*Poem of the day thread

[Dillinger4]

Eliminating the Horizon by Linda Nemec Foster

Who needs boundaries?
If your eyes fail to imagine
where the earth ends and the sky
begins, think of a place bereft
of lines: the blue depths of a stream
flowing like hair that will never
be combed. Deep indigo of nothing
but fluid memory ebbing around
blossoms of white asters. “I remember
how flowers feel when you barely
touch them,” says the water. Like leaving
one world and embracing another:
seeds bursting into wildflowers,
clouds changing into rain,
the image of our borders
a mere outline the soul ignores

 

[Dillinger4]

Eyes-Shut Facing Eyes-Rolling-Around" [excerpt] by Rumi

Pay close attention to your mean thoughts.

That sourness may be a blessing,
as an overcast day brings rain for the roses
and relief to dry soil.

Don't look so sourly on your sourness!
It may be it's carrying what you most deeply need
and want. What seems to be keeping you from joy
may be what leads you to joy.

Don't call it a dead branch.
Call it the live, moist root.

Don't always be waiting to see
what's behind it. That wait and see
poisons your Spirit.

Reach for it.
Hold your meanness to your chest
as a healing root,
and be through with waiting

 

[Dillinger4]

I Worried by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang

 

[chainsawjob]

Stephen Lawrence isn't on the National Curriculum

I tuck you in
with long ago and far away
pull the blanket of it wasn't us, it wasn't here
around your heart, although I know
that five inches is 13 centimetres,
that 130 yards would cost a lot
of blood. There'll be Rosa Parks
and Martin Luther King for homework,
and someone saying it's good
we teach them that,
but no-one has a map of South-East London,
and today your teacher didn't say his name.
I teach you this: He spelled it with a 'PH'
not a 'V'. In 1993,
he was eighteen.
He wanted to be an architect.
He was waiting for a bus.

Josephine Cocoran

 

[frogwoman]

Where's the urban poetry thread? I've written a few recently

 

[bluescreen]

Where's the urban poetry thread? I've written a few recently

There are so many threads and none of them seems very current. I vote you start a new one. Would be good to see your work.

Meanwhile this is a good thread for other people's.

A very old one but always relevant

Things by Fleur Adcock

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

 

[bluescreen]

Tiffany Atkinson: Pinkest (strike sonnet chain, 11)​

April 27, 2023 W N Herbert Uncategorized
Money’s truth, that’s all ye need to know!
yells some old tosspot slowing past our picket.
That can cut both ways I think, and so
I take the pinkest sticker and I stick it
firmly on his windscreen at eye level—
UCU has some tenacity—
then smilingly suggest that he go swivel.
Capital! And its veracity.
Money moneysplains itself all day
like every moneyspreading bore. It shafts
our workplaces and pensions and our pay-
deals, sinks the ship, then commandeers the rafts,
and still it jabbers on. Who wouldn’t shout?
This many strikes — surely someone’s out?

new boots and pantisocracies

strike sonnet chain

newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com

Tiffany Atkinson’s most recent collection is Lumen (Bloodaxe 2021). She received the Cholmondeley Award for Poetry in 2022.
Leave a comment

 

[hitmouse]

the lesson of the moth by archy​

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then to cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is to come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy

 

[hitmouse]

Just learned about Hera Lindsay Bird's poems made from Rupi Kaur poems:

 

[chainsawjob]

Alone

by Edgar Allen Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

 

[Dillinger4]

A revolutionary movement does not spread by contamination / But by resonance / Something that constitutes itself here / Resonates with the shock wave given off by something that constituted itself elsewhere / The body that resonates does so in its own way / An insurrection is not like the propagation of the plaque or a forest fire a linear process spreading little by little from a spark / But rather this / It becomes embodied in a MUSICAL way / and whose focal points / Dispersed in / time and space manage / To impose the rhythm of their VIBRATION / To get ever more dense / to the point where one can no longer desire to turn back" (((Jean-Marie Gleize)))

 

[Dillinger4]

Dog Days by Derek Mahon

When you stop to consider
The days spent dreaming of a future
And say then, that was my life.'

For the days are long -
From the first milk van
To the last shout in the night,
An eternity. But the weeks go by
Like birds; and the years, the years
Fly past anti-clockwise
Like clock hands in a bar mirror.

 

[hitmouse]

Salvage​

By Hedgie Choi


I have seen deer split open on the road and thought

that’s exactly what
those

soft and gentle
fuckers

deserve.

Some things happened to me in my formative years that I don’t want to tell you about
but some things happened to you too.

 

[hitmouse]

Paperweight​

By Ryan Teitman

Every few months or so, I turn into a rock. First, my joints stiffen as if there’s weather coming. Then, I get the urge to read some doorstop novel. Finally, I become a rock. A smallish one, usually. My wife isn’t surprised anymore. She picks me up from the kitchen floor or the driveway and sets me on her desk as a paperweight. It’s nice to have a singular purpose. I’m glad I don’t become a brick or, God forbid, a stone. When I’m a rock, I appreciate so many things I don’t otherwise notice. Silence so intricate it sounds like music. A breeze moving through the room like a dancer stretching her limbs. Eventually, after a few days or weeks, I become a person again. I go back to reading my book; I spend the weekend cleaning leaves from the gutters. But at night, when my wife is asleep, I sneak downstairs and set my hand atop a stack of mail. I wait there, as still as possible, until sunrise. I don’t want to lose my touch.

 

[hitmouse]

From October by Louise Glück, 22 April 1943-13 October 2023:

"October" by Louise Glück

October​

Louise Glück

1.Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn't Frank just slip on the ice,
didn't he heal, weren't the spring seeds planted

didn't the night end,
didn't the melting ice
flood the narrow gutters

wasn't my body
rescued, wasn't it safe

didn't the scar form, invisible
above the injury

terror and cold,
didn't they just end, wasn't the back garden
harrowed and planted—

I remember how the earth felt, red and dense,
in stiff rows, weren't the seeds planted,
didn't vines climb the south wall

I can't hear your voice
for the wind's cries, whistling over the bare ground

I no longer care
what sound it makes

when was I silenced, when did it first seem
pointless to describe that sound

what it sounds like can't change what it is—

didn't the night end, wasn't the earth
safe when it was planted

didn't we plant the seeds,
weren't we necessary to the earth,

the vines, were they harvested?

2.
Summer after summer has ended,
balm after violence:
it does me no good
to be good to me now;
violence has changed me.

Daybreak. The low hills shine
ochre and fire, even the fields shine.
I know what I see; sun that could be
the August sun, returning
everything that was taken away—

You hear this voice? This is my mind’s voice;
you can’t touch my body now.
It has changed once, it has hardened,
don’t ask it to respond again.

A day like a day in summer.
Exceptionally still. The long shadows of the maples
nearly mauve on the gravel paths.
And in the evening, warmth. Night like a night in summer.

It does me no good; violence has changed me.
My body has grown cold like the stripped fields;
now there is only my mind, cautious and wary,
with the sense it is being tested.

Once more, the sun rises as it rose in summer;
bounty, balm after violence.
Balm after the leaves have changed, after the fields
have been harvested and turned.

Tell me this is the future,
I won’t believe you.
Tell me I’m living,
I won’t believe you.

 

[deeyo]

Longing Inspired by the Law of Gravity​

Time’s out and I’m home alone with the shadow I cast
Gone is the law of the universe, scattered by frivolous fate
Nothing to hold down my things
Nothing to weigh them to the floor
My possessions have flown, they belong to others
My chair, my cupboard, the revolving stool

Alone with the shadow I cast
No father, no mother
No brothers, no sisters to swell
The house full with laughter
Nothing but loneliness and grief
And the rubble of months, the years
Bend my back, slow my steps, blind me to the horizon

I miss the smell of coffee, the scent in the air
Its absence an ecstasy where I drown morning and night

Time’s out and I’m home alone
With the shadow I cast

I miss the company of books
Their consolation through trouble and joy

I miss, how I miss my mother’s ancient clock, family photos framed on the wall
I miss my oud
For all its silent, severed strings

Time’s out and I’m home alone
The curfew hurts
It hurts me, no it kills me, the killing of children near my home

I’m afraid of tomorrow
I’m afraid of the unknowable resources of fate
O God, don’t let me be a burden, shunned by young and old
I wait to arrive where the land is silent, I’m waiting for death
Long has been my journey O God
Make the path short and the journey end

by Fadwa Touqan
translated from arabic by Chris Millis & Tania Tamari Nasir

(Gramsci March for Palestine 14/10/23)

 

[hitmouse]

Najwan Darwish: Who Remembers the Armenians?​

I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I'm drinking it with them

You, murderer -
Who remembers you?

― Najwan Darwish, Nothing More to Lose

 

[JimW]

THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES

She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble, well-governed cities
And ships upon wine-dark seas;
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down;
Yet, congregated on that blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots, in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place;
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed,
Column by column, in a cloud of dust,
They marched away, enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

She looked over his shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice:
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot;
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from outside and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same,
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help, and no help came;
What their foes liked to do was done; their shame
Was all the worst could wish: they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs,
Quick, quick, to music;
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept
Or one could weep because another wept.

The thin-lipped armorer
Hephaestos hobbled away;
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the God had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.


Auden

 

[bluescreen]

I was coming here to post that, JimW
Fantastic poem, so relevant.

 

[Superdupastupor]

Every house a castle
Every car a tank
Every stranger enemy
Your family under attack by bastard invisible ninja guerrillas.
Every neighbourhood an open high-security prison
Every day passively filmed by everyday ai CCTV


Strange emnity, keyed tanks,
Everybody loves castles ruined.
Under the grille, everyone's someone's subhuman scum, just a defence
Highly prized filmed action, every hoodie, who's they?

someday we'll look one another in the eye and laugh
bit crap all that fuckwit's scrap
Nervously, are we laughing at you.
you've just got ask.

 

[DotCommunist]

OH RASCAL CHILDREN OF GAZA,​

YOU WHO CONSTANTLY DISTURBED ME WITH YOUR SCREAMS UNDER MY WINDOW,​

YOU WHO FILLED EVERY MORNING WITH RUSH AND CHAOS,​

YOU WHO BROKE MY VASE AND STOLE THE LONELY FLOWER ON MY BALCONY,​

COME BACK –​

AND SCREAM AS YOU WANT,​

AND BREAK ALL THE VASES,​

STEAL ALL THE FLOWERS,​

COME BACK,​

JUST COME BACK…​

Khaled Juma

 

[hitmouse]

We Lived Happily During the War​

By Ilya Kaminsky

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.

 

[hitmouse]

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On ​

By Franny Choi

Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse of boats:
boats of prisoners, boats cracking under sky-iron, boats making corpses
bloom like algae on the shore. Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse
of the bombed mosque. There was the apocalypse of the taxi driver warped
by flame. There was the apocalypse of the leaving, and the having left—
of my mother unsticking herself from her mother’s grave as the plane
barreled down the runway. Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse
of planes. There was the apocalypse of pipelines legislating their way
through sacred water, and the apocalypse of the dogs. Before which was
the apocalypse of the dogs and the hoses. Before which, the apocalypse
of dogs and slave catchers whose faces glowed by lantern-light.
Before the apocalypse, the apocalypse of bees. The apocalypse of  buses.
Border fence apocalypse. Coat hanger apocalypse. Apocalypse in
the textbooks’ selective silences. There was the apocalypse of the settlement
and the soda machine; the apocalypse of the settlement and
the jars of scalps; there was the bedlam of the cannery; the radioactive rain;
the chairless martyr demanding a name. I was born from an apocalypse
and have come to tell you what I know—which is that the apocalypse began
when Columbus praised God and lowered his anchor. It began when a continent
was drawn into cutlets. It began when Kublai Khan told Marco, Begin
at the beginning. By the time the apocalypse began, the world had already
ended. It ended every day for a century or two. It ended, and another ending
world spun in its place. It ended, and we woke up and ordered Greek coffees,
drew the hot liquid through our teeth, as everywhere, the apocalypse rumbled,
the apocalypse remembered, our dear, beloved apocalypse—it drifted
slowly from the trees all around us, so loud we stopped hearing it.

 

[hitmouse]

Rain​

Raymond Carver​

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

 

[hitmouse]

Poetry robe of the day: Love Language Robe - Maxi

We embroidered an Arabic love poem by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, on invisible tulle. The embroidery is custom typography created by a calligraphy artist. The poem reads:


قالوا: تموت بها حبـاًً، فقلـت لهـم


‏ألا اذكروها علـى قبـري فتحيينـي


English translation:


They asked “Do you love her to death?” I said “Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.”

 

[bluescreen]

Darwish read at Aldeburgh years ago. This one of his has stuck in my memory though it's by no means his most famous:

Interpretations


A poet sits in a coffee shop, writing.
The old lady
thinks he is writing a letter to his mother,
the young woman
thinks he is writing a letter to his girlfriend,
the child
thinks he is drawing,
the businessman
thinks he is considering a deal,
the tourist
thinks he is writing a postcard,
the employee
thinks he is calculating his debts.
The secret policeman
walks, slowly, towards him.

 

[hitmouse]

Rat Song

By Margaret Atwood

When you hear me singing
you get the rifle down
and the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
but you always miss

and when you set out the poison
I piss on it
to warn the others.

You think: That one’s too clever,
she’s dangerous, because
I don’t stick around to be slaughtered
and you think I’m ugly too
despite my fur and pretty teeth
and my six nipples and snake tail.
All I want is love, you stupid
humanist. See if you can.

Right, I’m a parasite, I live off your
leavings, gristle and rancid fat,
I take without asking
and make nests in your cupboards
out of your suits and underwear.
You’d do the same if you could,

if you could afford to share
my crystal hatreds.
It’s your throat I want, my mate
trapped in your throat.
Though you try to drown him
with your greasy person voice,
he is hiding / between your syllables
I can hear him singing.

 

[hitmouse]

In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent.
– Marwan Makhoul

If anyone wants the original Arabic:

 

[JimW]

You don’t get to be racist and Irish

You don’t get to be proud of your heritage,

plights and fights for freedom

while kneeling on the neck of another!

You’re not entitled to sing songs

of heroes and martyrs

mothers and fathers who cried

as they starved in a famine

Or of brave hearted

soft spoken

poets and artists

lined up in a yard

blindfolded and bound

Waiting for Godot

and point blank to sound

We emigrated

We immigrated

We took refuge

So cannot refuse

When it’s our time

To return the favour

Land stolen

Spirits broken

Bodies crushed and swollen

unholy tokens of Christ, Nailed to a tree

(That) You hang around your neck

Like a noose of the free

Our colour pasty

Our accents thick

Hands like shovels

from mortar and bricklaying

foundation of cities

you now stand upon

Our suffering seeps from every stone

your opportunities arise from

Outstanding on the shoulders

of our forefathers and foremother’s

who bore your mother’s mother

Our music is for the righteous

Our joys have been earned

Well deserved and serve

to remind us to remember

More Blacks

More Dogs

More Irish.

Still labelled leprechauns, Micks, Paddy’s, louts

we’re shouting to tell you

our land, our laws

are progressively out there

We’re in a chrysalis

state of emerging into a new

and more beautiful Eire/era

40 Shades Better

Unanimous in our rainbow vote

we’ve found our stereotypical pot of gold

and my God it’s good.

So join us.. 'cause

You Don’t Get To Be Racist And Irish.

Imelda May

You Don't Get To Be Racist And Irish - Imelda May's stunning poem

Watch Imelda May read her stunning poem for our times

www.rte.ie

 

[hitmouse]

Try to Praise the Mutilated World ​

By Adam Zagajewski

Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.