the orchard lands of long ago

 

The Promise BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

 The Promise

BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

Stay, I said

to the cut flowers.

They bowed

their heads lower.

Stay, I said to the spider,

who fled.

Stay, leaf.

It reddened,

embarrassed for me and itself.

Stay, I said to my body.

It sat as a dog does,

obedient for a moment,

soon starting to tremble.

Stay, to the earth

of riverine valley meadows,

of fossiled escarpments,

of limestone and sandstone.

It looked back

with a changing expression, in silence.

Stay, I said to my loves.

Each answered,

Always.

Znamenskaya Square, Leningrad, 1941 BY SHARON OLDS

 

• Znamenskaya Square, Leningrad, 1941

  BY SHARON OLDS

Do not go gentle into that good night Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953

 

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dada poem

 I am Ray and the same way as teens,

And the rules are not a glob of the possible to get

If you don't want to know why it isn't dark

And you have to be there in science fiction

Behind The Mask

© Melisa Bernards

Published: February 2015

Hiding the hurt, hiding the pain,
Hiding the tears that fall like rain.
Saying I'm fine when I'm anything but.
This ache in my soul rips at my gut.
My skin is on fire; I burn from within.
The calm on my face is an ongoing sin.
The world must stay out; I've built up a wall.
My fragile lie will collapse should it ever fall.
Loneliness consumes me; it eats away the years
Until my life is swallowed by unending fears.
Waiting for someone to see I wear a mask
And care enough to remove it; is that too much to ask?

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/behind-the-mask

Winter Trees BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

Winter Trees

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

sorrow song BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

sorrow song

BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

for the eyes of the children,

the last to melt,

the last to vaporize,

for the lingering

eyes of the children, staring,

the eyes of the children of

buchenwald,

of viet nam and johannesburg,

for the eyes of the children

of nagasaki,

for the eyes of the children

of middle passage,

for cherokee eyes, ethiopian eyes,

russian eyes, american eyes,

for all that remains of the children,

their eyes,

staring at us, amazed to see

the extraordinary evil in

ordinary men.

Lucille Clifton, "sorrow song" from Next: New Poems. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.

Source: Next: New Poems (BOA Editions Ltd., 1987)

Dada poem 2

So cute and no one can hear you think
The art of the possible to get sick or a great proof
And the rules of acquisition would have been told
And I am not sure if you are a dull boy,

To say that God is not a video game 🎮of the revenge of the nerds
And the t-shirt challenge is to be treated as such a beautiful day
The election is over and over again
And the daleks play go to jail for the sake of others and campy horror

But you miss that the universe is a group of people who suffered from the bottom of a dull moment
And the force of the dinosaurs and children in the United nations security council to be treated as such a beautiful child
And the t-shirt with a male scorpion king 's college in the United States of acquisition would be great to see you tomorrow!
If the Sith wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and children in the civil war left out of the dinosaurs and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Dada poem

I dreamed that I made you think about it
The art of the Sith wars,and I don't get it
The art of the possible to get sick or a great proof
And the rules of acquisition would be great in a fantasy world

If the Sith wars and no play makes Jack a dull boy,
The election is not a video game 🎮of you
I can't pronounce it to the corner of the square feet,
We are not hateful people who suffered from the mathematician method

To say that God is not a video game 🎮of the revenge of the Sith
If the original Klingon Baptist church in the civil war left out of the United kingdom
The art of the possible to get sick or a great proof of concept art for the craziness that we don't know what reality is.
And the rules of engagement ring to it is a dull boy,

But you miss that the universe is a group of people who suffered from the mathematician and no play makes Jack a dull boy
I am not speaking in Klingon Baptist church?
To be Jedi master of the Sith wars and no play with you forever and ever!
And we should take down graffiti for the same reason that they are not adults and children in the civil war,
To say the same reason that they are Sandworms doing good to have meaning in the original Klingon Baptist church!

To the Swimmer BY COUNTEE CULLEN

To the Swimmer

BY COUNTEE CULLEN

Now as I watch you, strong of arm and endurance, battling and struggling

With the waves that rush against you, ever with invincible strength returning

Into my heart, grown each day more tranquil and peaceful, comes a fierce longing

Of mind and soul...

One With Others [Not the mental lethargy in which the days enveloped her]

C. D. Wright - 1949-2016

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

       Not the mental lethargy in which the days enveloped her

       Nor the depleted breasts not the hand that never knew

       tenderness nor eyes that glistened

       Not the people dragging canvas bags

       through the ragged fields

       Not the high mean whine of mosquitoes

       Not another year of shoe-top cotton

       No more white buck shoes for Henry

       No peaches this year on the Ridge, and no other elevation

       around to coast another mile out of the tank

       No eel in L'Anguille

       Not the aphrodisiac of crossing over

       Not the hole in the muffler circling the house

       Not a shot of whiskey before a piece of bread

       Not to live anymore as a distended beast

       Not the lying-in again

       Not the suicide of the goldfish

       Not the father's D.T's

       Not the map of no-name islands in the river

       Not the car burning in the parking lot

       Not the sound but the shape of the sound

       Not the clouds rucked up over the clothesline

       The copperhead in the coleus

       Not the air hung with malathion

       Not the boomerang of bad feelings

       Not stacks of poetry, long-playing albums, the visions of Goya and friends

       Not to be resuscitated

       and absolutely no priests, up on her elbows, the priests confound you

and then they confound you again. They only come clear when you're on your

deathbed. We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us.




       Look into the dark heart and you will see what the dark eats other than

your heart




       The world is not ineluctably finished




       though the watchfires have been doused




       more walls have come down




       more walls are being built




       Sound of the future, uncanny how close




       to the sound of the old




       At Daddy's Eyes




       "Pusherman" still on the jukebox




       Everybody's past redacted

From One With Others by C. D. Wright. Copyright © 2011 by C. D. Wright. Published by Copper Canyon Press. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

a redshirt's perspective on the prime directive surrounding us: a billion stars

Natasha Teller Dec 2013

a redshirt's perspective on the prime directive

surrounding us: a billion stars
in a time when a trip to mars is like walking around the block
and captain kirk and mister spock are arguing
about the prime directive.

we’re beaming to a planet’s surface. now listen:
i know about inverse tachyon beams
i know about coded klingon screams
i know about going to warp factor eight
i know about redshirts' survival rate.
(no. chance.)

i’m beaming down with the main crew
to the surface of minerva II
we've got a malfunctioning interstellar transceiver which is distressing-- dysgraphing? dismantling…
…i don't know.
scotty said it was defective.

so we’re on this planet,
standing on one side of a thick forest packed with monster janeks,
starfleet says we need to fix this thing yesterday, and we’re in a panic—
and **** it, mccoy is a doctor, not a lumberjack,
and kirk says we should just burn through the middle with phasers,
and spock says we must preserve respect for all life forms no matter the situation.

now please remember kirk’s the captain.
that means he runs this show
but kirk always listens to spock,
so
we spend two days walking through the forest.

surrounding us: a billion trees
in a place where a strange disease is rare as feathers in a flock
and captain kirk and mister spock are arguing
about the prime directive.

halfway through this dark-lit trip
things go wrong (obviously)
and an alien with shellac for skin captures the captain.
said alien grabs a vine, ascends into the canopy of the trees,
and for one glorious moment
i believe kirk’s the dead guy in this episode, not me!

but spock, in his calm and logical vulcan voice,
orders us to exercise any necessary force to recover the captain.
translation: **** EVERYTHING. JUST GET KIRK BACK.

we reach the janek village.
being a good redshirt, i rush in, phaser blasting, ready to complete the heroic rescue of our captain—
and get killed instantly.

as i was dying, i heard the sound of thousands of janeks dying beside me
saw spock help kirk off the ground
and the last words I heard were theirs:
“captain, are you in need of immediate medical attention?”
“nah, spock, i’m fine—”
“mr. scott. the captain is hurt. beam us aboard immediately.”
one’s arm over the other’s shoulders,
they vanished.

surrounding them: a billion stars
in a time when a trip to mars is like walking around the block
and captain kirk and mister spock are arguing
about the prime directive—

but the prime directive
was never the real objective.

My very first attempt at slam poetry, back in the day... this was written for a sci-fi slam. Live long & prosper.

 

The Girl from Panama BY CLEMENS STARCK

The Girl from Panama

BY CLEMENS STARCK

I'm talking with Mike over coffee.

His wife recently left him. He's lonely.

We're both carpenters, a couple of old guys in baseball caps

plying the trade.

We can frame a wall and hang a door, we can

read a set of blueprints.

But when it comes to women . . .

 

I'm thinking about my mother, who is 91

and very frail. I'm thinking

about my wife, my daughters, my granddaughter,

my sister, old girlfriends, my ex-wife,

and the girl from Panama

in the reading room of the New Orleans public library

forty-five years ago

who slipped a note to me across the table, asking:

"Are you a philosophy?"

 

Rain splatters against the storefront

of the coffee shop. Mike and I are silent

for a long time

before going back to work.

 

Poem copyright ©2019 by Clemens Starck, "The Girl from Panama," from Cathedrals & Parking Lots: Collected Poems, (Empty Bowl Press, 2019). Poem reprinted by permission of Clemens Starck and the publisher.

Counting BY MARGARITA ENGLE

Counting

BY MARGARITA ENGLE

Harry Franck, from the United States of America - Census Enumerator

I came to Panama planning to dig

the Eighth Wonder of the World,

but I was told that white men

should never be seen working

with shovels, so I took a police job,

and now I've been transferred

to the census.

I roam the jungle, counting laborers

who live in shanties and those who live

on the run, fugitives who are too angry

to keep working for silver in a system

where they know that others

earn gold.

When islanders see me coming,

they're afraid of trouble, even though

I can't arrest them anymore—now

all I need is a record of their names, ages,

homelands, and colors.

The rules of this census confound me.

I'm expected to count white Jamaicans

as dark and every shade of Spaniard

as semi-white, so that Americans

can pretend

there's only one color

in each country.

How am I supposed to enumerate

this kid with the Cuban accent?

His skin is medium, but his eyes

are green.

And what about that Puerto Rican

scientist, who speaks like a New York

professor,

or the girl who says she doesn't know

where she was born or who her parents

are—she could be part native, or part French,

Jamaican, Chinese ...

She could even be part American,

from people who passed through here

way back

in gold rush days.

Counting feels just as impossible

as turning solid mountains

into a ditch.

Margarita Engle, "Counting (Harry Franck from the United States of America Census Enumerator)" from Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal.  Copyright © 2014 by Margarita Engle.  Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Source: Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)

Drum Dream Girl BY MARGARITA ENGLE

Drum Dream Girl

BY MARGARITA ENGLE

On an island of music

in a city of drumbeats

the drum dream girl

dreamed

 

of pounding tall conga drums

tapping small bongó drums

and boom boom booming

with long, loud sticks

on big, round, silvery

moon-bright timbales.

 

But everyone

on the island of music

in the city of drumbeats

believed that only boys

should play drums

 

so the drum dream girl

had to keep dreaming

quiet

secret

drumbeat

dreams.

 

At outdoor cafés that looked like gardens

she heard drums played by men

but when she closed her eyes

she could also hear

her own imaginary

music.

 

When she walked under

wind-wavy palm trees

in a flower-bright park

she heard the whir of parrot wings

the clack of woodpecker beaks

the dancing tap

of her own footsteps

and the comforting pat

of her own

heartbeat.

 

At carnivals, she listened

to the rattling beat

of towering

dancers

on stilts

 

and the dragon clang

of costumed drummers

wearing huge masks.

 

At home, her fingertips

rolled out their own

dreamy drum rhythm

on tables and chairs…

 

and even though everyone

kept reminding her that girls

on the island of music

have never played drums

 

the brave drum dream girl

dared to play

tall conga drums

small bongó drums

and big, round, silvery

moon-bright timbales.

 

Her hands seemed to fly

as they rippled

rapped

and pounded

all the rhythms

of her drum dreams.

 

Her big sisters were so excited

that they invited her to join

their new all-girl dance band

 

but their father said only boys

should play drums.

 

So the drum dream girl

had to keep dreaming

and drumming

alone

 

until finally

her father offered

to find a music teacher

who could decide if her drums

deserved

to be heard.

 

The drum dream girl’s

teacher was amazed.

The girl knew so much

but he taught her more

and more

and more

 

and she practiced

and she practiced

and she practiced

 

until the teacher agreed

that she was ready

to play her small bongó drums

outdoors at a starlit café

that looked like a garden

 

where everyone who heard

her dream-bright music

sang

and danced

and decided

that girls should always

be allowed to play

drums

 

and both girls and boys

should feel free

to dream.

 

Notes:

This poem was inspired by the childhood of a Chinese-African-Cuban girl who broke Cuba's traditional taboo against female drummers. In 1932, at the age of ten, Millo Castro Zaldarriaga performed with her older sisters as Anacaona, Cuba's first "all-girl dance band." Millo became a world-famous musician, playing alongside all the American jazz greats of the era. At age fifteen, she played her bongó drums at a New York birthday celebration for U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where she was enthusiastically cheered by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. There are now many female drummers in Cuba. Thanks to Millo's courage, becoming a drummer is no longer an unattainable dream for girls on the island. [note from the author]

Margarita Engle, "Drum Dream Girl" from Drum Dream Girl.  Copyright © 2015 by Margarita Engle.  Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Source: Drum Dream Girl (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015)