Category: Poetry

“If I Left You A Voicemail This Would Be It” by Shinji Moon

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

I almost miss the sound of your voice but know that the rain
outside my window will suffice for tonight.
I’m not drunk yet, but we haven’t spoken in months now
and I wanted to tell you that someone threw a bouquet of roses
in the trash bin on the corner of my street, and I wanted to cry
because, because —
well,
you know exactly why.

And, I guess I’m calling because only you understand
how that would break my heart.

I’m running out of things to say. My gas is running on empty.
I’ve stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus
and looked for synonyms for you but could only find rain and more rain
and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, like an orchestra.

I wanted to tell you that I’m not afraid of being moved anymore;
Not afraid of this heart packing up its things and flying transcontinental
with only a wool coat and a pocket with a folded-up address inside.

I’ve saved up enough money to disappear.
I know you never thought the day would come.

Do you remember when we said goodbye and promised that
it was only for then? It’s been years since I last saw you, years
since we last have spoken.

Sometimes, it gets quiet enough that I can hear the cicadas rubbing their thighs
against each other’s.

I’ve forgotten almost everything about you already, except that
your skin was soft, like the belly of a peach, and
how you would laugh,
making fun of me for the way I pronounced almonds
like I was falling in love
with language.

“If I Left You a Voicemail This Would Be It” by Shinji Moon, from The Anatomy of Being

“Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing” by Margaret Atwood

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry3 Comments

The world is full of women
who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they’d say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I’ve a choice
of how, and I’ll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it’s all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything’s for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can’t. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape’s been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there’s only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it’s the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can’t hear them.
And I can’t, because I’m after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don’t let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I’ll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That’s what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They’d like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look—my feet don’t hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I’m rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I’m not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you’ll burn.

— “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing” by Margaret Atwood

“Abandonment” by Amanda Helm

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

I am sweeping and mopping and scrubbing everywhere I go.
Sweeping up shattered shards of who I once was and
mopping up the pieces that disintegrated into empty promises and I scrub the old memories of who he was off of my skin –
everyday I am sweeping and mopping and scrubbing.
when I started leaving everyone who told me they loved me,
I realized I had become the product of abandonment.
I had been left by people who said they cared about me, and this
burned inside my memory as the way to show love.

the second to last time I left someone, I realized three months too late that I was only leaving because I was afraid.
so when the next guy came around, I stayed too long because I thought regret would fill me as soon as I closed the door.
So I stayed and endured and hurt,
and broke.

And here I am alone and unable to trust my own judgement and unable to trust my own heart and unable to trust anyone else.

I am a product of being abandoned and I don’t know how to love.

– Amanda Helm, “Abandonment”

“Repetition” by Phil Kaye

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Spoken Word2 Comments

I remember the bed just floating there.
Apart, apart, apart, apart.
My mother taught me this trick
If you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning
For example:
Homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework
See, nothing
Our existence, she said, is the same way.
You watch the sun set too often, it just becomes 6 PM
You make the same mistake over and over; you’ll stop calling it a mistake
If you just
wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up,
one day you’ll forget why
Nothing is forever, she said
My parents left each other when I was 7 years old
Before their last argument they sent me off to the neighbor’s house,
like some astronaut jettisoned from the shuttle.
When I came back there was no gravity in our home, beds floating
I imagined it as an accident, that when I left
They whispered to each other “I love you” so many times over
that they forgot what it meant
Family, family, family, family, family, family
My mother taught me this trick
If you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning
This became my favorite game
It made the sting of words evaporate.
Separation, separation, separation;
see, nothing
Apart, apart, apart;
see, nothing
I am an injured handyman now
I work with words all day
Shut up, I know the irony!
When I was young, I was taught that the trick to dominating language
was breaking it down
Convincing it that it was worthless
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you;
See, nothing
Soon after my parents’ divorce, I developed a stutter
Fate is a cruel and efficient tutor
There is no escape in stutter
You feel the meaning of every word drag itself up your throat
S-s-s-separation
Stutter is a cage made of mirrors
Every “Are you ok?”
Every “What’d you say?”
Every “Come on kid, spit it out”
Is a glaring reflection you cannot escape
Every terrible moment skips upon its own announcement
Over and over until it just hangs there,
floating in the middle of the room
Mom, Dad,
I am not wasteful with my words anymore.
Even now after hundreds of hours of practicing away my stutter,
I still feel the claw of meaning in the bottom of my throat.
I have heard that even in space;
You can hear the scratching of a
I-I-I-I love you.

Phil Kaye // “Repetition”

video via Button Poetry
text via Poetry Genius

“You Don’t Know What Love Is” by Ramond Carver

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

You don’t know what love is Bukowski said
I’m 51 years old look at me
I’m in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she’s hung up too
so it’s all right man that’s the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can’t get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don’t let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it’s like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I’ll start throwing people out windows
I’ll throw anybody out the window
I’ve done it
But you don’t know what love is
You don’t know because you’ve never
been in love it’s that simple
I got this young broad see she’s beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don’t know what love is
I’m telling you what it is
but you aren’t listening
There isn’t one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ass
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I’m 51 years old and I’ve been around
I know they’re a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what’s his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he’s a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you’re teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven’t heard of him
or him either
They’re all termites
Maybe it’s ego I don’t read much anymore
but these people who build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can’t you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn’t it
You wouldn’t think a crude bastard like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
Shit I couldn’t write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that’s the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you’re a lucky man
Bukowski you’ve gone through it all
and you’re a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it’s good to be poor it’s good to have hemorrhoids
it’s good to be in love
But you don’t know what it’s like
You don’t know what it’s like to be in love
If you could see her you’d know what I mean
She thought I’d come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
Shit I’m 51 years old and she’s 25
and we’re in love and she’s jealous
Jesus it’s beautiful
she said she’d claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that’s love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I’ve met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They’re bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet’s socks are dirty
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won’t disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there’s only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that’s me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They’d fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what’s it like I’ve been there
I’m 51 years old now and I’m in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you’re full of shit
and I say baby you understand me
She’s the only broad in the world
man or woman
I’d take that from
But you don’t know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don’t see any poets
I’m not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don’t know what it is to be in love
that’s your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That’s right no ice good
That’s good that’s just fine
So let’s get this show on the road
I know what I said but I’ll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let’s go let’s get this over with
only afterwards don’t anyone stand close
to an open window

“You Don’t Know What Love Is” by Raymond Carver from All of Us: The Collected Poems