Category: Reader Recommended

“Fabric” by Bruce Snider

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Reader Recommended4 Comments

What the lawyers didn’t say
was that neither of you
had a choice once you saw how small
he was, once you heard his narrow
shoulders speak to you about the frail
architecture of his rib cage,
about the delicate, finely scooped bowl
of his skull, about how in this life
there are so few chances
to dominate another man,
even a young man like this
who’d probably known a hundred bullies
like you, sporting their father’s
army jackets and crooked teeth.
And you knew that,
which is why you were there
that night drinking in a bar
in a place like any other place
where clouds move like shadows
and weakness is a badge
no man wears when he walks
out into the street. And so you never
had a choice. It was either
beat him and leave him by the field
or forget the fabric
of his shirt was as thin
as what separates you
from becoming him. It was either
beat him and leave him by the field
or take him in your arms
and lift him off that fence, take him
and ease him to the frozen earth, take him
and feel his skin against
your skin, your cheek
against his cheek, this young man
you’ve come to murder
in a field, take him, please
just take him in your arms.

from The Year We Studied Women
Copyright 2003 by University of Wisconsin Press

Author’s Note: “Fabric is addressed to Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who murdered Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998.”

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This week of Words is being hosted by poet Brian Dean Powers. We hope you enjoy his selections. Brian shares his poetry at The Body’s Heated Speech. I hope you will stop by to say hello. Thank you, Brian, for your support and for the beautiful Words. ~ Christy

“Freedom” by William Stafford

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Reader Recommended2 Comments

Freedom is not following a river.
Freedom is following a river
     though, if you want to.

It is deciding now by what happens now.
It is knowing that luck makes a difference.

No leader is free; no follower is free–
     the rest of us can often be free.
Most of the world are living by
creeds too odd, chancy, and habit-forming
     to be worth arguing about by reason.

If you are oppressed, wake up about
four in the morning; most places
you can usually be free some of the time
     if you wake up before other people.

from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems
Copyright 1998 by Graywolf Press

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This week of Words is being hosted by poet Brian Dean Powers. We hope you enjoy his selections. Brian shares his poetry at The Body’s Heated Speech. I hope you will stop by to say hello. Thank you, Brian, for your support and for the beautiful Words. ~ Christy

“No More Than This, Provincetown” by Richard Blanco

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Reader Recommended3 Comments

Today, home is a cottage with morning
in the yawn of an open window. I watch
the crescent moon, like a wind-blown sail,
vanish. Blue slowly fills the sky and light
regains the trust of wildflowers blooming
with fresh spider webs spun stem to stem.
The room rises with the toasting of bread,
a stick of butter puddling in a dish, a knife
at rest, burgundy apples ready to be halved,
a pint of blueberries bleeding on the counter,
and little more than this. A nail in the wall
with a pair of disembodied jeans, a red jersey,
and shoes embossed by the bones of my feet
and years of walking. I sit down to breakfast
over the nicks of a pinewood table and I am,
for a moment, not afraid of being no more
than what I hear and see, no more than this:
the echo of bird songs filling an empty vase,
the shadow of a sparrow moving through
the shadow of a tree, disturbing nothing.

 

from Directions to the Beach of the Dead
Copyright 2005 by University of Arizona Press

 

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This week of Words is being hosted by poet Brian Dean Powers. We hope you enjoy his selections. Brian shares his poetry at The Body’s Heated Speech. I hope you will stop by to say hello. Thank you, Brian, for your support and for the beautiful Words. ~ Christy

“What Gorgeous Thing” by Mary Oliver

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Reader Recommended2 Comments

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

 

from Blue Horses
Copyright 2014 by Penguin Press

 

Listen to Garrison Keillor read Oliver’s poem (via The Writer’s Almanac): poem starts at apx. 3:56

 

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This week of Words is being hosted by poet Brian Dean Powers. We hope you enjoy his selections. Brian shares his poetry at The Body’s Heated Speech. I hope you will stop by to say hello. Thank you, Brian, for your support and for the beautiful Words. ~ Christy

“One Night” by Constantine Cavafy

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Reader Recommended1 Comment

The room was cheap and sordid,
hidden above the suspect taverna.
From the window you could see the alley,
dirty and narrow. From below
came the voices of workmen
playing cards, enjoying themselves.

And there on that common, humble bed
I had love’s body, had those intoxicating lips,
red and sensual,
red lips of such intoxication
that now as I write, after so many years,
in my lonely house, I’m drunk with passion again.

 

from Collected Poems, translated by Keeley and Sherrard
Copyright 1992 by Princeton University Press

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This week of Words is being hosted by poet Brian Dean Powers. We hope you enjoy his selections. Brian shares his poetry at The Body’s Heated Speech. I hope you will stop by to say hello. Thank you, Brian, for your support and for the beautiful Words. ~ Christy