"I am offering this poem to you, since I have nothing else to give." ~Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Read 1 day ago and current, but nothing has been published for 6 years.
Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend told me of one on the shore that lifted its head and opened the elegant beak and cried out in the long, sweet savoring … Continue reading “Lead” by Mary Oliver
A life should leave deep tracks: ruts where she went out and back to get the mail or move the hose around the yard; where she used to stand before the sink, a worn-out place; beneath her hand the china knobs rubbed down to white pastilles; the switch she used to feel for in the … Continue reading “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” by Kay Ryan
The storm is over; too bad, I say. At least storms are clear about their dangerous intent. Ordinary days are what I fear, the sneaky speed with which noon arrives, the sun shining while a government darkens a decade, or a man falls out of love. I fear the solace of repetition, a withheld slap … Continue reading “Ordinary Days” by Stephen Dunn
My prayers have been answered, if they were prayers. I live. I’m alive, and even in rather good health, I believe. If I’d quit smoking I might live to be a hundred. Truly this is astonishing, after the poverty and pain, The suffering. Who would have thought that petty Endurance could achieve so much? And … Continue reading “At Seventy-Five: Re-Reading An Old Book” by Hayden Carruth
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people … Continue reading “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies… (Bradbury) (repost)
Someone had to do the dirty work, spading the garden, moving mountains, keeping the darkness out of the light, and she took every imperfection personally. Mr. Big Ideas, sure, but someone had to run the numbers. Then talk about babies: he never imagined so many. That was part of his charm, of course, his frank … Continue reading “Mrs. God” by Connie Wanek
When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature. It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming. I sat on a gray stone bench in a lovingly planted garden, but the day lilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers and … Continue reading “When I Am Asked” by Lisel Mueller (repost)
music of the word “callipygian,” which means the having of well-shaped buttocks. I will miss the particular cruelty of tongue twisters in my first tongue: “Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.” I will miss the particularly high volume YES of correctly completing this tongue twister, … Continue reading “If I should die tomorrow, please note that I will miss…
What I want to do is shout. Happiness? No. Outrage? No. What I want to do is shout because we were all wrong, because the point was not the point, because the world, or what we took for the world, is breaking, breaking. We were wrong and are not right. Break! Break! We are here! … Continue reading “The Outcry” by William Bronk
Lying, thinking Last night How to find my soul a home Where water is not thirsty And bread loaf is not stone I came up with one thing And I don’t believe I’m wrong That nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here … Continue reading “Alone” by Maya Angelou
