My breasts are like martinis
[…]
When I have a migraine and she reaches for me, I say
Josey, my breasts are like martinis. She nods, solemn:
People should keep their goddamn hands off yours. How
could we tell these jokes to the bartender? We can’t. He’ll never know.
I say it after scrubbing the kitchen cabinets, and she gets it:
dirty and wet. Walking in the wind, Josey says My breasts
are like martinis and I hail a cab, know she means shaking, ice cold.
Greenness by Angelina Weld Grimké
Tell me is there anything lovelier,
Anything more quieting
Than the green of little blades of grass
And the green of little leaves?
Is not each leaf a cool green hand,
Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger,
Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?
.
“Caroling Dusk: an Anthology of Verse by Black Poets.” Edited by Countee Cullen.
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From: The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry.
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We begin with grandmothers. Isn’t it something else when you think we came out of of our grandmothers- in a very physical way… Her body gave either our father or our mother. You are physically a part of her body. Of course not everybody has a loving relationship with their grandparents or even *has* grandparents they know. Some people become our grandparents because of the air you breathe together or the houses you shared or the streets.
Part of a poem Face by Jean Toomer, it is a sad poem but he wrote it with so much love for the grandmother… loving her face:
Face
Hair—
silver-gray
like streams of stars,
Brows—
recurved canoes
quivered by the ripples blown by pain,
Her eyes—
mist of tears
condensing on the flesh below
.
From: November Cotton Flower
…
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.
.
All of the poem November Cotton Flower:
.
“Caroling Dusk: an Anthology of Verse by Black Poets.” Edited by Countee Cullen.
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To a Dark Girl by Gwendolyn Bennet
I love you for your brownness
And the rounded darkness of your breast.
I love you for the breaking sadness in your voice
And shadows where your wayward eye-lids rest.
Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.
Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate,
Keep all you have of queenliness,
Forgetting that you once were slave,
And let your full lips laugh at Fate!
.
“Caroling Dusk: an Anthology of Verse by Black Poets.” Edited by Countee Cullen.
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To P.J. (2 yrs old who sed write
a poem for me in Portland, Oregon)
if i cud ever write a
poem as beautiful as u
little 2/yr/old/brotha,
I wud laugh, jump, leap
up and touch the stars
cuz u be the poem i try for
each time i pick up a pen and paper.
u. and Morani and Mung
be our blue/blk/stars that
will shine on our lives and
makes us finally BE.
if i cud ever write a poem as beautiful
as u, little 2/yr/old/brotha,
poetry wud go out of bizness.
Sonia Sanchez
From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
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A 14-Year-Old Convalescent Cat in Winter
I want him to have another living summer,
to lie in the sun and enjoy the douceur de vivre –
because the sun, like golden rum in a rummer,
is what makes an idle cat un tout petit peu ivre –
I want him to lie stretched out, contented,
revelling in the heat, his fur all dry and warm,
an Old Age Pensioner, retired, resented
by no one, and happinesses in a beelike swarm
to settle on him – postponed for another season
that last fated hateful journey to the vet
from which there is no return (and age the reason),
which must come soon – as I cannot forget
Gavin Ewart
From: Poems on the Underground, edited by Chernaik, Herbert and Benson.
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Tongues
(The speaker is a woman whose husband has died after a long illness)
Three days before he died the hospital called me:
He was unconscious, sinking. I went at once.
His face was closed, remote against the pillows.
I sat by the window.The leaves outside were moving
Suddenly he began to speak. I thought
He was asking me for something, but before
I could cross the room I saw have fixed his eyes were,
And then I realized: he was speaking verse,
But in a language neither of us knew.
Not English certainly, not German, and not Russian,
His family’s language from the thirteenth century,
Though he had never learnt it.
. He continued
For a full minute, measured, authoritative.
I picked up the rhythm: four stresses to each line.
I recall only the opening words of one:
Alléndam tatsú…
. He seemed to be speaking
Past me, his eyes directed to the window,
Yet also to me. For thirty lines or more
He spoke, and then, as if the poem was finished,
Fell silent and lay back.
. Two hours after,
He spoke once more, in German, using my name.
His eyes were soft and and again familiar.
We did not refer to the poem, then or later.
But though he was conscious almost until he died
He took no leave of me. And I think now
The poem was his taking-leave.
. His doctor,
Who speaks German fluently, believes
That what I heard was German, much distorted.
I’m certain it was not: the voice was too
Distinct, unfaltering.
. His father said,
‘Ah, yes. Of course I need not remind you, we
Are an old family. It was our forbears speaking.’
Philip Martin
The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse, chosen by Les A. Murray.
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Child by Sylvia Plath
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose names you meditate —
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.
.
.
From: Poems on the Underground. Illlustrated edition. Edited by Judith Chernaik, Gerard Benson and Cicely Herbert.
When you don’t have to spell out that you love.
North London Sonnet
for Lucinda
A boom-box boats by,
less music than sonic muscle
assaulting the night sky,
a pumped-up hustle-bustle
which manages to disturb
the twirly, needling alarm
of a car tucked into the kerb—
its mantra, or charm—
but that too, soon, quiets
and you sleep on, proof
against the rumpuses and riots
encircling our roof,
till my switching off the light
prompts a muffled Good Night
Christopher Reid
From: London a History in Verse, ed by Mark Ford.
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Canto IV
[…]
You know your glance bedecks the sailboats
In the rocking nights of the catch
You know your glance ties the knot of stars
And the knot of song that will come from this chest
Your glance carries the word to the heart
And the enchanted mouth of a nightingale
There’s no time to lose
At the hour of the body in the dubious shipwreck
I measure the infinite step by step
The sea waits to conquer
So there’s no time to lose
Then
. Ah then
Beyond the last horizon
We’ll see what there is to see
[…]
Vicente Huidobro
From: Pinholes in the Night, essential poems for Latin America. Selected by Raul Zurita, edited by Forrest Gander.
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Canto IV
[…]
And I lifted the cape of your laughter
And I cut through the shadows
That cast the signs of distance over you
Your dream will sleep in my hands
Marked with the lines of my inseparable fate
In the breast of the same bird
That consumes itself in the fire of its song
Of its song that weeps for time
For time slips through fingers
[…]
I love my eyes and your eyes and eyes
Eyes with their own flash-point
Eyes that dance to the sound of an inner music
And open like a door onto a crime
[…]
Vicente Huidobro
From: Pinholes in the Night, essential poems for Latin America. Selected by Raul Zurita, edited by Forrest Gander.
USED and NEW: Pinholes in the Night at Abebooks.com.
Rain Journal: London: June 65
by Lee Harwood
sitting naked together
on the edge of the bed
drinking vodka
this my first real love scene
your body so good
your eyes sad love stars
but John
now when we’re miles apart
the come-down from mountain visions
and the streets all raining
and me in the back of the shop
making free phone calls to you
what can we do?
crackling telephone wires shadow me
and this distance haunts me
and yes – i am miserable
and lost without you
whole days spent
remaking your face
the sound of your voice
the feel of your shoulder
.
From: London a History in Verse, ed by Mark Ford.
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Not typical love poems, although some are.
Freedom, summer (To my mother, reminding her of the fire)
I hold the photo of two lovers who fell into the sea. They’re dressed
. for winter, I ask them to take off their clothes. During siestas we sit
. beside the water pump and stare at each other: light collects in her
. breasts again; he loved horses and one time he tried to kill himself. (1978)
La Libertad, el verano (A mi madre, recordándole el fuego)
Tengo la foto de dos novios que cayeron al mar. Están vestidos de
. invierno, los invito a desnudarse. En las siestas nos sentamos junto
. a la bomba de agua y nos miramos: de nuevo embolsan luz los
. pechos de ella; él amaba a los caballos y una vez intentó suicidarse. (1978)
For more on Héctor Viel Témperley go here!
Canto IV
[…]
Rose upturned and rose returned and rose and rose
Though the warden don’t want it
Muddy rivers make for clean fishing.
[…]
Vicente Huidobro
From: Pinholes in the Night, essential poems for Latin America. Selected by Raul Zurita, edited by Forrest Gander.
USED and NEW: Pinholes in the Night at Abebooks.com.
Stations by Audre Lorde
Some women love
to wait
for life for a ring
in the June light for a touch
of the sun to heal them for another
woman’s voice to make them whole
to untie their hands
put words in their mouths
form to their passages sound
to their screams for some other sleeper
to remember their future their past.
Some women wait for their right
train in the wrong station
in the alleys of morning
for the noon to holler
the night come down.
Some women wait for love
to rise up
the child of their promise
to gather from earth
what they do not plant
to claim pain for labor
to become
the tip of an arrow to aim
at the heart of now
but it never stays.
Some women wait for visions
That do not return
Where they were not welcome
Naked
For invitations to places
They always wanted
To visit
To be repeated.
Some women wait for themselves
Around the next corner
And call the empty spot peace
But the opposite of living
Is only not living
And the stars do not care.
Some women wait for something
To change and nothing
Does change
So they change
Themselves.
From The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry.
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I loosely translated a Dutch baby’s sleeping song by the poet Annie M.G. Schmidt. ‘suja’ comes from ‘soothe’.
Suja suja prickly-ball, outside the moon bathes all in silver white,
You are a little porcupine, but don’t be sad: you are alright,
You are an itty-bitty porcupine, ignore the stereotypes,
The lions have their manes and tigers have their stripes
We have our auntie squirrel with a reddish woollen tail,
And you, you’re more than awesome with all those little quills!
Sleep, my itty-bitty prickle-ball, so you will grow big and fat,
So you’ll turn into a porcupine ‘xactly like mom and dad.
The stately elephant has a trunk, the bears, oooh, they have sharp claws,
The parrot has bright feathers, green ones, and think of royal blue macaws!
Our uncle giraffe, well, he has the longest neck; brown spots on golden white,
And you, you have all those prickly quills: what, not too shabby, right!?
Suja suja prickle-dum-dee, the moon is lit and the shadows are long.
You’re mine, the most beautiful porcupine, and also very strong!
The cats have whiskers and purring weave your dreams,
Sweet cows have horns and fish they dance in streams,
Our cousin the otter has a jacket, velvet, soft-brown and gray,
and you, you have all those tickly quills: those will come in handy one day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-x5QH-jCi4
Suja suja Prikkeltje, daar buiten schijnt de maan,
je bent een stekelvarkentje, maar trek het je niet aan,
je bent een stekelvarkentje, dat heb je al begrepen,
De leeuwen hebben manen en de tijgers hebben strepen
en onze tante eekhoorn heeft een roje wollen staart,
maar jij hebt allemaal stekeltjes en dát is zoveel waard.
Slaap, mijn kleine Prikkeltje, dan wordt je groot en dik,
dan wordt je net zo’n stekelvarken als je pa en ik.
Het olifantje heeft een slurf, de beren hebben klauwen,
de papegaai heeft veren, van die groene, van die blauwe,
en onze oom giraffe heeft een héle lange nek,
maar jij hebt allemaal stekeltjes en dat is ook niet gek,
Suja suja Prikkeltje, het is al vreselijk laat,
Je bent het mooiste stekelvarken, dat er maar bestaat,
de poezen hebben snorren en daar kunnen ze door spinnen,
de koeien hebben horens en de vissen hebben vinnen,
en onze neef, de otter, heeft een bruinfluwelen jas,
maar jij hebt allemaal stekeltjes, die komen nog te pas.
Awesome poetry from all over. 