*Poem of the day thread

[Greebo]

Continuity

I’ve pressed so
far away from
my desire that

if you asked
me what I
want I would,

accepting the harmonious
completion of the
drift, say annihilation,

probably.

A. R. Ammons

 

[Greebo]

A Lame Begger

I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.

John Donne

 

[Betsy]

Quite Fun

My son Augustus, in the street, one day,
Was feeling quite exceptionally merry.
A stranger asked him: "Can you show me, pray,
The quickest way to Brompton Cemetery?"
"The quickest way? You bet I can!" said Gus,
And pushed the fellow underneath a bus.
Whatever people say about my son,
He does enjoy his little bit of fun.

Harry Graham

 

[Betsy]

Starting shortly on Radio 4

The Song of Hiawatha by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This epic narrative poem, with its picturesque and highly imaginative tales, threads the many aspects of native American mythology concerning life, nature and ritual. Weaving together "beautiful traditions into a whole" as Longfellow intended.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0501k2f

I've put it on here as I thought some might like a listen.

 

[Dillinger4]

From Blossoms by Li-Yeung Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

 

[Santino]

Five Hundred Mile

When I awauken from my rest
I ken ye’ll be there at my breast
When I fare abroad, I ken that thee
Will fare abroad along wi’ me.
When rairin fou and in my cups
I ken ye’ll match me, sup for sup
And if I haver, and speak no matter,
It’s to ye, I’ll gab and yatter.

For anely to proclaim my luve,
Five hundred mile I’d gae.
And to foonder at your door,
I’d walk five hundred mae.

When I’m sweitin wi’ ma trauchle,
It’s for thee that I strauchle.
And when I ha’ my penny-fee,
Near every penny goes to thee.
When hame-throu my journey tak me
If ye be there, then hame’ll dae me.
And if I come an eildit man,
I ken we’ll grow auld, hand in hand.

For anely to proclaim my luve,
Five hundred mile I’d gae.
And to foonder at your door,
I’d walk five hundred mae.

When I’m on ma lane and lanesome,
It’s for want of ye I’m waesome.
When in ma bed I lie a-sleeping,
It’s days with ye that fill ma dreaming.

For anely to proclaim my luve,
Five hundred mile I’d gae.
And to foonder at your door,
I’d walk five hundred mae.

 

[Dillinger4]

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!

 

[Dillinger4]

Wondrously akin are the
young dead and the hero.
Survival is the mission of neither.
His is the ascent unending
through amorphous constellations
of everlasting personal peril.
Few could overtake him there.
But Fate, to us so mute,
toward him bends inspired,
singing the hero on to meet
her roaring storm in
his cataclysmic world.
I hear none like him.
Suddenly the river of wind
rushes through me, bearing
his voice of muted thunder

 

[Greebo]

On Not Writing a Protest Poem

I think I have lain down among their voices
it is as if the continent, or its map, were drawn or sewn
quilt soft it’s the way landscape gets
after a first snow and its detail
moves, or whispers, and has become a vast yard
of the living and all of them speaking
badly in unison, different words for the same despair.

What has to be said is so small, small as a stone
and not difficult, not demanding
not like an orchestra or any electric host
heavenly or otherwise
its taste is peculiar and intimate the way a leaf
tastes of lemons or the watery sea
of bits of salt, you can’t eradicate it.

So if I lie down
among the others and cease to strive
I can allow them - what they are saying
lifts like a smoke, disperses, this history
on the brinks of history, this innumerable solitary
personal worrying crime of becoming
good, when it is too easy to be good, these days
when God exacts the opposite, and the meek world protests,
like a patient being turned in bed.

Heather Spears

 

[Dillinger4]

Fall in love all over again by Sam Riviere

much against everyone's advice
I have decided to live the life
I want to read about and write it
not by visiting the graves of authors
or moving to london to hear
in my sleep its gothic lullaby
not by going for coastal walks
or being from the north and lathing
every line as an approach it's
way outmoded I run a bath turn
off the lights I think only of
lathering the pale arms of my wife
for now a girl who dreads weekends
then I guess I might as well teach
squandering so as not to squander
this marvellous opportunity right?

 

[Greebo]

Theme for English B

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you -
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me - we two - you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me - who?

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records - Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white -
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me -
although you’re older - and white -
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

Langston Hughes

 

[Greebo]

Abort, Retry, Ignore

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high
and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat here doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.

Typing with a steady hand,
I then invoked the "save" command
But got instead a reprimand:
It read, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion?
Some maniacal type intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself,
Had never faced before.

Carefully I weighed my options...
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly I must now adopt one;
choose: Abort, Retry, Ignore?
With my fingers pale and trembling
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending,
Hoping all would be restored

Praying for some guarantee,
Finally I pressed a key.
But what on the screen did I see?
Again "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard -
I pressed again, but twice as hard,
But luck was just not on the cards,
I saw what I had seen before.

Now I typed in desperation
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation
"Abort, Retry, Ignore."
There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
By my own machine accosted
Getting up, I turned away
And paced across the office floor.

And then I saw an awful sight
A bold and blinding flash of light
A lightening bolt that cut the night,
And shook me to my very core.
The PC screen collapsed and died.
"OH NO! MY DATABASE!" I cried.
I heard a distant voice reply,
"You'll see your spreadsheets nevermore!"

To this day I do not know
The place to which our data goes.
Perhaps it goes to heaven,
Where the angels have it stored.
But as for Productivity, well,
I fear this has gone straight to Hell.
And that's the tale I have to tell -
Your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

Lucy Blades

 

[DotCommunist]

I didn't feel this much when I read it first. But a breathy welsh lilt on the radio gave life to it:

Valentine: Carol Anne Duffy


Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

 

[Sirena]

A poem for the season. This was a Poem On The Tube a few years ago and I stole it from a nearly-empty carriage. It's a bit dog-eared now but I read it every early Spring

'Seed' by Paula Meehan

The first warm day of spring
and I step out into the garden from the gloom
of a house where hope had died
to tally the storm damage, to seek what may
have survived. And finding some forgotten
lupins I’d sown from seed last autumn
holding in their fingers a raindrop each
like a peace offering, or a promise,
I am suddenly grateful and would
offer a prayer if I believed in God.

But not believing, I bless the power of seed,
its casual, useful persistence,
and bless the power of sun,
its conspiracy with the underground,
and thank my stars the winter’s ended.

 

[DotCommunist]

Blood

“A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,”
my father would say. And he’d prove it,
cupping the buzzer instantly
while the host with the swatter stared.

In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.
True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.
I changed these to fit the occasion.

Years before, a girl knocked,
wanted to see the Arab.
I said we didn’t have one.
After that, my father told me who he was,
“Shihab”—“shooting star”—
a good name, borrowed from the sky.
Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?”
He said that’s what a true Arab would say.

Today the headlines clot in my blood.
A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page.
Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root
is too big for us. What flag can we wave?
I wave the flag of stone and seed,
table mat stitched in blue.

I call my father, we talk around the news.
It is too much for him,
neither of his two languages can reach it.
I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,
to plead with the air:
Who calls anyone civilized?
Where can the crying heart graze?
What does a true Arab do now?


-naomi shihab nye

 

[Greebo]

ATLAS

There is a kind of love called maintenance,
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes, which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living; which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in the air,
As Atlas did the sky.

U.A. Fanthorpe

 

[butchersapron]

Thanks Phil

Burial Rites

Everyone comes back here to die
as I will soon. The place feels right
since it’s half dead to begin with.
Even on a rare morning of rain,
like this morning, with the low sky
hoarding its riches except for
a few mock tears, the hard ground
accepts nothing. Six years ago
I buried my mother’s ashes
beside a young lilac that’s now
taller than I, and stuck the stub
of a rosebush into her dirt,
where like everything else not
human it thrives. The small blossoms
never unfurl; whatever they know
they keep to themselves until
a morning rain or a night wind
pares the petals down to nothing.
Even the neighbor cat who shits
daily on the paths and then hides
deep in the jungle of the weeds
refuses to purr. Whatever’s here
is just here, and nowhere else,
so it’s right to end up beside
the woman who bore me, to shovel
into the dirt whatever’s left
and leave only a name for some-
one who wants it. Think of it,
my name, no longer a portion
of me, no longer inflated
or bruised, no longer stewing
in a rich compost of memory
or the simpler one of bone shards,
dirt, kitty litter, wood ashes,
the roots of the eucalyptus
I planted in ’73,
a tiny me taking nothing,
giving nothing, and free at last.

Philip Levine

 

[Dillinger4]

For M

Bright Star by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

 

[Greebo]

The Dream

Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, -
White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
There was a shutter loose, - it screeched!

Swung in the wind, - and no wind blowing! -
I was afraid, and turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort, -
And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,

Under my hand the moonlight lay!
Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
But if I weep it will not matter, -
Ah, it is good to feel you there!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

[Greebo]

A Person Protests to Fate

A person protests to fate:

“The things you have caused
me most to want
are those that furthest elude me.”

Fate nods.
Fate is sympathetic.

To tie the shoes, button a shirt,
are triumphs
for only the very young,
the very old.

During the long middle:

conjugating a rivet
mastering tango
training the cat to stay off the table
preserving a single moment longer than this one
continuing to wake whatever has happened the day before

and the penmanships love practices inside the body.

Jane Hirshfield

 

[Dillinger4]

I Am Going to Start Living Like a Mystic by Edmund Hirsch

Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater
and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall.

The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field,
each a station in a pilgrimage—silent, pondering.

Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies
are the ciphers of a secret, an occultation.

I will examine their leaves as pages in a text
and consider the bookish pigeons, students of winter.

I will kneel on the track of a vanquished squirrel
and stare into a blank pond for the figure of Sophia.

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs
as if my whole future were constellated upon it.

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,
a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.

 

[Greebo]

A couple of Grooks by Piet Hein:

IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

A poet should be of the
old-fahioned meaningless brand:
obscure, esoteric, symbolic,
- the critics demand it;
so if there's a poem of mine
that you do understand
I'll gladly explain what it means
till you don't understand it.


THE PARADOX OF LIFE

A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other's key.

 

[Greebo]

ASTRO-GYMNASTICS

Go on a starlit night,
stand on your head,
leave your feet dangling
outwards into space,
and let the starry
firmament you tread
be, for the moment,
your elected base.
Feel Earth's colossal weight
of ice and granite,
of molten magma,
water, iron, and lead;
and briefly hold
this strangely solid planet
balanced upon
your strangely solid head.

Piet Hein

 

[butchersapron]

1977

Maria Callas is dead and Groucho Marx.
Loren Eiseley is dead. Vladimir Nabokov
And Robert Lowell and Elvis. Dead.
This is the year in the Years of Lead
When The Metropolitan Indians rioted
In Bologna after the Carabinieri shot
Francesco Lorusso. They wore warpaint
And skittered and gagged at the tanks
While Johnny Lyndon celebrated the Queen’s
Jubilee on a boat out on the Thames,
Eighty seven years after Wounded Knee.
This is the year the States reinstated
The death penalty and Gary Gilmore
Gave his final grin at 8:07am in front
Of a firing squad at Utah State Prison.
Charlie Chaplin, dear friends, is dead.
The public intellect is looking for a body
In a garage in Los Altos, Silicon Valley.
This is the year of the ersatz investment
In irony, competition, the comedic value
Of total violence we recognize finally
As the final admonishment of the modern.
A year of 3.3 million human zygotes
Soaking in the sodium light of imagination.
The sun is booming. Emanuel Jaques
Drowns in a sink at 245 Yonge Street
And Gerald Hannon publishes “Men Loving
Boys Loving Men” in The Body Politic.
The humours are comely and bilious.
I’m not alive to laugh about any of this.

Matt Rader

 

[DotCommunist]

The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)

 

[DotCommunist]

The New Dog

Into the gravity of my life,
the serious ceremonies
of polish and paper
and pen, has come

this manic animal
whose innocent disruptions
make nonsense
of my old simplicities-

as if I needed him
to prove again that after
all the careful planning,
anything can happen.

-Linda Patan

 

[Pickman's model]

The Highwayman
By Alfred Noyes

Part One
I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV
And dark in the old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-

V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

Part Two
I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching-
Marching-marching-
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement, the road that he would ride.

III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say-
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till here fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs
ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did
not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up strait and still!

VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night
!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.

VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

* * * * * *

X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding-
Riding-riding-
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

 

[Greebo]

Dark Matter and Dark Energy

My husband says dark matter is a reality
not just some theory invented by adolescent computers
he can prove it exists and is everywhere

forming invisible haloes around everything
and somehow because of gravity
holding everything loosely together

the way a child wants to escape its parents
and doesn’t want to - what’s that -
we don’t know what it is but we know it is real

the way our mothers and fathers fondly
angrily followed fixed orbits around
each other like mice on a track

the way every human and every atom
rushes through space wrapped in its invisible
halo, this big shadow - that’s dark dark matter

sweetheart, while the galaxies
in the wealth of their ferocious protective bubbles
stare at each other

unable to cease
proudly
receding

Alicia Ostriker

 

[Greebo]

Constancy In Change

COULD this early bliss but rest

Constant for one single hour!
But e'en now the humid West

Scatters many a vernal shower.
Should the verdure give me joy?

'Tis to it I owe the shade;
Soon will storms its bloom destroy,

Soon will Autumn bid it fade.

Eagerly thy portion seize,

If thou wouldst possess the fruit!
Fast begin to ripen these,

And the rest already shoot.
With each heavy storm of rain

Change comes o'er thy valley fair;
Once, alas! but not again

Can the same stream hold thee e'er.

And thyself, what erst at least

Firm as rocks appear'd to rise,
Walls and palaces thou seest

But with ever-changing eyes.
Fled for ever now the lip

That with kisses used to glow,
And the foot, that used to skip

O'er the mountain, like the roe.

And the hand, so true and warm,

Ever raised in charity,
And the cunning-fashion'd form,--

All are now changed utterly.
And what used to bear thy name,

When upon yon spot it stood,
Like a rolling billow came,

Hast'ning on to join the flood.

Be then the beginning found

With the end in unison,
Swifter than the forms around

Are themselves now fleeting on!
Thank the merit in thy breast,

Thank the mould within thy heart,
That the Muses' favour blest
Ne'er will perish, ne'er depart.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

[butchersapron]

Phlegm.

I grew up to my dad’s incessant coughing,

And the accompanying thick yellow phlegm he would hack out,

I miss it,

A nostalgia for the old days,

Happier times with sadder songs,

It served as a constant reminder for how the bowels of the Ba’ath,

Were excreted on Kurdistan’s soil,

Picturing the old black radio,

Desperate for a reply,

Crackling the words:

‘Comrade, can you hear me?’,

As they singed slowly in Chemical Ali’s foul hatred,

The wheezing chest overflowing with the froth of Saddam’s broth,

Exterminating any areas of the trachea that had tasted Kurdish words,

The foaming mouth,

The peeling skin,

Watching their brothers writhe with them in demonic choreography,

Forcing the iris’ to immigrate,

Leaving them as blank as the Sahara el Beyda;

A stagger,

A fall,

A death,

And repeat.

There you have,

the formula for genocide.

My dad doesn’t cough anymore,

And you cannot smell the mustard gas on him…

Just the lingering stench of revolution.