Billy Collins

LITANY

You are the bread and the knife,
          The crystal goblet and the wine...
                -Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Eileen Myles

THE SADNESS OF LEAVING 

Everything’s
   so far away—
my jacket’s
   over there. I’m terrified
      to go & you
won’t miss me
      I’m terrified by the
bright blues of
         the subway
      other days I’m
        so happy &
prepared to believe
      that everyone walking
down the street is
         someone I know.
The oldness of Macy’s
      impresses me. The
      wooden escalators
              as you get
higher up to the furniture,
     credit, lampshades—
      You shopped here
        as a kid. Oh,
    you deserve me! In
      a movie called
        Close Up—once in
a while the wiggly
bars, notice
    the wiggly blue
      bars of
        subway entrances,
the grainy beauty,
    the smudge. I won’t
kill myself today. It’s
    too beautiful. My heart
      breaking down 23rd
  St. To share this
     with you, the
     sweetness of the
           frame. My body
     in perfect shape
       for nothing but
         death. I want
    to show you this.
          On St. Mark’s Place
             a madman screams:
    my footsteps, the
        drumbeats of Armageddon.
          Oh yes bring me
          closer to you Lord.
    I want to die
          Close Up. A handful
    of bouncing yellow
          tulips for David.     I
        admit I love tulips
             because they
          die so beautifully.
                                        I
        see salvation in
  their hanging heads.
A beautiful exit. How do
        they get to
              feel so free? I am
        trapped by love—
               over french fries
          my eyes wander to
               The Hue Bar. A blue
          sign. Across the
      life. On my way to
         making a point,
              to making
               logic, to not
      falling in love to-
                night and
          let my pain remain
          unwrapped—to push
the machine—Paul’s
      staying in touch, but
  oh remember Jessica
      Lange, she looked so
               beautiful all
           doped up, on her
      way to meet King
        Kong. I sit
     on my little red
         couch in February
     how do they get
          to feel so free
 1,000,000 women
          not me moving through
the street tonight
   of this filmy
     city & I
       crown myself
     again & again
         and there
      can’t be
         two kings.

Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me

won't you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

José Olivarez

I Walk Into Every Room and Yell Where the Mexicans At

i know we exist because of what we make. my dad works at a steel mill. he worked at a steel mill my whole life. at the party, the liberal white woman tells me she voted for hillary & wishes bernie won the nomination. i stare in the mirror if i get too lonely. thirsty to see myself i once walked into the lake until i almost drowned. the white woman at the party who might be liberal but might have voted for trump smiles when she tells me how lucky i am. how many automotive components do you think my dad has made. you might drive a car that goes and stops because of something my dad makes. when i watch the news i hear my name, but never see my face. every other commercial is for taco bell. all my people fold into a $2 crunchwrap supreme. the white woman means lucky to be here and not mexico. my dad sings por tu maldito amor & i’m sure he sings to america. y yo caí en tu trampa ilusionado. the white woman at the party who may or may not have voted for trump tells me she doesn’t meet too many mexicans in this part of new york city. my mouth makes an oh, but i don’t make a sound. a waiter pushes his brown self through the kitchen door carrying hors d’oeuvres. a song escapes through the swinging door. selena sings pero ay como me duele & the good white woman waits for me to thank her.  

James Baldwin

Untitled

Lord,
          when you send the rain,
          think about it, please,
          a little?
  Do
          not get carried away
          by the sound of falling water,
          the marvelous light
          on the falling water.
    I
          am beneath that water.
          It falls with great force
          and the light
Blinds
          me to the light.

Precious Okoyomon

New seasons

my mother got married for a greencard
 I mean we’re living thru some shit
big fat pussy clouds / violent season
my mouth is full of colonial regret
 I mean i am my mother’s  daughter
In the streets i hunger for my suffering
gestures of the broken black back
 do i ever get tired of punishing myself > nah son
all these bitches is my sons
deified oppression
clenched teeth
I’m leaking everywhere
aint this shit sexy
this is what my mother immigrated for
assimilation accreditation
this is a dying season lonely vibrations
under the glare of this dimly lit bathroom
snorting coke with this white boi
off this now defunct toilet
 I mean my ancestors seem confused
I mean this is the caucasian dream
I am big and round and ready
I mean my lil dark body is twitching / i must be high right now
I am unliving my mother
becoming the body
fed up with my making
    violent symmetry / easy intensity
My golden body
I address my prayer to myself
A body on it’s  knees
i’m living in fear / without memory  /betraying my body /  unearthing light
begin erasure
nothing to write home about

Precious Okoyomon

from AJEBOTA

I’m feeling very tired and frustrated about the idea of fixing my life.
I am not lonely because you are here.
You can feel bad about your life with me.
We can feel bad about our lives together.
We can feel mixed emotions.
Like a tossed salad.
Together we can be a tossed salad without croutons / no tomatoes / no onions / no cheese.
Together we can be an unsatisfying salad.

Nayyirah Waheed

Sometimes 

I smell my parents

on my words. 

and I weep.

Langston Hughes

I, Too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Tomas Tranströmer

MIDWINTER 

A blue light 

streams out of my clothes. 

Midwinter. 

Ringing tambourines of ice. 

I close my eyes. 

There is a silent world, 

there is a crack

where the dead 

are smuggled over the border. 

Tomas Tranströmer

TO FRIENDS BEHIND A BORDER 

I

I wrote to you so cautiously. But what I couldn't say
filled and grew like a hot-air balloon
and finally floated away through the night sky.

II

Now my letter is with the censor. He lights his lamp.
In its glare my words leap out like monkeys at a wire mesh,
clattering it, stopping to bear their teeth.

III

Read between the lines. We will meet in two hundred years
when the microphones in the hotel walls are forgotten –
when they can sleep at last, become ammonites.

Version by Robin Robertson

rupi kaur

i know it's hard
believe me
i know it feels like
tomorrow will never come
and today will be the most
difficult day to get through
but i swear you will get through
the hurt will pass
as it always does
if you give it time and
let it so let it
go
slowly
like a broken promise
let it go

Maya Angelou

Our Grandmothers

She lay, skin down in the moist dirt, 
the canebrake rustling 
with the whispers of leaves, and 
loud longing of hounds and 
the ransack of hunters crackling the near 
branches.

She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward 
freedom, 
I shall not, I shall not be moved.


She gathered her babies, 
their tears slick as oil on black faces, 
their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness. 
Momma, is Master going to sell you 
from us tomorrow?


Yes. 
Unless you keep walking more 
and talking less. 
Yes. 
Unless the keeper of our lives 
releases me from all commandments. 
Yes. 
And your lives, 
never mine to live, 
will be executed upon the killing floor of 
innocents. 
Unless you match my heart and words, 
saying with me,


I shall not be moved.


In Virginia tobacco fields, 
leaning into the curve 
of Steinway 
pianos, along Arkansas roads, 
in the red hills of Georgia, 
into the palms of her chained hands, she 
cried against calamity, 
You have tried to destroy me 
and though I perish daily,


I shall not be moved.


Her universe, often 
summarized into one black body 
falling finally from the tree to her feet, 
made her cry each time into a new voice. 
All my past hastens to defeat, 
and strangers claim the glory of my love, 
Iniquity has bound me to his bed.


yet, I must not be moved.


She heard the names, 
swirling ribbons in the wind of history: 
nigger, nigger bitch, heifer, 
mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon, 
whore, hot tail, thing, it. 
She said, But my description cannot 
fit your tongue, for 
I have a certain way of being in this world,


and I shall not, I shall not be moved.


No angel stretched protecting wings 
above the heads of her children, 
fluttering and urging the winds of reason 
into the confusions of their lives. 
The sprouted like young weeds, 
but she could not shield their growth 
from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor 
shape them into symbolic topiaries. 
She sent them away, 
underground, overland, in coaches and 
shoeless.


When you learn, teach. 
When you get, give. 
As for me,


I shall not be moved.


She stood in midocean, seeking dry land. 
She searched God's face. 
Assured, 
she placed her fire of service 
on the altar, and though 
clothed in the finery of faith, 
when she appeared at the temple door, 
no sign welcomed 
Black Grandmother, Enter here.


Into the crashing sound, 
into wickedness, she cried, 
No one, no, nor no one million 
ones dare deny me God, I go forth 
along, and stand as ten thousand.


The Divine upon my right 
impels me to pull forever 
at the latch on Freedom's gate.


The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my 
feet without ceasing into the camp of the 
righteous and into the tents of the free.


These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple, 
honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted 
down a pyramid for years. 
She is Sheba the Sojourner, 
Harriet and Zora, 
Mary Bethune and Angela, 
Annie to Zenobia.


She stands 
before the abortion clinic, 
confounded by the lack of choices. 
In the Welfare line, 
reduced to the pity of handouts. 
Ordained in the pulpit, shielded 
by the mysteries. 
In the operating room, 
husbanding life. 
In the choir loft, 
holding God in her throat. 
On lonely street corners, 
hawking her body. 
In the classroom, loving the 
children to understanding.


Centered on the world's stage, 
she sings to her loves and beloveds, 
to her foes and detractors: 
However I am perceived and deceived, 
however my ignorance and conceits, 
lay aside your fears that I will be undone,


for I shall not be moved. 

Jack Gilbert

Finding Something 

I say moon is horses in the tempered dark,
because horse is the closest I can get to it.
I sit on the terrace of this worn villa the king's
telegrapher built on the mountain that looks down
on a blue sea and the small white ferry
that crosses slowly to the next island each noon.
Michiko is dying in the house behind me,
the long windows opens so I can hear
the faint sound she will make when she wants
watermelon to suck on so I can take her
to a bucket in the corner of the high-ceilinged room
which is the best we can do for a chamber pot.
She will lean against my leg as she sits
so as not to fall over in her weakness.
How strange and fine to get so near to it.
The arches of her feet are like voices
of children calling in the grove of lemon trees,
where my heart is as helpless as crushed birds.

Jack Gilbert

Married 

I came back from the funeral and crawled 

around the apartment, crying hard, 

searching for my wife's hair. 

For two months got them from the drain, 

from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator, 

and off the clothes in the closet. 

But after other Japanese women came, 

there was no way to be sure which were 

hers, and I stopped. A year later, 

repotting Michiko's avocado, I find 

a long black hair tangled in the dirt. 

Janusz Szuber

The Crowing of Roosters 

The crowing of roosters at the change in the weather: 
Under a dark blue cloud the dark testicles of plums 
With their ash-gary coating and sticky cracks–
There are sweet scabs of dirty amber. 

Translated from Polish by Czeslaw Milosz

street poetry

I inhale a world,
budding with inv
isible actors, tel
ling their story,
whispering motio
nless, I watch the
ir movements, at
times quiet, at ti
mes violent. I list
en to their words
without letters,
only life  I am he
re, on this stage
too, a part of this
show, a breath of
this life.

Warsan Shire

When We Last Saw Your Father

He was sitting in the hospital parking lot
in a borrowed car, counting the windows
of the building, guessing which one
was glowing with his mistake.

Tennessee Williams

We Have Not Long To Love

We have not long to love. 

Light does not stay. 

The tender things are those 

we fold away. 

Coarse fabrics are the ones 

for common wear. 

In silence I have watched you 

comb your hair. 

Intimate the silence, 

dim and warm. 

I could but did not, reach 

to touch your arm. 

I could, but do not, break 

that which is still. 

(Almost the faintest whisper 

would be shrill.) 

So moments pass as though 

they wished to stay. 

We have not long to love. 

A night. A day.... 

Warsan Shire

     Beauty

My older sister soaps between her legs, her hair
a prayer of curls. When she was my age, she stole
the neighbour's husband, burnt his name into her skin.
For weeks she smelt of cheap perfume and dying flesh.

It's 4 a.m. and she winks at me, bending over the sink,
her small breasts bruised from sucking.
She smiles, pops her gum before saying
boys are haram, don't ever forget that.

Some nights I hear her in her room screaming.
We play Surah Al-Baqarah to drown her out.
Anything that leaves her mouth sounds like sex.
Our mother has banned her from saying God's name.

Ocean Vuong

     Aubade with Burning City

South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon.

            Milkflower petals on the street

                                                     like pieces of a girl’s dress.

May your days be merry and bright ...

He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips.

            Open, he says.

                                        She opens.

                                                      Outside, a soldier spits out

            his cigarette as footsteps

                            fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. May all

                                         your Christmases be white as the traffic guard

            unstraps his holster.

                                        His hand running the hem

of  her white dress.

                            His black eyes.

            Her black hair.

                            A single candle.

                                        Their shadows: two wicks.

A military truck speeds through the intersection, the sound of children

                                        shrieking inside. A bicycle hurled

            through a store window. When the dust rises, a black dog

                            lies in the road, panting. Its hind legs

                                                                                   crushed into the shine

                                                       of a white Christmas.

On the nightstand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard

                                                                      for the first time.

The treetops glisten and children listen, the chief of police

                                facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola.

                                             A palm-sized photo of his father soaking

                beside his left ear.

The song moving through the city like a widow.

                A white ...    A white ...    I’m dreaming of a curtain of snow

                                                          falling from her shoulders.

Snow crackling against the window. Snow shredded

                                           with gunfire. Red sky.

                              Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls.

A helicopter lifting the living just out of reach.

            The city so white it is ready for ink.

                                                     The radio saying run run run.

Milkflower petals on a black dog

                            like pieces of a girl’s dress.

May your days be merry and bright. She is saying

            something neither of them can hear. The hotel rocks

                        beneath them. The bed a field of ice

                                                                                 cracking.

Don’t worry, he says, as the first bomb brightens

                             their faces, my brothers have won the war

                                                                       and tomorrow ...    

                                             The lights go out.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming ...    

                                                            to hear sleigh bells in the snow ...    

In the square below: a nun, on fire,

                                            runs silently toward her god — 

                           Open, he says.

                                                         She opens.