The beauty of men never disappears
But drives a blue car through the
stars.

John Wieners

They say the ladies
Have always gone berrying
And they all join together
To go out for the herring spawn,
Or to clean green salmon.
And that big set of lessons
On what bears really want,
Was brought back by the girl
Who made those comments:
She was taken on a year-long excursion
Back up in the mountains,
Through the tangled deadfalls,
Down into the den.
She had some pretty children by a
Young and handsome Bear.

Now I’m on the dirt
Looking at these scats
And I want to cry not knowing why
At the honor and the humor
Of coming on this sign
That is not found in books
Or transmitted in letters,
And is for women just as much as men,
A shining message for all species,
A glimpse at the Trace
of the Great One’s passing,
With a peek into her whole wild system–
And what was going on last week,
(Mostly still manzanita)–

Dear Bear: do stay around. Be good.
And though I know
It won’t help to say this,

Chew your food.

Kitkitdizze X.88

Gary Snyder

Marvin Bell

Our date
To watch the Moon
Has problems. A quiet visit
To discuss the mountains is far off.
On a distant road scant sunlight
Grows. By midnight
The final snow
Will fall.

Sitting, I see
The willows by Blue Gate,
Soft-softly sprout again
New sprigs.

Hsi Chou
translated by Paul Hansen

Thanks to life that has given me so much.
It has given me hearing that in all its breadth
night and day records crickets and canaries,
hammers, turbines, barking, squalls,
and the soft voice of my beloved.

Thanks to life that has given me so much.
It has given me sound and the alphabet
and with it the words I think and speak:
mother, friend, brother, and the light that brightens
the way of the soul of the one I love.

Thanks to life that has given me so much.
It has given me the step of my tired feet
and then I walk around cities and puddles,
beaches and deserts, mountains and plains,
and your house, your street, and your courtyard.

Thanks to life that has given me so much.
It gave me the heart, which shakes its frame
when I look at the fruit of the human brain,
when I look at the good so far from the bad,
when I look at the bottom of your clear eyes.

Thanks to life that has given me so much.
It has given me laughter and it has given me tears
so I can tell happiness from grief,
the two things my song is made of,
and the song of yours that is the same song
and everyone’s song that is my own song.

Violeta Parra
translated by Joan Baez and John Upton

And when in their long flight to somewhere,
small and shining birds
begin to come into its darkness;
when its great branches are heavy with them–
heavy with the ones who find their quiet sleep,
heavy with the others who in their drams of flying
shake their silver feathers–
when I see this,
so beautiful is the tree of night,
before the day fades it
I watch from century and from century.

Pauline Hanson

lifts its form—chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone

but color and the movement—or the shape
perhaps—of relentlessness, whereas

the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem

William Carlos Williams

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks

Su Yung P’o
translated by Kenneth Rexroth

Anonymous
translated by Frances Densmore

Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
half my day passes. One day it will be half a century.
I live in strange cities and sometimes talk
with strangers about matters strange to me.
I listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.
I see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.
The fourth has no name.
I read poets, living and dead, who teach me
tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
the great philosophers–but usually catch just
scraps of their precious thoughts.
I like to take long walks on Paris streets
and watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,
anger, desire; to trace a silver coin
passing from hand to hand as it slowly
loses its round shape (the emperor’s profile is erased).
Beside me trees expressing nothing
but a green, indifferent perfection.
Black birds pace the fields,
waiting patiently like Spanish widows.
I’m no longer young, but someone else is always older.
I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,
and fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses
dissolve like cumuli on sunny days.
Sometimes in museums the paintings speak to me
and irony suddenly vanishes.
I love gazing at my wife’s face.
Every Sunday I call my father.
Every other week I meet with friends,
thus proving my fidelity.
My country freed itself from one evil. I wish
another liberation would follow.
Could I help in this? I don’t know.
I’m truly not a child of the ocean,
as Antonio Machado wrote about himself,
but a child of air, mint and cello
and not all the ways of the high world
cross paths with the life that–so far–
belongs to me.

by Adam Zagajewski
translated by Clare Cavanagh

The art of poetry is a blend of visual appreciation or spiritual saturation, coupled with emotional stimulation. Poetry affects Read more…

Don’t deprive me of the rose,
the stick you thresh the grains with,
the water splashing
swiftly in your joy,
the sudden silver wave
born in you.

My struggle is painful. As I return
with my eyes sometimes tired
from watching
the unchanging earth,
your laughter enters
and raises to heaven
in search of me,
to open all the doors of life.

My loved one, in the darkest hour,
unsheath your laughter,
and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the cobblestones,
laugh, for your laughter
will be for my hands
like an unsullied sword.

Near the sea in autumn,
your laughter must rise
in its cascade of foam,
and in spring, my love,
I want your laughter
to be like the flower I anticipated,
the blue flower, the rose
of my resonant homeland.

Laugh at the night,
at the last day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
young man who loves you.
Yet when I open my eyes
and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Pablo Neruda

my darling, don’t pole your boat
into places you can’t get back from

I wish we could match the affection
of all those mandarin ducks

swimming around in pairs
close by your fishing rock.

Yu Xuanji

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

Philip Larkin

No, not drifting, I am poling
my way into life.            It seems
like another life:

There were the walls of the mind.
There were the cliffs of the mind,
There were the seven deaths,
and the seven-bread offerings—

Still, there was still
the little boat, the chalupa
you built once, slowly, in the yard, after school—

Jean Valentine

by Nazim Hikmet
translated by Mutlu Konuk and Randy Blasing

Richard Brautigan

One would think that she fights
to get out, but she wants to stay
free in this skin. Fresh,
The Family Stone’s album,

came out in ’73, but I didn’t make sense
of it till ’76, sixth grade for me,
the Bicentennial, I got my first kiss that year,
I beat up the class bully; I was the man.

But for now, in my head, it’s only ’73
and I’m a little boy again, listening
to Sly and his Family covering Doris’s hit,
driving down I-40;

a cop pulls me over to ask why
I’m here, in his town, with my Yankee tags.
I let him ask a series of questions
about what kind of work I do,

what brings me to town—you know
the kind of questions that tell you
this has nothing to do with driving a car.
My hands want to ball into fists.

But, instead, I tell myself to write a letter
to the Chief of Police, to give him something
to laugh at over his morning paper,
as I try to recall the light in Doris Day’s version

of “Que Sera Sera”—without the wail
troubling the notes in the duet
of Sly and Cynthia’s voices.
Hemingway meant to define
courage by the nonchalance you exude
while taking cover within your flesh,
even at the risk of losing
what some would call a melody;
I call it the sound of home.
Like when a song gets so far out
on a solo you almost don’t recognize it,
but then you get back to the hook, you suddenly

recognize the tune and before you know it,
you’re putting your hands together; you’re on your feet—
because you recognize a sound, like a light,
leading you back home to a color:

rust. You must remember
rust—not too red, not too orange—not fire or overnight
change, but a simmering-summer
change in which children play till they tire

and grown folks sit till they grow edgy
or neighborhood dogs bite those not from your neigborhood
and someone with some sense says Down, Boy,
or you hope someone has some sense

who’s outside or who owns the dog and then the sky
turns rust and the streetlights buzz on
and someone’s mother, must be yours, says
You see those streetlights on don’t you,

and then everybody else’s mother comes out and says
the same thing and the sky is rust so you know
you got about ten minutes before she comes back out
and embarrasses you in front of your friends;

ten minutes to get home before you eat and watch
the Flip Wilson Show or Sanford and Son and it’s time for bed.
And it’s rust you need to remember
when the cop asks, What kind of work you do?

It’s rust you need to remember: the smell
of summer rain on the sidewalk
and the patina on wrought-iron railings on your front porch
with rust patches on them, and the smell

of fresh mowed grass and gasoline and sweat
of your childhood as he takes a step back
when you tell him you’re a poet teaching
English down the road at the college,

when he takes a step back—
to assure you, know, that this has nothing to do with race,
but the rust of a community he believes
he keeps safe, and he says Have a Good One,

meaning day as he swaggers back to his car,
and the color of the day and the face behind sunglasses
and the hands on his hips you’ll always remember
come back gunmetal gray

for the rest of this rusty afternoon.
So you roll up the window
and turn the music back on,
and try to remember the rust caught in Sly’s throat—

when the song came out in ’73,
although I didn’t get it till ’76,
sixth grade for me, the Bicentennial;
I got my first kiss that year.

I beat up the class bully.
I was the man.

A. Van Jordan

Blue horizons never end when chasing dragons.

Road lines blur over time; the brain keeps drumming rhythmic exhaustion; determination stretches a flesh toned rubber band one more time around, cutting circulation from the universe ; the script reads; continue snapping until you form a welt line; keep your remains just inside of good.

Converted or constrained? A pulse beat gets stuck in an addicts vein until it bleeds out every last drop of self. It’s not until someone offers a fraying wash cloth and a sliver of jasmine milled soap, filched off a downtown cleaning cart, that you realize just how far gone this kite’s tail flown. Where are the lilac scented days when she remembers twirling, becoming sky high in a pretend universe, commandeering space, a super friend. She found out too late even super heroes fall..

warning: will try to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. This was a disjointed stream of thought; it shall hopefully get no uglier than this for the next 30

I need your help. Please read the following poems and tell me in the comments your two top picks. The two poems with the most votes will be the poems I read at the slam. You didn’t steer me wrong in 2009 -  I won with “Can’t Die Mom” and “Serendipity Sliding Sideways” (it got the only perfect 10!) And no, I can’t read those again…that would be cheating. If nothing appeals to you, that’s ok (not really, but you’ll never see me cry!)

The Problem with Flintstones

“Look Mommy,” She proclaimed.
“I ate all my snack!”

Her three year old hands
held up the empty bottle
of Flintstones vitamins
with iron

A child-proof bottle
100 count
gone
eaten
Mistaken for a snack

I picked up the phone
dialed poison control

Do not pass go
Do not collect $200
Go directly to the emergency room

Ipacac to vomit
charcoal to absorb
lethal levels of iron

I never bought
vitamins again

***

Outside the Wire

got the call
It’s time to pack
kevlar and gear
off to Iraq

combat landing zone
C130 spiralling down
The Iraqi desert
six shades of brown

rolling stop
disembark
Overhead a rocket pops

The Big Snake, Balad Air Base
Camp Anaconda, Mortaritaville
Different names; same place

Convoy missions
must stay awake
in the dead of night
for strawberry cheesecake

Outside the wire
under live fire

arrive alive
steak tips for chow

*****

Life Goes On

Overheard conversation
in the oncology waiting room

“How bad is it?’ she asked.

“Stage IV,” I heard the reply.

The lady with the gray hair
tilted her head
nodded and sighed
lips pressed together…
Perhaps not sure what to say.

“Why don’t you come over Friday night,” said the one with Stage IV. “We just bought a new hot tub.”

***

The Pier

One block away
from Hotel Carmel

Hotdogs and crowds
Bubba Gump’s and movie trivia
Amusement park rides and four tickets a piece

The sound of the Pacific Ocean
crashing into wooden pylons

Pigeons flying overhead
Bird shit in my hair

***

Her Dying Request

All she ever wanted
was to be a mom

Four beautiful children
liver disease
a life cut short

chirosis
the doctors said
she never drank

oxygen helped her breathe
equipment monitored
heart rate and blood pressure
the nurse’s call button within reach

the hum of life sustaining machines
the occasional beeping sound
alerting the nurse on duty
to check-in

I stood by her bedside
holding her hand
stroking her hair

“Hey beautiful,” I said

“I’m not the pretty one,”
she struggled to say.
“You are.”

I shook my head
tried to smile
wiped away
tears instead

My brother stood
at the foot of her bed
rubbing her feet

“I’m cold” she said
to no one in particular

“Think of some place warm,”
my brother replied.

Light sparkled and danced
inside her dark brown eyes

“Did you know,” she whispered
“I’m taking Meg back to Panama
when she turns 18.”

“How fun!” this time I smiled.

She squeezed my hand
and gazed at me with ferocious intensity
“Will you go?”

***

Her Circle of Love

Crowded into the
sterile hospital room
dressed in yellow paper gowns
we stood twenty strong

Holding hands
passing tissues
sharing memories
sometimes laughing
sometimes crying
wiping tears
blowing noses

surrounded by
her circle of love
life support shut off
she took her last breath

***

My First Day in Spain

Miguel, Paco, Pablo,
Alicia, Monsalud, Jose, and Adam

My daughter introduced me
“Mia Madre”

No American handshake
I mastered the art of the “dos besos”
…the two kisses

Coffee in the teachers lounge
A mix of Spanish and English spoken
to the back drop of the espresso machine

I watched my daughter
teach an English lesson
to a class of “first years”

eleven and twelve year olds
whose command of English
far surpassed my stab at Spanish

“mi amo Peggy, no hablo espanol.”

After school, Monsalud played tour guide
in Janduar; she led us down orange tree
lined streets towards an old Catholic church

Its red brick facade tinged
with black soot from diesel exhaust.

We ate lunch in the center of town
red wine and cerveza
mushroom caps bathed in olive oil, bread,
calamari, and something like American potato salad.

Monsalud invites us into her home
Spacious and welcoming
Larger than I expected

I walk into her backyard
a grapevine twists and curls
creating a natural pergola

Two lemon trees
provide a bounty
of fresh lemons

Fresh herbs grow
in a makeshift garden
rosemary, thyme, sage, and dill

I don’t want to go
but there’s a 5PM bus to catch
back to Jaen

I lean my head against
the window and sleep