Category: Poetry

“If I Were a Dog” by Richard Shelton

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments

I would trot down this road sniffing
on one side and then the other
peeing a little here and there
wherever I felt the urge
having a good time what the hell
saving some because it’s a long road

but since I’m not a dog
I walk straight down the road
trying to get home before dark

if I were a dog and I had a master
who beat me I would run away
and go hungry and sniff around
until I found a master who loved me
I could tell by his smell and I
would lick his face so he knew

or maybe it would be a woman
I would protect her we could go
everywhere together even down this
dark road and I wouldn’t run from side
to side sniffing I would always
be protecting her and I would stop
to pee only once in awhile

sometimes in the afternoon we could
go to the park and she would throw
a stick I would bring it back to her

each time I put the stick at her feet
I would say this is my heart
and she would say I will make it fly
but you must bring it back to me
I would always bring it back to her
and to no other if I were a dog

“If I Were a Dog” by Richard Shelton, from The Last Person to Hear Your Voice. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.

“For Every Action” by Heather Void

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I replaced my glasses lenses with those that filter in
every event through the translucence of temporality and
made a valiant effort to appreciate how temporary we are-
Not we as in you and I, but we as in this new combination from
the conservation of masses- take all the people and put them
together, you can call it a mixture but it is more like chemical
bonding, because they become something different: a crowd,
the same way that the us made from you and me can die (or no
let’s not say die let’s say become lonelier) without our individual
beings completely arriving at the bottom of the extinction list.
however it won’t ever be the same; we knew that signing on-
we aren’t completely compounds, though those have different
properties from the elements that are creating them. we are
chromosomes, darling; sparking with eagerness to show what
wonders we contain, and in the process of prophase, losing some
of what you and I used to say “I am” to, in favor of this sum of
factors that we have blended in a set ratio in the right
conditions as we sit and stargaze at our future, hoping for a
supernova, since if we have to cease to exist we might as well
explode.

“For Every Action” by Heather Void

“For Every Action” is shared courtesy of Heather in honor of National Pi Day. No, not apple pie, but pi pi — “3.14159 … pi.” Stop by and see more musings on pi (and some brilliant poetry) by Heather at her blog HeatherVoid. Thanks, Heather! -christy

(My nerdy contribution was posting this at 9:59 am local; 3+1+4+1:59 … )

“The Name of a Fish” by Faith Shearin

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

If winter is a house then summer is a window
in the bedroom of that house. Sorrow is a river
behind the house and happiness is the name

of a fish who swims downstream. The unborn child
who plays the fragrant garden is named Mavis:
her red hair is made of future and her sleek feet

are wet with dreams. The cat who naps
in the bedroom has his paws in the sun of summer
and his tail in the moonlight of change. You and I

spend years walking up and down the dusty stairs
of the house. Sometimes we stand in the bedroom
and the cat walks towards us like a message.

Sometimes we pick dandelions from the garden
and watch the white heads blow open
in our hands. We are learning to fish in the river

of sorrow; we are undressing for a swim.

“The Name of a Fish” by Faith Shearin, from The Owl Question. © Utah State University Press, 2002.

“What the Dead Know” by Mark Kraushaar

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

They know to keep quiet.
But they would tell you don’t worry.
They would tell you there’s
sloping gentle fields and a marvelous light.
They’d whisper, Mister,
take it easy, they would signal Madam, buy a hat.
They would tell you start again, rent a room, move
forward, breathe a little, read a little,
take a walk, watch your step.
They would tell you God
wears plaid pants, six-eyelet
oxfords, and a wrist watch, Helbros, gold.
They would tell you God’s
a girl in third grade knotting Her shoe.
They would tell you God’s a man with cracked glasses
mowing His yard, or He lives with Lilly,
His wife, and a son named Sal.
They would tell you He works in auto body repair
and plays the guitar.
They would tell you He’s thought up Himself,
that He thinks up botany and basketball,
eczema, mustard, and mayhem.
They would tell you He makes up the malls
and the back-alleys, the droplets, and the tiny specks
and spores, and the long, loud parties
that reach deep into the morning and mean
for someone a meeting, for someone
a mating and for someone a crashed
yellow Chevy and a trip to the joint.
They would say He makes up the frowsy freeways
and the dirty everyday, or that regarding a white cloud
in the shape of a thumbless glove, He thinks up breakfast
with bacon that sizzles and curls on itself like a lie though He
may never speak of this even to Himself.
What do the dead know?
They’ve signed on to keep quiet,
but if they could tell you they would,
and if they could they would comfort you.
They’d tell you, Go on and be happy, try it.
You would.

“What the Dead Know” by Mark Kraushaar

“Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

bluebird
by Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be sad.

then I put him back,
but he’s still singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

“Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

***

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

***

Charles Bukowski, August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994.

March 9, 2014 (tomorrow) marks the twentieth anniversary of Bukowski’s death.