Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Click the title of the poem to listen.

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Adrienne Rich

To a Frustrated Poet

I think this may be the only poem R.J. Ellmann has ever written, but when you've done this well first shot out of the box, why mess with it? Delight.

Click the title of the poem to listen.

To a Frustrated Poet

This is to say
I know
You wish you were in the woods,
Living the poet life,
Not here at a formica topped table
In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits and
     allowances offered to employees of this college,
And I too wish you were in the woods,
Because it's no fun having a frustrated poet
In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me.
In the poems of yours that I've read, you seem ever intelligent
     and decent and patient in a way 
Not evident to us in this office,
And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble,
Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair,
I give you this check representing two weeks' wages
And ask you to clean out your desk today
And go home
And write a poem
With a real frog in it
And plums from the refrigerator,
So sweet and so cold.

R.J. Ellmann

Dawn Revisited

Click the title of the poem to listen.

Dawn Revisited

Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don't look back,

the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits --
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on, 
shake a leg! You'll never know
who's down there, frying those eggs,
if you don't get up and see.

Rita Dove

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden

A lucky find for me on the Poetry Foundation app, this. It was love at first confusion. I like a good thicket of words, and a love letter to thickets, to home, to love letters? With internal rhymes? Yes, please.

Click the title of the poem to listen.

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden

Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart

Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and

Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves

That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and

Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down   

I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence

And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that

They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense

In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear

She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without

It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when

You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of   

A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets

So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds

With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter

About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on   

The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp

I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry

If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire

So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them

To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you

by Matthea Harvey, from Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form

Why I Have a Crush On You, UPS Man

For all the people I know, including me, whose lives revolve around the mail. But especially for Abby.

Click the title of the poem to listen.

Why I Have a Crush On You, UPS Man

you bring me all the things I order
are never in a bad mood
always have a jaunty wave as you drive away
look good in your brown shorts
we have an ideal uncomplicated relationship
you're like a cute boyfriend with great legs
who always brings the perfect present
(why, it's just what I've always wanted!)
and then is considerate enough to go away
oh, UPS Man, let's hop in your clean brown truck and elope!
ditch your job, I'll ditch mine
let's hit the road for Brownsville
and tempt each other
with all the luscious brown foods --
roast beef, dark chocolate,
brownies, Guinness, homemade pumpernickel, molasses cookies
I'll make you my mama's bourbon pecan pie
we'll give all the packages to kind looking strangers
live in a cozy wood cabin
with with a brown dog or two
and a black and brown tabby
I'm serious, UPS Man. Let's do it.
Where do I sign?

by Alice N. Persons, taken from Good Poems, American Places

People Who Eat in Coffee Shops

This one is for Kaitlyn, in honor of all the years we've taken off our lives in diners. I don't regret one minute, and when are we doing it again? I'll just be over here listening to Small Change the next time you're in town.

This year, I've also recorded all the poems I'm posting. Click the title of the poem to listen.

People Who Eat in Coffee Shops

People who eat in coffee shops
are not worried about nutrition.
They order the toasted cheese sandwiches blithely,
followed by chocolate egg creams and plaster of paris
wedges of lemon meringue pie.
They don't have parental, dental, or medical figures hovering
full of warning, or whip out dental floss immediately.
They can live in furnished rooms and whenever they want
go out and eat glazed donuts along with innumerable coffees,
dousing their cigarettes in sloppy saucers.

by Edward Field, taken from Good Poems, American Places

Gutbucket

Jelly Roll is a bluesey, fluid seduction. I'd never heard of Kevin Young, but when I was browsing for poetry at the library, I liked the cover of this book. I read the whole collection through twice in a week and kept browsing after that. It's overdue now, which means I'm doing my civic-minded part to keep the doors open at Multnomah County Library. Pause for a moment to experience a warm glow of admiration, and then enjoy this.

This year, I've also recorded all the poems I'm posting. Click the title of the poem to listen.

Gutbucket

I want, like
water, you --

something wet
gainst the back

of my throat. Carry
me out

reel me in
I been down

this well too long --

by Kevin Young

national poetry month, day 30.

This seems like a properly stunning note on which to end the month. Thanks go to Shana for this one, as well. My gratitude to everyone who suggested a poem or poet, and who followed this project.

Prologue--And Then She Owns You
by Patricia Smith

This is not morning. There is a nastiness
slowing your shoes, something you shouldn't step in.
It's shattered beads, stomped flowers, vomit--
such stupid beauty,

beauty you can stick a manicured finger
into and through, beauty that doesn't rely
on any sentence the sun chants, it's whiskey
swelter blown scarlet.

Call this something else. Last night it had a name,
a name wedged between an organ's teeth, a name
pumping a virgin unawares, a curse word.
Wail it, regardless,

Weak light, bleakly triumphant, will unveil scabs,
snippets of filth music, cars on collapsed veins.
The whole of gray doubt slithers on solemn skin.
Call her New Orleans.

Each day she wavers, not knowing how long she
can stomach the introduction of needles,
the brash, boozed warbling of bums with neon crowns,
necklaces raining.

She tries on her voice, which sounds like cigarettes,
pubic sweat, brown spittle lining a sax bell
the broken heel on a drag queen's scarlet slings.
Your kind of singing.

Weirdly in love, you rhumba her edges, drink
fuming concoctions, like your lukewarm breakfast
directly from her crust. Go on, admit it.
You are addicted

to her brick hips, the thick swerve she elicits,
the way she kisses you, her lies wide open.
She prefers alleys, crevices, basement floors.
Hell, let her woo you.

This kind of romance dims the worth of soldiers,
bends and breaks the back, sips manna from muscle,
tells you Leave your life. Pack your little suitcase,
flee what is rigid

and duly prescribed. Let her touch that raw space
between cock and calm, the place that scripts such jazz.
Let her pen letters addressed to your asking.
You s-s-stutter.

New Orleans's, p-please. Don't. Blue is the color
stunning your tongue. As least the city pretends
to remember to be listening.
She grins with glint tooth,

wiping your mind blind of the wife, the children,
the numb ritual of job and garden plot.
Gently, she leads you out into the darkness
and makes you drink rain.

national poetry month, day 29.

I've often seen the first stanza of this poem quoted as a sort of life lesson about honesty and confronting your feelings. The full poem, however, is a lot more shivery and complicated than that. From Songs of Innocence and Of Experience. (This one's in Experience. Plainly.)

A Poison Tree
by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

national poetry month, day 28.

Shana found this beautiful disturbance for me on The Nervous Breakdown.

Sideshow

by Lauren Wheeler

For a nickel, you can take a picture of me

standing just so in front of a wooden board

with a heart painted on it.

For a dime, you can take a picture with me,

you squatting behind and peeking through

like I'm one of those cardboard cutouts

of an "Indian Chief" or a unicorn or some other

supposedly mythical creature.

When you offer a quarter, we move to the tent,

dim-lit and dusty, where I sit on the low

quilt-covered pot and pat the space beside me.

You are nervous. "Will it hurt you?"

I shake my head. "It never hurts. Not anymore."

Then I take your hand and guide up towards

the hole in my chest. You tremble for a second

as you reach through me, wiggle your fingers

around behind my back, disbelieving.

"Where is your heart?" you ask.

"How do you live without your heart?"

I take your hand again, kiss it.

"It's amazing the things you can learn 

to live without."

national poetry month, day 26.

I prefer Sherman Alexie's fiction to his poetry, but am always struck dumb by this four part cycle.

Indian Boy Love Song (#1)

Everyone I have lost
in the closing of a door
the click of the lock

is not forgotten, they
do not die but remain
within the soft edges
of the earth, the ash

of house fires and cancer
in sin and forgiveness
huddled under old blankets

dreaming their way into
my hands, my heart
closing tight like fists.

Indian Boy Love Song (#2)

I never spoke
the language
of the old women

visiting my mother
in winters so cold
they could freeze
the tongue whole.

I never held my head
to their thin chests
believing in the heart.

Indian women, forgive me.
I grew up distant
and always afraid.

Indian Boy Love Song (#3)

I remember when I told
my cousin
she was more beautiful

than any white girl
I had ever seen.
She kissed me then
with both lips, a tongue

that tasted clean and un-
clean at the same time
like the river which divides

the heart of my heart, all
the beautiful white girls on one side,
my beautiful cousin on the other.

Indian Boy Love Song (#4)

I remember when my father would leave,
drinking,
for weeks. My mother would tell me

the dream he needed
most
was the dream that frightened him
more

than any stranger ever could.
I
would wait by my window, dreaming

bottles
familiar in my hands, not my father's, always
empty.

national poetry month, day 25.

I couldn't choose just one poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. I couldn't even just choose two. In the end I stopped trying to choose, and here is a whole pile. 

Of Robert Frost

There is a little lightning in his eyes.

Iron at the mouth.

His brows ride neither too far up nor down.

He is splendid. With a place to stand.

Some glowing in the common blood.

Some specialness within.

***

To Be In Love

            To be in love

Is to touch things with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

You look at things

Through his eyes.

             A Cardinal is red.

             A sky is blue.

Suddenly you know he knows too.

He is not there but

You know you are tasting together

The winter, or light spring weather.

His hand to take your hand is overmuch.

Too much to bear.

You cannot look in his eyes

Because your pulse must not say

What must not be said.

When he

Shuts a door --

Is not there --

Your arms are water.

And you are free

With a ghastly freedom.

You are the beautiful half

Of a golden hurt.

You remember and covet his mouth,

to touch, to whisper on.

Oh when to declare

Is certain Death!

Oh when to apprize

Is to mesmerize,

To see fall down, the Column of Gold, 

Into the commonest ash.

***

Langston Hughes

            is merry glory.

Is saltatory.

Yet grips his right of twisting free.

Has a long reach,

Strong speech,

Remedial fears.

Muscular tears.

Holds horticulture

In the eye of the vulture

Infirm profession.

In the Compression --

In mud and blood and sudden death --

In the breath

Of the holocaust he

Is helmsman, hatchet, headlight.

See

One restless in the exotic time! and ever,

Till the air is cured of its fever.

***

My Little 'Bout-Town Gal

Roger of Rhodes

My little 'bout-town gal has gone

'Bout town with powder and blue dye

On her pale lids and on her lips

Dye sits quite carminely.

I'm scarcely healthy-hearted or human.

What can I teach my cheated Woman?

My Tondeleyo, my black blonde

Will not be homing soon.

None shall secure her save the late the

Detective fingers of the moon.

***

The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till

after the murder,

after the burial

Emmett's mother is a pretty-faced thing;

              the tint of pulled taffy.

She sits in a red room,

              drinking black coffee.

She kisses her killed boy.

              And she is sorry.

Chaos in windy grays

              through a red prairie.

national poetry month, day 24.

I love this. It's luscious, it's funny, it's liberally sprinkled with ampersands. It puts the stress and wrangle of taxes in its place. Also "Weekend's ample/procrastinations to forget the least/of what we want to do," which is something I'm trying to get better about. Obviously this would have been better on the 15th, but I didn't find it until several days later. Via the Poetry Magazine Tumblr.

Sex and Taxes
by Kevin Cantwell

      Plum black & the blush white of an apple
shoulder, melon & cream, in tones to list
      the flesh; in light, washed colors off at last
& textures sheer with damp I slowly pull
      from you with your quick help. Weekend's ample
procrastinations to forget the least
      of what we want to do. April, half a blast
of cold, half new light, green & simple.
      Now dusk. Now fear. We pencil what we owe
on this short form, our numbers good enough.
      The goose-neck glare undoes how we spent the day.
Each bite each bee-sting kiss each bitten O
      all aftertaste. Later, at the drop-off,
      postmark queue, we joke: "Now we can die!"

national poetry month, day 23.

Suggested by the magnificent Morgan Jones, and who could possibly resist?

They've Put a Brassiere on a Camel
by Shel Silverstein

They've put a brassiere on a camel,
She wasn't dressed proper, you know.
They've put a brassiere on a camel,
So that her humps wouldn't show.
And they're making other respectable plans,
They're even insisting the pigs should wear pants,
They'll dress up the ducks if we give them the chance
Since they've put a brassiere on a camel.

They've put a brassiere on a camel,
They claim she's more decent that way.
They've put a brassiere on a camel,
The camel had nothing to say.
They squeezed her into it, I'll never know how,
They say that she looks more respectable now,
Lord knows what they've got in mind for the cow.

national poetry month, day 22.

For Kaitlyn, who asked for H.D.

Evening
by H.D.

The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower --
the hepaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint --
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
towards the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.

The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots --
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost.

national poetry month, day 21.

Strong words, gently spoken. This is something I read for the first time this week, and I find it deeply moving.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other
by William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider --
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give -- yes or no, or maybe --
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

national poetry month, day 20.

I browsed through a bunch of Shakespeare for something to post, but nothing was really striking my fancy (hubris!). Instead of a sonnet or a passage from a play, I thought I'd share this TED talk, which is one of my favorite things anyone has ever said about Shakespeare. Akala of the HipHop Shakespeare company, talking about the connection between hip hop and Shakespeare.

national poetry month, day 19.

I came across this poem through an exchange on Twitter last week, and I love it. The last two lines seem incredibly familiar, and I can't decide if that's because I've read it somewhere before or because they are so exactly what they ought to be that they seem to have always existed. This is via Joe Saunders, who did a very lovely blog post a while back to go with it. You should read it. You can also listen to the author reading this poem here.

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

national poetry month, day 18.

I first came across Ilya Kaminsky through a review of Dancing in Odessa on The Female Gaze. I was smitten with both the poetry and the reviewer. What I'd really like to do is reproduce the entire book here, because it's so much all of a piece; it feels like lessening a single poem to take it out of its context. Themes of immigration, displacement, love and music surface and interweave and disappear and reappear. The imagery is concrete, but there is an elusive quality to the whole - something always shifting or just ahead of sight. It's incredibly beautiful. I can't improve on Emma Aylor's review, so you should just go read that.

Elegy for Joseph Brodsky
by Ilya Kaminsky

In plain speech, for the sweetness
between the lines is no longer important,
what you call immigration I call suicide.
I am sending, behind the punctuation,
unfurling nights of New York, avenues
slipping into Cyrillic--
winter coils words, throws snow on a wind.
You, in the middle of an unwritten sentence, stop,
exile to a place further than silence.

                                 *

I left your Russia for good, poems sewn into my pillow
rushing towards my own training
to live with your lines
on a verge of a story set against itself.
To live with your lines, those where sails rise, waves
beat against the city's granite in each vowel,--
pages open by themselves, a quiet voice
speaks of suffering, of water.

                                 *

We come back to where we have committed a crime,
we don't come back to where we loved, you said;
your poems are wolves nourishing us with their milk.
I tried to imitate you for two years. It feels like burning
and singing about burning. I stand
as if someone spat at me.
You would be ashamed of these wooden lines,
how I don't imagine your death
but it is here, setting my hands on fire.

national poetry month, day 17.

Traditional rhymes about book ownership, from I Saw Esau, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Book Protection

                       109

Steal not this book for fear of shame,

For in it is the owner's name;

And if this book you chance to borrow,

Return it promptly on the morrow.

Or when you die the Lord will say,

Where's that book you stole away?

And if you say you do not know,

The Lord will answer, Go below!

                       110

If this book should chance to roam--

Box its ears and send it home.

                        111

Do not steal this book, my lad,

     For lots of money it cost my dad;

And if he finds you, he will say,

     "Go to Boston jail today!"

                       112

This book is one thing,

My fist is another;

Steal not the one

For fear of the other.

                       113

Who folds a leaf down,

The devil toast brown;

Who makes mark or blot,

The devil toast hot;

Who steals this book

The devil shall cook.