#blood #poems for an #October 13 evening

Small girlchild, rags and dust – follow
her morning of traverse, this tiny world allowed.
Each tent flap reveals fester of wounds deep
and shallow, ravage disease.
Senses, thought, subsumed to beat of breath
outside rational context.
Stuck in the dirt, her worth a hole where
she bottoms out, tributary blood expelled.
.
.
.
Government happens
Power differentials are natural
Makes sense to attend to these matters
consciously,
rationally.
Hot heads, coarse tongues, flail of arm,
crush of foot, outthrust chest, rancorous
demands
lively show and tell;
Yes, such forceful yell might get bells
ringing, choirs singing, merry pageantry.
After roaring Sun’s descended, crowds
disbanded to bars and beds
to dream lusty victories or private
histories, nobody charged to watch
for this twinkling of time.
Without law, there is no crime.
Without rules, no crown ascends
by common call – but only by
all against all
in squall of terrors,
contests of survival, games
scored in blood.
.
.
.
Muses dance,
explore motion.
Segue to and fro
two steps back; a flurry forward.
Satin cats, tails a’fling
pirouette, scurry choreography.
No tomorrow. No scheduled glee for
public appearances.
Time’s a’clanging, impatient clamors
for unknown seasons.
Rainstorm howls,
cleanses,
sends tidings, murky repentance and
beard for tears.
Savage rain tip-tapping
rhythms and blues.
Barrels for dipping, for ritual
washing, for tribal hydration, replenishment.
Agriculture,
hunger, health, hygiene. Sordid rain,
ashen water, terror, pain, diluted
blood.
Storm warnings advise caution.
Cover yer windows and blinds.
Hide in cellars and pray.
Find salvation in fearsome company.
Oh, Hell – give in! Cave into slippery ground;
swallow and be swallowed.
The rains came, carried fortune to further shores
and supplicants.
Long into unspoken tomorrows.
.
.
.
Dread – crusty needles eject embalming poison
Stiff, rusted shut, ooze tarnished prison door.
Electrified to molten waste.
Lost wastrel, chased into rough wood.
How could good ever tough through?
Seethe tooth and fang.
Anger will tighten screws, coils.
No mercy to win when cardinal sin is innocence.
Don’t chatter of cruelty,
turn red in shame.
Remember the wise one winked “No blame.”
while wheeling outside reach of stage.
There are no great secrets,
barbed network of lies.
There is this blood bludgeon
of power wielded by minions and slaves
with too little to win.
If a moonlit beach at midnight called siren songs,
embracing melody, calming waves —
if urgent desire brokered change.
.
.
.
Cypher
.
.
O’ evil Man
It is not your gods who make you so.
They laugh at their celestial balls,
silly little mood slaves
primed to vomit sour wine,
feast after bloody binge.
Who is the moral gatekeeper,
the celebrated purveyor of righteousness?
Who the masked scoundrel,
cross-dressed wolves and lambs
in demonic jig?
A lively game to wile away some
vague eternity.
Our children obscured in armament.
So many souls to devour.
.
.
.
Tonight’s Impression
Dig, deep into unlikely crevices.
Unsightly blemishes
covered in mud, old crusted blood,
more suffering than shame.
If none know my name,
can they curse me?
Always rehearsing for
untended curtains, productionless
plays.
.
.
.
Gospel
.
.
Sally, won’t you go
downtown
Pick up some teabag party
clowns
We’ll teach ’em tricks of trade
from streets walled in by
degradation
Ain’t this nation grand
for glad hands raised in celebration
of shames we dare not name.
.
Hallelujah Hallelucinations
Hallowed ground baptized
in blood
Saved from the cleansing Flood
by sticking to our kind
however we’re defining us today
If we were meant to live
a different way
wouldn’t He have told us?
.
.
.
(Hollow) Theme Party
.
.
Bleeding across the page
Not pretty
Naked self-pity
a turn off
better passed by
Rather, let us speak of
solitude, the advantages
of wealth
kept to oneself
No beasts lessen my load
No supplicants beg to share
Luxuriously wrapped in my lair
laughing and dancing on gold
acutely aware of thin cold urchins
out on a distant plain
They are no kin to me;
out there for atmosphere
I am Deity within this domain
blood you see splattered
on this page
fell from other veins
some poor unfortunate
released from pain
How pretty! Let’s party!
A gala affair, enraptured
alone in my lair
.
.
.
Our Gang
.
.
Outrage
Depression facing outward
Taking power to give it away.
This entrained impulse
See them crackling, jangling
puppets at puppy play,
bite, bark, entangle,
grab and tussle,
growl, muscle in for the kill.
Bloodlust arousal.
Natural as puke, as death,
violation as violent orgy
violation as ecstatic
initiation to the brotherhood.
Life elevated to dreams, goals,
careful weighing of coin and hours,
dependable plans, actions that honor can favor,
love, duty, allegiance to the rules of sanity
and kind regard
have no purpose here.
Men of blood and battle fluid
need no fine speeches, no valor —
only food and receptacles
for their waste.
…
.

#blood #poems for an #October Evening (week end)

Bad Seed
.
.
Guilt as a constant drip of toxin
a constant flow of tears
a constant beat of blood
pounding behind my eyes
exhorting me to arise
to rise to the occasion
to fall upon my knees in shame
begging for any scrap to salve
that gnawing, angry pain
a constant burning drip
a ring of fire — pass not beyond this point
for life is not a journey
but a downward spiral.
What could such an open, curious, loving child have done
to merit such punishment?
.
.
.
Timothy McVeigh Is Still Dead
.
.
It’s morning in America
The morning of June 11, 2001
A warm and beautiful Spring day
And in Terre Haute, Indiana — a little after 7:00 am
–Timothy McVeigh is dead.
What more is there to say?
We all know the score:
Death: 169, Mercy: 0
The hero “bloody, but unbowed”
Silenced, but still proud
Ashes to scattered ashes
Death to death.
.
.
.
Nursery Song
.
.
Scooping up the cornucopia of experience
gently nestled in moonbeams
at peace in a lullaby
easily descending
into the world of lights and pain
too bright, too loud, too cacophonous
to embrace whole.
Whisp whispers shhh, whispers
of ideas, harnessed light,
well-structured challenges
ease into bits by bits
hypnotic meme streams
world stories
of clearly constructed grammar
sharing common tongue
that we may ease our fractured
anxious turbulence
in chorus of soothing nursery song.
See, we are the progeny of heroes.
Hear the laughter of the Almighty
among hosts of angels
here we are home.
Sweet, splintered home.
Here we learn to serve the giants,
give piously abased homage
to the slingers of arrows
that could rend us
bit by bloody bit.
No wonder we sing louder,
dance jerkily on starched,
bleached strings.
Wouldn’t we agree to anything
that we be allowed
to sleep
just a few aeons more.
.
.
.
The Business of Sickness
.
.
Good Day, Good Sir, Good Madam,
I do hope all is well
If not, we’ve got a spell
to cure what ails
You have come to just the place
Let us take your case
history
to solve the mystery,
make you quite alright,
and collect our fee
What else could be our motivation
We entered into this vocation
quite consciously
to fulfill a need society
finds compelling enough
to be shelling out to us
big magic currency
So let us take control
of your health
your wealth
Whatever you hold dear
we’ll make our business here
Make a fist and let me take your blood.
.
.
.
Capital Crime
.
.
Sweet old daddy
Doing his will in the night
Keeping the mamas afright
for the plight of each
beloved child, so tender
so young
He really oughta be hung!
so say the neighbors, clicking
their tongues
Take him to the magistrate
Fill his ears with the voice of hate
while he’s tied, defanged, prostrate
Let our will be done!
Tie him down in a prison cell
Make him feel the wrath of Hell
’til we all are bloody well
exhausted of our fun.
No need to delete old daddy
sweeping shit and burning bones
any toil we deem atones
to repay society’s loans
of wicked sowing days
assuring he damn well pays
for the pain and loss his wicked ways
marred our happy homes.
.
.
.
Choosing Sacrifice
.
.
Sweet teardrop rainbow
celestial, demure
bright drops of light
clearing vision
from clouds
clean sparkling flowers
of grace
Taste enervating electricity
Feel blood bathing brain
Smell the air of change
so easy
like falling off a cliff
anyone can
In the Future
houses will be wired
to spy
‘No thought crimes allowed, sir.
You’ll be coming with us
for regrooving.”
Cats and mice will play nicely,
or feel the juice
from which none come back
the same
This is the way the world turns
from sanity or compassion
because we are cheaper than robots.
.
.
.
Rose Red
.
.
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.

After thirty-five years, The Gettysburg Review, Gettysburg College’s quarterly literary magazine, is ceasing publication. We encourage everyone to continue to read and SUBSCRIBE to literary magazines and journals, where you can find great pieces like this essay on time in life and in fiction (The Gettysburg Review), an essay on passing in America (New England Review), Héctor Tobar on California smog (ZYZZYVA), a piece on personal and environmental grief (Conjunctions), a story by Morgan Tatly (TriQuarterly), a conversation between Margaret Atwood and Rebecca Solnit (Orion), fiction from Christine Schutt (NOON), and this essay on whale dildos (The Common). SUPPORT LIT MAGS, SUPPORT LITERARY CULTURE!

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#poems #poetry #writing #authors #stories #essays #flash #literature

The storm of the world

There is a whirlwind from all over the world
The storm ravages the sighing night
and howls like an animal possessed by hunger.

The air is full of murmuring and lamentation,
like foaming trolls in seven-mile boots
invisibly chasing a wailing Enemy.

I falter in the storm, but will not budge.
While, I stand on a deserted boulevard
and is strewn with leaves left behind at breakneck speed.

It is as if the storm wanted to crush me;
it comes crashing down on me over and over again. -
as if I were a leaf to be swept away.

I stand stiffly, as if I had taken root;
Shouting: So many things you can tame!
But not me.

My will
I plant as a banner.
and defies all the storms of blind Tyrants! -
Or at least I hope so...

© TsL. 2023
#poems

#blood #poems for an #October evening (falling forward)
https://yprophecies.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/blood-poems-for-an-october-evening-falling-forward/

Red-Blooded
.
.
Let’s talk about this.
Exactly what are we afraid of?
Different skins, different thoughts?
“These people are not like us.”
Nor we like them.
Legends say we fear
and fight the barbarians.
A receding panorama
of battle upon battle.
Millennia of genocide
proudly proclaimed.
We must be strong warriors,
rough, sharp, explosive,
valiantly a barricade barrage
protecting Our valued and values
from Their predation.
Lines must be drawn clearly.
Womanly, childish fuzzy vulnerability
cast far behind, confined to
defended shelters
kept at bay with bitter laughter,
raucous play.
These patterns built up over
generations serve us well,
minimizing weakening contamination.
.
.
.
detached
.
.
Where were you when I was dying?
Now that I am all but (merely nearly) dead
you mock me
beg my assistance
to mitigate
the dark fall-out
of your fantasies.
Blind to my bleeding, and your own,
how can anything I say
reach you anyway?
Return your pleading to your
silent Lord.
Leave me to my resolutions.
Strangers all these years,
I feel no desire
for meeting
in your dream.
.
.
.
bloodlust
bloodlove
blood taste long after midnight
not to entice your fright
to find the one
whose blood
calls to mine
.
.
.
War Games
More and more
get less and less
the best sacrificed
to great God Success
Anger
building
brick by bloody brick
Is it a surprise
(“Look! Into my eyes!”)
when the peasants cackle
resurrecting the guillotine
Raw power
hot metal shooting
making unmistakable mark
burning ragged skin and guts
and glory
.
Tell me a story, daddy
about before the war
when water flowed
in abundant freedom
when the air was pure
of the stench
of progress
when everybody had
a sacred right
to feel
and believe
and dance in the moonlight
when we could afford to be
young, untried, open
to possibilities not cut off
by a sacrificial knife
repeatedly deeply severing
vital organs
without regard to the waste
with no respect for place
or the people for whom that space
holds stories
.
Weapons forged in anger
built up shattered layers of
desperate pride, disrespect, grief
create festering wounds
poisoning the populace
unto the Seventh Generation
caught up in some grotesque
morality play
.
.
.
Gnats, fleas, mosquitoes, biting, buzzing
can inflict disease beyond their size
or intellect. Best to discover and cover with repellant
to quell their appetite for terrorizing we they see
as tempting treats of invigorated blood.
.
.
.
When the national project was stolen before our horrified stares
When it became our duty to kill and destroy for the convenience of profit
When humane policy became anathema, unworthy economic drag
When the will of the gambling elite gamed the rule of law to their pocket
Did you scream so loud that bitter blood poured from your lungs?
Did you set up mourning camps to gather forces,
to train grief and rage into worthy opponents against true freedom’s foes?
Did you gaze into the cold eyes of propagandists and say “No!”?
Or did you march along in the parade, assured: “First they get theirs; then we get ours.”?
.
.
.
Pink and Blue
(and red all over)
.
.
Fist shakes from rage
channeled, coursing,
flailing bloodlines.
Caught, snarled,
stagnant dying ocean
willing to be taken down
from fear to violence.
Call wild arms,
breast, sinew, shame.
Chemistry surges, overplays.
One mortal coup de grace
burst sword to heart
that never lived
beyond desire.
.
If man is fire, dissolved
into greater waves,
why does Woman weep?
Why does not the flood
of pain absolve and
succor? Why should fate
deny blessings of mortal
release in wash of blood
to lady fair,
snakes and thistles to braid her hair,
expose her tortured face?
Eyes that kill in silence,
stone lips, wrinkled nose,
washed out in times of
stoic denial. Why must
she kneel, vile, victim
of violence, not its cause?
Who makes these laws of
natural selection?
Who takes the stone?
Who takes the stone’s projection?
.
.
.
Battle Fatigue
.
.
Honoring righteous anger.
Not mean little sprites,
Chironic knights protecting me.
Cradling me so sweetly.
“Oh, no, dear, never forgive, never forget.”
Torture is no way to say you’re sorry.
.
Love whispered to me
in dreamlike memory
told me tales
told me lies.
I told myself those stories
whispering in the night
bereft of sleep.
I told myself of soft surrender.
Of gentle caressing days
dappled in sunlight,
lusty heat-soaked revelry
sharing secrets
so poignant, so intense.
The anger
burns me through
each synapse,
each myelin sheathe
blood, guts, lungs, heart.
Viral penetration, consuming
strength, vitality, duration.
I am languid and torn.
From time to time I rally
to fight my own tears,
my own mind,
my own field of battle.
.
No one comes forth for me
to offer my surrender.
Battle weary,
I can no longer breathe.
The anger breathes for me.
Gently wrapping me in
blankets,
singing me a battle song
urging me to take respite
as it soothingly scrapes off
the scabs
refreshing my wounds.
.
.
.
hungry zeitgeist
.
.
slivers, splinters, failing meaning
catch it, spinning out into the stars
bleeding rags fine red droplets
shredded hands, hopes, hearts
I can’t hold on, hold out, hold a good thought
agonized neurons,
shattered mirrors
unable to
hold suction,
bind the wound
embrace me
tight and tenderly
as blood drips through your fingers
touching raw eroding senses
with gentle rain, dripping,
obscuring the view
I would curl up into destiny,
locking my lacerations
in dreams of false skins,
tightening, holding fast to the edges.
I would fall immortally into space,
dripping inward.
I would lock my dreams in pasteboard boxes,
too tight for mortal breath.
the words whirl around, whirl around, whirl
like scattered bits of paper tears
I would hide in the deepest hold and
keep to life slowly seeping through.
but the hunger calls
it growls and jumps in fits to battle

Blood #Poems for an #October Evening (day one)

I sip of the rolling world
drunken rhythms
burning my throat like acrid
firestorms.
Bleeding into my eyes
bits of paper, random electrons,
news of the world.
.
.
Lovers Meeting
.
Carry her with love
Always, in your deepest places
She is a woman upon the Earth
in an land of briar and weeds
It is so easy to fall
to fail to thrive
set upon by slavering beasts
and prophets
You know she yearns to serve
so well
that none could find fault
Yet every agonizing step
like angry knives
cutting from below
hobbles her further, deeper
leaving less to give
Bloody prints mark her
dusty trail
Thirsting for the cooling warmth
of love
Carry her into your
sacred caverns
secreted wellsprings
journey’s end
.
.
I too have stories
unbelievable as fiction
creeping through dream imagery
holding dripping red candles
broken bits of mirror
tiny rips in red, red fabric
bleeding
I cannot breathe this story
I cannot hold a heartbeat
or a cogent thought
or pulse to a level
bearable
Beaten into rubble
crazed in simple sunlit
afternoon as if a moon
were racing in
stolen arteries
We all have known this story
.
.
Dammed
.
I am thinking of a brick wall,
hiding dangerous imagery.
Walls upon walls.
High, low, immoderately
profuse,
bearing illusory murals,
scorched out graffiti
wicked symbols
unclean, unpurified.
Trauma reverberates
messes with circuitry
irreverent irreconcilable
discrepancies
in cellular reproduction,
glitches and stammers
in data processing.
A wall. I am building,
brick by painful brick
cemented with blood and pus,
tall, thick, obscuring
day and night
laughter and warm embrace
secret words of consolation
hidden in humor and homilies.
The walls stand
ready for bombardment
awaiting a destiny of chaotic rubble
when reverberation reaches
critical mass.
.
.
I hold a ball of fire
in my palm
behind my eyes
consuming me
engulfed in flaming pain
crackling frame-dissolving
into ember
into sparks
igniting hair and lashes
Yet out of ash
always renewed
ready to burn again
I can’t sleep for the light
find respite from agony
I am consumed
atom by atom
then realigned to play again
at disintegration
Towers fall carrying
their servant’s blood
and sinew stripped from angry life,
terror, torture.
Imagine burning stars
fire sprites twisting, evolving,
given form and awareness
low-wage jobs, small talk;
they woo and reproduce,
fall into regulated line.
Over millennia memories lose shape;
days lose their charm, become mundane.
Consumption means something different
from disease or connection.
Embers rearrange, form scary bits
of insight, inspiration,
pinpoint bright,
urgently burning.
.
.
Sorrow, numbing ice, inconsolate
pain too profound to acknowledge.
Vultures circle, maggots feast.
Blood-sucking parasites
imbibe sacrificial delight,
leering, sneering, snarling, slavering.
Your servants so eager for your favor
fatten themselves for slaughter.
.
.
Bitter Dregs
.
You don’t get it.
You don’t want to.
It would be too much to bear
if you let yourself.
Briefly unconscious, awakened to
hard concrete ground surrounded
by heels and toes, amazing
they don’t crush me, but no,
like lockstep they walk around
though occasionally a(n unmeaning?)
shove — I’m not a someone,
just a minor obstacle
unnoted in their day.
No worries.
Not like shoved down under
hard muscle and bone
stinking of beer and rage
or waking from brief unconsciousness
to broken pain, bleeding
tears, torn, bruised, a
colorful toy
made for pleasure.
Then there are the voices, echoes
Harpies and Sirens, Furies
and sad old women, fingers
shaking in disapprobation.
The voices tell me I am beautiful,
in the way that ugly things are.
So bad, so pitiful, it gives me
status among the neverweres,
struggling shadows, whispering
curses demurely lest anyone
notice and throw them further
down.
Never easy, confessing to degradation.
The sin adheres. No one wants to know.
.
.
Empire
Standing askew as the inexorable boot commands
squeezing out gems, polished and pure.
Paid in bread and circuses.
Bathed in raw entitlement
dreaming of ravaging, raping at will
drinking bright blood doped with
ecstatic thrill
casting lot that promised reward
be assured.
Cold, this world.
Shadow sans Sun.
Listless lapping at sparkling carbonation.
Sinking below matter and form
into terror stories;
taking warmth from smoldering coals.
As tomorrow continues today
your dissolving heart
dispersing pearls of wisdom.

The Poems Attributed to Him May Be by Different Poets
by David Trinidad
(take a deep breath...it's a bit of a long one :))

He lived in the time of Alexander the Great, to whose death he alludes.
His extant poems are chiefly about country life and hunting.
He is often described as the father of tragedy.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived.
It seems probable that his parents, though poor, were respectable.
The work survives, but seems incomplete.
The Greek Anthology contains an epigram which is probably the work of this flatterer.
He was an older contemporary and an alleged lover of Sappho, with whom he may
have exchanged poems.
Some of his poems are on literary themes, but most are political.
His report describes accurately the characteristic sequence of earthquake, retreat of the
sea, and sudden giant wave.
His widespread popularity inspired countless imitators, which also kept his name
alive.
Described by contemporaries as “a terrible fellow to coin strange words.”
Scarcely anything is known of his life.
He is associated with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which he described in a
poem composed about 140 B.C.
Known for being the first to mention use of the waterwheel in a poem.
More of her work survives than any other ancient Greek woman, with the exception of
Sappho.
A crater on the Moon is named in his honor.
A man of taste and elegance, yet deficient in gravity and energy, which prevented his
writings acquiring that popularity which they otherwise deserved, and may have
been one of the causes of their neglect and loss to us.
The majority of his work that has survived is love songs.
One night in 191 A.D., they kidnapped him and threatened to kill him if he did not stop
writing.
His career as a poet probably benefited from the high reputation of his uncle.
All of his works are lost and are only known by their titles through quotes by later
authors.
He especially excelled in descriptions dealing with such subjects as flowers and female
beauty.
He is not usually ranked among the top tier of Latin poets, but his writing is elegant, he
tells a story well, and his polemical passages occasionally attain an unmatchable
level of entertaining vitriol.
There is no reason to suppose he ever lived anywhere other than Alexandria.
He had a daughter who found fame as a poet, composing riddles in hexameter verse.
His brother was an epic poet.
Swaggering soldiers, verbose cooks, courtesans, and parasites, all feature in the
fragments.
About 550 lines of his poetry survive, although because ancient writers rarely
mentioned which poem they were quoting, it is not always certain to which poem
the quotes belong.
An epigram on an ageing vine is attributed to him.
Her poem has been deemed important for the glimpse it gives us of a girl’s view of her
relationship with her mother.
He was apparently, although obscure, well respected.
He spent much of his life in Athens, where he amassed great wealth.
He is known to have written some erotic verses.
Most of his epigrams are in praise of wine, and all of them are jocular.
He seems to have been a poet of some celebrity.
Some ancient scholars believed him to have been an eyewitness to the Trojan War.
He was greatly admired, chiefly, it would seem, for a sort of elegant wit.
Although he became quite famous after his death, he was only able to earn a bare
subsistence from his poetry during his lifetime.
Best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently
ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal.
The popularity which he enjoyed in his own time is attested by the fact that at his
death, although he had filled none of the offices of state, he received the honor of a
public funeral.
The most famous of his poems opens “Love is not . . .”
The year of his death is not known.
He typically describes himself not as an active and engaged lover, but as one struck by
the beauty of a woman or boy.
A total of fifteen poems are known.
The time he lived is not certain.
He wrote short poems suitable for performance at drinking parties.
She wrote a hymn to Poseidon.
Two other poems, attributed to him at one time or another but no longer thought to be
his, are commonly edited with his work.
Although his fame was great during his lifetime, little survives of his poetry today.
A large proportion of his epigrams are directed against doctors.
Her epigrams were inspired by Sappho, whom she claims to rival.
His poems are bitter about his wife to the point of misogyny.
He died in Athens, nearly a hundred years old, but with mental vigor unimpaired,
about the year 262 B.C., according to the story, at the moment of his being crowned
on stage.
His epigrams are generally rather dull.
Some ambiguity surrounds his name.
He traveled in Greece, Italy and Asia, reciting his poems.
In his hands the dithyramb seems to have been a sort of comic opera, and the music,
composed by himself, of a debased character.
Aristotle found cause to quote him.
His existence is unclear.
His entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years.
He wrote only about drinking and love.
She probably wrote around 10,000 lines of poetry, of which only about 650 survive.
His fame as a poet rests largely on his ability to present basic human situations with
affecting simplicity.
He is the earliest Greek poet who claims explicitly to be writing for future generations.

https://allium.colum.edu/fall-2022-poetry/david-trinidad

#poems #poetry #literature

Finished Best American Poetry 2023

Much better than the previous anthology IMO

Here is one of the poems I thought outstanding:

And What My Species Did
Elizabeth Willis

A woman who cries is not essential personnel. Salt water conducts her to the brink.

The first sign of illness is a dry mouth. My mouth has been dry for XXX days.

Endless as an ocean. Is. Is not.

That was the day I crossed the railroad to buy the fabric for your shirt. That was when I breathed in the open air and all our chambers.

That was the day the birds appeared from everywhere, cedar waxwings a few feet from my hand. I lived in their habitat. You shared my room. I made a delicious soup. It snowed.

Against the crooked imperfection of the word, this happened. We ate carelessly. I stitched this in the lining of your coat. Essential to whom. Essential to me.

It was not the same stream, it was not America, not the same America, not the same twice. Not the same again.

A hundred times, a hundred days, it was not the same. We crossed the tracks from 6 feet down with the ghost dogs and the deer. We floated off and returned.

This is how we sing as the ship goes down, said my species.

This is what my species said.

This is what we did until indifference left us. This is what we did when we were alive. We rationed what was left. It was Tuesday and then it was not.

This is how we thought in the sweet cool wake of what came next.

from Harpers

Also:

Listening in Deep Space
By Diane Thiel

We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.

We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers with spirit and perseverance
mapping the unknown. We listen
through large arrays adjusted eagerly

to hear the news that we are not alone.
Considering the history at home,
in houses, across continents, oceans,
even in quests armed with good intentions,
what one seeker has done to another—
what will we do when we find each other?

https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/listening-in-deep-space/

#poem #poems #poetry #literature

Nothing truly exciting for me but who knows...

Here’s the longlist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry.

https://lithub.com/heres-the-longlist-for-the-2023-national-book-award-for-poetry/

#books #poems #literature #poets #awards

"If there’s something that you want to hear, you can sing it yourself."
–Gillian Welch, “Everything Is Free”

https://lithub.com/poems-r-just-less-popular-memes/

#poems #poetry #memes

When Talking About Poetry Online Goes Very Wrong

Back in November, famous poet Ocean Vuong posted on Instagram a series of ideas about metaphor. The ideas were both smart and incomplete, the sort of theorizing that occurs among fellow artists in a small back room. Another famous poet, Matthew Zapruder, responded by critiquing Vuong’s ideas about metaphor, adding what he thought Vuong was missing: a more avant-garde conceptualization of metaphor that took into account the methodologies of surrealism. Both poets were asserting things that were extensions of their respective aesthetics. I would argue that a larger articulation of how metaphor works emerged from the combination of their ideas­—from the conversation they were having—than from either poet’s assertions taken by themselves. In a small back room—say, if Vuong and Zapruder were talking in a bar or coffee shop or someone’s apartment after a reading—all of this would be perfectly fine; this is how the world of the small back room proceeds.

But—and here’s the thing—social media is not a small back room, even in the realm of poetry.

https://lithub.com/when-talking-about-poetry-online-goes-very-wrong/

#poems #poetry #literature

The curiosity of a graceful sunset..

Hail, Oh venerable sunset indicator
Do you see the ecstatic last summer nights
You - sunbeam translator
Was today's motto yet again "what ever"?

You - Interpreter of the Sun -
Now watch the wind dance of the cornfield
and the amber glow of the flashes of light
You - Messenger of the change of seasons

Now, listen to the trees swaying in the wind
and now start singing autumnal songs...
You - known as the harbinger of the sunset
...About - summer's end.

So with drops of summer's last dew on my naked body
Captivated by the last glow of the summer sun -
I run in bare toes -
Tumbling into your autumnal prophecy
Curious about how the coming days will be...

© TsL. 2023
#poems

I love this -- Emily Dickinson's poems as she wrote them...

Also I love that William Carlos Williams since he was a physician would often write his poems on (the back of) Prescription Pads..

https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/deciphering-emily-dickinsons-notes

#poems #poetry #writing

RIP Raymond Carver, there's so much water and so close to home

Happiness
BY RAYMOND CARVER

So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

A Note from the Editor
Raymond Carver, poet and short story writer, died on this day in 1988.

#poems #poetry #literature

I kiss you goodbye, dear July.!

I swaddle, into the last remnants of July's sweet dewdrops
A mixture of ticklish grass & colorful scented flower crystals

An Etheric Bandage -
Smooth as satin
Fragile and feels like eternal -

The world becomes faint sounds
Dancing a playful
and naive chain dance around me -
While summer memories
quietly seeps out between the lines
Of the last days of July.

© TsL. 2023
#poems

In the middle of Jutland.❣️

Anointed with sun oil, sweat & curious soul
I step on the pedals with a quiet and calm frame of mind -
While I hear the call of the long country road
Between ancient Nordic Viking graves & colorful fields.

Here it is - as if time has almost stopped
The only thing heard -
Is the rustling of the trees, the buzzing of the bees,
The rush of the wind in the clothes
& bicycle tires sliding against the shapes of the asphalt.

Waking up - by cows, who moo,
Cackling Crows in delightful dances -
Among ancient Nordic Viking graves & colorful fields
Ah yes, Everything breathes peace.

© TsL. 2023
#poems

The path of the sun.!!

The air trembled with midsummer light
above the vivid yellowish grain.
A path ran through the grain —
A luminous sun path —
as trodden by curious children's feet.

Here I stood
In the sun of remembrance, mist -
Timeless & became almost one with this
Vivid Midsummer scenario.!"!

© TsL. 2023
#poems #myphoto

How Two Young Black Poets Are Making Sense of the World

https://blog.pshares.org/how-two-young-black-poets-are-making-sense-of-the-world/

#poems #poetry #poets #literature

Dorianne Laux: “All Poetry is Preparation for Death”

https://combustus.com/dorianne-laux-all-poetry-is-preparation-for-death/

Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl

Death comes to me again, a girl
in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.
It’s not so terrible she tells me,
not like you think, all darkness
and silence. There are windchimes
and the smell of lemons, some days
it rains, but more often the air is dry
and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase
built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living. I like it,
she says, shaking the dust from her hair,
especially when they fight, and when they sing.

#poems #poetry #poets #literature

Two women rappers face being vilified in their country for pursuing their dreams | #DW #Documentary

#Rap #Females #Girls #Pens & #Poems #documentary #dwdocumentary #reporter #kashmir