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joy like a thorn, motive stripped to speed,
dreams of fall & pause & ache & fling
& sob, breasting up the tide of winds,
a tiny stinging heart thrust through the rain,
red as a star & hot as the spar of a blade
& ravenous as a stone slung stung & true
as the press of a pulse, gulp & strain & swoon,
grateful for the great of the air, its heat
& hurry, its height & heft, dreams of greed
for forthward, blood & breath shot sheer
till breath is needless, blood the same as air,
thought this thoughtless arc, this vault & veer,
heartless, perfect, perilous, unaware.
Nicholas Laughlin was born and lives in Trinidad. He is the editor of The Caribbean Review of Books.
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Poetry
in your carpeted office you lay my life down / and say open up to that small room in my sternum.
In his new book, the former Fed chair cuts through economic orthodoxy on central banking. But he fails to reckon deeply with its political consequences.
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