last lines (and this has a great one)

Goodbye, April...hello, (holy-crap-it's-) May! I'm looking forward to bluer skies, warmer days, and living out some of the poetry that filled this month. Being outdoors always helps. Enjoy this last poem, and the hiatus from daily posting that's sure to follow.

--

Father to the Man
by Tom C. Hunley

The OBGYN said babies almost never

 arrive right on their due dates, so

the night before my firstborn was due

 to make his debut, I went out with the guys

until a guilt-twinge convinced me to convince them

 to leave the sports bar and watch game six 

on my 20-inch, rabbit eared, crap TV. After we

 arrived, my wife whispered, "My water broke"

as the guys cheered and spilled potato chips

 for our little dog to eat up. I can't remember

who was playing whom, but someone got called

 for a technical, as the crowd made a noise



that could have been a quick wind, high-fiving

 leaf after leaf after leaf. I grabbed our suitcase

and told the guys they cold stay put, but we

 were heading for the hospital and the rest of



our lives. No, we're out of here, they said.

 Part of me wanted to head out with them,

back to the smell of hot wings and microbrews,

 then maybe to a night club full of heavy bass


and perfume, or just into a beater Ford with a full

 ash tray, speeding farther and farther into 

the night, into nowhere in particular. Instead I walked

 my wife to our minivan, held her hand as she



stepped down from the curb, opened her door,

 shut the suitcases into the trunk, and

ran right over that part of me, left it

 bleeding and limping like a poor, stupid squirrel.

what we understand

What I Understood
by Katha Pollitt

When I was a child I understood everything

about, for example, futility. Standing for hours

on the hot asphalt outfield, trudging for balls

I'd ask myself, how many times will I have to perform

this pointless task, and all the others? I knew

about snobbery, too, and cruelty—for children

are snobbish and cruel—and loneliness: in restaurants

the dignity and shame of solitary diners

disabled me, and when my grandmother

screamed at me, "Someday you'll know what it's like!"

I knew she was right, the way I knew

about the single rooms my teachers went home to,

the pictures on the dresser, the hoard of chocolates,

and that there was no God, and that I would die.

All this I understood, no one needed to tell me.

The only thing I didn't understand

was how in a world whose predominant characteristics

are futility, cruelty, loneliness, disappointment

people are saved every day

by a sparrow, a foghorn, a grassblade, a tablecloth.

This year I'll be

thirty-nine, and I still don't understand it.

a lullabye for evening

Let Evening Come
by Jane Kenyon

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.

do you have a sacred place?

The Sacred

by Stephen Dunn

After the teacher asked if anyone had

a sacred place

and the students fidgeted and shrank


in their chairs, the most serious of them all


said it was his car,

being in it alone, his tape deck playing


things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth

had been spoken


and began speaking about their rooms,


their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,

the car in motion,

music filling it, and sometimes one other person



who understood the bright altar of the dashboard

and how far away

a car could take him from the need


to speak, or to answer, the key


in having a key

and putting it in, and going.

for the last few days

Clouds

by Mary Oliver

All afternoon, Sir,

your ambassadors have been turning

into lakes and rivers.

At first they were just clouds, like any other.

Then they swelled and swirled; then they hung very still;

then they broke open. This is, I suppose,

just one of the common miracles,

a transformation, not a vision,

not an answer, not a proof, but I put it

there, close against my heart, where the need is, and it serves

the purpose. I go on, soaked through, my hair

slicked back;

like corn, or wheat, shining and useful.

thomas merton

This is a poem by Thomas Merton, who was a monk in the '50s (and probably some years surrounding that, too). He wrote far more prose than poetry, but since he's one of my favorite spiritual writers, I thought I'd post a piece of his.

In Silence

by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

roll away your stone

Another song with great lyrics, crazy energy and fun tempo changes. Have a listen! (More "real" poetry to come, I promise.)

by Mumford & Sons

Lyrics:

Roll away your stone I will roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don't leave me alone at this time
For I'm afraid of what I will discover inside

You told me that I would find a hole
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think
Yet it dominates the things I see

It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say 'That's exactly how this grace thing works’
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think
And yet it dominates the things I see

Stars hide your fires
For these here are my desires
And I won't give them up to you this time around
And so I will be found
With my stake stuck in the ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul

And you, you've gone too far this time
You have neither reason nor rhyme
With which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine

survivor

-- a challenge. This makes me think more deeply about all that survivors of violence have to carry.

by Alicia Partnoy

I carry my rage like a dead fish,
limp and stinking in my arms.
I press it against my breast,
whisper to it,
people on the streets flee from me …
I don't know: is it the smell of death
that makes them flee
or is it the fear
that my body's warmth
might bring rage back to life?

a beginner's manual

In response to the last post...

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual

by Pamela Spiro Wagner

First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.

Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.

Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.

Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.

When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don't even notice,
close this manual.

fitz and the dizzyspells

Lots of people don't like poetry. It's understandable. Sometimes I get tired of it, too. You have to give a lot to a poem to get something back.

Music, on the other hand, pretty much just gives. (For example...it gives me the feeling that I could be a rock star if a down-on-her-luck talent scout pulled up next to me at a stoplight on a beautiful day.)

This song not only gives musically, it also has some super fun-to-say lyrics. I don't really know what they mean, but I can somehow appreciate that the words "flailing to the whir of a snack machine" have some deeper meaning. (Or maybe it's just my proximity to the office Donettes.)

Fitz and the Dizzyspells

Lyrics:

Comes and goes

Like in fits and dizzy spells, like the weather

And it blows

Like it knows what's going wrong, like it's clever

Has a name but the name goes unspoken

Weather vanes were all twisted and broken

So soldier on, soldier on, soldier on, soldier on

Flailing to the whir of a snack machine

Muted screams of an old regime

And then, oh something gets in it

The nightshade gets in it

And we were all fast asleep, we were all so fast asleep

But you woke us, you woke us from the strangest dream

That an aubergine could ever know

Would ever know, would ever know

Lava flows over crooks and craggy cliffs to the ocean

And explodes in a steam heat fevered cyclical motion

Has a name but the name goes unspoken

It's in vain 'cause the language is broken

So cast your own, cast your own

Cast your own, cast your own

Soldier on, soldier on, soldier on, soldier on

Soldier on, soldier on, soldier on, soldier on

Soldier on, soldier on, soldier on, soldier on

Soldier on, soldier on, soldier on, soldier on

a blessing for wedding...

...and especially for two who just started their journey.

by Jane Hirshfield

Today when persimmons ripen
Today when fox-kits come out of their den into snow
Today when the spotted egg releases its wren song
Today when the maple sets down its red leaves
Today when windows keep their promise to open
Today when fire keeps its promise to warm
Today when someone you love has died
or someone you never met has died
Today when someone you love has been born
or someone you will not meet has been born
Today when rain leaps to the waiting of roots in their dryness
Today when starlight bends to the roofs of the hungry and tired
Today when someone sits long inside his last sorrow
Today when someone steps into the heat of her first embrace
Today, let this light bless you
With these friends let it bless you
With snow-scent and lavender bless you
Let the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly
Spoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears
Sleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes
Let its fierceness and tenderness hold you
Let its vastness be undisguised in all your days

a simple way (#3)

There's so little time

to share these quiet notions.

Like when you point out to me

the calling of the birds

and I call your gaze to a butterfly on a stone.

See how she flaps her wings?, I'll say,

like she's breathing slowly.

Did you see how she's shifting, quietly, on the rock?

Did you catch the sun filtering

through her fine lashes?

She's content, and contentment

is beautiful,

I'll say.

What do you think

of a butterfly's colorful way

of just being?

My eyes will look toward yours,

as her thoughtful wings say simple things.

I wonder if you'll understand.

the curator

by Miller Williams

* this one is long, but SO good.

We thought it would come, we thought the Germans would come,
were almost certain they would. I was thirty-two,
the youngest assistant curator in the country.
I had some good ideas in those days.

Well, what we did was this. We had boxes
precisely built to every size of canvas.
We put the boxes in the basement and waited.

When word came that the Germans were coming in,
we got each painting put in the proper box
and out of Leningrad in less than a week.
They were stored somewhere in southern Russia.

But what we did, you see, besides the boxes
waiting in the basement, which was fine,
a grand idea, you’ll agree, and it saved the art—
but what we did was leave the frames hanging,
so after the war it would be a simple thing
to put the paintings back where they belonged.

Nothing will seem surprised or sad again
compared to those imperious, vacant frames.

Well, the staff stayed on to clean the rubble
after the daily bombardments. We didn’t dream—
You know it lasted nine hundred days.
Much of the roof was lost and snow would lie
sometimes a foot deep on this very floor,
but the walls stood firm and hardly a frame fell.

Here is the story, now, that I want to tell you.
Early one day, a dark December morning,
we came on three young soldiers waiting outside,
pacing and swinging their arms against the cold.
They told us this: in three homes far from here
all dreamed of one day coming to Leningrad
to see the Hermitage, as they supposed
every Soviet citizen dreamed of doing.
Now they had been sent to defend the city,
a turn of fortune the three could hardly believe.

I had to tell them there was nothing to see
but hundreds and hundreds of frames where the paintings had hung.

“Please, sir,” one of them said, “let us see them.”

And so we did. It didn’t seem any stranger
than all of us being here in the first place,
inside such a building, strolling in snow.

We led them around most of the major rooms,
what they could take the time for, wall by wall.
Now and then we stopped and tried to tell them
part of what they would see if they saw the paintings.
I told them how those colors would come together,
described a brushstroke here, a dollop there,
mentioned a model and why she seemed to pout
and why this painter got the roses wrong.

The next day a dozen waited for us,
then thirty or more, gathered in twos and threes.
Each of us took a group in a different direction:
Castagno, Caravaggio, Brueghel, Cézanne, Matisse,
Orozco, Manet, da Vinci, Goya, Vermeer,
Picasso, Uccello, your Whistler, Wood, and Gropper.
We pointed to more details about the paintings,
I venture to say, than if we had had them there,
some unexpected use of line or light,
balance or movement, facing the cluster of faces
the same way we’d done it every morning
before the war, but then we didn’t pay
so much attention to what we talked about.
People could see for themselves. As a matter of fact
we’d sometimes said our lines as if they were learned
out of a book, with hardly a look at the paintings.

But now the guide and the listeners paid attention
to everything—the simple differences
between the first and post-impressionists,
romantic and heroic, shade and shadow.

Maybe this was a way to forget the war
a little while. Maybe more than that.
Whatever it was, the people continued to come.
It came to be called The Unseen Collection.

Here. Here is the story I want to tell you.

Slowly, blind people began to come.
A few at first then more of them every morning,
some led and some alone, some swaying a little.
They leaned and listened hard, they screwed their faces,
they seemed to shift their eyes, those that had them,
to see better what was being said.
And a cock of the head. My God, they paid attention.

After the siege was lifted and the Germans left
and the roof was fixed and the paintings were in their places,
the blind never came again. Not like before.
This seems strange, but what I think it was,
they couldn’t see the paintings anymore.
They could still have listened, but the lectures became
a little matter-of-fact. What can I say?
Confluences come when they will and they go away.

summer song

by William Carlos Williams

Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer's smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

love poem with toast

by Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do

to make things happen,

the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,

the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do

trying to keep something from doing something,

the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,

the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery

powering our passage through the days,

we move, as we call it, forward,

wanting to be wanted,

wanting not to lose the rain forest,

wanting the water to boil,

wanting not to have cancer,

wanting to be home by dark,

wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other

watching at the end,

as both want not to leave the other alone,

as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,

we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

want another bowlful

Sister Cat

by Frances Mayes

Cat stands at the fridge,

Cries loudly for milk.

But I've filled her bowl.

Wild cat, I say, Sister,

Look, you have milk.

I clink my fingernail

Against the rim. Milk.

With down and liver,

A word I know she hears.

Her sad miaow. She runs

To me. She dips

In her whiskers but

Doesn't drink. As sometimes

I want the light on

When it is on. Or when

I saw the woman walking

toward my house and

I thought there's Frances.

Then looked in the car mirror

To be sure. She stalks

The room. She wants. Milk

Beyond milk. World beyond

This one, she cries.

mix it up - rives

This guy performed where I work a few years ago. His delivery is so smooth, & his turns of phrase, so memorable.

a fear & a favorite

Diagramming Won't Help This Situation

by Kevin Brown

Grammatical rules have always baffled

me, leaving me wondering whether my

life is transitive or intransitive, if I am the

subject or object of my life, and no one

has been able to provide words to describe

my actions, even if they do end in -ly.

But now the problem seems to be with

pronouns: I am unwilling to be him

and you are unable to be her, so we

will never be them -- the ones talking

about what they need from the grocery

store because the Rogers are coming for

dinner tonight; the couple saving for a

vacation, perhaps a cruise to Alaska or a

museum tour of Europe; the two who meet

with a financial advisor to plan their children's

college fund while still managing to set enough

aside for their retirement -- and so we will

continue to be nothing more than sentence

fragments, perfectly fine for effect,

but forever looking for the missing

part of speech we can never seem to find.

still looking out for number one

by Raymond Carver

Now that you've gone away for five days,

I'll smoke all the cigarettes I want,

where I want. Make biscuits and eat them

with jam and fat bacon. Loaf. Indulge

myself. Walk on the beach if I feel

like it. And I feel like it, alone and

thinking about when I was young. The people

then who loved me beyond reason.

And how I loved them above all others.

Except one. I'm saying I'll do everything

I want here while you're away!

But there's one thing I won't do.

I won't sleep in our bed without you.

No. It doesn't please me to do so.

I'll sleep where I damn well feel like it--

where I sleep best when you're away

and I can't hold you the way I do.

On the broken sofa in my study.

birds / wings (#2)

I.

birds

wings

hundreds of thick angles

on a map of pale gold,

expanding and retracting

sharply --

a hidden body of italics

beating calligraphic strokes in

staccato, streaming

open

and closed

like a counter or a serif

preening into sunset--

a swiftly suggestive

diagonal mountain

in

tandem flight

II.

from my desk,

they look

like kids running out of school --

commas rushing out of a paragraph --

-- or a series of sixteenth notes

spreading eight octaves --

far from pauses or rests,

or tests.

XXIX by e. e. cummings

let it go--the

smashed word broken

open vow or

the oath cracked length

wise--let it go it

was sworn to

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

becoming more (original #1)

sometimes i run across the hall

with two different shoes on,

stand in front of the long mirror,

one foot up,

one foot down,

switch...

which one?

it's true, i can't see me --

sometimes i run away from me, then,

because i have two different selves on,

stand in front of my long choices,

one hope up,

one dream down,

switch.

which looks right?

who's walking away?

who

is more

becoming?

emily dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

--

I hope you feel true, real hope in your life, and that it never stops-- at all.

national poetry month

It's April! Why do I care, aside from the thrill of recently rolled-down car windows and freshly rolled-up jeans? Well, April is National Poetry Month! And although I haven't formerly celebrated it in much of any fashion, this year, I've decided to.

A talented friend of mine celebrates by challenging herself to post one original poem a day -- drafts or rough versions are fine. The goal is to write more. I would love to do that, and I'm hoping to write some things I'm proud of by the end of the month, but I'm also looking forward to sharing some beautiful & thought-provoking poems by real poets. (I say that in contrast to my own, not my friend's.)

So...here's the beginning of a daily little feeding of poetry. If you want, you can think of poems the way I do -- like they're little Dove dark chocolates to savor on your tongue. Only better.

--

What the Living Do

by 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.