Recognitions

By Rachel Hadas

When my son was a few weeks old,
replicas of his yawning face appeared
suddenly on drowsy passersby:

middle-aged man’s gape that split his beard,
old woman on a bus, a little girl—
all told a story that I recognized.

Now he is fifteen.
As my students shuffle in the door
of the classroom, any of the boys

could easily be him—
foot-dragging, also swaggering a little,
braving the perils of a public space

by moving in a wary little troop.
But the same sleepy eyes, the same soft face.
We recognize the people whom we love,

or love what we respond to as our own,
trusting that one day someone
will look at us with recognition.

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

The Best Things Come from Little Rock, AR

By Eve Lyons

I remember waiting. 
I remember calling the Target in Little Rock to reserve a car seat.
I remember taking on the phone with his first mother, 
I remember meeting her in Chili's with a guy who looked like David Crosby. 
I remember eating breakfast every morning at the Marriott. 
I remember how the first night we both woke up every two hours, because he did, because we couldn't sleep anyway. 
I remember how big his hands and feet seemed, and how his skin peeled off like something primordial. 
I remember his belly button didn't want to let go of his umbilical cord, so the doctor put silver nitrate on it, which stained his shirt. 
I remember all the people coming to visit in the first month, how he smiled for the first time when he was just a month old. 
I remember his first word was "yesssssssss." 
I remember him pulling himself up to standing, learning to crawl, how pleased with himself he was. 
I remember how long we waited, how much heartache, how much longing.

This poem was first published in Literary Mama on May 11, 2014

The Dentist and the Crocodile

By Roald Dahl

The crocodile, with cunning smile, sat in the dentist's chair.
He said, "Right here and everywhere my teeth require repair."
The dentist's face was turning white. He quivered, quaked and shook.
He muttered, "I suppose I'm going to have to take a look."
"I want you," Crocodile declared, "to do the back ones first.
The molars at the very back are easily the worst."
He opened wide his massive jaws. It was a fearsome sight––
At least three hundred pointed teeth, all sharp and shining white.
The dentist kept himself well clear. He stood two yards away.
He chose the longest probe he had to search out the decay.
"I said to do the back ones first!" the Crocodile called out.
"You're much too far away, dear sir, to see what you're about.
To do the back ones properly you've got to put your head
Deep down inside my great big mouth," the grinning Crocky said.
The poor old dentist wrung his hands and, weeping in despair,
He cried, "No no! I see them all extremely well from here!"
Just then, in burst a lady, in her hands a golden chain.
She cried, "Oh Croc, you naughty boy, you're playing tricks again!"
"Watch out!" the dentist shrieked and started climbing up the wall.
"He's after me! He's after you! He's going to eat us all!"
"Don't be a twit," the lady said, and flashed a gorgeous smile.
"He's harmless. He's my little pet, my lovely crocodile."

Untitled

By Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

From The Great Wagon" Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 36

On Being an Artist

By Noelle Kocot

Saturn seems habitual,
The way it rages in the sky
When we’re not looking.
On this note, the trees still sing
To me, and I long for this
Mottled world. Patterns
Of the lamplight on this leather,
The sun, listening.
My brother, my sister,
I was born to tell you certain
Things, even if no one
Really listens. Give it back
To me, as the bird takes up
The whole sky, ruined with
Nightfall. If I can remember
The words in the storm,
I will be well enough to sit
Here with you a little while.

In Praise of Air

By Simon Armitage

I write in praise of air. I was six or five

when a conjurer opened my knotted fist

and I held in my palm the whole of the sky.

I’ve carried it with me ever since.

Let air be a major god, its being

and touch, its breast-milk always tilted

to the lips. Both dragonfly and Boeing

dangle in its see-through nothingness…

Among the jumbled bric-a-brac I keep

a padlocked treasure-chest of empty space,

and on days when thoughts are fuddled with smog

or civilization crosses the street

with a white handkerchief over its mouth

and cars blow kisses to our lips from theirs

I turn the key, throw back the lid, breathe deep.

My first word, everyone’s first word, was air.

Madonna and Child

By Rafael Campo

By menopause, it's not just estrogen
my mother lacks. She's lost her eldest son--
that's me, the one who's queer--the doctor who
once made her very proud. These days, I do
my own wash when I'm home, I cook for her
so she can take a break from all the chores
she now refuses to assign to me.
She sits, half-watching Oprah through her tea's
thin steam, her squint of disapproval more
denial than it is disgust. She hears
much better than she sees--it's easier
to keep out vision than it is to clear
the air of sounds--and yet I know it's age
that stultifies her senses too. Enraged
because she's lost so much, I understand
why suddenly she looks so stunned
as from the television: "... Bitch, she stole
my boyfriend, my own mother did! ..." I fold
a towel noiselessly. I know she thinks
it's garbage, sinful, crap--just as she thinks
that taking estrogen in pills is not
what God intended, no matter what
the doctors say; or that I'm gay is plain
unnatural, she can't endure such pain.
The oven timer rings. The cookies that
I've baked are done. I'll make another batch
though she won't touch them: given up for Lent.
My mother's love. I wonder where it went.

Voice of a Girl Child

By Kowsar Asad Warsame

 

Ssshssh…! Listen

Do you hear that?

That is the voice of a girl child

A child who is a future teacher

A future doctor and a future pilot

If only my dreams are not shattered

I think of myself as a star

With my own passion of light

I can shine if given the opportunity

Opportunity to follow my brothers to school

Opportunity to grow up and learn more from the 

teachers

If only my dreams are not shattered

I think of myself as a giraffe

My sight set high

Big vision on big things

You don't have to marry me off to an old man

Just because you think school is not the right place 

for a girl

I need to go to school and pursue my goals

I think of myself as a live engine

Always going never slowing

Time is elapsing

Let my education not be a hot spot

The old man is waiting for my hand in marriage

The old woman is waiting with a knife

I need to go to school and pursue my goals

I think of myself as a lion

To roar loud and be heard

You don't have to take me as your wife

Just because I am a beautiful girl

Instead teach me a mathematical formula

So that my dreams are not shattered

I think of myself as a star

I think of myself as a live engine

I think of myself as a giraffe

I think of myself as a lion

Dear teacher, parents and guardians

Give me the rights I am entitled to.

Why We Play Basketball

By Sherman Alexie

1.
In December, snow
covered the court. We
wrapped our hands in old
socks, soaked the white snow
with kerosene, lit

the match, and melted it
all down to pavement.
We were Indians
who wanted to play
basketball. Nothing

could stop us from that,
not the hunger in
our thin bellies, not
the fear of missed shots,
not the threat of white

snow. We were small boys
who would grow into
small men. We played ball
until dark, then played
until we could see

neither hoop nor ball.
We played until our
mothers and fathers
came searching for us
and carried us home.

2.
We play because we
remember the first
time we shot the ball
and knew, beyond doubt,
as it floated toward

the hoop, that it was
going to be good.
We walked off the court,
left the ball waiting
as we fell in love

with Indian girls
who grew past us, who
grew into Indian
women. Somehow, we
grew families while

that ball waited,
inert, suspended, till
we remembered, with
a complex rush of
pain and joy, what we'd

left behind, how we
loved the ball as it
finally dropped
into the net, after
years of such patience.

3.
We wanted to know
who was best, who could
change the game into
something new. We knew
about Seymour. Blind

and deaf, he played by
sense of smell. Leather
balls drove him crazy.
He identified
his teammates by tribe:

Spokanes smelled like bread;
Flatheads smelled like pine;
Colville smelled like snow;
Lester smelled like wine.
Seymour shot the ball

when the wind told him
it was time to shoot.
In basketball, we
find enough reasons
to believe in God,

or something smaller
than God. We believe
in Seymour, who holds
the ball in his hands
like you hold your God.

4.
It is just a game
we are told by those
who cannot play it
unless it is play.
For us, it is war,

often desperate
and without reason.
We throw our body
against another
body. We learn to

hate each other, hate
the ball, hate the hoop,
hate the fallen snow,
hate our clumsy hands,
hate our thirsty mouths

when we drink from
the fountain. We hate
our fathers. We hate
our mothers. We hate
the face in our mirror.

We play basketball
because we want to
separate love from
hate, and because we
know how to keep score.

5.
We play basketball
because we still love
the place where we lived.
It was a small house
with one door. We lived

there for twenty years
with crazy cousins
and one basketball.
We fought over it
constantly. I climbed

into a tall tree
with the ball, refused
to come down unless
they made me captain.
My brother dragged me

from the tree and punched
me so hard I saw
red horses. We play
because we believe
in our skins and hands.

These hands hold the ball.
These hands hold the tribe.
These hands build fires.
We are a small tribe.
We build small fires.

The Moment at Whole Foods When I Realized I’m a Mother

By Eve Lyons

I’m wandering the tofu and fake meat section
when the announcement comes:
“Will Eve Lyons please come to the information desk?”
In  panic I push through shopping carts and yuppies,
already envisioning a rush to the ER.
Sure something is terribly wrong with our two month old son,
why else interrupt my weekly grocery shopping,
what could be so important that it can’t wait till I am home –
only to get the news:
Our vegetable peeler broke.
I’m confused at first,
unsure why this required paging me.
I put it together eventually –
No vegetable peeler means no carrot salad,
which changes our dinner plans for tonight,
the Sunday night of all Sunday nights,
since tomorrow I go back to work,
leaving our son for six long hours.
Relieved, I pick up a peeler,
go home to my spouse and child,
prepare for a lifetime more
of moments like these.


This poem was previously published in Mutha magazine in April of 2014. 

Diving Into the Wreck

By Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

Salvage

By Kay Ryan
 

The wreck   

is a fact.   

The worst   

has happened.   

The salvage trucks   

back in and   

the salvage men   

begin to sort   

and stack,   

whistling as   

they work.   

Thanks be   

to god—again—   

for extractable elements   

which are not   

carriers of pain,   

for this periodic   

table at which   

the self-taught   

salvagers disassemble   

the unthinkable   

to the unthought.

New Year Love

By Kristal Leebrick 

I remember our breath

in the icy air

and how the northern lights gathered

in a haze at the horizon,

spread up past the water tower

then vanished into the dark.

I remember that January night in North Dakota:

We left the dance,

the hoods of our dads' air force parkas zipped tight,

our bare hands pulled into the coat sleeves.

We ran

into the wind

down the drifting sidewalks of our eighth-grade lives

to the brick-and-clapboard row houses on Spruce Street.

We ducked between buildings

and you pulled me close.

A flickering light from someone's TV screen.

A kitchen window.

Your fingers tracing my face.

Your hair brushing my eyes.

Your skin, your lips.

My legs.

My heart.

I remember that January night in North Dakota,

but I can't remember your name.

A poem for my white friends

By Norma Johnson

I Didn’t Tell You
I didn’t tell you about my real life
The one that haunts me most days
It comes in moments at a time
Triggered by a look,
an attitude,
a sensing of superiority,
of blatant ignorance,
of good meaning intention dripping crap down my face.
I didn’t tell you about the look they gave me when I opened my door and they saw black me standing there, their mouths agape, their thoughts running loudly through my head.
I didn’t tell you about being followed through the store and how I obediently kept my hands and my bag in plain sight.
I didn’t tell you how quickly they look away when I catch them staring at me in the restaurant and standing in the supermarket line.
I didn’t tell you how the clerk pretended the white woman had been standing at the counter before I had and waited on her first.
I didn’t tell you how I have to take a really deep long breath every time before I walk into a room full of white people.
I didn’t tell you that in the meeting, the classroom, and the workshop, when the subject of diversity comes up, they all look at me as if I am the spokesperson for the whole nation of people of color.
I didn’t tell you that when diversity isn’t mentioned and needs to be, I’m too often the one who has to point it out.
I didn’t tell you how many times white people say to me in one way or another, “you’re different,” because they felt comfortable with me and that didn’t fit their mold of what they figured a black person was like.
I didn’t tell you how disappointed that white man was, when after eagerly questioning me, found out that I was not the exotic nubian he had fantasized, but just another negro girl from new jersey.
I didn’t tell you about the white woman, a stranger who chose out of all the white people around us, to sit next to me and proceed to tell me all about her favorite black performers and her black friends and how this country needs to take integration to the next level so I could see how her life is an example of that.
I didn’t tell you about the anger I stuffed down when that dreadlocked young white boy gave me a high five and called me “sistah.”
I didn’t tell you about the white woman I passed at twilight in the park, who tensed her body, tightened her grip on her purse and walked a large curved detour past me.
I didn’t tell you that my stomach clenches when I see a police car because it means I may not...be...safe.
I didn’t tell you that your world is not mine and that we are virtual worlds apart.
I didn’t tell you that while you can somehow think of yourself as multi-ethnically expansive because you have a black friend, I meanwhile just still... stay... black.
I didn’t tell you that while you can walk boldly into any place you choose, I always have to consider where I am, who I’m with, and how I’m going to affect people.
I didn’t tell you how your liberalism chokes me sometimes as you sit in judgment of someone you don’t even know.
I didn’t tell you that being a good person and being clueless can come in the same package.
I didn’t tell you about the comments you made that would take a lifetime of explaining how you’ve bought into the system that keeps us ALL, ...in...our...place.
I didn’t tell you about my day because I had been taught not to.
And you have been taught not to even consider it.
I didn’t tell you about my day because then I would have to live it all over again ...
And I have to save that... for tomorrow.

The Space Heater

By Sharon Olds

On the then-below-zero day, it was on,
near the patients' chair, the old heater
kept by the analyst's couch, at the end,
like the infant's headstone that was added near the foot
of my father's grave. And it was hot, with the almost
laughing satire of a fire's heat,
the little coils like hairs in Hell.
And it was making a group of sick noises-
I wanted the doctor to turn it off
but I couldn't seem to ask, so I just
stared, but it did not budge. The doctor
turned his heavy, soft palm
outward, toward me, inviting me to speak, I
said, "If you're cold-are you cold? But if it's on
for me..." He held his palm out toward me,
I tried to ask, but I only muttered,
but he said, "Of course," as if I had asked,
and he stood up and approached the heater, and then
stood on one foot, and threw himself
toward the wall with one hand, and with the other hand
reached down, behind the couch, to pull
the plug out. I looked away,
I had not known he would have to bend
like that. And I was so moved, that he
would act undignified, to help me,
that I cried, not trying to stop, but as if
the moans made sentences which bore
some human message. If he would cast himself toward the
outlet for me, as if bending with me in my old
shame and horror, then I would rest
on his art-and the heater purred, like a creature
or the familiar of a creature, or the child of a familiar,
the father of a child, the spirit of a father,
the healing of a spirit, the vision of healing,
the heat of vision, the power of heat,
the pleasure of power.

When They Die We Change Our Minds About Them

By Jennifer Michael Hecht

When they die we change our minds
about them. While they live we see
the plenty hard they’re trying,
to be a star, or nice, or wise,
and so we do not quite believe them.
When they die, suddenly they are
what they claimed. Turns out,
that’s what one of those looks like.
The cold war over manner of manly
or mission is over. Same person,
same facts and acts, just now
a quiet brain stem. We no longer
begrudge his or her stupid luck.
When they die we change our minds

Homo Will Not Inherit

By Mark Doty

Downtown anywhere and between the roil
of bathhouse steam—up there the linens of joy
and shame must be laundered again and again,

all night—downtown anywhere
and between the column of feathering steam
unknotting itself thirty feet above the avenue’s

shimmered azaleas of gasoline,
between the steam and the ruin
of the Cinema Paree (marquee advertising

its own milky vacancy, broken showcases sealed,
ticketbooth a hostage wrapped in tape
and black plastic, captive in this zone

of blackfronted bars and bookstores
where there’s nothing to read
but longing’s repetitive texts,

where desire’s unpoliced, or nearly so)
someone’s posted a xeroxed headshot
of Jesus: permed, blonde, blurred at the edges

as though photographed through a greasy lens,
and inked beside him, in marker strokes:
HOMO WILL NOT INHERIT. Repent & be saved.

I’ll tell you what I’ll inherit: the margins
which have always been mine, downtown after hours
when there’s nothing left to buy,

the dreaming shops turned in on themselves,
seamless, intent on the perfection of display,
the bodegas and offices lined up, impenetrable:

edges no one wants, no one’s watching. Though
the borders of this shadow-zone (mirror and dream
of the shattered streets around it) are chartered

by the police, and they are required,
some nights, to redefine them. But not now, at twilight,
permission’s descending hour, early winter darkness

pillared by smoldering plumes. The public city’s
ledgered and locked, but the secret city’s boundless;
from which do these tumbling towers arise?

I’ll tell you what I’ll inherit: steam,
and the blinding symmetry of some towering man,
fifteen minutes of forgetfulness incarnate.

I’ve seen flame flicker around the edges of the body,
pentecostal, evidence of inhabitation.
And I have been possessed of the god myself,

I have been the temporary apparition
salving another, I have been his visitation, I say it
without arrogance, I have been an angel

for minutes at a time, and I have for hours
believed—without judgement, without condemnation—
that in each body, however obscured or recast,

is the divine body—common, habitable—
the way in a field of sunflowers
you can see every bloom’s

the multiple expression
of a single shining idea,
which is the face hammered into joy.

I’ll tell you what I’ll inherit:
stupidity, erasure, exile
inside the chalked lines of the police,

who must resemble what they punish,
the exile you require of me,
you who’s posted this invitation

to a heaven nobody wants.
You who must be patrolled,
who adore constraint, I’ll tell you

what I’ll inherit, not your pallid temple
but a real palace, the anticipated
and actual memory, the moment flooded

by skin and the knowledge of it,
the gesture and its description
—do I need to say it?—

the flesh and the word. And I’ll tell you,
you who can’t wait to abandon your body,
what you want me to, maybe something

like you’ve imagined, a dirty story:
Years ago, in the baths,
a man walked into the steam,

the gorgeous deep indigo of him gleaming,
solid tight flanks, the intricately ridged abdomen—
and after he invited me to his room,

nudging his key toward me,
as if perhaps I spoke another tongue
and required the plainest of gestures,

after we’d been, you understand,
worshipping a while in his church,
he said to me, I’m going to punish your mouth.

I can’t tell you what that did to me.
My shame was redeemed then;
I won’t need to burn in the afterlife.

It wasn’t that he hurt me,
more than that: the spirit’s transactions
are enacted now, here—no one needs

your eternity. This failing city’s
radiant as any we’ll ever know,
paved with oily rainbow, charred gates

jeweled with tags, swoops of letters
over letters, indecipherable as anything
written by desire. I’m not ashamed

to love Babylon’s scrawl. How could I be?
It’s written on my face as much as on
these walls. This city’s inescapable,

gorgeous, and on fire. I have my kingdom.

A Poem for Dzhokhar

By Amanda Palmer

you don’t know how it felt to be in the womb but it must have been at least a little warmer than this.

you don’t know how intimately they’re recording your every move on closed-circuit cameras until you see your face reflected back at you through through the pulp.

you don’t know how to stop picking at your fingers.

you don’t know how little you’ve been paying attention until you look down at your legs again.

you don’t know how many times you can say you’re coming until they just stop believing you.

you don’t know how orgasmic the act of taking in a lungful of oxygen is until they hold your head under the water.

you don’t know how many vietnamese soft rolls to order.

you don’t know how convinced your parents were that having children would be, absolutely, without question, the correct thing to do.

you don’t know how precious your iphone battery time was until you’re hiding in the bottom of the boat.

you don’t know how to get away from your fucking parents.

you don’t know how it’s possible to feel total compassion in one moment and total disconnection in the next moment.

you don’t know how things could change so incredibly fast.

you don’t know how to make something, but the instructions are on the internet.

you don’t know how to make sense of this massive parade.

you don’t know how to believe anyone anymore.

you don’t know how to tell the girl in the chair next to you that you’ve been peeking at her dissertation draft and there’s a grammatical typo in the actual file name.

you don’t know how to explain yourself.

you don’t want two percent but it’s all they have.

you don’t know how claustrophobic your house is until you can’t leave it.

you don’t know why you let that guy go without shooting him dead and stuffing him in some bushes between cambridge and watertown.

you don’t know where your friends went.

you don’t know how to dance but you give it a shot anyway.

you don’t know how your life managed to move twenty six miles forward and twenty eight miles back.

you don’t know how to pay your debts.

you don’t know how to separate from this partnership to escape and finally breathe.

you don’t know how come people run their goddamn knees into the ground anyway.

you don’t know how to measure the value of the twenty dollar bill clutched in your hurting hand.

you don’t know how you walked into this trap so obliviously.

you don’t know how to adjust the rearview mirror.

you don’t know how to mourn your dead brother.

you don’t know how to drive this car.

you don’t know the way to new york.

you don’t know the way to new york.

you don’t know the way to new york.

you don’t know the way to new york.

Enigma

By Martin Rosner

I have mislaid my touchstones.
They always glowed to show
The clearly destined path I had to walk.
Now I stumble weakly
On a dark uncertain road
That leads along a ravaged
Landscape towards an end
I neither want nor understand.
Who gave them to me
And why they disappeared
Are mysteries I cannot know.
I hope their magic transferred
Through the sorcery
That briefly guides us
In the labyrinth of life
To an eager hand that grasps
Them and kindles them to life
As mine did
When I was young.

Martin Rosner, M.D. has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers including 17 poems in "The New York Times" and is currently part of the course in modern poetry at American International College. He lives in New Jersey.