The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
From A Coney Island of the Mind, copyright ©1955 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
I cannot rest, I cannot rest
In strait and shiny wood,
My woven hands upon my breast—
The dead are all so good!
The earth is cool across their eyes;
They lie there quietly.
But I am neither old nor wise,
They do not welcome me.
Where never I walked alone before
I wander in the weeds;
And people scream and bar the door,
And rattle at their beads.
We cannot rest, we never rest
Within a narrow bed
Who still must love the living best—
Who hate the drowsy dead!
From Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926) by Dorothy Parker. This poem is in the public domain.
The scientists say fungi are more closely related to animals—to us—
than multicellular plants. The truth: the shiitake in your fridge
would treat you better than half the men in the bar tonight,
and it’d taste better too.
I won’t cry when the Anthropocene ends.
Instead, I’ll breathe in the spores and thank God.
You’re calling it the apocalypse,
and I tell you that it means lifting the veil—
I tell you this thing is ancient—a revelation. This is the last orgasm.
It’s Eternity. Soft skulls of mushrooms are pushing up
through our pores
and I’m whispering to you that they’re loving us like men would—
eating us raw, sucking on our bones, marrying our bodies—
only, this is better than men.
But when the mycelium fills my mouth, and I can no longer
breathe, I want to tell you how
you remind me of the moon; to hold your hand;
to let you know
I’m still here, but this
is inescapable.
You’re looking at me with eyes that ask
if this is the end, but I think:
This feels like
coming home.
Copyright © 2021 Edwin WIlliamson. This poem originally appeared on poets.org as part of the 2021 University and College Poetry Prizes. Used with permission of the author.
We knew that things were deteriorating.
Gothic houses collapsing, sharks patrolling the lagoons,
the born-again ministers warning of an immediate conflagration.
All the flights to paradise had been cancelled and even
pinhole cameras weren’t letting light in.
It got to be so bad we didn’t want to listen to the news anymore,
where all we were doing was gawking at someone else’s trouble.
It wasn’t worth the effort. Where was the satisfaction we longed for?
We couldn’t sleep so would spend all night watching the full moon’s
beams cement themselves to the silky water and travel for miles
on the waves. Someone was rowing along the shore,
and in the silver light the evergreens were shaking slightly.
At the edge of the forest the thistles
were attaching themselves to the fur of animals.
What serendipity to hitch a ride to your future.
From How to Start Over (Deerbrook Editions, 2019). Copyright © 2019 by Stuart Kestenbaum. Used with permission of the author.
On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.
The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.
Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.
The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.
Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,
while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.
The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking
of rivers, of boulders and air.
Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.
Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.
They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.
—2017
from Ledger (Knopf, 2020); first appeared in The Washington Post. Used by permission of the author, all rights reserved.
who hurt you here by the river
at the supermarket who hurt you
who saw you hurting who hurt
you who saw you hurting who
turned around and walked away
exit exit we must exit but how i have no
advice no direction but up and over and
swerve swerve the metal circle rusted and
dissolved on the side of the road it was left
after construction de stabilize meaning
and reinvent history but only if history
oppressed you six women naked in a hot
tub and we won't leave this house in the
country six women naked in a hot tub
we end it together so we can begin it
again we begin it was a different
rhythm we don't forget our fear we
were never afraid in the woods even
though we knew what was in the woods
we looking in the dirt
for something we all
putting our hands in the
dirt a gesture we saw
before somewhere on
someone she didn't
speak we didn't speak
to each other the forest
lit our hands a gesture
erase ignore separate
they say they tell us
they tell us to be an
individual that we can
be individuals we
cannot be individuals
any more
Copyright © 2021 by LA Warman. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 17, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
For starters, each eve is well equipped
with her own apple. The God. Well wrapped
in a cloak of fruit the likes of gold can rip
up ground beneath you, as needed. Look here
beauty. As far as we can tell, it’s never enough.
Ask Eris. Come with gifts like—who you know,
how you get down, access you can offer to more
of them like you. Like ‘Damn you got a sister?’ or
‘Can you bring a couple friends.’ That’s not the whole
of it. What’s pretty is seldom true. Ask Susanna as
Daniel did to get the bottom of it. Trust women.
But who questioned any other than Adam about
the fruit they knew. Or if knowing couldn’t simply
be. an eden. One where someone just admits she took
an apple and in the desert they are rare. For that may
you all suffer. And that is true. And particularly pretty.
Copyright © 2021 by francine j. harris. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 6, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
“Remember.” Copyright © 1983 by Joy Harjo from She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.