The Hawaiian Shirt

By Kimiko Hahn

His earliest recollection
was sucking on his mother's breast
and throwing up on his father's Hawaiian shirt.
Years later his father told him
he was bottle-fed.

Autumn Movement

By Carl Sandburg


I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things
come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go,
not one lasts.

Checklist

By Stephen Dunn

The housework, the factory work, the work
that takes from the body
and does not put back.
The white-collar work and the dirt
of its profits, the terrible politeness
of the office worker, the work that robs
the viscera to pay the cool
surfaces of the brain. All the work
that makes love difficult, brings on
sleep, drops the body off
at the liquor cabinet. All the work
that reaches the intestines and sprawls.
And the compulsive work after the work
is done, those unfillable spaces
of the Calvinist, or certain marriage beds.

An American Poem

By Eileen Myles

I was born in Boston in
1949. I never wanted
this fact to be known, in
fact I’ve spent the better
half of my adult life
trying to sweep my early
years under the carpet
and have a life that
was clearly just mine
and independent of
the historic fate of
my family. Can you
imagine what it was
like to be one of them,
to be built like them,
to talk like them
to have the benefits
of being born into such
a wealthy and powerful
American family. I went
to the best schools,
had all kinds of tutors
and trainers, traveled
widely, met the famous,
the controversial, and
the not-so-admirable
and I knew from
a very early age that
if there were every any
possibility of escaping
the collective fate of this famous
Boston family I would
take that route and
I have. I hopped
on an Amtrak to New
York in the early
‘70s and I guess
you could say
my hidden years
began. I thought
Well I’ll be a poet.
What could be more
foolish and obscure.
I became a lesbian.
Every woman in my
family looks like
a dyke but it’s really
stepping off the flag
when you become one.
While holding this ignominious
pose I have seen and
I have learned and
I am beginning to think
there is no escaping
history. A woman I
am currently having
an affair with said
you know you look
like a Kennedy. I felt
the blood rising in my
cheeks. People have
always laughed at
my Boston accent
confusing “large” for
“lodge,” “party”
for “potty.” But
when this unsuspecting
woman invoked for
the first time my
family name
I knew the jig
was up. Yes, I am,
I am a Kennedy.
My attempts to remain
obscure have not served
me well. Starting as
a humble poet I
quickly climbed to the
top of my profession
assuming a position of
leadership and honor.
It is right that a
woman should call
me out now. Yes,
I am a Kennedy.
And I await
your orders.
You are the New Americans.
The homeless are wandering
the streets of our nation’s
greatest city. Homeless
men with AIDS are among
them. Is that right?
That there are no homes
for the homeless, that
there is no free medical
help for these men. And women.
That they get the message
—as they are dying—
that this is not their home?
And how are your
teeth today? Can
you afford to fix them?
How high is your rent?
If art is the highest
and most honest form
of communication of
our times and the young
artist is no longer able
to move here to speak
to her time…Yes, I could,
but that was 15 years ago
and remember—as I must
I am a Kennedy.
Shouldn’t we all be Kennedys?
This nation’s greatest city
is home of the business-
man and home of the
rich artist. People with
beautiful teeth who are not
on the streets. What shall
we do about this dilemma?
Listen, I have been educated.
I have learned about Western
Civilization. Do you know
what the message of Western
Civilization is? I am alone.
Am I alone tonight?
I don’t think so. Am I
the only one with bleeding gums
tonight. Am I the only
homosexual in this room
tonight. Am I the only
one whose friends have
died, are dying now.
And my art can’t
be supported until it is
gigantic, bigger than
everyone else’s, confirming
the audience’s feeling that they are
alone. That they alone
are good, deserved
to buy the tickets
to see this Art.
Are working,
are healthy, should
survive, and are
normal. Are you
normal tonight? Everyone
here, are we all normal.
It is not normal for
me to be a Kennedy.
But I am no longer
ashamed, no longer
alone. I am not
alone tonight because
we are all Kennedys.
And I am your President.

doom and siesta time

By Charles Bukowski

my friend is worried about dying

he lives in Frisco
I live in L.A.

he goes to the gym and
works with the iron and hits
the big bag.

old age diminishes him.

he can't drink because of
his liver.


he can do
50 pushups.

he writes me
letters
telling me
that I'm the only one
who listens to him.

sure, Hal, I answer him
on a postcard.

but I don't want to pay
all those gym fees.

I go to bed
with a liverwurst and
onion sandwich at
one p.m.

after I eat I
nap

with the heli-
copters and vultures
circling over my
sagging mattress.

Poem

By Jack Kerouac

I demand that the human race
ceases multiplying its kind
and bow out
I advise it

And as punishment & reward
for making this plea I know
I’ll be reborn
the last human

Everybody else dead and I’m
an old woman roaming the earth
groaning in caves
sleeping on mats

And sometimes I’ll cackle, sometimes
pray, sometimes cry, eat and cook
at my little stove
in the corner
“Always knew it anyway”
I’ll say
And one morning won’t get up from my mat.

Men Who Should Have Loved Me

By Rae Rose

My history professor - in your adorable
black shirts and that strange click
of your jaw that made you so thirsty.
You said, "A one world Utopia sounds genocidal"
and I almost dropped my pen.
You blushed when you cursed, called my writing a joy
and snuck looks down my cleavage in your office.
Room Q 19, fourth floor.
Your wife grows peppers and keeps chickens.
She asks you to go to the store when you're out of plums.

Saxophone player - all dimple,
all clever smile.
You loved my hair short and curly, drank with me at the bar
and your wife never came to a show,
well, once.
Once she did. In tennis shoes with the laces
untied and huge white tube socks
and I called her "Socks" to feel better about myself,
but it didn't work. You told me about your quiet Halloween,
cuddling and handing candy out to kids
and I can't imagine her like that,
but I'm wrong. I hate that memory. Yours.

Kevin Beck in 1st - 8th grade.
We were the funny redheads.
The first note you wrote to me as an adult
was from jail. You shot a cop.
I stared at the return address. You said you missed me.
Everything was misspelled. There wasn't any punctuation.
I wrote back. You didn't.


The man who called me "Honey." Just that sound! Honey.
You bought me dresses and nachos.
I didn't love you either.
You call me now, back from France
and a mental break down. Your therapist says hi.

Oh Freddie, you idiot.


Published in The Raleigh Review, October 2010

Life is Fine

By Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

Original formatting can be viewed here.

Grieving for Phoebe

I have been watching Phoebe
the California hummingbird
along with four thousand other people on the internet.
She's battled a lizard, a crow, and her own biology and not winning
the battle of late. Her last brood of two would be labeled "failure to thrive"
if the Department of Children and Families paid house visits to birds.
Her most recent eggs are dead –
one discarded from her nest by Phoebe herself
after its stench attracted the lizard
The other one left to finish decomposing in the nest
while she flitted away to mourn.
Do birds grieve? I feel her grief
but perhaps that's just like Elliot feeling E.T.'s grief
in that movie that made me sob,
which my mother is convinced traumatized me,
just one more piece of a mother's guilt.
There are so many reasons to feel guilty and inadequate as parents
and even before we become parents.
Knowing which ones are true is the hardest part.
Her third attempt yielded better results
One egg hatched and the chick fledged without issue
The other hatched but the chick was startled from the nest
By the strong black wings and rawwk rawwk of a crow.
The chick’s whereabouts are unknown
I remain hopeful she is safe
Hopeful for my own eggs.


Previously published in The Houston Literary Review, September 2010

The Hour and What is Dead

By Li-Young Lee

Tonight my brother, in heavy boots, is walking
through bare rooms over my head,
opening and closing doors.
What could he be looking for in an empty house?
What could he possibly need there in heaven?
Does he remember his earth, his birthplace set to torches?
His love for me feels like spilled water
running back to its vessel.

At this hour, what is dead is restless
and what is living is burning.

Someone tell him he should sleep now.

My father keeps a light on by our bed
and readies for our journey.
He mends ten holes in the knees
of five pairs of boy's pants.
His love for me is like sewing:
various colors and too much thread,
the stitching uneven. But the needle pierces
clean through with each stroke of his hand.

At this hour, what is dead is worried
and what is living is fugitive.

Someone tell him he should sleep now.

God, that old furnace, keeps talking
with his mouth of teeth,
a beard stained at feasts, and his breath
of gasoline, airplane, human ash.
His love for me feels like fire,
feels like doves, feels like river-water.

At this hour, what is dead is helpless, kind
and helpless. While the Lord lives.

Someone tell the Lord to leave me alone.
I've had enough of his love
that feels like burning and flight and running away.

Clear Snake

By Mary Bowen

Clear snake tie old man to earth.
Clear snake follow up steps and down.

Hiss detached—hiss live in box, hiss hide in box,
Box on ground. Hush Mum! I say,
He keep house always—
Old man’s clear spirit stay to ground.

Death got nothin but the hiss say the box.
Death ain’t nothin but his.

Clear snake slither up his nose.
Clear snake siphon his hot spite.
Clear snake goes and go and no thing will
Put old man to rights.

Hush! Mum say, He still your Daddy.
Hush! box say all day and night.

In Those Years

By Adrienne Rich

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I

Black Sons

By Yvette Battle-Leaphart

It is common for black males to die young in these times
Prematurely, violently before their prime.
It is a phenomena that cannot be explained
But I see the wall of pain revisited by mothers
Whose sons die before their very eyes
And we, mothers, cry for the loss of our sons who die
And the loss of our sons who pulled the trigger.

My son crying at the wakes of dozens of his friends in as many years

What is this dark vigilante spirit that invades their soul?
Creating countless black holes in our universe
Perpetuating a twisted ecological balance-
Some weird equation with no solution
It is, after all, not the earth that yields
9 millimeters/assault rifles, Glock 9s ­

Yet they come to rest frequently in the hands of
the young who become life-takers, stalkers, hunters,
killers; declaring war on each other
trading a look, a gold chain, a girl... for a life?

This is our terror and our reality.
A cousin bound, gagged, tortured ­ dead at 15
His mom wailing, recognizing him only by a mole ­ a birthmark -
left starkly intact on his young face

Not just "over there" ---no --not just "over there"
Here - on my street today, yours tomorrow
Inner-city discontent turned to irrationality
bullets flying in the face of reason
for no reason that we can comprehend

Yet, we can launch spaceships. Build supercomputers.
Download massive amounts of data onto the heads of pins
But have no science to predict or save the next victim
Billions of dollars spent on war "over there"
­0-for this insidious war at home.

My sons survived;
Though I have held mothers of the sons who did not.

We will save the Great Winged Hawk from extinction
But, who will save our Black sons?

Cross-fire

By Stacyann Chin

Am I a feminist
or a womanist
the student needs to know
if I do men occasionally
and primarily am I a lesbian

Tongue twisted in cheek I attempt to respond with honesty-

This business of sexual dykes and dykery
I tell her
is often messy-with social tensions as they are
you never quite know what you're getting
-some girls can only be straight at night
-hardcore butches be wearing dresses
between nine and six during the day
sometimes she is really a he trapped
by the limitations of our imagination-

Primarily
I am concerned about young women
who are raped on college campuses
in cars
after poetry readings like this one
in bars
bruised lip and broken heart
you will forgive her if she does not come
forward with the truth immediately

Everyone will think she asked for it
dressed as she was she must have wanted it

The words will knock about in her head
horny bitch
slut-harlot-tease
loose woman
some people cannot handle a woman on the loose
you know those women in silk-ties and pin-striped shirts
women in blood-red stilettos and short pink skirts
-these women make New York City the most interesting place
and while we're on the subject of diversity
Asia is not one big race
and there is no such country called the Islands
and no-I am not from there

There are a hundred ways
to slip between the cracks
of our not-so-credible cultural assumptions
and other peoples' interpretations of race and religion

Most people are surprised my father is Chinese-like
there's some preconditioned
look for the half-Chinese lesbian poet
who used to be Catholic but now believes in dreams

Let's keep it real
says the boy in the double-X hooded sweatshirt
that blond haired blue eyed Jesus in the Vatican ain't right
that motherfucker was Jewish, not white

Christ was a Middle Eastern Rastaman
who ate grapes in the company of prostitutes
and drank wine more than he drank water
born of the spirit the disciples also loved him in the flesh
but the discourse is on people who clearly identify as gay
or lesbian or straight
the State needs us to be left or right
those in the middle get caught
in the cross-fire away at the other side

If you are not for us you must be against us
People get scared enough they pick a team

Be it for Buddha or for Krishna or for Christ
God is that place between belief and what you name it
I believe holy is what you do
when there is nothing between your actions and the truth

I am afraid to draw your black lines around me
I am not always pale in the middle
I come in too many flavors for one fucking spoon

I am never one thing or the other-
at night I am everything I fear
tears and sorrows
black windows and muffled screams
in the morning I am all I want to be
wild rain and open laughter
bare footprints and invisible seams
always without breath or definition-I claim every dawn
for yesterday is simply what I was
and tomorrow
even that will be gone

Cupcake

By Zilla McCue


Reunited and it feels so good
I hadn’t had a Hostess Cupcake in 20 years
Until today
I held the box in my hand with wonder
I wondered if I could really eat it
Could I eat both of the cupcakes in the sleeve?
Could I do it in one sitting?
The calories
The net carbs
The joy,
The pain,
The creamy delicious middle,
The gelatinous top,
The moist cake,
They way it all melts together like a wondrous bakery miracle
Could I do it?
Oh yes
I did it!
I did it hard!
I savored every second of it
I devoured them
I licked the paper,
I licked my fingers
Then, I opened the second sleeve before I took my first breath
I could put the cake next to my nose and smell my childhood
The smell of that cupcake unlocked a door to a simpler time
A time when I could lay in the grass for hours, thinking only of the ice cream man
The smell of the cupcake catapulted me back to a time when I didn’t care about tomorrow and I didn’t really remember yesterday.
The creamy middle reminded me of my mother
How she would freeze the cupcakes to keep them fresh
We couldn’t wait until they thawed
We would chew at the frozen cake and unearth the hardened ball of frozen cream
Then let is melt in our mouths
It was heaven
Hostess cupcakes bring me to places of exploration before I realized that life was going to burn me
I washed it down with milk and then remembered that I still hate milk
I washed it down with coke and remembered that I still love coke
I thought about my friends, about trading lunches at school, about smoking cigarettes behind the dumpster, about swearing and teaching the dumb kids about sex, about being a bad little catholic girl and man, it man it still felt good.
The cupcake looks the exact same
Maybe a little smaller?
Or maybe I am a little bigger
I remember looking in my lunch bag and knowing that I had something cool
I would see that cupcake sitting along side my Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Along side my malformed peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was on a frozen hamburger bun
Again, my mother with the freezing and freshness
A sandwich that had slid out of the wax paper and was resting, naked in the bag, in soggy wet spot from the thaw
I would see that cupcake and know it was going to be all right
Everything was going to be O.K.
I don’t know why I bought the cupcakes today
I don’t even really remember it happening
I know that I ended up eating the entire box
I know that lay down on my couch in a tasty, sugar drunk haze
I know that I woke up with a chocolate ringed mouth, ashamed and with a hang over
But I felt young, I felt alive and those cupcakes set me FREE!

Do Not!

By Stevie Smith

Do not despair of man, and do not scold him,
Who are you that you should so lightly hold him?
Are you not also a man, and in your heart
Are there not warlike thoughts and fear and smart?
Are you not also afraid and in fear cruel,
Do you not think of yourself as usual,
Faint for ambition, desire to be loved,
Prick at a virtuous thought by beauty moved?
You love your wife, you hold your children dear,
Then say not that Man is vile, but say they are.
But they are not. So is your judgement shown
Presumptuous, false, quite vain, merely your own
Sadness for failed ambition set outside,
Made a philosophy of, prinked, beautified
In noble dress and into the world sent out
To run with the ill it most pretends to rout.
Oh know your own heart, that heart's not wholly evil,
And from the particular judge the general,
If judge you must, but with compassion see life,
Or else, of yourself despairing, flee strife.

That Year

By Grace Paley

In my family
people who were eighty-two were very different
from people who were ninety-two

The eighty-two year old people grew up

it was 1914

this is what they knew

War World War War

That’s why when they speak to the child
they say

poor little one. . .

The ninety-two year old people remember

it was the year 1905

they went to prison

they went into exile

they said ah soon

When they speak to the grandchild
they say

yes there will be revolution

then there will be revolution then

once more then the earth itself

will turn and turn and cry out oh I

have been made sick

then you my little bud

must flower and save it

Why Latin Should Still Be Taught in High School

By Christopher Bursk

Because one day I grew so bored
with Lucretius, I fell in love
with the one object that seemed to be stationary,
the sleeping kid two rows up,
the appealing squalor of his drooping socks.
While the author of De Rerum Natura was making fun
of those who fear the steep way and lose the truth,
I was studying the unruly hairs on Peter Diamond’s right leg.
Titus Lucretius Caro labored, dactyl by dactyl
to convince our Latin IV class of the atomic
composition of smoke and dew,
and I tried to make sense of a boy’s ankles,
the calves’ intriguing
resiliency, the integrity to the shank,
the solid geometry of my classmate’s body.
Light falling through blinds,
a bee flinging itself into a flower,
a seemingly infinite set of texts
to translate and now this particular configuration of atoms
who was given a name at birth,
Peter Diamond, and sat two rows in front of me,
his long arms, his legs that like Lucretius’s hexameters
seemed to go on forever, all this hurly-burly
of matter that had the goodness to settle
long enough to make a body
so fascinating it got me
through fifty-five minutes
of the nature of things.

Big Tex and the Battenkill Maiden

By Bonnie Lyons

August’s newborn twin calves are packing on the pounds
and the lush goldenrod is now a browning omelet.
Already the maples are busy making their gaudy costumes
for the fall spectacular. For their finale they offer their finery
to the air in the world’s best striptease.

Kingfishers, blue heron, jays, wild geese.
cawing crows and complaining catbirds.
Chests outthrust, the merganser families float by
in their own river parade. Paying no attention,
the turkeys talk over travel plans. Cedar waxwings
like once popular Saabs are out out out,
chickadees and Subarus, very in right now.

Fly fishermen in fancy outfits catch and release.
Poor farmers try to hold on, just hold on.
Eyes closed, head out the car window,
our Airedale exhales audibly like a true yogi.
Big Tex and the Battenkill Maiden,
rusty flatbed trailer and paint-peeling motorboat,
sit close together on the horse farm meadow.

My man is too trim to be called Big Tex
and I shed my maidenhead fifty years ago.
Clear Brook Farm will close on Columbus Day
and we’ll clear out soon after that,
traveling back from the Battenkill
to Texas like the birds..

With My Back to City Hall, On Yom Kippur

By Jordan Davis


The gnats love the highway dividers,
the freelance pickup artists love the softness of the hands
of the women who love their friends
for walking with them laughing at the situation,
lost people love that I am sitting here looking likely to know,
I love it when I know, knowledge in the form of radar
loves the cloud cover which resembles my headache
in its topography and its effect on my mood,
the path which connects Park Row with Broadway
loves the paranoia which has closed off all the paths closer than this to City Hall,
Jesus loves the balding man in the striped windbreaker
who looks at my small script and remarks, "Jesus loves you,"
I love the silk suit and the hard candy curl hair
of the middle-aged black woman going by with her dry cleaning,
I love the sock the bundled baby recumbent in an Aprica stroller kicks out,
I love from a distance the speck this woman in the tight clothes
reaches to brush from her shoe, I love the effect it has on her distraction, I love
the ties tucked into the short sleeve shirts of the men returning from lunch,
I love the men and women my age strolling
with purpose in their Pumas, the feather tumbling by,
the drift of the hulking red haired woman with psoriatic elbows,
the opal in the hairbow of the Hindi woman in white robes
and the tuck of her husband's shirt into his jeans,
the ticking of the wheel of the bicycle rolled along
by a backpack-wearing man on foot,
the acceleration of an open-roof double-decker tour bus,
the ignition cough of the not-in-service kneeling bus,
the change clod and leaf-shuffle of the lower torsos
and the carry-out conveyor sound of a closed up shopping cart,
I love the downturned glance of the woman carrying the Borzoi College Reader crossing against the light and going into Pace,
may all these people have rent-stabilized leases,
and may they be registered to vote, in their unions,
and in the next election.