Category: Poems I Admire

Things to Believe in

“. . .the generosity of apples.”

Sarah Russell6 Comments

A hopeful poem for Easter and Passover, by Patricia Monaghan, an activist in the women’s spirituality movement.  You can read more about her life and her impressive list of publications here.

trees, in general; oaks, especially;
burr oaks that survive fire, in particular;
and the generosity of apples

seeds, all of them: carrots like dust,
winged maple, doubled beet, peach kernel;
the inevitability of change

frogsong in spring; cattle
lowing on the farm across the hill;
the melodies of sad old songs

comfort of savory soup;
sweet iced fruit; the aroma of yeast;
a friend’s voice; hard work

seasons; bedrock; lilacs;
moonshadows under the ash grove;
something breaking through

– Patricia Monaghan
First published in Grace of Ancient Land

In Lieu of a Photograph

“. . . she curved to her task with deft, balletic grace.”

Sarah Russell12 Comments

I wish I knew the full name of this poet.  I found this poem several years ago in one of the monthly Goodreads contests, with the name “Jordan” as the author.  Every time I read it, I fall in love with the images all over again.  If anyone knows more about this person, please let me know.  Google has been no help at all.

 

I am no good at photography.

I lack the necessary subtlety–I am too literal.
I shove the lens right into the center of my subject,
Like a punch to the gut,
Causing the context to crumple around it.

But I sat once at close of day, looking up at a bridge where
Women, silhouetted against the setting sun, made their graceful ways home carrying
Great buckets and baignoires on their heads.

You will have to imagine, I’m afraid, the way their dark bodies were made darker in relief
And the herd-like elegance–not of mindless association,
But natural interconnectedness–of their movement.

A familiar noise made the baby look up from the mat where we were playing.

I followed his gaze to find my sister framed in the doorway, the sheer curtain fluttering between us.
She was folded over a calabash bowl of rice
Making the starch-laden rinse water cascade across her caramel-colored arm,
Which she curved to her task with deft, balletic grace.

There are some–employed by National Geographic, no doubt–
Who could have captured the beauty of this moment–
The way the early Fall light made everything jewel-bright–
With a single “click” of a camera shutter.

But I am no good at photography.

– Jordan

Living Too Long

“. . . we learned the cost of attachment.”

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David Sloan, a poet from Maine, captures aging and frustration in this poem about chickens.  There’s a great interview with David on The Houseboat — a blog I highly recommend, that has an eclectic assortment of artists and poets.  Read the interview about his writing process here.

 

Some nights I feel I’ve lived too long,
when the moon’s a squint-eyed mute,

oak branches turn fish bones,
and the wind’s a whimper.

I hobble out to the shed, our old chicken
coop.  How you’d loved those hens,

made the mistake of naming them —
Blackie, Maude, the rest.  We never figured

out how the owl got in, but we learned
the cost of attachment.  The path I cleared

through the woods is overgrown now,
so I lean against the maples in the yard.

How many more tattered moons
will seek me out?  You embrace this waning,

but I can’t find a way to love the less.
You said, Yes, we lose leaves, but we gain sky.

I say, Give me back my legs.  Let me
scale this tree, turn panther, pounce

on an owl under a hatching moon,
pillow the night with a fury of feathers.

– David Sloan
from his book The Irresistible In-Between

Tia Lucia Enters the Nursing Home

“…She is reduced to another being.”

Sarah Russell7 Comments

I love this poem not only for the humanity it shows, but also for its many layers of meaning.  Deborah Paradez teaches at Columbia University.  You can read more about her and more of her poetry here.

All morning my daughter pleading, outside
outside. By noon I kneel to button her
coat, tie the scarf to keep her hood in place.
This is her first snow so she strains against
the ritual, spooked silent then whining,
restless under each buffeting layer,
uncertain how to settle into this
leashing. I manage at last to tunnel
her hands into mittens and she barks and
won’t stop barking, her hands suddenly paws.
She is reduced to another being,
barking, barking all day in these restraints.
For days after, she howls into her hands,
the only way she tells me she wants out.

– Deborah Paredez
First published in Poetry Magazine

Good Bones

“…This place could be beautiful, right?”

Sarah Russell7 Comments

“Good Bones” went viral in 2016 when it was published in Waxwing.  It seemed to sum up all of our hopes and fears for our children.  Maggie Smith, who wrote “Good Bones,” has several award winning books and chapbooks.  You can read more about her here.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

– Maggie Smith
  First published in Waxwing

P.S.  New Prompts are up on the Prompts page.

 

If I Die First

“. . . Store me beside the poetry.”

Sarah Russell20 Comments

No one could give better instructions than Wendy DeGroat does in this poem.  Her chapbook Beautiful Machinery was published last year.  You can read more about Wendy here.

After the burning’s done, pour
what’s left in a Mason jar—nothing new,

but one washed clean of applesauce or pickled beets,
the clear kind that kids keep fireflies inside.

Let my cinders rest there
like sand art in jelly jars carried home from the fair.

If the small or gray of me unsettles you,
pin flannel or fleece around the glass,

leaving a gap, thumb-wide, under the rim, enough
to let sun and moonlight in. Store me beside the poetry.

When it feels right, talk to me, sing, or sit by quietly.
For a wheel of seasons, take me down. Hold me open—

to campfires, fallen leaves, a lilac’s laden bough.
Press me deep in moss and snow.

When my birthday comes, add a pinch of salt,
toast to us with good bourbon or dark rum.

And when you’re ready to move on, release me somewhere
we once were. As dust blurs through your fingers,

quick or slow, know I miss your touch, and let me go.

– Wendy DeGroat
  First published in Rust + Moth

Humoresque

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One more from Edna St. Vincent Millay before moving back to modern poets.  As a teenager, when I read (and memorized) many of her poems, I loved her dark side.  Here’s one of my favorites.

“Heaven bless the babe,” they said.
“What queer books she must have read!”
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child!)

“Little does she guess today
What the world may be,” they say.
(Snow, drift deep and cover
Till the spring my murdered lover!)

– Edna St. Vincent Millay
Published in The Dial, 1918

Recuerdo

“… the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.”

Sarah Russell6 Comments

When I started writing poems in high school, I discovered and fell in love with the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.  I still have the book of her collected poems I received from my folks one Christmas.  Here is an early poem of hers, and one my favorites,  Ah, young love…

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

– Edna St, Vincent Millay
From  A Few Figs From Thistles 

First Cigarette

Teddy strikes a Bogart pose…

Sarah Russell4 Comments

My friend John Ziegler doesn’t publish much poetry, but he should.  Maybe this will give him a shove.  His ability to capture a moment in time is so fine.  Some atta boys from readers might help.

Skinny bare legs over
the edge of the garage roof,
Measle takes a drag
on the unfiltered Pall Mall,
coughs like a clogged lawnmower.
Teddy strikes a Bogart pose,
heavy eyelids,
cig between thumb and forefinger.
Chippy lets a smoke feather
trail from her delicious lips,
Detective Magazine,
the guy looming, fedora
the woman dreamy.
Reverend Cartwright hollers from the window,
shakes a dust mop.  “Calling the cops!”
We walk Chippy under the linden trees,
sit on her porch,
no one ready to go home
to Dad parking the Plymouth,
the dog shivering with joy,
ham and boiled cabbage,
Grandma calling in the dark
for a half a glass of water.

– John Ziegler

 

 

 

Brazilian Telephone

Sarah Russell1 Comment

This poem by Miriam Bird Greenberg. . . well, when you read it you’ll know why I am at a loss for words.  You can learn more about this gifted writer and read more of her poetry here.

In the peach orchard in an old bathtub
the children are standing someone
in a bath of salt water, and one
gently attaches electrodes
to the nipples of the one
in the bath. Out of the weeds runs one
with a rescued battery from the old
motor home, which they had gotten
to rev its engine like the sad bleating
of a goat. If, later, anyone asks
how they learned to do this, in a striped shirt one
will say, Oh, I was looking for science
experiments in those old textbooks someone
got from the library book sale last year.
I have been baking all day,
and in a few minutes will start to wonder
what happened to that box of coarse kosher salt
I got just last week.
The children are all singing
some ditty from a musical
we saw at the community theater
a few days ago, and, in the tub the one
with electrodes affixed so gently
to his chest is calling
out little mews of uncertainty,
is calling and calling into the sundown
past the knotted trees with their hairy
fruits, green and hard. Hush,
hush, don’t worry, another one
is saying, fingernail following a line of text
in a complicated book. I think this one
is called the Brazilian Telephone, one
says, connecting finally,
after all this build-up, the ends of two
wires to the battery terminals
which, with steel wool stolen from the kitchen,
they had cleaned so carefully
earlier in the day.

– Miriam Bird Greenberg
  First published in Poetry Magazine
  Republished in her book, Pact-Blood, Fever Grass