Self of Steam

J. Allyn Rosser

         mondegreen from a student paper

When thoughts stack up like cinderblock
unfurl your self of steam
which rises over grit and gray and rockand climbs with rolling waft the slope
of hopelessness you seem
bound to languish on. Inhale, arise, elopewith this twin self. When gate and lock
keep out the warming dream
and echo as they slam and bolt, and mockyour cache of ifs till you can’t even cope
with whens, your self of steam
is there to lift your heart and gropethrough silty, disbelief-encrusted mire
and, loosening your fibers, ream
the long-clogged conduits of pure desire.Open your windows, let in the mists
of uncertainty. Unbend the beam
of light of all you know of what exists,bemused, unpent, bestride your self of steam!

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J. Allyn Rosser’s collection of poems, Mimi’s Trapeze, appeared in 2014 from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She teaches at Ohio University.

The Hudson Review

Winter 2018

New York, New York

Editor
Paula Deitz

Founding Editor
Frederick Morgan (1922-2004)

Managing Editor
Ronald Koury

Associate Editor
Zachary Wood

Assistant Editor
Eileen Talone

Founded in 1948, The Hudson Review is a quarterly magazine of literature and the arts published in New York City. Frederick Morgan, one of its founding editors, edited the magazine for its first fifty years. Paula Deitz has been the editor since 1998.

Since its beginning, the magazine has dealt with the area where literature bears on the intellectual life of the time and on diverse aspects of American culture. It has no university affiliation and is not committed to any narrow academic aim or to any particular political perspective. The magazine serves as a major forum for the work of new writers and for the exploration of new developments in literature and the arts. It has a distinguished record of publishing little-known or undiscovered writers, many of whom have become major literary figures. Each issue contains a wide range of material including: poetry, fiction, essays on literary and cultural topics, book reviews, reports from abroad, and chronicles covering film, theatre, dance, music and art. The Hudson Review is distributed in twenty-five countries.

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