Bob Hicok’s most recent book, Elegy Owed, will be published in the spring of 2013 by Copper Canyon Press.
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2019
Sigh
Either crickets, frogs, or Republicans will become extinct here in a few decades as temps rise. Or bees, apple trees, mosquitoes. No one knows what will go, just that the […]
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2019
After You
It’s not too late to schlep water in a bucket to your sink. Eat only the potatoes and carrots you can grow. Make your own clothes from hemp and clouds. […]
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2018
Sincere
People craved meth, now oxy. People are fickle bastards at the product level, though addiction itself is bankable as horse shit. Has there ever been a culture used that as […]
"Oh Abuse": Poets Regarding Pain
Jan/Feb 2016
Court of Law
The man to my right was famous. Infamous. He had tortured and was handsome. The interview shows had recently devoured his eloquence and beauty. I’d seen him the night before […]
"Oh Abuse": Poets Regarding Pain
Jan/Feb 2016
Constitutional
Your grandmother—and not just her dementia but anticipating your mother’s, your own—walking is who we talk about—away from town— in the hospital again today you miss—up hills until we can […]
Poetry
Summer 2012
Elegy owed
In other languages you are beautiful—mort, muerto—I wish I spoke moon, I wish the bottom of the ocean were sitting in that chair playing cards and noticing how famous you […]
Poetry
Summer 2009
See side
Mind as wave: whoosh. As wet. As yet thinking needs a dress to wear, what better look than sea green or sea foam, within never gets out without without, how […]
Poetry
Summer 2009
Note to self
Here: settled. This I am doing amends rend, wholes. Who finds that: the boat, the oars, can say to flood: I rise above. The best of? Don’t know, but by […]
Poetry
Autumn 2005
Quarantine
Orange Cat yowls in the next room. Fog again, the shyness of land. I'm awake, not awake, there's coffee, a split apple on the desk, I'm self-conscious, mine is a […]
Poetry
Spring 2003
Elsewhere
When we were Pangaea, maps were smaller and vacations easier. Where do you want to go? I don’t know …Pangaea. The idea that continents are restless is very American. At […]
Poetry
Spring 2003
To Err Is Humid
for D. Long ago we sat on a lake. He said Errata sounds erotic, I get excited by mistakes. Snow was falling in a lonely way, many feet between flakes. […]
Poetry
Spring 2003
Red Licorice
Turns out the universe is an accordion. I take this as vindication of the polka. If it began with the Big Bang will it end with the Big Suck? I […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
How Origami Was Invented
The last I went to confession was to whisper I like being alone. I was penanced to sing “Stayin’ Alive” one hundred times. Solitude almost tastes like grapes, of course […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
What Fine Kindling the Homeless Make
I know the importance of replication but intend no action in this regard. For instance Descartes removed the eye of an ox and scraped and lookd through the back of […]
Poetry
Winter 1998
Waiting for UPS
Now I live inside the window. Now I think the sky doesn’t have enough sky today and that all the trees have cancer and are whispering their little coughs to […]
Poetry
Winter 1995
Your Daughter
When she phones at two stammering the boyfriend’s name and the list of ingested riches, a potion of three-dollar wine, blotter and pills she calls Bullets but you remember as […]