“Your Luck Is About To Change”

By Susan Elizabeth Howe

(A fortune cookie)

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
to get just before Christmas,
considering my reasonable health,
marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
the bony finger of Uncle Sam
might point out my husband,
my own national guard,
and set him in Afghanistan;
my boss could take a personal interest;
the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.
Still, as the old year tips into the new,
I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking
his legs in the air. I won't give in
to the dark, the sub-zero weather, the fog,
or even the neighbors' Nativity.
Their four-year-old has arranged
his whole legion of dinosaurs
so they, too, worship the child,
joining the cow and sheep. Or else,
ultimate mortals, they've come to eat
ox and camel, Mary and Joseph,
then savor the newborn babe.

White Boy Privilege

By Royce Mann

Dear women, I am sorry.
Dear black people, I am sorry.
Dear Asian Americans, dear Native
Americans, dear immigrants who come
here seeking a better life, I am sorry.

Dear everyone who isn’t a middle or
upper-class white boy, I am sorry.

I have started life at the
top of the ladder, while you were born on the first rung.

I say now that I would change places
 with you in an instant, but if given the
opportunity, would I?

Probably not. Because to be honest,
being privileged is awesome.

I’m not saying that you and me on
different rungs of the ladder is how I want it to stay,
I’m not saying any part of me for one moment has even liked it that way,

I’m just saying, I fucking love being
privileged and I’m not ready to give that away.

I love it, because I can say “fucking”
and not one of you is attributing that to
the fact that everyone of my skin color
has a dirty mouth.

I love it, because I don’t have to spend
an hour every morning putting on
makeup to meet other people’s standards.

I love it, because I can worry about
what kind of food is on my plate,
instead of whether or not there will be food on my plate.

I love it, because when I see a police officer,
I see someone who’s on my side.

To be honest, I’m scared of what it would be like
if I wasn’t on the top rung.

If the tables were turned, and I couldn’t
have my white boy privilege safety blankie to protect me.

If I lived a life by what I lack, not what I have,
 if I lived a life in which when I failed,
the world would say ‘Told you so.’

If I lived the life that you live.

When I was born, I had a success story
already written for me. You, you were
 given a pen and no paper.

I’ve always felt that that’s unfair,
but I’ve never dared to speak up because I’ve been too scared.

Well, now I realize that there’s enough blankie to be shared.

Everyone should have the privileges
that I have. In fact, they should be rights instead.

Everyone’s stories should be written,
o all they have to do is get it read.
Enough said.

No, not enough said.

It is embarrassing that we still live in a world
in which we judge another person’s character
by the size of their paycheck, the color of their skin,
or the type of chromosomes they have.

It is embarrassing that we tell our kids
that it is not their personality,
but instead those same chromosomes that get to dictate
 what color clothes they wear, and how short they cut their hair.

But most of all, it is embarrassing that we deny this,
that we claim to live in an equal country in an equal world.

We say that women can vote? Well,
guess what? They can run a country,
own a company, and throw a nasty curveball as well.
We just don’t give them the chance to.

I know it wasn’t us 8th grade white boys
who created this system, but we profit from it every day.
We don’t notice these privileges though, because
they don’t come in the form of things we gain,
but rather the lack of injustices that we endure.

Because of my gender, I can watch any sport on TV
and feel like that could be me one day.

Because of my race, I can eat in a fancy restaurant
without the wait staff expecting me to steal the silverware.

Thanks to my parents’ salary, I go to a school
 that brings my dreams closer instead of pushing them away.

Dear white boys, I’m not sorry.
I don’t care if you think that feminists are taking over the world,
or that Black Lives Matter has gotten a little too strong,
because that’s bullshit.

I get that change can be scary, but equality shouldn’t be.
Hey white boys, it’s time to act like a woman.
To be strong and make a difference. It’s time to let go of that fear.
It’s time to take that ladder and turn it into a bridge.

Power

By Audre Lorde

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”

The Revolver

By Carl Sandburg

Here is a revolver.
It has an amazing language all its own.
It delivers unmistakable ultimatums.
It is the last word.
A simple, little human forefinger can tell a terrible story with it.
Hunger, fear, revenge, robbery hide behind it.
It is the claw of the jungle made quick and powerful.
It is the club of the savage turned to magnificent precision.
It is more rapid than any judge or court of law.
It is less subtle and treacherous than any one lawyer or ten.

When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme court, nor any mandamus nor any injunction nor any stay of execution in and interfere with the original purpose.

And nothing in human philosophy persists more strangely than the old belief that God is always on the side of those who have the most revolvers.

This poem was unpublished until a professor at the University of Illinois  Urbana-Champaign found it, and the Chicago Tribune published it in 2013.  

Never Shall I Forget

By Ellie Wiesel 

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live
as long as God Himself.
Never. 

I Listen to Istanbul

By Orhan Veli Kanik

I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed:
The cool covered bazaar,
Mahmutpasha, the courtyards
Filled with warbling pigeons,
Hammer sounds from the docks,
Smells of sweat in my lovely Spring wind;
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed.
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed:
An old world drunk in its head,
A waterfront palace with a dark boat shed,
The humming of the lodos ceases inside;
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed.
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed:
A pretty young girl walks by
Chased by taunts, come-ons and curses,
Something falls from my hand—
Surely a rose;
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed.
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed:
A bird is fluttering in your skirts,
Your brow is hot, I know,
Your lips are wet, I know, I know,
A white moon rises behind the pistachio trees—
I understand the pounding of your heart;
I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed.

For colored boys who speak softly

By Yosimar Reyes

For colored boys
I will crucify myself like Christ
let my blood purify and sanctify these words
create a doctrine and go knocking door to door
letting the people know that messiahs are here
that we are messengers
even though we embody the word queer
that we are a reminder of
how colonization has destroyed nuestra cultura
they burned our villages, nuestros pueblos
implemented homophobia, sexism, and machismo
in las cabezas de nuestros abuelos
brainwashed our ancestors into believing
that boys like us are a manifestation of the devil

For colored boys who speak softly
I'll remind the world that centuries ago
we were shamans and healers
gifted warriors
two-spirited people highly respected by villagers
but now we've become
nothing more than fags and queers
making ourselves believe
that capitalism will solve our issue...

I'll recognize
that there is more than one wound to heal
more than one struggle that we feel
but this ignorance blocks us from seeing
the greater picture, the greater evil
and these same issues
these same issues transcend the borders
because brothers and sisters
in Oaxaca
in Chiapas
in the Philippines
in Iraq
are resisting this very same system...

For colored boys
I will remind my people
que somos diferente
que somos gente
con cultura, con orgullo, con poder
we are people
and with the people we stand
breaking borders and stereotypes
like this system that exploited our hands...

The War Continues

By Cherríe Moraga

Flesh is full
of holes.

It is made
to breathe
secrete
receive.

It is nothing
against
bombs
and
bullets.

It is not meant
to be a barrier
against
anything.

But this dark flesh
will resist you flee
you who believe
you are not made
of the same
skin
and
bones.

Memorial Day for the War Dead

By Yehuda Amichai

Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.

Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.

Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.

The flautist's mouth will stay like that for many days.
A dead soldier swims above little heads
with the swimming movements of the dead,
with the ancient error the dead have
about the place of the living water.

A flag loses contact with reality and flies off.
A shopwindow is decorated with
dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white.
And everything in three languages:
Hebrew, Arabic, and Death.

A great and royal animal is dying
all through the night under the jasmine
tree with a constant stare at the world.

A man whose son died in the war walks in the street
like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."

Touched by An Angel

By Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

An Open Letter to the Christian Right From a Follower of Christ

By Ryk McIntyre

May God forgive what you’ve done to Jesus.
You’ve taken the hand he taught you to reach out with,
turned it into a fist, and use it to feed your children intolerance.

You’re lost souls standing by the only road they know,
putting up signs that read “Only Way.”
Name-dropping Jesus like you’re praying hard
to get into the after-party. But once inside
you’d be the first to slam the door on the rest,
singing “Praise the Lord and Pass the Limited Access!”
Your songs describe a Prince of Peace on the attack--

I want my Jesus back.

I’m sick in my soul with all you Onward Soldiers
carrying Jesus around in a cross-draw holster,
unaware of all the damage that you do:
when most people think of Christians, they picture you
arming a religion Jesus never would have blessed.
putting words in Jesus’ mouth that would never pass his lips.
Blind to the world, eyes fixed on the day Jesus returns.
What makes you think he left?
Maybe he’ll walk into your church today, dressed like a health inspector
asking, “What garbage are you serving in my Father’s House?
Your hands are red, and you’ve got weapons in your mouth?”

You use the Cross to rally anti-immigrant laws, until
all but one finger on Liberty’s right hand’s been sawn off, so
all foreigners see is an iron lady saying “Fuck You” with a torch.
But when did Jesus say close the doors?
or ‘Blessed are the locked-down borders’?
What he said was "In my Name, do charitable acts."

Give me my Jesus back.

Stop claiming the Sermon Mount as sniper vantage
for the weapons you keep in your mouth.
Stop whoring for dollars like God’s overdrawn his bank account.
Stop spreading a gospel of bondage and sin.
You’re not listening, so here’s an example:
whether you argue abortion’s not a right but murder?
It doesn’t matter. Either way, Jesus still loves her.
It’s time to stop judging and start looking for real results.
If you hate abortion that much, open free daycares or shut up.

And Jesus doesn’t hate gays, never did. That’s St. Paul and Leviticus,
and they were simply wrong because "Hate" isn’t what a Loving God does.
The only thing Jesus cares about gay marriage is that they're happy.
In a world of war and starvation, Jerry Falwell takes on the Teletubbies?
Those weapons in your mouth make your every word perverse.
Fred Phelps and your Westboro Baptist Church?
I could do a whole poem on you. But you’re not worth it.

I'm calling out the Patriarchs of Christian America: get right
with Jesus: Stop hating other religions, try a slice of humble, see the light
as it falls across a world where’s there’s so much real suffering endured
Instead of bibles, try giving away food to the hungry and poor
Your false Jesus is a Warlord, fraudulently caucasian.
I'm taking my Jesus back. Keep your pale imitation.

You’ve taken the hand
Jesus taught you to reach out with, and balled it into a fist.
Your sin is thinking there could be anything Holy in this.

The Great Escape

By Charles Bukowski

listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a 
bucket? 
no, I told him.
well, what happens is that now and then one crab
will climb up on top of the others
and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,
then, just as he's about to escape
another crab grabs him and pulls him back
down.
really? I asked.
really, he said, and this job is just like that, none
of the others want anybody to get out of 
here. that's just the way it is
in the postal service! 
I believe you, I said.
just then the supervisor walked up and said,
you fellows were talking.
there is no talking allowed on this
job.
I had been there for eleven and one-half
years.
I got up off my stool and climbed right up the 
supervisor
and then I reached up and pulled myself right
out of there.
it was so easy it was unbelievable.
but none of the others followed me.
and after that, whenever I had crab legs
I thought about that place.
I must have thought about that place
maybe 5 or 6 times
before I switched to lobster

Blind Spot

By Cheryl J. Fish

Never mended my blind spot—thought the volcano swerved
>A graphic novel monster, stationary molten rock
At Windy Ridge, Mount St. Helens, 30 years post-eruption
Cartoon-like, cracked.
Cell phone powers up approaching the ridge—four bars.
A series of beeps in your pocket
Imagine those hikers falling from a snow cornice
Thinking they stood on solid rock, not packed snow
Posing for a photo, they slid down the south face
Blurred in winter’s majestic light, flashes of old growth forest
Charred in pyroclastic flow
No more solid than the peak that once glistened distant
On blue Portland days
What you can’t fathom finds you
Objects unto obliteration.

Untitled

By Naina Kataria

When a man tells me
I’m beautiful
I don’t believe him.
Instead, I relive my days in high school
>When no matter how good I was
I was always the girl with a moustache
He doesn’t know what it’s like
to grow up in your maternal family
Where your body is the only one that
Proudly boasts of your father’s X
While your mother’s X sits back and pities
It’s unladylike-ness
He doesn’t know the teenager
Who filled her corners with
Empty consolations of
Being loved for who she was - someday.
He doesn’t know hypocrisy.
He doesn’t know of the world that
tells you to ‘be yourself’
and sells you a fair and lovely shade card
in the same fucking breath
He doesn’t know of the hot wax and the laser
whose only purpose is to
replace your innocent skin
with its own brand of womanhood
He doesn’t know of the veet and the bleach
That uproot your robust hair
in the name of hygiene
Hygiene, which when followed by men
makes them gay and unmanly
He doesn’t know how unruly eyebrows are tamed
and how unibrows die a silent death
All to preserve beauty
And of the torturous miracles that happen
Inside the doors marked
"WOMEN ONLY"
So when a man calls me beautiful
I throw at him, a smile; a smile that remained
After everything the strip pulled away
And I dare him
To wait
Till my hair grows back.

This poem was originally published on Facebook by the author, and then went viral. 

On Days When I am Too Queer For This World

By Susan Wolf

there’s no place to run
except back to sleep where they can’t look at my papers,
search and confiscate the simple parts of myself
the parts that show
parts they say don’t ring true
because I am not a bell, a homogenous object
vibrations do no travel across me unchanged

I am not pure metal, ripped from pure earth
refined, forged, beaten smooth
smooth touch, smooth sound, smooth talk about smooth gods
makes the feel all of a piece

I am a child of rougher gods
I cut their fingers and make them bleed

grinding crunch
becomes earthquake vibration
odd harmonics cascade
as I collide with this world where I wake up
alarm clock bell
drags me into clattering hum of this sleep waking drone

there is no place to run
except back to sleep
in search of a better waking, better place
though no place rings any more true to me than I do to
guards, soldiers, police
they can see, hear, feel it right down to their boots

dark skinned women
who don’t say the words the boys yell, MARICON
but think it
as they pull their children closer, away down the aisle

pale skinned women push their lips together even more tightly
stare right through me

boys, man-boys still sweating from the gym
wait in the check-out line
bulging bodies make the motion of elbowing me out of the way
they are standing still
breathing hard
impatient waiting
as the cashier addresses me by two different pronouns in the same sentence
calls me ma’am and sir before handing me my change

my leave to go out
home
up the hill
door slam

there is no place to run
except back to sleep
when this world is a swimming silver mirage
I can see right through it all
clear through to nothing
not like other spheres
that look surreal, like paintings
but are solid if I touch them

everything bends away from me here
so that I can never connect
the illusion of my anti-gravity bends the illusion of this world
distance is always maintained
pretense is always preserved

in this worst waking place
there is no place to run
except back to sleep
in search of a better waking.

SPEEDING PAST THE I-40 EXIT TO BASCUM HE BEGINS TO THINK ABOUT TACKETT’S STATION AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND PEGGY HOOPER

By Miller Williams

Where the Woodrow Wilson School was once

squat blocks of pastel siding
slap back at the sun.

Why should it be there? Who was Woodrow Wilson?

We had a Dodge. When we hit a chicken
we had chicken.

Milton Tackett fixed tires and sold the rubbers
you had to have in your wallet
like a badge
You’re under arrest. Take off all your clothes.

Milton gave a package of rubbers free
for any pair of panties.
When you told him her name and he believed you
you got a dozen.
No sir I said I guess not.
Well he said if I said
pussy I could have one anyway

A woman off the Titanic
talked Sunday night.
She said that all she heard them play
was a waltz.

I bought a Nash
for 97 dollars.
Sunday afternoons
cotton rows running up to the road
flicked by like spokes.
The cropdusting plane put down its pattern
back and forth across the field
like a shuttle.
I was drunk on speed
and metaphor. The world
was a weaving machine.

But on the other hand
said Alexander the Great
bringing down the sword on the Gordian knot
fuck fate

Didn’t you used to live here?

Don’t do that you’re going to tear something
Look if I take off my clothes will it make you happy

I’m sorry. What did you say?

Nothing. Never mind.

Order

By Rachel Barenblat

Breakfast on kosher macaroons and Diet Pepsi
in the car on the way to Price Chopper for lamb.
Peel five pounds of onions and let the Cuisinart
shred them while you push them down and weep.
Call your mother because you know she’s preparing
too, because you want to ask again whether she cooks
matzah balls in salted water or broth, because you can.
Crumble boullion cubes like clumps of wet sand.
Remember the precise mixing order, beating
then stirring then folding, so that for one moment
you can become your grandfather.
Remember the year he taught you this trick,
not the year his wife died scant weeks before seder
and he was already befuddled when you came home.
Realize that no matter how many you buy
there are never quite enough eggs at Pesach
especially if you need twelve for the kugel
and eighteen for the kneidlach and another dozen
to hardboil and dip in bowls of stylized tears.
Know you are free! What loss. What rejoicing.

Little Red Corvette

By Prince

I guess I should of known
By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last
See you're the kinda person
That believes in makin' out once
Love 'em and leave 'em fast

I guess I must be dumb
'Cause you had a pocket full of horses
Trojan and some of them used
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say what have I got to lose?
And honey I say

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much too fast
Little red Corvette
You need a love that's gonna last

I guess I should of closed my eyes
When you drove me to the place
Where your horses run free
'Cause I felt a little ill
When I saw all the pictures
Of the jockeys that were there before me

Believe it or not
I started to worry
I wondered if I had enough class
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say, Baby, have you got enough gas?
Oh yeah

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much to fast, yes you are
Little red Corvette
You need to find a love that's gonna last, ah huh

A body like yours (A body like yours)
Oughta be in jail (Oughta be in jail)
'Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene
('Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene)
Move over baby (Move over baby)
Gimme the keys (Gimme the keys)
I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine
(I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine)

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much to fast
Little red Corvette
You need to find a love that's gonna last

Little red Corvette
Honey you got to slow down (Got to slow down)
Little red Corvette
'Cause if you don't you gonna run your
Little red Corvette right in the ground

(Little red Corvette)
Right down to the ground (Honey you got to slow down) you, you, you got to
Slow down (Little red Corvette) you're movin' much too fast
(Too fast) you need to find a love that's gonna last

Girl, you got an ass like I never seen
And the ride,
I say the ride is so smooth
You must be a limousine

Baby you're much to fast
Little red Corvette
You need a love, you need a love that's
That's gonna last
(Little red Corvette)
Babe you got to slow down (you got to slow down)
Little red Corvette
'Cause if you don't, 'cause if you don't,
You gonna run your body right into the ground (Right into the ground)
Right into the ground (Right into the ground)
Right into the ground (Right into the ground)

Little red Corvette

In Response to Kobe Bryant's Suggestion that I'd Choose Him to Take the Last Shot if My Life Was on the Line

By Sherman Alexie

Here's the thing,
Here's my end-of-life plan
(And I know I risk the condemnation
Of the Kobe-ists who love the isolation):
To save my soul
I'd choose the pick-and-roll
With a ball-handling assist-freak
And a big man trucking from the key
While a great shooting trustee
Waits on the wing.

I am

By Benjamin Giroux

I am odd, I am new
I wonder if you are too
I hear voices voices in the air
I see you don't, and that's not fair
I am odd, I am new
I pretend that you are too
I feel like a boy in outer space
I touch the stars and feel out of place
I worry what others might think
I cry when people laugh, it makes me shrink
I am odd, I am new
I understand now that so are you
I say I "feel like a castaway"
I dream of a day that that's OK
I try to fit in
I hope that someday I do
I am odd, I am new.

Benjamin Giroux is 10 years old. This poem was published by the National Autism Association's Facebook page after his parents shared it, and it was picked up by the Huffington Post.