A Poem Thread

"Even this late it happens:
the coming of love,
the coming of light.

You wake and the candles
are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather,
dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets
of air.

Even this late the bones
of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares
into breath."

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Mark Strand, The Coming of Light
 
Free Dirt
by Henri Cole, 2013

My house is mine:
the choice of menu,
the radio and television,
the unpolished floors,
the rumpled sheets.

It's like being inside
a rolltop desk. I have
no maid who takes care
of me. Sometimes,
during breakfast,

I speak French with
a taxidermied wren.
There is no debt
between us. We listen
to language tapes:

Viens-tu du ciel profond (Baudelaire)?
Always, I hear a little oratorio
inside my head. Moths
have carried away my carpets,
like invisible pallbearers.

I like invisibleness,
except in the moon's strong,
broad rays. Some nights,
I ask her paleness, Will I be okay?
I am weak and fruitless at night,

like a piece of meat with eyes,
but in the morning optimistic again,
like a snowflake that has traveled
many miles and many years
to be admired on the kitchen pane.

Alone, I guzzle
and litter and urinate
and shout. Please do not
wake me from this dream,
making meals from discrete

objects―a sweet potato,
a jar of marmalade,
a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Today, I saw a sign
in majuscule for free dirt

and thought, We all have
chapters we'd rather keep
unpublished, in which we
get down with the swirl.
The little wren perched on my

finger weighs almost nothing,
just nails and beak. But it
gives me tiny moments―
here at my kitchen table―
like a diaphanous chorus

mewling something
about love, or the haze
of love, a haze that makes
me squint-eyed and sick
if I think too much about it.

What am I but this flensed
syntax, sight and sound,
in which my heart, not
insulated yet, makes
ripple effects down the line?

 
Record Body Count
by Rheostatics, 1991

Joey pulled himself up to his knees,
Pulled his body back up the bank,
And looked back down there.

He said, "The water wasn't that deep,
but I almost drowned there.
You can drown in a bathtub, so they say.

"Someone in class called me a loser,
So I decided to skip the day,
Hey, hey, hey, skip the day.

"I tried to look casual slipping 'round the back
Just a shot-put across the track
And to the gate beside the portables.

"A red tie and school-grey slacks
Doesn't blend in with the grass
As the teacher was changing class.

"He chased me halfway through the park,
'Til I ran into the woods,
And I'm very good in the woods!

"So I was an Indian,
Built a fire by the creek
And dried my eyes there.

"There's a record body count this year.
There's a record body count this year!"​

Joey stepped up on a block of ice,
Put a rope around his neck,
And fell asleep before he died.

[(YouTube↱)]​
 
The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS

"to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again."
 
Louise Erdrich
Birth

"When they were wild
When they were not yet human
When they could have been anything,
I was on the other side ready with milk to lure them,
And their father, too, the name like a net in his hands."
 
"And the people stayed home.
And read books and listened, and rested and exercised,
and made art and played games,
and learned new ways of being and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again,
they grieved their losses, and made new choices,
and dreamed new images,
and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
as they had been healed."
– Written by Kitty O’Meara
 
Working Class Hero
John Lennon

As soon as you're born, they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function, you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me
If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me
 
I'm not a religious person but
by Chen Chen, 2017

God sent an angel. One of his least qualified, though. Fluent only in
Lemme get back to you. The angel sounded like me, early twenties,
unpaid interning. Proficient in fetching coffee, sending super
vague emails. It got so bad God personally had to speak to me.
This was annoying because I'm not a religious person. I thought
I'd made this clear to God by reading Harry Potter & not attending
church except for gay weddings. God did not listen to me. God is
not a good listener. I said Stop it please, I'll give you wedding cake,
money, candy, marijuana. Go talk to married people, politicians,
children, reality TV stars. I'll even set up a booth for you,
then everyone who wants to talk to you can do so
without the stuffy house of worship, the stuffier middlemen,
& the football blimps that accidentally intercept prayers
on their way to heaven. I'll keep the booth decorations simple
but attractive: stickers of angels & cats, because I'm not religious
but didn't people worship cats? Thing is, God couldn't take a hint.
My doctor said to eat an apple every day. My best friend said to stop
sleeping with guys with messiah complexes. My mother said she is
pretty sure she had sex with my father so I can't be some new
Asian Jesus. I tried to enrage God by saying things like When I asked
my mother about you, she was in the middle of making dinner
so she just said Too busy. I tried to confuse God by saying I am
a made-up dinosaur & a real dinosaur & who knows maybe
I love you, but then God ended up relating to me. God said I am
a good dinosaur but also sort of evil & sometimes loving no one.
It rained & we stayed inside. Played a few rounds of backgammon.
We used our indoor voices. It got so quiet I asked God
about the afterlife. Its existence, human continued existence.
He said Oh. That. Then sent his angel again. Who said Ummmmmmm.
I never heard from God or his rookie angel after that. I miss them.
Like creatures I made up or found in a book, then got to know a bit.

 
“Built to be lonely
to love the absent.
Find me
Free me
from this
corrosive doubt
futile despair
horror in repose.
I can fill my space
fill my time
but nothing can fill this void in my heart.”
― Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis
 
Good Bones
by Maggie Smith, 2016

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I've shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I'll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

 
"If dark nights must come, let them come.
Open your doors.
Let them come, my dear, and ask them what they want.
Maybe all they want is your presence. Nothing else.
Maybe all they want to do is to hold you so close and polish you secretly, without telling anyone–
Maybe that is all they want.
Know that deep inside they hold ten thousand fragrant mornings. They hold the source of laughter.
They hold life."

~ Guthema Roba
 
The Way It Is

"There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread."

~ William Stafford ~
 
Good Bones

BY MAGGIE SMITH

"Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful."
 
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Confronting Hatred
by Rudy Francisco, 2017

how beautiful would it be
if we lived in a place

where everyone called hatred
by its full name,

tapped it on the shoulder,
looked into its eyes
without shaking
and said

"you cannot live here
anymore."

 
Jane Kenyon


At a Motel Near O’Hare Airport

I sit by the window all morning
watching the planes make final approaches.
Each of them gathers and steadies itself
like a horse clearing a jump.

I look up to see them pass,
so close I can see the rivets
on their bellies, and under their wings,
and at first I feel ashamed,
as if I had looked up a woman’s skirt.

How beautiful that one is,
slim-bodied and delicate
as a fox, poised and intent
on stealing a chicken
from a farmyard.

And now a larger one, its
tail shaped like a whale’s.
They call it sounding
when a whale dives,
and the tail comes out of the water
and flashes in the light
before going under.

Here comes a 747,
slower than the rest,
phenomenal; like some huge
basketball player
clearing space for himself
under the basket.

How wonderful to be that big
and to fly through the air,
and to make so great a shadow
in the parking lot of a motel.

 
"Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind's
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer."

~ Wendell Berry
 
“Hemingway feels it from the grave
every time the bulls run through the streets of
Pamplona
again
he sits up
the skeleton rattles
the skull wants a drink
the eyeholes want sunlight
the young bulls are beautiful,
Ernest
and you were
too
no matter
what they say
now.”

Charles Bukowski

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Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom …
 
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