Tag: poetry

Blue Rotunda

fleshactivities:

I am tired of having hands
she said
I want wings —

But what will you do without your hands
to be human?

I am tired of human
she said
I want to live on the sun —

     •

Pointing to herself:

Not here.
There is not enough
warmth in this place.
Blue sky, blue ice

the blue rotunda
lifted over
the flat street —

and then, after a silence:

    •

I want
my heart back
I want to feel everything again —

That’s what
the sun meant: it meant
scorched —

    •

It is not finally
interesting to remember.
The damage

is not interesting.
No one who knew me then
is still alive.

My mother
was a beautiful woman —
they all said so.

    •

I have to imagine
everything
she said

I have to act
as though there is actually
a map to that place:

when you were a child —

    •

And then:

I’m here
because it wasn’t true; I

distorted it —

    •

I want she said
a theory that explains
everything

in the mother’s eye
the invisible
splinter of foil

the blue ice
locked in the iris —

Then:

I want it
to be my fault
she said
so I can fix it —

    •

Blue sky, blue ice,
street like a frozen river

you’re talking
about my life
she said

except
she said
you have to fix it

in the right order
not touching the father
until you solve the mother

    •

a black space
showing
where the word ends

like a crossword saying
you should take a breath now

the black space meaning
when you were a child —

    •

And then:

the ice
was there for your own protection

to teach you
not to feel —

the truth
she said

I thought it would be like
a target, you would see

the center —

    •

Cold light filling the room.

I know where we are
she said
that’s the window
when I was a child

That’s my first home, she said
that square box —
go ahead and laugh.

Like the inside of my head:
you can see out
but you can’t go out —

    •

Just think
the sun was there, in that bare place

the winter sun
not close enough to reach
the children’s hearts

the light saying
you can see out
but you can’t go out

Here, it says,
here is where everything belongs

Louise Glück

Three Fields To Leave You

nectar-traps:

nectar-traps:

My own undressing bores me 
but it does not bore you. There is 
an economics to this. Heliotrope: the 
staging 
             of a pre-dawn field. Little

footsteps—4am—an even
snow. Somewhere
                               a daughter is

abjected. It must go on record
that such occurrences take
place, disproportionately, at

the centre of a field. That said,
there are fields we can
choose from.
                      In one

she has frozen to death.
      [Paradoxical undressing: a phenomenon
      [frequently seen in cases of lethal hypoth
      [ermia in which, shortly before death, ind
       [ividuals will remove all or most of their c
       [lothing. Because of this, exposure casual
      [ties are often misidentified as victims of
      [a violent crime.
                                Another: plastic

forks. It is not unusual
to dredge one’s hands through
layer upon                     layer of
unspeakable
                     whiteness and find
something other

than wheat. To snap the prongs
from a brittler frame. To hold them
in one’s mouth.
                         The final field  

is printless. Bare. She
melts it
             inside-out.

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The Way One Animal Trusts Another | Carl Phillips

exceptindreams:

“The Way One Animal Trusts Another”
Carl Phillips

             Somewhere between what it feels like, to be at
one with the sea, and to understand the sea as
mere context for the boat whose engine refuses
finally to turn over: yeah, I know the place—
stumbled into it myself, once; twice, almost.  All
around and in between the two trees that
grow there, tree of compassion and—much taller—
tree of pity, its bark more bronze, the snow
             settled as if an openness of any kind meant, as well,
a woundedness that, by filling it, the snow
might heal…You know what I think? I think if we’re
lost, you should know exactly where, by now; I’ve
watched you stare long and hard enough at the map
already…I’m beginning to think I may never
not be undecided, about all sorts of things: whether
snow really does resemble the broken laughter
             of the long-abandoned when what left comes back
big-time; whether gratitude’s just a haunted
space like any other.  This place sounds daily
more like a theater of war, each time I listen to it—
loss, surprise, victory, being only three of the countless
fates, if you want to call them that, that we don’t
so much live with, it seems, as live for now among.  If as
close as we’re ever likely to get, you and I, is this—this close—

House: Some Instructions

whisperthatruns:

If you have a house
you must think about it all the time  
as you reside in the house so
it must be a home in your mind

you must ask yourself (wherever you are)  
have I closed the front door

and the back door is often forgotten  
not against thieves necessarily

but the wind   oh   if it blows  
either door open   then the heat

the heat you’ve carefully nurtured  
with layers of dry hardwood

and a couple of opposing green  
brought in to slow the fire

as well as the little pilot light  
in the convenient gas backup

all of that care will be mocked because  
you have not kept the house on your mind

but these may actually be among  
the smallest concerns   for instance

the house could be settling   you may  
notice the thin slanting line of light

above the doors   you have to think about that  
luckily you have been paying attention

the house’s dryness can be humidified  
with vaporizers in each room and pots

of water on the woodstove   should you leave  
for the movies after dinner   ask yourself

have I turned down the thermometer
and moved all wood paper away from the stove

the fiery result of excited distraction  
could be too horrible to describe

now we should talk especially to Northerners  
of the freezing of the pipe   this can often

be prevented by pumping water continuously  
through the baseboard heating system

allowing the faucet to drip drip continuously  
day and night   you must think about the drains

separately   in fact you should have established  
their essential contribution to the ordinary

kitchen and toilet life of the house  
digging these drains deep into warm earth

if it hasn’t snowed by mid-December you  
must cover them with hay   sometimes rugs

and blankets have been used   do not be  
troubled by their monetary value

as this is a regionally appreciated emergency  
you may tell your friends to consider

your house as their own   that is  
if they do not wear outdoor shoes

when thumping across the gleam of their poly-
urethaned floors they must bring socks or slippers

to your house as well   you must think  
of your house when you’re in it and

when you’re visiting the superior cabinets  
and closets of others   when you approach

your house in the late afternoon
in any weather   green or white   you will catch

sight first of its new aluminum snow-resistant  
roof and the reflections in the cracked windows

its need in the last twenty-five years for paint  
which has created a lovely design

in russet pink and brown   the colors of un-
intentioned neglect   you must admire the way it does not

(because of someone’s excellent decision
sixty years ago) stand on the high ridge deforming

the green profile of the hill but rests in the modesty  
of late middle age under the brow of the hill with

its back to the dark hemlock forest looking steadily
out for miles toward the cloud refiguring meadows and

mountains of the next state   coming up the road
by foot or auto the house can be addressed personally

House!   in the excitement of work and travel to
other people’s houses with their interesting improvements

we thought of you often and spoke of your coziness
in winter   your courage in wind and fire   your small

airy rooms in humid summer   how you nestle in spring
into the leaves and flowers of the hawthorn and the sage green

leaves of the Russian olive tree   House!   you were not forgotten

Grace Paley,
Begin Again: The Collected Poems of Grace Paley

(1999), via the Poetry Foundation

newyorker:

lifeinpoetry:

This is my knee, since she touches me there.
This is my throat, as defined by her reaching.
I am touched—I am.

— Natalie Diaz, from “isn’t the air also a body, moving?” to Ada Limón, published in The New Yorker

image

From January through September of 2017, the poets Natalie Diaz and Ada Limón conducted an inspired and collaborative correspondence. The resulting poem-letters reveal, as most missives do, their writers’ lives, but also a time and a place. Read (and listen to) their correspondence here.