Tag Archives: poetry

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“It’s a lie that poetry is only read by or “speaks to” people in the universities or elite intellectual circles; in many such places, poetry barely speaks at all.

Poems are written and absorbed, silently and aloud, in prisons, in prairie kitchens, urban basement workshops, branch libraries, battered women’s shelters, homeless shelters, offices, a public hospital for disabled people, an HIV support group. A poet can be born in a house with empty bookshelves. Sooner or later, s/he will need books.”
— Adrienne Rich, What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics,

He Tells Her | Wendy Cope

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He tells her that the Earth is flat—
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

To the Man Who Shouted “I Like Pork Fried Rice” at Me on the Street | Franny Choi

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you want to eat me
out. right. what does it taste like
you want to eat me right out
of these jeans & into something
a little cheaper. more digestible.
more bite-sized. more thank you

 

come: i am greasy
for you. i slick my hair with msg
every morning. i’m bad for you.
got some red-light district between
your teeth. what does it
taste like: a takeout box
between my legs.
plastic bag lady. flimsy white fork
to snap in half. dispose of me.

 

taste like dried squid. lips puffy
with salt. lips brimming
with foreign so call me
pork. curly-tailed obscenity
been playing in the mud. dirty meat.
worms in your stomach. give you

 

a fever. dead meat. butchered girl
chopped up & cradled
in styrofoam. you candid cannibal.
you want me bite-sized
no eyes clogging your throat.

 

but i’ve been watching
from the slaughterhouse. ever since
you named me edible. tossed in
a cookie at the end. lucky man.
go & take what’s yours.
name yourself archaeologist     but

 

listen carefully
to the squelches in
your teeth & hear my sow squeal
scream murder between
molars. watch salt awaken
writhe, synapse.
watch me kick
back to life. watch me tentacles
& teeth. watch me
resurrected electric.

 

what does it
                                    taste like: revenge
squirming alive in your mouth
strangling you quiet
from the inside out.

Things Lost in the Divorce | Mary Ferguson

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one mug
green with white polka dots, famous for earl grey with
two sugars and a splash
of milk.
the left side of my bed.
the song of songs
              (I am for my beloved, my beloved is for me).
the ability to differentiate between you
and the hallucination.
Pablo Neruda, who could write the saddest lines and
taught me to say I love you.
All those spaces in me that you filled
now
throbbing —

i thought to myself yesterday
how is it possible that I am going to die without kissing you again
i lost so many things to you, things i’ll never get back and I will go the rest of my life

not kissing you

The Forest of Sure Things | Megan Snyder-Camp

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In this land the children tear their hearts in half.
Let me explain. If ten things are wanted, only ten
can be had. If a stand of birches is found to be made of tin,
the soil around them will bleed with rust. In this land children
study their magazines in broad daylight, and in their books
any soldier who stumbles will not fall. No one will fall,
a gift parents try not to make much of. At every meal
some is set aside. In every garden a patch lies fallow. At parties
there are whispers of illegal cheeses. Camembert, especially,
is said to taste alive. And so the children learn
to make room. To leave some.
Nothing will come, but nothing will go.
To love like this half must rattle in its pit.

Empty Space | Amrita Pritam

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There were two kingdoms only:
the first of them threw out both him and me.
The second we abandoned.

Under a bare sky
I for a long time soaked in the rain of my body,
he for a long time rotted in the rain of his.

Then like a poison he drank the fondness of the years.
He held my hand with a trembling hand.
“Come, let’s have a roof over our heads awhile.
Look, further on ahead, there
between truth and falsehood, a little empty space.

Stand and Burn | Claudia Boleyn

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I once told a joke about a straight person.

They came after me in droves.

Each one singing the same:

Don’t fight fire with fire.

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What they mean is: Don’t fight fire with anything.

Do not fight fire with water.

Do not fight fire with foam.

Do not evacuate the people.

Do not sound the alarms.

Do not crawl coughing and choking and spluttering to safety.

Do not barricade the door with damp towels.

Do not wave a white flag out of the window.

Do not take the plunge from several storeys up.

Do not shed a tear for your lover trapped behind a wall of flame.

Do not curse the combination of fuel, heat, and oxygen.

Do not ask why the fire fighters are not coming.

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When they say: Don’t fight fire with fire.

What they mean is: Stand and burn.

 

(x)

Siren | Louise Glück – my #todayspoem

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I became a criminal when I fell in love.
Before that I was a waitress.

I didn’t want to go to Chicago with you.
I wanted to marry you, I wanted
Your wife to suffer.

I wanted her life to be like a play
In which all the parts are sad parts.

Does a good person
Think this way? I deserve

Credit for my courage–

I sat in the dark on your front porch.
Everything was clear to me:
If your wife wouldn’t let you go
That proved she didn’t love you.
If she loved you
Wouldn’t she want you to be happy?

I think now
If I felt less I would be
A better person. I was
A good waitress.
I could carry eight drinks.

I used to tell you my dreams.
Last night I saw a woman sitting in a dark bus–
In the dream, she’s weeping, the bus she’s on
Is moving away. With one hand
She’s waving; the other strokes
An egg carton full of babies.

The dream doesn’t rescue the maiden.