{"id":11366,"date":"2017-01-30T17:15:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T09:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=11366"},"modified":"2017-01-30T17:15:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T09:15:13","slug":"poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2017\/01\/30\/poems\/","title":{"rendered":"favorite poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good Bones
\n<\/strong>by Maggi Smith<\/p>\n

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
\nLife is short, and I\u2019ve shortened mine
\nin a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
\na thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
\nI\u2019ll keep from my children. The world is at least
\nfifty percent terrible, and that\u2019s a conservative
\nestimate, though I keep this from my children.
\nFor every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
\nFor every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
\nsunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
\nis at least half terrible, and for every kind
\nstranger, there is one who would break you,
\nthough I keep this from my children. I am trying
\nto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
\nwalking you through a real shithole, chirps on
\nabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,
\nright? You could make this place beautiful.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

This Be The Verse
\n<\/strong> by Phillip Larkin<\/p>\n

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
\nThey may not mean to, but they do.
\nThey fill you with the faults they had
\nAnd add some extra, just for you.<\/p>\n

But they were fucked up in their turn
\nBy fools in old-style hats and coats,
\nWho half the time were soppy-stern
\nAnd half at one another\u2019s throats.<\/p>\n

Man hands on misery to man.
\nIt deepens like a coastal shelf.
\nGet out as early as you can,
\nAnd don\u2019t have any kids yourself.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening<\/strong>
\nBy Robert Frost<\/p>\n

Whose woods these are I think I know.
\nHis house is in the village though;
\nHe will not see me stopping here
\nTo watch his woods fill up with snow.
\nMy little horse must think it queer
\nTo stop without a farmhouse near
\nBetween the woods and frozen lake
\nThe darkest evening of the year.
\nHe gives his harness bells a shake
\nTo ask if there is some mistake.
\nThe only other sound\u2019s the sweep
\nOf easy wind and downy flake.
\nThe woods are lovely, dark and deep,
\nBut I have promises to keep,
\nAnd miles to go before I sleep,
\nAnd miles to go before I sleep.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Bluebird<\/strong>
\nby Charles Bukowski<\/p>\n

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
\nwants to get out
\nbut I’m too tough for him,
\nI say, stay in there, I’m not going
\nto let anybody see
\nyou.
\nthere’s a bluebird in my heart that
\nwants to get out
\nbut I pour whiskey on him and inhale
\ncigarette smoke
\nand the whores and the bartenders
\nand the grocery clerks
\nnever know that
\nhe’s
\nin there.
\nthere’s a bluebird in my heart that
\nwants to get out
\nbut I’m too tough for him,
\nI say,
\nstay down, do you want to mess
\nme up?
\nyou want to screw up the
\nworks?
\nyou want to blow my book sales in
\nEurope?
\nthere’s a bluebird in my heart that
\nwants to get out
\nbut I’m too clever, I only let him out
\nat night sometimes
\nwhen everybody’s asleep.
\nI say, I know that you’re there,
\nso don’t be
\nsad.
\nthen I put him back,
\nbut he’s singing a little
\nin there, I haven’t quite let him
\ndie
\nand we sleep together like
\nthat
\nwith our
\nsecret pact
\nand it’s nice enough to
\nmake a man
\nweep, but I don’t
\nweep, do
\nyou?<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Instead of killing yourself
\n<\/strong>by Derrick C. Brown<\/p>\n

wait until
\na year from now
\nwhere you say,
\n\u201cHoly fuck,
\nI can\u2019t believe I was going to kill myself before I etcetera\u2019d\u2026
\nbefore I went skinny dipping in Tennessee,
\nmade my own IPA,
\ntried out for a game show,
\nrode a camel drunk,
\nskydived alone,
\nlearned to waltz with clumsy old people,
\nphotographed electric jellyfish,
\nbuilt a sailboat from trash,
\ntaught someone how to read,
\netc. etc. etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

The red washing
\ndown the bathtub
\ncan\u2019t change the color of the sea
\nat all.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Masks<\/strong>
\nby Shel Silverstein<\/p>\n

She had blue skin
\nAnd so did he.
\nHe kept it hid
\nAnd so did she
\nThey searched for blue
\nTheir whole life through,
\nThen passed right by-
\nAnd never knew.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We teach Life, sir!<\/strong>
\nby Rafeef Ziadah<\/p>\n

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre.
\nToday, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits.
\nToday, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response.
\nAnd I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions.
\nBut still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don’t you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children?
\nPause.
\nI look inside of me for strength to be patient but patience is not at the tip of my tongue as the bombs drop over Gaza.
\nPatience has just escaped me.
\nPause. Smile.
\nWe teach life, sir.
\nRafeef, remember to smile.
\nPause.<\/p>\n

We teach life, sir.
\nWe Palestinians teach life after they have occupied the last sky.
\nWe teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls, after the last skies.
\nWe teach life, sir.<\/p>\n

But today, my body was a TV’d massacre made to fit into sound-bites and word limits.
\nAnd just give us a story, a human story.<\/p>\n

You see, this is not political.
\nWe just want to tell people about you and your people so give us a human story.
\nDon’t mention that word “apartheid” and “occupation”.
\nThis is not political.
\nYou have to help me as a journalist to help you tell your story which is not a political story.
\nToday, my body was a TV’d massacre.
\nHow about you give us a story of a woman in Gaza who needs medication?<\/p>\n

How about you?
\nDo you have enough bone-broken limbs to cover the sun?
\nHand me over your dead and give me the list of their names in one thousand two hundred word limits.<\/p>\n

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits and move those that are desensitized to terrorist blood.
\nBut they felt sorry.
\nThey felt sorry for the cattle over Gaza.
\nSo, I give them UN resolutions and statistics and we condemn and we deplore and we reject.
\nAnd these are not two equal sides: occupier and occupied.
\nAnd a hundred dead, two hundred dead, and a thousand dead.
\nAnd between that, war crime and massacre, I vent out words and smile “not exotic”, “not terrorist”.
\nAnd I recount, I recount a hundred dead, a thousand dead.<\/p>\n

Is anyone out there?
\nWill anyone listen?
\nI wish I could wail over their bodies.
\nI wish I could just run barefoot in every refugee camp and hold every child, cover their ears so they wouldn’t have to hear the sound of bombing for the rest of their life the way I do.<\/p>\n

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre
\nAnd let me just tell you, there’s nothing your UN resolutions have ever done about this.
\nAnd no sound-bite, no sound-bite I come up with, no matter how good my English gets, no sound-bite, no sound-bite, no sound-bite, no sound-bite will bring them back to life.
\nNo sound-bite will fix this.
\nWe teach life, sir.
\nWe teach life, sir.
\nWe Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

In this world<\/strong>
\nby Issa Kobayashi<\/p>\n

In this world
\nwe walk on the roof of hell,
\ngazing at flowers.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

What if you slept…<\/strong>
\nby Samuel Taylor Coleridge<\/p>\n

What if you slept
\nAnd what if
\nIn your sleep
\nYou dreamed
\nAnd what if
\nIn your dream
\nYou went to heaven
\nAnd there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
\nAnd what if
\nWhen you awoke
\nYou had that flower in you hand
\nAh, what then?<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

How to make love to a trans person<\/strong>
\nby Gabe Moses<\/p>\n

Forget the images you\u2019ve learned to attach
\nTo words like cock and clit,
\nChest and breasts.
\nBreak those words open
\nLike a paramedic cracking ribs
\nTo pump blood through a failing heart.
\nPush your hands inside.
\nGet them messy.
\nScratch new definitions on the bones.<\/p>\n

Get rid of the old words altogether.
\nMake up new words.
\nCall it a click or a ditto.
\nCall it the sound he makes
\nWhen you brush your hand against it through his jeans,
\nWhen you can hear his heart knocking on the back of his teeth
\nAnd every cell in his body is breathing.
\nMake the arch of her back a language
\nName the hollows of each of her vertebrae
\nWhen they catch pools of sweat
\nLike rainwater in a row of paper cups
\nAlign your teeth with this alphabet of her spine
\nSo every word is weighted with the salt of her.<\/p>\n

When you peel layers of clothing from his skin
\nDo not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient
\nEven though it\u2019s highly likely that you are.
\nDo not ask if she\u2019s \u201chad the surgery.\u201d
\nDo not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt
\nIf you are being offered a body
\nThat has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel
\nA sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies
\nThat come with some assembly required
\nWhatever you do,
\nDo not say that the carefully sculpted landscape
\nBordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue
\nLooks almost natural.<\/p>\n

If she offers you breastbone
\nAching to carve soft fruit from its branches
\nThough there may be more tissue in the lining of her bra
\nThan the flesh that rises to meet it
\nLet her ripen in your hands.
\nImagine if she\u2019d lost those swells to cancer,
\nDiabetes,
\nA car accident instead of an accident of genetics
\nWould you think of her as less a woman then?
\nThen think of her as no less one now.<\/p>\n

If he offers you a thumb-sized sprout of muscle
\nReaching toward you when you kiss him
\nLike it wants to go deep enough inside you
\nTo scratch his name on the bottom of your heart
\nHold it as if it can-
\nIn your hand, in your mouth
\nInside the nest of your pelvic bones.
\nThough his skin may hardly do more than brush yours,
\nYou will feel him deeper than you think.<\/p>\n

Realize that bodies are only a fraction of who we are
\nThey\u2019re just oddly-shaped vessels for hearts
\nAnd honestly, they can barely contain us
\nWe strain at their seams with every breath we take
\nWe are all pulse and sweat,
\nTissue and nerve ending
\nWe are programmed to grope and fumble until we get it right.
\nBodies have been learning each other forever.
\nIt\u2019s what bodies do.
\nThey are grab bags of parts
\nAnd half the fun is figuring out
\nAll the different ways we can fit them together;
\nAll the different uses for hipbones and hands,
\nTongues and teeth;
\nAll the ways to car-crash our bodies beautiful.
\nBut we could never forget how to use our hearts
\nEven if we tried.
\nThat\u2019s the important part.
\nDon\u2019t worry about the bodies.
\nThey\u2019ve got this.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Feminist or a Womanist
\nby Staceyann Chin<\/p>\n

\u201cAm I a feminist or a womanist?
\nThe student needs to know if I do men occasionally and primarily, am I a lesbian?
\nTongue tied up in my cheek, I attempt to respond with some honesty.
\nWell, this business of Dykes and Dykery, I tell her, it\u2019s often messy.
\nWith social tensions as they are, you never quite know what you\u2019re getting.<\/p>\n

Girls who are only straight at night, hardcore butches be sporting dresses between 9 & 6 every day.
\nSometimes she is a he, trapped by the limitations of our imaginations.
\nPrimarily, I tell her, I am concerned about young women who are raped on college campuses, in bars, after poetry readings like this one, in bars.
\nBruised lip and broken heart, you will forgive her if she does not come forward with the truth immediately, for when she does, it is she who will stand trial as damaged goods.
\nEveryone will say she asked for it, dressed as she was, she must have wanted it.
\nThe words will knock about in her head: \u201d Harlot, slut, tease, loose woman\u201d \u2013 some people can not handle a woman on the loose.
\nYou know those women in pinstriped shirts and silk ties, You know those women in blood-red stiletto heels and short skirts.
\nThese women make New York City the most interesting place.
\nAnd while we\u2019re on the subject of diversity, Asia is not one big race, and there\u2019s not one big country called \u2018The Islands\u2019, and no, I am not from there.<\/p>\n

There are a hundred ways to slip between the cracks of our not so credible cultural assumptions about race and religion.
\nMost people are suprised that my father is Chinese.
\nLike there\u2019s some kind of preconditioned look for the half-Chinese, lesbian poet who used to be Catholic, but now believes in dreams.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get real sister-boy in the double-x hooded sweatshirt.
\nThat blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus in the Vatican ain\u2019t right.
\nThat motherfucker was Jewish, not white.
\nChrist was a middle-eastern rasta man who ate grapes in the company of prostitutes and he drank wine more than he drank water.
\nBorn of the spirit, the disciples loved him in the flesh.<\/p>\n

But the discourse is not on those of us who identify as gay or lesbian or even straight.
\nThe state needs us to be either a clear left or right.
\nThose in the middle get caught in the cross \u2013 fire away at the other side.
\nIf you are not for us, then you must be against us.
\nIf you are not for us, then you must be against us.
\nPeople get scared enough, they pick a team.
\nBe it for Buddha or Krishna or Christ, I believe God is that place between belief and what you name it.
\nI believe holy is what you do when there is nothing between your actions and the truth.<\/p>\n

The truth is I\u2019m afraid to draw your black lines around me, I\u2019m not always pale in the middle, I come in too many flavors for one f***ing spoon.
\nI am never one thing or the other.
\nAt night I am everything I fear, tears and sorrows, black windows and muffled screams.
\nIn the morning, I am all I ever want to be: rain and laughter, bare footprints and invisible seams, always without breath or definition.
\nI claim every single dawn, for yesterday is simply what I was, and tomorrow even that will be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Suicide in the Trenches<\/strong>
\nby Siegfried Sassoon<\/p>\n

I knew\u00a0a simple soldier boy
\nWho grinned at life in empty joy,
\nSlept soundly through the lonesome dark,
\nAnd whistled early with the lark.<\/p>\n

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
\nWith crumps and lice and lack of rum,
\nHe put a bullet through his brain.
\nNo one spoke of him again.<\/p>\n

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
\nWho cheer when soldier lads march by,
\nSneak home and pray you\u2019ll never know
\nThe hell where youth and laughter go.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Deceit and I<\/a>, by RJ Walker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Bones by Maggi Smith Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I\u2019ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I\u2019ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that\u2019s a conservative… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[831],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5gxNz-poems","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}