Poems and Texts

“Lucky break of day” by Brendan Lorber

Lucky break of day

The nor’easter_____ shut down_____ the subways
so whatever prevented me______ from going
to your party_____ was cancelled_____ including
your party_____ and any means_____ to get there

Everything we say____ hides what____ we mean
but also creates a little space_____ to discover it
Like clouds get the blame_____ but it’s the sun
that blots out all the stars____ even on a perfect day

Even perfection _____can’t be a thing _____until
the day is tallied_____ and no longer happening
Like a scenic road_____ and the overlooks with
shrines_____ to whoever didn’t quite make the turn

Brendan Lorber

Over two decades in the making, Brendan Lorber’s first full-length book is coming out this spring. It’s called If this is paradise why are we still driving? He’s also written several chapbooks, most recently Unfixed Elegy and Other Poems (Butterlamb). He’s had work in the American Poetry Review, Fence, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. Since 1995 he has published and edited Lungfull! Magazine, an annual anthology of contemporary literature that prints the rough drafts of contributors’ work in addition to the final versions in order to reveal the creative process. He lives atop the tallest hill in Brooklyn, New York, in a little castle across the street from a five-hundred-acre necropolis.

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