to be the shape of a seal with a God-like beard. A seal god, she thinks. What'd that be like? Would it ponder the divinity of diving, the worship of waters, the beatitudes of blubber?

Enough nonsense about a seal god, she tells herself. Why not try to see the real one instead.

she knows everything raging out there

everything twisting inside the sudden knocking

shifts in the siding clicks like desperate rodents

she knows what she can let in and what must be kept away

the wind, shaped by the window casing does her howling for her

easy sober, controlled sorrow contracted from strangers

Being a gimp doesn’t mean you ain’t a gimp hater.

By the time I graduated from high school, I’d already been disabled for a decade. My assailant was rheumatoid arthritis. The disease caused my immune system to launch an absurd attack on my body, and destroyed my joints with lightning speed. At 18, I still walked as much as I could, but I sometimes had to use a wheelchair. I hated the damn thing, and hid it in the corner of my room.