Douglas Piccinnini

Some of Douglas Piccinnini's recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Amsterdam Review, Brooklyn Rail, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Lana Turner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Tilted House, Tupelo Quarterly, and Volt. He recently received a 2025 Finalist Award from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and am the author of Beautiful, Safe & Free (New Books, 2023), Blood Oboe (Omnidawn, 2015) and Story Book: a novella (The Cultural Society, 2015), as well as numerous chapbooks, including A Western Sky (Greying Ghost, 2022) and Does This World Want Me To Have Problems (Subpress, 2024).

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What Was It You Wanted?

word for coming down off the cross

word for climbing back up

word for both hands in your mouth

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from a salary of meaning

from a blood-splotched egg

from a green congesting

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all day, once again, I stand hammering

a thought in elegiac blue

I to hope to hope to hope to hope to

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This Isn’t For You

to thicken the air above your head

and hear then, the song of: sorry, you’re mistaken

as one note sung and sung to stitch melody

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the blue flavor scratching behind a thin wall

the dark blue hell of sour dawn

the whipped whiteblue sea facing sky

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blue-gold finding a chord in some tangy musk

burning up the breeze, burning old flame, burn higher–

higher so that touching empty is touching you

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To Feed The Sun

what is happening beyond beyond

the blanket feed of everything beyond

just to peek at the not-yet-you beyond

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and be among a deepening blue-green,

and drink from a scalding pink

wave upon discharged wave

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tomorrow’s hand feels the string descending

tomorrow’s hand plays the string, plays the string

tomorrow that colorful spring tomorrow

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