Maureen Thorson
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maureenthorson.bsky.social
Maureen Thorson
@maureenthorson.bsky.social
870 followers 360 following 840 posts
Poet person. Check out my new interview with Colorado Review: https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/2025/10/a-conversation-with-maureen-thorson/
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maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Don’t talk to stranglers.” A poem by D.A. Powell.
Talk to Strangers BY D. A. POWELL don't talk to stranglers when yr wasted do talk to swingers don't talk to swindlers if you can tell them apart from the strangers who are just strangers no stranger than you alone and afraid to be alone cuz they might want to touch your throat
November 14, 2025 at 2:32 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“In benediction over nun-like hills.” A poem by Claude McKay.
The Tropics in New York BY CLAUDE MCKAY Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root, Cocoa in pods and alligator pears, And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit, Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs, Set in the window, bringing memories Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills, And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies In benediction over nun-like hills. My eyes grew dimn, and I could no more gaze; A wave of longing through my body swept, And, hungry for the old, familiar ways, I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
November 13, 2025 at 2:50 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Your winding hair is different now.” A poem by Hakan Sandell, translated by Bill Coyle
Your Hair of Snakes and Flowers BY HẢKAN SANDELL, TRANSLATED BY BILL COYLE When I saw one of those men touch your hair, I heard for the first time in many a year the ancient battle trumpets and I saw the banners of an army winding off to war and felt that blind power urging me to knock him out with one punch, send him tumbling to the floor. If nobody had held me back, stopped me, I would—God help me—have killed him on the spot, stomped out his blood, and spit in it. I'm sorry, but you must be aware your winding hair is different now, a hornets' nest, a snakes' lair! Yes, like a ball of snakes in a flower basket, dear.
November 12, 2025 at 1:11 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
Many thanks to @tomsnarsky.bsky.social for selecting this little bit of Xmas mystery for publication in HAD!
November 11, 2025 at 4:42 PM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“The soul of the old dog won't leave her master.” A poem by Dean Young.
A Beginner's Guide to Endings So some mice decide to try climbing a mountain. An unexpected wedding guest leads the dance. Nothing pleases your father. A bundle of letters is found deep in a trunk. The soul of the old dog won't leave her master. The last task is to bring back a burning branch. A jug comes out of the darkness; take a swig and pass it on. The entrance is guarded by a beast that can take many forms. And this is why willow trees bend down. People say they saw worms crawling from the ground. In the courtyard, next to a beggar, an eagle drops a crown. The horse can go no further. The god has to be tricked to take the world back on his shoulder. It follows then that reality is intermittent. Goodbye mother, farewell home. And that is why the girl put on armor. And you and I have always known each other. And that is why the stars are drunkards.
November 11, 2025 at 1:32 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“I am singing sadly to the barn.” A poem by Matthew Zapruder.
SCARECROW Remember her strapped to the air, her grey dress flapping a little? The field mice ran beneath her feet learning new technologies. I don't scare anybody, she complained, smiling, a nest on her head. Which was how much I loved her, all through the harvest and dismantling. I am the morning dove who nests in the gutter. I am singing sadly to the barn.
November 10, 2025 at 1:38 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Like the skin of a tightening fist.” A poem by Monica Youn.
IGNATZ OASIS When you have left me the sky drains of color like the skin of a tightening fist. The sun commences its gold prowl batting at tinsel streamers on the electric fan. Crouching I hide in the coolness I stole from the brass rods of your bed.
November 9, 2025 at 1:44 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“The rain drums down like red ants.” A poem by Anne Sexton.
THE FURY OF RAIN STORMS The rain drums down like red ants, each bouncing off my window. These ants are in great pain and they cry out as they hit, as if their little legs were only stitched on and their heads pasted. And oh they bring to mind the grave, so humble, so willing to be beat upon with its awful lettering and the body lying underneath without an umbrella. Depression is boring, I think, and I would do better to make some soup and light up the cave.
November 8, 2025 at 1:44 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“When will I have a shiny mind?” A poem by Andrei Codrescu.
Xerox the Spirit and Be Well The outside comes in to watch itself—well, fuck it! The inside gets out. Goodbye. When will I have a shiny mind? A mind on which the balls can roll, and the trains. A mind in which the years leave tracks for some original suppleness to roll out of it like trains. Will they unearth the stations, clean up the plains? “They" go by silently and nothing, nothing is smooth, no, not when you stand sulking inside an out-of-season marigold and paw your reasons ike an angry worm as the floors sway, pushed by remote control by the military. Nothing, nothing will ever stop because under us the soil boils with psychotic illusions!
November 7, 2025 at 1:57 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“The great quiet humming of the soul at night” A poem by Frank Stanford.
In Another Room I Am Drinking Eggs from a Boot BY FRANK STANFORD Hans Richter What if the moon was essence of quinine And high heels were a time of day When certain birds bled The chauffeur is telling the cook The antler would pry into ice floes Swim with a lamp And we’d be shivering in a ditch Biting through a black wing There would be boats There would be a dream country The great quiet humming of the soul at night The only sound is a shovel Clearing a place for a mailbox
November 6, 2025 at 1:46 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“These memories won't get any bigger, will they?” A poem by Alice Fulton.
Because We Never Practiced With The Escape Chamber BY ALICE FULTON we had to read the instructions as we sank. In a hand like carded lace. Not nuclear warheads on the sea's floor nor the violet flow over the reactor will outlive this sorrouful rhyme. Vain halo! My project becalmed, I'll find I've built a monument more passing than a breeze. It will cost us, Pobrecito. We can't buy a prayer. Did you call my name or was that the floorboard wheezing? These memories won't get any bigger, will they? I think something is coming that will vastly improve our quietude. I'm growing snow crystals from vapor in anticipation and praying for the velvet-cushioned kneeler that I need to pray. I made this little sound for you to wait in.
November 5, 2025 at 2:42 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
Very happy to have been interviewed by @coloradoreview.bsky.social about my poems in their summer issue! Many thanks to Erin Peters for inviting me to talk with her. Link in my bio ❤️
November 4, 2025 at 1:40 PM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“The distressed of heart will remain here in grey droves for hours.” A poem by Charles Martin.
PROPOSAL FOR A MONUMENT OF PEARS Four pears in all, and all of them gigantic: Two in the foreground looming up, obscurely Questioning our values, giving answers In an ambiguous fashion which will surely Ofer much comfort, solace: the distressed of Heart will remain here in grey droves for hours, Until the third pear seems to them the breast of A green girl, ripening: beyond it towers The patriarch of pears—orgulous, sullen, Not to be sliced compliantly in wedges And taken as dessert with runny cheeses: Restored, the pilgrims sink upon their knees, as They see the carved words, brown around the edges, Of its simple inscription: FOR THE FALLEN
November 4, 2025 at 1:53 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“It snows on the Sierras as it does on the grave of Apollinaire.” A poem by Tom Clark.
ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT Through the night It snows on the Sierras as it does On the grave of Apollinaire in the Cemetery of Père Lachaise and on The radio I get Truck music from San Jose: “Want to make it to Amarillo by Morning. . .” “. . . just Because you ask me to." The green oak Burns weakly In the grate And as I write In the window Of the loft The light Turns blue.
November 3, 2025 at 1:08 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Where aspens quake with the old
ecclesiastical terror.” A poem by Traci Brimhall.
Inheritance The angel present at my birth is not the one who attends me now, as I deliver strange daughters I will leave in the woods for the wolves with their names written on their wrists—each born without breath or a tongue, each changeling abandoned in a thicket where aspens quake with the old ecclesiastical terror, and blackberries still red on the branch ripen into their second birth.
November 2, 2025 at 1:52 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“More than plural: the planet's darkest song.” A poem by Luke Hathaway.
Bats BY LUKE HATHAWAY They billow from a hillside in Cha’am. Together, they are more than plural: the planet's darkest song, a tongue, a serpent muscling air apart, a dire banner come unfurled, a river flowing wholly from the old, mute mountain's desperate heart, the last confession of the world. Conceive of each one singly, if you can.
November 1, 2025 at 12:19 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Patching the fabric of the larger dark” A poem by Geoffrey Brock.
WALKING THE CAT Each night I take the old dog for a walk. I put his harness on, attach the leash, and when we step outside into the dark we find the cat, a shadow in that dark, awaiting us, as always. For her, no leash, but still she'll orbit us loosely as we walk. The dog and I will take the lit sidewalk, each tethered to a body by a leash, as she roams free, a little blot of dark patching the fabric of the larger dark: under a fence, through thickets any leash would tangle in, culverts no man can walk... I listen for her faint bell as we walk and try to make my voice into a leash, pull her with cryptic words out of the dark for a brief touch, perhaps, before the dark reclaims her. The old dog strains then on his leash. Above us, the old moon on its nightly walk, the belled stars chiming faintły in their dark.
October 31, 2025 at 1:11 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Carry me out / reel me in” A poem by Kevin Young.
GUTBUCKET I want, like water, you— something wet gainst the back of my throat. Carry me out reel me in I been down this well too long—
October 30, 2025 at 12:58 AM
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“Advancing across your peripheries to grip you in pleasure.” A poem by John Godfrey.
Wings BY JOHN GODFREY I come off a little bit ventilated but you must realize the material world is constantly crumbling under my eyes it's too much for the novel tongue I speak the glitter of pavement in my brainstem, you must accommodate the polytonal grimace of the set lips becoming a smile, and you must accept the thin section of arm advancing across your peripheries to grip you in pleasure, measuring feeling in your restraint We have lived through the most furious little chunk of history for this? that we must unburden ourselves on night roof air, presuming the poise and perks of champ pigeon teams planing the evening winds until, signaled from the roof with a flag we become American birds
October 29, 2025 at 12:06 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“He picks up his life where he remembers it” A poem by H.R. Kent.
THE SPIDER WHO LIVES BY THINKING Happiest of all is the spider. The spider sleepwalks his life one day. He dances out each thought, leaving it in place. When he awakes he recalls only aches in his joints; hunger; sleep's promise always kept, new events to feed on. He picks up his life where he remembers it and follows his hunger to its logical conclusion. After eating he walks along the well-kept paths slowly, a gentleman on his constitutional, leaving the past behind him to await his return, and as he walks along, he falls asleep, keeping a finger on each memory. Little bugs, beware of his thoughts. You are the cost of his happiness.
October 28, 2025 at 12:24 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“As with anxiety so with defenses” A poem by Anne Tardos.
As with anxiety so with defenses Bolshevik tightfisted Pastiche calabash Ragamuffin.
October 26, 2025 at 11:27 PM
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“Is it possible this field is forgotten…?” A poem by Karen Fish.
FLAMES BEHIND YOUR HEAD This is where the bees and wasps spiral. Is it possible this field is forgotten, that no one has pruned these fruit trees in fifty years? The old pear trees are too tall for any ladder, the gesture of scraggly limbs gorgeous against the height of those storm clouds mettling the distance. There are the white blossoms which open the sky like rain in September, softening like all those returnings; to school, to home, to evening, to the falling backwards, murmuring green to brown—lost to sleep in the deep humming collapse of grass, the earth, a fragrant grave.
October 26, 2025 at 4:15 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Some people will call me any old name.” A poem by Han Shan, translated by J.P. Seaton.
92* I live in a village in the countryside, without a father or a mother. With no name, no rank in my clan. Some people will call me any old name. Some people call me another. No one is my teacher: I'm just a poor low creature like many another. But I know myself. I'm real, and my heart is the Diamond.
October 25, 2025 at 12:16 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Within the mind the live blood shouts aloud.” A poem by Louise Bogan.
WINTER SWAN It is a hollow garden, under the cloud; Beneath the heel a hollow earth is turned; Within the mind the live blood shouts aloud; Under the breast the willing blood is burned, Shut with the fire passed and the fire returned. But speak, you proud! Where lies the leaf-caught world once thought abiding, Now but a dry disarray and artifice? Here, to the ripple cut by the cold, drifts this Bird, the long throat bent back, and the eyes in hiding.
October 24, 2025 at 12:29 AM
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Time is a tick, a purr, a drop.” A poem by Eavan Boland.
Nocturne After a friend has gone I like the feel of it: The house at night. Everyone asleep. The way it draws in like atmosphere or evening. One-o-clock. A floral teapot and a raisin scone. A tray waits to be taken down. The landing light is off. The clock strikes. The cat comes into his own, mysterious on the stairs, a black ambivalence around the legs of button-back chairs, an insinuation to be set beside the red spoon and the salt-glazed cup. the saucer with the thick spill of tea which scalds off easily under the tap. Time is a tick, a purr, a drop. The spider on the dining-room window has fallen asleep among complexities as I will once the doors are bolted and the keys tested and the switch tumed up of the kitchen light which made outside in the back garden an electric room—a domestication of closed daisies, an architecture instant and improbable.
October 22, 2025 at 11:59 PM