poems

It’s a dark fall day here, so this feels appropriate:

Fall Song
by Joy Harjo

It is a dark fall day.
The earth is slightly damp with rain.
I hear a jay.
The cry is blue.
I have found you in the story again.
Is there another word for ‘‘divine’’?
I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.
If I think behind me, I might break.
If I think forward, I lose now.
Forever will be a day like this
Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.
Slightly overcast
Yellow leaves
Your jacket hanging in the hallway
Next to mine.

This is from Maggie Smith, author of “Good Bones,” and it has a nice rhythm to it.

Matthew Ogle started up his Pome newsletter again and this showed up a few days ago. The description of that deliberate toad walk is excellent.

Toad

Norman MacCaig (1993)

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse
squeeze under the rickety door and sit,
full of satisfaction, in a man’s house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners –
right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,
for crawling like a Japanese wrestler,
and for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it,
and set you down outside directly under
every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,
you’ve put one in mine,
a tiny radiance in a dark place.

I started reading this one for the title but I love how it veers off into a modern fairy tale, Coscto meatballs and all. (Also how is it only Wednesday, not Thursday?)

IT’S WEDNESDAY, NOT THURSDAY
by Kim Dower

Wake up thinking it’s trash day
so I move the cans out to the front
even though it’s pouring. Back in,
make extra strong coffee,
read the story in the paper
about the 400-pound bear they
captured in La Crescenta, he strolled down
the mountain, lured by the scent
of meatballs from Costco,
made several trips sensing the danger
but those of us who’ve had them can agree
those meatballs from Costco are worth
getting pierced by tranquilizer darts.
“Like moving a water bed without a frame,”
claimed the State Fish and Game officials
who loaded him into the truck.
I hope a princess kisses him, he wakes up
human, marries, lives happily ever after
in a home at the edge of a forest
where a bear will stray from the mountain,
raid his garbage, and the ex-bear, father of two,
will keep buckets of chilled meatballs in every room
of his sprawling ranch-style home.

I saw this on the Poetry Is Not a Luxury account back in the spring and it is a delight. Poems with dogs in them always seem especially tender to me, and that last line is so hopeful.

This is a sad one, but I’ve been feeling…not just sad, but discouraged lately. Downhearted, if you will. (Saw this one on Twitter, and yeah. That last line.)

Downhearted
by Ada Limon

Six horses died in a tractor-trailer fire.
There. That’s the hard part. I wanted
to tell you straight away so we could
grieve together. So many sad things,
that’s just one on a long recent list
that loops and elongates in the chest,
in the diaphragm, in the alveoli. What
is it they say, heart-sick or downhearted?
I picture a heart lying down on the floor
of the torso, pulling up the blankets
over its head, thinking this pain will
go on forever (even though it won’t).
The heart is watching Lifetime movies
and wishing, and missing all the good
parts of her that she has forgotten.
The heart is so tired of beating
herself up, she wants to stop it still,
but also she wants the blood to return,
wants to bring in the thrill and wind of the ride,
the fast pull of life driving underneath her.
What the heart wants? The heart wants
her horses back.

Originally written in 1970 as a spoken word piece, Gil Scott-Heron’s poem has gone viral this week. I love the thought of a poem going viral; I just wish it weren’t for a d*ck-measuring contest between billionaires who could take just a fraction of their money and actually help people, rather than pretending to be astronauts.

Whitey On The Moon
Gil Scott-Heron

A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey’s on the moon)
I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Ten years from now I’ll be paying still.
(while Whitey’s on the moon)
The man just upped my rent last night.
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
I wonder why he’s upping me?
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
I wuz already paying him fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes taking my whole damn check,
Junkies making me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is going up,
An’ as if all that shit was’t enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arm began to swell.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Was all that money I made last year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain’t no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon)
Y’know I just about had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I’ll send these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)

This showed up in the Poets.org newsletter a couple weeks ago and there’s a lot to love in it: I, too, own a drill I’m not great at using! I, too, want people to say, “damn that’s a nice house! But this part right in the middle is the best:

which tools repair/ the aging dog, the wilting snake plant, the crow’s feet/ under my eyes, the stiff knee or bad back./ & maybe this is how it is—how parts of our small universe/ dissolve like sugar cubes in water—a calling to ask us/ to slow our busy breathing so we can marvel/ at its magic.

By Dorianne Laux, from poetry Instagram:

This was in Laura Olin’s newsletter last week and it’s a doozy.

Earl
by Louise Jenkins

In Sitka, because they are fond of them,
People have named the seals. Every seal
is named Earl because they are killed one
after another by the orca, the killer
whale; seal bodies tossed left and right
into the air. “At least he didn’t get
Earl,” someone says. And sure enough,
after a time, that same friendly,
bewhiskered face bobs to the surface.
It’s Earl again. Well, how else are you
to live except by denial, by some
palatable fiction, some little song to
sing while the inevitable, the black and
white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling
toward you out of the deep?