Poetry

You will find other people's work here. Maybe mine, too, occasionally, but that requires more courage than I have available to me most days.

Most of these poems were discovered for me by my friend JES at Running After My Hat, many of them via Whiskey River.

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

--Albert Goldbarth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pale Gray
I love the gray drip, dripping.
"Nice day for ducks," they say,
As a greeting.
Can't they see the liquid calm,
The faded angora sky that mercifully absorbs problems?

I love the smothering, amorphous mists.
"Dim your headlights, it's bad out," they say,
As a farewell.
Can't they see the congenial spirits
Gathering within the silent shrouds, in the low places?

They mourn the absence of their friend,
Sun--my enemy,
Harsh and glaring, peering into the minds
Of hapless introverts,
When kindness, peace, and mercy are colored

Pale gray.

--Nance, age 14
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A Girl's Trivial Truths
I am the sum of sense experiences,
The quiet flowers nature wears
When she takes her shoes off--
Wisteria, misty wistful lavender;
Lily-of-the-valley, meek and forgiving;
Violets with sympathy-shaped leaves--
Are blooming in my soul
And the breath of my heart
Is of their combined, subdued scents.
But, oh! My pulse beats jasmine and cactus flowers.
I bury my face in golden brown, shining things:
A boy's soft, college-clipped hair;
Tanned skin smelling of lime cologne,
A beagle's silky ear, and sun-warmed burlap.
Here are glasses with tortoise shell rims;
A tiny, ageless, white shell
To fit on a fingertip.
A single champagne bubble; a wet windshield;
The desire pink tint in the throat of an orchid;
And anything Carolina blue
Floods my faculties with feeling
And my mind reels drunkenly.
My tears are the pale green, lemony drops
Shaken from May morning trees
By a lover's whisper.
My laughter is the sound
Of a guitar's folk-strings
Throbbing the joy of my generation,
"I make my home in the heart of everything."

Nance- age 17
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Poem Holding Its Heart In One Fist

Each pebble in this world keeps
its own counsel.

Certain words — these, for instance —
may be keeping a pronoun hidden.
Perhaps the lover’s you
or the solipsist’s I.
Perhaps the philosopher’s willowy it.

The concealment plainly delights.

Even a desk will gather
its clutch of secret, half-crumpled papers,
eased slowly, over years,
behind the backs of drawers.

Olives adrift in the altering brine-bath
etch onto their innermost pits
a few furrowed salts that will never be found by the tongue.

Yet even with so much withheld,
so much unspoken,
potatoes are cooked with butter and parsley,
and buttons affixed to their sweater.
Invited guests arrive, then dutifully leave.

And this poem, afterward, washes its breasts
with soap and trembling hands, disguising nothing.

       --Jane Hirshfield--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I Met My Muse 

                                                                         

I glanced at her and took my glasses

off--they were still singing. They buzzed

like a locust on the coffee table and then

ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the         

sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and

knew that nails up there took a new grip

on whatever they touched. "I am your own

way of looking at things," she said. "When

you allow me to live with you, every

glance at the world around you will be

a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

                                   

*William Stafford*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Whole

Whole industries have sprung 
from nothing, from someone 
broken, crying: make me whole. 

My brother, having broken 
a green banana in half, held 
the two snapped bits 

up to my mother, who held 
me in 1962 in the produce 
section of the A&P, and holding 

me (as yet unbroken), strolled, if 
briefly, from my brother, pretending 
not to know him, knowing his 

inmost desire to be reunited 
with a time before he knew me. 
The cry insists: make me whole, as 

if, made, we could be remade, 
as if whole were a place 
to point the golden Buick toward, 

as if its station did not contain 
chiefly the hole, the central O
of loss and going on.
                --Andrea Cohen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Everyone Was in Love

One day, when they were little, Maud and Fergus
appeared in the doorway, naked and mirthful,
with a dozen long garter snakes draped over
each of them like brand-new clothes.
Snake tails dangled down their backs,
and snake foreparts in various lengths
fell over their fronts, heads raised
and swaying, alert as cobras.
They writhed their dry skins
upon each other, as snakes like doing
in lovemaking, with the added novelty
of caressing soft, smooth, moist human skin.
Maud and Fergus were deliciously pleased with themselves.
The snakes seemed to be tickled too.
We were enchanted. Everyone was in love.
Then Maud drew down off Fergus’s shoulder,
as off a tie rack, a peculiarly
lumpy snake and told me to look inside.
Inside that double-hinged jaw, a frog’s green
webbed hind feet were being drawn,
like a diver’s, very slowly as if into deepest waters.
Perhaps thinking I might be considering rescue,
Maud said, “Don’t. Frog is already elsewhere.”

(Galway Kinnell , The Atlantic, 2006)
..........................................................................................................
The Woman Who Collects Noah's Arks
Has them in every room of her house,
wall hangings, statues, paintings, quilts and blankets,
ark lampshades, mobiles, Christmas tree ornaments,
t-shirts, sweaters, necklaces, books,
comics, a creamer, a sugar bowl, candles, napkins,
tea-towels and a tea-tray, nightgown, pillow, lamps.
........Animals two-by-two in plaster and wood,
fabric, oil paint, copper, glass, plastic, paper,
tinfoil, leather, mother-of-pearl, styrofoam,
clay, steel, rubber, wax, soap.
........Why I cannot ask, though I would like
to know, the answser has  to be simply
because.  Because at night when she lies
with her husband in bed, the house rocks out
into the bay, the one that cuts in here to the flatlands
at the center of Texas. Because the whole wood structure
drifts off, out under the stars, beyond the last
lights, the two of them pitching and rolling
as it all heads seaward. Because they hear
trumpets and bellows from the farther rooms.
Because the sky blackens, but morning finds them always
safe on the raindrenched land,
bird on the windowsill.

by Janet McCann
from PoemMemoirStory, Grove Press


....................................................................................................

A Remedy for Insomnia

Not sheep coming down the hills,
not cracks on the ceiling –
count the ones you loved,
the former tenants of dreams
who would keep you awake,
once meant the world to you,
rocked you in their arms,
those who loved you…
You will fall asleep, by dawn, in tears.

(Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something To Desire 

................................................................................................

Thanks

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

(W.S. Merwin)

...................................................................................................................

Amor Fati 

On the line between fate and coincidence,

Picture the tightrope. 

Now, picture the walker.

Dress her up in a tutu. No, tight skirt and high heels.

Call her Fortune and hold your breath for her. 

Sling her high over could be and never can.

Toss no coin, no I Ching,

Put your palm away.

Throw foregone conclusions to the wind for her.

If you love her, don't whisper a prayer.

(Nance)

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
in September or October, when the wind
and the light are working off each other
so that the ocean on one side is wild
with foam and glitter, and inland among stones
the surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
by the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
more thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
a hurry through which known and strange things pass
as big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
and catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

(Seamus Heaney, from The Spirit Level 

...................................................................................................................

Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard Except the Word “Save”

If you have seen the snow
somewhere slowly fall
on a bicycle,
then you understand
all beauty will be lost
and that even the loss
can be beautiful.
And if you have looked
at a winter garden
and seen not a winter garden
but a meditation on shape,
then you know why
this season is not
known for its words,
the cold too much
about the slowing of matter,
not enough about the making of it.
So you are blessed
to forget this way:
a jump rope in the ice melt,
a mitten that has lost its hand,
a sun that shines
as if it doesn’t mean it.
And if in another season
you see a beautiful woman
use her bare hands
to smooth wrinkles
from her expensive dress
for the sake of dignity,
but in so doing trace
the outlines of her thighs,
then you will remember
surprise assumes a space
that has first been forgotten,
especially here, where we
rarely speak of it,
where we walk out onto the roofs
of frozen lakes
simply because we’re stunned
we really can.

(Dobby Gibson)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not a poem, but it belongs here:

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. Life is now, every moment, no matter if the world be full of death. Death triumphs only in the service of life.

(Henry Miller [source])

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OH, MY GOD

Not only in church
and nightly by their bedsides
do young girls pray these days

Wherever they go,
prayer is woven into their talk
like a bright thread of awe

Even at the pedestrian mall
outbursts of praise
spring unbidden from their glossy lips. 

                                             --Billy Collins

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To My Doppelganger

You were always the careful one,
who’d tiptoe into passion
and cut it in half with your mind.
I allowed you that, and went
happier, wilder ways. Now
every thought I’ve ever had
seems a rope knotted
to another rope, going back
in time. We’re intertwined.
I’ve learned to hesitate
before even the most open door.
I don’t know what you’ve learned.
But to go forward, I feel,
is to go together now. There’s a place
I’d like to arrive by nightfall.

                             --Stephen Dunn

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs–
how much of this place is yours?

Notice what this poem is not doing.

Every person gone has taken a stone
to hold, and catch the sun. The carving
says, “Not here, but called away.”

Notice what this poem is not doing.

The sun, the earth, the sky, all wait.
The crowns and redbirds talk. The light
along the hills has come, has found you.

Notice what this poem has not done.

(William Stafford)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another Plot Cliché

My dear, you are the high-speed car chase, and I,
I am the sheet of glass being carefully carried
across the street by two employees of Acme Moving
who have not parked on the right side
because the plot demands that they make
the perilous journey across traffic,
and so they are cursing as rehearsed
as they angle me into the street, acting as if
they intend to get me to the department store, as if
I will ever take my place as the display window, ever clear
the way for a special exhibit at Christmas, or be Windexed
once a day, or even late at night, be pressed against
by a couple who can’t make it back to his place,
and so they angle me into the street, a bright lure,
a provocative claim, their teaser, and indeed
you can’t resist my arguments, fatally flawed
though they are, so you come careening to but and butt
and rebut, you come careening, you being
both cars, both chaser and chased, both good and bad, both
done up with bullets that haven’t yet done you in.
I know I’m done for: there’s only one street
on this set and you’ve got a stubborn streak a mile long.
I can smell the smoke already.
No matter, I’d rather shatter
than be looked through all day. So come careening; I know
you’ve other clichés to hammer home: women with groceries
to send spilling, canals to leap as the bridge is rising.
And me? I’m so through. I’ve got a thousand places to be.

(Rebecca Hoogs [source])
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

--- Wendell Berry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First Thanksgiving

When she comes back, from college, I will see
the skin of her upper arms, cool,
matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old
soupy chest against her breasts,
I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,
her sleep like an untamed, good object,
like a soul in a body. She came into my life the
second great arrival, after him, fresh
from the other world — which lay, from within him,
within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,
week after week, the moon rising,
and setting, and waxing — whirling, over the months,
in a slow blur, around our planet.
Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has
had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,
and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult
to have her in that room again,
behind that door! As a child, I caught
bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,
looked into their wild faces,
listened to them sing, then tossed them back
into the air — I remember the moment the
arc of my toss swerved, and they entered
the corrected curve of their departure.

(Sharon Olds [source])
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Resumé

BY DOROTHY PARKER

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Only Once

    All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we’d do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every invitation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
did happen in our lives, our stories
are not drab with its absence: but don’t
expect to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body — halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

(Denise Levertov

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Morningside Heights, July

    Haze. Three student violists boarding
a bus. A clatter of jackhammers.
Granular light. A film of sweat for primer
and the heat for a coat of paint.
A man and a woman on a bench:
she tells him he must be psychic,
for how else could he sense, even before she knew,
that she’d need to call it off? A bicyclist
fumes by with a coach’s whistle clamped
hard between his teeth, shrilling like a teakettle
on the boil. I never meant, she says.
But I thought, he replies. Two cabs almost
collide; someone yells fuck in Farsi.
I’m sorry, she says. The comforts
of loneliness fall in like a bad platoon.
The sky blurs — there’s a storm coming
up or down. A lank cat slinks liquidly
around a corner. How familiar
it feels to feel strange, hollower
than a bassoon. A rill of chill air
in the leaves. A car alarm. Hail.

(William Matthews

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Children in a Field

    They don’t wade in so much as they are taken.
Deep in the day, in the deep of the field,
every current in the grasses whispers hurry
hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume
like a rumor, impelling them further on.
It is the way of girls. It is the sway
of their dresses in the summer trance-
light, their bare calves already far-gone
in green. What songs will they follow?
Whatever the wood warbles, whatever storm
or harm the border promises, whatever
calm. Let them go. Let them go traceless
through the high grass and into the willow-
blur, traceless across the lean blue glint
of the river, to the long dark bodies
of the conifers, and over the welcoming
threshold of nightfall.

(Angela Shaw


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    A Story

    Everyone loves a story. Let’s begin with a house.
    We can fill it with careful rooms and fill the rooms
    with things — tables, chairs, cupboards, drawers
    closed to hide tiny beds where children once slept
    or big drawers that yawn open to reveal
    precisely folded garments washed half to death,
    unsoiled, stale, and waiting to be worn out.
    There must be a kitchen, and the kitchen
    must have a stove, perhaps a big iron one
    with a fat black pipe that vanishes into the ceiling
    to reach the sky and exhale its smells and collusions.
    This was the center of whatever family life
    was here, this and the sink gone yellow
    around the drain where the water, dirty or pure,
    ran off with no explanation, somehow like the point
    of this, the story we promised and may yet deliver.
    Make no mistake, a family was here. You see
    the path worn into the linoleum where the wood,
    gray and certainly pine, shows through.
    Father stood there in the middle of his life
    to call to the heavens he imagined above the roof
    must surely be listening. When no one answered
    you can see where his heel came down again
    and again, even though he’d been taught
    never to demand. Not that life was especially cruel;
    they had well water they pumped at first,
    a stove that gave heat, a mother who stood
    at the sink at all hours and gazed longingly
    to where the woods once held the voices
    of small bears—themselves a family — and the songs
    of birds long fled once the deep woods surrendered
    one tree at a time after the workmen arrived
    with jugs of hot coffee. The worn spot on the sill
    is where Mother rested her head when no one saw,
    those two stained ridges were handholds
    she relied on; they never let her down.
    Where is she now? You think you have a right
    to know everything? The children tiny enough
    to inhabit cupboards, large enough to have rooms
    of their own and to abandon them, the father
    with his right hand raised against the sky?
    If those questions are too personal, then tell us,
    where are the woods? They had to have been
    because the continent was clothed in trees.
    We all read that in school and knew it to be true.
    Yet all we see are houses, rows and rows
    of houses as far as sight, and where sight vanishes
    into nothing, into the new world no one has seen,
    there has to be more than dust, wind-borne particles
    of burning earth, the earth we lost, and nothing else.

(Philip Levine)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  A Blessing

  Just off the Highway to Rochester, Minnesota
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

-James Wright

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~