Tom Snarsky
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tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Tom Snarsky
@tomsnarsky.bsky.social
5.8K followers 4.8K following 3.5K posts
He collected things, each of a holy intention in isolation, but pagan in the variety of his choice.
—William Gaddis

📚 @anothernewcalligraphy.com, @ornithopterpress.bsky.social, @animalheartpress.bsky.social, @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social
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tomsnarsky.bsky.social
gg roland
midnight fridge light if my apples were as soft as my peaches i would throw them away
November 26, 2025 at 4:59 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
a page from Devin Kelly’s novel Pilgrims
People know the cheetah is fast. But people do not know that every cheetah is so closely related that you can transplant a heart from one to the other without worrying about infection. You can transplant a lung, a kidney. One cheetah can be suffering and another can pull the heart out of its chest and sprint it toward the other before it dies, and put that heart into the other’s chest. And nothing bad will happen. Nothing bad will happen at all.
November 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Allen Ginsberg
I learned a world from each m one whom I loved; so many worlds without a Zodiac.
November 25, 2025 at 12:27 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
today is my birthday, and I couldn’t imagine a better way to celebrate than having a new poem out in Burial Magazine! infinite gratitude to Z. H. Gill for giving this one a beautiful home :) 🙏
Eleven Beers by Tom Snarsky Whenever Sid would drink, he would drink Eleven beers. This created some logistical Problems, including a bad stomach and no Driver’s license, but one advantage was the One beer left over from the twelve-pack: Sid would save the flimsy paperboard from One of the twelve-packs, slowly filling it with Survivors, though their survival was only Temporary. Then when it was filled up All the way Sid would go out to the lake, Drink eleven beers, and instead of saving One like usual he would open the last beer And pour it into the water, where the little Bluegill would be visibly confused in the Shallows. One time, driving home from the Lake, Sid didn’t notice the blue heron in the Right lane, standing, but since he’d swerved So far over the midline anyway the bird, Instead of being killed, flew safely away.
November 24, 2025 at 4:11 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
W. S. Graham
Under September and the loud moving Of mountain writing and words in ruin A red nerve runs in a globe of dew Related for ever to this river Past the imperfect world and iron Of bright estates and a quelled shire. At her faintly history of webbed perishing I, under dusk and caw-witted smouldering Wear the western doors and angel on my tongue.
November 24, 2025 at 2:10 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
happy #smallpoemsunday! 💜

feel free to participate by posting small poems you wrote, +/or small poems you love by somebody else :)

here’s one by Jesse Murray~
Bread I was doing my best, then the day ganged up on me
November 23, 2025 at 2:47 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Pentti Saarikoski, tr. Herbert Lomas
I’m roaming the meadow longing to be a poet whose song would move stones and organise city walls make trees walk to carpenters that build homes for people An unsubstantial sorrow is a heavy burden but still, still I want to see everything in unfamiliar marine light
November 23, 2025 at 2:34 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
We are the case.

John Ashbery
When it was all over, a sheep emerged from inside the house. A cheer went up, for it was recognized that these are lousy times to be living in, yet we do live in them: We are the case. And seven times seven ages later it would still be the truth in appearances, festive, eternal, misconstrued. Does anyone still want to play?
November 22, 2025 at 7:47 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
René Char, tr. Dawn-Michelle Baude
THE ORIOLE 3 September 1939 The oriole entered the capital of sunrise. The blade of his song silenced the sad bed. Everything reached forever its end.
November 22, 2025 at 3:17 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Li Bai, tr. Arthur Cooper
QUIET NIGHT THOUGHTS Before my bed there is bright moonlight So that it seems like frost on the ground: Lifting my head I watch the bright moon, Lowering my head I dream that I’m home.
November 22, 2025 at 1:59 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Ruth Stone
A MOMENT Across the highway a heron stands in the flooded field. It stands as if lost in thought, on one leg, careless, as if the field belongs to herons. The air is clear and quiet. Snowmelt on this second fair day. Mother and daughter, we sit in the parking lot with doughnuts and coffee. We are silent. For a moment the wall between us opens to the universe, then closes. And you go on saying you do not want to repeat my life.
November 21, 2025 at 7:52 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
the recording of last night’s reading is now available at the 🔗 below for your viewing & listening pleasure! it was such a joy to welcome these phenomenal poets and to celebrate Night Light’s second birthday in style :) 🥳💡
A screenshot of J.L. Moultrie from the November 2025 Night Light poetry reading event
November 21, 2025 at 4:45 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
nila northSun
diet pepsi & nacho cheese i thought i was going to be a designer a career woman i didn’t want to do any house work i figured if i didn’t know how i wouldn’t have to do it as a career woman i could hire a maid i also figured that by the time i was 21 they would have all food in pill form & i wouldn’t have to bother eating or cooking or washing dishes i was all for it i didn’t like food my mother says when i was little i liked it all crab crayfish ketchup cauliflower asparagus pumpkin pie rabbit deer quail pheasant prawns & rice pudding now my menu’s small but it makes it easy to figure out what i’m going to eat since i mainly like hamburgers steaks pizza frozen chicken pot pies grilled cheese & tomato sandwiches sweet stuff cookies candy mr. goodbars butter & crackers or chips & a coke diet pepsi & nacho cheese that’s it
November 21, 2025 at 4:11 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Harris Schiff
be rough like a tree in November about to lose its leaves
November 20, 2025 at 9:17 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Paul Morand, tr. Ron Padgett
KISSES A kiss shortens the human life 3 minutes states the Psychology Department at Western State College, Gunnison, Colo. The kiss provokes such throbbing that in 4 seconds the heart works harder than it does in 3 minutes. The statistics show that 480 kisses reduce life by one day, that 2,360 kisses deprive you of a week and that 148,071 kisses, it’s quite simply a lost year.
November 20, 2025 at 4:11 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Paul Celan, tr. Will Bennett
ONE DAY & THE NEXT You, like the wind in the mountains. The quiet like a bird before us, another clear presence. I won, I lost, we believed in the austere wonders the branch quickly drew upon the heavens, carrying us & growing through heaving white to the path of the moon, a tomorrow lept into yesterday, we brought the atomized candelabra, I placed everything in the hand of no one.
November 20, 2025 at 1:58 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
William Bronk
FAITHFUL REPLICA We make a replica of our belief and there, as fact, it is. A rough job but look at it there. We must have been right all along. Time passes. Euphoria awhile.
November 19, 2025 at 7:29 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Chase Twichell
I lie beside my love in the silence between two waves, the grains of my body pouring. I know that the second wave will ripen and fall. It will fall in a world that is emerald and sapphire, lit by the sparks of the sea. A world that will darken and abandon me.
November 19, 2025 at 3:17 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
John Wieners
Time June, then September—life dredges past as an avalanche. A week goes by in the wink of an eye. Friendships fall hollow, old ghosts remain, carefully tendered by the rain. Streets of the cities, I have walked My feet ache from the miles, and yet they seem a scant pathway to your door; where I sit now contemplating old dreams that never change. Old longings never subside; they rise in the breast as tides of change that never rest. This is the only eternity: what exists in the word.
November 19, 2025 at 3:47 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Tim Cockburn
Sex and the City walking to a garage not because you want anything but because at home everyone is shoving into each other staring at a carton of juice which shows an orange skipping with a cane and two grapes laughing at the orange
November 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Barbara Guest
(jest, tears.)
November 18, 2025 at 2:54 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
this month marks TWO YEARS of Night Light readings, and I am excited to celebrate with this stunningly excellent lineup coming at you live this Thursday!

don’t miss this fantastic group of poets — sign up to listen in at the 🔗 below :) 💡
NIGHT LIGHT THURSDAY 11/20 9PM EASTERN ZOOM DONNA VORREYER J. L. MOULTRIE MAYA WEEKS THOMAS KNEELAND
November 17, 2025 at 11:31 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Michael Coffey
So what is it today? Dorchester...or such sounds. Or is it me? Does anybody know? Is it simply this: that limitation is again to be charmed?
November 17, 2025 at 7:47 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Robert Hass, after Kobayashi Issa
Napped half the day; no one punished me!
November 17, 2025 at 3:40 PM
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
a mantra by Michael Donhauser, tr. Andrew Joron
Yet the tomato does not fall apart. Despite all dwindling, all softening. It remains the tomato on the windowsill. Redly round in front of the white window casement. In face of the impassive darkness of night.
November 17, 2025 at 2:07 AM