Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
GET LIT’S
CLASSIC SLAM POEMS & EXCERPTS, 2013-‐2014
© 2013 Yellow Road Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.
2
Table of Contents Memorial by Francisco Alarcon.........................................................................................................................................7
Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes, Sonnet II by Francisco Alarcon..................................................................8
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City (edited) by Sherman Alexie......................................................................9
What the Orphan Inherits by Sherman Alexie.................................................................................................................10
Men by Maya Angelou....................................................................................................................................................11
Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou..........................................................................................................................12
The Lies Started (edited) by Jimmy Santiago Baca..........................................................................................................13
Work We Hate and Dreams We Love by Jimmy Santiago Baca......................................................................................14
The Ball Poem by John Berryman....................................................................................................................................15
Ellen West by Frank Bidart..............................................................................................................................................16
What to Say upon Being Asked to be Friends by Julian Talamantez Brolaski.................................................................17
Kitchenette Building by Gwendolyn Brooks.....................................................................................................................18
Alone with Everybody by Charles Bukowski....................................................................................................................19
From the Dream (Part I) by Lord Byron............................................................................................................................20
Since Feeling is First (VII) by E.E. Cummings....................................................................................................................21
I Measure Every Grief I Meet by Emily Dickinson............................................................................................................22
Go and Catch a Falling Star by John Donne......................................................................................................................23
DayStar by Rita Dove.......................................................................................................................................................24
The Paradox by Paul Laurence Dunbar............................................................................................................................25
I Know I’m Not Sufficiently Obscure by Ray Durem.........................................................................................................26
Crows in a Strong Wind by Cornelius Eady......................................................................................................................27
I’m a Fool to Love You by Cornelius Eady........................................................................................................................28
from In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler...................................................................................................................29
Eagle Plain by Robert Francis...........................................................................................................................................30
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost...............................................................................................................................31
Dark Sonnet by Neil Gaiman............................................................................................................................................32
On Children by Kahlil Gibran...........................................................................................................................................33
In the Silence by Nikki Giovanni......................................................................................................................................34
A Substitute for You by Nikki Giovanni............................................................................................................................35
Sexy Balaclava by Daphne Gottlieb..................................................................................................................................36
There is a Wonderful Game by Hafiz...............................................................................................................................38
Power by Corinne Hales...................................................................................................................................................39
Nothing to Waste by Suheir Hammad.............................................................................................................................40
3
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy............................................................................................................................41
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden.......................................................................................................................42
Twice Shy by Seamus Heany............................................................................................................................................43
from The Odyssey by Homer...........................................................................................................................................44
Walk by Frank Horne.......................................................................................................................................................45
Theme for English B by Langston Hughes........................................................................................................................46
Question and Answer by Langston Hughes.....................................................................................................................47
The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Randall Jarrell...................................................................................................48
Ways of Talking by Ha Jin................................................................................................................................................49
5.7 by Sheema Kalbasi.....................................................................................................................................................50
Immortal by Sheema Kalbasi...........................................................................................................................................51
Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art by John Keats......................................................................................52
Women Want Fighters for Their Lovers by DH Lawrence................................................................................................53
But He Was Cool by Don L. Lee........................................................................................................................................54
Falling: The Code by Li-‐Young Lee...................................................................................................................................55
Persimmons by Li-‐Young Lee...........................................................................................................................................56
Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov.................................................................................................................................58
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln..................................................................................................................59
For Each of You by Audre Lorde.......................................................................................................................................60
Conversation by Louis MacNeice.....................................................................................................................................62
Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell by Marty McConnell....................................................................................................63
Guidebook to Nowhere by Jeffrey McDaniel...................................................................................................................64
The Harlem Dancer by Claude McKay.............................................................................................................................65
Recuerdo by Edna St. Vincent Millay...............................................................................................................................66
What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why by Edna St. Vincent Millay................................................................67
When I Consider How My Light is Spent by John Milton.................................................................................................68
There is No Word for Goodbye by Mary Tall Mountain..................................................................................................69
I Must Tell You About My Novel by Ogden Nash.............................................................................................................70
A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda.....................................................................................................................................72
Don’t Go Far Off by Pablo Neruda...................................................................................................................................74
What Horror to Awake at Night by Lorine Niedecker......................................................................................................75
The Pact by Sharon Olds..................................................................................................................................................76
Topography by Sharon Olds.............................................................................................................................................77
Sunrise by Mary Oliver....................................................................................................................................................78
Be Still by Arthur Osborne...............................................................................................................................................79
4
I Am Learning to Abandon the World by Linda Pastan...................................................................................................80
The Obligation to be Happy by Linda Pastan...................................................................................................................81
Axis by Octavio Paz..........................................................................................................................................................82
No More Clichés by Octavio Paz......................................................................................................................................83
The Happiest Day by Edgar Allan Poe..............................................................................................................................84
Old Mama Saturday by Marie Ponsot..............................................................................................................................85
Ancestors by Dudley Randall...........................................................................................................................................86
The Melting Pot by Dudley Randall.................................................................................................................................87
For the Record by Adrienne Rich.....................................................................................................................................88
Imaginary Career by Rainer Maria Rilke..........................................................................................................................89
Freshman Class Schedule by Jose Antonio Rodriguez......................................................................................................90
The Concrete River by Luis J. Rodriguez..........................................................................................................................91
The Geranium by Theodore Roethke...............................................................................................................................94
The Survivor by Theodore Roethke..................................................................................................................................95
Waiting for Icarus by Muriel Rukeyser.............................................................................................................................96
The Blind Men and The Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe.................................................................................................97
Black History by Gil Scott-‐Heron.....................................................................................................................................99
Pieces of a Man by Gil Scott-‐Heron...............................................................................................................................101
Mi Problema by Michelle Serros....................................................................................................................................102
The Abortion by Anne Sexton........................................................................................................................................103
Sonnet #18 by William Shakespeare.............................................................................................................................104
Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley....................................................................................................................105
One Inch Tall by Shel Silverstein....................................................................................................................................106
Whatif by Shel Silverstein..............................................................................................................................................107
Stone by Charles Simic...................................................................................................................................................108
Love Chat by Anna Deavere Smith.................................................................................................................................109
The Youngest Daughter by Cathy Song.........................................................................................................................110
Saturday at the Canal by Gary Soto...............................................................................................................................112
Fairy-‐Tale Logic by A.E. Stallings....................................................................................................................................113
Analysis of Baseball by May Swenson...........................................................................................................................114
Flounder by Natasha Trethewey...................................................................................................................................116
Lost by David Wagoner..................................................................................................................................................117
Dark August by Derek Walcott......................................................................................................................................118
A Song of Life by Ella Wheeler Wilcox...........................................................................................................................119
The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth.............................................................................................120
5
Ode to the Midwest by Kevin Young.............................................................................................................................121
Loyal Housewife by Daisy Zamora.................................................................................................................................123
6
Short Poems Casa Materna | Maternal Home by Francisco Alarcon..................................................................................................125
From the First Hard Cold Rain by Jimmy Santiago Baca................................................................................................126
Why and When and How by Jimmy Santiago Baca.......................................................................................................126
A Bee by Matsuo Basho.................................................................................................................................................126
The Dragonfly by Matsuo Basho....................................................................................................................................126
Even in Kyoto by Matsuo Basho....................................................................................................................................127
Love Rejected by Lucille Clifton.....................................................................................................................................127
Fate Slew Him, but He Did Not Drop by Emily Dickinson...............................................................................................127
Success is Counted Sweetest by Emily Dickinson..........................................................................................................128
Surgeons Must be Very Careful by Emily Dickinson......................................................................................................128
Lose this Day Loitering by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe..............................................................................................128
Every Moment by Hafiz.................................................................................................................................................129
The Great Secret by Hafiz..............................................................................................................................................129
To Mother by Frank Horne............................................................................................................................................130
Luck by Langston Hughes..............................................................................................................................................130
Blackwoman by Don. L. Lee...........................................................................................................................................131
My Brothers by Don L. Lee.............................................................................................................................................131
First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay................................................................................................................................131
Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin C. Powers...............................................................................132
Delta by Adrienne Rich...................................................................................................................................................132
The Drunkard’s Song by Rainer Maria Rilke..................................................................................................................133
from Meaning Enough for Peaches by Jose Antonio Rodriguez....................................................................................133
A Black Sky Hates the Moon by Rumi............................................................................................................................134
Today Like Every Other Day by Rumi.............................................................................................................................134
Haiku #4 by Jill Scott......................................................................................................................................................134
Give Her a Call by Gil Scott-‐Heron.................................................................................................................................135
Song of Myself (Part 25) by Walt Whitman...................................................................................................................135
Song of Myself (Part 28) by Walt Whitman...................................................................................................................136
7
Memorial Francisco Alarcon
The Pacific Garden Mall as we know it, ceased to exist at 5:04 today. – Mardi Wormhoudt, Mayor of Santa Cruz, October 17, 1989
do towns suffer like people heart attacks do buildings get scared too and try to run do steel frames get twisted out of pain do windows break because they can’t cry do walls let themselves go just like that and lie on sidewalks waiting to be revived is this how old places give birth to new places?
8
Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes, Sonnet II Francisco Alarcon abrazarte quisiera, viento mío, tu cuello de verano acariciar, y besar y besar tu tersa frente hasta evaporar todas las distancias las colinas, los viñedos, el mar, ligero los cargas sobre tu espalda como joven amanecer de gozo, capaz de convertir la noche en dia viento, ambiciono tu libertad, la altura de montaña de tus ojos esa lumbre que atiza calles, lechos viento, ¿no ves mis manos llamaradas? ¿no sientes el calor de mis entrañas? yo también, en las venas, llevo fuego
I want to embrace you, dear wind, stroke your summer neck, and kiss and kiss your smooth face till all distances disappear the hills, vineyards, the sea are borne lightly on your shoulders, like dawn’s youthful pleasure you can turn night into day wind, I aspire to your freedom, to see mountaintops with your eyes, that blaze that rouses streets and beds wind, don’t you see my shimmering hands? don’t you feel the heat inside me? I too, within my veins, carry fire
9
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City (edited) Sherman Alexie The white woman across the aisle from me says “Look, look at all the history, that house on the hill there is over two hundred years old,” as she points out the window past me into what she has been taught. I have learned little more about American history during my few days back East than what I expected and far less of what we should all know of the tribal stories whose architecture is 15,000 years older than the corners of the house that sits museumed on the hill. “Walden Pond,” the woman on the train asks, “Did you see Walden Pond?” and I don't have a cruel enough heart to break her own by telling her there are five Walden Ponds on my little reservation out West and at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane, the city I pretended to call my home. “Listen,” I could have told her. “I don't give a crap about Walden. I know the Indians were living stories around that pond before Walden's grandparents were born and before his grandparents' grandparents were born. I'm tired of hearing about Don-‐effing-‐Henley saving it, too, because that's redundant. If Don Henley's brothers and sisters and mothers and father hadn't come here in the first place then nothing would need to be saved.” But I didn't say a word to the woman about Walden Pond because she smiled so much and seemed delighted that I thought to bring her an orange juice back from the food car. I respect elders of every color. All I really did was eat my tasteless sandwich, drink my Diet Pepsi and nod my head whenever the woman pointed out another little piece of her country's history while I, as all Indians have done since this war began, made plans for what I would do and say the next time somebody from the enemy thought I was one of their own.
10
What the Orphan Inherits Sherman Alexie Language I dreamed I was digging your grave with my bare hands. I touched your face and skin fell in thin strips to the ground until only your tongue remained whole. I hung it to smoke with the deer for seven days. It tasted thick and greasy sinew gripped my tongue tight. I rose to walk naked through the fire. I spoke English. I was not consumed. Names I do not have an Indian name. The wind never spoke to my mother when I was born. My heart was hidden beneath the shells of walnuts switched back and forth. I have to cheat to feel the beating of drums in my chest. Alcohol “For bringing us the horse we could almost forgive you for bringing us whisky.” Time We measure time leaning out car windows shattering beer bottles off road signs. Tradition Indian boys sinewy and doe-‐eyed frozen in headlights.
11
Men Maya Angelou When I was young, I used to Watch behind the curtains As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. Young men sharp as mustard. See them. Men are always Going somewhere. They knew I was there. Fifteen Years old and starving for them. Under my window, they would pause, Their shoulders high like the Breasts of a young girl, Jacket tails slapping over Those behinds, Men. One day they hold you in the Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you Were the last raw egg in the world. Then They tighten up. Just a little. The First squeeze is nice. A quick hug. Soft into your defenselessness. A little More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a Smile that slides around the fear. When the Air disappears, Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly, Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered. It is your juice That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes. When the earth rights itself again, And taste tries to return to the tongue, Your body has slammed shut. Forever. No keys exist. Then the window draws full upon Your mind. There, just beyond The sway of curtains, men walk. Knowing something. Going someplace. But this time, I will simply Stand and watch. Maybe.
12
Touched by an Angel Maya Angelou We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
13
The Lies Started (edited) Jimmy Santiago Baca because who I was couldn’t take the betrayal I’d done to those I loved, so I created a compartment where the liar existed, a small, dark cave where he cannibalized his heart and soul – kept away from others – isolating himself in a house of lies, going into the world only to drink and drug, waking up in the morning remembering nothing, no words, no behavior, wallowing in murky, alcohol grogginess that padded the wounds, the hurts, the numbing pain of life, how the weight got heavier with each day, each encounter, maybe it was rage, maybe fear, maybe the inadequacy of being flung into the world without skills or words to communicate my heart, how it went on, drearily… faceless, bodiless, mindless, caught in a sordid, dizzying reel toward oblivion until the character I created to contain the lies, deception, drunkenness, violence, the obscene indulgence, started cracking the walls that separated us, crumbling foundations, crushing the door down until the character’s venom seeped into the person who wanted it kept away, ugly and toxic veins of lies trickling into my clean words, darkening my bright eyes, paling my cheeks until I was haunted by an evil usurpation of my being, consumed by a gluttonous appetite until I was what I hated, loathing myself, all my expression fulfilling its orders to abandon my soul, my heart, miring myself in lies, bathing in my own foul betrayals of all I loved and respected, how I became a drunk, an addict, each day and every hour my heart festering with howls for more and more until I lived for the drug, lived to get high, to lose myself in the darkest abyss of addiction. Parts of myself died, crawled away into holes, my spiritual life burned like paper in the wind, my compassion hardened like old crumbs of bread, and within me the dogs of wrath and condemnation snarling, raging day in and day out, full of contradictions, dying and living, free and imprisoned, feeling and insensitive, two people, two lives guttering away into the sewer of addiction.
14
Work We Hate and Dreams We Love Jimmy Santiago Baca Every morning Meiyo revs up his truck and lets it idle. Inside the small adobe house he sips coffee while his Isleta girlfriend Cristi brownbags his work Meiyo hates and while he saws, 2 x 4ʹ′s, trims lengths of 2 x 10ʹ′s on table saw, inside his veins another world in full color etches a blue sky on his bones, a man following a bison herd, and suddenly his hammer becomes a spear he tosses to the ground uttering a sound we do not understand.
15
The Ball Poem John Berryman What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over – there it is in the water! No use to say “O there are other balls”: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down All his young days into the harbour where His ball went. I would not intrude on him, A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now He senses first responsibility In a world of possessions. People will take balls, Balls will be lost always, little boy, And no one buys a ball back. Money is external. He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes, The epistemology of loss, how to stand up And gradually light returns to the street, A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight, Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark Floor of the harbour… I am everywhere, I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move With all that move me, under the water Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
16
Ellen West Frank Bidart I love sweets, — heaven would be dying on a bed of vanilla ice cream ... But my true self is thin, all profile and effortless gestures, the sort of blond elegant girl whose body is the image of her soul. — My doctors tell me I must give up this ideal; but I WILL NOT ... cannot. Only to my husband I’m not simply a “case.” But he is a fool. He married meat, and thought it was a wife.
17
What to Say upon Being Asked to be Friends Julian Talamantez Brolaski Why speak of hate, when I do bleed for love? Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongue Till I taste stuff that makes my rhyming rough So flatter I my fever for the one For whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun. A rose is arrows is eros, so what If I confuse the shade that I’ve become With winedark substance in a lover’s cup? But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough. If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear If I my tongue in lockèd box immure Blame not me, for I am sick with love.
Yet would I be your friend most willingly Since friendship would infect me killingly.
18
Kitchenette Building Gwendolyn Brooks We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.” But could a dream send up through the onion fumes Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall, Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms Even if we were willing to let it in, Had time to warm it, keep it very clean, Anticipate a message, let it begin? We wonder. But not well! not for a minute! Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now, We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.
19
Alone with Everybody Charles Bukowski the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate. nobody ever finds the one. the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.
20
From the Dream (Part I) Lord Byron Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being; they become A portion of ourselves as of our time, And look like heralds of eternity; They pass like spirits of the past, – they speak Like sybils of the future; they have power – The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not – what they will, And shake us with the vision that’s gone by, The dread of vanish’d shadows – Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind? – The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recall a vision which I dream’d Perchance in sleep – for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.
21
Since Feeling is First (VII) E.E. Cummings since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are better fate than wisdom lady I swear by all flowers. Don't cry —the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter which says we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life's not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis
22
I Measure Every Grief I Meet Emily Dickinson I measure every grief I meet With analytic eyes; I wonder if it weighs like mine, Or has an easier size. I wonder if they bore it long Or did it just begin? I could not tell the date of mine, It feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die. I wonder if when years have piled – Some thousands – on the cause Of early hurt, if such a lapse Could give them any pause; Or would they go on aching still Through centuries above, Enlightened to a larger pain By contrast with the love. The grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, – Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes. There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, – A sort they call “despair”; There’s banishment from native eyes, In sight of native air. And though I may not guess the kind Correctly, yet to me A piercing comfort it affords In passing Calvary, To note the fashions of the cross, Of those that stand alone, Still fascinated to presume That some are like my own.
23
Go and Catch a Falling Star John Donner Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true, and fair. If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three.
24
DayStar Rita Dove She wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line, A doll slumped behind the door. So she lugged a chair behind the garage to sit out the children's naps Sometimes there were things to watch-‐-‐ the pinched armor of a vanished cricket, a floating maple leaf. Other days she stared until she was assured when she closed her eyes she'd only see her own vivid blood. She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared pouting from the top of the stairs. And just what was mother doing out back with the field mice? Why, building a palace. Later that night when Thomas rolled over and lurched into her, She would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers for an hour-‐-‐where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day.
25
The Paradox Paul Laurence Dunbar I am the mother of sorrows, I am the ender of grief; I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-‐falling leaf. I am thy priest and thy poet, I am thy serf and thy king; I cure the tears of the heartsick, When I come near they shall sing. White are my hands as the snowdrop; Swart are my fingers as clay; Dark is my frown as the midnight, Fair is my brow as the day. Battle and war are my minions, Doing my will as divine; I am the calmer of passions, Peace is a nursling of mine. Speak to me gently or curse me, Seek me or fly from my sight; I am thy fool in the morning, Thou art my slave in the night. Down to the grave will I take thee, Out from the noise of the strife; Then shalt thou see me and know me— Death, then, no longer, but life. Then shalt thou sing at my coming, Kiss me with passionate breath, Clasp me and smile to have thought me Aught save the foeman of Death. Come to me, brother, when weary, Come when thy lonely heart swells; I’ll guide thy footsteps and lead thee Down where the Dream Woman dwells.
26
I Know I’m Not Sufficiently Obscure Ray Durem I know I’m not sufficiently obscure to please the critics – nor devious enough. Imagery escapes me. I cannot find those mild and gracious words to clothe the carnage. Blood is blood and murder’s murder. What’s a lavender word for lynch? Come, you pale poets, wan, refined and dreamy: here is a black woman working out her guts in a white man’s kitchen for little money and no glory. How should I tell that story? There is a black boy, blacker still from death, face down in the cold Korean mud. Come on with your effervescent jive explain to him why he ain’t alive. Reword our specific discontent into some plaintive melody, a little whine, a little whimper, not too much – and no rebellion! God, no! Rebellion’s much too corny. You deal with finer feelings, very subtle – an autumn leaf hanging from a tree – I see a body!
27
Crows in a Strong Wind Cornelius Eady Off go the crows from the roof. The crows can’t hold on. They might as well Be perched on an oil slick. Such an awkward dance, These gentlemen In their spottled-‐black coats. Such a tipsy dance, As if they didn’t know where they were. Such a humorous dance, As they try to set things right, As the wind reduces them. Such a sorrowful dance. How embarrassing is love When it goes wrong In front of everyone.
28
I’m a Fool to Love You Cornelius Eady Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman, Some type of supernatural creature. My mother would tell you, if she could, About her life with my father, A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman. She would tell you about the choices A young black woman faces. Is falling in love with some man A deal with the devil In blue terms, the tongue we use When we don't want nuance To get in the way, When we need to talk straight. My mother chooses my father After choosing a man Who was, as we sing it, Of no account. This man made my father look good, That's how bad it was. He made my father seem like an island In the middle of a stormy sea, He made my father look like a rock. And is the blues the moment you realize You exist in a stacked deck, You look in a mirror at your young face, The face my sister carries, And you know it's the only leverage You've got. Does this create a hurt that whispers How you going to do? Is the blues the moment You shrug your shoulders And agree, a girl without money Is nothing, dust To be pushed around by any old breeze. Compared to this, My father seems, briefly, To be a fire escape. This is the way the blues works Its sorry wonders, Makes trouble look like A feather bed, Makes the wrong man's kisses A healing.
29
from In the Body of the World Eve Ensler The room was the room of my dreams. It was clean and pretty. All the machinery was there, but it was human. There was a couch that pulled out for sleeping and a small kitchen and a window right in front of the bed. What I hadn’t anticipated was the tree. I was too weak to think or write or call or even watch a movie. All I could do was stare at the tree, which was the only thing in my view. At first it annoyed me and I thought I would go mad from boredom. But after the first days and many hours, I began to see the tree. On Tuesday I meditated on bark; on Friday the green leaves shimmering in the late afternoon light. For hours I lost myself, my body, my being dissolving into tree. I was raised in America. All value lies in the future, in the dream, in production. There is no present tense. There is no value in what is, only in what might be made or exploited from whatever already exists. Of course the same was true for me. I had no inherent value. Without work or effort, without making myself into something significant, without proving my worth, I had no right or reason to be here. Life itself was inconsequential unless it led to something. Unless the tree would be wood, would be house, would be table, what value was there to tree? So to actually lie in my hospital bed and see tree, enter the tree, to find the green life inherent in tree, this was the awakening. Each morning I opened my eyes. I could not wait to focus on tree. I would let the tree take me. Each day it was different, based on the light or wind or rain. The tree was a tonic and a cure, a guru and a teaching.
30
Eagle Plain Robert Francis The American eagle is not aware he is the American eagle. He is never tempted to look modest. When orators advertise the American eagle’s virtues, the American eagle is not listening. This is his virtue. He is somewhere else, he is mountains away but even if he were near he would never make an audience. The American eagle never says he will serve if drafted, will dutifully serve etc. He is not at our service. If we have honored him we have honored one who unequivocally honors himself by overlooking us. He does not know the meaning of magnificent. Perhaps we do not altogether either
who cannot touch him.
31
The Road Not Taken Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
32
Dark Sonnet Neil Gaiman I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such although I liked a few folk pretty well Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch for brave men died and empires rose and fell for love, girls follow boys to foreign lands and men have followed women into hell In plays and poems someone understands there’s something makes us more than blood and bone And more than biological demands for me love’s like the wind unseen, unknown I see the trees are bending where it’s been I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown I really don’t know what I love you means I think it means don’t leave me here alone
33
On Children Kahlil Gibran And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might That His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
34
In the Silence Nikki Giovanni In the silence of the city night when the lonely watch the sky in yearning I at rest beside you lie in peace I searched a thousand skies before you came And in the morning when the world is new, the lonely turn away as I turn to you beside me And in the quiet of the afternoon when the lonely roam, I turn inside and you are with me still I roamed a thousand miles before you came.
35
A Substitute for You Nikki Giovanni I'm a fan of Christopher Columbus I want to find a spice route too They've got a substitute for sugar I want a substitute for you I'm gonna ride those trade winds Find gold in El Dorado too They've got MasterCards for money I need a substitute for you My feet at night Are so cold I tell you they're turning blue They have a substitute for coal oil I'll buy a substitute for you Some things are real though most things Really don't be true They got a substitute for the truth But a lie right now won't do You let me think you loved me Luckily I can't sue With work and play we drifted I'm requesting something new I'm not saying This is nice There's a crack That love fell through I'm just saying What we had is gone I need a substitute For you.
36
Sexy Balaclava Daphne Gottlieb I tried to rent the movie about the protest, but the store didn’t have it. In the film, the underdog wins. That’s how you know it’s a movie. They are passing a law here to keep people from sitting on the sidewalk. Poverty is still a crime in America and I am looking more and more criminal, by which I mean broke, by which I mean beautiful. Holy. Revolution is not pretty, but it can be beautiful, I’m told. The protest was dull. There was no tear gas and there were no riot cops. Nothing got broken and nothing got gassed and nothing got smashed. There was no blood and the world was not saved so we went to the movies. In the film, people kissed at the end. The underdog won. That’s how we knew it was a movie, a pretty lie. Revolution is not pretty
37
but I don’t care about looks. Set the dumpster on fire. Break the windows. Don’t kiss me like they do in the movies. Kiss me like they do on the emergency broadcast news.
38
There is a Wonderful Game Hafiz There is a game we should play, and it goes like this: We hold hands and look into each other’s eyes And scan each other’s face. Then I say, “Now tell me a difference you see between us.” And you might respond, “Hafiz, your nose is ten times bigger than mine!” Then I would say, “Yes, my dear, almost ten times!” But let’s keep playing. Let’s go deeper, Go deeper. For if we do, Our spirits will embrace And intervweave Our union will be so glorious That even God Will not be able to tell us apart. There is a wonderful game We should play with everyone And it goes like this…
39
Power Corinne Hales No one we knew had ever stopped a train. Hardly daring to breathe, I waited Belly-‐down with my brother In a dry ditch Watching through the green thickness Of grass and willows. Stuffed with crumpled newspapers, The shirt and pants looked real enough Stretched out across the rails. I felt my heart Beating against the cool ground And the terrible long screech of the train’s Braking began. We had done it. Then it was in front of us— hundred iron wheels tearing like time Into red flannel and denim, shredding the child We had made—until it finally stopped. My brother jabbed at me, Pointed down the tracks. A man had climbed out of the engine, was running In our direction, waving his arms, Screaming that he would kill us— Whoever we were. Then, very close to the spot Where we hid, he stomped and cursed At the rags and papers scattered Over the gravel from our joke. I tried to remember which of us That that red shirt had belonged to, But morning seemed too long ago, and the man Was falling, sobbing, to his knees. I couldn’t stop watching. My brother lay next to me, His hands covering his ears, His face pressed tight to the ground.
40
Nothing to Waste Suheir Hammad you don’t waste nothin you know the worth of bread cupcakes carrots gummi bears whatever falls gets picked up and kissed up to god and it’s new and fresh again good enough to eat to place on the table and what about cherries busted and sweet meat flesh about stretch of leg tear of muscle what about almond surprise jelly jam pumpkin virgin pudding can she pick herself up back to the table and know her worth kiss herself back kiss herself back and up to god
41
The Darkling Thrush Thomas Hardy I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-‐grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-‐stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-‐lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I. At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-‐hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-‐beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-‐night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.
42
Those Winter Sundays Robert Hayden Sundays too my father got up early And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?
43
Twice Shy Seamus Heany Her scarf a la Bardot, In suede flats for the walk, She came with me one evening For air and friendly talk. We crossed the quiet river, Took the embankment walk. Traffic holding its breath, Sky a tense diaphragm: Dusk hung like a backcloth That shook where a swan swam, Tremulous as a hawk Hanging deadly, calm. A vacuum of need Collapsed each hunting heart But tremulously we held As hawk and prey apart, Preserved classic decorum, Deployed our talk with art. Our Juvenilia Had taught us both to wait, Not to publish feeling And regret it all too late -‐ Mushroom loves already Had puffed and burst in hate. So, chary and excited, As a thrush linked on a hawk, We thrilled to the March twilight With nervous childish talk: Still waters running deep Along the embankment walk.
44
from The Odyssey Homer "Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
45
Walk Frank Horne I am trying to learn to walk again... all tensed and trembling I try so hard, so hard... Not like the headlong patter of new and anxious feet or the vigorous flailing of the water by young swimmer beating a new element into submission... It is more like a timorous Lazarus commanded to take up the bed on which he died... I know I will walk again into your healing outstretched arms in answer to your tender command... I have been lost and fallen in the dark underbrush but I will arise and walk and find the path at your soft command.
46
Theme for English B Langston Hughes 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.
47
Question and Answer Langston Hughes Durban, Birmingham, Cape Town, Atlanta, Johannesburg, Watts, The earth around Struggling, fighting, Dying – for what? A world to gain. Groping, hoping, Waiting – for what? A world to gain. Dreams kicked asunder, Why not go under? There’s a world to gain. But I suppose I don’t want it, Why take it? To remake it.
48
The Woman at the Washington Zoo Randall Jarrell The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I.... this print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from work, and so To my bed, so to my grave, with no Complaints, no comment: neither from my chief, The Deputy Chief Assistant, nor his chief— Only I complain.... this serviceable Body that no sunlight dyes, no hand suffuses But, dome-‐shadowed, withering among columns, Wavy beneath fountains—small, far-‐off, shining In the eyes of animals, these beings trapped As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap, Aging, but without knowledge of their age, Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death— Oh, bars of my own body, open, open! The world goes by my cage and never sees me. And there come not to me, as come to these, The wild beasts, sparrows pecking the llamas’ grain, Pigeons settling on the bears’ bread, buzzards Tearing the meat the flies have clouded.... Vulture, When you come for the white rat that the foxes left, Take off the red helmet of your head, the black Wings that have shadowed me, and step to me as man: The wild brother at whose feet the white wolves fawn, To whose hand of power the great lioness Stalks, purring.... You know what I was, You see what I am: change me, change me!
49
Ways of Talking Ha Jin We used to like talking about grief Our journals and letters were packed with losses, complaints, and sorrows. Even if there was no grief we wouldn’t stop lamenting as though longing for the charm of a distressed face. Then we couldn’t help expressing grief So many things descended without warning: labor wasted, loves lost, houses gone, marriages broken, friends estranged, ambitions worn away by immediate needs. Words lined up in our throats for a good whining. Grief seemed like an endless river— the only immortal flow of life. After losing a land and then giving up a tongue, we stopped talking of grief Smiles began to brighten our faces. We laugh a lot, at our own mess. Things become beautiful, even hailstones in the strawberry fields.
50
5.7 Sheema Kalbasi I don't care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me... and the shoes however small... I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don't need to convert for me; I have already converted to you. You see I never had a religion to begin with. I was born naked from all religions but your love. I know that was not the point. I know there is no conversion. There is no coat, no balance, no shoes but the naked truth of me finding you first, not you finding me. You, whom will never know who I was when I was sitting on the white sheets. Y o u, not b e s i d e m e. And the words that are already written. The words that are already said, are already felt, and are already gone.
And I try to take them back into my empty bowl of hands. To put my hands on the chest. The chest into rest. The rest in to the heart. The beat back to the soul. The soul, back to what it was before you. Alas! I am 5.7
51
Immortal Sheema Kalbasi I envy you Spring with your wild flowers and flourishing smiles with your elegance and your almond-‐tree of thoughtlessness that does not know of the bitterness and pain of my loss. I look out of the window I look out of the window and I wish for some Muguet de Mai to arrive at my door and to hear my mother’s voice calling me at the entrance: Beloved daughter here I am, arrived with the Spring and healing balms. If this happen, I promise to embrace the message of the spring and the Iris and I will plant a Wild Rose-‐tree for the entrance to the house of my heart so that every one knows of my sensitivity to the unfading remembrance of her love. There are times that I am questioned for my not-‐crying eyes so for those who do not know of my grieving heart, I write to voice the bitterness and pain of my loss in the language of every-‐lost mother-‐child, so when the childishness of this heart is sometimes toxic to the hearts of those who do not know me and the Marigolds of my love, even they will bring me bouquets of Sea-‐lavenders and love.
52
Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou 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.
53
Women Want Fighters for Their Lovers DH Lawrence Women don’t want wistful Mushy, pathetic young men Struggling in doubtful embraces Then trying again Mushy and treacherous, tiny Peterlets, Georgelets, Hamlets, Tomlets, Dicklets, Harrylets, whiney Jimlets and self-‐sorry Samlets. Women are sick of consoling Inconsolable youth, dead-‐beat; Pouring comfort and condoling Down the sink of the male conceit. Women want fighters, fighters And the fighting cock. Can’t you give it them, blighters! The fighting cock, the fighting cock – Have you got one, little blighters? Let it crow then, like one o’clock!
54
But He Was Cool Don L. Lee super-‐cool ultrablack a tan/purple had a beautiful shade. he had a double-‐natural that wd put the sisters to shame. &his beads were imported sea shells
(from some blk/country i never heard of) he was triple-‐hip. his tikis were hand carved out of ivory &came express from the motherland. he would greet u in swahili &say good-‐by in yoruba. woooooooooooo-‐jim he bes so cool & ill tel li gent
cool-‐cool is so cool he was un-‐cooled by other niggers' cool cool-‐cool ultracool was bop-‐cool/ice box cool so cool cold cool his wine didn't have to be cooled, him was air conditioned cool cool-‐cool/real cool made me cool-‐-‐now ain't that cool cool-‐cool so cool him nick-‐named refrigerator.
cool-‐cool so cool he didn't know, after detroit, newark, chicago &c., we had to hip
cool-‐cool/ super-‐cool/ real cool that
to be black is to be very-‐hot.
55
Falling: The Code Li-‐Young Lee 1 Through the night the apples outside my window one by one let go their branches and drop to the lawn. I can’t see, but hear the stem-‐snap, the plummet through leaves, then the final thump against the ground. Sometimes two at once, or one right after another. During long moments of silence I wait and wonder about the bruised bodies, the terror of diving through air, and think I’ll go tomorrow to find the newly fallen, but they all look alike lying there dewsoaked, disappearing before me. 2 I lie beneath my window listening to the sound of apples dropping in the yard, a syncopated code I long to know, which continues even as I sleep, and dream I know the meaning of what I hear, each dull thud of unseen apple-‐ body, the earth falling to earth once and forever, over and over.
56
Persimmons Li-‐Young Lee In sixth grade Mrs. Walker slapped the back of my head and made me stand in the corner for not knowing the difference between persimmon and precision. How to choose persimmons. This is precision. Ripe ones are soft and brown-‐spotted. Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one will be fragrant. How to eat: put the knife away, lay down newspaper. Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat. Chew the skin, suck it, and swallow. Now, eat the meat of the fruit, so sweet, all of it, to the heart. Donna undresses, her stomach is white. In the yard, dewy and shivering with crickets, we lie naked, face-‐up, face-‐down. I teach her Chinese. Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten. Naked: I’ve forgotten. Ni, wo: you and me. I part her legs, remember to tell her she is beautiful as the moon. Other words that got me into trouble were fight and fright, wren and yarn. Fight was what I did when I was frightened, Fright was what I felt when I was fighting. Wrens are small, plain birds, yarn is what one knits with. Wrens are soft as yarn. My mother made birds out of yarn. I loved to watch her tie the stuff; a bird, a rabbit, a wee man. Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class and cut it up so everyone could taste a Chinese apple. Knowing it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat
57
but watched the other faces. My mother said every persimmon has a sun inside, something golden, glowing, warm as my face. Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper, forgotten and not yet ripe. I took them and set both on my bedroom windowsill, where each morning a cardinal sang, The sun, the sun. Finally understanding he was going blind, my father sat up all one night waiting for a song, a ghost. I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness, and sweet as love. This year, in the muddy lighting of my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking for something I lost. My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs, black cane between his knees, hand over hand, gripping the handle. He’s so happy that I’ve come home. I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question. All gone, he answers. Under some blankets, I find a box. Inside the box I find three scrolls. I sit beside him and untie three paintings by my father: Hibiscus leaf and a white flower. Two cats preening. Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth. He raises both hands to touch the cloth, asks, Which is this? This is persimmons, Father. Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk, the strength, the tense precision in the wrist. I painted them hundreds of times eyes closed. These I painted blind. Some things never leave a person: scent of the hair of one you love, the texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight.
58
Talking To Grief Denise Levertov Ah, Grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog who comes to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you into the house and give you your own corner, a worn mat to lie on, your own water dish. You think I don't know you've been living under my porch. You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog.
59
The Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-‐field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -‐-‐ we can not consecrate -‐-‐ we can not hallow -‐-‐ this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -‐-‐ that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -‐-‐ that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -‐-‐ that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -‐-‐ and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
60
For Each of You Audre Lorde Be who you are and will be learn to cherish that boisterous Black Angel that drives you up one day and down another protecting the place where your power rises running like hot blood from the same source as your pain. When you are hungry learn to eat whatever sustains you until morning but do not be misled by details simply because you live them. Do not let your head deny your hands any memory of what passes through them not your eyes nor your heart everything can be used except what is wasteful (you will need to remember this when you are accused of destruction.) Even when they are dangerous examine the heart of those machines you hate before you discard them and never mourn the lack of their power lest you be condemned to relive them. If you do not learn to hate you will never be lonely enough to love easily nor will you always be brave although it does not grow any easier Do not pretend to convenient beliefs even when they are righteous you will never be able to defend your city while shouting. Remember our sun is not the most noteworthy star only the nearest. Respect whatever pain you bring back from your dreaming
61
but do not look for new gods in the sea nor in any part of a rainbow Each time you love love as deeply as if it were forever only nothing is eternal. Speak proudly to your children where ever you may find them tell them you are offspring of slaves and your mother was a princess in darkness.
62
Conversation Louis MacNeice Ordinary people are peculiar too: Watch the vagrant in their eyes Who sneaks away while they are talking with you Into some black wood behind the skull, Following un-‐, or other, realities, Fishing for shadows in a pool. But sometimes the vagrant comes the other way Out of their eyes and into yours Having mistaken you perhaps for yesterday Or for tomorrow night, a wood in which He may pick up among the pine-‐needles and burrs The lost purse, the dropped stitch. Vagrancy however is forbidden; ordinary men Soon come back to normal, look you straight In the eyes as if to say 'It will not happen again', Put up a barrage of common sense to baulk Intimacy but by mistake interpolate Swear-‐words like roses in their talk.
63
Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell Marty McConnell leaving is not enough; you must stay gone. train your heart like a dog. change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. you lucky, lucky girl. you have an apartment just your size. a bathtub full of tea. a heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. you had to have him. and you did. and now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. don’t lose too much weight. stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. and you are not stupid. you loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. heart like a four-‐poster bed. heart like a canvas. heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.
64
Guidebook to Nowhere Jeffrey McDaniel I wear a patch over my right eye. Not because it’s damaged. I’m saving the eye for a rainy day, saving it from all this crap. One day I’ll go to the desert, and I’ll switch the patch to my left eye. And I’ll only look at cacti,and butterflies, and jackrabbits, but never in the mirror and never at the sky, and like this I’ll train myself to see the difference between what’s real and man-‐made.
65
The Harlem Dancer Claude McKay Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes And watched her perfect, half-‐clothed body sway; Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes Blown by black players upon a picnic day. She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, The light gauze hanging loose about her form; To me she seemed a proudly-‐swaying palm Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise, The wine-‐flushed, bold-‐eyed boys, and even the girls, Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze; But, looking at her falsely-‐smiling face I knew her self was not in that strange place.
66
Recuerdo Edna St. Vincent Millay We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-‐top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon. We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear, From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere; And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold. We were very tired, we were very merry, We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-‐covered head, And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears, And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
67
What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why Edna St. Vincent Millay What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.
68
When I Consider How My Light is Spent John Milton When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; “Doth God exact day-‐labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.”
69
There is No Word for Goodbye Mary Tall Mountain Sokoya, I said, looking through
the net of wrinkles into wise black pools of her eyes.
What do you say in Athabascan
when you leave each other? What is the word for goodbye?
A shade of feeling rippled
the wind-‐tanned skin. Ah, nothing, she said, watching the river flash.
She looked at me close.
We just say, Tlaa. That means, See you. We never leave each other. When does your mouth say goodbye to your heart?
She touched me light
as a bluebell. You forget when you leave us; you're so small then. We don't use that word.
We always think you're coming back, I
but if you don't, we'll see you some place else. You understand. There is no word for goodbye.
Sokoya: Aunt (mother's sister) Tlaa: See you
70
I Must Tell You About My Novel Ogden Nash My grandpa wasn’t salty, No hero he of fable, His English wasn’t faulty, He wore a coat at table. His character lacked the color Of either saint or satyr, His life was rather duller Than that of Walter Pater. Look at Grandpa, take a look! How can I write a book! His temper wasn’t crusty, He shone forth not majestic For barroom exploits lusty, Or tyranny domestic. He swung not on the gallows But went to his salvation While toasting stale marshmallows His only dissipation. Look at Grandpa, take a look! How can I write a book! My Uncle John was cautious, He never slipped his anchor, His probity was nauseous, In fact he was a banker. He hubbed no hubba hubbas, And buckled he no swashes, He wore a pair of rubbers Inside of his galoshes. Look at my uncle, take a look! How can I write a book! My other uncle, Herbie, Just once enlarged his orbit, The day he crushed his derby While No toper he, or wencher, He backed nor horse nor houri, His raciest adventure A summons to the jury. Look at my uncles, take a look! How can I write a book!
71
Round my ancestral menfolk There hangs no spicy aura, I have no racy kinfolk From Rome or Gloccamora. Not nitwits, not Napoleons, The mill they were the run of, My family weren’t Mongolians; Then whom can I make fun of? Look! No book!
72
A Dog Has Died Pablo Neruda My dog has died. I buried him in the garden next to a rusted old machine. Some day I'll join him right there, but now he's gone with his shaggy coat, his bad manners and his cold nose, and I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky for any human being, I believe in a heaven I'll never enter. Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom where my dog waits for my arrival waving his fan-‐like tail in friendship. Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth, of having lost a companion who was never servile. His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine withholding its authority, was the friendship of a star, aloof, with no more intimacy than was called for, with no exaggerations: he never climbed all over my clothes filling me full of his hair or his mange, he never rubbed up against my knee like other dogs obsessed with sex. No, my dog used to gaze at me, paying me the attention I need, the attention required to make a vain person like me understand that, being a dog, he was wasting time, but, with those eyes so much purer than mine, he'd keep on gazing at me with a look that reserved for me alone all his sweet and shaggy life, always near me, never troubling me, and asking nothing. Ai, how many times have I envied his tail as we walked together on the shores of the sea in the lonely winter of Isla Negra where the wintering birds filled the sky and my hairy dog was jumping about full of the voltage of the sea's movement: my wandering dog, sniffing away with his golden tail held high,
73
face to face with the ocean's spray. Joyful, joyful, joyful, as only dogs know how to be happy with only the autonomy of their shameless spirit. There are no good-‐byes for my dog who has died, and we don't now and never did lie to each other. So now he's gone and I buried him, and that's all there is to it.
74
Don’t Go Far Off Pablo Neruda Don't go far off, not even for a day, because – because – I don't know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart. Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance. Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll have gone so far I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
75
What Horror to Awake at Night Lorine Niedecker What horror to awake at night and in the dimness see the light. Time is white mosquitoes bite I’ve spent my life on nothing. The thought that stings. How are you, Nothing, sitting around with Something’s wife. Buzz and burn is all I learn I’ve spent my life on nothing. I’m pillowed and padded, pale and puffing lifting household stuffing — carpets, dishes benches, fishes I’ve spent my life in nothing.
76
The Pact Sharon Olds We played dolls in that house where Father staggered with the Thanksgiving knife, where Mother wept at noon into her one ounce of cottage cheese, praying for the strength not to kill herself. We kneeled over the rubber bodies, gave them baths carefully, scrubbed their little orange hands, wrapped them up tight, said goodnight, never spoke of the woman like a gaping wound weeping on the stairs, the man like a stuck buffalo, baffled, stunned, dragging arrows in his side. As if we had made a pact of silence and safety, we kneeled and dressed those tiny torsos with their elegant belly-‐buttons and minuscule holes high on the buttock to pee through and all that darkness in their open mouths, so that I have not been able to forgive you for giving your daughter away, letting her go at eight as if you took Molly Ann or Tiny Tears and held her head under the water in the bathinette until no bubbles rose, or threw her dark rosy body on the fire that burned in that house where you and I barely survived, sister, where we swore to be protectors.
77
Topography Sharon Olds After we flew across the country we got into bed, laid our bodies delicately together, like maps laid face to face, East to West, my San Francisco against your New York, your Fire Island against my Sonoma, my New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas burning against your Kansas your Kansas burning against my Kansas, your Eastern Standard Time pressing into my Pacific Time, my Mountain Time beating against your Central Time, your sun rising swiftly from the right my sun rising swiftly from the left your moon rising slowly from the left my moon rising slowly from the right until all four bodies of the sky burn above us, sealing us together, all our cities twin cities, all our states united, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
78
Sunrise Mary Oliver You can die for it-‐-‐ an idea, or the world. People have done so, brilliantly, letting their small bodies be bound to the stake, creating an unforgettable fury of light. But this morning, climbing the familiar hills in the familiar fabric of dawn, I thought of China, and India and Europe, and I thought how the sun blazes for everyone just so joyfully as it rises under the lashes of my own eyes, and I thought I am so many! What is my name? What is the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us? Call it whatever you want, it is happiness, it is another one of the ways to enter fire.
79
Be Still Arthur Osborne Thou art? -‐-‐ I am? -‐-‐ Why argue? -‐-‐ Being is. Keep still and be. Death will not still the mind. Nor argument, nor hopes of after-‐death. This world the battle-‐ground, yourself the foe Yourself must master. Eager the mind to seek. Yet oft astray, causing its own distress Then crying for relief, as though some God Barred from it jealously the Bliss it sought But would not face. Till in the end, All battles fought, all earthly loves abjured, Dawn in the East, there is no other way But to be still. In stillness then to find The giants all were windmills, all the strife Self-‐made, unreal; even he that strove A fancied being, as when that good knight Woke from delirium and with a loud cry Rendered his soul to God. Mind, then, or soul? Break free from subtle words. Only be still, Lay down the mind, submit, and Being then Is Bliss, Bliss Consciousness: and That you are.
80
I Am Learning to Abandon the World Linda Pastan I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me. Already I have given up the moon and snow, closing my shades against the claims of white. And the world has taken my father, my friends. I have given up melodic lines of hills, moving to a flat, tuneless landscape. And every night I give my body up limb by limb, working upwards across bone, towards the heart. But morning comes with small reprieves of coffee and birdsong. A tree outside the window which was simply shadow moments ago takes back its branches twig by leafy twig. And as I take my body back the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap as if to make amends.
81
The Obligation to be Happy Linda Pastan It is more onerous than the rites of beauty or housework, harder than love. But you expect it of me casually, the way you expect the sun to come up, not in spite of rain or clouds but because of them. And so I smile, as if my own fidelity to sadness were a hidden vice— that downward tug on my mouth, my old suspicion that health and love are brief irrelevancies, no more than laughter in the warm dark strangled at dawn. Happiness. I try to hoist it on my narrow shoulders again— a knapsack heavy with gold coins. I stumble around the house, bump into things. Only Midas himself would understand.
82
Axis Octavio Paz Through the conduits of blood my body in your body spring of night my tongue of sun in your forest your body a kneading trough I red wheat Through conduits of bone I night I water I forest that moves forward I tongue I body I sun-‐bone Through the conduits of night spring of bodies You night of wheat you forest in the sun you waiting water you kneading trough of bones Through the conduits of sun my night in your night my sun in your sun my wheat in your kneading trough your forest in my tongue Through the conduits of the body water in the night your body in my body Spring of bones Spring of suns
83
No More Clichés Octavio Paz Beautiful face That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun So do you Open your face to me as I turn the page. Enchanting smile Any man would be under your spell, Oh, beauty of a magazine. How many poems have been written to you? How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice? To your obsessive illusion To you manufacture fantasy. But today I won't make one more Cliché And write this poem to you. No, no more clichés. This poem is dedicated to those women Whose beauty is in their charm, In their intelligence, In their character, Not on their fabricated looks. This poem is to you women, That like a Shahrazade wake up Everyday with a new story to tell, A story that sings for change That hopes for battles: Battles for the love of the united flesh Battles for passions aroused by a new day Battle for the neglected rights Or just battles to survive one more night. Yes, to you women in a world of pain To you, bright star in this ever-‐spending universe To you, fighter of a thousand-‐and-‐one fights To you, friend of my heart. From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine Rather, it will contemplate the night And its bright stars, And so, no more clichés.
84
The Happiest Day Edgar Allan Poe The happiest day — the happiest hour, My sear'd and blighted heart has known, The brightest glance of pride and power I feel hath flown — Of power, said I? Yes, such I ween — But it has vanish'd — long alas! The visions of my youth have been — But let them pass. — And pride! what have I now with thee? Another brow may e'en inherit The venom thou hast pour'd on me : Be still my spirit. The smile of love — soft friendship's charm — Bright hope itself has fled at last, 'T will ne'er again my bosom warm— 'Tis ever past. The happiest day, — the happiest hour, Mine eyes shall see, — have ever seen, — The brightest glance of pride and power, I feel has been.
85
Old Mama Saturday Marie Ponsot
“Saturday’s child must work for a living.” “I’m moving from Grief Street. Taxes are high here though the mortgage’s cheap. The house is well built. With stuff to protect, that mattered to me, the security. These things that I mind, you know, aren’t mine. I mind minding them. They weigh on my mind. I don’t mind them well. I haven’t got the knack of kindly minding. I say Take them back but you never do. When I throw them out it may frighten you and maybe me too. Maybe it will empty me too emptily and keep me here asleep, at sea under the guilt quilt, under the you tree.”
86
Ancestors Dudley Randall Why are our ancestors always kings and princes and never the common people? Was the Old Country a democracy where every man was a king? Or did the slave-‐catchers steal only the aristocrats and leave the fieldhands laborers street cleaners garbage collectors dish washers cooks and maids behind? My own ancestor (research reveals) was a swineherd who tended the pigs in the Royal Pigstye and slept in the mud among the hogs. Yet I’m as proud of him as of any king or prince dreamed up in fantasies of bygone glory.
87
The Melting Pot Dudley Randall There is a magic melting pot where any girl or man can step in Czech or Greek or Scot, step out American. Johann and Jan and Jean and Juan, Giovanni and Ivan step in and then step out again all freshly christened John. Sam, watching, said, “Why, I was here even before they came,” and stepped in too, but was tossed out before he passed the brim. And every time Sam tried that pot they threw him out again. “Keep out. This is our private pot. We don’t want your black stain.” At last, thrown out a thousand times, Sam said, “I don’t give a damn. Shove your old pot. You can like it or not, but I’ll be just what I am.”
88
For the Record Adrienne Rich The clouds and the stars didn’t wage this war the brooks gave no information if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river it was not taking sides the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf had no political opinions and if here or there a house filled with backed-‐up raw sewage or poisoned those who lived there with slow fumes, over years the houses were not at war nor did the tinned-‐up buildings intend to refuse shelter to homeless old women and roaming children they had no policy to keep them roaming or dying, no, the cities were not the problem the bridges were non-‐partisan the freeways burned, but not with hatred Even the miles of barbed-‐wire stretched around crouching temporary huts designed to keep the unwanted at a safe distance, out of sight even the boards that had to absorb year upon year, so many human sounds so many depths of vomit, tears slow-‐soaking blood had not offered themselves for this The trees didn’t volunteer to be cut into boards nor the thorns for tearing flesh Look around at all of it and ask whose signature is stamped on the orders, traced in the corner of the building plans Ask where the illiterate, big-‐bellied women were, the drunks and crazies, the ones you fear most of all: ask where you were.
89
Imaginary Career Rainer Maria Rilke At first a childhood, limitless and free of any goals. Ah sweet unconsciousness. Then sudden terror, schoolrooms, slavery, the plunge into temptation and deep loss. Defiance. The child bent becomes the bender, inflicts on others what he once went through. Loved, feared, rescuer, wrestler, victor, he takes his vengeance, blow by blow. And now in vast, cold, empty space, alone. Yet hidden deep within the grown up heart, a longing for the first world, the ancient one... Then, from His place of ambush, God leapt out.
90
Freshman Class Schedule Jose Antonio Rodriguez I hate my freshman class schedule. I’m in Algebra I, an advanced class but not the most advanced, which is where my friends are. I’m stuck with idiots who don’t understand the relationships of angles. It’s all in the triangle, I want to scream beneath my too-‐easy smile. After the graduation ceremony, my friends will walk away forever, become engineers with expensive shoes, sensibly-‐sized families. Even now they’re getting whiter every day. Dreams of albino dollar bills coat their pillows, I know it, while I grow brown. Brown like my father’s forearms which my freckle-‐faced mother insists are only brown because of the years bent over fields Brown like the custodians Brown like the Dairy Queen workers Brown like the drop-‐outs Brown like the juvies Brown like the machos Brown like the earthen floor Brown like the outhouse Brown like the soles of my feet when I run.
91
The Concrete River Luis J. Rodriguez We sink into the dust, Baba and me, Beneath brush of prickly leaves; Ivy strangling trees-‐-‐singing Our last rites of locura. Homeboys. Worshipping God-‐fumes Out of spray cans. Our backs press up against A corrugated steel fence Along the dried banks Of a concrete river. Spray-‐painted outpourings On walls offer a chaos Of color for the eyes. Home for now. Hidden in weeds. Furnished with stained mattresses And plastic milk crates. Wood planks thrust into thick branches serve as roof. The door is a torn cloth curtain (knock before entering). Home for now, sandwiched In between the maddening days. We aim spray into paper bags. Suckle them. Take deep breaths. An echo of steel-‐sounds grates the sky. Home for now. Along an urban-‐spawned Stream of muck, we gargle in The technicolor synthesized madness. This river, this concrete river, Becomes a steaming, bubbling Snake of water, pouring over Nightmares of wakefulness; Pouring out a rush of birds; A flow of clear liquid On a cloudless day. Not like the black oil stains we lie in, Not like the factory air engulfing us; Not this plastic death in a can. Sun rays dance on the surface. Gray fish fidget below the sheen. And us looking like Huckleberry Finns/
92
Tom Sawyers, with stick fishing poles, As dew drips off low branches As if it were earth's breast milk. Oh, we should be novas of our born days. We should be scraping wet dirt with callused toes. We should be flowering petals playing ball. Soon water/fish/dew wane into A pulsating whiteness. I enter a tunnel of circles, Swimming to a glare of lights. Family and friends beckon me. I want to be there, In perpetual dreaming; In the din of exquisite screams. I want to know this mother-‐comfort Surging through me. I am a sliver of blazing ember entering a womb of brightness. I am a hovering spectre shedding scarred flesh. I am a clown sneaking out of a painted mouth in the sky. I am your son, amá, seeking the security of shadows, fleeing weary eyes bursting brown behind a sewing machine. I am your brother, the one you threw off rooftops, tore into with rage-‐-‐the one you visited, a rag of a boy, lying in a hospital bed, ruptured. I am friend of books, prey of cops, lover of the barrio women selling hamburgers and tacos at the P&G Burger Stand. I welcome this heavy shroud. I want to be buried in it-‐-‐ To be sculptured marble In craftier hands. Soon an electrified hum sinks teeth Into brain-‐-‐then claws Surround me, pull at me, Back to the dust, to the concrete river. Let me go!-‐-‐to stay entangled
93
In this mesh of barbed serenity! But over me is a face, Mouth breathing back life. I feel the gush of air, The pebbles and debris beneath me. "Give me the bag, man," I slur. "No way! You died, man," Baba said. "You stopped breathing and died." "I have to go back!...you don't understand..." I try to get up, to reach the sky. Oh, for the lights-‐-‐for this whore of a Sun, To blind me. To entice me to burn. Come back! Let me swing in delight To the haunting knell, To pierce colors of virgin skies. Not here, along a concrete river, But there-‐-‐licked by tongues of flame!
94
The Geranium Theodore Roethke When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine-‐-‐ Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she'd lived So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-‐smoked cigars, dead beer, Her shriveled petals falling On the faded carpet, the stale Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves. (Dried-‐out, she creaked like a tulip.) The things she endured!-‐-‐ The dumb dames shrieking half the night Or the two of us, alone, both seedy, Me breathing booze at her, She leaning out of her pot toward the window. Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me-‐-‐ And that was scary-‐-‐ So when that snuffling cretin of a maid Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-‐can, I said nothing. But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week, I was that lonely.
95
The Survivor Theodore Roethke I am twenty-‐four led to slaughter I survived. The following are empty synonyms: man and beast love and hate friend and foe darkness and light. The way of killing men and beasts is the same I've seen it: truckfuls of chopped-‐up men who will not be saved. Ideas are mere words: virtue and crime truth and lies beauty and ugliness courage and cowardice. Virtue and crime weigh the same I've seen it: in a man who was both criminal and virtuous. I seek a teacher and a master may he restore my sight hearing and speech may he again name objects and ideas may he separate darkness from light. I am twenty-‐four led to slaughter
I survived.
96
Waiting for Icarus Muriel Rukeyser He said he would be back and we'd drink wine together He said that everything would be better than before He said we were on the edge of a new relation He said he would never again cringe before his father He said that he was going to invent full-‐time He said he loved me that going into me He said was going into the world and the sky He said all the buckles were very firm He said the wax was the best wax He said Wait for me here on the beach He said Just don't cry I remember the gulls and the waves I remember the islands going dark on the sea I remember the girls laughing I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me I remember mother saying: Inventors are like poets, a trashy lot I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse I remember she added: Women who love such are the worst of all I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer. I would have liked to try those wings myself. It would have been better than this.
97
The Blind Men and the Elephant John Godfrey Saxe It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind. The First approach'd the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: "God bless me! but the Elephant Is very like a wall!" The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried, -‐"Ho! what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me 'tis mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!" The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant Is very like a snake!" The Fourth reached out his eager hand, And felt about the knee. "What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain," quoth he, "'Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!" The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: "E'en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!" The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Then, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant Is very like a rope!"
98
And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong! MORAL. So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!
99
Black History Gil Scott-‐Heron I was wondering about our yesterdays, and starting digging through the rubble and to say, at least somebody went through a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure that when we looked things up we wouldn't fair too well and that we would come up with totally unreliable portraits of ourselves. But I compiled what few facts I could, I mean, such as they are to see if we could shed a little bit of light and this is what I got so far: First, white folks discovered Africa and they claimed it fair and square. Cecil Rhodes couldn't have been robbing nobody 'cause he said there was nobody there. White folks brought all the civilization, since there wasn't none around. They said 'how could these folks be civilized when you never see nobody writing nothing down?' And just to prove all their suspicions, it didn't take too long. They found out there were whole groups of people — in plain sight — running around with no clothes on. That's right! The women, the men, the young and old, righteous white folks covered their eyes. So no time was spent considering the environment. Hell no! This here, this just wasn't civilized! And another way they knew the folks was backwards, or at least this how we were taught is that 'unlike the very civilized people of Europe' these Black groups actually fought! And yes, there was some 'rather crude implements' and yes, there was 'primitive art' and yes they were masters of hunting and fishing and courtesy came from the heart. And yes there was medicine, love and religion, inter-‐tribal communication by drum. But no paper and pencils and other utensils and hell, these folks never even heard of a gun. So this is why the colonies came to stabilize the land. Because The Dark Continent had copper and gold and the discovers had themselves a plan. They would 'discover' all the places with promise. You didn't need no titles or deeds. You could just appoint people to make everything legal,
100
to sanction the trickery and greed. And out in the bushes if the natives got restless You could call that 'guerilla attack!' and never have to describe that somebody finally got wise and decided they wanted their things back. But still we are victims of word games, semantics is always a bitch: places once called under-‐developed and 'backwards' are now called 'mineral rich.' And still it seems the game goes on with unity always just out of reach Because Libya and Egypt used to be in Africa, but they've been moved to the 'middle east'. There are examples galore I assure you, but if interpreting was left up to me I'd be sure every time folks knew this version wasn't mine which is why it is called 'His story'.
101
Pieces of a Man Gil Scott-‐Heron Jagged jigsaw pieces Tossed about the room I saw my grandma sweeping With her old straw broom She didn't know what she was doing She could hardly understand That she was really sweeping up.. Pieces of a man I saw my daddy greet the mailman And I heard the mailman say "Now don't you take this letter to heart now Jimmy Cause they've laid off nine others today" He didn't know what he was saying He could hardly understand That he was only talking to Pieces of a man I saw the thunder and heard the lightning! And felt the burden of his shame And for some unknown reason He never turned my way Pieces of that letter Were tossed about that room And now I hear the sound of sirens Come knifing through the gloom They don't know what they are doing They could hardly understand That they're only arresting Pieces of a man I saw him go to pieces I saw him go to pieces He was always such a good man He was always such a strong man Yeah, I saw him go to pieces I saw him go to pieces
102
Mi Problema Michelle Serros My sincerity isn’t good enough. Eyebrows raise when I request: “Hable mas despacio por favor.” My skin is brown just like theirs, but now I’m unworthy of the color ‘cause I don’t speak Spanish the way I should. Then they laugh and talk about mi problema in the language I stumble over. A white person gets encouragement, praise, for weak attempts at a second language. “Maybe he wants to be brown like us.” and that is good. My earnest attempts make me look bad, dumb. “Perhaps she wanted to be white like THEM.” and that is bad. I keep my flash cards hidden a practice cassette tape not labeled ‘cause I am ashamed. I “should know better” they tell me “Spanish is in your blood.” I search for SSL classes, (Spanish as a Second Language) in college catalogs and practice with my grandma. who gives me patience, permission to learn. And then one day, I’ll be a perfected “r” rolling tilde using Spanish speaker A true Mexican at last!
103
The Abortion Anne Sexton Somebody who should have been born is gone. Just as the earth puckered its mouth, each bud puffing out from its knot, I changed my shoes, and then drove south. Up past the Blue Mountains, where Pennsylvania humps on endlessly, wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair, its roads sunken in like a gray washboard; where, in truth, the ground cracks evilly, a dark socket from which the coal has poured, Somebody who should have been born is gone. the grass as bristly and stout as chives, and me wondering when the ground would break, and me wondering how anything fragile survives; up in Pennsylvania, I met a little man, not Rumpelstiltskin, at all, at all... he took the fullness that love began. Returning north, even the sky grew thin like a high window looking nowhere. The road was as flat as a sheet of tin. Somebody who should have been born is gone. Yes, woman, such logic will lead to loss without death. Or say what you meant, you coward...this baby that I bleed.
104
Sonnet #18 William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And Summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd: But thy eternal Summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
105
Love’s Philosophy Percy Bysshe Shelley The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?— See the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-‐flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me?
106
One Inch Tall Shel Silverstein If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school. The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool. A crumb of cake would be a feast And last you seven days at least, A flea would be a frightening beast If you were one inch tall. If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door, And it would take about a month to get down to the store. A bit of fluff would be your bed, You'd swing upon a spider's thread, And wear a thimble on your head If you were one inch tall. You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum. You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb. You'd run from people's feet in fright, To move a pen would take all night, (This poem took fourteen years to write-‐-‐
'Cause I'm just one inch tall).
107
Whatif Shel Silverstein Last night, while I lay thinking here, some Whatifs crawled inside my ear and pranced and partied all night long and sang their same old Whatif song: Whatif I'm dumb in school? Whatif they've closed the swimming pool? Whatif I get beat up? Whatif there's poison in my cup? Whatif I start to cry? Whatif I get sick and die? Whatif I flunk that test? Whatif green hair grows on my chest? Whatif nobody likes me? Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me? Whatif I don't grow taller? Whatif my head starts getting smaller? Whatif the fish won't bite? Whatif the wind tears up my kite? Whatif they start a war? Whatif my parents get divorced? Whatif the bus is late? Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight? Whatif I tear my pants? Whatif I never learn to dance? Everything seems well, and then the nighttime Whatifs strike again!
108
Stone Charles Simic Go inside a stone That would be my way. Let somebody else become a dove Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth. I am happy to be a stone. From the outside the stone is a riddle: No one knows how to answer it. Yet within, it must be cool and quiet Even though a cow steps on it full weight, Even though a child throws it in a river; The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed To the river bottom Where the fishes come to knock on it And listen. I have seen sparks fly out When two stones are rubbed, So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; Perhaps there is a moon shining From somewhere, as though behind a hill— Just enough light to make out The strange writings, the star-‐charts On the inner walls.
109
Love Chat Anna Deavere Smith No no no you wouldn’t want to sit and have a cup of coffee with me Travelling man I’m a bad bad mad woman My mama told me Don’t never chase after a dream I will not chase after a dream I will only chase after a man Then run travelling man run No no you wouldn’t want to sit and have a cup of coffee with me. My mama was a lunatic and my daddy watched the stars My bother is a lucky fellow Who chases kites in the night In the thundering skies of great Montana My brother is a strong guy Who hangs off cliffs In the pouring rain having the nerve To grind his boots into the slipping earth Catching himself on his spurs My brother who takes chances knows there is no second chance, Only spurs of the moment. We are the lucky few children of lunatics in love Me A Mexican girl in a red dress Running wild down the Oklahoma highways My calves as big as the trees in the distance behind By breasts as soft as the hills up ahead My hair flying in the wind like the flowing stream beside us Run travelling man run And you will fly behind me like a kite And we will run our electric selves through the night. We will run our love our hot beating Passion through the earth We will beat up our feet into this rainy Night until we find the jungle The river We will run travelling man and our hot lips will kiss the sky And rivers will turn yellow on the spur of the moment! We are hot travelling man Run run run your love run run your love No no no you wouldn’t want to have a cup of coffee with me No no you wouldn’t want to sit and chat.
110
The Youngest Daughter Cathy Song The sky has been dark for many years. My skin has become as damp and pale as rice paper and feels the way mother’s used to before the drying sun parched it out there in the fields. Lately, when I touch my eyelids, my hands react as if I had just touched something hot enough to burn. My skin, aspirin colored, tingles with migraine. Mother has been massaging the left side of my face especially in the evenings when the pain flares up. This morning her breathing was graveled, her voice gruff with affection when I wheeled her into the bath. She was in a good humor, making jokes about her great breasts, floating in the milky water like two walruses, flaccid and whiskered around the nipples. I scrubbed them with a sour taste in my mouth, thinking: six children and an old man have sucked from these brown nipples. I was almost tender when I came to the blue bruises that freckle her body, places where she has been injecting insulin for thirty years. I soaped her slowly, she sighed deeply, her eyes closed. It seems it has always been like this: the two of us in this sunless room, the splashing of the bathwater. In the afternoons when she has rested, she prepares our ritual of tea and rice, garnished with a shred of gingered fish, a slice of pickled turnip,
111
a token for my white body. We eat in the familiar silence. She knows I am not to be trusted, even now planning my escape. As I toast to her health with the tea she has poured, a thousand cranes curtain the window, fly up in a sudden breeze.
112
Saturday at the Canal Gary Soto I was hoping to be happy by seventeen. School was a sharp check mark in the roll book, An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team Was going to win at night. The teachers were Too close to dying to understand. The hallways Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus, A friend and I sat watching the water on Saturday, Neither of us talking much, just warming ourselves By hurling large rocks at the dusty ground And feeling awful because San Francisco was a postcard On a bedroom wall. We wanted to go there, Hitchhike under the last migrating birds And be with people who knew more than three chords On a guitar. We didn't drink or smoke, But our hair was shoulder length, wild when The wind picked up and the shadows of This loneliness gripped loose dirt. By bus or car, By the sway of train over a long bridge, We wanted to get out. The years froze As we sat on the bank. Our eyes followed the water, White-‐tipped but dark underneath, racing out of town.
113
Fairy-‐Tale Logic A.E. Stallings Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks: Gather the chin hairs of a man-‐eating goat, Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat, Select the prince from a row of identical masks, Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote, Or learn the phone directory by rote. Always it’s impossible what someone asks— You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe That you have something impossible up your sleeve, The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak, An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke, The will to do whatever must be done: Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.
114
Analysis of Baseball May Swenson It's about the ball, the bat, and the mitt. Ball hits bat, or it hits mitt. Bat doesn't hit ball, bat meets it. Ball bounces off bat, flies air, or thuds ground (dud) or it fits mitt. Bat waits for ball to mate. Ball hates to take bat's bait. Ball flirts, bat's late, don't keep the date. Ball goes in (thwack) to mitt, and goes out (thwack) back to mitt. Ball fits mitt, but not all the time. Sometimes ball gets hit (pow) when bat meets it, and sails to a place where mitt has to quit in disgrace. That's about the bases loaded,
115
about 40,000 fans exploded. It's about the ball, the bat, the mitt, the bases and the fans. It's done on a diamond, and for fun. It's about home, and it's about run.
116
Flounder Natasha Tretheway Here, she said, put this on your head. She handed me a hat. You ’bout as white as your dad, and you gone stay like that. Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down around each bony ankle, and I rolled down my white knee socks letting my thin legs dangle, circling them just above water and silver backs of minnows flitting here then there between the sun spots and the shadows. This is how you hold the pole to cast the line out straight. Now put that worm on your hook, throw it out and wait. She sat spitting tobacco juice into a coffee cup. Hunkered down when she felt the bite, jerked the pole straight up reeling and tugging hard at the fish that wriggled and tried to fight back. A flounder, she said, and you can tell ’cause one of its sides is black. The other side is white, she said. It landed with a thump. I stood there watching that fish flip-‐flop, switch sides with every jump.
117
Lost David Wagoner Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.
118
Dark August Derek Walcott So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky of this black August. My sister, the sun, broods in her yellow room and won't come out. Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume like a kettle, rivers overrun; still, she will not rise and turn off the rain. She is in her room, fondling old things, my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls like a crash of plates from the sky, she does not come out. Don't you know I love you but am hopeless at fixing the rain? But I am learning slowly to love the dark days, the steaming hills, the air with gossiping mosquitoes, and to sip the medicine of bitterness, so that when you emerge, my sister, parting the beads of the rain, with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness, all with not be as it was, but it will be true (you see they will not let me love as I want), because, my sister, then I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones, The black rain, the white hills, when once I loved only my happiness and you.
119
A Song of Life Ella Wheeler Wilcox In the rapture of life and of living, I lift up my head and rejoice, And I thank the great Giver for giving The soul of my gladness a voice. In the glow of the glorious weather, In the sweet-‐scented, sensuous air, My burdens seem light as a feather – They are nothing to bear. In the strength and the glory of power, In the pride and the pleasure of wealth (For who dares dispute me my dower Of talents and youth-‐time and health?) , I can laugh at the world and its sages – I am greater than seers who are sad, For he is most wise in all ages Who knows how to be glad. I lift up my eyes to Apollo, The god of the beautiful days, And my spirit soars off like a swallow, And is lost in the light of its rays. Are tou troubled and sad? I beseech you Come out of the shadows of strife – Come out in the sun while I teach you The secret of life. Come out of the world – come above it – Up over its crosses and graves, Though the green earth is fair and I love it, We must love it as masters, not slaves. Come up where the dust never rises – But only the perfume of flowers – And your life shall be glad with surprises Of beautiful hours. Come up where the rare golden wine is Apollo distills in my sight, And your life shall be happy as mine is, And as full of delight.
120
The World is Too Much with Us William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-‐gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
121
Ode to the Midwest Kevin Young
The country I come from Is called the Midwest —Bob Dylan
I want to be doused in cheese & fried. I want to wander the aisles, my heart's supermarket stocked high as cholesterol. I want to die wearing a sweatsuit— I want to live forever in a Christmas sweater, a teddy bear nursing off the front. I want to write a check in the express lane. I want to scrape my driveway clean myself, early, before anyone's awake— that'll put em to shame— I want to see what the sun sees before it tells the snow to go. I want to be the only black person I know. I want to throw out my back & not complain about it. I wanta drive two blocks. Why walk— I want love, n stuff—
122
I want to cut my sutures myself. I want to jog down to the river & make it my bed— I want to walk its muddy banks & make me a withdrawal. I tried jumping in, found it frozen— I'll go home, I guess, to my rooms where the moon changes & shines like television.
123
Loyal Housewife Daisy Zamora Everything ended with the Honeymoon: the orange blossoms, the love letters, the childish weeping. Now you crawl at your master’s feet, first in his harem, taken or abandoned according to his will. Mother of children who bare his name, bemoaning your lot beside a clothesline heavy with diapers, wringing your heart until it is purified in sheets and towels. Accustomed to the shouts, the humiliation of a hand held out for crumbs. A woman cornered, a plaintive shadow suffering migraines, varicose veins, diabetes. A young girl kept for show who married her first boyfriend and grew old listening to the distant song of life from her place of wifely honor.
124
Index of Short Poems
125
Casa Materna | Maternal Home Francisco Alarcon toqué a la puerta de mi casa de negro una señora salió una sombra enpuñando una escoba sin palabras me quedé mirando donde se canceló mi infancia después del portazo seguí ahí parado llorando por dentro
I knocked at the door of my home a lady in black answered a shadow clenching a broom speechless I did nothing but stare where my childhood was canceled after the door slam I just stood there weeping inside
126
From the First Hard Cold Rain Jimmy Santiago Baca We who refused to be caged canaries didn’t mind getting our feathers wet just to feel what it might be like to fly into the storm.
Why and When and How Jimmy Santiago Baca did our lives move from the page words composed so elegantly boy’s choirs could harmonize, how did they scatter like crumbs on the floor swept up and tossed from our lives to decompose with the rest, how did our pastoral move from the canvas to join the mob in madness when we dreamed we heard angels whisper once in our sleep?
A Bee Matsuo Basho A bee staggers out
of the peony.
The Dragonfly Matsuo Basho The dragonfly can't quite land
on that blade of grass.
127
Even in Kyoto Matsuo Basho Even in Kyoto – hearing the cuckoo’s cry – I long for Kyoto.
Love Rejected Lucille Clifton Love rejected hurts so much more than Love rejecting; they act like they don’t love their country No what it is is they found out their country don’t love them.
Fate Slew Him, but He Did Not Drop Emily Dickinson Fate slew him, but he did not drop; She felled – he did not fall – Impaled him on her fiercest stakes – He neutralized them all. She stung him, snapped his firm advance, But, when her worst was done, And he, unmoved, regarded her, Acknowledged him a man.
128
Success is Counted Sweetest Emily Dickinson Success is counted sweetest By those who ne’er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-‐day Can tell the definition So clear, of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of trumph Break, agonized and clear.
Surgeons Must be Very Careful Emily Dickinson Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit, – Life!
Lose this Day Loitering Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Lose this day loitering – 'twill be the same story To-‐morrow – and the next more dilatory; Each indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days, Are you in earnest? sieze this very minute – Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated – Begin it, and then the work will be completed!
129
Every Moment Hafiz I rarely let the word “No” escape From my mouth Because it is plain to my soul That God has shouted, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” To every luminous movement in Existence.
The Great Secret Hafiz God was so full of Wine last night, So full of Wine That He let a great secret slip. He said: There is no man on this earth Who needs a pardon from Me – For there is really no such thing, No such thing, As sin!
130
To Mother Frank Horne I came In the blinding sweep Of ecstatic pain, I go In the throbbing pulse Of Aching Space, In the eons between I piled upon you Pain on pain Ache on ache And yet as I go I shall know That you will grieve And want me back…
Luck Langston Hughes Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given. To others Only Heaven
131
Blackwoman Don L. Lee will define herself. naturally. will talk/walk/live/&love her images. her beauty will be. the only way to be is to be. blackman take her. u don't need music to move; yr/movement toward her is music. & she'll do more than dance.
My Brothers Don L. Lee my brothers i will not tell you who to love or not love i will only say to you that Black women have not been loved enough. i will say to you that we are at war & that Black men in america are being removed from the earth like loose sand in a wind storm and that the women Black are three to each of us. no my brothers i will not tell you who to love or not love but i will make you aware of our self hating and hurting ways. make you aware of whose bellies you dropped from. i will glue your ears to those images you reflect which are not being loved.
First Fig Edna St. Vincent Millay My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light.
132
Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting Kevin C. Powers I tell her I love her like not killing or ten minutes of sleep beneath the low rooftop wall on which my rifle rests. I tell her in a letter that will stink, when she opens it, of bolt oil and burned powder and the things it says. I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand, that war is just us making little pieces of metal pass through each other.
Delta Adrienne Rich If you have taken this rubble for my past raking through it for fragments you could sell know that I long ago moved on deeper into the heart of the matter If you think you can grasp me, think again; my story flows in more than one direction a delta springing from the river bed with its five fingers spread.
133
The Drunkard’s Song Rainer Maria Rilke It wasn’t inside me. I’d find it and lose it. I tried to hang on to it then. And booze it. (I forget what it was.) Then booze did now this, now that for me, And I came to depend on it totally. Fool that I was. Now I’m part of it’s game, and it flings me about With contempt, and before the month is out Will lose me to Death, that thug. When I’m won by him, a grimy old trey, He’ll scratch his gray scab-‐face with me And toss me into the muck.
from Meaning Enough for Peaches Jose Antonio Rodriguez At school the science teacher spoke About the meaning of life, how it wants More than anything to be, and I wonder if, In a world of gravitational fields and uneven orbits, There is meaning enough for peaches. Because they weep, they do, Hanging from a tree that I’m not supposed to touch, Grateful for the heft of my solitary stare.
134
A Black Sky Hates the Moon Rumi I am that dark Nothing. I hate those in power. I’m invited in from the road to the house but I invent some excuse. Now I’m angry at the road. I don’t need love. Let someone break me. I don’t want To hear anyone’s trouble. I’ve had my chance for wealth and position. I don’t want those. I am iron resisting the most enormous magnet there is. Today Like Every Other Day Rumi Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Haiku #4 Jill Scott I hear you Thinking Thinking things to pull me down I love anyway
135
Give Her a Call Gil Scott-‐Heron My life is one of movement I been running as fast as I can I've inherited trial and error directly from my old man But I'm committed to the consequences Whether I stand or fall And when I get back to my life I think I'm gonna give her a call She's been waiting patiently For me to get myself together And it touches something deep inside When she said she'd wait forever Because forever's right up on me now That is, if it ever comes at all And when I'm back to my life I think I'll give her a call.
Song of Myself (Part 25) Walt Whitman Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-‐rise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-‐rise out of me. We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun, We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak. My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds. Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?
136
Song of Myself (Part 28) Walt Whitman Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, myself become the wounded person, My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.
