Poet's Corner

[midcan5]

'Woman Feeding Chickens'

"Her hand is at the feedbag at her waist,
sunk to the wrist in the rustling grain
that nuzzles her fingertips when laced
around a sifting handful. It’s like rain,
like cupping water in your hand, she thinks,
the cracks between the fingers like a sieve,
except that less escapes you through the chinks
when handling grain. She likes to feel it give
beneath her hand’s slow plummet, and the smell,
so rich a fragrance she has never quite
got used to it, under the seeming spell
of the charm of the commonplace. The white
hens bunch and strut, heads cocked, with tilted eyes,
till her hand sweeps out and the small grain flies."

Roy Scheele

 

[midcan5]

'The Specificity Of Generalities'

"The “Year Without a Summer” was technically not
a year without summer—just colder than most:
frozen lakes, failed crops, feelings that, foremost,
accompany winter—wondering, for example,
if spring, let alone summer, will ever come.
The tiger, in its relentless measured momentum,
releases itself from its cage; but no one notices
its stripes have changed to spots in their calloused
mechanical eyes. The beggar sees his chance—
it is not so hard for him to see through earth,
which reduces history to darkened colors.
And history repeats itself in darkened colors.
“Why then,” the little girl asks, “should anyone
embrace the means? Is every year a year
without summer? Is that why birds fly south,
because somewhere it must be summer?” Her mother
smiles her maternal smile. She knows it is
possible to be both right and wrong. What does one tell
a mother she should tell her daughter? The wind,
brute strength, and flower, spiritual bravado, will
be at odds—though, when the time was right, they have been known
to schmooze. Siena was like that. Not everyone belonged there.
And sometimes it takes an apocalypse of nature to remind
us not everything is meant for everyone. Seasons
are just. Think back. The moon. How believable is that?"

Ed Orr

 

[midcan5]

"...Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...."

Martin Luther King

 

[midcan5]

'Mr. D Shops At Fausto’s Food Palace'

"For years he lived close enough to smell
chicken and bananas rotting
in the trash bins, to surprise a cashier on break
smoking something suspicious when he walked

out the back gate. Did they have an account?
He can’t remember. Probably so, for all the milk
a large family went through, the last-minute
ingredients delivered by a smirking bag boy.

He liked to go himself, the parking lot’s
radiant heat erased once he got past the sweating
glass door, to troll the icy aisles in his slippers.
This was before high-end labels took over

shelf space, before baloney changed
its name to mortadella, before water
came in flavors, before fish
got flown in from somewhere else."

Candace Black

 

[midcan5]

'Reunion'

"This is my past where no one knows me.
These are my friends whom I can’t name—
Here in a field where no one chose me,
The faces older, the voices the same.

Why does this stranger rise to greet me?
What is the joke that makes him smile,
As he calls the children together to meet me,
Bringing them forward in single file?

I nod pretending to recognize them,
Not knowing exactly what I should say.
Why does my presence seem to surprise them?
Who is the woman who turns away?

Is this my home or an illusion?
The bread on the table smells achingly real.
Must I at last solve my confusion,
Or is confusion all I can feel?"

Dana Gioia

 

[midcan5]

'Love Again Blues'

"My life ain't nothin'
But a lot o'Gawd-knows-what.
I say my life ain't nothin'
But a lot o'Gawd-know-what.
Just one thing after 'nother
Added to de trouble that i got.

When I got you I
Thought I had an angel-chile.
When I got you
Thought I had an angel-chile.
You turned out to be a devil
That mighty ngih drove me wild!

Tell me, tell me,
What makes love such an ache and pain?
Tell me what makes
Love such an ache and pain?
It takes you and it breaks you——
But you got to love again."

Langston Hughes

 

[midcan5]

'CODA'

"From the garden rose the sound of bees
that lurched and wobbled through the peonies.
We ate eggs, French toast, drank milk that warmed
in minutes in the sun while fat drones swarmed
and looped like drunkards in the purple field.
On the porch we heard their bodies yield
to wills their fuzzy minds don’t understand.
They smelled the stains of syrup on your hand
and one, in gold-encrusted drunken strut,
smeared pollen from its mandibles and gut
along your wrist. That morning you had tied
your hair, and as you rose and ran inside,
it gently bounced, and loosed, and then unfurled.
If the next is better, I’ll still miss this world."

Michael Lavers

 

[midcan5]

'Children of Our Era'

"We are children of our era;
our era is political.

All affairs, day and night,
yours, ours, theirs,
are political affairs.

Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political cast,
your eyes a political aspect.

What you say has a resonance;
what you are silent about is telling.
Either way, it's political.

Even when you head for the hills
you're taking political steps
on political ground.

Even apolitical poems are political,
and above us shines the moon,
by now no longer lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Question? What question? Dear, here's a suggestion:
a political question.

You don't even have to be a human being
to gain political significance.
Crude oil will do,
or concentrated feed, or any raw material.

Or even a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months:
should we negotiate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile people were dying,
animals perishing,
houses burning,
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote
and less political."

Wislawa Szymborska

translated by Joanna Trzeciak


""Astonishing" is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We’re astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we’ve grown accustomed to. Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like “the ordinary world,” “ordinary life,” “the ordinary course of events.” …But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world."

Culture Desk: Wislawa Szymborska: The Happiness of Wisdom Felt : The New Yorker

 

[midcan5]

'A Starbucks Romance'

"She asked if I was in line and I said
I’m always in line for something but
I never know what it is and she said

nothing for what seemed like seconds
and then replied That’s way too deep
before my coffee and I said Ask me

something after we’ve had our coffee
and she said Whatever would I ask
and I said Ask me what my plans are

for Saturday night as we inched along
and she said I like movies I saw Unfaithful
last week and it didn’t have

a happy ending which made it more
realistic and we got our double lattes
and found two corner seats and I said

I saw Y Tu Mama Tambien but the sex
didn’t seem real and she said Movies
never get it right and we had another

double latte and talked awhile and
drove to her condo and lived happily
ever after what seemed like weeks"

Robert Funge

 

[midcan5]

'One Of Those Topics I Shouldn’T Talk About'

"To be honest, there are times when
I say to myself God I hope I’m not

pregnant. My faith is not 100%
in condoms. Why I never had sex

until I was 19. And then I married him
several years later. We have a son now

and I remember when I told him the news.
I came out of the bathroom saying, “Look

what you did!” Pointing the plastic wand
as though he was the only one

responsible. That’s the word that comes
to mind after I hope I’m not pregnant.

Even at 33 I think I should know better
except the pill really screws up my body.

So I choose not to take it. For a long time
I didn’t know what it was to ovulate. Now

my body is like clockwork. Always
two weeks after my period and I tell him

we have to be careful. Responsibilities.
In high school health class we learned

how to give life by blowing air into a dummy’s
mouth. That same year they erected

a Coke machine in the school cafeteria.
Because everyone likes to have Coke.

“But not sex!” my dad said after he found
Ann’s birth control pills in her room. “No

daughter of mine is having it!” To be invisible
is to not be pregnant. Because when you are

pregnant, strangers touch your belly and tell you
what you should and should not do

when the baby comes. Before I know I’m not
pregnant I imagine how my life might be

different. Like changing lanes all of a sudden
when another car doesn’t see me.

When you have a child you worry about space
in the backseat and whether there is too much

sunlight or not enough. I pull the seatbelt tight
across my chest, look at my son in the rearview mirror:

An American flag sways its head back-and-forth
in front of the Georgia Right To Life headquarters. Next door

a young Hispanic girl looks through the window of a T.V.
repair shop, hair parted unevenly down the middle. Her father

waits in the gravel parking lot, car idling. The trunk
open and empty."

Tammy F. Brewer

 

[midcan5]

'What To Know'

I can’t write anything new for you,
reader, I can’t tell you anything
you don’t already know, but you’re still
here so I must have gotten something right
or, at least, you can tell I’m not lying.

I know the colors of your bruise,
and that’s not it, I know the way
you feel about dark staircases and potato salad,
both are scary, but mostly I am
lonely here on the other side
of this page, hungry for everyone.

At night you want to give your thoughts
to someone, someone who will let you
pour back and forth, the way you do
between glasses to aerate the wine.

Maybe, reader, I have let you down,
not enough images here, not enough
insight. But my lover cut himself up,
covered the back of his forearms
in bloody stripes. Now, I don’t think
I know anything about love.

Has that happened to you, reader?
Has yours lost his mind, hid drugs,
heard voices and slammed his head in doors?
No? Oh, neither has mine, actually,
I’m married now, we have two kids.
While I write he is brewing coffee,
and later he’ll lift the bed sheet corner,
make a tent of space for me to crawl into.

There, I’ll pour my day into him. No,
I don’t need you, reader. I just wanted
to make you feel less alone. I thought
you might feel better about yourself, reading
this, imagining me in your shoes. But I’m not
this poem, and I can’t hope to see you."

Allison Campbell

 

[midcan5]

Last evening we are out with family when our granddaughter decides restuarants aren't her thing and she'd rather roam the sidewalk testing her small legs on curbs but smart enough to know her limits. I want to watch this one grow up for she will be a bundle.


'Apology For Being Small'

"I’m sorry I have to touch dirt, grease, just-rolled
noodles drying on the counter. Snot, scabs,
broken birdshells, you with my grimy fingers.
For when we’re in the store and words burn
my chest and crawl in my throat like throw-up
but only screams come out. The kicking is extra
and feels good after looking at bread and tomatoes
when I know there are cookies and toys
you should let me have. The lies that aren’t
very good—about chocolate and wetting the bed—
I know you won’t believe, so I don’t think they count.
The ones about the dog who knows my name
and wants to live with me and my invisible friend
who can fly—those aren’t lies, they’re stories.
I’m sorry I ask so many questions, especially
the same ones over and over. For hiding dirty underwear,
candy, myself inside my treehouse to see how long
you’ll look. I’m sorry for breaking my toys,
the vase you told me not to touch, your skin
with my teeth. I’m sorry my legs aren’t longer, sorry
I can’t keep up, that I have to try so hard to Be good,
Be quiet, Straighten up and behave. I’m sorry
I cry because I’m scared, hungry, tired, mad.
Because I’m small. Because you don’t remember
what that’s like and I’m afraid that I’ll forget."

Carrie Shipers

 

[midcan5]

'Thaw"

"Mid-March, noon, the sunlight presses
warm against the city like a hand.

The T.V. says it’s record-breaking,
says it’s toppled ’47, and this streak

may last the week. Ties loosed, blouses
cut low and blooming color,

the lunch hour crowds rejoice. Music
blasts in snippets. Skaters rocket

from the steps of the museum
where office workers picnic

and the statuary fairly glows.
Today, winter is a dread

forgotten. And more than once,
stepping from the bus, waiting

at the corner for the light, I’ve heard
a total stranger say global warming

to no one in particular, with a shrug
and grin that means, at least today,

destruction’s on our side, which means,
we might as well enjoy the fall.

I think, on days like this, beautiful days,
we believe the Earth suffers

the way we know a child suffers
halfway round the world from drought.

The T.V. tells us so.
Which means we believe it

the way we know we become dirt,
or, somehow, less than even that."

David O’Connell

 

[midcan5]

'The Waiting Place'

"You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting."

Dr. Seuss

 

[midcan5]

'How I Wanted You to Find Me and What You Have in Common with God'

"Last night when you didn’t turn up I snapped my timing belt and
spent an hour listening to passing cars make the ditch brush hiss,
watching the earthworms coming up onto the blacktop looking for
a better place to dry out and die. The tow truck driver talked
forever. His shift was over in forty minutes, and if he delayed he
wouldn’t have to go out to rescue anybody else. I texted you as he
dropped me and the dog at the Motorway Motel, but you didn’t
respond so I got out of the cab and tried not to make a big deal out
of things. I ran some water from the sink into the ice bucket and
went to sleep on top of the covers. I imagined there were dead
bodies in the boxspring. I imagined there were U.S. Marshalls in
the room next door. I imagined the next morning I would settle
down and live here with a truck driver who was only home on
holidays. This is how I wanted you to find me. This is how I
thought I could make you feel sorry for what you’d done.


When I got home God was already in the living room with his knitting
needles. I asked him if he wanted some of my Cherry Seven-Up, but he
did not seem thirsty or amused. He wanted to talk about where I’d been
and how empty Corona bottles got all over the kitchen floor, and when I
tried to cry, he rolled his eyes and turned on the news. I asked him if he’d
use his superpowers to send me back to last winter where I could lay
awake again listening to the sound of your incoming text messages. He
did not answer. Instead he put down the scarf he was making and
gathered up the half a Lean Cuisine you’d left on the coffee table. He
didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night, and all I could think about was
how much he looked like you."

Sarah Caron

 

[midcan5]

'Reckless Poem'

"Today again I am hardly myself.
It happens over and over.
It is heaven-sent.

It flows through me
like the blue wave.
Green leaves – you may believe this or not –
have once or twice
emerged from the tips of my fingers

somewhere
deep in the woods,
in the reckless seizure of spring.

Though, of course, I also know that other song,
the sweet passion of one-ness.

Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the
tumbled pine needles she toiled.
And I thought: she will never live another life but this one.
And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength
is she not wonderful and wise?
And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything
until I came to myself.

And still, even in these northern woods, on these hills of sand,
I have flown from the other window of myself
to become white heron, blue whale,
red fox, hedgehog.
Oh, sometimes already my body has felt like the body of a flower!
Sometimes already my heart is a red parrot, perched
among strange, dark trees, flapping and screaming."

Mary Oliver

 

[midcan5]

'The Freshman Essay'

"The question one will argue in this essay is what is a cannibal.
You are so wrong if you said “a kind of animal.”

Fact: they are not like a dark stranger.
Fact: they are much endanger.

Maybe you think just because you are you
you would not do what they do.

Well think again civilized man and/or woman.
Plane crash must eat frozen dead co-pilot proves ordinary people can.

Let us now consider the state of nature,
a spot of time when toil-free work and whore-mongering made life richer.

Another point is what is so gross anyway about people meat.
One went to Chinatown one time and saw chicken feet.

In conclusion we are too full of ourselves here in the West.
(Can you let me know if the last day to drop this class has passed?)"

Mike White

 

[Sky Dancer]

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,

what joy
to come falling
out of a brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth
that what is said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.

The sky cleared
I was standing
under a tree.

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment

at which moment

my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain—
imagine! Imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.


Mary Oliver

 

[Sky Dancer]

THE SUN NEVER SAYS

Even

After

All this time

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe

Me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the

Whole

Sky.

Hafiz (trans. Daniel Ladinsky)

 

[Sky Dancer]

Enough

Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now

David Whyte, Where Many Rivers Meet