IN AMERICA
by Diana Goetsch

“Why don’t you go to Japan and ask the cats?” I said

to the TSA agent when she asked if I was Amish,

because I believe in answering a non-sequitur

with a non-sequitur. I only said it

after I’d been cleared, after I’d been strip-searched

behind frosted glass, and then posted

the bitch’s face on Facebook along with her name.

Maybe being trans is like being Amish,

or maybe I went pale when I missed my flight

as Security Agent Pamela E. Starks

conferred with Explosives Expert Gary Pickering

to discuss, based on the “soft anomaly”

picked up by the body scanner, which of them

needs to search me (at one point she

suggested they each take “half”).

I suppose I could have come from Amish country,

a place so deep in the heart of America it can’t be seen,

and delivered to the airport by horse and buggy—

an Amish horse, oblivious to traffic. Maybe

it’s because of my long black dress, or makeup

that makes it look like I’m not wearing makeup—

a goal whose purpose used to elude me,

though I totally get it now, but please don’t ask.

You could go and ask the cats in Japan,

though it’s bound to earn you a contemptuous frown,

by which they mean to say, “Eat my ass

in Macy’s window.” How do cats in Japan

know about Macy’s? you must be asking.

Beats the hell outta me. They have

no tails—did you know?

Neither do the Amish. Just kidding.

I’m still waiting to hear about

the complaint I filed, the one that,

along with the viral video of them

repeatedly calling me “it,” shut down

the TSA website for three days

while they rewrote the rules about me.

“You could be charged for this,”

friends warn me, but in America

it can’t be libel if it’s true. I learned that

from the cats in Japan, who you can ask—

though it’s best not to disturb them.



—from In America

2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize Selection

 

Diana Goetsch: “I’m basically a love poet. I’ve started to understand that after all these years. No matter the subject, I think my mission has something to do with redemption. And I just go for the hardest thing to redeem.”

#poem #poetry #literature

https://www.rattle.com/in-america-by-diana-goetsch/

RE-CHOICE
#poem #reimagine

Loom unattended.
Fingers, purplish red from derisive strain,
point aghast at playful weavers of
work and romance.
Unrepentant buoyancy!
Unindentured passion.
So trashy! Unacceptable.
Assuredly cast out, disallowed this hallowed room,
habitat of respectable student-wards.
*
Scenes beneath my window-glass.
Tawdry, tedious, culture clash.
Who can entertain reflective thought
overcome by exhaustive smog and soot?
*
Sing, you euphonious bastards!
Ring out so loud in harmony
that whiny bleats of parsimony
fail to sway, fall unheard.

OUTSIDE THE BOX
#poem

I never even see the box.
It’s out there, so they say, on yonder landscape.
Me, I’m drinking dry red wine in some sad fringe cafe,
gyrating to jukebox jazz.
Visions I record come from a differently constructed place,
move along strangely configured airwaves.

Rafeef Ziadah - If My Words

https://youtu.be/thVPpbpqVbo?si=1RuT24MyAenls4-P

#RafeefZiadah #poetry #poem #Palestine

Minstrel Show
#poem #minstrel #fantasy

Come gather round kids and I’ll strum you a tale
Of a Queen of the Nile and her King Ishmael
Of great daring deeds and a pure holy grail
And how your dreams can come true
O’ now listen to know what to do.

Deep in the desert, dark in the night,
the Queen was awakened in terrible fright
to see her king levitate, surrounded by light.
Now, what does she do?
O’ seeing her dreaming come true?

Oh, babe, I dream of you again
Your vision haunting me
since I don’t know when
Asleep in your arms, your voice all around me
These dreams always hound me
’til I want to give in
do as you bid
even if it’s a sin.

The Queen called her champions to come to her aid
Her manner denying that she was afraid
She commanded that their attention be paid
to finding out what was true
O’ she told them what they must do.

“You must venture forth ‘neath the light of the Moon
to find in the desert this specified dune
under which is hidden a great sacred ruin
where you’ll find the grail that’s true.
O’ Now go, you know what to do.”

They did as she bid them and found the ruin site
Yet the King was before them, encircled in light
Loyal to his station, the Number One knight
grasped the grail so true
O’ despite what the King might do.

The King, from his perch, floating in air,
surveying the knights his Queen had sent there,
commanded compliance with his majestic stare,
saying: “I am the Lord of what’s true.
So, this is what you will do.”

Oh, babe, I dream of you again
You’ve been haunting me
since I don’t know when
Asleep in your arms, your voice all around me
These dreams always hound me
’til I want to give in
do as you bid
even if it’s a sin.

The knights became sailors, and far did they sail.
The Queen ruled the kingdom without King or grail.
With his increasing powers, the King Ishmael
brings to dreamers a message so true,
when awakened they know what to do.

Oh, babe, I dream of you again,
secretly haunting me
since I don’t know when.
Asleep in your arms, your voice all around me.
Beguilement hounds me
’til I want to give in;
do as you bid,
even if it’s a sin.

Imagine May Day
#poem #yearofprophecies

Brazen witches fly, legends say,
dark Moon nights; arise, stealthy, silent
in their joyous revelry.
Bonded to Earth’s creation;
learning at mother’s breast
to manage life’s gifts and lessons.

Historic Man may proclaim, may murder
for fealty, to swear allegiance to
their hunt’s command.
They may elevate their One True King
to kneel and obey. They may employ
counting measure, ceremony and sacrifice,
taunting and torture or other trials
thus finding for each loyal swan a pond
to plunder, to parade in royal colour,
their place of pride.

Cruelty descends, more master than tactic;
it is the enemy of joy, of flavour,
bonding, works of love and honour.

Yet men, on real ground, work companions
to soil and rain, engineers trained to each
moment’s urgencies, philosophers of stone and mud,
reason and toil, persist. Their sinew and bone feed
the ages, build clay and richness on which
wealth relies.

Wisdom knows the sweat of practiced movement,
flexible to unexpected obstacles, able to modulate
quiet or loud as the crowd ebbs
or grows in credulity.
Where wisdom seeps through, counters
prevailing poisons, invigorates blood to nourish
minds and hearts, look there for blessing.

Arise, lovers! Bring forth better days,
ours to play in open revelry,
neighbors enjoying shared labors and our fruit.
Accept truth of magic; imagine life into this world.

YIN AND
#poem #duality

Where do we begin
to demarcate, believe
dichotomy?
This hollow consciousness,
this I of grammatic subject,
this barrier of skin
and puzzlement —
what essential singularity may I claim?
What kinship can I count upon;
what rule determines fair allocation?
To do my duty honor,
must I obey or strive to break away?
How am I to know or name my liege,
brothers at arms, those safe to harm or squeeze
(children of lesser fates, damned ingrates)?
When do we begin to call it sin, and separate?
This yearn for wholeness we call lonely,
what if it is only a mistake?
Who underwrote duality, and didn’t warn:
Disclaimer: just a momentary view.
When your eyes are ready, focus steady,
scan panorama unconstrued.
Unlocked perception eternally accrues,
discerns words and worlds beyond
“I” and “You”.
.

RETURNING #poem

If I could turn again
If I could turn
If I could
If I
If
I

Flying too high
confused, losing oxygen’s fire
infused with enthusing desire
Touch me
Don’t take me down

You, who never knew me,
grasping in space where
I may have lain.
Laugh to my face
exploding in pain.
O’, that’s no way to survive.
I want you to thrive,
be better than
still life man.
I’ll encase you in goo that
allows you to see
while you writhe

inside intricate mind.

Each molecule of remorse
creeps out of your eyes.
Sweet water
of life, grace effervescing.
(Lessons of Nietzschean blessing.)

Rocky hazards face those who
walk this ridge.
Take it slow; let time wait.
Patience prevails.
Duration spans to build
bridges, irrigation ditches.
Inch by plodding inch plot
fields of grain, barrels for rain,
roofs, walls, windowpanes,
chimneys for warm hearths below.
Flowing rivers reveal lines for exploration,
mining ores.
Mine and yours,
that element missing from accounting calculations.
Earth and her hordes, a separate salvation?
Wherever did you hear that enmity
would take you anywhere but desolation?
Dear, darling man, so wrapped up in
some plan you think you’ve sussed;
delivering your birthright and your trust
without second opinion;
believing written history makes mystery clear.
How can I discover words you will hear?
Why should I any longer care?
Off am I, breathing higher air.
No need to share with those who
daren’t climb.
Sublimity, subliminally inclined —
nothing more to reach for.
No need to aspire.
If there is a you, and you choose,
touch me.
Don’t take me down.

Okay
by Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2023 Kenny A. Chaffin

A strange old man with stringy gray hair lit my fire. Said, come on baby. He struck two sticks together that sparked like live wires, caught on the detritus. Flames leapt up curling in long rusty blonde cascades and when The Face of Want appeared I knew I’d be okay.

Kenny A. Chaffin – 10/9/2023

#poem #poetry #literature

Here's my favorite James Tate Poem

Success Comes to Cow Creek
by James Tate

I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It's been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the edge, and peeks
for meaning in the
ripple it brings. He
scowls. He speaks: when you
walk down any street
you see nothing but
coagulations
of shit and vomit,
and I'm sick of it.
I suggest suicide;
he prefers murder,
and spits again for
the sake of all the
great devout losers.

A conductor's horn
concerto breaks the
air, and we, two doomed
pennies on the track,
shove off and somersault
like anesthetized
fleas, ruffling the
ideal locomotive
poised on the water
with our light, dry bodies.
Gerald shouts
terrifically as
he sails downstream like
a young man with a
destination. I
swim toward shore as
fast as my boots will
allow; as always,
neglecting to drown.

https://poets.org/poem/success-comes-cow-creek

#poem #poetry #poets #literature

AUTUMN FALLS
#poem #autumn

Ever deeper,
settle into setting Sun, call of leaves, day diminishes.
Secret scent sings grail quests, reveals synchronicities.
In ceremony hunters sense frenzied affray, pray to
coalesce blessing —
crepuscular forest, heretic tales, shadowing deity.
Ritual brings chthonic beauty, fierce death/wild rebirth.
Submission to pull energy, drunk from fruits of Earth, swirl
into ecstasy; face becoming. Sun dies
from Western skies.
Realign.

Woman Wakes in Another Time Zone
J. Mae Barizo

I wake up too close
to the underside of your arm—

a flaccid white fish
against my brown cheek.

My eyes are still closed
but I've memorized

your body, I don't have to look
to see you aged and aimless,

landscape of non-cancerous
but severely atypical moles

on the skin. I put my hand
in yours, and when you wake

with your opulent anxiety, reaching
for your pills and phone, scrolling

maniacally, I see that you've
refused the one thing

I'm offering. At midnight
I lie upstairs while you

are at the piano, a staircase
away from me. To be

near you is not ordinary, a flame
at its center, furling

from the inside out, heart
flailing. Still, how many

dawns you've lain absent,
my solitary mornings

on the terrace, missing
you, a staircase away.

I've watched the palm trees
a hundred times now, the way

they stand in solidarity,
constant and separate, against

the blue. Even as I hear
you playing Bowie

through the floorboards
I think maybe this

is not what I made it out
to be. Soon

you'll be cranky from hunger
and we'll scramble

eggs together, sit on
the porch, share

a single cigarette. Here,
I'll say. I'm here. Will you pretend

I haven't spoken? Maybe it's not
you I long for, but the woman

I once was, in another
time zone, looking at the trees.

from the book TENDER MACHINES / Tupelo Press

https://mailchi.mp/poems/todays-poem-woman-wakes-in-another-time-zone-j-mae-barizo-6077768?e=6ec42bce63

#poem #poetry #literature

(Jane Kenyon's last poem)

The Sick Wife
by Jane Kenyon

The sick wife stayed in the car
while he bought a few groceries.
Not yet fifty,
she had learned what it’s like
not to be able to button a button.

It was the middle of the day—
and so only mothers with small children
and retired couples
stepped through the muddy parking lot.

Dry cleaning swung and gleamed on hangers
in the cars of the prosperous.
How easily they moved—
with such freedom,
even the old and relatively infirm.

The windows began to steam up.
The cars on either side of her
pulled away so briskly
that it made her sick at heart.

#poem #poetry #literature

Moving the Frame
by Jane Kenyon
she's a master and this is a simple exemplary poem

lmpudent spring has come
since your chest rose and fell
For the last time, bringing
the push and ooze of budding peonies,
with ants crawling over them
exuberantly.

I have framed the picture
from your obituary. It must have been
taken on a hot graduation day:
You’re wearing your academic robes
—how splendid they were—
and your hair and beard are curly
with sweat. The tassel sways…
No matter how l move your face
around my desk.
your eyes don’t meet my eyes.

There was one hard night
while your breath became shallower
and shallower, and then
you were gone from us. A person
simply vanishes! I came home
and fell deeply asleep for a long
time, but I woke up again.

https://www.revistadelauniversidad.mx/articles/708b185f-98b4-4f4b-b730-5ade823d92b4/moving-the-frame-al-cambiar-el-marco-de-lugar

#poem #poetry #literature

Rose Red #poem #thorns

I am prickly, admittedly.
I come by it rightly.
Organically evolved defensive weapon
(note, no offensive weapon attached).
You must approach me with care.
Feel the velvet of my vibrant leaves, gently.
My flower, radiant in grace and wonder.
Musical poetry wafting, my enchanted perfume
calling for the discerning touch.
But grasp too hard, too clumsily,
without reflection, a thousand tiny cuts
push you far away.
In no time, you will heal,
leaving me to bleed forever,
attempting to clear from my system
your poisonous residue.

October 6, 2007

SOCIAL WEB
#poem

It’s worse than we think,
not politic bickering,
cascading arguments to deflect,
destroy, ignore;
distinct irritation – crawling creeps,
glitches, buses whiz by splash cold wet crud
and on and forth and so, under floods, above
hail and helicopters call out bluffs and bluster
Yeah: everyday wasters of what might be my life.
But! Think – can we? No time, no quiet, no surcease
of constancy always having to take in, take in, take in
surround of sound and fury to keep up with obligatory
reply and query of spiral wire social environ.
Who I might be; what we might find together speaking
mind to mind – no room! no room without within.
Insanely caught and carried spin, inhale quick
lines beyond lies or plan that pull us every which but
no direction. Complicit vivisection, unnamed, unseen
poison air we breathe, the ruling molecules
we enmeshed become.

GOLDEN
#poem

I’ve been purified by fire;
washed and scoured by raging rain;
buffeted hither and yon by
winds of changing fortune.
Never safely planted to grow strong roots
that hold me close and whisper
soothing lullabies.
I have suffered all, not gladly,
but fortuitously.
I have survived, have imbibed
the luscious nectar of hard found
fruits, endured trials
testing every aspect of integrity,
grown in wisdom and honour
and lack of trust
for any who have never dwelled
in these wicked realms.
No one may know these travails but I and
the holy trio who
underwrite my progress.
No matter.
We are, my traveling band:
inspiration, organization
and sacred core of self-empowerment
forge intimate family
I have always so desperately
craved.
I am blessed, blissed.
I am that I am and none
shall cast asunder.

SISTER SCORPIO
#poem

Black as hate; drained blood white,
shrieking Fury
punishing Saint.
Your patient, erratic torture
left me shattered, bereft, blind,
drenched in torrents of pain,
unable to move
forward,
unable to exhale, breathe through shame
or engage in
polite discourse.

Yet you were never satisfied.
I was not your chosen sacrifice.
I was merely inconvenient,
or too convenient.
Dressed in goat suit,
queued up to be driven to slaughter,
how could I expect to be seen with
fellow feeling?
But it was the Executioner’s blade
I anticipated,
not frenzied repetitive
back stabbings, epithets,
steel-cold rage.

In a simpler world,
we could have been sisters.
Giggling secrets in the schoolyard,
smoking pcp in the girls’ room,
shooting up the classroom,
dying in each other’s arms.

Waking Beauty
#poem #fairytale #story #reimagined

You saw me, a playing child, laughing amongst the roses.
My shining eyes reflected worlds;
singsong choruses to which I danced proclaimed their glory.
I, a cherub princess, all the doting subjects at my command,
all I asked was their love and beneficence.
Fairies clapped for me, flittered in with luminescent kisses,
fed me on honey, cakes and sweet lilac tea,
whispered me their blessings, giggling and tittering,
watched over me with warm caresses of enchanted nurturing.
I loved easily, laughed whole-heartedly, sang from my soul
happy dance tunes and whimsical madrigals.
There shone radiant magic throughout the land
in the morning of the world.

It was not so easy as I grew.
Word got out, worried whisperings,
that there was a curse upon me.
Those who had seemed so open and friendly
grew distant, masked their faces so I would not call to them,
or became furtively hostile so I would stay away.
I thought it was the power, soon to be mine by succession.
Surely they feared to be too familiar with the potential Queen.
I tried to reassure them, to be warm and familiar, to look for
little ways to please them.
The fairies still played with me, but sometimes turned mean.
They whispered ugly rumours, pinched me and flew away.
They called me fat and ugly and would feed me only thistle and briar.
Then, sometimes, without notice, all would be forgiven, all would be
a madcap party, a whirling swirl of luscious scents and colours,
a warm embrace of magical happiness,
warm and safe and cherished.

I learned to be needy without showing need;
peering sideways into partially opened doors
to see if I could find one safe to enter.
I took to finding little chores that would take me into
unused corners,
bending over so none would look into my face with malice.
I took to wearing common clothing, layered into camouflage.
I took to telling myself that I must indeed be awfully horrid and
worthless to have lost so much and be so reviled.
I took to taking on any sorry chore that would have me
that I might say to the courtiers:
“Look, I am a humble laborer, not worth your attention.”

So I was spinning and pricked my finger, as the curse foretold.
My blood called forth the evil energy to swoop into my open wound.
Unconscious.
Life moving along beyond my senseless form, without my knowledge or input.
Who can tell what may have been done with my unprotesting body.
I was not dead, not appropriate for burial;
still helplessly breathing, metabolizing/catabolizing, inexorably,
yet so slowly, so quietly, so manifestly without power, so easily forgotten.
The wicked ones who would benefit from my demise became old and dust
while I slept.
Those who were false to me acquired many more sins and salvations,
traveling their own rocky roads.
The curse took no notice of time or circumstance.
I existed in a liminal state of vague dream images,
static discharge of random sensory neurons.
I did not expect; I did not wait; I was not aware of being.
Sometimes excruciating nightmares might overtake me;
no matter.
I could neither hear nor utter, but just breathe on
as images vaguely formed and dissipated.

They say there was a malaise over the kingdom.
Work became hard to find and
wandering adventurers moved about the land
hoping to find their fortune.
There was a far off war diminishing the resources
and often intense skirmishes along the borders
increasing fear and bravado.
The once wise and strong ruling family, disrupted in
succession squabbles, had been deposed.
There were no strong rulers, but only petty tyrants,
and not so petty.
The gardens had gone to weeds and brambles.
The fields suffered; sometimes from drought,
sometimes from mildew,
sometimes from marauding scavengers.
Perhaps these were my nightmares come to life.

There was a young prince from a noble but impoverished
family.
He had grown strong and brave, taking in stories of better times.
He had heard the fable of the cursed princess,
sleeping, hidden, once a source of glory and happiness
in a merry and prosperous land.
He had nothing but a dream, to find me.

They say he set out down a road that others had followed.
But where others had met with sorry fates, or become lost,
or defeated by the impenetrability of the twisted trees and brambles,
he found no encumbrance.
There I was, within his reach, so pale and still.
It is said that he wept for joy, took me up into his arms,
whirled me about and kissed me reverently,
infused his buoyant dream into my sleeping form.

I felt the warmth of living moving through me.
I felt safe, exultant, cherished.
My senses slowly revealed themselves,
though true consciousness had not yet returned.

He held me close and danced me into movement,
laughing freely and whispering words of encouragement.
He did not rush me, nor let me feel anything but loving support.
He told me how he had grown up dreaming of finding me,
returning me to my rightful place,
removing the curse upon the land.
“And what, my lady,” he asked, “have you been dreaming all these silent years?”

#poem #poetry

Resonant words align.
Mystic energies manifest,

call to neural chambers: “Come to play!”
Sparkling children fashion dance.
Innocence against a random nightscape
humbling the wise with unknown unknowns.

The moment flown, eyes carry to the next entertaining bit.
We’ve had our fun, perhaps an epiphany or two.

Inner ears listen,
merrily engage in lingering song.
May dance displayed as heady words
sparkle.
Mystically lit lanterns
illuminate without end.