Culture / Poems / October 31, 2023

Talk

Noah Warren

Love of the world is so clearly come and go,
the way we talk sounds beautiful and sad.
You have to try these three words before you can
say the harder thing.
The air at evening crumbles into rose flakes.
The wind like a child’s breath.
This is cement. It’s almost hard now, but when it’s new, it’s soft.
If we step in it then it’ll be there forever.

To describe is to praise, I’ve always felt that.
Two crows fly up and disappear into the depths of the redwood.
Talking with Sarah in bed I touch her hair.
How often do we use the word “safe” each day? Thanks,
a walk sounds nice. When I write this
winter I trace lines of motion I conclude
I’ve lived. My mentor tells me I am
more than a series of inclinations,
twilight knotted with dislikes.

Noah Warren

More from The Nation

Theodor Adorno giving a lecture at the Goethe-Institut in Rome, 1969.

What Adorno Can Still Teach Us What Adorno Can Still Teach Us

A conversation with Peter Gordon about the enduring influence of the Frankfurt School's leader, the future of critical theory, and his recent book, A Precarious Happiness.

Books & the Arts / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

What Do We Want From Bob Dylan’s Story?

What Do We Want From Bob Dylan’s Story? What Do We Want From Bob Dylan’s Story?

In James Mangold's film A Complete Unknown, we get a cautious and reverent story of a musician who has always sought to transcend the limits imposed upon him.

Books & the Arts / Sam Adler-Bell

A postcard depicting Vienna in the future, 1905.

Adam Ehrlich Sachs’s Exhibitions of Absurdity Adam Ehrlich Sachs’s Exhibitions of Absurdity

In Gretel and the Great War, an antic epistolary novel set in early 20th-century Austria, the writer tries to make sense of a society gone mad.

Books & the Arts / Walker Rutter-Bowman

Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’s “Nosferatu.”

Robert Eggers’s “Nosferatu” Is a Modern Gothic Triumph Robert Eggers’s “Nosferatu” Is a Modern Gothic Triumph

The latest adaptation of the silent film classic evokes anxieties at once eternal and contemporary, using one of horror’s ur-texts to dissect race, sex, and power.

Books & the Arts / Kelli Weston

Donald Trump enjoys a good faux-Hellenic column.

Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again

Last term, his ill-informed embrace of “traditional” aesthetics fanned the flames of the culture wars. This time, he’s poised to do even more damage.

Kate Wagner

Juan de la Corte's “The Fire of Troy,” found in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry? Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?

From Elon Musk to Jordan Peterson, a certain strand of conservatism has recruited the poetry of Homer and Dante in their culture war.

Books & the Arts / Orlando Reade