Poem.

 
I Hear America Singing 
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
    Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
              and strong,
    The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
    The mason singing his as he makes ready for [...]

Poem.

Rewriting the History of August 29th: A Prayer
Thank you for letting me understand
homelessness, living without power,
without television , without cool air in the heat.

Thank you for letting me understand
hunger, the pleasure of dry clean clothes and
the relief of place to sleep.
Thank you for letting me understand
the deep and overwhelming sadness
when forces, beyond our personal control,
take [...]

Poem.

Toward Moral Balance
The worm that travels through my compost pile
cares nothing for enduring life. His freedom
carves its pathways through the rotting leaves.
He is a boisterous, joyful child,
his anarchy oblivious to reason.
God merely smiles at such idolatry.
 
Demanding sturdy answers: why do birds
turn all as one and how do salmon find
their nests, my thinking becomes sparse. [...]

No poem today.

No one is reading them anyway, apparently.

Poem.

Herb Garden
“And these, small, unobserved . . . ” – Janet Lewis
The lizard, an exemplar of the small,
Spreads fine, adhesive digits to perform
Vertical push-ups on a sunny wall;
Bees grapple spikes of lavender, or swarm
The dill’s gold umbels and low clumps of thyme.
Bored with its trellis, a resourceful rose
Has found a nearby cedar tree to climb
And [...]

Poem.

From An Astronaut’s Spouse
I could have sought by wit or wile
Your bright dream to dim. And yet
If I’d swayed you with a smile
My reward would be regret.
So, for once, you shall not hear
Of the tears, unbidden, welling;
Or the nighttime stabs of fear.
These, this time, are not for telling.
Take my silence, though intended;
Fill it with the [...]

Poem.

Ode on Dictionaries
A-bomb is how it begins with a big bang on page
     one, a calculator of sorts whose centrifuge
begets bedouin, bamboozle, breakdance, and berserk,
     one of my mother’s favorite words, hard knock
clerk of clichés that she is, at the moment going ape
     the current rave in the fundamentalist landscape
disguised as her brain, a rococo [...]

Poem.

The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students
Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, [...]

Memorial Day poem.

Dreamers
Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s tomorrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit [...]

Poem.

Poetry As Insurgent Art (I am signaling you through the flames)
I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?
The state of the world calls out [...]

Poem.

To the Young Who Want to Die

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a [...]

Poem.

Dangerous Astronomy
I wanted to walk outside and praise the stars,
But David, my baby son, coughed and coughed.
His comfort was more important than the stars
So I comforted and kissed him in his dark
Bedroom, but my comfort was not enough.
His mother was more important than the stars
So he cried for her breast and milk. It’s hard
For fathers [...]

Poem.

Chance
may favor obscure brainy aptitudes in you
and a love of the past so blind you would
venture, always securing permission,
into the back library stacks, without food
or water because you have a mission:
to find yourself, in the regulated light,
holding a volume in your hands as you
yourself might like to be held. Mostly your life
will be voices and [...]

Poem.

How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual
First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.
Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.
To read poetry requires only [...]

Poem.

Goldfish Are Ordinary
At the pet store on Court Street,
I search for the perfect fish.
The black moor, the blue damsel,
cichlids and neons. Something
to distract your sadness, something
you don’t need to love you back.
Maybe a goldfish, the flaring tail,
orange, red-capped, pearled body,
the darting translucence? Goldfish
are ordinary, the boy selling fish
says to me. I turn back to the [...]

Poem.

Death Barged In
In his Russian greatcoat
slamming open the door
with an unpardonable bang,
and he has been here ever since.
He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.
Tonight he sits down to dinner
at the head of the table
as we eat, mute;
later, he climbs into bed
between us. [...]

Poem.

Lilies
I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.
They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,
and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful
as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for [...]

Poem for Good Friday.

Stand-To: Good Friday Morning
I’d been on duty from two till four.
I went and stared at the dug-out door.
Down in the frowst I heard them snore.
‘Stand to!’ Somebody grunted and swore.
Dawn was misty; the skies were still;
Larks were singing, discordant, shrill;
They seemed happy; but I felt ill.
Deep in water I splashed my way
Up the trench to [...]

Poem.

Anthem
Catfish, Mudcat, Ducky, Coot.
The Babe, The Barber, The Blade, The Brat.
Windy, Dummy, Gabby, Hoot.
Big Train, Big Six, Big Ed, Fat.
Greasy, Sandy, Muddy, Rocky.
Bunions, Twinkletoes, Footsie, The Hat.
Fuzzy, Dizzy, Buddy, Cocky.
The Bull, The Stork, The Weasle, The Cat.
Schoolboy, Sheriff,
Rajah, Duke,
General, Major,
Spaceman, Spook.
The Georgia Peach, The Fordham Flash,
The Flying Dutchman. Cot.
The People’s Cherce, The Blazer. Crash.
The Staten [...]

It’s National Poetry Month!

Have some poetry today. 
It’s good for you.