Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Frederick Douglass

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

- Robert E. Hayden

Summer Holiday

When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of
bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-
ered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains
will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world’s thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the
mountain…

- Robinson Jeffers

Ghazal: America the Beautiful

Do you remember our earnestness our sincerity
in first grade when we learned to sing America

The Beautiful along with the Star-Spangled Banner
and say the Pledge of Allegiance to America

We put our hands over our first grade hearts
we felt proud to be citizens of America

I said One Nation Invisible until corrected
maybe I was right about America

School days school days dear old Golden Rule Days
when we learned how to behave in America

What to wear, how to smoke, how to despise our parents
who didn’t understand us or America

Only later learning the Banner and the Beautiful
live on opposite sides of the street in America

Only later discovering the Nation is divisible
by money by power by color by gender by sex America

We comprehend it now this land is two lands
one triumphant bully one still hopeful America

Imagining amber waves of grain blowing in the wind
purple mountains and no homeless in America

Sometimes I still put my hand tenderly on my heart
somehow or other still carried away by America

- Alicia Ostriker

Pity The Nation
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose
sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully
as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by
torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but
its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation--oh, pity the people who allow
their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

A Day is Coming

A day is coming
in which misery will end.
A day is coming
in which poverty
will open bank accounts
in every nation.
A day is coming.
I hear it coming.
A day is coming
in which the
campesino
will gather his children a green spring
and go on vacations.
I believe it.
I see it.
A day is coming
in which a soldier will be
decorated
for helping
instead of killing
his poor brother.
A day is coming
in which lovers
will serve themselves from large bowls
warm love and faithfulness.
A day is coming
in which the Christ who returns
is the Christ who never left.
A day is coming
in which the father will ask the son
for friendship
instead of respect.
A day is coming
in which the student
and a poor laborer
will be half and half.
A day is coming
in which the prisoners
come out
running in the fields and shouting
about their freedom.
A day is coming,
I see it coming.

- Lalo Delgado

Early Retirement


or more generally
Reboot


For far too long now
I have been running
I want to stand
still
I want to listen

I want to set aside
the troubles of this world
and go into the other world
deep within

where silence is welcome
where life is not manufactured
and sold through advertising
where there is no business model

where joy has room to breathe
where love governs the land
where I can hear
and rediscover myself

moment by moment
with no deadline
fully open to endings
fully open to new beginnings

- Jean-Pierre Swennen

Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

- Donald Hall
(September 20, 1928 - June 23, 2018)

Background image is a section of a Randall Exon painting.

Donald Hall

I came to you late, quite by accident,
in the car, that Saturday afternoon
after a seemingly endless detour—
decades stretching into decades—

brought me back, in the end,
to myself and to the poetry
that I had so loved
as a young man.

- Bill Denham

Things About The Sun


Any time the sun
touches our part of the earth
we say the sun shines.

Sometimes dogs bark at the sun,
but I don’t mind it.

There are flowers the sun never sees.

Many times I have said to it,
“Wait!” And it waited.

With the sun, it will be all right
after I’m gone.

Where it can, the sun endlessly
examines things, nothing too large
or small for long, long attention.
When I walk I would view
like that -- all: rich, poor, young,
old, near, far. And I’d save a report
for whenever the sun does.

Mornings when it looks
at me, for an instant there are
all those other times.

- William Stafford

Caged Bird

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...9_14-56-12.png

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

- Maya Angelou

Red Brocade

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

July

Deep pools of shade beneath dense maples,
the dapples as delicious as lemon drops_
textures of childhood, and its many flavors!
The gratefulness of cool, the bottles of
sarsaparilla and iodine-red cream soda
schooled like fish, on their sides,
in the watery ice of the zinc-lined cooler
in the shade of the cherry trees
planted by the town baseball diamond,
where only the grown-ups cared what the score was
and the mailman took his ups with a grunt
that made the crowd in its shirtsleeves laugh.
The sun kindled freckles like a match
touching straw, and beneath a tree
a quality reigned like the sound of a gong,
solemn and sticky and calm. Then the grass
bared the hurry of ants, and each blade
bent to some weight, some faint godly tread
we could not see. The dapples
were not holes in the shade but like pies,
bulging up, and air tasted of water,
and water of metal, and metal of what
would never come_real change, removal
from this island of stagnant summer,
the end of sarsaparilla and its hint
of licorice taste, of sassafras twig,
of things we chewed with the cunning of Indians,
to whom all trees had souls, the maples no more
like birches than clouds are like waterfalls.
The dying grass smelled especially sweet
where sneakers had packed it flat,
or out of the way, in the playground corner,
where the sun had forgot to stop shining.
this was the apogee, July, a month
like the piece of a dome where it flattens
and reflects in a smear high above us,
the ant-children busy and lazy below.

- John Updike

By Way of Explanation

There is -
I suppose -
a bit of
Madagascar
in me
I never mention.

And somehow
Amazons
have escaped
your rapt
attention.

The nose
is strictly
Egypt
for your
information.

The heart
a cruel
white circle -
pure Bengali.

Here are the knees
you claim are yours—
devout Moroccans.

The breasts
to your surprise,
Gauguin's Papeete.

Pale moon of belly -
Andalusian!

The hands -
twin comedies
from Pago Pago.

The eyes -
bituminous
Tierra del Fuego.

Odd womb.
Embalmed.
Quintana Roo.

- Sandra Cisneros

Independence Day Revised

Manchester by the Sea
History papered with the Stars
and Stripes

some the size of a one story home
The story known by heart
here in this cradle of liberty

Red, White and
Blue with memories of what we took
for granted

Commercialism and a day off
blunt the message.
How do you like your burger?

Everywhere the sound of small
marching bands and waving flags
Rat a tat tat The snare will not be denied

And when are the fireworks
those bright perseids seemingly from
another constellation?

Then as if a reminder of the sacrifices
made... the latest casualty

news of a young man who fell
victim to a cherry bomb

Freedom has it’s price
you know.

- Charles Reisch

Suffer The Little Children

Suffer the little children to come to America
Carry the soil of the earth with you little child
Hold it in your small hand and say
Give me asylum give me a home.
The child in me tormented in their torment
Forced to witness the horror
Behind bars inside cages.
The unmerciful greed
The unholy massacre of love
Cannibalizing this good earth
These good children
These terrorized people
Running for their lives
Into the slathering jaws
At the border of my country.
My America tis of thee
They come because they heard the
Bell of freedom ringing because
They saw a light burning away the
Darkness- through tears through
The anguish of our immigrant ancestors.
They are coming in their suffering
The once noble bells still ring
The once open hearts still are here
My America o beautiful
Do not turn your back

Hold out your hands

- Gail Onion

An Ode To Yeats



I suppose that’s one reason for death

To take the I out of its sentence,

To relinquish the body and the breath

To extinguish a rhymer’s repentance,

An association to a poem of Lawrence

A keen fixation with the rhyme scheme

My hoping to be reborn Irish dream

To thrill in the lilting stream of Her voice.

The utter certainty that an old man’s hot blood

Will insure the dawn’s passion is anything but cold;

Such assurance at death’s expense be it told

The young men clamoured for that poet of old.




- Brian McSweeney

All That Remains

Every atom of matter is shot through with love
but only the lover can see
“a universe aflame”

It gradually becomes a matter
of every waking moment.
the mind can be busy
with ceaseless thoughts
the feet engaged
in a thousand tasks.

But every hour, every day
the loving breath
is breathing it
the beating heart
is speaking it.

It is the slipping away of self
until all that remains is walking
in old shoes and loving
the little breath that gives life
to this happy shell of a self.

- Norah Schreiber

City Psalm

The killings continue, each second
pain and misfortune extend themselves
in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly,
and the air bears the dust of decayed hopes,
yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged
pavements among crippled llives, jackhammers
raging, a parking lot painfully agleam in the May sun,
I have seen not behind but within,
within the dull grief, blown grit,
hideous concrete façades, another grief,
a gleam as of dew, an abode of mercy,
have heard not behind but within noise
a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.
Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;
not that horror was not, not that the killings did not continue;
not that I thought there was to be no more despair,
but that as if transparent all disclosed
an otherness that was blesséd, that was bliss,
I saw Paradise in the dust of the street.

- Denise Levertov

A Great Rose Tree

This is the day and the year
of the rose. The whole garden

is opening with laughter. Iris
whispering to cypress. The rose

is the joy of meeting someone.
The rose is a world imagination

cannot imagine. A messenger from
the orchard where the soul lives.

A small seed that points to a great
rose tree! Hold its hand and walk

like a child. A rose is what grows
from the work the prophets do.

Full moon, new moon. Accept the
invitation spring extends, four

birds flying toward a master. A rose
is all these, and the silence that

closes and sits in the shade, a bud.

- Jelalludin Rumi
(Ghazal (Ode) 1348
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin)

Flare


When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before,

like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket
whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.

Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings.

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or not.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.

A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.

In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.

Live with the beetle, and the wind.

- Mary Oliver

Top right image taken from Peruvian Nasca hummingbird line.

Pi


The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can’t be comprehended six five three five at a glance,
eight nine by calculation,
seven nine or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything else
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn’t stop at the page’s edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh how brief — a mouse tail, a pigtail — is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star’s ray, bent by bumping up against space!
While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size the year
nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven,
nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity
to continue.


- Wisława Szymborska

On Hold

What finally got to me
were the children
separated from their parents because, “children
can’t follow their parents to jail.”
To jail for what?
For not wanting to be murdered,
raped, tortured?
I respond to the appeal
to send clothes for the children
to the justice (misnomer) department.
Maybe thousands of items of clothing
will arrive from the outpouring of
human hearts.

Having the luxury of too much hot water,
my favorite sweater just shrunk
when I washed it.
Now it will fit a young one, a crying one,
to keep her warm in camp
if her crying doesn’t raise her temperature enough,
if her heart is cold and empty
without her mother,
if hundreds of other crying children
can’t protect her from the cold.

I want to send it anonymously
since my letter inside is unkind and I don’t
trust what lists are being created.
I learn you cannot put first class stamps
on a priority mail package
and UPS wants my name and
I can’t just leave a box at the post office
that’s over 13 ounces.

So it’s on hold.
I go back to signing petitions.
I go back to my safe life.
Yes, I will send the sweater
when I return from vacation.
When it’s convenient.
And I think of the crying children and I hope
someone does something soon.
Maybe I’ll post a note on Facebook
and some else will send clothes instead.

- Sherrie Lovler

O, Pilgrim!

O pilgrim, where have you been?
Where are you now?

While you have been searching the world
the Beloved has been here all along
waiting for you.

Let the caravan carry you home
to your deepest heart’s desire.
The treasure you sought was buried in your own garden.

Come home, o wanderer, and behold the face in the mirror.
Look behind the eyes and see the One
who has been searching for you.

You are seen;
you are known
and you are beloved.

If your seeking has brought you here at last,
you know that there is nowhere else to go
and nothing more to say.

- Jellaludin Rumi
(version by Larry Robinson)
___________________________

A LITTLE STORY ABOUT AN ANCIENT CHINESE EMPEROR

Thousands of years ago in ancient China a boy emperor ruled for awhile.
The Imperial Court had placed the child on the throne so that he could be
a mouthpiece for the Imperial Court's desires.

Coddled from birth, surrounded by servants and sycophants,
told by The Imperial Court that he was The Son of Heaven,
given to believe he had no obligation to anyone but his Imperial Court,
pampered and protected from any notion of what the real world was like,
from any idea of what The People had to put up with every day,

The Emperor stomped and swaggered through the world
telling The People what to do, taking whatever he wanted,
robbing from the poor and giving to the rich, and sending
his armies out to terrorize whomever he took a notion to despise.

The Emperor ruled for a long time and thousands of The People
died, killed by his armies and because of his abuse and neglect.
But, eventually, after great suffering, The People rose up and
crushed the man who called himself The Son of Heaven.
And they crushed his Imperial Court as well.

Then some time passed in which The People lived in relative calm
until another Emperor, like the one in this story, came along.

- David Budbill

A Man's A Man for A' That

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by -
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an a' that,
Our toils obscure, an a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an a' that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine -
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, an a' that.
Their tinsel show, an a' that,
The honest man, tho e'er sae poor,
Is king o men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'
What struts, an stares, an a' that?
Tho hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
His ribband, star, an a' that,
The man o independent mind,
He looks an laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might -
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an a' that,
Their dignities, an a' that,
The pith o sense an pride o worth.
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may
[As come it will for a' that],
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world, o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.

- Robert Burns

Ashes Among the Remains

My father responded
Just throw them away
I did not nor did I cast them into
ocean or bay where we’d fished
flounder and fluke nor strew them
over the golf courses where he’d hit
multistage rockets rising from half an inch
then to a foot above fairways
to summarily explode
hundreds of yards into the future
other worldly fireworks released
by his elegantly compact fury.
Instead I left them in their box
a golden shiny tin ossuary
next to my mother’s on the top shelf
of my bedroom closet
where I did not have to make decisions
and I incidentally could visit them daily
until our house burned down
in the California wildfires
October Ninth 2017
I don’t intend here to dwell upon
the nightmare that fire is
I will not detail the feelings we had
as we evacuated in one of our cars
along with the family terrier and nothing else
though later we did contemplate
Dad’s and Mom’s remains further
consumed by 1500 degree flames
extending their years-earlier incineration
in an oven at the crematorium near Petaluma.
Were it not that my parents lived well into
their nineties I so sick depressed and barely 74
might feel prepared to let go of the tangible rim
to the bottomless jar of all that remains
to the what or the where or the not.

- Ed Coletti

Left-Handed Pitcher Working on a Scaffold

I am a failed state,

about to crack my backbone
while still young
enough to fire smoke
95 MPH.

Herodotus abridged
and a bag of salted nuts
fall like lethal acorns
shaken free from my back pocket

Remember my torn mitt once autographed by Whitey Ford,
three no hitters in Catholic school.
Was I the greatest?

Sun contradicts breeze.
Soapy squeegee scrapes my skin.
Wind picks up.
Belt cracks; a universe unfastening
symmetry as I unfold.

Somersaulting,
time slithers,
clichés ring,
historical antecedents drop like parachutes
behind enemy lines.

Before crashing, I spot autumn
gardens on rooftops,
helicopters like dragon flies overhead,
a peregrine falcon
circling.

If only I were a bird,
not ineffective like Icarus
flapping my melting wings
at cloud formations.

Absence is my future.
Dad smoldered
when I read the Odyssey
in the locker room
after blowing a game in the ninth.

Given a better ERA
I’d never have taken a job
in the sky.

Dad, if you hadn’t craved a superstar,
cash bonus to boot; if you hadn’t drilled me
daily with burning hot grounders
off varnished baseball bats,
I’d have studied physics or mythology
instead of screwballs and sliders.

If my arms were shorter than ostrich gams,
the flame on my fastball would never
have held steady as a gelding’s canter —
granting me years to emerge whole
before turning
old.

- Barry Denny

rite


working with willow rods that’s the method, bring great bundles of them,
put on the ground scatter them pronounce them, saying:

“here’s one”
“here’s another one”
“here’s one, there . . . over there . . .”

willow rods, very consoling we’ll clear the ground you don’t have to be a Scythian . . .
and then the ones behaving more like women use a different method they take a piece of the inner bark of a lime tree
cut it into many pieces
which they keep twisting and untwisting around their fingers as they make effigies of themselves, willow rods of women saying:

“there’s a turn” “there’s a turning” “there’s a rowdy one” “there’s a moist one”

“there’s one we lost to negligent wind” “another one burned up”
“one folded down a sparrow’s cheek” “how many turnings in a twisty one?”

a million, more than you can ever hold makes the pronouncers happy surveyors of tractor and sage
and when all goes out

remember eclipse telling you this could all go out women too? women go out?

but for love & mystery willows rods, willows rods you know this, women
to fool the hearts of men

staying up all night, notice the moon and its macabre signal and hemp vapor tents on the horizon
walk upside down in the footprints of the living

- Anne Waldman

The Voice of the Turtle

And the voice of the turtle
shall be heard in the land

Oh, I know it means the turtle dove
I know that now, but I didn’t then
when I was eight years old

My imagination ran wild

I had only seen one turtle close up
one of those dime store turtles
no bigger than a quarter
that you bought for twenty cents in June
that lived almost a month
in a pan on the back porch
with three pebbles and a flat rock
for company and comfort

If you were lucky
it would live ‘till fall
then your heart would break
when your Dad carried it away
to an uncertain end

My turtle never sang
and it was not that I didn’t listen
Maybe he only sang at sunrise
I tried that only once and not a peep

A dead fly didn’t send his
turtle heart to singing either
no sound escaped his hawky jaw
as he chomped an iridescent wing

Fresh water, a lettuce leaf
even a bug I didn’t know
left him uninspired and mute

I listened so hard for that turtle’s voice
maybe my ears were too small or too big
maybe he was too young to sing or
just maybe he had nothing to sing about
in his chipped enamel pan

I heard others singing though
grey wrens in the cherry tree
Dad as he pruned the tomatoes
even the dog groaning content
in the shade under the porch

And the voice of the turtle
shall be heard in the land

Maybe we were both too young
he to sing it and me to hear
what still must be a glorious sound
to the ear

Another time, another place

Perhaps some other turtle
in some other land
is singing a great low note to God

Some other turtle I guess
in some other land

- Doug von Koss

Paragee of a Summer Full Moon

Confused and enchanted the mockingbird
Sings all night and again, all day, while
The moon too bright, too big to contain herself
Smears her light like luminous jelly,
Across the welcoming, wide awake sky.

- Rebecca del Rio

thanks for posting but moonlight smeared like luminous jelly makes me throw up a little in my mouth...

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Paragee of a Summer Full Moon

Confused and enchanted the mockingbird
Sings all night and again, all day, while
The moon too bright, too big to contain herself
Smears her light like luminous jelly,
Across the welcoming, wide awake sky.

- Rebecca del Rio

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I think that should be "perigee," Larry. Not to be too nit-picky or anything. Also, are the punctuation lapses in the poems you quote intentional or just typos? I've often wondered. In any event keep 'em coming, please! :-)

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Paragee of a Summer Full Moon

Confused and enchanted the mockingbird
Sings all night and again, all day, while
The moon too bright, too big to contain herself
Smears her light like luminous jelly,
Across the welcoming, wide awake sky.

- Rebecca del Rio

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Set This Book On Fire!

Rising
in the glow of the embers,
and even in the ashes, I want to tell you:
I’ve spent years
studying stark cries in the cancerous marrow
of inner-city streets. I’ve gone to
Uppidee districts to witness poets
who kiss their asses while adjusting grins,
luring audience approval with politically correct quips.
I want to tell you:
don’t lie! If you’re going to read a poem
about a kid getting his head blown off,
don’t raw jaw your cotton-tipped tongue
to gain the sugary aplomb and donut favor
of English Department heads, who like you
and never scavenged food from dumpsters, who like you
and never stood in welfare lines, who like you
while gleaning misery topics from The New York Times.
I want to tell you:
if you’re going to preach what you don’t follow,
testify to what you haven’t lived,
hoola-hoop your way like a pride-plucked hen
doormatting your heart for moneyed admirers
whose concerned faces ohh and ahh faked empathy,
know that poetry deserves better than that
hee-hawing, educated, hillbilly-mule
whinnying for the crowd response.
I want to tell you:
while you do your sheepish, poor-me routine,
your victim-in-distress sighing,
poor people are being murdered,
prisoners are being zapped with fifty-thousand volts
of electricity to make them behave.
O hollow-hearted, New Age activist that you are,
tell us in your poetry how cooly you’ve risked
your life helping refugees cross the border.
I want to tell you:
what you’re looking for is a new title to acclaim,
what you want is to be hailed a savior
when you spice your poetry with theatrics,
crumpling on the floor and groaning with rage.
O how the world has done you wrong!
The last thing we need is more toothless tigers
stalking thousand-dollar checks from sympathetic patrons
of first-class airlines and four-star hotels.
I want to tell you:
I’m weary of these castrated Uppidees,
poets and patrons who’ve hardly engaged in life.
I’m tired of the prejudice they never own,
tired of them spouting off familiar remedies
to a world of ills they’ve never known.
I beg you both, get out of the way,
please step aside, just a couple of steps,
it takes too much effort to go around you.
I want to tell you:
the flashpoint of paper is 451 degrees.

- Jimmy Santiago Baca

Who Knows One

Who knows One. I know One.
One is God for God is One—
The only One in Heaven and on earth.

Who knows two. I know two.
Two are the first two: Adam and Eve.
One is God for God is One—
It takes one to know one.

Who knows three. I know three.
Bad things always come in threes.
Two trees grew in the Garden of Eden.
One is God for God is One—
One rotten apple spoils the barrel.

Who knows four. I know four.
What were you doing on all fours?
Three’s the hearts in a ménage à trois.
Two’s the jump ropes in double Dutch.
One is God for God is One—
One good turn deserves another.

Who knows five. I know five.
Five is the five in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
Four is Egypt’s plague of flies.
Three the Stooges on TV.
Two the two-faced lie he told.
One is God for God is One—
One hand washes the other.

Who knows six. I know six.
Six are the wives of Henry VIII.
Who? What? Where? When? Why?
Four the phases of the moon.
Three the bones inside the ear.
Two eyes—the better to see you with, my dear.
One is God for God is One—
There’s only one to a customer.

Who knows seven. I know seven.
Seven the year of the seven-year itch.
Six the paper anniversary.
Asked if he did it, he pleaded the Fifth.
Four are my absent wisdom teeth.
Three is the three in the third degree.
Two can play that game.
One is God for God is One—
Public Enemy No. 1.

Who knows eight. I know eight.
The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week.”
Wrath is the seventh of the deadly sins.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
He lost it all in five-card stud.
Four bits in a nibble equals half a byte.
Three is the beginning, middle, and end.
Two are the graves in the family plot.
One is God for God is One—
The only one in a hole in one.

Who knows nine. I know nine.
Nine are the lives of an average cat.
Eight is the day of circumcision.
Seven the locks on Samson’s head.
Six the sense I wish I had.
Five the five in nickeled-and-dimed.
Four cold feet in the double bed.
Three’s a crowd.
Two’s company.
One is God for God is One—
The only one in a one-night stand.

Who knows ten. I know ten.
I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.
She dressed to the nines.
Fellini’s “8½.”
Seven the times the bride circles the groom.
Six the number perfect in itself.
She daubed her wrists with Chanel No. 5.
Love is just a four-letter word.
Three is as phony as a three-dollar bill.
Two is the two in doubletalk.
One is God for God is One—
There’s one born every minute.

Who knows eleven. I know eleven.
Eleven are the stars in Joseph’s dream.
Ten is the Roman numeral X.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Infinity’s a sideways figure eight.
Seven long years Jacob had to wait.
Six is the Lover’s Tarot card.
Five is indivisible.
Four, cruel April.
Three witches in “the Scottish play.”
Two is the two of “I and Thou.”
One is God for God is One—
One in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Who knows twelve. I know twelve.
Twelve are the face cards in a deck.
Eleven are the thieves in “Ocean’s Eleven.”
Take a deep breath and count to ten.
It takes nine tailors to make a man.
Eight are the people on Noah’s ark.
Seven are the hues in a rainbow’s arc.
Six is . . . I can’t remember what.
Five the rivers of the Underworld.
Four the rivers of Paradise.
Three on a match.
It takes two to tango.
One is God for God is One—
In one ear and out the other.

Who knows thirteen. I know thirteen.
Thirteen is the skyscraper’s missing floor.
Twelve are the men who walked on the moon.
At the eleventh hour, his life was spared.
Do not covet your neighbor’s ass.
Nine are the circles of Dante’s Hell.
Eight is the game of crazy eights.
The phone was busy 24/7.
They deep-sixed their love affair.
The five-o’clock shadow on your face.
Four is putting two and two together.
Three is the eternal triangle.
Two plays second fiddle.
Two minus one equals one.
One is one all alone.
You were my one and only one—
The only one whose number’s up.

- Jane Shore

You cannot by willing it alter the vast world outside of you.
You cannot strike the handcuffs from one chained hand.
You cannot cut the lash from one whip.
You cannot even remake your own soul so that there shall be no inclination
to evil in it.
The great world rolls on, and you can do nothing to change it.
But this one thing you can do: in that one, small, minute, almost infinitesimal
place in the universe where you stand—there, where as God, your will prevails,
strive to make what you hunger for real.

- Howard Thurman

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

- Billy Collins

Watching the Jet Planes Dive

We must go back and find a trail on the ground
back of the forest and mountain on the slow land;
we must begin to circle on the intricate sod.
By such wild beginnings without help we may find
the small trail on through the buffalo-bean vines.

We must go back with noses and the palms of our hands,
and climb over the map in far places, everywhere,
and lie down whenever there is doubt and sleep there.
If roads are unconnected we must make a path,
no matter how far it is, or how lowly we arrive.

We must find something forgotten by everyone alive,
and make some fabulous gesture when the sun goes down
as they do by custom in little Mexican towns
where they crawl for some ritual up a rocky steep.
The jet planes dive; we must travel on our knees.


- William Stafford

We

(After June Jordan’s – “A Poem for South African Women”)


“We are the ones we been waiting for”

Just listen to yourselves and we will wait no more

No need for another Malcolm or Martin

When you stand ready at the door of greatness

Seeds sewn by Sojourner have now sprouted in her likeness as true

New answers to old questions now lie in the hands of youth

Man or woman in the mirror now serves as your proof

that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for

Challenge is to realize your worth

But not before we understand our birthright to the throne

Our fate is our own

We are the clones of pharaohs and queens

We do not stand alone

We are the people

To end WAR

We Are Responsible

To conclude the long WAIT

We Acknowledge It’s Time - Now

Yes we are the ones we’ve been waiting for you

A community of self

Individuality the wealth that makes the collective unique

New reality that we hold the answers we seek

We need not lean on the crunch

Our government too much overrated

Our concerns too often debated and debated and debated and debated

Yes we are the one we’ve been waiting for

Just listen to yourself and we will wait no more

No need for another Malcolm or Martin

when you stand ready at the door of greatness

Seeds sewn by Sojourner have now sprouted in her likeness as truth

New answers to old questions now lie in the hands of youth

Man or woman in the mirror now serves as your proof

that we are the ones we've been waiting for


– Nathan M. Richardson

The Zen of Housework
I look over my own shoulder
down my arms
to where they disappear under water
into hands inside pink rubber gloves
moiling among dinner dishes.

My hands lift a wine glass,
holding it by the stem and under the bowl.
It breaks the surface
like a chalice
rising from a medieval lake.

Full of the grey wine
of domesticity, the glass floats
to the level of my eyes.
Behind it, through the window
above the sink, the sun, among
a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches,
is setting in Western America.

I can see thousands of droplets
of steam -- each a tiny spectrum -- rising
from my goblet of grey wine.
They sway, changing directions
constantly -- like a school of playful fish,
or like the sheer curtain
on the window to another world.

Ah, grey sacrament of the mundane!

- Al Zolynas

Punishment


They used books as weapons.
This is not a metaphor.
Because there were no blankets and they were cold,
the men in cell block L threw books
with intent to do bodily harm.
They rained down from above.
Rained down from the cells.
Guards shielded themselves
with dinner trays and mop buckets.
The men tossed entire libraries. A rage of books.
Lobbed in high arcs like footballs,
or pitched overhand like grenades.
Hardcovers shattered on cheekbones
or exploded on the back of someone’s head.
Paperbacks spiraled down, loose pages fluttering.
Thin ones skipped across the shiny tile like stones on water.
There was mayhem. There was blood.
Words littered the floor. Guards ran for their lives.
The men had spent years collecting—
biographies, mysteries, histories, science fiction,
even poetry books, their spines fine and reedy,
or thick with free verse.
One man threw his grandmother’s leather Bible.
Inside the front cover in elegant script
she’d noted the date and time of his birth.
Now it lay face down, back broken.
Another man hurled his family album.
It fell from the third floor, the photos scattering
on impact. His wife, his son, his daughter
smiled up from the chaos.

- Nancy Miller Gomez

The Price of Experience

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath, his house , his wife, his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun
And in the vintage and to sing on the wagon loaded with corn

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer
To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filled with wine and with the marrow of lambs

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughterhouse moan;
To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast
To hear the sounds of love in the thunder storm
that destroys our enemies' house;
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field and the sickness
that cuts off his children

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door
and our children bring fruit and flowers

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten
and the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains and the poor in the prison
and the soldier in the field
When the shattered bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me

- William Blake

Back Up Quick, They’re Hippies

That was the year we drove
into the commune in Cornwall.
“Jesus Jim,” mam said,
“back up quick they’re hippies.”

Through the car window,
tents, row after row, flaps open,
long-haired men and women
curled around each other like babies

and the babies themselves
wandered naked across the grass.

I reached for the handle, ready, almost,
to open the door, drop out and away
from my sister’s aggressive thighs,
Daddy’s slapping hands.

Back home in the Dandelion Market
I unlearnt the steps my mother taught,
bought a headband, an afghan coat,
a fringed skirt — leather skin.

Barefoot on common grass I lay down with kin.

- Lani O’Hanlon

Pine Tree Ode

I was sitting on the top stones of a wall—can you
get even closer to the tree, he said, so I went
inches from the trunk of the tallest of the ones
we'd been standing among like small children
among the legs of the grown-ups.
Now, the side of my face was almost
against the bark, intimate,
I could see where its growing had pulled its surface
open, into wooden lozenges, like
stretch marks, I could not feel it breathe
but I felt it alive beside me, a huge
ant running down, and stopping, and turning
its feelers, in the air, between us, and then
walking so fast it seemed to be pouring back
up. Then I looked, up, along
the branchless stem, into the canopy,
to the needles fanning out in bunches
eating the sun. And the length of it seemed like
bravery, like strong will,
a single, whole, note, like a tenor's
cry, sustained, as if a tree were
a spurt from the earth, a heart's gush.
And the ants flowed from ground to sky,
sky to ground. I don't know where the ants
had been, or their ancestors had been, the noon
the tornado came through, wall of water
a hundred and thirty miles an hour,
solid ferocious grey static.
The tree stood. And now I sat up straight
beside it, feeling my way back
through species, and species, toward the pine, and toward
the ones we both descended from, the
fern, the green cell—the sun,
the star-stuff we are made of.

- Sharon Olds

Anything but Standard

It was the two of us, wasn't it, on those steamy nights
circling the low-slung museum across the street
and lingering by the pond behind the chapel.

It's how the southern clouds passed slowly
overhead, season after season, year after year,

as you followed a low intricate scent
across the stately lit lawn,
and studied the squirrels in the live oaks,
and waded into the brown reflecting pool
with the broken obelisk.

You were a descendent of water dogs
and anything but standard
when you materialized out of the sticky heat
with your dripping black forehead
and delinquent grin, a growl unmuzzled.

It was your Russian face that steadied me
as I sat on a battered wooden bench,
lost in a night that wouldn't end,
and you lay down - calm, poised, watchful -
and stirred beside me on the simmering grass.

Let's get up and go.
Trot ahead of me, old friend,
and shake off the watery darkness.

- Edward Hirsch

Beginners

Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

“From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea -“

But we have only begun
To love the earth.

We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
- so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?
- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet -
there is too much broken
that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

- Denise Levertov

Full Count

Very late watching recorded baseball
It’s still hot here but not as hot as in Phoenix
where this Giants and Diamondbacks game
was played earlier during triple digit weather

Don’t yet know who won and lost
Desert sun unfelt on the field
Roof was closed Something feels wrong
with this indoor artificially cooled baseball

Dictator plays something like airconditioned golf
While a child named Pablo cries Papa
Over and over and over again and
Again as I watch recorded baseball to forget

- Ed Coletti

A Man Talking To His House

I say that no one in this caravan is awake
and that while you sleep, a thief is stealing

the signs and symbols of what you thought
was your life. Now you're angry with me for

telling you this! Pay attention to those who
hurt your feelings telling you the truth.

Giving and absorbing compliments is like
trying to paint on water, that insubstantial.

Here is how a man once talked with his house,
“Please, if you're ever about to collapse,

let me know.” One night without a word the
house fell. “What happened to our agreement?”

The house answered, “Day and night I've been
telling you with cracks and broken boards and

holes appearing like mouths opening. But you
kept patching and filling those with mud, so

proud of your stopgap masonry. You didn't
listen.” This house is your body always

saying, I'm leaving; I'm going soon. Don't
hide from one who knows the secret. Drink

the wine of turning toward God. Don't examine
your urine. Examine instead how you praise,

what you wish for, this longing we've been
given. Fall turns pale yellow light wanting

spring and spring arrives! Trees blossom.
Come to the orchard and see what comes to

you, a silent conversation with your soul.

- Jelalludin Rumi

Mt Kailash, Nepal in the background.

Corfu: Olives Myths and Words

Barely shadowing my parcel of sunlight overlooking the Ionian Sea with
her placid azure waters are silvery green counterpoints, two
diminutive olive trees, bent like an aged couple facing off,
gnarled and twisted, roots exposed, pock marked and struggling.

Who plants trees knowing they will bear no fruit for a dozen years?

Eons pass and Menelaus’s kidnapped wife Helen launches a thousand
ships, kings and warriors battle for a decade, Paris, Achilles and thousands
more die. Another decade unfolds, this drama an underworld of sirens and
sea monsters as the Odyssey bears its narrative fruit for generations.

What Olympian storytelling gods orchestrate such a drama where myth
and history embrace as do the olive, and the tree that births it?

In our time the British authors Lawrence and Gerald Durrell descend into the
waters of Kalami bay for future readers and scholars hungry to partake of word
and verse. They had no titles, guarantees, or even prospects.

What beings plant such seedlings for fruits only to be gathered posthumously?

Knowing how fruitless would be the self-indulgent grasping.
Knowing that creating and even nurturing can reap no instant reward.
Knowing that with olives, myths and words, there is all the time in the world.

- Bruce Silverman

Age Sixty-nine

I keep waiting without knowing
what I'm waiting for.
I saw the setting moon at dawn
roll over the mountain
and perhaps into the dragon's mouth
until tomorrow evening.

There is this circle I walk
that I have learned to love.
I hope one day to be a spiral
but to the birds I'm a circle.

A thousand Spaniards died looking
for gold in a swamp when it was
in the mountains in clear sight beyond.

Here, though, on local earth my heart
is at rest as a groundling, letting
my mind take flight as it will,
no longer waiting for good or bad news.

Often, lately, the night is a cold maw
and stars the scattered white teeth of the gods,
which spare none of us. At dawn I have birds,
clearly divine messengers that I don't understand
yet day by day feel the grace of their intentions.

- Jim Harrison

Idée Fixe

No woman wants to be low-hanging fruit,
my glamorous girlfriend says, but I’m indiscriminate
and love all fruit, I’m tempted to list each kind
right here, in and out of season,
because even just saying the names gives me pleasure,
as does saying your name.
I’m not alone with my passion — my whole family,
we’re a little off in this regard,
we can spend hours talking about cantaloupe
or arguing over how many flats to buy
when it’s Peach-O-Rama at the Metropolitan.
Once I even drove half a day to get to Pence Orchards
where I met and took photos of Bert Pence,
who sold me three boxes of peaches at wholesale prices.
He was so good to me, as was the late-summer freestone
I picked as I walked back through the orchard
in the August heat to the entrance gates,
which were nothing like the Gates of Hell.
On the contrary, I was in heaven there in Yakima.
I can still smell that single peach, which was profusely
low-hanging, it was the definition of low-hanging,
it fell into my hands, as you did — 
or perhaps as I did into yours — 
but that was months ago.
When I walked past the stands yesterday,
on what should have been the first day of spring,
all produce had been covered with heavy blankets
to keep it warm, to mitigate harm.
Today the temperature dropped so low
someone thought to remove the fruit entirely and stash it away.
With this strange weather we’re having, will I see you again?
I can’t help myself.

- Catherine Barnett

A Spiritual Journey

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.

- Wendell Berry

Holy As A Day Is Spent

Holy is the dish and drain
The soap and sink, the cup and plate
And the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile
Showerheads and good dry towels

And frying eggs sound like psalms
With a bit of salt measured in my palm
It’s all a part of a sacrament
As holy as a day is spent

Holy is the busy street
And cars that boom with passion’s beat
And the check out girl, Counting change
And the hands that shook my hands today

Hymns of geese fly overhead
And stretch their wings like their parents did
Blessed be the dog
That runs in her sleep
To catch that wild and elusive thing

Holy is a familiar room and the quiet moments in the afternoon
And folding sheets like folding hands
To pray as only laundry can

I’m letting go of all I fear
Like autumn leaves of earth and air
For summer came and summer went
As holy as a day is spent

Holy is the place I stand
To give whatever small good I can
The empty page, the open book
Redemption everywhere I look

Unknowingly we slow our pace
In the shade of unexpected grace
With grateful smiles and sad lament
As holy as a day is spent

And morning light sings “providence”
As holy as a day is spent

- Carrie Newcomer

What is Lady Liberty Doing?


Guiding, guarding, illuminating, welcoming

She lifts her lamp beside the golden door

A beacon in the dark, a lighthouse for the world

But like any woman worth her salt, she is multi-tasking

We look up to Lady Liberty when we ought to look down

She has feet, you know,
Not legs, but feet.
She has neatly clipped toenails
And a sturdy pair of traveling sandals.

Why?

Because she is in motion, striding forward,
Her right foot flexed, pushing off,
Her left foot firmly planted ahead.

It cost Bartholdi precious time and expensive materials to carve those feet.
He could have hidden them under her robe.
He could have had her standing still, with just her toes peeping out,
But he made her a woman of action.

Because you cannot embody Liberty standing still.

Now, you cannot see her left foot unless you are airborne
Which is why so many people don’t know
That it is trampling, and breaking, a chain -
By the side, a broken shackle.
Lady Liberty has been a slave, her feet bound,
And now, liberated,
She is taking her first full step into a future of freedom.

Look down and see the story.
She holds the torch to light her own way
As well as ours.
She invites us not to end our journey but to begin it.

- Gail M. Burns

Messages From The Chair

What if the dental chair and reaming of roots were Buddhist trainers?
What if the scent of grinding bone spoke to you softly saying you are blessed beyond measure?
What if the Dylan songs sifting through layers of nitrous
sparked your truthful and rarely contacted conscious self
and allowed your total forgiveness of two ancient lovers?

What if a rarefied Wonder Woman
snatched away your self image of Doubts
and gifted you with deeper wisdom?

What if that wisdom set you in a new colorful chair
where acceptance and compassion replace
the older guides of struggle and striving?

What if Life after the dental chair brought us all to deep knowing
that no matter what is happening we are living our dreams
and those dreams wake us up feeling happy and blessed forever?

- Carole Watanabe

Ode to a Hat


It was down in the hold of the ship:
I crocheted in the half light
of crew arguments and the stomach-bending
pitch of the vessel,
While far away my mother wondered if I still loved her.

It was calico--and I realize now I must have borrowed the yarn
(after all, I didn't board with any--thank you, Angela!).
And its birth insulated me from where I was,
And from whom I had been.

Afterwards, I did mail it to her...my mother.
Then, much later, it appeared in photographs:
Scenes of her spending her mornings
studying Chinese or piano or some such--
those cold Northern California days, half-lit.
Always that special covering, though rarely mentioned...

Well...

then...

"The Fire":

The fire took the hat.
The fire
took most everything--even the piano I learned on.

Plus...

...that silly bit of spindly
cheap poly-thread covering
which Most likely had believed itself safe.
Yes, it did:
Safe in a box
where it had been deliberately placed so as not to be worn to death.
Safe where it might continue--as all love hopes to.
Safe, where, when the flames finally found it,
It told them it had already served a greater purpose.

Greater than all its adversaries possessed, even them.

Can you imagine how it spoke truth to flame?

Addressing the smoke and ash:

"I've mattered more in this world than you could ever ever possibly

Hope to.

I have done my work.

Now take me home.”

- Ladd Holroyd

Made me cry...:tear:

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Ode to a Hat...

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My Proteins

They have discovered, they say,
the protein of itch—
natriuretic polypeptide b—
and that it travels its own distinct pathway
inside my spine.
As do pain, pleasure, and heat.

A body it seems is a highway,
a cloverleaf crossing
well built, well traversed.
Some of me going north, some going south.

Ninety percent of my cells, they have discovered,
are not my own person,
they are other beings inside me.

As ninety-six percent of my life is not my life.

Yet I, they say, am they—
my bacteria and yeasts,
my father and mother,
grandparents, lovers,
my drivers talking on cell phones,
my subways and bridges,
my thieves, my police
who chase my self night and day.

My proteins, apparently also me,
fold the shirts.

I find in this crowded metropolis
a quiet corner,
where I build of not-me Lego blocks
a bench,
pigeons, a sandwich
of rye bread, mustard, and cheese.

It is me and is not,
the hunger
that makes the sandwich good.

It is not me then is,
the sandwich—
a mystery neither of us
can fold, unfold, or consume.

- Jane Hirshfield

In Context: Mekong Delta


Somewhere, in a place entirely unlike
this one, the crown of the Mekong fissures
Earth’s tallest granite, thrust skyward

by the collision of continents that might
as well be gods in a myth we made,
so we could nod, say ah this is how

this came to be. The Mekong does not
know it is destined to lose itself
in the South China Sea, does not know

it is a river. For now it is only a melting
out of silence, a shifting from static
into motion. In the Himalayas

streams blossom with the trees,
glitter their own little Shangri-las
from every cliff and crag and crevice,

until the season avalanches into a tumult
of rapids, ripping new canyons through hills
that only look like they are standing still.

Land of a million elephants, land of smiles,
kingdoms, pagodas, wars working their way
through the salt mines of unwon minds.

When foothills spill into killing fields,
the Mekong yawns wide enough to live
on, to buy and sell on. To be sold on.

Whatever language it has gathered in its rushing
over stones, under bridges, in its lugging
of the dropped, the drowned, the used,

it will lose. Every second it is different
water whispering never again never
again. If we could ride it like a many-headed

serpent as it splays into the sea, for a while
it would remain its own current, but eventually
whatever body it’s become in its loose holding,

whatever sound it has become in its one yearning
toward exactly this disappearing, is replaced
by whatever the sea says when it forgets

the chant it repeats on every beach,
the one we mistranslate ash to ash,
dust to dust.


- Erin Rodoni

Petaluma Moment

Unhurried the heron walks, long skinny legs
across the Petaluma mud
Stands beside the slow-moving river
His long pointy beak preens long blue feathers
Then stares long long long at the rippling water

Long has the heron known
A fish will come
The water will flow
The moon will rise
And he will fly and die and fly again
Long has the heron known

- Doug von Koss

Everybody Loves Trader Joe's


Lost My Job
3 Children
Please Help

He saw the sign,
the woman's face blocked
by a scarf.
He parked, five dollars in hand,
locked the car, walked a few steps,
returned, looked in the glove compartment.
Maybe he had a ten—no, just a twenty...too much.
He shopped at Trader Joe's to save money.
Gave her the bill, said “good luck.”
“God Bless You,” she said.
She looked foreign...from India, Pakistan,
like a gypsy or something.
Actually he didn't want to get blessed.
He went through TJ's— rye bread, bananas, butter, milk, eggs, frozen peas, frozen chicken breast, cottage cheese, almonds.
That was it.
But if he wanted, he could get anything.
Heading back to his car, he passed her again.
He caught her eye.
She gave a slight nod, a certain elegance, a grace.

somehow
he felt diminished


- Jean Wong

Fire

Natural as a stream, a breeze
Hot and insistent in
Summer. Like puma, creosote
Or coyote, fire has its own life.

Our species invades homes
Of bobcat, deer and rabbit.
We invade the home of
Fire, who like us,
Takes all—our worthy adversary.

- Rebecca del Rio

Rabbits and Fire

Everything’s been said
But one last thing about the desert,
And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert,
Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great,
Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months,
The longest months,
The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July—
During these summer fires, jackrabbits—
Jackrabbits and everything else
That lives in the brush of the rolling hills,
But jackrabbits especially—
Jackrabbits can get caught in the flames,
No matter how fast and big and strong and sleek they are.
And when they’re caught,
Cornered in and against the thick
Trunks and thin spines of the cactus,
When they can’t back up any more,
When they can’t move, the flame—
It touches them,
And their fur catches fire.
Of course, they run away from the flame,
Finding movement even when there is none to be found,
Jumping big and high over the wave of fire, or backing
Even harder through the impenetrable
Tangle of hardened saguaro
And prickly pear and cholla and barrel,
But whichever way they find,
What happens is what happens: They catch fire
And then bring the fire with them when they run.
They don’t know they’re on fire at first,
Running so fast as to make the fire
Shoot like rocket engines and smoke behind them,
But then the rabbits tire
And the fire catches up,
Stuck onto them like the needles of the cactus,
Which at first must be what they think they feel on their skins.
They’ve felt this before, every rabbit.
But this time the feeling keeps on.
And of course, they ignite the brush and dried weeds
All over again, making more fire, all around them.
I’m sorry for the rabbits.
And I’m sorry for us
To know this.

- Alberto Ríos

Miracle Prayer

Mistress of Miracles, come to us now,
Out of the darkness, out of the earth.
Mistress of Miracles, we offer our vow,
To awaken the tides of our nation’s rebirth.

As the snow-topped peaks melt in rivers and streams,
As the grasses and flowers poke up from the land,
As the baby emerges from the womb’s land of dreams,
May the lies be revealed, may the truth take a stand.

As the rainbow emerges from storms in the sky,
As the eagle sees all with his wide roving eye,
As our deep wounds can heal, as the heart’s wings can fly,
May the old ways of power now wither and die.

May the ways of oppression now move to the past.
May all that is sacred be protected at last.
May wars wrought from killing for power and greed
Be replaced with compassion, that all may be freed.

May our leaders reflect the hopes that we share
For a world ruled in balance, by a people who care.
May the poor be rewarded, may the land be preserved,
May those who exploit get what they deserve.

Mistress of Magic, come out of your cave
Come aid in our efforts, there’s a world to be saved.
We need a miracle, of that we are sure
Save us from madness, bring us a cure.

- Anodea Judith

Another Poetic Argument For Grief

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...1_13-13-15.png

Have you cried enough
in this lifetime?

Take your grief seriously

Become the ash urn
for the vanishing wilderness

Despair for the Dolphins

Make your own salt water
for the disappearing marshes

The silent Earth is listening

Be called to outrageous acts of despair

And then,

Every now and again

In the face of splendor

Turn toward it.

- Kristy Hellums

Two Arrows

The first arrow being some current ailment
The second arrow being directed at the unknown
cause and reason for the first and concern
for its future course Know that one arrow
alone is more than sufficient in that
it was fired by other than myself
The second would be launched by me
were I to choose to do so Don’t

- Ed Coletti

What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?
What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born?
What if the story of America is one long labor?
What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind us now, those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, detentions and political assault?
What if they are whispering in our ears “You are brave”?
What if this is our nation’s greatest transition?
What does the midwife tell us to do?
BREATHE
And then?
PUSH!

- Valerie Kaur

Of course, on our duality plane much will depend on our interpretation of "PUSH"....
Hope for most it means letting in new Life that sparks our Vision and our Intention to bring more love, peace, joy to all... a reminder of our Truest Selves and our greatest potential....

Quote:

---

Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?
What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born?
What if the story of America is one long labor?
What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind us now, those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, detentions and political assault?
What if they are whispering in our ears “You are brave”?
What if this is our nation’s greatest transition?
What does the midwife tell us to do?
BREATHE
And then?
PUSH!

- Valerie Kaur

---

The summer fires of aught eighteen

How terrible the acrid air,
how terrible the summer fires
of aught eighteen—
yet, what incredible beauty is there
in the muted, late summer sun,
casting a magenta-tinted light
upon the structure I gaze at
each afternoon, sitting in my garden—
this giant white oak—
upon the column-like limbs,
stretching skyward,
whose light beige bark, now visible,
through openings among the leaves,
reflects an eerie, other worldly,
deep, pink patina—
as if the smoke-filled sky
were the rose window
of Chartres itself, at sunset—
and the fires then become
our own judgment day.

- Bill Denham

Smoldering

I’m on the street
where you took me
in a summer of wildfires
we’d dined on red meat and
a white sickle moon
cut into the dark
illuminating our innocence
it was simple at first
we found pleasure with
fingers searching for skin
beneath our clothes
you fragrant of dog
apricots and brine
our nails driving in and Hello
our mouths and tongues
tasting love
we mined each other tenderly
in the heat
our long limbs paused to stand
when we couldn’t
a handy chain link fence
helped us push closer
into a mystery
melting us
into something else
brightening our path
of embers
into gold.

- Danielle Bryant

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

- W.S. Merwin

Zen Lunatics (a term coined by Jack Kerouac)


Even in 1954 Kerouac Jack had the knack of knowing that a spirited Zen

pack would one day emerge and finally tear wide open the star-spangled

puritanical gunnysack that was strangling the American promise. It’s our

calling through outrageous tacks and random acts to bring down those

heat-seeking missile epistles that deny all who display any figment of dark

pigment, a face too tannish or an accent too Spanish.



Yes I’ve had the good fortune to hang with such a gang of jacks, of kings

with spades, and clubs that transform into talking sticks for Zen lunatics with

bright diamonds and open hearts, that make an end run around a ten-ton

anchor of the putrid civil rancor and then fly into an end zone far beyond

what’s known . . . or owned . . . or cloned . . . towards a different way, where

there exists a gateway of genius and justice, adorned by crimson roses, a wide

welcoming gateway, that never closes.

- Bruce Silverman

God In Drag

A star-studded night sky...
Mountains blanketed in fresh falling powder...
Meadows splash with brilliant wildflowers...
The mating call of a bugling elk...
The cacophony of song and sound of birds at dawn...
Baby elephants cavorting with delight...
The intoxicating fragrance of a stargazing Lily...
Peacocks with feathers and full fan...

God in drag, all.

- Kristal Parks

the yo-yo

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...9_13-03-54.png

her mind rolls back to 1953
the year she wrote the poem
for the McKinley Magpie
she was learning tricks with
the Duncan yo-yo
its string looped loosely
around a thin wooden spindle
slip knot around her middle finger
just enough slack in the string
wooden dowel spinning

she learned to walk the dog
rolling the Duncan yo-yo
across the floor
an inch a foot
yanking it back up
up and down
rolling and yanking

she learned another trick that year
grabbing the string in two places
swinging the Duncan yo-yo between the cradle supports
rocking the baby to sleep
back and forth
wooden dowel spinning
yanking it back up again
up and down


though she tried to control it
the yo-yo had a mind of its own
defying gravity
defying order

she wrote about polarities that year
for her elementary school newsletter
the McKinley Magpie
her poem was about fire
how it was our friend and warmed us
how it was our enemy could kill us

at eight years old she liked extremes
she wrote about water
then about salt
but those poems
of too much and not enough
were mere copycats
the fire poem was selected for
the McKinley Magpie

could she have foreseen how
decades later
the yo-yo would become fire
up with its crimson flames licking the sky
down with blackening trees and chimneys
rolling and rocking
and crackling too
defying gravity
defying order
way too hot for the McKinley Magpie
way out of control

she searches for homes now
wandering up and down streets
after the firestorm
which did not kill her
it didn’t warm her either

maybe if the Magpie
had spread the word about
water and salt
the yo-yo would have become ocean

she rocks forward now
quenched and bobbing
rising and sinking
up and down
without a spindle
or a cradle or
a slipknot around an anchor

- sharon bard

another dark love


the climate is changing, seasons
rearranging, the specter of venus haunts
hydrocarbon dreams. no one believes
the disaster of 4-6 º centigrade, the apocalypse
of a few drowned cities.

we all know how much worse.
the savviest liberal is hardly more realistic
than the bible capitalist.
we scurry like denial ants, each with our
destined grain of sand.

& yet the breath of earth stirs us.
the winds of trees penetrate the gossamer
of unending connection. engineer to grub
to crab grass to mackerel to bread mold to
melting icicle to water rounded stone.

there is a voice singing inside every.
there is a hearing within the vast deafness.
aberrant cells in the sweet earth body,
we bend & shudder to some collective immune
response that calls us back, calls us.

greed is not the inner nature of any human being,
nor any kind of being. shark & wolverine
& kudzu vine are more complex, ambiguous.
even the corporate ceo fracking us to hell
is a patchwork story with unpredictable twists.

the sun doesn’t feel so warm now as threatening.
what happened to double hung windows & a thousand
clever passive devices lost to witness technology?
screw the supply side. whittle the demand to
so little even a caddis fly is cradled.

she is calling, she is calling. maple winds &
supersized hurricane waves become symphonic.
someday the dance teacher will no longer strike
the iridescent wings of a wandering fly. the oil magnate
will protect tar sands flora with his life.

all the things we have to have
become a joke, obscene but easily forgotten.
to touch lichen growing on bark brings us to our knees,
worshipping & awed. glaciers can grow again,
only one venus circling our sun.

- Sandy Eastoak

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...1_14-14-23.png



Barking

The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn't die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain.

- Jim Harrison

True or False

Real emeralds are worth more than synthetics
but the only way to tell one from the other
is to heat them to a stated temperature,
then tap. When it’s done properly
the real one shatters.

I have no emeralds.
I was told this about them by a woman
who said someone had told her. True or false,
I have held my own palmful of bright breakage
from a truth too late. I know the principle.

- John Ciardi

Inversnaid

This dark handsome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O, let them be left, the wildness and wet.
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Imagining

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...3_12-10-22.png

What if God isnʼt a noun
to be empowered and worshiped
but a verb of creation
powered by love?

What if every single tree
drawn in primary school
is a sacred work of art
worthy of joyful notice?

What if our lives are built
on a web of kindness,
a net,
which holds everything living.

What if the rocks are alive
singing strength and courage;
vibrating
from our feet right up to our heart?

What if we loved ourselves
as deeply as the mountain
who,
caressed by water,
surrenders herself
into sand?

What if our most loved,
intra-national pastime
is a game of entertainment
where we all win?

What if no one aspired
to be a millionaire
and money no longer had power
but was simply a means of tender-ness.

What if transforming our world
by imagining it
can
actually make it happen?

- Deborah Rodney

Shirt

The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians

Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
Or talking money or politics while one fitted
This armpiece with its overseam to the band

Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,
The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,
The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze

At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.
One hundred and forty-six died in the flames
On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes--

The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out

Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.

A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held
Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once

He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flared
And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers--

Like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, "shrill shirt
ballooning."
Wonderful how the patern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked

Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans

Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of
Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,

Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers
to wear among the dusty clattering looms.
Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,

The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the
sorter
Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton
As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:

George Herbert, your descendant is a Black
Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma
And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit

And feel and its clean smell have satisfied
both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality
Down to the buttons of simulated bone,

The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the
characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.

- Robert Pinsky

Late Ripeness

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

- Czeslaw Milosz

(Translated by Robert Hass)

Giving Myself Up

I give up my eyes which are glass eggs.
I give up my tongue.
I give up my mouth which is the constant dream of my tongue.
I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice.
I give up my heart which is a burning apple.
I give up my lungs which are trees that have never seen the moon.
I give up my smell which is that of a stone traveling through rain.
I give up my hands which are ten wishes.
I give up my arms which have wanted to leave me anyway.
I give up my legs which are lovers only at night.
I give up my buttocks which are the moons of childhood.
I give up my penis which whispers encouragement to my thighs.
I give up my clothes which are walls that blow in the wind
and I give up the ghost that lives in them.
I give up. I give up.
And you will have none of it because already I am beginning
again without anything.

- Mark Strand

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Giving Myself Up...

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Democracy

It's coming through a hole in the air,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHI9BTpGkp8

from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that it ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming through a crack in the wall,
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the sorrow on the street
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of G-d in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
o mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on
It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
that the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming to the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
o mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on
I'm sentimental if you know what I mean:
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

- Leonard Cohen

Imagining

What if God isnʼt a noun
to be empowered and worshiped
but a verb of creation
powered by love?

What if every single tree
drawn in primary school
is a sacred work of art
worthy of joyful notice?

What if our lives are built
on a web of kindness,
a net,
which holds everything living.

What if the rocks are alive
singing strength and courage;
vibrating
from our feet right up to our heart?

What if we loved ourselves
as deeply as the mountain
who,
caressed by water,
surrenders herself
into sand?

What if our most loved,
intra-national pastime
is a game of entertainment
where we all win?

What if no one aspired
to be a millionaire
and money no longer had power
but was simply a means of tender-ness.

What if transforming our world
by imagining it
can
actually make it happen?

- Deborah Rodney

Prisoners Cinema with Saints Catherine and Lucy

“Prisoner’s cinema” is the term given to visual hallucinations reported by prisoners confined to dark cells and by others kept in darkness for long periods of time.

Lit by a million specks of light,
all your dust turns holy.
What’s rotten in you burns

and burns. You, a shadow-
you, gone glowing
Catherine wheel, a spoked

gloaming. You know lead can lodge
into an animal’s skull, turn
the skull into a lit temple

of its wanderings, and this is how
you understand the fabled bowl
a saint carries, its hollow lit

by the eyes it cradles and the saint
eyeless and God-filled. You are not
eyeless and God is nowhere

to witness how you become
the wheel and the body it breaks,
a spectacle of light you cannot fathom

until you fathom it—flooded
as you are with shadow, darkness
taut as an animal’s shank

until it ripples at your touch. Pools
in the bowl your hands make.
Then breaks.

- Susannah Nevison

The Signings

Lies can be charismatic, the truth is cloudy,

With its traditional testing place a body.

I cross my heart and hope to die. The breath,

One hand on the book, one raised, exhales the oath.

The bully making a club of the victim’s hand,

“You hit yourself”: Falsehood asserts Command.

Mortgage papers declare and hereby pledge

That money is money. Sign here, page after page.

The President holds up for the camera’s eye

A paper with his signature, two inches high.

Times when he lied or cheated, the Director

Made longhand notes. Now the Director’s an author

On a bookstore tour. He produced his clunky book

Himself. No ghost. In a defensive joke

At signings a writer I know likes to set up

A jar he labels “For Tips”: wry overlap

Of Truth, Marketing and Art. Any collector

Knows to pay less for copies with a signed sticker

Than one with its title page directly signed:

Authentic, true. But on the other hand,

Inscribed to someone’s name is somehow worth less

Than simply Signed, out here in the marketplace —

But why? The blemish of the particular?

Or truth too a commodity? Flailing for air.

- Robert Pinsky
(Listen to Pinsky read it himself: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...d1#pg-benfolds)

Attack


My wife is 25 years younger than I.

Whenever a man grins at me
and says "Way to go,"
I want to smash my fist into his face.

Yesterday our much-loved dog died.

My wife took our shovel
and dug a 4-foot wide
2 1/2-foot deep
grave in our garden.

After my father died
I kept feeling a gun
tucked under my belt
at the back of my pants.
I hoped I would find someone
who would make me say
"Go ahead
and make my day."

Dulcy said that death
can sometimes feel
like an attack.

If someone looked at my wife
in our dog's grave,
and winked at me,
I would want to take her shovel
and crush his head.

- Trout Black

True Colors

“Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.”
~ Robert Frost

As trees prepare for winter
fall colors pour
into my eyes

Lush true colors
long hidden under green
call to my soul

Soft voices of colors
blown on the wind say
“Remember me, I’ll soon be gone.”

As I approach my own certain winter
what colors long hidden
will I reveal

Can I be like the leaves
radiantly shine for a time
then quietly fall away

Why not

- Doug von Koss

September


September first comes round in my cold knees.
In voices from the next room, and the body
radiant from a shower.

September comes with the tinnitus of country silence,
the blue bay that keeps things still.

The uselessness of success in spiritual practice
seems lasting. But that’s such a weak account
of the even weaker failure of weakness.

For the fact is if I can’t offer half an hour
to the One who gave me life…
if I can’t listen for even half an hour for Him…
if I can’t offer the One a half hour of gratitude for that…
then immodesty has no limit.

You hear what I am saying, I know.
I am not someone who so treasures his every mood
that he must thrust each precious slice into you,
and I don’t feel bad at all here. I feel good.
Because I know you’re listening.
Maybe.

May Be. The mediation, the message, is:
the embryo of glee.

In September it starts to stir.
Before the end – just watch it –
it wants to be born,
once more.


- Bruce Moody

Mr. Peepers

They’re public punching bags

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...5_09-19-22.png

But someone’s gotta do it
It’s not so sexy, the procedure or the truth
I say God bless the bureaucrat and the lawyer, too.

The House Intelligence Committee piles on
They’d love to know what Rosenstein has on the boss
But it’s just for cameras, yeah, it’s just a show of force
Y’all know he can’t comply
But that’s the point, of course

So they call him Mister Peepers
As the thugs all smash his glasses
Going full Lord of the Flies
Burning this island down to ashes.
What’s the rule of law if we can’t agree on what a fact is?
There ain’t nothing here to see, folks, move along, move along

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdycPewO0T0

Thank God for facts.
They’re stubborn things indeed
But little cowboys will try cases on TV
It doesn’t make it so
Because you make believe.
You can’t lose in court and appeal on Hannity

The distinguished wrestler from Ohio
He’s free to lie, he’s not the one who’s under oath
The law don’t suit the boss
This Deputy must go
We got him in the locker room, boys
Start the show.

So they call him Mister Peepers

Send some thugs to smash his glasses.
If he’s gone and peeped the wrong thing
Then they’ll burn his name to ashes.
What’s the rule of law
If we can’t establish what a fact is?

There ain’t nothing here to see, folks, move along, ah move along

They say it dies in the dark
Right now, they’re trying to kill it in broad daylight
Can flashlights really fight bombs?
We’ll see.
Right now

You boys are Christians, right?
What would Jesus do?
Would he bury crimes and carry water like a stooge?
Or smear a family man in case he tells the truth
About the boss?
Yeah, what would Jesus do?

Would he call him Mister Peepers?
Send some thugs to smash his glasses?
The institution’s standing tall
Though we tried our best to trash it
Aren’t we all the keepers
Of this fragile young Republic?
And when all those Mister Peepers people fall…

Lord help us all.

- Ben Folds

The Man Born To Farming

The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?

- Wendell Berry

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside —
The diaries of grief, the tongue tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

- Dana Gioia

Wild Heart

We say to our dog sit and she sits
We say good girl and she wags her tail
We tame our horses by breaking them
In the same way we tame our hearts
Behave we say, good boy
You shouldn’t say that, good girl
We say over and over, I am good
When a part of us believes I’ve been bad
Each belief is a whip to our flanks
Breaking our spirit
Cracking our hearts over and over

You ask forgiveness to others for the gossip,
Indifference and harm you caused them
You forget to ask forgiveness
For your critical self-slander,
The indifference and harm you cause yourself
By not listening to the still small voice within

Stop breaking your wild pony of a heart
Instead say to your good girl and good boy
I’m sorry

This year turn towards that brokenness
See it anew
Look beyond the broken latches and shards of glass
Created by your own sorrow
See openness

Climb through into the heart of your heart
To your untamed and uncivilized heart
Where the thrum of excitement and anticipation is loud
Enter your wild heart where thrives a teaming jungle of life
Monkeys howling with joy, swinging carefree above the
Grinning hyenas of shame, the ripping teeth of self-doubt
Here there are no civilized red lights
Here beyond brokenness only one light shines
The green light of love

Enter fully into the broken heart and you will find
Your whole, wild, untamed, uncivilized heart
Here there is only yes
Yes to love
Yes to life

Go deeply enough and you will remember
Your heart is the heart of the world
The world is the heart of God

- Sally Churgel

The Ode

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.


- Arthur O’Shaughnessy
(1873)