New at Last Grotto: "Feral" by Jacob Friesenhahn

A short, visceral poem that explores the primal nature of human attraction through the sense of smell. The poem traces how scent operates below conscious thought—"an odor that offends / as you are attracted"—revealing the tension between civilized disgust and animal desire. The body knows before the mind decides.

We are never far from the wild.

Published here for the first time. From Jacob Friesenhahn's collection The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025).

https://lastgrotto.net/posts/feral/

#poetry #contemporarypoetry #embodiment #desire #PoetryMatters

New at Last Grotto: "Irrealis" by Jacob Friesenhahn

A meditation on grief set at a memorial service for a man found dead, alone, in his car in a foreign city. The poem explores what Friesenhahn calls "the ontology of the past / and its uncanny relation / to the present"—how the dead continue to hold space among the living, how we gather to speak names "as if language / could persuade the dead / or us."

The poem moves between philosophical abstraction ("The yearning for being / without negation") and concrete memorial details (wine, incense, candles, an empty chair, a reading from Dōgen), finding in both registers the same truth: "loss / is the only thing / we know," yet we gather anyway to insist otherwise.

Published here for the first time. From Jacob Friesenhahn's collection The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025).

https://lastgrotto.net/posts/irrealis/

#poetry #contemporarypoetry #grief #philosophy #irrealis #loss #PoetryMatters

New at Last Grotto: "Ode to Diogenes" by Jacob Friesenhahn

A playful, irreverent hymn to Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412–323 BCE), the founder of Cynicism who rejected social conventions and lived in a barrel. The poem captures the philosopher's radical simplicity and shamelessness.

A hymn to Diogenes, who wanted from the world only sunlight and honesty. Published here for the first time.

From Jacob Friesenhahn's collection The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025).

https://lastgrotto.net/posts/ode-to-diogenes/

#poetry #contemporarypoetry #philosophy #ancientphilosophy #Cynicism #Diogenes #ClassicalStudies #PoetryMatters

New at the Last Grotto: "Pussy Time" by guest poet Julian Vale!

A raw, unflinching poem that captures a formative moment. The poem captures the bewildering collision of shame and awakening desire, the body's response overriding conscious control. A boy wakes to shame and desire in the same instant, neither able to be separated from the other.

Published here for the first time. Julian writes with the kind of unflinching corporeal honesty you see in queer coming-of-age narratives that refuse to sanitize formative experiences.

https://lastgrotto.net/posts/pussy-time/
#poetry #contemporarypoetry #QueerPoetry #ComingOfAge #Trauma #PoetryMatters

New at Last Grotto: "Immaculate Conception" by Jacob Friesenhahn

A bold theological reimagining that maps the Genesis creation narrative onto the body of the Virgin Mary. Dedicated to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695), the Mexican Baroque poet and scholar, this poem transforms Mary into the site of creation itself.

The cosmos is reborn through the body of Mary.

https://lastgrotto.net/posts/immaculate-conception/
#poetry #contemporarypoetry #MarianPoetry #Theology #SorJuana #ReligiousStudies #CatholicPoetry #PoetryMatters

New at Last Grotto: "Morning Road" by Jacob Friesenhahn

A spare, haunting poem about flight and what follows. A figure drives into dawn, but the opening stanza establishes the stakes immediately:

Stopping would name
what was done.

The poem tracks the liminal moment between night and day, as the speaker moves forward into light while "the dark keeps pace, / waiting / in the long spaces— / unbroken / by mile markers." Despite the forward motion, despite the road curving and fields opening, the darkness persists—not left behind but traveling alongside, patient and unnamed.

A meditation on evasion, guilt, and the impossibility of outrunning what we carry. Published here for the first time.

From Jacob Friesenhahn's collection The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025).

https://lastgrotto.net/posts/morning-road/

#poetry #contemporarypoetry #guilt #flight #PoetryMatters #LiteraryArts

New at Last Grotto: "Sad" by Jacob Friesenhahn

A spare, devastating dialogue that circles around a paradox: the speaker is content with their quiet routines (morning walks, coffee, watching the news) yet mourns the loss of desire for what once felt vital—bars, beaches, the freedom to "fuck up" without consequence.

Then why are you sad?
I'm sad
because I don't feel like it.

The poem captures something often unspoken: the grief of no longer wanting a life that once felt electric, the strange melancholy of growing into contentment. A dialogue between logic and memory that never resolves.

First publication at the Last Grotto. From Jacob Friesenhahn, author of The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025).
https://lastgrotto.net/posts/sad/
#poetry #contemporarypoetry #aging #melancholy #PoetryMatters #MidlifeCrisis

New at Last Grotto: "Never Mind" by Jacob Friesenhahn

An intimate meditation on desire, generosity, and loss—a speaker offers everything (time, gaze, mind) to the beloved while remaining uncertain whether anything of substance remains to be found:

You may drink
from the pools
my eyes have become,
though I would not blame you
if you have a taste instead
for fresh running waters.

Read the full poem on our philosophy and literature blog https://lastgrotto.net/posts/never-mind/

Originally published in Ginosko Literary Journal (#31, Winter 2023-2024), now at Last Grotto.

Jacob Friesenhahn is the author of The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025).

#poetry #contemporarypoetry #desire #QueerPoetry #PoetryMatters