Category: Poetry

“Sometimes Even My Knees Smile” by Diane Wakoski

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

You have replaced Beethoven
in my life.

My bones are piled up in neat little
stacks
waiting for you to
put them in your pocket.

The prickly movement under my skin,
an alligator stranded on the desert,
is your mustache
which I have been stealing, hair by hair, in your
sleep each night.

A brown thrasher is pecking at my throat.
The breath of birds
that passes over my wrists and nipples
opening the umbrella,
is your touching. I would open up anything
even my belly or crack open my bones
for you.

I would give you
anything
except a poem. Those I hold close
like diamonds up the ass in an African mine;
even those I would
give too
if you asked
but it is Beethoven you replaced
in my life.
And he had music so loud in his head
he didn’t need words.
The poet is the lover who can’t speak to—
isn’t heard by—
his love.

Diane Wakoski, Emerald Ice: Selected Poems 1962-1987

“Even the Gas Station Attendant Here Is Nice to Me” by Leigh Stein

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry3 Comments

I lost my job at the factory, but before you get mad
I want you to know that last night I woke up in the snow
without shoes, and I didn’t call up to your window;
I let you sleep because I remembered our agreement.

This is what happened: he caught me in the freezer
with his copy of Ulysses and asked me what I thought
I was doing. What could I be doing, I said, what
are my options. I still had on my latex gloves

and I know you won’t want to hear this part, but
I opened a carton of macaroons with my teeth.
You have always wanted to do that, he said. Yes,
I said. He said, I can’t let you do that. So I ate one.

He turned off the lights. I took a yellow cake
off a shelf and lit twenty candles to warm our hands.
How is this night different from all other nights?
There was a time when I didn’t have to sleepwalk

everywhere. You remember. I was here. But
then I got used to waking up every morning
in a different city, without you, without the same
sun, the same lack of a view, all that scaffolding,

none of the sea, every piece of mail a sympathy card.
I can never go back there. I stole his book. When you
go to work every morning, I walk to Jerusalem.
I am answering your letter. You are ruining my life.

 

Leigh Stein, from Dispatch from the Future: Poems

“No Need” by Raymond Carver

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

I see an empty place at the table.
Whose? Who else’s? Who am I kidding?
The boat’s waiting. No need for oars
or a wind. I’ve left the key
in the same place. You know where.
Remember me and all we did together.
Now, hold me tight. That’s it. Kiss me
hard on the lips. There. Now
let me go, my dearest. Let me go.
We shall not meet again in this life,
so kiss me goodbye now. Here, kiss me again.
Now, my dearest, let me go.
It’s time to be on the way.

from All of Us

“A Few Of The Crimes You’ve Committed Against My Heart” by Dara Wier

On By Christina's WordsIn Music, Poetry

Arson. Most of all arson. Tongues of flame flare lick, lick and like
So many others of us, I like fire and I like water & a good flaring.
Larceny. A little bit of larceny.
Treason. Exquisitely executed, the ultra high kind. Peppered
With a few petty kickbacks. Like in a self-serve brain surgery
In and Out Same Day Service Bargain Up Way. Buy One, Get One
Free. You committed fog against me. You committed horses
Against me. You attacked me with hummingbirds.
You ambushed me with iridescence. You scapled me
With seeds. You blindsided me with stars. You pushed me over
The edge with bumblebees. You strangled me with my own heart.
You broke into me with gills. Me with lungs under my wings.
With books you electrocuted me. With words you tore me to pieces.
With inferotemporal neurons you swindled me.
You hung me with sattelites. With time and distance you slay me.
You pepper-sprayed me with music. You took out my eyes, so you
Said, to polish them up a bit. You stole my petticoat, my pretty chemise.
You over-salted me with blizzards. You deserted me at noon.
You committed rain against me. You committed sharks against me.
With rivers and meadows, you lied to me, with canyons and the tops of fog
Shrouded mountains. You put ravens in there to kidnap me. You
Burned me with songbirds & nightfall & morning. You scalded me with
Flocks, you stole my tongue with tides. With all of this you put me down.

– Dara Wier via Notnostrums

*

“Criminal” by Fiona Apple

“Siren Song” by Margaret Atwood

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry3 Comments
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.
I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song
is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique
at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

.

Margaret Atwood, “Siren Song” from Selected Poems 1965-1975. Copyright © 1974, 1976 by Margaret Atwood.

Source: Poetry (February 1974).