Just learned the word reply guy. Immediately I thought up this little internet #poem.
I want to be a reply guy
turn them popular into my mates
I want to be a reply guy
worship superior primates
I want to be a reply guy
pester the chief of the pack
I want to be a reply guy
get a little lovin back
But as soon as I see their self-righteous streams,
their courtly manners, their sovereign regimes
I say fuck'em
And then I block'em
BOTTOMLANDS DREAM
by Doug Ramspeck
The boy fell from the Monahegnee Bridge,
and his parents buried him, and the years
were a cottonmouth swimming in an oxbow
lake, and the boy became an owl as he fell
and lived in the woods so that when he held
himself motionless, he felt himself becoming
the gray bark of the tree. And sometimes
the boy swooped low across the bottomlands
behind the house of his parents, and sometimes
they watched him going by, and maybe he held
a mouse in his talons, or maybe the sun’s eye
blurred across the glass and transformed him
into a diffused smear of photons. One time
when he fell, he was caught in the updraft
of a prayer lifting itself toward the heavens,
and another time he landed in the lake then
became a catfish swimming along the muddy
bottom, his body twisting and raising swirls
of murky visions. And his parents dreamed
sometimes of opening their arms at the bottom
of the bridge and catching him. And the boy
became a cottonmouth twisting his way
across the water’s surface, and the water
rippled out behind him and made of everything
a transitory motion, something there then gone.
And the boy whispered in the air as he went by,
I fall and fall but never strike the ground.
—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Doug Ramspeck: “I wrote this poem in the fall, while being distracted by a bear with her two cubs as they climbed the oak trees outside my office window and fed on acorns and sometimes napped.”
The Horses
By Ted Hughes
I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,
Not a leaf, not a bird,—
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood
Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining the darkness
Till the moorline—blackening dregs of the brightening grey—
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:
Huge in the dense grey—ten together—
Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move,
With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.
I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments
Of a grey silent world.
I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.
The curlew's tear turned its edge on the silence.
Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then the sun
Orange, red, red erupted
Silently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud,
Shook the gulf open, showed blue,
And the big planets hanging—
I turned
Stumbling in the fever of a dream, down towards
The dark woods, from the kindling tops,
And came to the horses.
There, still they stood,
But now steaming and glistening under the flow of light,
Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves
Stirring under a thaw while all around them
The frost showed its fires. But still they made no sound.
Not one snorted or stamped,
Their hung heads patient as the horizons,
High over valleys, in the red levelling rays—
In din of the crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,
May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place
Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,
Hearing the horizons endure.
https://us12.campaign-archive.com/?e=58c6df03ad&u=c993b88231f5f84146565840e&id=1b1a8287d2
In deep, velvet night, we see
ages lost, visions, gone.
Lost in ancient mystery,
musing, in reverie,
of past peoples, overseas;
call of forgotten homes,
far away.
Wind strained sails, on freedom’s song,
carried you to my shore,
to break bonds that held us, long;
build new ties, kind and strong;
bind hands and lives, make us one,
as dreamed in mystic lore,
and foretold.
From the land of the river,
to the isle of the sea,
etesian gusts would never
hold your wild endeavour,
to find your fated treasure,
as you came home to me,
and your life.
By burning firebrand, witnessed,
we pledged a wordless oath –
in blood, both sealed and promised
as ancient Gods had wished;
beneath kind stars, that whispered
their blessings on us both,
we clasped hands.
Can we, again, hear beating,
of waves on that, far shore?
Know hands, that bled, still bleeding?
Hearts, that laughed, now keening
for days, lost, save in dreaming,
of all that was, before
time’s parting?
© Simon J Ashcroft, 2024
Green Burial Unsonnet
by Dante Di Stefano
In the milliseconds & minutes &
millennia when I no longer am the
bundle of meat & need unpoeming itself
in the still hours of a full or empty
house, I dream my eye socket encased
underground with root & worm &
watershed threading through it. | | The
summers become hotter & hotter. | |
Unbearable & luminous, the refrain of
the song of extinction—
My children & my children’s children
will inherit the edges of cumulonimbus
clouds, the unexpected sunflower
blooming from a second-story rain
gutter, the gentleness of the marbling
sunlight on the fur of a rabbit stilled in
a suburban backyard. | | I am in love
with the Earth. | | There are still
blackberries enough to light the brain
with the star charts of a sweetness—
& yet & yet & yet, the undertow of the
expanding universe repeats to the
mitochondria in my cells. The tiny
bluebird in my throat continues to build
her nest with twigs & mud & scraps of
Amazon packing tape. | | I feel the now
of now fluttering diastole & systole in
my biceps & lungs & toe bones | | The
oranges & reds & yellows of my many
Octobers leaf to life & spill from my
mouth: unaccountable acorns, midnight
loam, overgrown meadows,
a wee spore adrift among the fireflies—
About this Poem
“I would like to have a green burial someday. My wife and I often worry about the world our six-year-old daughter and two-year-old son will inherit and wonder what else we can do to preserve the Earth in all its beauty. This textbox prose poem ‘unsonnet’ challenges the tradition of the sonnet (and lineated poetry) even as it enacts some of the form’s structural and lyrical mechanisms. This formal tension also calls to mind the tension between inherited social norms (our dependence on fossil fuels and factory farming, for example), and efforts to move into a more sustainable, greener future.”
—Dante Di Stefano
https://poets.org/poem/green-burial-unsonnet?mc_cid=4e9acd195e
I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm—
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
Written after the bombing of Ben Tre, Vietnam when an American military man made the comment, "We had to destroy the town in order to save it."
From the book Call Me By My True Names (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1999)
In the mountains, move slowly. If you must creep, then creep.
Magnificent in the distance, meaningless closer up,
mountains are but a surface standing on end. The snail-
like and, it seems, horizontal meandering trail
is, in fact, vertical. Lying flat in the mountains, you
stand. Standing up, you lie flat. Which suggest your true
freedom's in falling down. That's the way, it appears,
to conquer, once in the mountains, vertigo, raptures, fears.
В горах продвигайся медленно; нужно ползти — ползи.
Величественные издалека, бессмысленные вблизи,
горы есть форма поверхности, поставленной на попа,
и кажущаяся горизонтальной вьющаяся тропа
в сущности вертикальна. Лежа в горах — стоишь,
стоя — лежишь, доказывая, что, лишь
падая, ты независим. Так побеждают страх,
головокруженье над пропастью либо восторг в горах.
PSALM FOR WORKING WOMEN
by Lynne Thompson
A microwave is my savior; I shall not starve.
It alloweth me to eat quickly. It leadeth me
to purchase Stouffers in bulk.
It restoreth dehydrated onions. It delivers me
from pre-heating for pre-heating’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley
of canned goods, I shall fear no tin containers
for plastics art with me and glass and ceramics,
they comfort me.
It preparest a roast turkey in thirty-six minutes;
four for carrots when they’re ’waved on HIGH.
My rumaki comes out crisp.
Surely, defrosting and warming shall follow me
all the days of my life and I shall dwell
in the land of a Hotpoint forever.
—from Rattle #23, Summer 2009
https://www.rattle.com/psalm-for-working-women-by-lynne-thompson/
Ballad from the Soundhole of an Unstrung Guitar
by Diane Seuss
The best I ever wrote was in an attic.
No chair. Manual typewriter on an upended box.
No screen on the lone window, which I removed.
Bats flew through.
I woke up one night and Blue was in bed with me.
Nah, I said, and he put on his wire-rimmed glasses and left.
Somehow, I ended up with two kittens. Littermates.
I wonder how they lived and died, where they went.
The only furniture was the mattress on the floor.
A wooden box full of someone's Mardi Gras beads.
No ethics. No lock on the door.
No worries about vermin, rabies, fleas.
Where did I pee in the middle of the night?
There must have been a bathroom down those narrow stairs.
A shower somewhere.
A gold shower curtain laced with mold.
Blue once told me I walked in on him peeing and laughed.
That it ruined his life.
Well, Jesus, I'm sorry.
I would never have apologized back then.
I knew no forms.
Just a swarm of bees in the rafters who agreed to leave me be.
I made a line break when I took a drag on my Salem Light.
Menthols were pure as poetry.
Where are the words now, that you wrote in that hellhole?
On the typewriter ribbon I stuck in a knothole.
They ignore the suffering of millions saying they do not understand it but I ask them:
In what language does a child cry?
— Karim Wafa Al-Hussaini
#KarimWafaAl-Hussaini #Gaza #genocide #suffering #poem #poetry
From nowhere with love, on the -eenth of Marchember,
dear respectful my darling, doesn't matter
even who, for the face, speaking frankly,
is impossible to remember, not yours, and
no-one's best friend, sends his regards being on one
of the five continents, related to cow-boys;
I loved you more than angels and even Himself
and am further from you now than from them both;
late at night, in the sleeping valley, in its very pit,
twisting at night on the blank bed-sheet --
as not mentioned below at least, -- with a throb
I whip up the pillow by moaning "you"
from beyond the seas, its shores connecting
in the dark, with my body your body through
all it's features, as a crazy mirror, reflecting.
Ниоткуда с любовью, надцатого мартобря,
дорогой, уважаемый, милая, но не важно
даже кто, ибо черт лица, говоря
откровенно, не вспомнить уже, не ваш, но
и ничей верный друг вас приветствует с одного
из пяти континентов, держащегося на ковбоях.
Я любил тебя больше, чем ангелов и самого,
и поэтому дальше теперь
от тебя, чем от них обоих.
Далеко, поздно ночью, в долине, на самом дне,
в городке, занесенном снегом по ручку двери,
извиваясь ночью на простыне,
как не сказано ниже, по крайней мере,
я взбиваю подушку мычащим «ты»,
за горами, которым конца и края,
в темноте всем телом твои черты
как безумное зеркало повторяя.
1975-1976
This is my life!!!
THE NEW BATTERY SHOULD COME TOMORROW
by Ruth Bavetta
Got up this morning thinking about going to see my daughter.
Which led to thinking about the remote for the garage door opener
which had stopped working when I replaced the battery.
Which led to searching online for garage door repairmen. Which led to
wanting to check the remote again before I called a repairman.
Which led to getting dressed so I could go outside. Which led to
remembering to brush my teeth. Which led to discovering my Waterpik
wasn’t working. Which led to researching online to find out
what the problem could be. Which led to
scrabbling around to find the extra tips that came with the Waterpik
and figuring out which was which and how to replace the tip.
So with Waterpik repaired I went outside and tried again
to make the garage door opener work. Which led to
my discovering that the little red light in the remote wasn’t on.
Which led me to fiddle with the batteries again. Which led to
my discovering I had ordered the wrong battery for it. Which led to
a protracted Amazon session looking for the proper battery
and figuring out which were in stock and would come soon
and didn’t come only in a pack of fifty.
So now I’m exhausted and I’m not going anywhere.
from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Ruth Bavetta: “I write at a messy desk overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Once, it was important to me to make sense of life. Now, I’m convinced that there is no sense-making. There is only what is and what has been. I am human, separate and mortal, and that’s where the poetry comes from. This poem is pretty much an accurate report of an actual morning a couple of years ago. This kind of thing happens with increasing frequency as we age. What can we do but laugh about it?”
https://www.rattle.com/the-new-battery-should-come-tomorrow-by-ruth-bavetta/
THE TUNER
by Colette Inez
for E.C.
Choose how the forest
was deprived of a tree.
Blight, wind, fire?
I once lost a cantankerous man,
who tuned pianos.
Tall, an oak to me,
he goaded music from the keys.
I almost see him biting on his pipe,
tamping down the London Dock.
Blown back leaves, birds, moths,
the gestures here.
Pendulum, tool box auctioned off.
Summer roars another blast of green.
“I like to see a piano perspire,”
he’d say to me, slamming the lid
of the Baldwin.
—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009
Colette Inez: “A poem is born right here, somewhere in my heart, in my blood vessels, in my gut. It comes to the brain much later. I have to feel them actually pulsing in my body, and then when they get shaped, when the brain, the controller, the pilot, whoever one’s metaphor, however this metaphor can extend, takes over. I like to think that my brain is the lesser part of my poems and that my heart, in the best of my poems, is the one that rules.”
one of my older poems:
𝕎𝕚𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝔻𝕦 𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕥 𝕘𝕖𝕨𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝔹ö𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝔼𝕣𝕕𝕖! 𝔻𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕘𝕖𝕝ä𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕥 𝕚𝕟 ℍ𝕚𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕝𝕟 ü𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕝𝕖𝕥𝕫𝕥𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕘𝕖𝕤𝕔𝕙𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕞 𝕊𝕒𝕟𝕕. 𝕌𝕟𝕕 𝕟𝕦𝕟 𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕣𝕓𝕥 𝕕𝕖𝕚𝕟 𝔾𝕖𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕥 𝕕𝕠𝕔𝕙 𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕚𝕟 𝕚𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕟 𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕣 𝕋𝕒𝕘𝕖, 𝕚𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝕓𝕖𝕣𝕦𝕙𝕚𝕘𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕟 𝔽𝕝𝕦ß, 𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕨𝕖𝕚𝕤𝕤. 𝕀𝕤𝕥 𝕖𝕤 𝕕𝕒𝕤, 𝕨𝕚𝕣𝕜𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕕𝕒𝕤, 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕕𝕦 𝕨𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕥𝕖𝕤𝕥!
TODAY: In 1802, William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, see a “long belt” of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud
AGAINST THE SOLAR ECLIPSE
by Alejandro Escudé
It’s a black swath that cuts across
A part of the country that’s a myth.
Does Ohio even exist? Not here,
Where the post office blends
With the sky and the cops drive
Black and white cars off freeway
Overpasses. In one photo, a man
Peers down at a brass contraption
Like some 21st century Galileo,
A pinprick on the sun shadowed
By that communist rock in the sky.
Or was it the other way around?
I can’t recall. It’s all mathematical
Gibberish, if you ask me. A train
Stopped the traffic the other day
And that was more real than the
Eclipse. The sun is like an orange
At the grocery store at age fifty.
Who still buys the citrusy orbs?
If fact, the supermarket aisles
Are too bright these days. I should
Wear those ISO glasses they all
Wore to observe the eclipse.
See what? Nature? Apocalypse?
Down on this planet, it’s light
Pandemonium. Hysteria denied.
I’ve had enough of branded news.
Music mimicking music. It’s called
The cosmos. That death-trap
Beyond the atmosphere. Boneless
Graveyard, aqueduct to nothingness.
Honestly, I’ll take God. He’s not
In fashion right now. But I prefer
The ambiguity of faith to ignorance,
Which is what you see in crowds,
Lawn chairs and binoculars, tents,
Motorhomes, a sheet afloat, the sun
Figured there, reflected, swallowed
By time’s stupid, arcing mouth.
—from Poets Respond
April 14, 2024
Alejandro Escudé: “Human beings, in my point of view, are absolute masters of denial and distraction. The eclipse was just another event that reminded me of how well society can turn its gaze up and away from real societal issues, personal problems, true miracles, thought, insight, love, in order to participate in one more pointless venture.”
https://www.rattle.com/against-the-solar-eclipse-by-alejandro-escude/
The Battered Inside
by Niels Hav
Translated from the Danish by Per Brask & Patrick Friesen
The battered inside of the cupboard under the kitchen sink
makes me happy. Here are two honest nails
hammered into the original boards that have been there
since the apartment block was built. It's like revisiting
forgotten members of our closest family.
At some point the boards were blue;
there is some leftover red
and a green pastel. The kitchen sink is new
and the counter has been raised ten centimeters. Probably
it's been renovated several times through the years.
The kitchen has remained current; there are new lamps,
electric stove, fridge and coffee maker.
But here under the sink a time warp has been allowed
its hidden existence. Here is the wash tub with the floor cloth,
the plunger and a forgotten bit of caustic soda.
Here the spider moves about undisturbed.
Maybe there's been kissing and dancing in this kitchen.
Probably there's been crying.
Happy people newly in love have prepared fragrant meals
and later cooked porridge while making sandwiches for lunch boxes.
Hungry children have stolen cookies. Laughter has resounded
in the stairwell and ropes have been skipped in the yard
while new cars were being parked outside. People moved in and out,
old ones died and were carried downstairs, newborn babies
were carried upstairs. Everything according to order—
my nameplate will also disappear from the door one day.
I get down on my knees in front of the kitchen sink
and respectfully greet the plunger, the spider
and the two honest nails.