Tag Archives: poetry

Memo for the Next Year

Posted on December 31, 2023 by jillbpearlman

When I said I believed in lightness, I wasn’t kidding.  Over and over, I return –not to escapism or fantasy or ostrich necks–but to dissolving solidity, breaking up the world’s fixity.   My holidays – as if a wild angel came reeling from the … Continue reading →

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A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

Posted on December 4, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Rain in Paris, great whorls of it spinning, falling as knotted string, strung pearls, bird’s nests,gray hair, wire barbed or not, cat gut, old paint brushes,tumbleweeds.  Clean your hairbrush, bad curtainsin strips, cloud shreds, albumen, cauldrons of bouillon, cassette ribbons, phlegm and … Continue reading →

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To Spill; a Sequin Jacket; Public Opinion

Posted on November 19, 2023 by jillbpearlman

His sequin jacket, so tight last night,scatters itself across the water. Parts always made up his whole,the reveler never believed in Absolutes;   nor did trees who say enough to a green monolith,and spangle into scarlet, rust, cranberry. Opinion these days, … Continue reading →

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Code RED

Posted on November 13, 2023 by jillbpearlman

RED.  Indelible.  Dipped in. Day-glo, night-glow leaf show. The color arborindifferent to our words –  wobbly, spanning our confusion. Words spin on the turntable of language. The mixed-use heart.All warmth and passion or is it all red fury? Red Alert – a love or war  … Continue reading →

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The Annals of Avoidance

Posted on October 30, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Days and days and days.  In a week.  So many ways to distract self.  The annals of avoidance would fill a book of the world.  What else could lure me to my closet and sort out my sock and tights, search for runs, holes, … Continue reading →

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All the Days of Awe

Posted on September 24, 2023 by jillbpearlman

The Days of Awe open on Rosh Hashanah and close on Yom Kippur. When my birthday falls on Rosh Hashanah, it gets lost in the birthday of the world; when it falls on Yom Kippur, celebrations turn sober and thin. … Continue reading →

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Wording in the Rain

Posted on September 11, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Finally it rains. Slapping and paddling the thick leaves; gliding down (d)rain pipes to be spit out onto recumbent weeds, filling puddles that I see mixed with the mesh of my screen window.  Puddles like a running woman, arms outstretched, hair … Continue reading →

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Simone Weil: Happy Beachgoer

Posted on July 24, 2023 by jillbpearlman

“The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that ships are sometimes wrecked by it.  On the contrary, this adds to its beauty,” says Simone Weil, French philosopher in a poetic mood.  She’s right: the endless surface of … Continue reading →

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70 Rotten Swans

Posted on July 2, 2023 by jillbpearlman

I am borrowing rotten swan to put at the top of my rotation list of favorite images.  It’s the British poet Alice Oswald’s concoction: In her book Falling Awake, “Swan” observes her own wondrously devolving construction as she hovers above herself.  In … Continue reading →

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Ezekiel Does Memorial Day

Posted on May 28, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Someone snapped the light switch, and suddenly it’s summer.  Suddenly people are having fun.   The question mark of an existential figure that walked the streets alone, toting laptop and phone — he’s been replaced by friends and families walking in public … Continue reading →

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