Michael Ruby

Michael Ruby

Michael Ruby is a poet, literary editor and journalist. He is the author of eight poetry books, most recently Compulsive Words (BlazeVOX, 2010), American Songbook (Ugly Duckling, 2013), The Mouth of the Bay (BlazeVOX, 2019), The Star-Spangled Banner (Station Hill, 2020) and Close Your Eyes, Visions (Station Hill, 2024). His trilogy in prose and poetry, Memories, Dreams and Inner Voices (Station Hill, 2012), includes ebooks Fleeting Memories (Ugly Duckling, 2008) and Inner Voices Heard Before Sleep (Argotist Online, 2011). His other ebooks are Close Your Eyes (Argotist, 2018) and Titles & First Lines (Mudlark, 2018). He lives in Brooklyn and worked for many years as an editor of U.S. news and political articles at The Wall Street Journal.

O Berlin, with its typical trashy European outskirts, the denkmal in honor of the victory in the Franco-Prussian War über alles, the former East's surveillance tower truly über alles, graffiti everywhere, NAZI RAUS, mustardy and fudgy dogshits

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An animal with a mustache
and beard.
A monkey or dog.
These frosty blues and purples
​aren’t an accident.

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And inside the riding whip the tail on the walk home legislates our holster of this irradiated ketchup the women inside phones brave potable boys

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At On the way to the polls with Louisa & Charlotte the at 10:40, I mortify Louisa.  twilight’s I tap Brooklyn Borough President last Marty Markowitz on the arm and say, “Praise God!” gleaming Marty Markowitz shrugs.

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The blue compels
furbelow
telegraphy
since
pullulation

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All the spare parts to rarify
They really ice the migraine dead
Doozey up and explode coffee earrings
Superstitions and the perfect Rorschach bandage
Breathtaking, route-faking, peace-making

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O’er a galleon, reflected in the river the frightened animal’s open mouth land a table covered with candles of a large hole at the top of the world the cars drive toward me with muffled headlights free an animal sitting high in a tree

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