from “Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues”
Forever.
And ever.
And ever.
There’s my cousin. Auntie. Uncle.
Another cousin.
Ever.
And ever.
And ever.
Vending machines and pop.
Chips, candy, and not enough clean water.
And ever, ever, ever.
Waiting and tired.
Tired of waiting.
Forever.
And ever.
And ever.
Go water the horses.
This poem was commissioned for T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America, a book edited by Karen Kramer and published by Peabody Essex Museum. Copyright © 2018 by Joy Harjo. Used with the permission of the author.
from “Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues”
Forever.
And ever.
And ever.
There’s my cousin. Auntie. Uncle.
Another cousin.
Ever.
And ever.
And ever.
Vending machines and pop.
Chips, candy, and not enough clean water.
And ever, ever, ever.
Waiting and tired.
Tired of waiting.
Forever.
And ever.
And ever.
Go water the horses.
This poem was commissioned for T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America, a book edited by Karen Kramer and published by Peabody Essex Museum. Copyright © 2018 by Joy Harjo. Used with the permission of the author.
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
This poem is in the public domain.
all the forbidden fruit I ever dreamt of--or was taught to resist and fear--ripens and blossoms under the palms of my hands as they uncover and explore you--and in the most secret corners of my heart as it discovers and adores you--the forbidden fruit of forgiveness--the forbidden fruit of finally feeling the happiness you were afraid you didn't deserve-- the forbidden fruit of my life's labor --the just payment I have avoided since my father taught me how-- the forbidden fruit of the secret language of our survivors' souls as they unfold each others secret ballots--the ones where we voted for our first secret desires to come true--there's so much more I want to say to you--but for the first time in my life I'm at a loss for words--because (I understand at last) I don't need them to be heard by you.
From It Takes One to Know One by Michael Lally, published by Black Sparrow Press. Copyright © 2001 by Michael Lally. Reprinted with the permission of Black Sparrow Press. All rights reserved.
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
From Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara. Copyright © 1964 by Frank O'Hara. Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books. All rights reserved.
I Throughout the afternoon I watched them there, Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky, Whirling fantastic in the misty air, Contending fierce for space supremacy. And they flew down a mightier force at night, As though in heaven there was revolt and riot, And they, frail things had taken panic flight Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet. I went to bed and rose at early dawn To see them huddled together in a heap, Each merged into the other upon the lawn, Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep. The sun shone brightly on them half the day, By night they stealthily had stol'n away. II And suddenly my thoughts then turned to you Who came to me upon a winter's night, When snow-sprites round my attic window flew, Your hair disheveled, eyes aglow with light. My heart was like the weather when you came, The wanton winds were blowing loud and long; But you, with joy and passion all aflame, You danced and sang a lilting summer song. I made room for you in my little bed, Took covers from the closet fresh and warm, A downful pillow for your scented head, And lay down with you resting in my arm. You went with Dawn. You left me ere the day, The lonely actor of a dreamy play.
This poem is in the public domain.
I find myself most alone
When I believe I am striving for glory.
These times, cool and sharp,
A monument of moon-white stone
lodges in place near my heart.
In a dream, my children
Glisten inside raindrops, or teardrops.
Like strangers, like seeds of children.
I will only be allowed to claim them
if I consent to love everyone’s children.
If I consent to love everyone’s children,
Only then will I be allowed to claim them,
My strangers, my seeds of children,
Glistening inside raindrops or teardrops
In my dream. Children
Lodged in place near my heart—
A monument of moon-white stone,
Cool and sharp.
I believe I am striving for glory
When I find myself most alone.
Copyright © 2024 by Tracy K. Smith. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 20, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
Listen: there was a goat’s head hanging by ropes in a tree.
All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it
Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing
The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then
They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat’s head
Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly
The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away
Beside which the goat’s headless body lay. Some boys
Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined.
The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they
Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school
And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything.
The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks.
The head called to the body. The body to the head.
They missed each other. The missing grew large between them,
Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until
The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies
Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills.
Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder,
Sang long and low until the morning light came up over
The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped....
The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named
The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after
The night’s bush of stars, because the goat’s silky hair
Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit.
The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night
She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train’s horn
Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke
To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang
Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats.
She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily
That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming
Made it so. But one night the girl didn’t hear the train’s horn,
And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat
Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm
Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain
Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone
Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called
To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called
And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling
Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides
Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat’s body
By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles
At the goat’s torn neck. Then somebody found the head
Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take
These things away so that the girl would not see them.
They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat.
They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear
Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke....
But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have
Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they
Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job,
Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark.
What they didn’t know was that the goat’s head was already
Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn’t know
Was that the goat’s head would go on singing, just for them,
Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen,
Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would
Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees
Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There
Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song,
The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call.
Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song
Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.
Copyright © 1995 by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. Reproduced from Song, poems by Brigit Pegeen Kelly, with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.
—for Edouard Glissant
1.
the mind wanders as a line of poetry taking flight meanders
in the way birds spreading wings lift into space knowing
skies are full of surprises like errançities encountering restless
journeys as in the edgy solos of miles davis or jimi hendrix
listen to night-song of sea waves crashing in foaming with voices
carrying liquid histories splashing there on rock or sandy shores
after traveling across time space & distance it resembles a keening
language of music heard at the tip of a sharp blade of steel
cutting through air singing as it slices a head clean from its neck
& you watch it drop heavy as a rock landing on earth & rolling
like a bowling ball the head leaving a snaking trail of blood reminding
our brains of errançities wandering through our lives every day
as metaphors for restless movement bring sudden change
surprise in the way you hear errançities of double meaning
layered in music springing from secret memories as echoes
resounding through sea & blue space is what our ears know
& remember hearing voices speaking in tongues carrying history
blooming as iridescent colors of flowers multifarious as rainbows
arching across skies multilingual as joy or sorrow evoked inside
our own lives when poetic errançities know their own forms
2.
what is history but constant recitations of flawed people pushed
over edges of boundaries of morality pursuing wars pillage
enslavement of spirits is what most nations do posing as governing
throughout cycles of world imagination plunder means profit
everywhere religion is practiced on topography as weapons used
as tools written in typography to conquer minds to slaughter for gold
where entire civilizations become flotsam floating across memory seas
heirloom trees cut down as men loot the planet without remorse
their minds absent of empathy they remember/know only greed
these nomadic avatars of gizzard-hearted darth vaders who celebrate
"shock-doctrines" everywhere ballooning earnings-sheet bottom lines
their only creed for being on earth until death cuts them down
3.
but poetry still lives somewhere in airstreams evoking creative breath
lives in the restless sea speaking a miscegenation of musical tongues
lives within the holy miracle of birds elevating flight into dreams & song
as errançities of spirits create holy inside accumulation of daybreaks
raise everyday miraculous voices collaborating underneath star-nailed
clear black skies & the milky eye of a full moon over guadeloupe
listen to the mélange of tongues compelling in nature's lungs in new york
city tongues flung out as invitations for sharing wondrous songs
which nature is a summons to recognize improvisation as a surprising path
to divergence through the sound of scolopendra rooted somewhere here
in wonder when humans explode rhythms inside thickets of words/puns
celebrating the human spirit of imagination is what poets seek
listen for cries of birds lifting off for somewhere above the magical
pulse of sea waves swirling language immense with the winds sound
serenading us through leaves full of ripe fruit sweet as fresh water
knowing love might be deeper than greed & is itself a memory
a miracle always there might bring us closer to reconciliation inside
restless métisse commingling voices of errançities wandering within
magic the mystery of creation pulling us forward to wonder to know
human possibility is always a miraculous gift is always a conundrum
From Errançities by Quincy Troupe. Copyright © 2012 by Quincy Troupe. Reprinted with permission of Coffee House Press. All rights reserved.
The hastily assembled angel saw One thing was like another thing and that Thing like another everything depend- ed on how high it was the place you saw Things from and he had seen the Earth from where A human couldn’t see the Earth and could- n’t tell most human things apart and though He hadn’t ever really understood His job he knew it had to do with seeing And what he saw was everything would come Together at the same time everything Would fall apart and that was humans thinking The world was meant for them and other things Were accidental or were decora- tions meant for them and therefore purposeful That humans thought that God had told them so And what the hastily assembled angel Thought was that probably God had said the same thing To every living thing on Earth and on- ly stopped when one said Really back but then Again the hastily assembled angel Couldn’t tell human things apart and maybe That Really mattered what would he have heard Holy or maybe Folly or maybe Kill me
Copyright © 2018 by Shane McCrae. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 21, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
He tells me he’s a parolee looking for a good
woman but he’s been bad so bad trapped
in a sheet of ice wrapping the meat in
paper shudders I shouldn’t be eating red
meat with my hypertension and high cholesterol
the steaming calf
He says he’s been out six months but still
it’s hard you know how it is the wrong people
their bright ideas attempts to rise his bloody
apron a recipe buckles and
gives me an extra pound
Copyright © 2024 by JoAnne McFarland. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 6, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.