Category: Poetry

“The Man Moves Earth” by Cathy Song

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry3 Comments
The man moves earth
to dispel grief.
He digs holes
the size of cars.
In proportion to what is taken
what is given multiplies—
rain-swollen ponds
and dirt mounds
rooted with flame-tipped flowers.
He carries trees like children
struggling to be set down.
Trees that have lived
out their lives,
he cuts and stacks
like loaves of bread
which he will feed the fire.
The green smoke sweetens
his house.

 

The woman sweeps air
to banish sadness.
She dusts floors,
polishes objects
made of clay and wood.
In proportion to what is taken
what is given multiplies—
the task of something
else to clean.
Gleaming appliances
beg to be smudged,
breathed upon by small children
and large animals
flicking out hope
as she whirls by,
flap of tongue,
scratch of paw,
sweetly reminding her.

 

The man moves earth,
the woman sweeps air.
Together they pull water
out of the other,
pull with the muscular
ache of the living,
hauling from the deep
well of the body
the rain-swollen,
the flame-tipped,
the milk-fed—
all that cycles
through lives moving,
lives sweeping, water
circulating between them
like breath,
drawn out of leaves by light.

 

Source: Poetry (April 2005).

“Letter to ____” by Mary Oliver

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments
You have broken my heart.
Just as well. Now
I am learning to rise
above all that, learning
 
the thin life, waking up
simply to praise
everything in this world that is
strong and beautiful
 
always—the trees, the rocks,
the fields, the news
from heaven, the laughter
that comes back
 
all the same. Just as well. Time
to read books, rake the lawn
in peace, sweep the floor, scour
the faces of pans,
 
anything. And I have been so
diligent it is almost
over, I am growing myself
as strong as rock, as a tree
 
which, if I put my arms around it, it does not
lean away. It is a
wonderful life. Comfortable.
I read the papers. Maybe
 
I will go on a cruise, maybe I will
cross the entire ocean, more than once.
Whatever you think, I have scarcely
thought of you. Whatever you imagine.
 
it never really happened. Only a few
evenings of nonsense. Whatever you believe–
dear one, dear one–
do not believe this letter.
~ Mary Oliver, from Thirst

“Poetry Swimsuit Issue” by Charles Greenley

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

Sounds like an unsexy idea at first,
Walt Whitman arching his back with a strategically placed leaf,
or Robert Frost on the road not taken, prancing in a g-string,
but the idea sells itself, handled the right way.

Imagine the typical swimsuit issue fare:
women running on wet sand in bikinis,
topless slovakian blondes self-censoring with their hands,

and if editors can choose women with
hourglass curves and watermelon cleavage
to represent the feminine ideal,

then the poetic version could forsake the big names,
an Olds, a Clifton, or a Dove,
and pick oiled, bronzed poets to help sales.
There must be a twenty-year-old brunette
with Barbie dimensions writing poetry somewhere,
even if it’s a limerick about the Cat in the Hat.

Imagine a poet at the bookstore,
dressed in nothing but anthologies.

Imagine a poet at the library in a two-piece,
holding her book upside down.

Imagine a poet leaning over a typewriter,
her top moist with ink.

And once the pictures are taken,
after the women have selected what poems
appear next to their photo spreads,
once the issue goes to press,

we’ll be able to pinpoint the moment
poetry became cumbersome words
men thumbed past to get back to gawking,
when poetry became popular,
for the same reason most everything else does.

— “Poetry Swimsuit Issue” by Charles Greenley, from Rattle #20, Winter 2003

“What We Want” by Linda Pastan

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

“What We Want,” by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening.

“Everything” by Charles Bukowski

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

the dead do not need
aspirin or
sorrow,
I suppose.

but they might need rain.

not shoes
but a place to
walk.

not cigarettes
they tell us,
but a place to
burn.

or we’re told;
space and a place to
fly
might be the same.

the dead don’t need
me.

nor do the
living.

but the dead might need
each
other.

in fact, the dead might need
everything we
need

and
we need so much,
if we only knew
what it
was.

it is
probably
everything

and we will all
probably die
trying to get
it

or die

because we
don’t get
it.

I hope you understand
when I am dead

I got
as much
as
possible.

~ Charles Bukowski,  (The Roominghouse Madrigals[​IMG])