Our Response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

As a precaution to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and care for our community, Just Buffalo Literary Center has postponed a number of events, and we will follow the guidance of Buffalo Public Schools in terms of Just Buffalo Writing Center programming.

Learn More

excerpts from ANTIKYTHERA by Thom Eichelberger-Young

Generator I mean a crystal wrapped it
in wire there are four they are there in
the blue room all that is left of the big
dreams of our generation are letters:::
J & M: the meaning is salad & such—
is unnecessary beyond the felt touch
Why is she gray? The child is asking
She is not gray. A long time ago photos
had no color to them.
Santaland melts
away in golden puddles & this street
is being newly paved — asphalt death
odor Nox Ion Gatekeeper of obits &:
The bird on the concrete ≠ metaphor
is not even bird is something else


Good morning Goodbye I love you
The window is now a black horizon
memory loss tracked integrity in-out:
what is outside is what is inside
When: the sound matrix forces
re-memory— car rides & mix tapes &
If you cannot be a person of integrity
w/ everything you have unsustainable
The hand waving The drunker body
The arc of the guitar electronically
awash You look out the window, you
remember you remember C— & you
are just holding a cat in your arms &
yesterday I can tell you: hard rains
blew in swiftly They hammered into
glass
& does this amount to engaging
but technically valueless poetry?
Cities in the sky tell us we must make
each and every 1: of our own heavens

About the Poet

Thom Eichelberger-Young

Thom Eichelberger-Young (T E-Y) is an artist, publisher, editor, and mental health caregiver living in Buffalo, New York. Their work includes the books BESPOKE (Saint Andrews University Press, 2019), and TUPELO IS A GENUS OF DECIDUOUS TREE (Blue Bag Press, 2024), and the full-length book ANTIKYTHERA published this month by Antiphony Press.

Eichelberger-Young operates Blue Bag Press. Their work can be found on Instagram @bluebagpress or bluebagpress.squarespace.com. This work is excerpted from a longer project tentatively titled THE PANELS.

The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.