PAGE 33
by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira
A sweetness tinged about the third movement. An inexplicable clarity and perhaps not. Art is a variety of light as long as climbing people, smile. Consequity, waited, wanting considered and careful. Escape! to happiness for want of lush I, with crashing in limit, in freedom in tiny whispers I was moving (still moving) I lengthened days. Later, I regretted many, many things. Me in the mirror? Muse pitiful vision. New in the world of wrong. Promise to keep out your mouth the city. Watch the home together three times daily through this wall used to pass vitamins and iron when inside me with pain. Perhaps you and your anything, your loving words
Ever pick up a book and open to a random page?
For me, I always choose page 33. Lucky number. Right in the meat of the book, behind the beginning fluff and the end I don’t yet get.
This week in grad skool, I have an assignment concerning “books that have allowed me to write.” Here they are:
My abecedarian-adjacent poem “Page 33” was birthed from—you may have guessed it—the page-33s of my favorite books. Borrowed language plus aesthetic arrangement equals poetic happenstance. Not a perfect formula, but stealing light is not a precise science: it’s photosynthesis, and I’m hoping for more sun.
Bookishly, Ricky
I love this poem and the story behind it!
Also love the serendipity of getting your poem delivered at any point throughout the week!
I was surprised to see it in my inbox, but it was a welcome surprise! Do it when you can. I like the 33 logic.