If They Should Come for Us
by Fatimah Asghar
these are my people & I find
them on the street & shadow
through any wild all wild
my people my people
a dance of strangers in my blood
the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind
bindi a new moon on her forehead
I claim her my kin & sew
the star of her to my breast
the toddler dangling from stroller
hair a fountain of dandelion seed
at the bakery I claim them too
the sikh uncle at the airport
who apologizes for the pat
down the muslim man who abandons
his car at the traffic light drops
to his knees at the call of the azan
& the muslim man who sips
good whiskey at the start of maghrib
the lone khala at the park
pairing her kurta with crocs
my people my people I can’t be lost
when I see you my compass
is brown & gold & blood
my compass a muslim teenager
snapback & high-tops gracing
the subway platform
mashallah I claim them all
my country is made
in my people’s image
if they come for you they
come for me too in the dead
of winter a flock of
aunties step out on the sand
their dupattas turn to ocean
a colony of uncles grind their palms
& a thousand jasmines bell the air
my people I follow you like constellations
we hear the glass smashing the street
& the nights opening their dark
our names this country’s wood
for the fire my people my people
the long years we’ve survived the long
years yet to come I see you map
my sky the light your lantern long
ahead & I follow I follow
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
"Animal Farm" by Marcus Wicker
Marcus Wicker was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but now lives in Indiana. He is the poetry editor of Southern Indiana Review, the director of the New Harmony Writers Workshop, and is an assistant professor of English at the University of Southern Indiana.
Animal Farm
by Marcus Wicker
Consider the toucan’s festive gold breast.
Its multicolored pecker, oddly cutesy
& perhaps, a cartoon-comfort
to the gym-roped Westerners
reclining on a beach in Costa Rica.
It’s the same old song: good-natured
smile, hard work, a hat’s off kind
of attitude & before you can say
post-racial, you’re a Resort Toucan.
The benefits are room & board
but the cost is blood. Most times
it’s the closest ones—birds
of the same rainforest, same
quadrant, same tree—who give up
your whereabouts to the jaguar.
Quick as you got the gig, the boss
is tossing you out on your ass
all over some flipped umbrellas
& a tourist’s scarfed thumb. So now
you’re roofless, alone, vulnerable
& the beast is licking his chops
in your mirrored aviators. Stifling
too is the Midwestern Subdivision
in its treatment of the black squirrel.
Science tells us black squirrels
have driven out native grey squirrels
in numerous areas, but no bullshit
in my development, black squirrels
are relegated to lots with a view
of the highway. Mornings
they work shade for acorns
between homes narrow as Lincoln Logs.
History tells us black squirrels
can’t afford robust landscaping
but will pay their mortgage—
chair the neighborhood watch
if you like. Slenderizing, their night
of hair. They’re sun’s prey.
They avoid overexposure, make tanning
trend. Black squirrels
they fit in, get along. Know no one.
They see other black squirrels & run.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Animal Farm
by Marcus Wicker
Consider the toucan’s festive gold breast.
Its multicolored pecker, oddly cutesy
& perhaps, a cartoon-comfort
to the gym-roped Westerners
reclining on a beach in Costa Rica.
It’s the same old song: good-natured
smile, hard work, a hat’s off kind
of attitude & before you can say
post-racial, you’re a Resort Toucan.
The benefits are room & board
but the cost is blood. Most times
it’s the closest ones—birds
of the same rainforest, same
quadrant, same tree—who give up
your whereabouts to the jaguar.
Quick as you got the gig, the boss
is tossing you out on your ass
all over some flipped umbrellas
& a tourist’s scarfed thumb. So now
you’re roofless, alone, vulnerable
& the beast is licking his chops
in your mirrored aviators. Stifling
too is the Midwestern Subdivision
in its treatment of the black squirrel.
Science tells us black squirrels
have driven out native grey squirrels
in numerous areas, but no bullshit
in my development, black squirrels
are relegated to lots with a view
of the highway. Mornings
they work shade for acorns
between homes narrow as Lincoln Logs.
History tells us black squirrels
can’t afford robust landscaping
but will pay their mortgage—
chair the neighborhood watch
if you like. Slenderizing, their night
of hair. They’re sun’s prey.
They avoid overexposure, make tanning
trend. Black squirrels
they fit in, get along. Know no one.
They see other black squirrels & run.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Monday, January 29, 2018
"How I Learned to Walk" by Javier Zamora
How I Learned to Walk
by Javier Zamora
Calláte. Don’t say it out loud: the color of his hair,
the sour odor of his skin, the way they say
his stomach rose when he slept. I have
done nothing, said nothing. I piss in the corner
of the room, the outhouse is far, I think
orange blossoms call me to eat them. I fling rocks
at bats hanging midway up almond trees.
I’ve skinned lizards. I’ve been bored. It’s like
that time I told my friend Luz to rub her lice
against my hair. I wanted to wear a plastic bag,
to smell of gasoline, to shave my hair, to feel
something like his hands on my head.
When I clutch pillows, I think of him. If he sleeps
facedown like I do. If he can tie strings
to the backs of dragonflies. I’ve heard
of how I used to run to him. His hair still
smelling of fish, gasoline, and seaweed. It’s how
I learned to walk they say. Calláte. If I step
out this door, I want to know nothing will take me.
Not the van he ran to. Not the man he paid to take him.
Mamá Pati was asleep when he left. People say
somehow I walked across our cornfield
at dawn, a few steps behind. I must have seen him
get in that van. I was two. I sat behind a ceiba tree,
waiting. No one could find me.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Javier Zamora
Calláte. Don’t say it out loud: the color of his hair,
the sour odor of his skin, the way they say
his stomach rose when he slept. I have
done nothing, said nothing. I piss in the corner
of the room, the outhouse is far, I think
orange blossoms call me to eat them. I fling rocks
at bats hanging midway up almond trees.
I’ve skinned lizards. I’ve been bored. It’s like
that time I told my friend Luz to rub her lice
against my hair. I wanted to wear a plastic bag,
to smell of gasoline, to shave my hair, to feel
something like his hands on my head.
When I clutch pillows, I think of him. If he sleeps
facedown like I do. If he can tie strings
to the backs of dragonflies. I’ve heard
of how I used to run to him. His hair still
smelling of fish, gasoline, and seaweed. It’s how
I learned to walk they say. Calláte. If I step
out this door, I want to know nothing will take me.
Not the van he ran to. Not the man he paid to take him.
Mamá Pati was asleep when he left. People say
somehow I walked across our cornfield
at dawn, a few steps behind. I must have seen him
get in that van. I was two. I sat behind a ceiba tree,
waiting. No one could find me.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
"Cloud Study" by Donald Platt
I have long loved clouds, so if they are featured in a poem I am generally more compelled to read it. Clouds, art, love--what more could you ask for in a poem's subject?
Cloud Study
by Donald Platt
I keep returning to John Constable’s Study of Clouds.
Oil on cardboard,
six by seven and a half inches, it shows purple-gray
thunderheads,
one patch of blue, above low hills and two small trees flanked by shrubs
in the left
foreground. A sketch en plein air, a half hour’s worth of work at most,
it catches
exactly one scrap of sky and shifting sunlight on a blustery
day in 1820.
The year King George the Third died in Windsor Castle, blind
and insane, the year
50,000 Scottish weavers went on strike and printed a proclamation
calling for a new
“provisional government.” Their leaders were caught, hanged, and then
decapitated
for good measure. This cloud study survived that history.
Two minutes later,
the clouds would have taken on a different cast of light and shape
just like the thunderheads
now piling up above the Liffey. I hobble out of the Dublin City Gallery,
take a bus to the river,
sit on a park bench with a ziplock bag of ice on my swollen knee. Its wet cold
makes the joint
ache. My body is breaking down, bone spur under the right kneecap.
At fifty-eight,
I watch young men and women in black sweats run along the River Liffey —
Abha na Life,
Anna Liffey, river that crosses the plains of Life. I envy them.
Once I too could run
over the asphalt, almost without knowing I inhabited a body
whose knees might seize up
and swell. I will not run again in this life. Cirrus and cumulonimbus
scud across the blue
escutcheon of sky. Sun’s blazon through rain rampant, my life is a cloud study
for some larger landscape
John Constable never got around to painting. It hangs in a gilded frame.
People stare at it
before passing on to more important canvases, to Renoir’s
Les Parapluies, women
and men opening shiny black umbrellas in a Paris park.
There a mother shelters
her two daughters under an umbrella meant for one.
The younger daughter
holds a wooden hoop she has been rolling along tamped dirt paths,
whipping it with a stick
to keep it spinning, before the rain settled in. Renoir painted
this small family
in his lush, impressionistic style. Five years later, after visiting
Italy and studying
Piero della Francesca’s frescoes, he came back and finished the painting
in his new “manière aigre”
or harsh style. He handled the gray silk folds of the auburn-haired woman’s dress
on the left as if they were
granite to be sculpted. She carries a market basket filled
to the brim with shadow.
To approach old age, one needs a new, harsher style. Here, by the Liffey,
mothers push screaming
infants in strollers. Five teenagers in blue jeans and bright yellow or green raincoats
walk by, joking, texting
on cell phones, smoking. One girl and her boy hang back, embrace, French-kiss
a long ten seconds.
Another boy shouts over his shoulder, “Get a room!” A pair
of mute swans
preens and swims down the River Liffey, whose amber waters mirror
how the clouds pass,
avalanche of cumulus that hangs forever on the burnished
unrippling surface
of my memory — vast sky surf, cloud after cloud cresting, breaking
to be washed
away to blue nothing. Each of us — lovers, mothers, runners, me — no more
than windblown swansdown.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Cloud Study
by Donald Platt
I keep returning to John Constable’s Study of Clouds.
Oil on cardboard,
six by seven and a half inches, it shows purple-gray
thunderheads,
one patch of blue, above low hills and two small trees flanked by shrubs
in the left
foreground. A sketch en plein air, a half hour’s worth of work at most,
it catches
exactly one scrap of sky and shifting sunlight on a blustery
day in 1820.
The year King George the Third died in Windsor Castle, blind
and insane, the year
50,000 Scottish weavers went on strike and printed a proclamation
calling for a new
“provisional government.” Their leaders were caught, hanged, and then
decapitated
for good measure. This cloud study survived that history.
Two minutes later,
the clouds would have taken on a different cast of light and shape
just like the thunderheads
now piling up above the Liffey. I hobble out of the Dublin City Gallery,
take a bus to the river,
sit on a park bench with a ziplock bag of ice on my swollen knee. Its wet cold
makes the joint
ache. My body is breaking down, bone spur under the right kneecap.
At fifty-eight,
I watch young men and women in black sweats run along the River Liffey —
Abha na Life,
Anna Liffey, river that crosses the plains of Life. I envy them.
Once I too could run
over the asphalt, almost without knowing I inhabited a body
whose knees might seize up
and swell. I will not run again in this life. Cirrus and cumulonimbus
scud across the blue
escutcheon of sky. Sun’s blazon through rain rampant, my life is a cloud study
for some larger landscape
John Constable never got around to painting. It hangs in a gilded frame.
People stare at it
before passing on to more important canvases, to Renoir’s
Les Parapluies, women
and men opening shiny black umbrellas in a Paris park.
There a mother shelters
her two daughters under an umbrella meant for one.
The younger daughter
holds a wooden hoop she has been rolling along tamped dirt paths,
whipping it with a stick
to keep it spinning, before the rain settled in. Renoir painted
this small family
in his lush, impressionistic style. Five years later, after visiting
Italy and studying
Piero della Francesca’s frescoes, he came back and finished the painting
in his new “manière aigre”
or harsh style. He handled the gray silk folds of the auburn-haired woman’s dress
on the left as if they were
granite to be sculpted. She carries a market basket filled
to the brim with shadow.
To approach old age, one needs a new, harsher style. Here, by the Liffey,
mothers push screaming
infants in strollers. Five teenagers in blue jeans and bright yellow or green raincoats
walk by, joking, texting
on cell phones, smoking. One girl and her boy hang back, embrace, French-kiss
a long ten seconds.
Another boy shouts over his shoulder, “Get a room!” A pair
of mute swans
preens and swims down the River Liffey, whose amber waters mirror
how the clouds pass,
avalanche of cumulus that hangs forever on the burnished
unrippling surface
of my memory — vast sky surf, cloud after cloud cresting, breaking
to be washed
away to blue nothing. Each of us — lovers, mothers, runners, me — no more
than windblown swansdown.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
"Every Land" by Ursula K. Le Guin
In loving memory of the OG of wizardry, here is a poem by Ursula K. Le Guin. May she rest in peace.
Every Land
(From a saying of Black Elk)
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Watch where the branches of the willows bend
See where the waters of the rivers tend
Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand
Every land is the holy land
Here was the battle to the bitter end
Here's where the enemy killed the friend
Blood on the rock, tears on the sand
Every land is the holy land
Willow by the water bending in the wind
Bent till it's broken and it will not stand
Listen to the word the messengers send
Life like the broken rock, death like the sand
Every land is the holy land
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Every Land
(From a saying of Black Elk)
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Watch where the branches of the willows bend
See where the waters of the rivers tend
Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand
Every land is the holy land
Here was the battle to the bitter end
Here's where the enemy killed the friend
Blood on the rock, tears on the sand
Every land is the holy land
Willow by the water bending in the wind
Bent till it's broken and it will not stand
Listen to the word the messengers send
Life like the broken rock, death like the sand
Every land is the holy land
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Friday, January 26, 2018
"In Syrup" by Naomi Replansky
In Syrup
by Naomi Replansky
In syrup, in syrup,
In syrup we drown,
Who sell ourselves
With a sparkling smile.
Padded with pathos
Our winding sheet.
The bomb bounded
By buxom beauties.
Horror gelded
By the happy ending.
How can we swim
Who hold to our haloes?
Down we go, down
In syrup, in syrup.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Naomi Replansky
In syrup, in syrup,
In syrup we drown,
Who sell ourselves
With a sparkling smile.
Padded with pathos
Our winding sheet.
The bomb bounded
By buxom beauties.
Horror gelded
By the happy ending.
How can we swim
Who hold to our haloes?
Down we go, down
In syrup, in syrup.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
"Guest" by Nuar Alsadir
Guest
by Nuar Alsadir
Your mother’s in the kitchen and out
and in again. It’s all about them.
They’ve taken over like the dark cloud
hanging low over the back yard,
a fat aunt coming in for a hug.
Enough’s enough. The door opens:
new guests flow in as the old
back you up like mangroves.
Why get dressed up to stay in?
Pretend to befriend other children
because they have been dumped next to you?
Resistance, then fire, then to your room
without toys. Later, it’ll be the boys
to whom your friends will cater,
seem to love best. Such is the fate
of the steadfast: you’ll never be a guest.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Nuar Alsadir
Your mother’s in the kitchen and out
and in again. It’s all about them.
They’ve taken over like the dark cloud
hanging low over the back yard,
a fat aunt coming in for a hug.
Enough’s enough. The door opens:
new guests flow in as the old
back you up like mangroves.
Why get dressed up to stay in?
Pretend to befriend other children
because they have been dumped next to you?
Resistance, then fire, then to your room
without toys. Later, it’ll be the boys
to whom your friends will cater,
seem to love best. Such is the fate
of the steadfast: you’ll never be a guest.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
"Metamorphosis" by Jenny Xie
Metamorphosis
by Jenny Xie
Nowhere in those kerosene years
could she find a soft-headed match.
The wife crosses over an ocean, red-faced and cheerless.
Trades the flat pad of a stethoscope for a dining hall spatula.
Life is two choices, she thinks:
you hatch a life, or you pass through one.
Photographs of a child swaddled in layers arrive by post.
Money doesn’t, to her embarrassment.
Over time, she grows out her hair. Then she sprouts nerves.
The wife was no fool, but neither did she wander.
She lives inside a season of thrift, which stretches on.
Her sorrow has thickness and a certain sheen.
The wife knows to hurry when she washes.
When she cooks, she licks spoons slowly.
Every night, she made a dish with ground pork.
Paired with a dish that was fibrous.
by Jenny Xie
Nowhere in those kerosene years
could she find a soft-headed match.
The wife crosses over an ocean, red-faced and cheerless.
Trades the flat pad of a stethoscope for a dining hall spatula.
Life is two choices, she thinks:
you hatch a life, or you pass through one.
Photographs of a child swaddled in layers arrive by post.
Money doesn’t, to her embarrassment.
Over time, she grows out her hair. Then she sprouts nerves.
The wife was no fool, but neither did she wander.
She lives inside a season of thrift, which stretches on.
Her sorrow has thickness and a certain sheen.
The wife knows to hurry when she washes.
When she cooks, she licks spoons slowly.
Every night, she made a dish with ground pork.
Paired with a dish that was fibrous.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
"Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish
Ah, poetry about poetry. So meta. Enjoy.
Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
*
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.
*
A poem should be equal to:
Not true.
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean
But be.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
*
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.
*
A poem should be equal to:
Not true.
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean
But be.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Monday, January 22, 2018
"If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd" by John Keats
If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd
by John Keats
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by John Keats
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
"Visiting the Neighborhood" by P. Ivan Young
Visiting the Neighborhood
by P. Ivan Young
The entrance at the back of the complex
led onto a road, where an upended couch
tilted into a ditch and a washing machine
gleamed avocado beneath pine needles.
From the end, you turned left and left again,
then cut a trail to find the cul-de-sac
of bright brick houses. We'd walk as far
as we dared before a man pushing a mower
might stop to ask, "whadda you boys need?"
That was a question we could never answer.
I loved the name of the place, White Hall,
imagined that each interior was a stretch
of marble perfect wall adorned by smiling
photos of the family. Our own halls
were brailled with nail holes of former
tenants, the spackled rounds of fists.
But doesn't longing clarify the body?
The boys I left behind: Tommy, wearing
the World War II trenching tool;
Danny, whose father, so much older
than the other parents, died in his recliner
one sunny afternoon while watching baseball;
Duke, who stole his mother's car and crashed
into a wall. Boys who knew when you were posing,
waiting for someone to say, "smile." Boys
who, on those latch-key days, held themselves
in narrow passages when no one
was there to show them what to do.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by P. Ivan Young
The entrance at the back of the complex
led onto a road, where an upended couch
tilted into a ditch and a washing machine
gleamed avocado beneath pine needles.
From the end, you turned left and left again,
then cut a trail to find the cul-de-sac
of bright brick houses. We'd walk as far
as we dared before a man pushing a mower
might stop to ask, "whadda you boys need?"
That was a question we could never answer.
I loved the name of the place, White Hall,
imagined that each interior was a stretch
of marble perfect wall adorned by smiling
photos of the family. Our own halls
were brailled with nail holes of former
tenants, the spackled rounds of fists.
But doesn't longing clarify the body?
The boys I left behind: Tommy, wearing
the World War II trenching tool;
Danny, whose father, so much older
than the other parents, died in his recliner
one sunny afternoon while watching baseball;
Duke, who stole his mother's car and crashed
into a wall. Boys who knew when you were posing,
waiting for someone to say, "smile." Boys
who, on those latch-key days, held themselves
in narrow passages when no one
was there to show them what to do.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
"Snow" by Louis MacNeice
Snow
by Louis MacNeice
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes—
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands—
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
by Louis MacNeice
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes—
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands—
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Friday, January 19, 2018
"A Double Standard" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Though Frances Ellen Watkins Harper lived from 1825-1911, this poem could have been written today. Harper was a Jill of all trades (poet, fiction writer, journalist, and activist who helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad) and is something of a shero.
A Double Standard
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Do you blame me that I loved him?
If when standing all alone
I cried for bread a careless world
Pressed to my lips a stone.
Do you blame me that I loved him,
That my heart beat glad and free,
When he told me in the sweetest tones
He loved but only me?
Can you blame me that I did not see
Beneath his burning kiss
The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear
The deadly adder hiss?
Can you blame me that my heart grew cold
That the tempted, tempter turned;
When he was feted and caressed
And I was coldly spurned?
Would you blame him, when you draw from me
Your dainty robes aside,
If he with gilded baits should claim
Your fairest as his bride?
Would you blame the world if it should press
On him a civic crown;
And see me struggling in the depth
Then harshly press me down?
Crime has no sex and yet to-day
I wear the brand of shame;
Whilst he amid the gay and proud
Still bears an honored name.
Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think
Your hate of vice a sham,
When you so coldly crushed me down
And then excused the man?
Would you blame me if to-morrow
The coroner should say,
A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,
Has thrown her life away?
Yes, blame me for my downward course,
But oh! remember well,
Within your homes you press the hand
That led me down to hell.
I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways,
He does not see as man,
Within His love I know there’s room
For those whom others ban.
I think before His great white throne,
His throne of spotless light,
That whited sepulchres shall wear
The hue of endless night.
That I who fell, and he who sinned,
Shall reap as we have sown;
That each the burden of his loss
Must bear and bear alone.
No golden weights can turn the scale
Of justice in His sight;
And what is wrong in woman’s life
In man’s cannot be right.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
A Double Standard
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Do you blame me that I loved him?
If when standing all alone
I cried for bread a careless world
Pressed to my lips a stone.
Do you blame me that I loved him,
That my heart beat glad and free,
When he told me in the sweetest tones
He loved but only me?
Can you blame me that I did not see
Beneath his burning kiss
The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear
The deadly adder hiss?
Can you blame me that my heart grew cold
That the tempted, tempter turned;
When he was feted and caressed
And I was coldly spurned?
Would you blame him, when you draw from me
Your dainty robes aside,
If he with gilded baits should claim
Your fairest as his bride?
Would you blame the world if it should press
On him a civic crown;
And see me struggling in the depth
Then harshly press me down?
Crime has no sex and yet to-day
I wear the brand of shame;
Whilst he amid the gay and proud
Still bears an honored name.
Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think
Your hate of vice a sham,
When you so coldly crushed me down
And then excused the man?
Would you blame me if to-morrow
The coroner should say,
A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,
Has thrown her life away?
Yes, blame me for my downward course,
But oh! remember well,
Within your homes you press the hand
That led me down to hell.
I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways,
He does not see as man,
Within His love I know there’s room
For those whom others ban.
I think before His great white throne,
His throne of spotless light,
That whited sepulchres shall wear
The hue of endless night.
That I who fell, and he who sinned,
Shall reap as we have sown;
That each the burden of his loss
Must bear and bear alone.
No golden weights can turn the scale
Of justice in His sight;
And what is wrong in woman’s life
In man’s cannot be right.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
"Words are Birds" by Francisco X. Alarcón
Words are Birds
by Francisco X. Alarcón
words
are birds
that arrive
with books
and spring
they
love
clouds
the wind
and trees
some words
are messengers
that come
from far away
from distant lands
for them
there are
no borders
only stars
moon and sun
some words
are familiar
like canaries
others are exotic
like the quetzal bird
some can stand
the cold
others migrate
with the sun
to the south
some words
die
caged—
they're difficult
to translate
and others
build nests
have chicks
warm them
feed them
teach them
how to fly
and one day
they go away
in flocks
the letters
on this page
are the prints
they leave
by the sea
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Francisco X. Alarcón
words
are birds
that arrive
with books
and spring
they
love
clouds
the wind
and trees
some words
are messengers
that come
from far away
from distant lands
for them
there are
no borders
only stars
moon and sun
some words
are familiar
like canaries
others are exotic
like the quetzal bird
some can stand
the cold
others migrate
with the sun
to the south
some words
die
caged—
they're difficult
to translate
and others
build nests
have chicks
warm them
feed them
teach them
how to fly
and one day
they go away
in flocks
the letters
on this page
are the prints
they leave
by the sea
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
"You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm" by Paige Lewis
Today's font is different to allow Paige Lewis' poem to appear as it was intended. (My usual font is too bulky.) Lewis is relatively new in the poetry scene, so check out her work here.
You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I’ve Made Today Warm
by Paige Lewis
Sit on the park bench and chew this mint leaf.
Right now, way above your head, two men
floating in a rocket ship are ignoring their
delicate experiments, their buttons flashing
red. Watching you chew your mint, the men
forget about their gritty toothpaste, about
their fingers, numb from lack of gravity.
They see you and, for the first time since
liftoff, think home. When they were boys
they were gentle. And smart. One could
tie string around a fly without cinching it
in half. One wrote tales of sailors who
drowned after mistaking the backs of
whales for islands. Does it matter which
man is which? They just quit their mission
for you. They’re on their way down. You’ll
take both men — a winter husband and
a summer husband. Does it matter which
is — don’t slump like that. Get up, we have
so much work to do before — wait you’re going
the wrong way small whelp of a woman! this is not
how we behave where are you going
this world is already willing
to give you anything do you want to know Latin
okay now everyone
here knows Latin want inflatable deer deer ! i promise the winter /
summer children will barely hurt dear i’m hurt that you would ever think
i don’t glisten to you i’m always glistening
tame your voice and turn around
the men are coming they’ve traded everything for you the gemmy starlight
the click click click
of the universe expanding
stop
aren’t you known aren’t you
known here
how can you be certain that anywhere else will provide
more pears than you could ever eat
remember the sweet rot of it all
come back you forgot your sweater
what if there’s nothing there when you —
you don’t have your
sweater
what if it’s cold
You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I’ve Made Today Warm
by Paige Lewis
Sit on the park bench and chew this mint leaf.
Right now, way above your head, two men
floating in a rocket ship are ignoring their
delicate experiments, their buttons flashing
red. Watching you chew your mint, the men
forget about their gritty toothpaste, about
their fingers, numb from lack of gravity.
They see you and, for the first time since
liftoff, think home. When they were boys
they were gentle. And smart. One could
tie string around a fly without cinching it
in half. One wrote tales of sailors who
drowned after mistaking the backs of
whales for islands. Does it matter which
man is which? They just quit their mission
for you. They’re on their way down. You’ll
take both men — a winter husband and
a summer husband. Does it matter which
is — don’t slump like that. Get up, we have
so much work to do before — wait you’re going
the wrong way small whelp of a woman! this is not
how we behave where are you going
this world is already willing
to give you anything do you want to know Latin
okay now everyone
here knows Latin want inflatable deer deer ! i promise the winter /
summer children will barely hurt dear i’m hurt that you would ever think
i don’t glisten to you i’m always glistening
tame your voice and turn around
the men are coming they’ve traded everything for you the gemmy starlight
the click click click
of the universe expanding
stop
aren’t you known aren’t you
known here
how can you be certain that anywhere else will provide
more pears than you could ever eat
remember the sweet rot of it all
come back you forgot your sweater
what if there’s nothing there when you —
you don’t have your
sweater
what if it’s cold
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
"The Grand Silos of the Sacramento" by Lawson Fusao Inada
Lawson Fusao Inada was born in California and is third-generation Japanese-American. In 1942, he was sent to various internment camps around the country. The camps, and his love for jazz, have influenced much of his poetry. He was appointed Oregon's poet laureate in 2006.
The Grand Silos of the Sacramento
by Lawson Fusao Inada
From a distance, at night, they seem to be
industries—all lit up but not on the map;
or, in this scientific age, they could be
installations for launching rocket ships—
so solid, and with such security, are they. . .
Ah, but up close, by the light of day,
we see, not “pads” but actual paddies—
for these are simply silos in ricefields,
structures to hold the harvested grain.
Still, they're the tallest things around,
and, by night or day, you'd have to say
they're ample for what they do: storage.
And, if you amble around from your car,
you can lean up against one in the sun,
feeling warmth on your cheek as you spread
out your arms, holding on to the whole world
around you, to the shores of other lands
where the laborers launched their lives
to arrive and plant and harvest this grain
of history—as you hold and look, look
up, up, up, and whisper: “Grandfather!”
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
The Grand Silos of the Sacramento
by Lawson Fusao Inada
From a distance, at night, they seem to be
industries—all lit up but not on the map;
or, in this scientific age, they could be
installations for launching rocket ships—
so solid, and with such security, are they. . .
Ah, but up close, by the light of day,
we see, not “pads” but actual paddies—
for these are simply silos in ricefields,
structures to hold the harvested grain.
Still, they're the tallest things around,
and, by night or day, you'd have to say
they're ample for what they do: storage.
And, if you amble around from your car,
you can lean up against one in the sun,
feeling warmth on your cheek as you spread
out your arms, holding on to the whole world
around you, to the shores of other lands
where the laborers launched their lives
to arrive and plant and harvest this grain
of history—as you hold and look, look
up, up, up, and whisper: “Grandfather!”
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Monday, January 15, 2018
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou // "Our God is Marching On" by Dr. MLK Jr.
Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
In addition to a poem today, here is an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Our God is Marching On" speech. Read the full speech here.
And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man. (Yes)
I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?" (Yes, sir)
I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because "no lie can live forever." (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (All right. How long) because "you shall reap what you sow." (Yes, sir)
How long? (How long?) Not long: (Not long)
Truth forever on the scaffold, (Speak)
Wrong forever on the throne, (Yes, sir)
Yet that scaffold sways the future, (Yes, sir)
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (Not long) because:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; (Yes, sir)
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; (Yes)
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; (Yes, sir)
His truth is marching on. (Yes, sir)
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; (Speak, sir)
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. (That’s right)
O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on. (Yeah)
Glory, hallelujah! (Yes, sir) Glory, hallelujah! (All right)
Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on. [Applause]
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
In addition to a poem today, here is an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Our God is Marching On" speech. Read the full speech here.
And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man. (Yes)
I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?" (Yes, sir)
I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because "no lie can live forever." (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (All right. How long) because "you shall reap what you sow." (Yes, sir)
How long? (How long?) Not long: (Not long)
Truth forever on the scaffold, (Speak)
Wrong forever on the throne, (Yes, sir)
Yet that scaffold sways the future, (Yes, sir)
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (Not long) because:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; (Yes, sir)
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; (Yes)
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; (Yes, sir)
His truth is marching on. (Yes, sir)
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; (Speak, sir)
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. (That’s right)
O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on. (Yeah)
Glory, hallelujah! (Yes, sir) Glory, hallelujah! (All right)
Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on. [Applause]
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
"Believe, Believe" by Bob Kaufman
Believe, Believe
by Bob Kaufman
Believe in this. Young apple seeds,
In blue skies, radiating young breast,
Not in blue-suited insects,
Infesting society’s garments.
Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz,
Tearing the night into intricate shreds,
Putting it back together again,
In cool logical patterns,
Not in the sick controllers,
Who created only the Bomb.
Let the voices of dead poets
Ring louder in your ears
Than the screechings mouthed
In mildewed editorials.
Listen to the music of centuries,
Rising above the mushroom time.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Bob Kaufman
Believe in this. Young apple seeds,
In blue skies, radiating young breast,
Not in blue-suited insects,
Infesting society’s garments.
Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz,
Tearing the night into intricate shreds,
Putting it back together again,
In cool logical patterns,
Not in the sick controllers,
Who created only the Bomb.
Let the voices of dead poets
Ring louder in your ears
Than the screechings mouthed
In mildewed editorials.
Listen to the music of centuries,
Rising above the mushroom time.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
"quaking conversation" by Lenelle Moïse
This poem is by a talented American woman who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her writing is powerful and important. Borders are just lines drawn by men. There are no "shithole countries." I'll let her say the rest.
quaking conversation
by Lenelle Moïse
i want to talk about haiti.
how the earth had to break
the island’s spine to wake
the world up to her screaming.
how this post-earthquake crisis
is not natural
or supernatural.
i want to talk about disasters.
how men make them
with embargoes, exploitation,
stigma, sabotage, scalding
debt and cold shoulders.
talk centuries
of political corruption
so commonplace
it's lukewarm, tap.
talk january 1, 1804
and how it shed life.
talk 1937
and how it bled death.
talk 1964. 1986. 1991. 2004. 2008.
how history is the word
that makes today
uneven, possible.
talk new orleans,
palestine, sri lanka,
the bronx and other points
or connection.
talk resilience and miracles.
how haitian elders sing in time
to their grumbling bellies
and stubborn hearts.
how after weeks under the rubble,
a baby is pulled out,
awake, dehydrated, adorable, telling
stories with old-soul eyes.
how many more are still
buried, breathing, praying and waiting?
intact despite the veil of fear and dust
coating their bruised faces?
i want to talk about our irreversible dead.
the artists, the activists, the spiritual leaders,
the family members, the friends, the merchants
the outcasts, the cons.
all of them, my newest ancestors,
all of them, hovering now,
watching our collective response,
keeping score, making bets.
i want to talk about money.
how one man's recession might be
another man's unachievable reality.
how unfair that is.
how i see a haitian woman’s face
every time i look down at a hot meal,
slip into my bed, take a sip of water,
show mercy to a mirror.
how if my parents had made different
decisions three decades ago,
it could have been my arm
sticking out of a mass grave
i want to talk about gratitude.
i want to talk about compassion.
i want to talk about respect.
how even the desperate deserve it.
how haitians sometimes greet each other
with the two words “honor”
and “respect.”
how we all should follow suit.
try every time you hear the word “victim,”
you think “honor.”
try every time you hear the tag “john doe,”
you shout “respect!”
because my people have names.
because my people have nerve.
because my people are
your people in disguise
i want to talk about haiti.
i always talk about haiti.
my mouth quaking with her love,
complexity, honor and respect.
come sit, come stand, come
cry with me. talk.
there’s much to say.
walk. much more to do.
Lenelle Moïse, "quaking conversation" from Haiti Glass. Copyright © 2014 by Lenelle Moïse.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
quaking conversation
by Lenelle Moïse
i want to talk about haiti.
how the earth had to break
the island’s spine to wake
the world up to her screaming.
how this post-earthquake crisis
is not natural
or supernatural.
i want to talk about disasters.
how men make them
with embargoes, exploitation,
stigma, sabotage, scalding
debt and cold shoulders.
talk centuries
of political corruption
so commonplace
it's lukewarm, tap.
talk january 1, 1804
and how it shed life.
talk 1937
and how it bled death.
talk 1964. 1986. 1991. 2004. 2008.
how history is the word
that makes today
uneven, possible.
talk new orleans,
palestine, sri lanka,
the bronx and other points
or connection.
talk resilience and miracles.
how haitian elders sing in time
to their grumbling bellies
and stubborn hearts.
how after weeks under the rubble,
a baby is pulled out,
awake, dehydrated, adorable, telling
stories with old-soul eyes.
how many more are still
buried, breathing, praying and waiting?
intact despite the veil of fear and dust
coating their bruised faces?
i want to talk about our irreversible dead.
the artists, the activists, the spiritual leaders,
the family members, the friends, the merchants
the outcasts, the cons.
all of them, my newest ancestors,
all of them, hovering now,
watching our collective response,
keeping score, making bets.
i want to talk about money.
how one man's recession might be
another man's unachievable reality.
how unfair that is.
how i see a haitian woman’s face
every time i look down at a hot meal,
slip into my bed, take a sip of water,
show mercy to a mirror.
how if my parents had made different
decisions three decades ago,
it could have been my arm
sticking out of a mass grave
i want to talk about gratitude.
i want to talk about compassion.
i want to talk about respect.
how even the desperate deserve it.
how haitians sometimes greet each other
with the two words “honor”
and “respect.”
how we all should follow suit.
try every time you hear the word “victim,”
you think “honor.”
try every time you hear the tag “john doe,”
you shout “respect!”
because my people have names.
because my people have nerve.
because my people are
your people in disguise
i want to talk about haiti.
i always talk about haiti.
my mouth quaking with her love,
complexity, honor and respect.
come sit, come stand, come
cry with me. talk.
there’s much to say.
walk. much more to do.
Lenelle Moïse, "quaking conversation" from Haiti Glass. Copyright © 2014 by Lenelle Moïse.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
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