THE NEW YORKER SPARROW PROJECT:
SAMPLE POEMS FROM THE MAINSTREAM POETS
Sparrow
The morning is littered with people
bumping against each other
like boats in the marina. I notice them
as I discard my jury duty questionnaire
in the business improvement district's
thoughtfully-provided green can.
Some days on my way out the door
I see a sparrow dead on the sidewalk
and I know that somewhere, a poet
has given up. Today
a white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
urethra, and begins to sing.
Sparrow
The penis hurtles like an acrobat
Across the off-white expanse of text,
Determined prong inured to caveat,
Untrammeled, bellicose, and oversexed;
Legions without in ardent reverence gaze,
The brilliant condescending to the clever,
As bureaucrat to adept harps in praise:
"This cat's circumsized johnson goes on forever!"
But anything goes home with everything
When nothing has the coatroom to itself:
I am the common multinational elf
Whose president failed all the spelling tests,
And today a white-breasted nuthatch nests
In my urethra and begins to sing.
The Ballad of Thrasher the Handsome Adult
With a length of 6
inches, i seek haven at your Sugartree Inn in Vermont.
THRASHER is an inquisitive,
acrobatic HANDSOME ADULT, pausing occasionally to hammer at a crack--
Do you know where your
children are? My all-time favorite kitchen accessory is a delightful ...[sic]
Found a recessive mutation called "tinny yank-yank"
This cake is more of a confection than a cake: it is a
free encyclopedia.
A white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
urethra, and begins to sing.
Sparrow
Sparrow
I was so hungry that I started eating C++,
And when without the slices kindling in the inkpot new,
The clothes became a gossamer Mormon duckling
Responding to the lack of pizza on the chicken lawn,
They freaked till dawn with no mutability until a fine distraction grew.
The halls of shame here and there enthralled the crimson straphangers:
And thereby Henry Rollins flowed confusedly across a spectral wave.
Did you just call my buttocks a Chia Pet?
There is a careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild legality,
To ask the would-be clients if they
Would be finished with the vegen sandwiches any time soon,
Does more bewitch me than a baby tree frog.
Today a white-breasted nuthatch nests
In my urethra and begins to sing.
The Nuthatch
As a child I thought Nuthatch was pronounced
"nuh*THATCH," the second syllable hit hard
as though one might find him stamping
on one's grassy, unkempt roof. In the 80s
a friend corrected my pronunciation: "Nut Hatch."
God, what a letdown.
For twenty years I've lived with this knowledge. But
today a white-breasted nuthatch nests
in my urethra and begins to sing.
Sparrow
Often I return
to a management compensation package:
we lie together gazing up at the spackled ceilings,
wan mirror of ourselves.
Each month brings its flaccid enchantments
around like a dim sum cart. We choose
among absences, forgotten rooms
in an underused vacation home.
Today's colonoscopy went swimmingly,
I think. First I saw inside myself,
then a snow hove off the eaves.
A white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
urethra, and begins to sing.
Sparrow
The Tree Swallows occupying this nesting box
have been banded together to form
a national organization in the goal
of neighborhood revitalization. Nest-Box Cam
provides a "Truman Show" for bird lovers.
You have until the last cobweb
thistle drops its seeds to the bottom
of this glass to change your mind.
To lay on his firm believer in
this approach, he scratches the five areas.
Billy is inside the sparrow
carrying a yellow scratch ticket.
A white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
Urethra, and begins to sing.
A Half-Dozen Ways of Looking for a Nuthatch
There is nothing more dangerous
than a bad idea.
A tight-breasted nuthatch
rests on my glans,
and begins to sting.
Time: what is it? To physicists,
defined by quantum mechanics.
Eternal Lenox dinnerware,
compare prices
winter greetings nuthatch plate
There is nothing more dangerous
than previously thought.
A white-breasted nuthatch
nests in my urethra,
and begins to sing.
And contributions from three special Mainstream guests!!!
Louis Cabri
917 Sparrows
Beautiful Devon, and Plymouth's Barbican! 917
elizabethan era 893 elizabethan
439 elizabethan age 430 elizabethan theatre
370 elizabethan times 297 elizabethan foo-
d 286 elizabethan costume 277 elizabethan
theater 238 elizabethan clothing 168 elizabethan
architecture 153 elizabethan music 135 elizabethan
fashion 110 elizabethan dress 77 elizabethan life
73 elizabethan medicine 69 elizabethan enter-
tainment 64 elizabethan drama 61 eliza-
bethan art 54 elizabethan society 49 elizabethan lon-
don 49 elizabethan woman 47 elizabethan ac-
tor 45 elizabethan language 43 elizabethan times
1500’s 42 elizabethan literature 41 elizabethan mar-
riage 40 elizabethan wedding 37 elizabethan game
37 elizabethan poetry 35 the elizabethan era
34 elizabethan religion 33 elizabethan daily
life 33 the elizabethan age
33 elizabethan english 32 A white-breasted nuthatch
nests in my urethra, and begins to sing!
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Sparrow
We busted a new song out of our urethras
With Words made using home row and top row letters.
Reproductive organs, male, feline, lateral.
like spit or tears or menstrual fluids from my anus.
The sparrow thought it was the end
Due to American kestrels, or "sparrow
hawks," to help control starling, blackbird and sparrow numbers
The crystal would be used
to cut into the underside of the penis
Connected to the kidneys by two ureters
He is represented riding on a sparrow, and he holds in his hand a bow.
A "Kitten Opening"
in her abdominal wall
A white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
urethra, and begins to sing.
Sparrow
Listen to a recording of a House Sparrow
From the Library of Natural Sounds. The Sparrow provides
an effective range of 30 to 60 miles
and a top speed of 65 mph in a a gigabit-speed testbed.
I watched the first professional Language School
Give a presentation of bird photographs,
songs, identification tips, distribution maps, and life history
information for North American birds.
If we eat like a bird—immense amounts of food—and lose weight
so close to getting the new AC
Sparrow is a radar-guided air-to-air missile
This Wisconsin-based nursery sells peonies, daylillies, irises.
A white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
urethra, and begins to sing.
Stephanie Young
Sparrow
It all begins. It all
begins with the Expos at the Braves on the Deuce. Down by the river
the frogs--and Seth begins to blow the stars away.
Every morning begins with a nice cup of green tea.
Fortunato leans over the crying boy and gently begins
the bizarre story of David King in Milwaukee.
My rule of thumb, so to speak,
is that when you can see through your skin
as it begins mingling with strands of steam
ascending from my skin, then
all is a fish that comes to my net.
Horrid poem begins here.These monsters can swim
and lodge themselves with quill-like witticisms into each conversation.
They stand there, awestruck, in Vegas
they scribble on clipboards
and the butt sniffing begins. Lightning flashes—Suzanne says
"I will start my own promotion company
Goddamn near excretin' ju-ju."
This begins with separation from the group.
Human magic fails
in the face of a person who develops powerful guilt trips,
loss of Jeffy, loss of innocence, but then
the clouds lift and the sun burns through.
2nd fall quarter begins.
A white-breasted nuthatch nests in my
urethra, and begins to sing.
