https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
http://offcourse.org
ISSN 1556-4975
A journal for poetry, criticism, reviews, stories and essays published by Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg since 1998.
Four Poems by Christopher Mulrooney.
a broken record
we should rather have been shuttled endlessly
like Herzog’s steamer back into the river channel not to sea
railroad station
there is the voice
the progress along the tracks inside
and then the outer view the city
something left for the land
Frost’s land not cheated of its spectacle
and then another entertainment on
that yields to city life and indoor tracks
the voice again and what the door opens onto
sunlight and the life of men the world
a university application
feelers rubber baby buggy bumpers codeine and frazzled friends
the life of discourse ragged feelings sifted evidence cold fag ends
toiletries
these are all the articles you need
a Spanish argosy an Arab trading vessel
full of magazine
sleek of sail
pausing to hail
some travelers green
with cooling ointments from the sun
and whale oil for the limberlost
mascara for the eyes of women and then
sympathetic pomade for the men
Christopher Mulrooney is the author of symphony (The Moon Publishing & Printing), flotilla (Ood Press), viceroy (Kind of a Hurricane Press), and jamboree (Turf Lane Press, forthcoming). His work has recently appeared in West Wind Review, Zettel, Indefinite Space, California Quarterly, The Southampton Review, Soliloquies, Inscape, and Meat for Tea: The Valley Review.
This is his first appearance in Offcourse.