10/4/16

Norris Cancer Institute - Sholeh Wolpé

He, dying.

Air dancing, sun shining
somewhere out there.

And I walking the corridors, looking
for an exit.

10/2/16

Walking Around With A Broken Umbrella - Noor Hindi

Because sneezing my emotions onto the fibers of your
Kleenex isn’t working, I’ve spent my days punching

mailboxes, and taking victory laps around childhood
graveyards. I know you think I resemble a Sour Patch

Kid, that my thoughts are just silly string. Maybe my
brain twitches too much and maybe I was born inside

of a teardrop. I’m all passion. But to me, you are the sun
and I’m hanging my thoughts on a clothesline for you.

If I told you to disentangle our straw house, if I told you
that I feel like a puddle that is gliding towards a sewer,

what would you say? If I asked you to set fire to the world
using only the warmth of our hands, would you do it?

                                                   *

Yesterday, I became so angry that I ate a quesadilla. Then I
smashed my desk with a snow globe. I once cried for three

days about a purple butterfly kite that refused to fly. Weeks
later, I sobbed at our toaster for burning my optimism,

and when you called me unstable, I kicked our floor pantry
just to prove you right. It was inevitable. You would spit me

out as if I was a watermelon seed. You would ask me three
times a day how I felt about broken backspaces, but my eyes

were already decomposing. Days expired. I was the rotting Jack
O’ Lantern left outside our door. Every time you told me a

truth, I used a magnifying glass to find all of your potholed
lies. Eventually, I fell silent watching the image of you,

dad, melt like the icicles that later formed on our house
gutters. I tried to hold them once, but they only burned my hands.

10/1/16

For the Dead - Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the leftover
energy, water rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting there long after midnight

9/14/16

"Sorry" - Ntozake Shange

one thing i don’t need
is any more apologies
i got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yrs
i don’t know what to do wit em
they dont open doors
or bring the sun back
they dont make me happy
or get a mornin paper
didnt nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars
cuz a sorry

i am simply tired
of collectin
i didnt know
i was so important to you
i’m gonna haveta throw some away
i cant get to the clothes in my closet
for alla the sorries
i’m gonna tack a sign to my door
leave a message by the phone
‘if you called
to say yr sorry
call somebody
else
i dont use em anymore’
i let sorry/ didnt meanta/ & how cd i know abt that
take a walk down a dark & musty street in brooklyn
i’m gonna do exactly what i want to
& i wont be sorry for none of it
letta sorry soothe yr soul/ i’m gonna soothe mine

you were always inconsistent
doin somethin & then bein sorry
beatin my heart to death
talkin bout you sorry
well
i will not call
i’m not goin to be nice
i will raise my voice
& scream & holler
& break things & race the engine
& tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face
& i will list in detail everyone of my wonderful lovers
& their ways
i will play oliver lake
loud
& i wont be sorry for none of it

i loved you on purpose
i was open on purpose
i still crave vulnerability & close talk
& i’m not even sorry bout you bein sorry
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna
just dont give it to me
i cant use another sorry
next time
you should admit
you’re mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time
enjoy bein yrself

9/13/16

Icarus, The Fool - Riley R.

It is easy to think me a fool,
the foolish boy whose foolish dreams
melted his wings and
broke his father’s heart.

What is harder to see:
I knew the math of it all,
remembered the geometry of
wax and feathers
so well I could taste it on my tongue
scraping like cardamom
and sour sweet like tangerines
on the roof of my mouth.
Height and wind speed,
melting points and velocity,
lift and thrust,
bird wings turned to equations
I held in my heart.

But oh,
to fly is nothing at all like math.
It is nothing at all like diagrams of
birds and insects and cloud formations.
To see the sun, The Sun, oh,
to spread your fingers through it’s warmth
as the air becomes tangible like the sea,
oh, there was no room in this heart for
the coldness of figures,
they were melted long long before my wings.

So judge, though the sky has never loved you
and I will yearn for the sun, The Sun,
oh,
from the bottom of the sea.

9/8/16

dial tone - Riley R.

The saddest poem I ever wrote
was the “goodbye” I whispered
on the skin of your temple
so softly you didn’t hear it
until the fifth time you called
and I didn’t pick up
when the voicemail you left
was ten seconds of silence
followed by a sigh
as you took the phone from your ear.