Negotiations
When my mother does
the treadmill she
watches taped
Harvard lectures on
argumentation in
order to better deduct
and induct the five foot
eight frames of her
daughters to the power
of seventeen.
So as she jogs
farther away into
the heavens,
she is quantifying
and qualifying the
space between the
perfect parabola of
truth and her
running sneakers.
It is after a fight we
push parallels against
her bedroom door,
my mother
repeats what she's
learned from the tapes:
No, No, No, No, No
When a wolf wakes
my sister up in the
middle of the night
she syas it sounds
like a spirit cursing
the treadmill of eternity or, perhaps,
the fact that it can
no longer wear
running shoes.
The spirit of my
mother moored
to the door, needs
neither shoes nor argument--
get out, she says,
get out of this room
but I have never
been in.
Morgan Askeneizer studies at The Eastman School of Music.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
"What to Remember When Waking" by David Whyte
What to Remember When Waking
In that first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be,
what urgency
calls you to your
one love? What shape
waits in the seed
of you to grow
and spread
its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?
In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?
David Whyte
In that first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be,
what urgency
calls you to your
one love? What shape
waits in the seed
of you to grow
and spread
its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?
In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?
David Whyte
"The Sun" by Mary Oliver
The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
Mary Oliver
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
Mary Oliver
"At Blackwater Pond " by Mary Oliver
At Blackwater Pond
At Blackwater Pond
the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones.
I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?
Mary Oliver
At Blackwater Pond
the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones.
I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?
Mary Oliver
"V", from Given by Wendell Berry
V.
I know for a while again
the health of self-forgetfulness,
looking out at the sky through
a notch in the valley side,
the black woods wintry on
the hills, small clouds at sunset
passing across. And I know
that this is one of those thresholds
between Earth and Heaven,
from which even I may step
forth from my self and be free.
-Wendell Berry, from
Given: Poems, “Sabbaths 2000, V”
I know for a while again
the health of self-forgetfulness,
looking out at the sky through
a notch in the valley side,
the black woods wintry on
the hills, small clouds at sunset
passing across. And I know
that this is one of those thresholds
between Earth and Heaven,
from which even I may step
forth from my self and be free.
-Wendell Berry, from
Given: Poems, “Sabbaths 2000, V”
"Sometimes" by Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.
– Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.
– Sheenagh Pugh
Thursday, August 5, 2010
"Have You Prayed" by Li-Young Lee
Have You Prayed
When the wind
turns and asks, in my father’s voice,
Have you prayed?
I know three things. One:
I’m never finished answering to the dead.
Two: A man is four winds and three fires.
And the four winds are his father’s voice,
his mother’s voice . . .
Or maybe he’s seven winds and ten fires.
And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching,
dreaming, thinking . . .
Or is he the breath of God?
When the wind turns traveler
and asks, in my father’s voice, Have you prayed?
I remember three things.
One: A father’s love
is milk and sugar,
two-thirds worry, two-thirds grief, and what’s left over
is trimmed and leavened to make the bread
the dead and the living share.
And patience? That’s to endure
the terrible leavening and kneading.
And wisdom? That’s my father’s face in sleep.
When the wind
asks, Have you prayed?
I know it’s only me
reminding myself
a flower is one station between
earth’s wish and earth’s rapture, and blood
was fire, salt, and breath long before
it quickened any wand or branch, any limb
that woke speaking. It’s just me
in the gowns of the wind,
or my father through me, asking,
Have you found your refuge yet?
asking, Are you happy?
Strange. A troubled father. A happy son.
The wind with a voice. And me talking to no one.
“Have you Prayed,” from Behind My Eyes by Li-Young Lee. Copyright ©2008 by Li-Young Lee. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Source: Behind My Eyes (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2008)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
When the wind
turns and asks, in my father’s voice,
Have you prayed?
I know three things. One:
I’m never finished answering to the dead.
Two: A man is four winds and three fires.
And the four winds are his father’s voice,
his mother’s voice . . .
Or maybe he’s seven winds and ten fires.
And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching,
dreaming, thinking . . .
Or is he the breath of God?
When the wind turns traveler
and asks, in my father’s voice, Have you prayed?
I remember three things.
One: A father’s love
is milk and sugar,
two-thirds worry, two-thirds grief, and what’s left over
is trimmed and leavened to make the bread
the dead and the living share.
And patience? That’s to endure
the terrible leavening and kneading.
And wisdom? That’s my father’s face in sleep.
When the wind
asks, Have you prayed?
I know it’s only me
reminding myself
a flower is one station between
earth’s wish and earth’s rapture, and blood
was fire, salt, and breath long before
it quickened any wand or branch, any limb
that woke speaking. It’s just me
in the gowns of the wind,
or my father through me, asking,
Have you found your refuge yet?
asking, Are you happy?
Strange. A troubled father. A happy son.
The wind with a voice. And me talking to no one.
“Have you Prayed,” from Behind My Eyes by Li-Young Lee. Copyright ©2008 by Li-Young Lee. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Source: Behind My Eyes (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2008)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
"Dog's Death" by John Updike
Dog's Death
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
John Updike, POETSPEAK In Their Work, About Their Work (A Selection by Paul B. Janeczko)
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
John Updike, POETSPEAK In Their Work, About Their Work (A Selection by Paul B. Janeczko)
"Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon
Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come."
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come."
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, "The Peace of Wild Things" from Collected Poems, 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, "The Peace of Wild Things" from Collected Poems, 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sunday, August 1, 2010
"In the Tabloid" by Moriah Askenaizer
In the Tabloid:
There’s a man in
who eats glass
Really, I mean
to say there’s a
story about
a man in
up and tucked into
the breast
pocket of my coat
because I like
to think it’s a
love letter
and sometimes
when I forget
I had put it there
and my fingers
surprise upon
its edges
it is.
In the background
of this poem, a TV
special is
running about the art
of origami. Did you know
when you fold
paper you change its
memory?
One day
I told my twin, who I won't
be seeing much of soon,
about the man
who eats glass.
Does he shit vases?
she asked.
I think about picking
blackberries
and keeping them in
big hollow vases
If I fold
this poem into an
origami of glass-eater,
love-letter because
I’m frustrated and scared
by how the blackberries,
choked in their big
hollow vases, are
glorious and awful
like a first kiss,
I change the way it
remembers
me.
Not as a
person-but
as a piece of
glass the man
in
to eat.
Moriah Askenaizer, arist and poet, lives in New York City. See some of her artwork at: http://cargocollective.com/moriahaskenaizer
Saturday, July 31, 2010
"Facts About the Moon" by Dorianne Laux
Facts About the Moon
The moon is backing away from us
an inch and a half each year. That means
if you’re like me and were born
around fifty years ago the moon
was a full six feet closer to the earth.
What’s a person supposed to do?
I feel the gray cloud of consternation
travel across my face. I begin thinking
about the moon-lit past, how if you go back
far enough you can imagine the breathtaking
hugeness of the moon, prehistoric
solar eclipses when the moon covered the sun
so completely there was no corona, only
a darkness we had no word for.
And future eclipses will look like this: the moon
a small black pupil in the eye of the sun.
But these are bald facts.
What bothers me most is that someday
the moon will spiral right out of orbit
and all land-based life will die.
The moon keeps the oceans from swallowing
the shores, keeps the electromagnetic fields
in check at the polar ends of the earth.
And please don’t tell me
what I already know, that it won’t happen
for a long time. I don’t care. I’m afraid
of what will happen to the moon.
Forget us. We don’t deserve the moon.
Maybe we once did but not now
after all we’ve done. These nights
I harbor a secret pity for the moon, rolling
around alone in space without
her milky planet, her only love, a mother
who’s lost a child, a bad child,
a greedy child or maybe a grown boy
who’s murdered and raped, a mother
can’t help it, she loves that boy
anyway, and in spite of herself
she misses him, and if you sit beside her
on the padded hospital bench
outside the door to his room you can’t not
take her hand, listen to her while she
weeps, telling you how sweet he was,
how blue his eyes, and you know she’s only
romanticizing, that she’s conveniently
forgotten the bruises and booze,
the stolen car, the day he ripped
the phones from the walls, and you want
to slap her back to sanity, remind her
of the truth: he was a leech, a fuckup,
a little shit, and you almost do
until she lifts her pale puffy face, her eyes
two craters, and then you can’t help it
either, you know love when you see it,
you can feel its lunar strength, its brutal pull.
From Facts About the Moon by Dorianne Laux, W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. Hear the poet read this poem at Poems Out Loud.
The moon is backing away from us
an inch and a half each year. That means
if you’re like me and were born
around fifty years ago the moon
was a full six feet closer to the earth.
What’s a person supposed to do?
I feel the gray cloud of consternation
travel across my face. I begin thinking
about the moon-lit past, how if you go back
far enough you can imagine the breathtaking
hugeness of the moon, prehistoric
solar eclipses when the moon covered the sun
so completely there was no corona, only
a darkness we had no word for.
And future eclipses will look like this: the moon
a small black pupil in the eye of the sun.
But these are bald facts.
What bothers me most is that someday
the moon will spiral right out of orbit
and all land-based life will die.
The moon keeps the oceans from swallowing
the shores, keeps the electromagnetic fields
in check at the polar ends of the earth.
And please don’t tell me
what I already know, that it won’t happen
for a long time. I don’t care. I’m afraid
of what will happen to the moon.
Forget us. We don’t deserve the moon.
Maybe we once did but not now
after all we’ve done. These nights
I harbor a secret pity for the moon, rolling
around alone in space without
her milky planet, her only love, a mother
who’s lost a child, a bad child,
a greedy child or maybe a grown boy
who’s murdered and raped, a mother
can’t help it, she loves that boy
anyway, and in spite of herself
she misses him, and if you sit beside her
on the padded hospital bench
outside the door to his room you can’t not
take her hand, listen to her while she
weeps, telling you how sweet he was,
how blue his eyes, and you know she’s only
romanticizing, that she’s conveniently
forgotten the bruises and booze,
the stolen car, the day he ripped
the phones from the walls, and you want
to slap her back to sanity, remind her
of the truth: he was a leech, a fuckup,
a little shit, and you almost do
until she lifts her pale puffy face, her eyes
two craters, and then you can’t help it
either, you know love when you see it,
you can feel its lunar strength, its brutal pull.
From Facts About the Moon by Dorianne Laux, W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. Hear the poet read this poem at Poems Out Loud.
Friday, July 30, 2010
"Relax" by Ellen Bass
Relax
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter's age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she's a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours, for a month.
Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you'll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn't plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you'll come home to find your son has emptied
your refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There's a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs halfway down. But there's also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here's the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you'll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You'll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
Ellen Bass
American Poetry Review
July / August 2010
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter's age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she's a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours, for a month.
Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you'll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn't plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you'll come home to find your son has emptied
your refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There's a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs halfway down. But there's also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here's the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you'll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You'll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
Ellen Bass
American Poetry Review
July / August 2010
Little Summer Poem Touching The Subject Of Faith by Mary Oliver
Last night, we ate our first Hollis corn of the season, kernels like baby teeth, so sweet we were transported. When I was younger, I was somewhat sad; now I live in a place where I drive past three cornfields on my way to the grocery store. Imagine.
Little Summer Poem Touching The Subject Of Faith
Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear
anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green
stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,
the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.
And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt
swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?
One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear
anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green
stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,
the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.
And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt
swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?
One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
"America" by Tony Hoagland
America
BY TONY HOAGLAND
Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison
Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes
Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials,
And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,
He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu
Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels
Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds
Of the thick satin quilt of America
And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,
or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,
And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,
It was not blood but money
That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills
Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—,
He gasped “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were
Clogging up my heart—
And so I perish happily,
Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”—
Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad
Would never speak in rhymed couplets,
And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes
And I think, “I am asleep in America too,
And I don’t know how to wake myself either,”
And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:
“I was listening to the cries of the past,
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.”
But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable
Or what kind of nightmare it might be
When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river
Even while others are drowning underneath you
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters
And yet it seems to be your own hand
Which turns the volume higher?
Tony Hoagland, “America” from What Narcissism Means to Me. Copyright © 2003 by Tony Hoagland. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.
Source: What Narcissism Means to Me (2003)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Father Outside by Nick Flynn
Father Outside
Nick Flynn
A black river flows down the center
of each page
& on either side the banks
are wrapped in snow. My father is ink falling
in tiny blossoms, a bottle
wrapped in a paperbag. I want to believe
that if I get the story right
we will rise, newly formed,
that I will stand over him again
as he sleeps outside under the church halogen
only this time I will know
what to say. It is night &
it's snowing & starlings
fill the trees above us, so many it seems
the leaves sing. I can't see them
until they rise together at some hidden signal
& hold the shape of the tree for a moment
before scattering. I wait for his breath
to lift his blanket
so I know he's alive, letting the story settle
into the shape of this city. Three girls in the park
begin to sing something holy, a song
with a lost room inside it
as their prayerbook comes unglued
& scatters. I'll bend
each finger back, until the bottle
falls, until the bone snaps, save him
by destroying his hands. With the thaw
the river will rise & he will be forced
to higher ground. No one
will have to tell him. From my roof I can see
the East River, it looks blackened with oil
but it's only the light. Even now
my father is asleep somewhere. If I followed
the river north I could still reach him.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Jimmy, Jesus, and the Japanese Beetles by Mekeel McBride
NOTE: If you don't already know Mekeel or her work, please discover her. No other teacher did more to save me from trashing it all, poem-wise. Her blog, Listening to the River (blogspot), conveys only a micron or her mojo.
Jimmy, Jesus and the Japanese Beetles
Mekeel McBride
The five kids, their parents, the grandmother
and Jesus sit down to dinner. Pink, dry flakes
of canned salmon lie on the plastic plates
like eczema. New burns, from the day's ironing
rise like small roses on the grandmother's wrists.
Because they have never seen Jesus eat, they've stopped
setting his place. He always wears the same outfit,
the one showing his heart all wrapped in barbed wire.
Jimmy, who has just turned eleven thinks it looks
like liver wrapped in bacon and says so.
His father slaps him across the face then sends him
out to the darkest part of the yard to say Hail Marys
and Our Fathers. Sometimes all he has to do is ask
for the bread. Or decorate his mashed potatoes with peas.
And he's smacked, shoved off into the dark,
to undergo penance, he's come to think, for hunger itself.
He doesn't mind the yard though. Tonight it's quiet.
Once in awhile a stray dog runs down the alley.
By street lamp light he notices that Japanese beetles
have nearly chewed away the leaves of his mother's roses
and that greenery all gone to rotten lace fills him again
with a desperate, small sadness. He will not be allowed
back in to finish his dinner. He thinks of Jesus,
his beautiful long brown hair, his kind eyes,
his body that is a body. And Jimmy wonders
if the point isn't that Jesus has come to the table
every night wanting someone to remove the thorns
from his heart and offer him a full plate
of lamb chops, gravy, peas and potatoes.
Wanting someone to see him for who he really is.
And then Jimmy slips his thin hand into his pants
and touches himself and that pleasure is the only prayer
he has to offer because for a little while, he is really there,
like Jesus with a healed heart, like small weeds
trying to fill the empty yard with any kind of green.
and Jesus sit down to dinner. Pink, dry flakes
of canned salmon lie on the plastic plates
like eczema. New burns, from the day's ironing
rise like small roses on the grandmother's wrists.
Because they have never seen Jesus eat, they've stopped
setting his place. He always wears the same outfit,
the one showing his heart all wrapped in barbed wire.
Jimmy, who has just turned eleven thinks it looks
like liver wrapped in bacon and says so.
His father slaps him across the face then sends him
out to the darkest part of the yard to say Hail Marys
and Our Fathers. Sometimes all he has to do is ask
for the bread. Or decorate his mashed potatoes with peas.
And he's smacked, shoved off into the dark,
to undergo penance, he's come to think, for hunger itself.
He doesn't mind the yard though. Tonight it's quiet.
Once in awhile a stray dog runs down the alley.
By street lamp light he notices that Japanese beetles
have nearly chewed away the leaves of his mother's roses
and that greenery all gone to rotten lace fills him again
with a desperate, small sadness. He will not be allowed
back in to finish his dinner. He thinks of Jesus,
his beautiful long brown hair, his kind eyes,
his body that is a body. And Jimmy wonders
if the point isn't that Jesus has come to the table
every night wanting someone to remove the thorns
from his heart and offer him a full plate
of lamb chops, gravy, peas and potatoes.
Wanting someone to see him for who he really is.
And then Jimmy slips his thin hand into his pants
and touches himself and that pleasure is the only prayer
he has to offer because for a little while, he is really there,
like Jesus with a healed heart, like small weeds
trying to fill the empty yard with any kind of green.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
What the Living Do by Marie Howe
NOTE: The blog-width does not accomodate the proper (poet's) line breaks; please read the proper breaks indicated by "/".
What the Living Do
Marie Howe
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. /
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of. /
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off./
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those /
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. /
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want /
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, /
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless: /
I am living. I remember you.
From What the Living Do by Marie Howe
What the Living Do
Marie Howe
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. /
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of. /
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off./
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those /
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. /
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want /
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, /
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless: /
I am living. I remember you.
From What the Living Do by Marie Howe
That Which Holds All
That Which Holds All
Nancy Shaffer
Because she wanted everyone to feel included
in her prayer,
she said right at the beginning
several names for the Holy:
Spirit, she said, Holy One, Mystery, God
but then thinking these weren’t enough ways of addressing
that which cannot be fully addressed, she added
particularities, saying, Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love,
Ancient Holy One, Mystery We Will Not Ever Fully Know,
Gracious God, and also Spirit of This Earth,
God of Sarah, Gaia, Thou
and then, tongue loosened, she fell to naming
superlatives as well: Most Creative One,
Greatest Source, Closest Hope ---
even though superlatives for the Sacred seemed to her
probably redundant; but then she couldn’t stop:
One Who Made the Stars, she said, although she knew
technically a number of those present didn’t believe
the stars had been made by anyone or thing
but just luckily happened.
One Who Is an Entire Ocean of Compassion, she said,
and no one laughed.
That Which Has Been Present Since Before the Beginning,
she said, and the room was silent.
Then, although she hadn’t imagined it this way,
others began to offer names:
Peace, said one.
One My Mother Knew, said another.
Ancestor, said a third.
Wind.
Rain.
Breath, said one near the back.
Refuge.
That Which Holds All.
A child said, Water.
Someone said, Kuan Yin.
Then: Womb.
Witness.
Great Kindness.
Great Eagle.
Eternal Stillness.
And then, there wasn’t any need to say the things
she’d thought would be important to say,
and everyone sat hushed, until someone said
Amen.
From Instructions in Joy: Meditations by Nancy Schaffer
Nancy Shaffer
Because she wanted everyone to feel included
in her prayer,
she said right at the beginning
several names for the Holy:
Spirit, she said, Holy One, Mystery, God
but then thinking these weren’t enough ways of addressing
that which cannot be fully addressed, she added
particularities, saying, Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love,
Ancient Holy One, Mystery We Will Not Ever Fully Know,
Gracious God, and also Spirit of This Earth,
God of Sarah, Gaia, Thou
and then, tongue loosened, she fell to naming
superlatives as well: Most Creative One,
Greatest Source, Closest Hope ---
even though superlatives for the Sacred seemed to her
probably redundant; but then she couldn’t stop:
One Who Made the Stars, she said, although she knew
technically a number of those present didn’t believe
the stars had been made by anyone or thing
but just luckily happened.
One Who Is an Entire Ocean of Compassion, she said,
and no one laughed.
That Which Has Been Present Since Before the Beginning,
she said, and the room was silent.
Then, although she hadn’t imagined it this way,
others began to offer names:
Peace, said one.
One My Mother Knew, said another.
Ancestor, said a third.
Wind.
Rain.
Breath, said one near the back.
Refuge.
That Which Holds All.
A child said, Water.
Someone said, Kuan Yin.
Then: Womb.
Witness.
Great Kindness.
Great Eagle.
Eternal Stillness.
And then, there wasn’t any need to say the things
she’d thought would be important to say,
and everyone sat hushed, until someone said
Amen.
From Instructions in Joy: Meditations by Nancy Schaffer
The Title of This Blog...
...comes from the lines: "it is difficult/to get the news from poems/ but men die miserably every day/for lack/ of what is found there", from William Carlos' Williams' "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower".
I'm often asked to forward poems I love, quote, mention, recite, or tuck into friend's gifts or students' hands. So here they are: my (very incomplete and ongoing) collection of poems that make my life worth living and noticing.
I encourage readers to BUY THE BOOKS linked to the poems. Simply put, buying poetry keeps poetry going. Most books cost less than a bottle of wine, yet a poem to live by and with lasts far beyond any glass of Malbec or Pinot Grigio.
If I cross any lines regarding copyright, please let me know and I will correct the matter immediately. For now, anything posted is either public domain or already posted by someone else in what is becoming known as "the cloud", i.e., cyberspace.
Post and comments I hope to receive on this blog: your reactions to the poems, and titles of or links to poems you love as well. As a writer and teacher, I do ask that people spell-check and punctuate their posts. We are in the company of beautiful words, so we need to dress our own language as fits the occasion.
Finally, I hope these poems speak to or for you as well.
I'm often asked to forward poems I love, quote, mention, recite, or tuck into friend's gifts or students' hands. So here they are: my (very incomplete and ongoing) collection of poems that make my life worth living and noticing.
I encourage readers to BUY THE BOOKS linked to the poems. Simply put, buying poetry keeps poetry going. Most books cost less than a bottle of wine, yet a poem to live by and with lasts far beyond any glass of Malbec or Pinot Grigio.
If I cross any lines regarding copyright, please let me know and I will correct the matter immediately. For now, anything posted is either public domain or already posted by someone else in what is becoming known as "the cloud", i.e., cyberspace.
Post and comments I hope to receive on this blog: your reactions to the poems, and titles of or links to poems you love as well. As a writer and teacher, I do ask that people spell-check and punctuate their posts. We are in the company of beautiful words, so we need to dress our own language as fits the occasion.
Finally, I hope these poems speak to or for you as well.
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