poems

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?

To be completely honest, educating myself about what’s going on in Israel/Palestine has felt like too much lately. My privilege whispers, “But you’re working on being anti-racist! You’re calling out misogyny! You’re getting your head around prison abolition and Asian-American fetishization and doing your own work in therapy and isn’t that all enough?” But the thing about intersectionality (and just being a good human) is–you gotta care about it all. And caring also means learning. So I will start.

This poem was in Laura Olin’s newsletter two weeks ago and it shook me. You don’t need to know the history of the West Bank or the origins of the conflict to feel the panic at the end: “It doesn’t matter/ that 58 seconds isn’t long enough/ to find your wedding album/ or your son’s favorite blanket”. You don’t need to know a lot to know that bombing civilians is wrong.

Running Orders
By Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

This was today’s Poets.org newsletter pick and I, for one, think there should be more poems about truck license plates.

Joy Priest

This was from the Poets.org newsletter a bit ago and “the worm, content in its windowless world” is just great, as is the ending. Here’s to ease for everyone, even if you’re not a coyote or a puma.

Nothing Wants To Suffer

Nothing wants to suffer. Not the wind
as it scrapes itself against the cliff. Not the cliff

being eaten, slowly, by the sea. The earth does not want
to suffer the rough tread of those who do not notice it.

The trees do not want to suffer the axe, nor see
their sisters felled by root rot, mildew, rust.

The coyote in its den. The puma stalking its prey.
These, too, want ease and a tender animal in the mouth

to take their hunger. An offering, one hopes,
made quickly, and without much suffering.

The chair mourns an angry sitter. The lamp, a scalded moth.
A table, the weight of years of argument.

We know this, though we forget.

Not the shark nor the tiger, fanged as they are.
Nor the worm, content in its windowless world

of soil and stone. Not the stone, resting in its riverbed.
The riverbed, gazing up at the stars.

Least of all, the stars, ensconced in their canopy,
looking down at all of us— their offspring—

scattered so far beyond reach.

This is for all the spring green. By Ellen Bass, found here.

I saved this from the Poetry is Not a Luxury Instagram account but you can read it online (or listen to it) here. Ada Limon always cheers me up.

I hate that there are poems about mass murderers using guns (much like “violence against women,” the term “gun violence” takes the agency away and I’m not using it). I hate that my nephew is going to have active shooter drills in school. I hate that we refuse to fix this as a country. I am telling my senators all of this; you can too.

Do it for “everyone on campus and at the mall, and all the people/ waiting at the hospital.”

Brendan Constantine

The Opposites Game

                              for Patricia Maisch

This day my students and I play the Opposites Game
with a line from Emily Dickinson. My life had stood
a loaded gun, it goes and I write it on the board,
pausing so they can call out the antonyms –

My                 Your
Life                Death
Had stood ?   Will sit
A                   Many
Loaded                     Empty
Gun ?

Gun.
For a moment, very much like the one between
lightning and it’s sound, the children just stare at me,
and then it comes, a flurry, a hail storm of answers –

Flower, says one. No, Book, says another. That’s stupid,
cries a third, the opposite of a gun is a pillow. Or maybe
a hug, but not a book, no way is it a book. With this,
the others gather their thoughts

and suddenly it’s a shouting match. No one can agree,
for every student there’s a final answer. It’s a song,
a prayer, I mean a promise, like a wedding ring, and
later a baby. Or what’s that person who delivers babies?

A midwife? Yes, a midwife. No, that’s wrong. You’re so
wrong you’ll never be right again. It’s a whisper, a star,
it’s saying I love you into your hand and then touching
someone’s ear. Are you crazy? Are you the president

of Stupid-land? You should be, When’s the election?
It’s a teddy bear, a sword, a perfect, perfect peach.
Go back to the first one, it’s a flower, a white rose.
When the bell rings, I reach for an eraser but a girl

snatches it from my hand. Nothing’s decided, she says,
We’re not done here. I leave all the answers
on the board. The next day some of them have
stopped talking to each other, they’ve taken sides.

There’s a Flower club. And a Kitten club. And two boys
calling themselves The Snowballs. The rest have stuck
with the original game, which was to try to write
something like poetry.

It’s a diamond, it’s a dance,
the opposite of a gun is a museum in France.
It’s the moon, it’s a mirror,
it’s the sound of a bell and the hearer.

The arguing starts again, more shouting, and finally
a new club. For the first time I dare to push them.
Maybe all of you are right, I say.

Well, maybe. Maybe it’s everything we said. Maybe it’s
everything we didn’t say. It’s words and the spaces for words.
They’re looking at each other now. It’s everything in this room
and outside this room and down the street and in the sky.

It’s everyone on campus and at the mall, and all the people
waiting at the hospital. And at the post office. And, yeah,
it’s a flower, too. All the flowers. The whole garden.
The opposite of a gun is wherever you point it.

Don’t write that on the board, they say. Just say poem.
Your death will sit through many empty poems.