My Own History of Plagues

by Miriam Bird Greenberg

The year of drought was followed by the year of locusts,
the year of grass fires, the year when daffodils
threaded with cyanide seeds got all the goats.
Then it was the seventeen-year cicadas.
Next the two moons in the sky
looking askance with their white eyes
like a rabbit shucked of its skin in one fluid motion.
The year of my flea-bait boyfriend
with his flock of coonhounds. The year my father
took a long swig from a can of Sterno
and didn't make it back up the basement steps.
The year Jennie got lockjaw turned stiff
and gray as an old board.
Cats got the kitchen mice, but a possum
got the cats and some chickens too,
and Bill shot the possum but didn't count
on the kick, broke his collarbone like a hacksaw gone toothless.
At the end of twelve days ants had got the possum,
and maggots and fifteen kinds of fly,
and we all sat on the porch where the boards hadn't rotted through
drinking gin out of old jam jars as the sun sank
behind grain elevators. Then grandma excused herself,
and Lolly who'd been the hired hand for about a hundred years
left after her, and when I got up for the kitchen
I saw from the corner of my eye
him brushing hair out of her face,
and she had her hand on his waist,
and I knew both would be gone by next year
and the well caved in besides.

Read more of her poems at No Tell Motel.

Atthis by Gary Snyder

I.

The painful accumulation of our errors
In dry summer, and her loneliness
And that distracted weeping
Of hot endless afternoons
Foretold the famine

Her swimming fondness
Stretched taut in sterile time
Contracted into dusty fractions
And now the crops are failing.

Since my sorcery has failed
My blood must feed the soil.
Let no delirious priest proclaim
A second coming;
these fragments will stay scattered.



2.

Her life blew through my body and away
I see it whirling now, across the stony places.

I lost her softly through my fingers,
Between my ribs in gentle gusts she
Sifted free, polishing the small bones.

The mute, thin framework takes the winds
That blow across the stony places.



3.

"...Still, she reproached all lands,
calling them ungrateful
and unworthy of the gift of corn"

She shall not be mollified
Til men go mad, and trees have died
For no known reason on the heights
And cornfields withered overnight;
Til Elk have groaned with thirst
And flower buds refuse to burst
Til rivers turn the fish to stone
And rocks are heard again to moan:
Until the sun has been re-tied
To Machu Picchu, men who die
Will be but corpses dressed in frocks
Who cannot speak with birds or rocks.



4. Tiger Song

I gnaw the body of delight
Spit the knotted gristle out
Lap the blood left lie by night

O see your joy digested here
Splintering to the bones of life
That torture with their fractured points
Your concupiscence into strife
Your love into a ball of hair
That cuts me worse than any knife



5.

Poorness and the pride we shared
Our mutual vicious natures bared
Made a jungle of a bed
Gnawed and comforted we fled.
It should have birthed a human child,
Instead our intellects ran wild.

My bitter foe, O sterile lover,
Stranded in my brain, you
Are loved, still loved, there
Which is nowhere,and leaves me
Strangled, bound and dangled, yet
Met, yet of most men most free.



6.

You've gone cold, I suppose
In the prosperous East, with a good job,
Your bright mind turned all brain,
Your wild dancing feet and eyes
Held still, fear
Finally running it all
Under some fancy name.
The summer I hitchhiked from New York
In the hottest week of August
Over the desert and into sea-fog
San Francisco and took you
From your Mother's place, and we hiked
Over Tamalpais, caught a ride
to Tomales Bay, and camped under pines.
You remember it now and put it down,
Turning hard. But I know
How clear and kind your love was
At eighteen, how keen your heart and eye,
How you wrote me of your downtown job,
Sandpipers at Stinson Beach, an old
German you met on a lonely hike
With freckles on his back--the sunburn
On your breasts. even then
I had a terrible thought of time,
And age, and the death
Of our dream-like young love.
It began too soon,
Was too strong too soon,
And it's gone.



7.

Love me love, til trees fall flat
their trunks flail down the berries
Til ripe sharp vines crawl through the door
and the air is full of sparrows

I loved you love, in halls and homes
and through the long library;
I loved you in the pine and snow
now I love blackberry



8.

Half-known stars in the dawn sky
Purple Finch at the feed-tray
A broom beat on a back porch,
tea,
My bent legs, love of you.



9. Up the Dosewallips

In the ruins of a CCC shelter
cooking stew,
rain thru the broken shakes
gorge a low roar,
rain and creeks--

A doe in the meadow
hair plastered to steaming flanks
--hoofprints down gullies
wind whipping rain against cliffs

The trail fades in the meadow,
carins at each rise to the pass.
ash-scars, a ring of stone
--we camped here one other summer--

rainsoaked and shivering
knee deep in squaw grass,

two days travel from roads.



Olympic Mountains



10. Seaman's Ditty

I'm wondering where you are now
Married, or mad, or free:
Wherever you are you're likely glad,
But memory troubles me.

We could've had us children,
We could've had a home--
But you thought not, and I thought not,
And these nine years we roam.

Today I worked in the deep dark tanks,
And climbed out to watch the sea:
Gulls and salty waves pass by,
And mountains of Araby.

I've travelled the lonely oceans
And wandered the lonely towns.
I've learned a lot and lost a lot,
And proved the world was round.

Now if we'd stayed together,
There's much we'd never've known--
But dreary books and weary lands
Weigh on me like a stone.



Indian Ocean

Haiku from Loserland

These brilliant drawings and poems were done by a friend.

I draw back, and hope
it won't take all afternoon
to find the arrows.

Susan's lunch lecture:
true bible stories and the
downside of large breasts.

Sunday night's garbage:
dead mouse, burnt cupcakes, mangled
puppet theater.

"Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

nobody but you

by Charles Bukowski

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don't, don't, don't.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you're worth saving.
it's a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.
your spiritual self.
your gut self.
your singing magical self and
your beautiful self.
save it.
don't join the dead-in-spirit.

maintain your self
with humor and grace
and finally if necessary
wager your life as you struggle,
damn the odds, damn
the price.

only you can save your
self.

do it! do it!

then you'll know exactly what
I am talking about.

Blackout Poems

Austin Kleon creates wonderful poems in a unique way. The formula: The New York Times + Sharpie = Poems

Click the pics above to view full size images, or, even better, visit his blog here.

Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg

"They Will Say"
Of my city the worst that men will ever say is this:
You took little children away from the sun and the dew,
And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky,
And the reckless rain; you put them between walls
To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages,
To eat dust in their throats and die empty-hearted
For a little handful of pay on a few Saturday nights.


"Who Am I?"
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back may times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading "Keep Off."

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.


"At a Window"
Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

Goethe Quote

Readers of this blog know though that I love poetry and science. So when I see a quote about the two together, my heart skips a beat.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced Ger-ta) said "Science arose from poetry...when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends."

I admire Goethe's work. He's a German romantic who wrote one of my favorite novellas, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and he's one of the most quotable guys around. But I'm not sure what he means here. Science arose from poetry?? When did that happen? How can they meet again? I have some ideas about what he's trying to say -- namely, mind/body dualism -- but, still, I am puzzled. Anyone want to take a stab at interpreting what Goethe means?

A Love Poem...

...written by one of my 8th graders. i think it is beautiful.

i wrote to you about my feelings
but you just put it aside
i told you that i cherished you
but you acted like you didn't care
i see you smile
and that makes me feel pure inside
i see you talking to your friends
i wonder...
"why can't we be like that"
i keep thinking about you
even when you put me down
i try to help you
thinking that something might occur
i say i love you
and you take it...
like someone passing you a ball
catch it and throw it to someone
like nothing...

My City

If you came to my city,
You wouldn't hear
A robin chirping
As she nests in the trees.
You would hear
The wild, tangled coos
Of furious pigeons fighting
Over a hard piece of bread.

If you came to my city,
You wouldn't hear
The sound of silence
In the morning.
You would hear car horns,
People yelling, dogs barking,
And the occasional
Cat screech.

Yep, my city
Is noisy, loud, and unfair,
But it's my home
And what I grew up with.

Though it maybe be tough,
Mean and hard
It will always be
My city.

Reina Samuels
Washington, D.C.
from Paint Me Like I Am

Why I Write Poetry

by Kevin Powell

I have not always been a fan of poetry. Nah. In fact, I hated it and thought poetry an activity for the overly sensitive--and suckers. Suckers in the sense that I, a Black boy from the ghetto, would--could--never let my guard down long enough for you, the observer,to see me--naked--as I am. But the reality is that I had always, on the down low, dug poetry, be it the sensual sonnets of William Shakespeare, the dark meditations of Edgar Allan Poe, or the lonesome thoughts of Emily Dickinson.

However, it was not until I encountered the first very traumatic experience of my adult life, at age twenty-two, that poetry really began to mean something to me. You see, I was suspended from my university for an indiscretion I will not share here. Having been the first person in my immediate family to attend college, I was devastated and could not tell my moms what had happened. Between sudden bouts with insomnia and school-mandated trips to a therapist, I scrawled words which became stanzas which became my initial attempts at poetry. Although I had studied this literary form in both high school and college, I did not know if poems were supposed to be long or short, nor if what I was writing was actually good or not.

Back then I did not care, to be honest. I had wanted to be a writer since I was eleven and, outside of some short fiction I penned during my high school years, this post-college writing was the first time I felt free—and truly felt that I was, indeed, a writer. And how amazing it was, yo. To be able to say whatever I wanted, to push the door to my imagination and walk through, without fear, to those spaces I never knew existed.

And it was not enough for me to write poetry in isolation. I knew I had to share my words with other people and I soon found myself in hole-in-the-wall spots in north Jersey and New York City, reading to audiences of maybe ten people. I was mad happy about that too. I felt empowered, that my voice, my life, my world, mattered. That poetry was, no doubt, special, magical, a gift from some greater being and I was merely the vessel carrying the word.

It took me a few years but I eventually recovered from that college suspension. Now all these years later, after five books, numerous magazine and newspaper articles, and travels across America and outside of the States to places like England, France, and the Caribbean. I cannot help but think back to those very innocent days when I kept a tiny notepad in my back pocket and tried to capture everything I felt at any given moment, on the subway, at a grocery store, while walking down a street in Newark or Harlem, or Brooklyn.

Today I cannot picture what it would be like not being a poet. Yeah, I am sensitive, because one cannot be a poet without having some level of sensitivity. Without some connection to one’s soul, and the souls of other human beings. And, yeah, I am a sucker, for words. For sure, I love words and the poetry made from stringing just the right words together. In this coming together of pen and paper, of fingers and computer keys, of raw-dog emotions and instant testimonies that make poetry—to me—as necessary as the blood beating a path to our hearts.

The New York City-based Kevin Powell is a poet, journalist, essayist, activist, and public speaker. Kevin is the author of five books, including his editorship of the recent HarperCollins release Who Shot Ya? Three Decades of Hiphop Photography (images by Ernie Paniccioli), which is the first-ever pictorial history of hiphop. Kevin's essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in many publications, including the Washington Post, Essence, Newsweek, and Vibe, where he was a longtime staff writer. A highly sought-after political and pop cultural commentator, Kevin has shared his views on VH1, BET, CNN, and a host of other media outlets. And Kevin first reached the national spotlight as a cast member on the original season of MTV's The Real World, the most successful reality-based program in television history.

My Soul

Sometimes
When I feel like I'm going to fall apart
I hold my ribs, all the way around,
Both sides.
My ribs hold me together,
Like glue.
Theykeep my breath close to my heartbeat.
They keep my soul from escaping and
Leaving me, grounded.
I hold brightness and shadows in
The hollow where my ribs meet.
I hold them there in the memories
Of slow, sorrowful music and
Porch steps.
I hold my ribs, until I feel solid.
Until my legs are tree trunks and
My fingers are fruit.

Ember Ward
San Francisco
from Paint Me Like I Am

Carabao Dreams

how how the carabao said to me in a dream
refute the conspiring evils
prove the strength that wills your breath
hold tightly to poetry and loved ones
as a book would bind its pages
share your story through art and song
fix your eyes on the stars so your voice
can be heard
"taas noo, iho, taas noo!"

you are more than
what they say
what they think
what they see

pinoy is more than
brown and alibata
barongs and tinikling
pansit and Goldilocks
you will understand

queer is more than
cocks and A.I.D.S.
white men and the Castro
June and pride marches
you will understand

life is more than
angst and depression
money and aspiration
wanting and loneliness
you will understand

how how the carabao said to me
tell the people your story
don't think an amendment frees your
speech
if they cover their ears and refuse to listen
yell if you have to
you do not have a choice
this is not a request
you need to be heard

how how the carabao said to me
rush out into the world in perfect
surrender
give in to the sun as she licks your face
and thighs
offer no words when the winds
whip at your backside
respect the moon
yield up limber arms in reverence to
the stars
for darkness is also a gift
and silence can be a friend
go out into the world and do these things and you will understand

how how the carabao said to me
sadness is not the absence of happiness
but your incapacity to witness its presence
your soul is not just a bird taking up
wings
your soul is the sea
your spirit is the shore
your mind is the black expanse
that births planets and consumes galaxies
you are not only part of the revolution
but you are the revolution
when you stop building comfortable walls
and notice that your feet are planted
on the same ground on which millions
have stood
you will understand
you will understand
you will understand

you are more than pansit
A.I.D.S.
and depression

how how the carabao said to me in a dream
this is just a dream
these are just my words
breathe life into them
assign them feet
make them real

how how the carabao said to me

how

how

Timothy Arevalo, age 18
from You Hear Me?


carabao - water buffalo
"taas noo, iho, taas noo!" - "Look up, son, look up!"
pinoy - a Filipino person
alibata - ancience Tagalog script
barong - traditional Filipino shirt
tinikling - traditional Filipino dance
pansit - rice noodles

Instructions for Life

Catch the football and make sure you score a touchdown;
jump into the mud and make certain it is enjoyable; rip
your jeans and tear your shirts; bleed on the field of glory
and take it like a man; grind the grass stains into your
clothes; order a hot dog at a baseball game; watch the
Super Bowl and tell everyone about the play in the second
half to prove you watched it; root for the home team; get
hurt but don't cry; hide your emotions; pick yourself up
when you are down; watch violent movies and crave blood
and destruction. This is how to act tough on the outside;
this is how you act in front of the guys. Slick your hair
back with your father's gel just the right way to catch the
eye of the girl next to you; don't burp; act like a gentle-
man; wear clothes that make you look cool; walk a walk
that shows the girls how suave you are; act mature; protect
your sister if she needs help. This is how you act in front of
the girls. Do well in school; get straight A's because you
have to get into a good college. This is how to succeed; this
is how to be prosperous; this is how to be happy and live
life to the fullest.

Brando, age 15
from You Hear Me?

Time Somebody Told Me

Time Somebody Told Me
That I am lovely, good and real
That I am beautiful inside
If they only knew
How that would make me feel.

Time Somebody Told Me
That my mind is quick, sharp
and full of wit
That I should keep on trying
and never quit.

Time Somebody Told Me
How they loved and needed me
How my smile is filled with hope
and my spirit sets them free
How my eyes shine, full of light
How good they feel when they hug me tight.

Time Somebody Told Me

So, I had a talk with myself
Just me, nobody else
'cause it was time
Somebody Told Me.

Quantedius Hall, "son of Reality," age 12
From You Hear Me?

The Girl I Like

I saw this girl on my way
home. She is everything
I want in a girl. A girl who
makes me smile when she smiles,
a girl who speaks what she feels.
She makes my heart skip like
a street beat, happy.

Ronnie Ross, age 16.
From You Hear Me?

I Want

To know
If there's a ghetto
In heaven.

Troy Williams, age 16
from You Hear Me?

"P.O.W." by Alicia Keys

I'm a prisoner
Of words unsaid
Just lonely feelings
Locked away in my head
I trap myself further
Every time I stay quiet
I should start to speak
But I stop and stay silent
And now I've made
My own hard bed
Inside a prison of words unsaid
I am a P.O.W.
Not a prisoner of war
A prisoner of words
Like a soldier
I'm a fighter
Yet only a puppet
Mostly I only say
What you wanna hear
Could you take it if I came clear?
Or would you rather see me
Stoned on a drug of complacency and compromise
M.I.A.
I guess that's what I am
Scraping this cold earth
For a piece of myself
For peace in myself
It'd be easier if you put me in jail
If you locked me away
I'd have someone to blame
But these bars of steel are of my making
They surround my mind
And have me shaking
My hands are cuffed behind my back
I'm a prisoner of the worst kind, in fact
A prisoner of compromise
A prisoner of compassion
A prisoner of kindness
A prisoner of expectation
A prisoner of my youth
Run too fast to be old
I've forgotten what I was told
Ain't I a sight to behold?
A prisoner of age dying to be young
To my head is my hand with a gun
And it's cold and it's hard
Cause there's nowhere to run
When you've caged youself
By holding your tongue
I'm a prisoner
Of words unsaid
Just lonely feelings
Locked away in my head
It's like solitary confinement
Every time I stay quiet
I should start to speak
But I stop and stay silent
And now I've made
My own hard bed
Inside a prison of words unsaid