~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of June 2026 ~
Tag: George Franklin
Four Poems by George Franklin
Getting Away
The Long Trail up Vermont was all
Tree roots and mud. I had a raincoat,
A monk’s cowl made from plastic
The color of bricks. It covered
Everything, my backpack, legs,
Hair soaked with sweat, windblown
Rain. I was carrying too much weight.
The cans of tuna went first, the eggs
In their blue carton. Pasta and graham
Crackers didn’t weigh much. At night,
I used my flashlight for reading,
The Mayor of Casterbridge and
The Duino Elegies, both chosen
Almost at random—in the morning,
Oatmeal, instant coffee mixed with
Powdered milk and sugar. The shelters
Smelled of mice droppings and woodsmoke.
When I walked, I just looked at the ground,
Where to put my right boot, my left. I
Didn’t think about the apartment in
Cambridge, those fights that I never
Remembered afterwards, the uncertainty
About who I wanted to be, the shame that
Nothing mattered enough to claim me.
Outside of Bennington, there were stone
Steps leading down a mountain, one
Of those green hills ridging their way
Toward Canada. I hitchhiked into town
For dinner and a shower, then took out
All the stuff I’d brought along, extra
Clothes, camping gear, parmesan cheese—
Threw away whatever I didn’t need.
*
Columbus Avenue
I don’t know why I didn’t recognize it
Sooner, that vague shape made up of
All the lives I could have had and
Didn’t choose and the one I did choose—
All asking for me to remember them.
In Manhattan, there were sidewalks
Where I passed couples having lunch
In the old Cuban-Chinese restaurants,
Banana omelets and avocados, wonton
Soup with corn, café con leche and flan.
I was walking back to work near
Lincoln Center, teaching Whitman and
Christina Rossetti to students retired
From years of hard labor in department
Stores and the garment district—their
Pasts overstuffed suitcases, cities
In Europe before the war, photographs
Of boys in buttoned suits, girls
In white dresses standing next
To their mothers, books in Hungarian
Or Polish. There was nothing I could
Teach them about poetry. Each
Was an epic, an Odyssey, but one
Where Odysseus never makes it
Back to Ithaca. He spends his life
In a foreign city where no one
Recognizes him. He eats Cuban-
Chinese congee instead of Greek
Avgolemono or a sheep roasted
On a spit and dreams in English
With a New York accent. Home
Was in poems they would probably
Never write. The epics wouldn’t
Be finished because that wasn’t
Something I knew how to teach.
I watched ballet dancers walk
Out of the studios in mid-afternoon
Sunlight, priests and priestesses of
A religion of the body, of movement—
There was a famous choreographer
Who limped badly, an old injury,
While the Chagall murals windowed
At the Met hung like a blue sky
Above tragedy. That was all forty
Years ago. Now, Cuban-Chinese places
Are returning to Manhattan—I saw
One on Amsterdam the other day. I don’t
Know what happened to my students, but
I doubt any are still alive. I divorced,
Married, and divorced again. Only
Christina Rossetti still sits in her room,
Writing, her heart breaking for a little love,
And patient Whitman still watches from
Brooklyn Ferry.
*
When We First Met
When we first met, there was a café
Down the block from your building where I’d
Wait for you, drink coffee, then drink more,
And try to understand what love meant,
What we wanted when we kissed and held
Each other beneath the quilt in your
Bedroom, the light from the street slipping
Between your curtains, and our faces
Slowly growing visible, outlined
By pillows and desire. I’d drift off
Thinking about it, your white shoulder
Illuminated for a second
By that line of dim light, my lips pressed
Hard against your back. What I wanted
Then I couldn’t name, and I still can’t
Name. Desire is always incomplete—
It can’t be satisfied by skin pressed
To skin, by the body’s exhaustion.
I wanted to make you part of me,
Be part of you as well. I wanted
To disappear in you, utterly,
Then return as someone different,
Changed by you in a way I couldn’t
Change myself, become someone unknown
To me. Our lives before unravel,
A ball of string in a labyrinth,
A flash of light crossing the night sky.
They’re of no help to us. Whoever
We were with other people is not
Who we are now, knowing that hearts stop,
That bodies grow cold, insensible,
That we have this time and no other.
Or maybe we’ve been changed by desire
Itself, maybe desire is its own
Object, something we can’t express but
Can become. Tomorrow night, I’ll grill
Some fish and potatoes and green beans.
I’ll pick you up at the train station,
And I’ll sit in the car the way I
Used to sit in that café, thinking
About words we say to each other,
The warmth of your hand against my cheek.
*
After a Rain
For Nathan Horowitz
It’s been raining all day, and now I’m tired.
I want to brush my teeth and stretch beneath
Dry, smooth sheets. The dog is sleeping
On his back on the couch I bought on sale
At Costco—an ugly, off-white color with nibs
That scratch at any exposed skin. But the dog
Loves it. I understand, sort of. There are old
Sweaters that make me feel good. I relax
When my shoulders slip into place, and my
Elbows bend the fabric exactly where
They should. I talked this evening with friends
From Maryland and New Mexico, New Hampshire
And Canada. No one feels relaxed or happy
With how their lives are slipping into place. We’re
All older—most protested Vietnam or the war
Reagan planned for Nicaragua and could only
Carry out in secret. The country then was less
“Compliant” and less used to … what?
Paramilitaries shooting our neighbors? One
Friend described poetry as “urgent thought”
And said that thought generates its own music.
I hope that’s true, but I’m afraid my urgency,
If not my thought, is lost in disappointment.
I was naïve, for sure. I wouldn’t have
Admitted it, but I believed in that “arc of history”
That “bends toward justice.” Now, every news
Website says the opposite. This afternoon, I read
Shelley for reassurance, not that everything would
Turn out well, but that we could still respond.
George III was certainly mad—forget his porphyria.
He probably thought the massacre of farmers
At Manchester was fit and just punishment for
Complaining. Somewhere, a prince-regent waits
For his cue. I wake the dog and take him for
A walk before I go to bed. The houses are
Dark. Worries about wars and presidents
Are not visible, and the next election is
Months away. In an apartment high rise
Across the street, someone is standing on
A balcony looking out. From up there, he—
I think it’s a man—can see the lights
Of the shopping center and the YMCA.
From up there, everything must look
Almost normal.
*
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including the recent A Man Made of Stories, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in ONE ART, storySouth, The High Window, Solstice, Nimrod, Rattle, and New Ohio Review, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day.
Two Poems by George Franklin
On a Wet Night in Mar-a-Lago
On a wet night in Mar-a-Lago, the lights of cars
In the parking lot are washed clean by the rain.
The valets dodge dark puddles, as they run,
Keys in hand, toward two Bentleys—the white one
Or the black? It doesn’t take long. The clouds
Line up above the beach, reflect suburban light.
The tables in the dining room will empty out
Before long: half-eaten chocolate cake carried
By servers back to the kitchen, coffee cups with
Lipstick smudges, oversized brandy snifters,
Tablecloths and napkins stained with brown au jus.
The President had stopped by for a while, as predicted.
Someone says his wife is at the apartment in New York,
And his sons are hunting large animals again in Africa.
The daughters are simply elsewhere. After the guests,
Deflated by the evening’s end, have drifted to their
Rooms or driven away to whatever follows, he
Returns, a slouching figure in slippers, without a tie.
There are no photographers, and he avoids mirrors—
The secret service follows discreetly. It’s easy to forget
They exist, but he wants to be alone in that bathroom
Where they’d kept the bankers’ boxes of papers before
The raid that hadn’t hurt him. Nothing can hurt him.
He arranges himself on the toilet, a place to sit where
No one will ask him if he needs anything. His ankles
Are swollen, red. He doesn’t look at them. The floor
Seems slightly uneven where the boxes were piled.
He takes some papers out of his jacket and reads a little.
His head nods forward, and he bites his tongue. After
An hour, secret service knocks quietly, asks if he needs
Anything. He doesn’t. He won’t. There’s a cold Coca-Cola
In his bedroom. The agents hear him open the can.
Outside, the sky has cleared, and the winter constellations
Turn to the west. The moon has already set. Between
The stars, the blackness goes on forever.
*
Graffiti
The Romans left it in Egypt, the Americans in Italy,
Tagging stone walls or the side of a tomb. There
Must be a need to leave your name displayed
Prominently, so that it’s still there when you’re not—
A few letters, symbols, a design, something
To stand for a body that ate dinner, caught a cold,
Made love, broke the rules, was punished and
Broke the rules again. The legions stayed for a while,
Then moved to Spain or Britain, or the forests
In Gaul. Caesar wrote histories and made
History. Kilroy was anonymous, peering over
A line meant to be a wall, his balloon-like nose
And bald head visible as literature but just as
Likely to be washed away by rain, wind, or a bucket
Of water and soap. All the legionnaires died, one way
Or another. So did Caesar, butchered like
A spring lamb in the Senate. He divided Gaul into three
Parts on a scroll of papyrus and knew most of what
There was to know about fighting battles. It didn’t
Matter. The spray-painted tag on the expressway
Overpass will be gone by summer.
*
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including the recent A Man Made of Stories, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in The High Window, ONE ART, Solstice, Nimrod, Rattle, New Ohio Review, and storySouth, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day.
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2026
~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2026 ~
What You Were Saying by George Franklin
What You Were Saying
If the world should end while we are on one of our walks,
I won’t complain or use my last minutes to imagine
All the places we could have traveled or all the things
I wanted us to do together. Instead, I would sit
On the pavement or lie back on the grass, and as the sky
Burst into white and red and orange, I would take
Your hand and tell you I could not have wanted
A better life than the one I’ve had by your side.
And if the dog should be with us, frightened by the noise
Of exploding stars, I’d unhook his lead so he could
Chase a cat or some ducks one last time before
The ground opens beneath his paws and we stare at him
Falling helplessly into eternity, which is the same
As nothingness or the past that no longer has meaning.
If the world should end when you and I are talking,
Remembering a Borges short story or a poem
By Thomas Hardy, I promise you our conversation
Will still have mattered. Our words, even if cut off
Mid-sentence, will hang there in our ears, more intensely
Than any declaration of love. The parking garage
At the mall will collapse, just like the new supermarket
Across the street. The ocean will rush back into the canal,
And airplanes will dive toward the earth like meteorites
Cast down from the stars. It will be an ending without
Angels or trumpets, without prophets or evil kings.
Just fate, petty, nitpicking fate, inexorable as arithmetic
Or the end of vacation. Poor, thoughtless fate,
Rolling across the green felt of the billiard table
As palm trees burst into flame. If the world
Should end during one of our walks, perhaps
In late spring when bougainvillea is blooming
By the sidewalk, and bleeding heart vine
Flowers red and purple, I would not look at either.
I would only look in your direction. Quick, mi amor,
Finish what you were telling me about Borges.
*
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including the recent A Man Made of Stories, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in The High Window, One Art, Solstice, Nimrod, Rattle, New Ohio Review, and storySouth, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day.
Two Poems by George Franklin
Talking to Myself
It’s 9 p.m. I’m taking the dog
For an evening walk, up by the mall,
Then following the canal. The moon
Won’t rise till later, and the clouds streak
Like white chalk against an enormous
Black sky. This is one of the first nights
Of autumn. There’s a breeze, and my shirt
Isn’t sticking to my back. I should
Feel happy. I could be walking on
A sidewalk in Barcelona or
Madrid, Mexico City, Paris,
Or Bogotá—the air would touch
My face the same way. The headlights of
Cars would sweep across the darkened trees
In those cities just as they do here,
The car radios releasing a
Few notes of music before the night
Swallows them. I watch the red taillights
Until they disappear and think of
The things I could’ve done and didn’t,
The places I could have lived and been
A different person, worn a hat
Like my father’s—I wrote a poem
About that once, the gray fedora
He’d put on to go to the office.
I found it in his closet when he
Died. It smelled of hair tonic and sweat.
It’s sad how we leave these things behind.
They’re the poems everybody writes
And forgets about. They line the shelves
Of thrift shops, then reincarnated
Into other lives, start all over.
It’s strange to think that someone else wore
My father’s hat, that someone else’s
Fingers lifted it by the crown,
Tried it on, and pulled down the soft brim.
My closet is full of stuff like that,
Shirts Ximena gave me, my jacket
That reminds me of Spain, blue jeans, and
Shoes with worn-down heels, missing laces,
So many things that go unnoticed.
The dog has spotted a yogurt cup
In the grass and is fascinated.
I pull him away, and we walk down
The hill to the street and the narrow
Sidewalk we follow on our way home.
*
Raphael’s Skull
The smooth, white skull on Goethe’s desk
Did not, as he thought, belong to Raphael.
It was the skull of a man with a brain disorder.
The salesman must have lied. Who knows
The posthumous destiny of bones? Donne’s
Lovers buried together, he imagined dug up
To make room for one more recently dead
And hoped they’d be spared disturbance.
They probably weren’t.
I look at the paintings
On my wall and think about the previous
Owners, how the portraits’ expressions
Never changed, no matter the scenes they
Saw and didn’t reflect, the seductions,
The arguments, how my grandfather fell
To the rug, his heart pausing unexpectedly,
How we ran for the small oxygen tank
And put the mask over his face—or the vases
That came from China by ship, crated,
Wrapped in paper, print that no one here
Could understand, and the books waiting
On my own shelves, impatiently I suppose,
Especially the ones that have gone unread.
My grandfather kept a fine-edged knife
For cutting the pages, thick ivory paper
With firm bindings. Southern humidity
And gas heat turned those bindings dry
And brittle. I mostly bought paperbacks
That yellowed within a decade or two.
Some had cost a quarter each from remainder
Tables, bookstore basements in Cambridge
Or New York. In Canto LXXXI, Pound
Remembers when “books cost a peseta,
Brass candlesticks in proportion.”
My parents lit candles at dinner on
Friday nights and recited a blessing.
I don’t remember if the candlesticks
Were brass. The past is an ossuary
Of broken things, books in dumpsters
Covered by garbage from restaurants,
Sauce gone rancid, debris from construction,
Demolition, copper pipes ripped out, taken
For scrap, luggage no longer fit to travel.
When my father died, we had an estate sale.
A pocketknife sold for a dollar, and his
Shirts fifty cents each. The dining room
Table and chairs, the blue sofa, the marble-
Topped table in the living room—they were
All gone by noon, and at six o’clock,
A man arrived with a truck to make an
Offer on everything else. I kept all sorts
Of things I should have left, porcelain
Plates—themselves made from bones
And white clay—fluted glasses, a pocket
Watch, and a soup tureen. All here to remind
Of things that aren’t.
*
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including A Man Made of Stories, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in Nimrod, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, ONE ART, and New Ohio Review, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day.
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of November 2025
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of November 2025
How to Construct a Soul by George Franklin
How to Construct a Soul
First, you buy the kit from Target or Amazon.
I heard that Costco has them as well, and they
May be a little cheaper. There are people who
Say they all start out the same. I don’t know.
Mine looked like a hummingbird, and a friend
Told me his had blue feathers and a black beak.
There are even online discussion groups about
Ones with fur. Some of them are hard and
Shiny like volcanic rock—they may not
Have been shiny at the beginning though.
Most of it is what you do with them, the time
And care you put in, carving, combing,
Polishing. It’s not something everybody’s
Comfortable with, but it’s important to read
The instructions. Otherwise, you could make
A real mess of it. Let’s say you have one of
Them that’s part of a set. It’s not easy to figure
Out where the other could be. There are stories
About builders who travel as far as South Asia
Or Africa, just hoping to find it waiting for them,
Maybe in the gift shop of a museum, or in
A marketplace, hiding behind a stack of handknit
Rugs or a display of Turkish chess pieces. I try
Not to think how disappointed they must be
If it doesn’t happen. Whatever you start out with,
You’ve got to manage your expectations.
Start slow. Begin by holding your new soul in
Cupped hands. Don’t be surprised if you shake
A little. Let it get used to you, the warmth of
Your palms and fingers. When it trusts you, it
May let you start to groom it, smooth the sharp
Edges, give it small treats—understand, some
Will refuse food entirely. Those require extra
Patience. Others will make soft whining sounds.
Speak in a low voice and comfort them
Until they fall asleep. Sometimes, music helps,
Or you can show them paintings of landscapes—
Trees and green hillsides, cattle, sheep, maybe
A stream, silver brushstrokes on top of blue.
Building a soul isn’t a project to fill a dull
Afternoon. Realize, you’re going to be at this
For however long it takes, and you can’t
Hurry it up or force a soul to be anything
Other than what it is. Don’t expect it to look
Like the picture on the box.
*
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including A Man Made of Stories, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in Nimrod, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, One Art, and New Ohio Review, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day.
~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of September 2024 ~
~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of September 2024 ~
Three Poems by George Franklin
Dog Years
Tomorrow, I’ll get up early to drive
The dog to the vet. He’s having the rest
Of his teeth removed. They’re decayed,
And he gets gum infections. He bleeds
From his mouth, and his breath smells like
Something that’s been dead for a while.
There’s a hernia too—none of it’s good.
Ximena asked what he’ll eat afterwards.
I told her “The same food. Dogs don’t
Really chew; they mostly swallow.”
This one, named after Joseph Brodsky, is
Nine years old, which for a collie is getting
Up there. The collie who slept in my
Room when I was growing up—or slept in
My parents’ room—only lived to be twelve.
I was away at a high-school debate workshop
When they called me to say they’d had him
“Put down.” I was speaking from a wooden
Phone booth at a college in Texas, and I
Remember the grain of the wood. We have
Lots of euphemisms about killing dogs. I
Think I hate every one of them. When the vet
Gave my doberman an injection that stopped
His heart, I was still young enough not to
Imagine myself like him, unable to walk,
A cancer growing down my spine. Now, it’s
All too easy to picture: the cold metal of
A raised examination table, the professionally
Sad look of the veterinarian as her syringe
Empties into my vein, maybe the distant
Sound of somebody crying, a receptionist
Mumbling under her breath, something
About the “rainbow bridge.”
*
Barcelona
Down the street, a dog is barking, and pigeons
Coo in reply, a low trill that celebrates the end
Of daylight, mares’ tails floating in from
The Mediterranean. Perhaps, in Mallorca,
A different set of pigeons are making the same
Sound, and a different dog is barking to be let inside.
Perhaps, the mares’ tails have floated there as well.
The courtyard is quiet this evening. A few voices,
But no one has started cooking dinner. I told
Ximena that we travel in the hope it will make us
Different, but I’m a bad tourist. Our friend Eduard
Showed us all the markets, the Hebrew inscription
In the Gothic Quarter, the recycled blocks of stone
From the Jewish graves on Montjuïc, the Roman walls
Of the old city, stone fountains empty from the drought.
In a narrow walkway in Raval, we passed
Bored prostitutes and junkies sniffing powder
Off the back of their hands. My feet and knees hurt
From walking, but I haven’t changed. We saw
The square that was bombed by Mussolini’s air force,
The shrapnel-torn walls, and the walls where
The ones who weren’t fascists stood to be shot.
Some of the bullet holes were too high, and
I wondered if one of the executioners had
A bad conscience and fired above the skulls
Of his targets. I want to think so, but I’m not
Sentimental enough to believe it. In one of
The apartments, an air conditioner or a washing
Machine has stopped, and it’s even quieter
Than before. Somewhere, water is draining
Down a pipe. Eduard also showed us the spot
On Rambla del Raval where a terrorist
Rammed his rented van into a crowd.
The van stopped on top of a Miró mosaic.
A few meters away, there’s a Botero sculpture
Of a cat. Still, I’m a bad tourist. I don’t know
What to make of what I see. The same dog
Continues to bark, and someone has put on
Some music I can barely hear. The sun has
Slipped behind the mountains.
*
There Was a Pine Tree
If I have faith, it’s that the world is sayable,
That I can find words for what I didn’t think could be said.
The weight of a stone fountain filled with clear water,
The sunlight that plunges through vacant clouds,
Thoughts that are just images, faces, words spoken
Without meaning, the way one room in a dream becomes
Another, how it resembles the room I slept in at my
Grandfather’s house, the deep red of the bricks,
The solidity of the white front door. There was a pine tree
In the front yard, and the sap thickened and dried
Between the shapeless tiles of bark, the smell of resin
That was left on my fingers, the infinity of acorns from
The live oak, the trunk that was older than anyone living
Who was not a tree. When my grandfather died, I didn’t
Know what to believe. When my parents died
Thirty years later, it wasn’t much different. I don’t have
The talent for belief. Their voices only come to me
In snippets, in crumbling pieces of tree bark, in the odor
Of pine or the feel of acorns rolling in my hand.
*
George Franklin is the author of seven poetry collections, including What the Angel Saw, What the Saint Refused, forthcoming this month from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Individual poems have been published in SoFloPoJo, Another Chicago Magazine, Rattle, The Banyan Review, New York Quarterly, and Cultural Daily. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry workshops in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day. In 2023, he was the first prize winner of the W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize. His website: gsfranklin.com.