10/31/18

The Sign of Saturn - Sharon Olds

Sometimes my daughter looks at me with an
amber black look, like my father
about to pass out from disgust, and I remember
she was born under the sign of Saturn,
the father who ate his children. Sometimes
the dark, silent back of her head
reminds me of him unconscious on the couch
every night, his face turned away.
Sometimes I hear her talking to her brother
with that coldness that passed for reason in him,
that anger hardened by will, and when she rages
into her room, and slams the door,
I can see his vast blank back
when he passed out to get away from us
and lay while the bourbon turned, in his brain,
to coal. Sometimes I see that coal
ignite in her eyes. As I talk to her,
trying to persuade her toward the human, her little
clear face tilts as if she can
not hear me, as if she were listening
to the blood in her own ear, instead,
her grandfather’s voice.

10/24/18

Camino Real - Richard Shelton

each makes his path
his small path

quickly overgrown
but leading him slowly
to where he is going

which is not
where he is planning to go

and when the last vine
or bamboo is cut
he emerges into a clearing

each into a different
clearing

where some are met
by cannibals some by lovers
some by friends

and some by nothing
except a clearing

a sky with stars at night
and by day an unexpected
view of the next hill

which is reason enough
for the long journey
more than reason enough

10/23/18

HURLING CROWBIRDS AT MOCKINGBARS - Buddy Wakefield

If we were created in God’s image
then when God was a child
he smushed fire ants with his fingertips
and avoided tough questions.

There are ways around being the go-to person.
Even for ourselves.
Even when the answer is clear
like the holy water gentiles were drinking
when they realized

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

I thought those were chime shells in your pocket
so I chucked a quarter at it
hoping to hear some part of you respond on a high note.

You acted like I was hurling crowbirds at mockingbars
then you abandoned me for not making sense.
Evidently I don’t experience things as rationally as you do.

For example, I know mercy
when I have enough money to change the jukebox
at a gay bar.

You know mercy whenever
someone shoves a stick of morphine
straight up into your heart.

Goddamn it felt amazing
the days you were happy to see me.

So I smashed a beehive against the ocean
to try and make our splash last longer.
Remember all the honey
had me looking like a jellyfish ape
but you walked off the water
in a porcupine of light, strands of gold
drizzled out to the tips of your wasps.

This is an apology letter to the both of us
for how long it took me to let things go.

It was not my intention to make such a production
of the emptiness between us,
playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano
to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.

It’s just that I could have swore you sung me a love song back there
and that you meant it
but I guess some people just chew with their mouth open.

So I ate ear plugs alive with my throat, hoping they’d get lodged
deep enough inside the empty spots that I wouldn’t have to hear you
leaving, so I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart keep saying
all my eggs were in a basket of red flags, all my eyes to a bucket
of blindfolds in the cupboard with the muzzles and the gauze.

I didn’t mean to speed so far out and off, trying to drive
your nickels to a well
when you were happy to let those wishes drop.

But I still show up for gentleman practice
in the company of lead dancers
hoping their grace will get stuck in my shoes.
Is that a handsome shadow on my breath, sweet woman,
or is it a cattle call in a school of fish? Still

dance with me. Less like a waltz for panic,
more for the way we’d hoped to swing
the night we took off everything
and we were swinging for the fences.

Don’t hold it against my love. You know I wanna breathe deeper
than this. I didn’t mean to look so serious, didn’t mean
to act like a filthy floor, didn’t mean to turn us both
into some cutting board
but there were knives stuck
in the words where I came from.
Too much time in the back of my words.
I pulled knives from my back and my words.
I cut trombones from the moment you slipped away.

And I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady.
Boy I know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell.
You know I know I might’ve gone and lost my breath
but I wanna show you how I found my breath to death.
It was buried under all the wind instruments
hidden in your castanets. Goddamn. If you ever wanna know
how it felt when you left, if you ever wanna come inside
just knock on the spot
where I finally pressed stop

playing musical chairs with your exit signs.

I’m gonna cause you a miracle

when you see the way I kept God’s image alive.

“Forgiveness is for anyone
who needs safe passage through my mind.”

If I really was created in God’s image
then when God was a boy
he wanted to grow up to be a man.
A good man.

And when God was a man - a good man - he started
telling the truth in order to get honest responses.
He’d say,

Yeah, I know… I really should’ve worn my cross.
Again. But I don’t wanna scare the gentiles off.

That is not what I came here to do.
He said,

I’m pretty sure
I just came here to love you.

10/22/18

The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

Solving the Puzzle - Stephen Dunn

I couldn’t make all the pieces fit,
so I threw one away.

No expectation of success now,
none of that worry.

The remaining pieces seemed
to seek their companions.
A design appeared.

I could see the connection
between the overgrown path
and the dark castle on the hill.

Something in the middle, though,
was missing.

It would have been important once.
I wouldn’t have been able to sleep
without it.

FLIGHT - J.E. Foerster

As a child I tossed
all my imaginary friends
out the window of a fast moving train
because I wanted to feel my fist
break open as I freed them,
as each of their bodies
whipped against the siding,
their insides: snow
dispersing into wind,
their little heads rolling
across the yellow plains.

Because I believed they would return.
But none have since.
Not even the ones I didn’t love.