COREY MESLER

COREY MESLER has published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and Esquire/Narrative. He has published 8 novels, 4 short story collections, numerous chapbooks, and 5 full-length poetry collections. His latest novel, Memphis Movie, is from Soft Skull Press. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and 2 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife he runs a bookstore in Memphis. He can be found at https://coreymesler.wordpress.com.

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As I Fall so Falls Niagara Falls by Corey Mesler

    “Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring.”
        --Walt Whitman

​Born in Niagara Falls, 
American side,
on the edge of
two great countries: 
one vast, placid and cold,
one mean, fiery,
full of freedom and war lust.
Which is most in me?
Which blood is my blood?
I only know that at night,
when I look to the
fathomless stars, I see black
between black, light that
is weak but penetrating,
and I know that in me,
there is falling;
there is a roar, not
unlike a river of blood,
going over and over the edge.

My head was turned by Corey Mesler


​My head was turned. 
I did not see
the world change
utterly. I took
advantage of the e-
clipse to picture
you silvery and cold. 
Your eye was on
the vapor trails
of different planes. I 
walked out onto
the highway, naked
but for my cup,
and asked the first
speeding maniac for
a lift. The kind I 
had in mind was per-
manent, last and lasting,
a real spooky ending. 

Simple Pleasures by Corey Mesler

There are simple pleasures
the priests tell me
as I make my way down
the stony path to
find the water, alive, 
laughing, and delicate. There 
are thorns also. This I 
learned from the beasts of
the field. Their lessons are
more severe and
harder to decipher. I wait 
at the gate for you
and, in my hand, are the
flowers the field told me
were the finest. Coming
up the road, anticipating
my face, I see you smile and
I hold the flowers to my nose
to welcome you like the wind.