Category: Poetry

“Kissing as a Religion” by Susan Doble Kaluza

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

In 19th century Rome it was said that the monks
kissed the backs of their hands as a sign of repentance.
Oh, how I repented as a Catholic girl, even as I kissed you—

kissing and repenting, kissing and repenting—as I pulled your top lip
with my teeth, biting ever so gently. How absurd to think
kissing gets any better than the first time you leaned over me,

breath thick with Jack and Coke, that rogue teenage elixir,
and whatever warp speed hormone instigates back seat sex
and what is now considered nothing but a little teasing

in the area of petting. Sounds like a zoo, kissing does, back then
travelling north on the county road just after dusk, after the cattle
lumbered off on their arthritic hocks, kicking up dust that smelled

like manure and left us alone in your idling car in the middle of the pasture.
I’ve fought the urge for years to write a poem about your lips, for which
I can only think in terms of “exquisite” and other adjectives strictly forbidden

in poetry classes—your perfectly aligned teeth, your soft boyish whispers.
Sometimes I think I was never actually there in the afterlife of your words,
those jerry-rigged one-liners bolstering my heart, stopping, not stopping

in my ear as you pulled back my hair. Now I think there was nothing to repent for,
nothing to confess. If ever there was a sin for which penance was required
it would be for never kissing like this not once since.

Susan Doble Kaluza

via Rattle #43, Love Poems

“The Stars Are Words” by Jack Kerouac

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize

“The stars are words”

and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words,
and so is this world too.

And I realize that no matter where I am,
whether in a little room full of thought,

or in this endless universe of stars and mountains,
it’s all in my mind.

– Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler

“Dinosaurs in the Hood” by Danez Smith

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Spoken Word1 Comment

Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.
Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.

Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays
with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,
the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.
Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops
& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene

where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene
where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let
the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit
about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.
This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —

children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town
from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive
Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding
black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith
& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors

with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,
screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.
I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick
through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be
a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed

because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor
for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.
This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.
This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.
This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie

who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.
No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills
the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason
I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy
on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless

his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.

 

Danez Smith performs “Dinosaurs in the Hood”

“Melancholia” by Charles Bukowski

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

the history of melancholia
includes all of us.

me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing.

I have gotten so used to melancholia
that
I greet it like an old
friend.

I will now do 15 minutes of grieving
for the lost redhead,
I tell the gods.

I do it and feel quite bad
quite sad,
then I rise
CLEANSED
even though nothing
is solved.

that’s what I get for kicking
religion in the ass.

I should have kicked the redhead
in the ass
where her brains and her bread and
butter are
at …

but, no, I’ve felt sad
about everything:
the lost redhead was just another
smash in a lifelong
loss …

I listen to drums on the radio now
and grin.
there is something wrong with me
besides
melancholia.

 

~Charles Bukowski, from The Pleasures of the Damned

“Mars and Venus” by Kathleen Diane Nolan

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry3 Comments
so one night I was walking up Madison after the rain and this homeless man was sitting on the sidewalk sobbing so I got him soup and a sandwich and that didn’t seem like enough so I got a brownie too and when I told the cashier it’s for the guy outside she gave me a cup of coffee light and sweet  I brought the food and the coffee to the guy and he said don’t think I’m going to thank you and I said I don’t care if you thank me and he said, bullshit, you do yes you do  truth  he asked if I was from Mars or Venus because I looked intergalactic baby and what do you do up there all day anyway he wanted to know and no way was I saying social work so I said I was a poet and he said he was a poet too  he told me to sit and I did even though the pavement was wet and everything smelled like shit and sour milk  then we watched the skyline crossing the stars for a long time and he said Venus this is not how things are supposed to be and I said yes I know and he said no you don’t you do not  then he told me to remember three things always  we are all transparent with no skin or bones  diamonds come from ashes and hair of the dead  hope is the thing with claws not feathers  he told me to put all of this in a poem and not to walk near Madison and 38th Street ever again  this is my corner he said

—from Rattle #44, Summer 2014; Kathleen Diane Nolan