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  • Writer's pictureMarías at Sampaguitas

5 Poems by Tom Snarsky


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In a different orchard

mouse sounds flicker

below the ground, an

idea of huge music is

forged from the loose

ribbon waving around

& two ideas of failure

have it out in song—


both sing like the wind

is their friend, but only

one knows her well

enough to make their

voice ride the air, so

the mice hear/& follow



Lavender Town

You tell me a spell to get the ghosts

off my back. It works for a while.


Every laundromat in town is hidden

by signs that say closed, moved, new


location. To be warm and clean and

have time for song is a big secret.


Be careful / not to look at it too long.



Artificial Intelligence Painting

Down the April corridors we stumble,

reinventing names. The lilacs softly put.

Solfege lilting the way sadness makes you

walk, like an awkward bird in the corner

of the canvas—radiating doubt, sure, but

no ill will. When all of this darkness builds

into wind, I hope you’ll have a few stock

answers to distract them, even if only

for a moment. My heroine my heroine

my little blue light. A soft rain interrupts

the grazing. No record of it anywhere.




I Was Going To Burn Some Sage For The People Of This World But Then I Read An Article On The Internet Saying It Was A Bad Idea

Also I didn’t have any sage

To burn

Doing nothing is always easier

Ask the cop in the graveyard

Or the teacher who

Every day

Parks her car in front of legions

Of Massachusetts dead

And then goes to work teaching

Students about the history

Of witches thieves

And revolutionaries




Hydration Improves Your Credit Score and Your Love Life

after Asheville high school students

after Hanif Abdurraqib


When I die please let mushrooms

grow in my mouth, or wherever

The truth is like a deer bc it’s scared

You search the immaculate grass

and find one dirty pearl, some trash

Zero four-leaf clovers

Nothin’ but net on this diaper shot

taken from eighth court—

The angle alone makes it kinda impressive





Tom Snarsky teaches mathematics at Malden High School in Malden, Massachusetts, USA. He is the author of Threshold, a chapbook of poems available now from Another New Calligraphy. He tweets @TomSnarsky and lives in Chelsea, MA with his fiancée Kristi and their two cats, Niles and Daphne.

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