Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Goodbyes Are Hellos
    Goodbyes Are Hellos
    Goodbyes Are Hellos
    Ebook84 pages28 minutes

    Goodbyes Are Hellos

    By Michael Torok

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Michael Torok's collection Goodbyes Are Hellos spans two decades of his work, and thus two decades of his life are held under the lens of risk-taking poems from a writer Luis Alberto Urrea described as "fiercely intelligent and gifted with vision."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael Torok
    Release dateMay 18, 2015
    ISBN9780996303019
    Goodbyes Are Hellos

    Related to Goodbyes Are Hellos

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      loved best. Words I have neversaid. New sentence, at 80. Of coursenot more than his children, and their children. That goeswithout saying—but I want to lay down eachelement of love’s house. First,the hole, under—apple cellar, potato cellar,cellar to

      5 min read

    • Article

      Longer on Moon

      Sep 22, 2022

      Longer on Moon
      19 min read

    • Article

      Learning To Walk

      Oct 28, 2019

      Learning To Walk
      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2022

      If I call myself unlovable, I am, practically; if I say itenough times: unlovable. Then, like practical magic, I’m hollow as old garlic; I’m distance-skinned.I’m a long, mean package, a terror-dyke, a nag, a squinting, slut-spun hag—it’s easy, really

      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    • Article

      Collins Ferry Landing

      Jul 1, 2020

      for my father Only rivers bottom out like this.Only rivers bottom out with this kind of conviction.Not humans, or, at least, not humans asindisputably human as you were,trapped in consciousness’s surplus, exilic,animalized absurdity, writhing in its

      5 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Jul 1, 2018

      When I said, to my mother, What was a goodthing about me as a child?, my mother’sface seemed to unfurl from the center,hibiscus in fast motion, the anthersand flounces springing out with joy. Oh you wereenchanting, she breathed. What do you mean—craz

      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      The sun is a disaster waiting to happen,The gypsy trombone player starts to blareLa Vie en Rose again, and Hello, Dolly.I turn Fairouz up not to have to listen. The gypsy trombone player starts to blare,today, and yesterday, at noon, at seven.I turn

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Little Love

      Apr 5, 2023

      A Little Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      1 The doctor makes a curving incision in the left topback of my skull andlifts the cap— “What areaam I here to work on?” But Ijust want to wish his son a Happy Birthday—It had been my aim, the reason I’dwalked right into this Doctor dream—In the morn

      11 min read

    • Article

      Notes From A Nothing

      Feb 14, 2020

      Notes From A Nothing
      13 min read

    • Article

      Unlearnable Lessons on My Father’s Deathbed

      Mar 21, 2017

      I was at my father’s side much of the time in his final weeks, a witness to both the gifts and miseries of being near death. Nurses came and went, patient, long-suffering. They sat beside him for hours at a time, dousing spongy lollipops in water and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Averted Vision

      Sep 1, 2022

      Averted Vision
      25 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      AUSTRALOPITHECA1 & STARMAN2

      Sep 1, 2019

      The countdown to you begyns with me, deere Starman, when I wander, dumbly, deep into a space hospittable to Hunger. Now, all’s desert. No milk in syte. Just pitifull sand, what shushes as it slydes through your hande to rejoin itself. I’d join myself

      7 min read

    • Article

      Any Given Day

      Mar 29, 2021

      Any Given Day
      11 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      When making an axe handlethe pattern is not far off. —Gary Snyder My mother was either horizontal on the couch,or vertical, a plumb line from her spineto the top of her head to the ceiling that spinswhen she drinks, alcohol and an air bubbletrapped,

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Unforeseen

      Sep 2, 2022

      The Beautiful Unforeseen
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Goodbyes Are Hellos

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Goodbyes Are Hellos - Michael Torok

      Goodbyes Are Hellos

      Poems by Michael Torok

      Copyright 2015 by Michael Torok

      Published by Smokeloop Press

      Cover art by Joshua J. Hunt

      Author photo by Karen Wolcott

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Acknowledgements:

      Grateful acknowledgement is given to those publications in which many of these poems first appeared:

      Clackamas Literary Review

      Fox Cry Review

      Louisiana Review

      Northridge Review

      Red Rock Review

      The Refined Savage

      The Smoking Poet

      For Karen,

      who has always inspired and encouraged me,

      and my son Jack,

      who has taught me more than he might ever realize.

      Horizontal Accretion

      Louisiana’s moon imposes herself

      at the end of the road—

      large enough to swallow the truck

      if he could reach her

      in time. Racing desperately,

      the bruise of sunset

      behind him, to break the skin

      and be enveloped in the warm milk

      of craters and dust. Comfortable and constant,

      two things his whitening knuckles,

      complete in their own betrayals,

      hold before and away from him, she rises. Silence,

      his only bounty, as she steadily climbs

      higher and farther away. He stops

      Waiting to begin again

      the chase east, knowing he must

      catch her before the ocean

      consumes them both.

      Remembering …

      the surrender you offered.

      Small whispers of wind cycloning

      dust at my feet

      planted by the willow.

      We were young. Making snow

      angels in my parents’ yard

      after midnight. Your hair

      in my face, pushing down

      on my pelvis with all your weight —

      to make the impressions deeper.

      Salt—drenched in the dark,

      in the backseat,

      I listened

      to the springs, concentrating

      on sustaining, drinking

      the smell of our sweat.

      You kept me away the night

      your brother met a pole

      in our car. We shared everything

      but you.

      You bled away innocence for me.

      He shut

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1