FLYPAPER LIT
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • HISTORY
  • CONTENT
    • POETRY
    • PROSE
    • ARCHIVES
    • MUSIC
    • COLUMNS >
      • TIMEFIGHTERS & UNBELIEVERS
      • unearthly horoscopes from your dreamy, vaguely occult ghost
      • Heartworms
      • Just Sucking
    • INTERVIEWS
    • REVIEWS
  • CONTACT

2 Poems by Ruth Baumann

10/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Ruth Baumann is the author of Thornwork (Black Lawrence Press, 2020) & Parse (Black Lawrence Press, 2018). She is also the author of five chapbooks. She holds a PhD from Florida State University & an MFA from the University of Memphis.

Solace

​

Three of six in the photograph in front of me are dead, young & overdosed, but this isn’t a
poem about death, really, as much as it is about being still here. Being still here & trying to
make music from that. C tells me about Thin Places, offers a holy explanation for the way
the saltwater marshes calm me, make me either new or very old, shape me small, eternal, &
honest. I would like to hold his hand, hand him that sense of connection. I would like words
to give in the wake of all this nearby wreckage, deaths like wave crests passing by, sweeping
& startlingly irreversible. But I suspect if we get still enough, we all already know what we
need to know. I have no fresh ideas. Love is not novel. Inside me is something gentle &
honest that I give all I can to tend.




Rewiring My World

​

God’s got both eyes shut some days,
not from apathy but from wishing
her creations could be nicer
when they are bruised. I get it.
Every meditation tells me to breathe out
a few counts longer than I breathe in.
Who says imagination can’t break
like bones? God, I wish, too.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Jess Smith-
    Student Evaluations
    ​Jenny Irish- Rusalka
    ​Terri Linn David-
    For the Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits
    Darius Simpson- 2 Poems
    Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach-
    When my son says...

    Kaleigh O'Keefe- Autobiography of Joan of Arc
    Timi Sanni- In This World of Mysteries...
    Anna Attie- We Lose Her Over Facetime
    Ruth Baumann- 2 Poems
    Rob Colgate- Remember These Tulips
    Tasneem Maher- Pilgrimage
    ​Aerik Francis- Bebop
    ​Emily Blair- The best ham...
    Adrienne Novy- 2 Poems
    ​Daniel Garcia- 2 Poems
    Brendan Joyce- moving day
    ​Sanna Wani- 2 Poems
    Raphael Jenkins- 2 Poems
    Daniel Summerhill-
    2 Poems
    Ava Gripp- Your Grandfather Had Secrets
    ​stevie redwood- abolish the dead
    Ariel Clark-Semyck-
    2 Poems
    benedict nguyen- 2 Poems
    Gabrielle Grace Hogan-
    Girls Night at the Saturnine Aquarium

    Devin Kelly- 2 Poems
    Danielle P. Williams-
    Yutu 2018

    Alan Chazaro- In a Vernacular of Speculation
    Deema K. Shehabi-
    ​A Summer's Tale with Fire Birds
    Kayleb Rae Candrilli-
    2 Poems
    ​Julianne Neely- 2 Poems
    Jake Bailey- 2 Poems
    ​Fargo Tbakhi- 2 Poems
    Justin Phillip Reed-
    2 Poems

    Naomi Shihab Nye-
    2 Poems
    Keith Leonard- Jukebox
    ​CAConrad- 3 Poems
    ​Roya Marsh- for (insert name)
    ​Stephanie Kaylor- LONG DISTANCE
    Tongo Eisen Martin-
    A Sketch about Genocide

    ​Despy Boutris- BLOODTEETH
    JinJin Xu- Days of Hourless Mothers
    ​Ashley M. Jones- Flour, Milk & Salt
    Sam Herschel Wein- How To Cook Your Family
    ​Marianne Chan- 2 poems
    Jason Crawford- PReP
    Jee Leong Koh- 2 poems
    Geramee Hensley- Redundancy Limit
    Dustin Pearson- My Brother Outside the House in Hell
    DT McCrea- On occasion of my own death
    Noor Hindi- Unkept
    Lyd Havens- I only misgender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on
    ​Linda Dove- Mid-Life with Teeth
    Stephen Furlong- I Don't Know About You, but Mostly I Just Want to be Held
    Dorothy Chan- Because You Fall Too Fast Too Hard
    ​Kevin Latimer- MIRAGE
    MJ- Let me be remembered as a mother
    Taylor Byas- Rooftop Monologue
    Matt Mitchell- FINE LINE TRIPTYCH
    ​Todd Dillard- Will
    ​Heidi Seaborn- Under The Bed
    Heather Myers- A Rainbow, Just For A Minute
    Donna Vorreyer- In The Encyclopedia of Human Gestures
    Conor Bracken- THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO A MAN
    Ben Purkert- 2 Poems
    Emma Bolden- What Women's Work Is
    ​Chelsea Dingman- Lockdown Drill
    Raych Jackson- Pantoum for Derrion Albert from the Plank
    Elliot Ping- in the eighth grade
    Devin Kelly- POEM FOR MY FRIEND MATT WHO AT THIS MOMENT IS RUNNING 300 MILES ACROSS TENNESSEE​
    Kwame Opoku-Duku-
    ii. dance moves
    D.A. Powell- Sneak
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • HISTORY
  • CONTENT
    • POETRY
    • PROSE
    • ARCHIVES
    • MUSIC
    • COLUMNS >
      • TIMEFIGHTERS & UNBELIEVERS
      • unearthly horoscopes from your dreamy, vaguely occult ghost
      • Heartworms
      • Just Sucking
    • INTERVIEWS
    • REVIEWS
  • CONTACT