Poet's Corner

[Dhara]

“Fire” by Judy Brown.


What makes a fire burn
is the space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood….

 

[Dhara]

THE LITTLE DUCK
By Donald C. Babcock

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.
No, it isn’t a gull.
A gull always has a raucous touch about him.
This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells.
He isn’t cold, and he is thinking things over.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic,
And he is part of it.
He looks a bit like a mandarin, or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree.
But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher.
He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realizes it.
And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity—which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.
He has made himself a part of the boundless, by easing himself into it just where it
touches him.

 

[midcan5]

Haven't been back here in a while, hope all are well. Make sure you support poetry, buy a book. This is my 520 post in this thread - even have a few of my own.

'Hate Poem'

"I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant “good morning”: hate.
You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine."

Julie Sheehan


Who says Gov doesn't do some good things. Hate Poem, by Julie Sheehan - Poem 127 | Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools, Hosted by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2001-2003 (Poetry and Literature, Library of Congress)

 

[Dhara]

When the shoe strings break
On both your shoes
And you're in a hurry-
That's the blues.

When you go to buy a candy bar
And you've lost the dime you had-
Slipped through a hole in your pocket somewhere-
That's the blues, too, and bad!




Langston Hughes

 

[Dhara]

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams

 

[Dhara]

Famous

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

 

[Dhara]

a song in the front yard

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS


I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

 

[Dhara]

Doors opening, closing on us

By Marge Piercy

Maybe there is more of the magical
in the idea of a door than in the door
itself. It’s always a matter of going
through into something else. But

while some doors lead to cathedrals
arching up overhead like stormy skies
and some to sumptuous auditoriums
and some to caves of nuclear monsters

most just yield a bathroom or a closet.
Still, the image of a door is liminal,
passing from one place into another
one state to the other, boundaries

and promises and threats. Inside
to outside, light into dark, dark into
light, cold into warm, known into
strange, safe into terror, wind

into stillness, silence into noise
or music. We slice our life into
segments by rituals, each a door
to a presumed new phase. We see

ourselves progressing from room
to room perhaps dragging our toys
along until the last door opens
and we pass at last into was.

 

[Dhara]

Poetry is a combat sport

You have to look no further
than a recent news story from Russia
where a former teacher stabbed an acquaintance to death
in a dispute about literary genres.
The victim insisted that "the only real literature is prose,"
while the murderer favored poetry.

And just last week, poets protested
outside London's Pentonville prison
against the UK ban
on
sending books
to prisoners.

 

[Impenitent]

"Who Do You Blame?"

32 dead in Virginia is his record
Now forgotten and ignored
He killed 26 at Sandy Hook
Won't you please take a look
He put a bullet in a Congresswoman's brain

Honey, now tell me who do you blame?
Who Do You Blame?

Who Do You Blame?
Who Do You Blame?

You can talk the talk
But can you walk the walk
When the gun companies call the shots
Come on baby, connect the dots
Aren't you on to his game?

Now tell me, who do you blame?
Who Do You Blame?

Who Do You Blame?
Who Do You Blame?

He runs the NRA
And he tells you what to think and say
When he announces to his minions
These are your new opinions
Darlin' I know you can tell me his name

Now tell me who do you blame?
Who Do You Blame?

Who Do You Blame?
Who Do You Blame?

 

[Impenitent]

"Fear and Loathing in USMB"

Ladies and gentlemen this is Massacre number 5!

One, two, three, four, five, everybody in the car so come on let's ride...
To the gun store around the corner.
The boys say they want some action and ammo but I really don't wanna
Turkey-shoot like I had last week.
I must stay deep 'cause talk is cheap.
I like Bushmaster, Remington, Colt, and Beretta
And as I continue, you know they're getting better
So what can I do? I really beg you my Lord.
To me shooting is just a sport.
Anything, let it fly, it's all good let me pump it.
Please set it up and i'll thump it

A little bit of Lanza in my life,
A little bit of Harris by my side.
A little bit of Klebold's all I need,
A little bit of Seung-hui Cho is who i see
A little bit of Whitman in the sun,
A little bit of Loughner all night long.
A little bit of Major Hasan here I am,
A little bit of Holmes makes me your man!
Massacre number five!

Jump up and down and load all your rounds .
Shake your head to the sound,
Talk to the voices that you found
Adjust those holsters left and right
One to the front and one to the side.
Check your clips once and check your clips twice
And if it looks like this you're ready
To stand your ground all night

A little bit of Lanza in my life,
A little bit of Harris by my side.
A little bit of Klebold's all I need,
A little bit of Seung-hui Cho is who i see
A little bit of Whitman in the sun,
A little bit of Loughner all night long.
A little bit of Major Hasan here I am,
A little bit of Holmes makes me your man!

Thump it, Thump it
Massacre number five, ha, ha, ha.

A little bit of Lanza in my life,
A little bit of Harris by my side.
A little bit of Klebold's all I need,
A little bit of Seung-hui Cho is who i see
A little bit of Whitman in the sun,
A little bit of Loughner all night long.
A little bit of Major Hasan here I am,
A little bit of Holmes makes me your man!

I do all to show my love for Jodie Foster, but

A whole lot of tyranny is what I see
Ruby Ridge made a big impression on me
You'll learn, in Waco the wrong men died
Since you can't run and you can't hide.
You and me gonna touch the sky.

Massacre number five!

 

[Dhara]

MORE THAN A WOMAN

Ever since I woke up today,
a song has been playing uncontrollably
in my head--a tape looping

over the spools of the brain,
a rosary in the hands of a frenetic nun,
mad fan belt of a tune.

It must have escaped from the radio
last night on the drive home
and tunneled while I slept

from my ears to the center of my cortex.
It is a song so cloying and vapid
I won’t even bother mentioning the title,

but on it plays as if I were a turntable
covered with dancing children
and their spooky pantomimes,

as if everything I had ever learned
was slowly being replaced
by its slinky chords and the puff-balls of its lyrics.

It played while I watered the plants
and continued when I brought in the mail
and fanned out the letters on a table.

It repeated itself when I took a walk
and watched from a bridge
brown leaves floating in the channels of a current.

Late in the afternoon it seemed to fade,
but I heard it again at the restaurant
when I peered at the lobsters

lying on the bottom of an illuminated
tank which was filled to the brim
with copious tears.

Billy Collins

 

[Impenitent]

"Deserved Rewards"

I'm off to be a singin' cowboy in the movies
With my lariat and requisite white hat
Ropin' the bad guys and all my groupies
Guitar ever in tune and I'm never singin' flat

Impy ridin' across the silver screen
The fairest cowgirls in his arms you'll see
A troubadour buckaroo just like Roy or Gene
And you'll be smilin' when you think of me

I'll be on to my deserved rewards
Far west of the golden prairie sky
Jon, help me with these chords
Up the cloudy draw with sundown nigh

But amid the tumblin' tumbleweeds of El Paso
Ghost riders said "Impy not quite yet"
And snared me away with their lassos
Guitars will be a-strummin' don't you fret

I knew from the herd I had strayed
But I didn't know how far I'd gone wrong
How I wish in your heart I had stayed
Now i can only leave you with this song

I'll be on to my deserved rewards
Far west of the golden prairie sky
Jon, help me with these chords
Up the cloudy draw with sundown nigh




Marty Robbins "El Paso"



"Tumbling tumbleweeds" Roy Rogers



Ghost riders in the sky Burl Ives

 

[Dhara]

ee cummings, “let it go”

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
so comes love

 

[Gracie]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
If you are a Buddhist
I'm a master of Kung Fu.

 

[Dhara]

Anne Sexton, “Admonitions to a Special Person”

Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

 

[Dhara]

Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.

Speak Mary-words into our pillow.
Take me the gangling twelve-year-old
into your sunken lap.
Whisper like a buttercup.
Eat me. Eat me up like cream pudding.
Take me in.
Take me.
Take.

Give me a report on the condition of my soul.
Give me a complete statement of my actions.
Hand me a jack-in-the-pulpit and let me listen in.
Put me in the stirrups and bring a tour group through.
Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy.
Did I make you go insane?
Did I turn up your earphone and let a siren drive through?
Did I open the door for the mustached psychiatrist
who dragged you out like a gold cart?
Did I make you go insane?
From the grave write me, Anna!
You are nothing but ashes but nevertheless
pick up the Parker Pen I gave you.
Write me.
Write.
Anne Sexton

 

[Gracie]

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
I have five fingers and
this one's for you

 

[Dhara]

The Fury Of Hating Eyes - Poem by Anne Sexton


I would like to bury
all the hating eyes
under the sand somewhere off
the North Atlantic and suffocate
them with the awful sand
and put all their colors to sleep
in that soft smother.
Take the brown eyes of my father,
those gun shots, those mean muds.
Bury them.
Take the blue eyes of my mother,
naked as the sea,
waiting to pull you down
where there is no air, no God.
Bury them.
Take the black eyes of my love,
coal eyes like a cruel hog,
wanting to whip you and laugh.
Bury them.
Take the hating eyes of martyrs,
presidents, bus collectors,
bank managers, soldiers.
Bury them.
Take my eyes, half blind
and falling into the air.
Bury them.
Take your eyes.
I come to the center,
where a shark looks up at death
and thinks of my heart
and squeeze it like a doughnut.
They'd like to take my eyes
and poke a hatpin through
their pupils. Not just to bury
but to stab. As for your eyes,
I fold up in front of them
in a baby ball and you send
them to the State Asylum.
Look! Look! Both those
mice are watching you
from behind the kind bars.
Anne Sexton

 

[Gracie]

Roses are red,
shit is brown,
shut the fuck up,
and sit the fuck down.