Home
Creators
Search Recent Missing Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

What Poem…? And how’s your hearts. (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-31 06:44:50
Imported:
2026-06
haven't archived this post yet. have a subscription? use the importer!

Content

Hello my loves.


I’m just finishing up the Althing (for you new people; that’s the month newsletter we send out with all things AFP/Dresden Dolls/ Community only for the patrons) to send out tomorrow, and have been hunting for the right poem to read/record for you in the video.

My soul is crying for a reading of “Invictus”, I’ve never recorded that one and it’s feeling resonant, even though it’s so well-known.

Eh? Nah? Hm.

I figured I’d come here and at least start a little poetry party before I go ahead and record it.

So. Are there any poems that are resonating with your soul right now? Share away. Links, name/author for east googling, or just paste the poem in. I’m reading.

(Nothing too long, please. Originals are fine.)

Top voted poem/comment is likely to get my eyeballs (heartballs? soulballs?) so go ahead and use the heart function to upvote a comment you like the look of.

Sorry I have been on the quiet side. I’ve been introverted lately, processing, taking care of little Ash. Writing this Althing has been a good exercise - as usual - in facing what’s in and outside.

It’s been a heavy week of news in America, a heavy week of life, weather, realities … of everything. Send some poems with a glimmer of hope.


And feel free to use this thread for general chat and to tell me how you’re doing or what you’re thinking. How’s all your hearts?

It’s always nice to just get a sense of how you all are before I make my big blast to the community. (It’s also a good time to send any last minute notices for the community bulletin board).

Love,

Amanda


———THE STUFF I PASTE AT THE END OF THE POST———


1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.


2. if you’re a patron reading this post via an email notification, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that's always nice for me to see, so i know who's reading. 


3. see All the Things (almost 200 of them) i've made so far on patreon: 

http://amandapalmer.net/things


4. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/


5. are you new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/


6. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net


















Files

Previews only

Comments

Tony Ivanova

How about David Whyte, "Santiago"? Or his "True Love".

Dorit

I've always loved this one called Orkney/This Life by Andrew Greig: It is big sky and its changes, the sea all round and the waters within. It is the way sea and sky work off each other constantly, like people meeting in Alfred Street, each face coming away with a hint of the other’s face pressed in it. It is the way a week-long gale ends and folk emerge to hear a single bird cry way high up. It is the way you lean to me and the way I lean to you, as if we are each other’s prevailing; how we connect along our shores, the way we are tidal islands joined for hours then inaccessible, I’ll go for that, and smile when I pick sand off myself in the shower. The way I am an inland loch to you when a clatter of white whoops and rises… It is the way Scotland looks to the South, the way we enter friends’ houses to leave what we came with, or flick the kettle’s switch and wait. This is where I want to live, close to where the heart gives out, ruined, perfected, an empty arch against the sky where birds fly through instead of prayers while in Hoy Sound the ferry’s engines thrum this life this life this life.

Douglas Neudeck

Something from Camus? He balances remote with intimate, making both poignant in a lot of his work.

Julie Samms

Poem Beginning With A Retweet by Maggie Smith If you drive past horses and don’t say horses you’re a psychopath. If you see an airplane but don’t point it out. A rainbow, a cardinal, a butterfly. If you don’t whisper-shout albino squirrel! Deer! Red fox! If you hear a woodpecker and don’t shush everyone around you into silence. If you find an unbroken sand dollar in a tide pool. If you see a dorsal fin breaking the water. If you see the moon and don’t say oh my god look at the moon. If you smell smoke and don’t search for fire. If you feel yourself receding, receding, and don’t tell anyone until you’re gone.

Daniela

I absolutely love this one from Warshan Shire: For women who are ‘difficult’ to love. you are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you compares you to an impossible highway to a burning house says you are blinding him that he could never leave you forget you want anything but you you dizzy him, you are unbearable every woman before or after you is doused in your name you fill his mouth his teeth ache with memory of taste his body just a long shadow seeking yours but you are always too intense frightening in the way you want him unashamed and sacrificial he tells you that no man can live up to the one who lives in your head and you tried to change didn't you? closed your mouth more tried to be softer prettier less volatile, less awake but even when sleeping you could feel him travelling away from you in his dreams so what did you want to do, love split his head open? you can't make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that and if he wants to leave then let him leave you are terrifying and strange and beautiful something not everyone knows how to love.

Daniela
>>100793661

Sorry, maybe not hopeful or related to the events of this week, but I love it so much I share it every time I can!

Els Van Haute

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Thomas Herlofsen

So, so many. I write a lot too, even though my life is now in relatively good shape and it's not about survival at the moment. I'll post one of those..

amandapalmer
>>100793763

ohhh Mary Oliver. How I love this one. I don’t think I’ve ever read this one aloud. It’s been a long time and a lot of poems. I should have kept a list…

amandapalmer
>>100793661

Oh god. I love this and am sharing it with a few friends. Not quite right for tomorrow. But perfect for a few women I know who are going though this circle of hell right now.

Enrique Robles

I need to read more Poetry. I need to read more. I will probably come back to this post to get good recommendations.

amandapalmer
>>100793966

There are some hardcore poetry-people here, and even some remarkable poets. Definitely follow along. ♥️

Emily

Hi Amanda and Patrons, I thought of this poem called Alba by Derek Walcott immediately after reading your post. My mother showed me this poem when I was a child and frequently expressed her fondness of it. This is her favorite poem, and probably mine too. I find comfort in these words whenever I struggle, and I find it simply beautiful. To me, it symbolizes acknowledgement of realities while recognizing the importance of staying centered and grounded. It is about inspiration and hope, and new beginnings. Here it is: Alba By Derek Walcott Dawn breaking as I woke, With the sweat of the dew On the green, new grass. I walked in the cold, quiet as If it were the world beginning; Peeling and eating a chilled tangerine. I may have many sorrows, Dawn is not one of them.

amandapalmer
>>100794024

This is so beautiful. It could almost just be distilled down to those last two lines; it almost works like a haiku.

Pedro B. Gorman

Dear Amanda, I've only recently discovered the incredible poet Kaveh Akbar, who is Iranian-American. This is from his debut collection, "Calling a Wolf a Wolf." Everything That Moves is Alive and a Threat - A Reminder Everything that moves is alive and a threat - a reminder to be as still as possible. Devastation occurs whether we're paying attention or not. The options: repair a world or build a new one. Like the belled cat's frustrated hunt, my offer to improve myself was ruined by the sound it made. How do I look today, better or worse than a medium-priced edible arrangement? I am sealing all my faults with platinum so they'll beam like the barrel of a laser gun. Astronomy: the luminosity of Venus reminds me to wear orange in the woods. Nobody ever pays me enough attention. I've spent my whole adult life in a country where only my parents can pronounce my name. Please, spare me your attempts; I'm a victim of my own invention. The desire to help others is a kind of symmetry, an eccentricity of our species like blushing, gold teeth, and life after children. I don't worry myself with what my doctor said before he burst into flames. I just eat his wet blue pills, stay emotionless as a fig. Muscle memory: a heart calls for you by name. Come to bed with me, you honest thing - let's break into science. I'll pluck you from my mouth like an apple seed, weep with you over other people's lost pets. The strangeness between us opens like a pinhole on the ocean floor: in floods a fishing boat, a Chinese seabird, an entire galaxy of starfish. We're learning so much so quickly. The sun is dying. The atom is reducible. The god-harnesses we thought we came with were just our tiny lungs.

Rosa Dumont

The slam poetry poem OCD by Neil Hilborn. It was one of the last things the one that got away every showed me. It still gives me chills. OCD - Neil Hilborn The first time I saw her, Everything in my head went quiet. All the ticks, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared. When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments. Even in bed, I’m thinking: Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips. Or the eyelash on her cheek— the eyelash on her cheek— the eyelash on her cheek. I knew I had to talk to her. I asked her out six times in thirty seconds. She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going. On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or talking to her. But she loved it. She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times at different times of the day. She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk. When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely lock the door eighteen times. I’d always watch her mouth when she talked— when she talked— when she talked— when she talked; when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges. At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off. She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her. But then. She said I was taking up too much of her time. That I couldn’t kiss her goodbye so much because I was making her late for work. When she said she loved me, her mouth was a straight line. When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking. And last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place. She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but. How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touch her? Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t. I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her. Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin. I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars. And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on. I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel. How she turns shower knobs like she opening a safe. How she blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out— Now, I just think about who else is kissing her. I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once - He doesn’t care if it’s perfect! I want her back so bad, I leave the door unlocked. I leave the lights on.

Alessandor Earnest

I’ve always loved this by Edna St Vincent Millay from her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920s): My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends It gives a lovely light!

Alessandor Earnest
>>100794166

And this from Uncle Shelby (Shel Silverstein): My hair grows to my toes I never wears no clothes I wraps my hair Around my bare And down the road I goes!

Alessandor Earnest
>>100794166

And of course this by the guy who wrote The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane?): In The Desert I saw a creature Naked, bestial Who, squatting upon the ground Held his heart in his hands And ate of it I asked, “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter, bitter But I like it Because it is bitter And because it is my heart.”

Rosa Dumont

This by myself as well. My bed. It knows all my secrets, my dreams, my fears. It has been a shore that has been crashed repeatedly by my wave of tears. Flooded by the tide of my ocean of emotion. Pushing, Pulling, by the waxing and waning of the moon. Stained crimson red like the blood moon in June. I feel my heartbeat as it beats the mattress. My bed’s heartbeat beats back, it hears my call. It is then I am lulled to sleep by the ebb and flow of it all.

Emily
>>100794024

I agree. I think that’s why it’s stuck with me for so many years. Somehow it manages to express so much with so few words. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

CatO

our own names by Destiny Hemphill okra, pickled just the way you like it, in the jar on the top shelf. oranges in the ochre clay bowl you made right there on the counter. clove tea brewing stovetop & there’s an orison that my mama taught me, metronoming ’gainst my orbital bones. orbiting around my occipital. come through. let’s be each other’s oracles. we can hold hands, craft a shrine in the gap of our palms, in the ocean of our breaths at the shore of our oil-shined flesh. listen: this is my oath to you. i’m devoted to you, the people, my folks, my kindred— not to the state. & i belong with you— not to the state. our love is ordained by the Black ordinary & spectacle, our wayward waymaking. we are the more gathered together here in our own names calling on otherwise. serenading otherwheres. singing we already here— come through

Alessandor Earnest
>>100794166

Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost: Some say the world will end in fire Some say in ice From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great and would suffice

Thomas Herlofsen

COLLAPSED BUILDINGS I don’t write poetry I take minutes Laments for buildings whose demolition was as well deserved as our remembrance I can sing it all now since no one is listening for mistakes So I sing about Marchus’ place which although I hung out there occasionally will always contain A pissed-off punk with a swastika on his forehead put there by someone while he was sleeping A porn producer who was clever enough to quit while he was ahead A guy was always in the middle of everything and all the people I would never have had the sense to be around if it wasn’t for him All the bands at his afterparty Stories later about the Cumshot who almost made an actual cumshot The Tables who were allowed to puke on his couch if the need arose And one of the Clowns who almost ended up in actual Combat And so on and so forth Pre-party and afterparty and reefer and chicken and psychedelic cinema until you took the shortcut through the fire door and ended up in the middle of the dancefloor where I once helped paint the walls and pretended to be a vampire while the world’s greatest playlist was thundering and that one guy definitely wasn’t blowing that other guy and someone grabbed my ass at the urinal and mortal fear was in his eyes when he realized I wasn’t his buddy after all But no worries It’s not like someone threw me into the glass wall and I needed 100 stitches It’s not like I stood by the entrance swearing at myself only stopping to admire the occasional beautiful woman It’s not like I drowned in the nearby waterfall That was someone else It kinda always was I just wandered from dark corner to dark corner Up the stairs to the pub where I skipped my last song at the Joachim Nielsen tribute gig on account of having the worst sound in the world and still got my one and only nice writeup in the paper the next day and sang The Finest Day of All with Anne and met Charlene and held Tonje’s hand again and again and again all the way home Across the hall to the Pluto lounge where Kim spun chillout CDs and Mr. Busch showed up with a lady on each arm and the kebab was legendary when I came there from my hick college town in Jan Runar’s old Volvo simultaneously car sick and in desperate need of a cigarette Outside was where you went when you were exhausted and wanted to go home I was there quite a lot since even the best people can be a crowd On the hill down the street I once saved a hedgehog They’ll build something safer now on the pile of rubble that was once Marchus’ place and Kick Pub and Rock Hall and the bingo where they hooked you apparently on one thing or another But nobody will live there quite like we did Although I was a vampire and went playfighting in the woods and played soccer with a guy high on amphetamine and skinny-dipped over at Hill Beach I almost never came along But I learned back then that it didn’t matter You always got the stories afterward I can sing it all now since no one is listening anyway I will sing regardless

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

First idea to jump to mind is this Sonnet I wrote to celebrate Kevin (my dear friend and quite the fan of YOU), lost to cancer in December: A Sonnet for Kevin A lens always on hand, the planning man. With black bandana framing smiling face, A walker, coaster-rider, movie fan. Loved Shakespeare, Rocky, Disney, outer space. No astronomical event too late. No drive too long to wonder, stage or song. Of bending time did he pontificate, Round any corner found amidst the throng. From hidden trails to celebrations bright, He captured life, his images enthrall, (Of) Performers, portraits, rockets taking flight. His life’s last curtain far too soon to fall. Our ShadowCaptain, we see through your eyes, beyond the veil - you are one with the skies.

amandapalmer
>>100794133

Ahhhhhh Pedro this makes my heart sing. Have you read much Ocean Vuong? This reminds. I have been looking for the perfect Ocean poem to read but they are all so fucking bleak. Which is why I love them.

amandapalmer
>>100794282

Ah this is beautiful Jeanne. I connected with Kevin those last days. This life. This world. Poetry. Thank you. ♥️

Fanny Froeliger

Just read this short poem by Rumi this morning. The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. I've heard it said there's a window that opens from one mind to another, but if there's no wall, there's no need for fitting the window, or the latch. RUMI

Pedro B. Gorman
>>100794133

Are you kidding?! :) In a parallel reality, myself and Ocean have been happily married for the last 10 years, have two children, a Moroccan tree-climbing goat, two donkeys and a mini-pig and live in Patagonia! Lollll… I ADORE Ocean, yes. I have devoured his every word!

Alessandor Earnest

Oh, also Andrea Gibson’s Asking Too Much: I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through Tell me what the word “home” means to you And tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8 See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate And if that day still trembles beneath your bones Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms? Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad, even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time I want you tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind. Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel. Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school. If you were walking by a chemical plant, where smoke stacks were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would whisper, “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy”? Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? See, I wanna know if you believe in any god, or if you believe in many gods. Or better yet, what gods believe in you. And for all the times you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you’ve asked come true? And if they didn’t did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you’re feeling bad I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? Would you think less of me if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key and I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence? And if you do I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar. See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving. And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes through other people’s wounds And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would because you’d never want it to stop If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it, if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness? And lastly, let me ask you this: if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn’t talk, do you think eventually we’d kiss? No way. That’s asking too much —after all, this is only our first date.

braincolor

This poem came into my life 40 years ago and has been deeply embedded in my heart ever since. (English translation below) Hermann Hesse - Stufen (Steps) Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe, Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern. Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne, Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben. Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne, Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben. Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen, Der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen, Er will uns Stuf’ um Stufe heben, weiten. Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen, Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise, Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen. Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden… Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde! ------------------------------- As every blossom fades and all youth sinks into old age, so every life’s design, each flower of wisdom, attains its prime and cannot last forever. The heart must submit itself courageously to life’s call without a hint of grief, A magic dwells in each beginning, protecting us, telling us how to live. High purposed we shall traverse realm on realm, cleaving to none as to a home, the world of spirit wishes not to fetter us but raise us higher, step by step. Scarce in some safe accustomed sphere of life have we establish a house, then we grow lax; only he who is ready to journey forth can throw old habits off. Maybe death’s hour too will send us out new-born towards undreamed-lands, maybe life’s call to us will never find an end Courage my heart, take leave and fare thee well.

Jared Allyn Decker

Feeling very "Cat In An Empty Apartment" by Wislawa Symborsky. But I think everyone needs poems from Dickinson about freedom, and love, and self-expression. "Hope" is a little high school picture quote, but there's others like "No rack can torture me" that really say a lot in only a few words. ❤️

Lesley Kaplan

I wrote this poem about a decade ago yet somehow it rings even truer these days. I hope someday us dreamers can take the reins and build a better world/ reality/ paradigm.(poem in comments of this comment) lol love ya

Lesley Kaplan
>>100794747

what dreams may come? hopefully something gentler then this nightmarish reality rockabye baby....rockabye put the taste for TV pacifier in your mouth dumb you down dear the zombie war started generations ago we, the people of radio waves and toxic waste dumps are taught how to be quick fix parrots in school eat your brain polly want a crack rock?? Heroin? where have all my hero's gone? They've been shot down baby, shot down whether by needle or gun their lives down under the graves the masses are spitting on. See where in a toxic daze of this fast food crazed silent frenzy going nowhere fast spinning on fotunas wheel of history repeated lessons unlearned They say Hitler had scientists invent meth to induce a soldier to become superior in inhumanness and alteration due to intolerance is always dangerous whether in our home country or Auchwittz I mean why attack the land.. when you can pshychosocally inhabit every citizen.. and fuck them through each of the five senses Because… If you control the dream you control the dreamers

Alessandor Earnest
>>100794604

I copy/pasted this from the internet and didn’t double check to make sure it was error-free. Sorry for the dropped words here and there!

amandapalmer
>>100794706

New Paltz!! Hi neighbor! I cannot get enough of Wyslawa. I find myself wanting to just bathe in her words every night nowadays.

Howard Scherr

Invictus is a poem that spoke deeply to my wife’s heart. She copied it out longhand on a notepad years before her death, and put it on the refrigerator, in between a small ceramic bas-relief of a cottage and a magnet of three cats at rest. It sits there still.

Pedro B. Gorman
>>100794133

Found the "right" Ocean poem: and why this one? Because, in thumbing through "Night Sky with Exit Wounds," thinking of you, this one really "sung" to me. It ain't the cheeriest...but I think it's really for you, this poem: Queen Under the Hill I approach a field. A black piano waits at its center. I kneel to play what I can. A single key. A tooth tossed down a well. My fingers sliding the slimy gums. Slick lips. Snout. Not a piano - but a mare draped in a black sheet. White mouth sticking out like a fist. I kneel at my beast, The sheet sunken at her ribs. A dented piano where rain, collected from the night, reflects a blue sky fallen into the side of a horse. Blue thumbprint pressed from above. As if something needed to be snuffed out, leaving this black blossom dropped on a field where I am only a visitor. A word exiled from the prayer, flickering. Wind streaks the pale grass flat around us - the horse & I a watercolor hung too soon, dripping. Green waves surround this black rock where I sit turning bones to sonatas. Fingers blurred, I play what I know from listening to orchards unleash their sweetest wrongs. The dent in this horse wide enough to live by. Puddle of sky on earth. As if to look down on the dead is to look up at my own face, trampled by music. If I lift the sheet I will reveal the heart huge as a stillbirth. If I lift the sheet I will sleep beside her as a four-legged shadow, hoof homed to hoof. If I close my eyes I'm inside the piano again & only. If I close my eyes, no one can hurt me.

Margaret

Been on a big Linda Gregg kick lately: Grinding the Lens I am pulling myself together. Don’t want to go on a trip. I have painted the living room white and taken out most of my things. The room has never been so empty. Just now a banging thunder and suddenly falling rain. I leave the typewriter and run outside in my nightgown and take the cotton blanket off the line. It is summer and I am in the middle of my life. Alone and happy. Etiology Cruelty made me. Cruelty and the sweet smelling earth, and the wet scent of hay. The heave in the rumps of horses galloping. Heaven forbid that my body not perish with the rest. I have smelled the rotten wood after rain and watched maggots writhe on dead animals. I have lifted the dead owl while it was still warm. Heaven forbid that I should be saved. There She Is When I go into the garden, there she is. The specter holds up her arms to show that her hands are eaten off. She is silent because of the agony. There is blood on her face. I can see she has done this to herself. So she would not feel the other pain. And it is true, she does not feel it. She does not even see me. It is not she anymore, but the pain itself that moves her. I look and think how to forget. How can I live while she stands there? And if I take her life what will that make of me? I cannot touch her, make her conscious. It would hurt her too much. I hear the sound all through the air that was her eating, but it is on its own now, completely separate from her. I think I am supposed to look. I am not supposed to turn away. I am supposed to see each detail and all expression gone. My God, I think, if paradise is to be here it will have to include her. Surrounded by Sheep and Low Ground When death comes, we take off our clothes and gather everything we left behind: what is dark, broken, touched with shame. When Death demands we give an accounting, naked we present our lives in bundles. See how much these weigh, we tell him, refusing to deny what we have lived. Everything that is touched by light loves the light. We the stubborn-as-grass, we who reel at the taste of sap and want our spirits cleansed, will not betray the weeds, snake, or crippled mare. Never leave behind what the light shone on.

Jared Allyn Decker
>>100794706

Wyslawa = total catharsis right now. Can't WAIT to see you this April. I'm a full time music teacher / and a huge fan of 15 years. You've been the singular biggest musical influence in my life. Hearing you/meeting you is my #1 bucket list item, and I'm honestly just mildly freaking out about it! All the best! Hugs! Xoxo

Carell Casey

People See people say don't give yourselves away to clicks someone said someone did and someone hid behind your own eyes and said what is there is not belief boiled down to ones and zeros they are painted with deceit not even to keep you in line they like violence it lines their pockets they manipulate not to save see? your goodness exploited they have no intent to keep you safe.

Carmen J

Grief, I say, Come in, Sit down. I have tea. There is honey. This will take as long as it takes. ~this hallowed wilderness

Hannah Schumacher

Hey everyone! What a lovely thing to wake up to! Here's a very short poem that I wrote a while ago but that I keep coming back to recently: Again: out of nowhere
 you go into labour. 
A familiar twinge
 contractions in your being,
 pulling you open and close
 like a door on a hinge that can never quite shut up 
about the wind.
 (Also, a few months after I'd written it, I realised it can also be read as an ode to a fart and I just absolutely love the duality of the sincerity coupled with this new meaning taking the air out of it in the best way.) Lots of love, x

Zoé Grin
>>100794375

Reminds me of this other Rumi poem about which I think often: Come again, come again, whatever you are, come again, If you're a kafir or idol-worshipper, come again. This home of ours is not a home of hopelessness, Even if you've repented one hundred times, come again. (as translated by @persianpoetics)

Daniela
>>100793661

I have in my head this read by you with an animation: like the sketch of a woman that comes to life and the lines keep moving and turning the sketch/woman into different things, going on a journey that frees her!

Lisa Reza

I wrote this poem for every woman, who at one and the same time, embodies everything. EVE I am tears and flesh and sex and blood. I am forced, I am fierce, resolute, shoved. I am found and abandoned, lonesome, loved. I am stark, I am shadowed, I am stripped, I am gloved. I am gowned, I am naked, all made-up, I’m undone. I am dripping mascara, I am stockings with runs. I am proud, I am empty, I am free, I am chained. I am still, I’m kinetic, I am whole, I am maimed. I am wrinkled, I am fresh-faced, full of promise, I am worn. I am battered, I am ascendant, I am determined, I am torn. I am soft, I am steel, I am quiet, I am moan. I am complex, I’m easy, I am enigma, I am known. I am mind, I am matter, I am with child, I am with choice. I am friend, I am foe, I am silent, I give voice. I am wet, and raw, and hurt, and healed. I am untouched, I am savored, I am eaten and peeled. I die, I live, give life in bed. I am forever, I am tethered, full of holes, I am thread.

Sara Wright

The Healing Time by Peshawar Joyce Gertler Finally on my way to yes I bump into all the places where I said no to my life all the untended wounds the red and purple scars those hieroglyphs of pain carved into my skin, my bones, those coded messages that send me down the wrong street again and again where I find them the old wounds the old misdirections and I lift them one by one close to my heart and I say holy, holy.

Sara Wright

ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH by Rebecca Elson Sometimes as an antidote To fear of death, I eat the stars. Those nights, lying on my back, I suck them from the quenching dark Til they are all, all inside me, Pepper hot and sharp. Sometimes, instead, I stir myself Into a universe still young, Still warm as blood: No outer space, just space, The light of all the not yet stars Drifting like a bright mist, And all of us, and everything Already there But unconstrained by form. And sometime it’s enough To lie down here on earth Beside our long ancestral bones: To walk across the cobble fields Of our discarded skulls, Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis, Thinking: whatever left these husks Flew off on bright wings.

Sara Wright

Clearing by Martha Postlewaite Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognise and greet it. Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worth of rescue.

Sara Wright

These three (above) get me by, save my life. Enjoy my friends ❤️✨x

S.
>>100795893

Oh, this is amazing, I love it! Thanks for sharing!

Nora Murray-Cavanagh

I love Vicky Thomas, poet and UK paediatrician - I’ll add some here for you to peruse

Niki McQueen

This is not poetry but it is my heart at the moment and this seems like a safe space to share... It pains me so much to realize I'm reliving one of many chapters of "how i became this damaged." I'm living with family, and don't get me wrong, I will defend my family until I die. This is such an important time to think dialectically. BUT it also feels like a time to share. There is something very wrong that I can see as an adult, which I was too immersed in as a child to notice. The skew, patriarchal power dynamic enforced on every being in the house. And not in a purely malicious way. In a way that speaks to the sins of the father. And the father's father. It extends when I'm there to critique my every action, appearance, character flaw, mistake. It sees mental illness as weakness and moral deficit, and being overweight as laziness (conveniently setting aside my inability to walk). There is no privacy. My room is searched , my trash is searched...I'm not sure why. Everything must be done a certain way. Rules must be followed, decrees obeyed. I have little to no understanding of how to live like this... except at the hands of my abuser, who did very similar things. They literally did the best they could with what they had. They have given me their everything, and without them, I would have no ground to stand on ever again. No breath to breathe, no heart to beat. But that doesn't mean things are OK either. They are very not-ok to my nearly-50 brain and my adult sense of equality. Equality and respect do not live here. They must muddle along in this dynamic happily as they have for nearly 60 years now. But watching it and being part of it is utterly, utterly heartbreaking. I can not stay long for, but the means to leave are dwindling... have dwindled with broken cars and life being expensive. I simply don't know how to get out, but I trust implicitly that it will be OK one day. In some unimaginable way.

S.

This is on my mind because of the state of the times and the world, the recent news in America, and the person griefs I have been feeling lately -- especially including the death of a close relative and a pet last year: Love Sorrow by Mary Oliver Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must take care of what has been given. Brush her hair, help her into her little coat, hold her hand, especially when crossing a street. For, think, what if you should lose her? Then you would be sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness would be yours. Take care, touch her forehead that she feel herself not so utterly alone. And smile, that she does not altogether forget the world before the lesson. Have patience in abundance. And do not ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment by herself, which is to say, possibly, again, abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult, sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child. And amazing things can happen. And you may see, as the two of you go walking together in the morning light, how little by little she relaxes; she looks about her; she begins to grow.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh
>>100797214

For my daughter, with thanks to Margaret Atwood Not everyone will love you. There are people Who don't like cheese. Or bare feet on grass, or jazz. Or hot baths, or red wine. Or black dogs with amber eyes. Accept this, without pain or grief Or resentment. Send yourself up like a balloon Floating above the censure and the praise. Don't try so hard. The people who deserve you Will love you as you are, and you'll be better for it. And oh my darling, when the lesson's learned Come back and teach me how to do this magic too.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh
>>100797214

For my daughter, with thanks to Margaret Atwood Not everyone will love you. There are people Who don't like cheese. Or bare feet on grass, or jazz. Or hot baths, or red wine. Or black dogs with amber eyes. Accept this, without pain or grief Or resentment. Send yourself up like a balloon Floating above the censure and the praise. Don't try so hard. The people who deserve you Will love you as you are, and you'll be better for it. And oh my darling, when the lesson's learned Come back and teach me how to do this magic too.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh
>>100797214

Unreassuring poem for children Everyone you love will die. You're more likely to lose than win. Failure needs to be priced in. Everyone you love will die. The lesson you need most to learn Is how to bear the hardest loss How to pay the highest cost Since everything you love can burn The gift I need the most to give Is one vou don't want to receive I need to know that when I leave You're able to go on and live. But my lovely, never fear Though everyone you love will die We won't be hiding in the sky Just touch your heart. We're inside, here.

Rick Levine

I wrote this a number of years ago in the ruins and recovery of lost love. For A While With a little thought or a little smile, A feeling is caught for a little while. We play out our hand, we touch with our heart; We build it on sand till it all falls apart. With a light ray of hope and a sweet dream of love In the pitch dark we grope for the bright light above. We cast out a net to catch our love in; We place a sure bet ‘cause we think that we’ll win, But the wheels roll round as time moves on; To sweet love we are bound till sweet love is gone. Like day and night tides rise and fall I shine my light and bet it all. Like night and day tides ebb and flow Love’s price I’ll pay, till love lets go.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh
>>100797214

It's the joyful mundanity that cracks my heart today; Sunshine on the playground, a train passing behind the fence. Daffodils like a fanfare and the sky so blue. Somewhere not so far away, a small girl In a bomb shelter sings a Disney song. A mother dies. A baby dies. A theatre falls. A people fight. And still, and still, and still the sky so blue.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh
>>100797214

For our daughters You're sleeping, and I'm reading the news. The awful old news of all the hideous ways the world can hurt a girl like you. A girl like me. All the ways I've accepted as just the way it is. The way it is for us. The way it always was. You're sleeping, and your skin is like a peach. Like petals. Like dew. Like something utterly new there are no words for yet. Your eyes are closed, and they've never seen this news. The weakest part of me wishes you'll never feel the pain. The shame. That you'll never see this news. That you'll never be this news. The strongest part of me wants to send you out like flame Into the world. Like the weapon you don't yet know you are. You're sleeping, and I feel your strength hum round me, Electric in the wires overhead. You're sleeping, and I know this news is old. You'll make the world anew. And I'll stand by and cheer. I'd die for you. More. Love, I'd kill for you. You're sleeping, and now I know it won't have to be this way. Sleep on, tonight. Tomorrow you can set the world alight.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh
>>100797214

New Year This leper of a year slinks out, unmourned. Pausing only to stub out a cigarette On a loved piece of furniture, kick the cat, And cough, hacking, in everybody's face. It has been a Cummings of a year. An utter Johnson, unrelenting. Bleak. And yet, and yet; Endure a little longer, heart, endure - While the horizon's not quite in sight That lone returning dove sent out in hope Seems to have a leaf clutched in her beak.

Niki McQueen

I do have a poem I wanted to share too, which inspired a painting Love After Love Derek Wallcot "The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life."

Angel Rosen

My original contribution: Swim Amanda prescribes an ice bath for my depression. As I approach the lakeside, already so cold, my shivers start to name themselves. I can’t imagine another way to freeze, life full of winter and winter’s eves. All that’s left to do is plunge, forfeit warmth for a chance to thaw, kick my legs a bit. I imagine any pond I plop into will spit me back out, my ugliness a harsh flavor or even an allergy. I might have to grow my own ice, bucketing it in the basement to fill the tub, some of it melting in my crevices before I make it up two flights of stairs. What a chore. I’ve filled my house with meretricious curios which wave little hands at me in a desperate attempt to mean something. I could fill the tub with chilly gallons, serve a sundae from its bowl. I could run the water for an hour, the pipes begging for a moratorium. The hose outside making statements corroborative with my house’s thinning vessels. I’m going to flood everything just to force myself to swim. No matter which way I invent an excuse, I’m going all in. My hair will turn to ice snakes. I will swim toward something but away, visiting a few sewers for the stinking reminder that it’s not so bad. It’s cold, but even that ends. I will be washed ashore in no time, or interrupted from my bath in some other way. My grief separates from me, little flakes peppering the sand. I tread slowly to avoid collecting it again. It’s everywhere. The water kisses it and I am not jealous. It isn’t mine to carry anymore. This one was inspired by you recommending swimming in frozen water to help my depression, using the words meretricious and corroborative. A healing poem. ❤️❤️ My heart hurts but I've written 15+ poems this month so it's a fortunate ache. My comment may be too late for a "top vote", but I'll always throw myself into any poetry thing you do. This is where I belong.

Deniz Bevan

Oh well, I still love Bukowski. Anything from, say, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, but perhaps his poem about his daughter: Marina majestic, majic infinite my little girl is sun on the carpet- out the door picking a flower, ha! an old man, battle-wrecked, emerges from his chair and she looks at me but only sees love, ha!, and I become quick with the world and love right back just like I was meant to do.

Deniz Bevan

And here's my most recent one Deniz Barki Wed, 10 Aug 2022, 11:03 to me A Fleeting Tickle How to capture the voice of youth? Not merely exuberance yearning the now! that knows no other time All tomorrows are yesterdays all minutes are threadspun hours Now quick, now measured the treadle moves One thread may snap another colour be drawn in Nor yet quiet need snuggling the up! of undeniable raised arms All heaviness has come upon the limbs all other demands subsumed Now groan, now fall an excess of lethargy Until, distraction— A jump, all intensity of need forgotten May it then be— A clear bell a high note a tuneless refrain unending? A giggle, a toothless grin an invitation Come and see! Look what I can do! The voice is yours, inside you

EmVT

The New Colossus BY EMMA LAZARUS Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Lauren Wilde

I Remember, by Anne Sexton By the first of August the invisible beetles began to snore and the grass was as tough as hemp and was no color—no more than the sand was a color and we had worn our bare feet bare since the twentieth of June and there were times we forgot to wind up your alarm clock and some nights we took our gin warm and neat from old jelly glasses while the sun blew out of sight like a red picture hat and one day I tied my hair back with a ribbon and you said that I looked almost like a puritan lady and what I remember best is that the door to your room was the door to mine.

ElizaLou

This is my contribution. Sticky Tape Woman Don’t fall apart Too messy Too inconvenient Breathe in Breathe in And hold Hold it Keep holding it Don’t whatever you do, don’t breathe out That was 12 years ago And I’m still breathing in But I still haven’t breathed out Can someone’s please tell me when I can breathe out? This is getting painful I’m turning blue I feel like a puffer fish All round, eyes bulging, looking like I could POP at any minute In fact It looks funny Haha My green eyes bulging, my tummy all round and swollen But don’t you dare laugh! Don’t you dare! This is not funny It’s not funny at all It’s bloody painful Imagine if you will, holding your breath for 12 years Just think about it…. It’s a long, long time A very long time And during that time I’ve … had 2 children ran my own business crashed and burned many times been diagnosed with a rather messy and inconvenient condition separated, got back together, and hung, no still hanging, onto my marriage by the skin of my teeth I am the Sticky Tape Woman See the pieces of tape all over my body Some stuck down nice and tight They’ve been there a long time They’re not going anywhere But It’s the ones that are starting to peel Watch out! Quick! Stick them back down Find some more. Dear God, don’t come undone! Can you imagine? Can you imagine the headlines? “Mother falls apart in sticky sellotape mess” I am the sticky tape woman But I’m getting a little bit brave A little bit cocky And I’m starting to peel some of these pieces back Be careful! Jesus Christ, for the love of God PLEASE BE CAREFUL! What happens when mothers fall apart? Who picks them up? Who sticks them back together? Mothers- the sticky tape queens holding families together the world over I am the sticky tape woman I hold my family together But That tape is lifting now Some of it is falling off Peeling and blackened at the edges And I Want To Peel It Off I want to be brave I want to find out who I am underneath all this damn tape Because I’m not sure I’ve forgotten “Hello Elizabeth, nice to meet you. It’s been a long time.” I am the sticky tape woman But Watch out Beware Stand back It’s coming off I’m being reborn This could get very messy (apologies it’s not short! Thank you if you managed to read to the end 🙏🏼)

Brian Fitzgerald

A Blessing by James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.

Jake Marcus

The Leaden-eyed Vachel Lindsay Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap, Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve, Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.

Hannah Schumacher
>>100796617

Oh! I recognise this! It was also part of the Yoga with Adriene Center Series this month :D So lovely, big yin mood

Ellen Moreau

My friend and I joke that her 'heartsong' can lead her to any bookstore anywhere. I say that if your heartsong is leading you to "Invictus", then follow it.'

Hannah Schumacher
>>100797222

Thank you for sharing your heart's sorrow, it made me cry and feel less alone today for one. So I think this qualifies as poetry. :) All of us suffer from the collective sins of our fathers' fathers and from what model of oppression that pain still fuels. All we can do is identify the poison as such and suck it out of our own bodies, and then, when we gain the capacity, teach others how to do the same. For now, I'm sending you a long heart-felt hug. Feel deeply loved. I hope you get out of there soon, I hope you have friends you can reach out to, and if you don't, I trust you will find them and a more nurturing village soon. x

Dianne Pater

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Erin Beggs Wilson

Gold, by Eugenia Li Tell me I am not the thing my children will have to survive Tell me the mob I inherited will not touch my son. Yes, the cavalcade of all that's tried to kill me may forever raid my brain, but know this-- In my mother's first language, The word for fracture, For crack, Is the same as the word for gold

Laura Wellner

This is one of mine, it's called Salad Bar Choices, and it goes like this: Picking through salad bar choices — phantom limbs, feral thoughts, random trauma, stray security, golden silence when it's available. Unpredictable days, the dead of night. It appears a misfire happened during the process of becoming. Words bumping through doorways. Good news, bad news keeping everyone awake. Pandemic frustrations – It's a sign of the times when the four-year-old princess says, "Motherfucker" after she gets lipstick on her dress. A sign of triumph along the way home reads: "The road to radiation ends here..." With that, there is still hope.

Laura Wellner

My goodness, lots of beautiful poetry to read! I do hope everyone is hanging in there, there is a lot happening beyond my acre of the world and I try not to let it tangle up my brain space too much. Overall, I'm hanging in there, there are ups and downs. My wee donkey, Elizabeth has been diagnosed with Cushing's disease, and the medication to help her caused some unpleasant side effects, so we've taken her off it for a couple of weeks before restarting at a lower dose; I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the lower dose won't make her a wonkey donkey... she seems better after a week off so far, but she's sore from compensating for the laminitis in her front hooves (it seems the laminitis event has recovered, the healing process is long.) I gave her a red-light massage yesterday, and she felt better after that (she didn't run away from me while I was doing it) and the smelly silent, but deadly fart she cut was a good sign (believe it or not!) She's a funny little critter. With the bitter-cold weather coming this way, I modified her winter blanket with another layer that will cover her neck like a turtleneck, she looks pretty happy this morning before the ass crack of dawn. It's still dark outside as I'm writing this, the light is slowly coming back to us, tomorrow is February, I hope Elizabeth will feel better soon, it's been a long winter. I love being retired, I couldn't imagine doctoring this wee donkey while working a 40 hour work week with the stress of that on top of it. I set up playlists of music and spend much of the day in the studio making things, writing a bit, mixing it up with housework, and cooking dinner. Last night I made a curried butternut soup that was perfectly out of this world yummy. I didn't follow a recipe, I just winged it, it had dal and barley in it, and lots of spices...I discovered that I've run out of coconut milk, but it was fine without it. The boys ate it and went back for more. I try to focus on the things closer to home, at least these are the things I can do something about, I do try to find "good news" out there in the weedy grim news...it's hard to find, but hope is out there, keep looking.

Emily W

Hello. First time posting. This is an original: A Painting of a Deli Storefront I think too much for the words, They are cotton bound in my mouth— Not like the painter who softly sets his desires In pillars of gleaming aureate dust streaming between buildings With easy daubs and taps and instinct Onto a taut, screaming-white canvas Made only to receive these cruelties: All his abstractions and doubts Bathed in golden light glancing down warm concrete walls, Pouring into the stillness, The street at dusk, Faded and empty, Except for the woman Sitting on the delicatessen stoop With limp strands of black hair Sticking to beads of sweat on her forehead, upper lip; She had just kissed the delivery man for no good reason, Quickly, in the alley— The reluctant streetlight above them flickering on— He had kissed her wholly, Foregoing the growing darkness, His left hand unknowingly Claiming the small of her back. His right, brushing her cheek, Leaving a permanent smudge. He was already behind schedule. She sits alone on the concrete step, Under dappled streetlight spell, Under glow of cold stainless steel shapes in the storefront window, Fluorescence spreading across the stretched shoulders of her white kitchen jacket, Red neon indifference crackling, buzzing, “Open.” She is paint colors, she stares at nothing. The words still catch in my throat.

Angel Rosen
>>100801337

I liked this poem enough to buy its book, but every other poem in the collection bored me. 😅 this one though is an easy favorite of many, it speaks to a lot of different people in different phases of their lives

Angel Rosen
>>100798943

The fact that this is called the New Colossus and it's by someone whose last name is Lazarus, but was written BEFORE Sylvia wrote The Colossus or Lady Lazarus blows my mind 😅 thanks for sharing.

Angel Rosen
>>100803465

Hi, this is very good, can we be friends? Aureate is such a good word. ❤️

Angel Rosen

This poem is really important to me: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/148986/sanity Sanity by Caroline Bird. The first time I read it, I had to fold. It meant so many things. Later that night I was on the phone with someone who I loved at the time, who loved me, and we discussed its possibilities for an hour. The book it's from— The Air Year, is one I recommend to anyone. and What the Living Do by Marie Howe, from a collection of poems relating to her brother's death from AIDS related illness. It is one of the most beautiful whole books I've read. Here is the title poem: https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do The collection made me think of you, the Death Thing song, Anthony, all the lessons over the years. I wanted to know if you have ever read it?

Yvette Perez

You asked for poetry, you also asked the state of our hearts. Here is my answer to both: Barren Woman Sylvia Plath Empty, I echo to the least footfall, Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas. In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself, Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies Exhale their pallor like scent. I imagine myself with a great public, Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos. Instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen. Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.

Lindsey Lubow
>>100795406

I'm so glad it I was able to leave it there for you (and whoever else might come along needing it)

Joni

I swear to *fill in your diety of choice*... I am NOT sucking up... I feel like I am though.. stupid mental health.. Any-who... In all honesty, "Empathy is Nothing..." is hands down my favouriate poem these days. I'd love to hear you read it (or write the follow up... Loneliness is Nothing...? 🤞)... Especually with the weight of the last decade in the reading.

Elyssa G

Morning Amanda, and everyone ❤️ I say if your heart needs Invictus, then give it Invictus. It's been a hard week full of emotional whiplash for me. I got laid off last Wednesday with no notice at all, over zoom. It hurt. A pipe started leaking in my kitchen wall. It's fixed now, but that hurt too, and so does the hole that's left for me to patch up in the wall I just repainted. I applied for my business license yesterday, for what I had only planned to be the chilliest of side hustles and has now become an opportunity to try life as a full time artist. I'm excited to see if this childhood dream will work itself into reality. I'm so afraid to fail. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in weeks. I am doing it anyway, somehow.

Lindsey Lubow
>>100795406

There's room for it to turn all toxic positivity... I recognize that... but I have more frequently leaned into my sorrow and pain than I have into my joy. I don't often trust my joy. It's always so unexpected. I have bipolar disorder. It's a lot. So striving to be happy... maybe means something different to me than to other people who haven't sat there distrustful and waiting for their joy to turn dangerous.

Melanie King

I have nothing to offer except it’s been 10 years today since my brother passed away suddenly at 37. I am now 41 and I feel like I’m living on borrowed time. Life is both too short and painfully long - both in the same day.

Angel Rosen
>>100794150

I thought this was a beautiful poem when I was 20. Almost ten years later, watching it made me uncomfortable because I hate to think how much of my life was ruined by my OCD.

Emily W
>>100798196

This is beautiful. I’m sorry you’re hurting. Stick with option 1, not option 2, ya get me? Swim on.

Angel Rosen
>>100804753

That is a hard anniversary. Sending you a lot of love from where I am, I hope you have as much time as you want to have and that it shows you mercy.

Emily W
>>100803465

Thanks very much, and yes. But I’m new to Patreon and you’ll have to teach me how that works.

Angel Rosen
>>100794133

I just recently bought this collection by Kaveh Akbar. I wonder how many of the same books we've read, Pedro! Let's discuss sometime? Thanks for suggesting this :)

Emily W
>>100804753

I’m so sorry. I am 42 and fully agree. My brother is one of my best friends but he lives 3 hours away and we’ve grown apart since the pandemic. It’s so weird. We still talk and share fun things, but it’s just…different now.

Sean Wheeler

Howl by Allen Ginsberg has been resonating with me. I lost my job and am struggling to find a new one, and many of my friends have struggled to find careers that pay a living wage. The optimism of youth has been brutalized by the realities of capitalism, and every day I feel more desperate and burnt out.

Angel Rosen
>>100793762

Wow, I feel very loved by this interaction. Thank you Alessandor for suggesting this, and Amanda for knowing me. ❤️

Kristin Ryan

"To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall" Kim Addonizio If you ever woke in your dress at 4am ever closed your legs to someone you loved opened them for someone you didn’t moved against a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach seaweed clinging to your ankles paid good money for a bad haircut backed away from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled into the back seat for lack of a tampon if you swam across a river under rain sang using a dildo for a microphone stayed up to watch the moon eat the sun entire ripped out the stitches in your heart because why not if you think nothing & no one can / listen I love you joy is coming

Jen Beeeee

Love John Roedel; you know him. ------- I'm running out of room in my memory banks to store any more regret or guilt the warehouse in my mind is jam packed with so many of my past mistakes that I can hardly shut the door these days I've been hoarding all of my old ghosts like they are newspapers "oh, here it is - this is the memory from the one time I failed in front of everybody ~ and that's why I don't take risks anymore" "and here is another memory from the moment when I had my heart broken by someone I trusted ~ and that's why I don't trust people anymore." I've been storing all of my past shadows like they are baseball cards "ooh, look over here this memory is from that one time when I stole someone else's hope ~ I can still remember how they looked at me while the light disappeared from their eyes "and over here is a memory from long ago when I cried on the bathroom floor while begging for God to give me a brain aneurism ~ if I'm really quiet I can still hear my tears hitting the tiles on the tile." I turned my scars into a museum where I could spend hours at a time walking between the aisles of my past sins I transformed my old defeats into a vineyard where I could bottle up all of my vintage shame for later consumption my love, I had been using my memory all wrong for so long I had been holding onto so many ancient shadows that the sunlight had to perform gymnastics just to give my forehead a good morning kiss now, I'm being a bit more careful to which memories I'm going to store for keeping I'm not stockpiling the fossilized rocks of my past humiliations and offenses instead, I'm accumulating my memories so very carefully like an island castaway would use a palm leaf to collect soft rainwater I am only holding onto to the gentle memories that quench the thirst of my hopeful soul I'm only keeping the souvenirs that remind me I was formed out of cosmic grace I'm only storing the recollections that keep me alive this means I'm leaving the storehouse of my past behind I'm giving up the dank warehouse for the open road and I'm only bringing the recollections I can carry with me as I go of course, I'm not getting rid of all of my bad memories I'm keeping a few of them in a little envelope in my pocket so I can open and read then whenever I need to be reminded how much I have survived and how strong I am but, my love, I just won't make a shrine out of my failures anymore I won't make an altar out of my mistakes because the only way I can get to where I need to is to travel light ~ and in the light I gave up my cold storage unit for a pair of walking shoes and I can't wait to only make sun-soaked memories that will carry me from one adventure to the next ~john roedel

James Hall

I'm going to see a therapist for the first time this week. I'm feeling older. I'm recently diagnosed with diabetes (no shock at all) and I feel as if the actions of my previous five decades on this earth are all kind of catching up with me. I'm extremely self-centered (hence all the "I"s in this post).I get overwhelmed by small things. I have no clue what I am doing.

Kristin Ryan

We are about to put our 15 year old cat to sleep in an hour and a half. She declined so rapidly this week. She's my husband's cat, and this is my first pet death. We've been crying on and off for days. I'm 13 days post op from a full gastric bypass that fixed my severe acid reflux/regurgitation/gastroparesis. Given my history with an eating disorder I'm not interested in the weight loss part, I did it to fix my stomach issues. It's hard because my mom keeps telling me how good I look now that I've lost some weight. I am trying to ignore the old part of my eating disorder brain, even though April will be 11 years in recovery. I'm out of work for 5 weeks while I recover and I feel so guilty resting and not working. And I'm really not ready to say goodbye to our sweet Millie.

Piu Das Gupta

Mary Oliver, Wild Geese: You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Len Tower Jr.

Alex / Amanda: In item 1.: the two links aren't there. I believe under both "HERE"s. -Len

Len Tower Jr.
>>100793419

To save other the cut-n-paste: A lovely poem by David Whyte about the courage to finally say “yes” to life. The Truelove There is a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours, especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held out to you this way. I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness and what we feel we are worthy of in this world. Years ago in the Hebrides I remember an old man who walked every morning on the grey stones to the shore of the baying seals, who would press his hat to his chest in the blustering salt wind and say his prayer to the turbulent Jesus hidden in the water, and I think of the story of the storm and everyone waking and seeing the distant yet familiar figure far across the water calling to them, and how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking, and that calling, and that moment we have to say yes, except it will not come so grandly, so Biblically, but more subtly and intimately in the face of the one you know you have to love, so that when we finally step out of the boat toward them, we find everything holds us, and confirms our courage, and if you wanted to drown you could, but you don’t because finally after all the struggle and all the years, you don’t want to any more, you’ve simply had enough of drowning and you want to live and you want to love and you will walk across any territory and any darkness, however fluid and however dangerous, to take the one hand you know belongs in yours. David Whyte (House of Belonging)

Len Tower Jr.
>>100803465

Emily: Amanda's fans also hang out in two Facebook groups & Amanda's forum. Let me know if you need links. -Len

Yvette Perez
>>100807522

I had to put my 13 year-old kitty down in December. We knew it was the right thing to do. But it stil hurt like a MFer. I see you. I feel your pain. And I send you a massive hug. A tip, if I may: give yourself grace. Give yourself space to heal, physically and emotionally, in the right way for you. Sending you love.

Len Tower Jr.

The longest & perhaps the best of the half dozen-ish poems I've written: A Special Moment Work finished well, time unknown, not important, one all-nighter ending, in that wonderful state of mind. Dwarfed by one of MIT's canyons, above, ahead, rough, cloud covered sky, the dark grey of night becoming day. Homeward bound from the Student Center, no traffic, exhaust free air, city healed again by night, bicycling onto the bridge named Harvard. East, clear sky, bright, blue, full of day, arcing round a just risen sun, clouds rimmed with sunrise red orange, above the shadowed Boston skyline. West, clear sky, dark, black, full of night, arcing round a soon to set full moon, clouds rimmed with pearly moonglow, above the Boston Basin's sunrise lit hills. Below, smoots clicking by, over the Charles' somber lapping waves, sunrise lit to the left, moonglow lit to the right, with a gentle breeze enfolding all. Wonder to slow down the bicycling, turn a commute into beauty's moment, insuring the best of dreams. - len tower, October 1987

DebbieG
>>100807522

Pets leave their paw prints 🐾 on our hearts. Its going to hurt for you, but she will be at peace and waiting for you at the Rainbow Bridge. Hugs.

DebbieG
>>100795406

Thank you. This was read last month at a good friend's funeral and it is so good.

Jodina Meehan

Guns Are The New Sex Jodina Meehan, 2022 I saw a letter from my friend 6th grade teacher, catholic school She chose the wrong topics for her paper Murder, robbery, accidents Her teacher said it wasn’t cool Never mind her social studies class Was all about murder, robbery, accidents We don’t talk about this dear, In polite society, keep your silence Respect our fears My daughter comes home from school Says they don’t let them draw pictures Of weapons of any kind, now: guns, wands, Elven bows and arrows, it doesn’t matter Anything that can kill is banned She says mom I don’t think this really Is gonna work, because we know These things exist, all of us, it’s all just About who is behind the things, what You do with them And I say yeah, I know: you’re right Remembering how no one ever Said a word about sex, growing up hoping maybe I’d never have an encounter Or have to deal with it Result being my first boyfriend Was my only sex educator, God save us From making these mistakes again How many times do we have To try to suffocate Ourselves with a pillow to Avoid the specter of death How many ways can we try To avoid reality by choosing Not to talk about it How many times do we need To suppress the real world, thinking Our offspring will be better off For it - when we all know Not talking about it Is what brings death - the Red Death knocking at the door of Edgar Allen’s ball, the silent gunman Come to kill us all, the charming stranger We never told you about Guns are the new sex, I think The thing we can’t talk about In school, the thing that comes for us In the night, regardless of what our teachers say is or isn’t right… Close your eyes, they say, duplicate History, don’t look at the monsters And they won’t get you Stay a virgin, and you won’t Get pregnant Like the King tried to ban His great-aunt from the christening Of his first born child, only to have Her come back, revenge-bent, Claiming what she knew was hers Please children, this time, Let us hear you shout Let us hear your wisdom Let us hear your fears Let us let you in And for once, let us not Silence your fears, your strengths, Your ability to meet Life as it is, on the street Let us listen to who you are Whether you’re wishing on a star To be who you’re meant to be Or wanting to be free Before we tell you who You ought to be Let us listen, before we speak Because you’re the ones walking the beat Because you know who you are Because you know you could die At any moment, let us hear And understand, it’s not about Guns, or sex, or when we’ll die But who we know that you can be Before the Gestapo closes in Before you have a chance to win Let us speak to your fears And say, at least, we’re here Be it guns or sex or death We listen to your every breath And we are glad that you are here Whether you’re gay, or straight, Or driven, or lazy, whether you love The music of Manhattan Or the beat of the forest grove Let us honor your drive Guns are the new sex, I say You can play it any way You want, but the basic bottom line Is that you’re allowed to speak Your mind, because if you’re not As long as we decline To hear the other side We’re trapped in straight jackets Designed by our own kind And there’s no way out Let there be a way out For you, let you see far more Than we could ever see Let you tell us about it And let us bear witness And hear you This time Please

Monica Byrne

A haiku I wrote: What pleasure it is to have everything you need and not a thing more.

Lindsey Lubow
>>100807408

I've been in therapy a long time. I've found it varying levels of helpful depending who I was working with. I hope you'll find it helpful. Some of us take longer to find the hint book. Some of us never get a hint book and have to write them out ourselves. I wish you a gentler journey from here.

Andrea Thomas

Good Bones Launch Audio in a New Window BY MAGGIE SMITH Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

Kris May
>>100812203

was when the lights were out the whole city in darkness & we drove north to our friend’s yellow apt. where she had power & we could work later we stayed in the darkened apt. you sick in bed & me writing ambitiously by candle light in thin blue books your neighbor had a generator & after a while we had a little bit of light I walked the dog & you were still a little bit sick we sat on a stoop one day in the late afternoon we had very little money. enough for a strong cappuccino which we shared sitting there & suddenly the city was lit.

Joanna Lindblad

Dear Life, by DR MAYA C. POPA I can’t undo all I have done unto myself, what I have let an appetite for love do to me. I have wanted all the world, its beauties and its injuries; some days, I think that is punishment enough. Often, I received more than I’d asked, which is how this works—you fish in open water ready to be wounded on what you reel in. Throwing it back was a nightmare. Throwing it back and seeing my own face as it disappeared into the dark water. Catching my tongue suddenly on metal, spitting the hook into my open palm. Dear life: I feel that hook today most keenly. Would you loosen the line—you’ll listen if  I ask you, if  you are the sort of  life I think you are. (((<3)))

Dylan Gitalis

"Love Bot" (a sonnet by me) I wish to craft a bot with hair so gold And peachy skin which wraps around her heart A love whose beauty comes in manifold So pleasant we would never need to part I pick and choose the scrap which makes her up Control her fate and whom she dearly loves I’ve written deep in code: Avoid Breakup And think of me when air exudes your lungs On booting-up my mind recalls someone A living presence I could not control Their body fixed to pain that I outrun Oh, how they shone with such spirit and soul It’s true, she’s sculpted after the one I love To their heart I’m tied… and their sweet flesh and blood

Emily W
>>100803465

Yes, Len, that’d be awesome if you could. Still figuring all this out. :)

Joanna Lindblad
>>100793547

Wonderful. And I really love If Anyone Can Survive... by Maggie Smith (hits close to home) <3

Sam Allen

The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window? I used this poem in my church group about 3(?) years ago when it looked like we would be going to war with Iran. People smiled and laughed and also lamented about how kindness seemed to have evaporated in public in the last few years. Interestingly, this lament led to a discussion about how everyone was *nice* to each other after 9/11. I was depressed in a dorm at the time, so I couldn't really say much. Years later, I'd find Come From Away, a true story about the folks in Gander, Newfoundland who took in 7,000+ folks on 9/11 after the FAA grounded all flights. It's still a soul-balm. I'm ok. Sick-but-not-sick with a GI condition right now that keeps me away from my scschool and work. I'm worried that my grade in my video production glass might slip, even though the ebullient professor has assured me that I'll be fine by participating via Zoom. BUT I feel okay, so that's a positive thing.

Joanna Lindblad
>>100797222

(((N))) Im so sorry for what you are going through. Stay strong, and take many deep cleansing breaths my friend. Things will change and this will pass <3

Jules Chatelain

"Guns Are The New Sex" is the one that did it for me. Thank you Jodina Meehan.

Jules Chatelain
>>100817386

Invictus is a strong piece of writing and I'm glad for everyone it inspires. I can't read it without an overlay of how it has been misused. A couple of lines in Kipling's IF have the same power and become earworms about being a strong individual. But collaboration and connection (like the kinds in these comments) are the way forward.

Jules Chatelain

Personal: I have notable post Covid issues. Apparently the work for concussion helps, so I am doing it. Dr says don't say brain DAMAGE but brain INJURY. An hour ago my luminous wife tested positive and her mitochondria are getting their little spears and slingshots ready. "Please please don't take too much from her!" (praying at my desk). Meanwhile I am doing so much to stay alive and often I think FOR WHAT. Without going into that ...

Brian Fitzgerald

Nazim Hikmet, a turkish poet who was jailed for inciting peace, wrote this in prison. Thinking about how much there is to grieve over these days, and how grief shines a light on what we love. This earth will grow cold one day Not like a block of ice Or a dead cloud even but like an empty walnut it will roll along in pitch-black space You must grieve for this right now You must feel this sorrow now For the world must be loved this much If you're going to say "I lived."

Jules Chatelain
>>100817386

Right NOW artists are creating powerful work* that challenges and nourishes us all. Among the many losses we are working to stem, it would be heartbreaking if no humans in the future were able to experience some of the art being made right now. (*Lookin at you AFP, and understanding that ephemeral work is ALSO the bomb. But we can experience SOME of the art of the past and I want the future to have the same opportunity.) /soapbox

Tammy Dotts

This is one of my all time favorite poems. A Story That Could Be True If you were exchanged in a cradle and your real mother died without ever telling the story then no one knows your name, and somewhere in the world your father is lost and needs you but you are far away. He can never find how true you are, how ready. When the great wind comes and the robberies of the rain you stand on the corner shivering. The people who go by – you wonder at their calm. They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, “Who are you really, wanderer?” – and the answer you have to give no matter how dark and cold the world around you is: “Maybe I’m a king.” – William Stafford, from Stories That Could Be True

Diana Lovette

Flare by Mary Oliver 1. Welcome to the silly, comforting poem. It is not the sunrise, which is a red rinse, which is flaring all over the eastern sky; it is not the rain falling out of the purse of God; it is not the blue helmet of the sky afterward, or the trees, or the beetle burrowing into the earth; it is not the mockingbird who, in his own cadence, will go on sizzling and clapping from the branches of the catalpa that are thick with blossoms, that are billowing and shining, that are shaking in the wind. 2. You still recall, sometimes, the old barn on your great-grandfather's farm, a place you visited once, and went into, all alone, while the grownups sat and talked in the house. It was empty, or almost. Wisps of hay covered the floor, and some wasps sang at the windows, and maybe there was a strange fluttering bird high above, disturbed, hoo-ing a little and staring down from a messy ledge with wild, binocular eyes. Mostly, though, it smelled of milk, and the patience of animals; the give-offs of the body were still in the air, a vague ammonia, not unpleasant. Mostly, though, it was restful and secret, the roof high up and arched, the boards unpainted and plain. You could have stayed there forever, a small child in a corner, on the last raft of hay, dazzled by so much space that seemed empty, but wasn't. Then--you still remember--you felt the rap of hunger--it was noon--and you turned from that twilight dream and hurried back to the house, where the table was set, where an uncle patted you on the shoulder for welcome, and there was your place at the table. 3. Nothing lasts. There is a graveyard where everything I am talking about is, now. I stood there once, on the green grass, scattering flowers. 4. Nothing is so delicate or so finely hinged as the wings of the green moth against the lantern against its heat against the beak of the crow in the early morning. Yet the moth has trim, and feistiness, and not a drop of self-pity. Not in this world. 5. My mother was the blue wisteria, my mother was the mossy stream out behind the house, my mother, alas, alas, did not always love her life, heavier than iron it was as she carried it in her arms, from room to room, oh, unforgettable! I bury her in a box in the earth and turn away. My father was a demon of frustrated dreams, was a breaker of trust, was a poor, thin boy with bad luck. He followed God, there being no one else he could talk to; he swaggered before God, there being no one else who would listen. Listen, this was his life. I bury it in the earth. I sweep the closets. I leave the house. 6. I mention them now, I will not mention them again. It is not lack of love nor lack of sorrow. But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry. I give them--one, two, three, four--the kiss of courtesy, of sweet thanks, of anger, of good luck in the deep earth. May they sleep well. May they soften. But I will not give them the kiss of complicity. I will not give them the responsibility for my life. 7. Did you know that the ant has a tongue with which to gather in all that it can of sweetness? Did you know that? 8. The poem is not the world. It isn't even the first page of the world. But the poem wants to flower, like a flower. It knows that much. It wants to open itself, like the door of a little temple, so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed, and less yourself than part of everything. 9. The voice of the child crying out of the mouth of the grown woman is a misery and a disappointment. The voice of the child howling out of the tall, bearded, muscular man is a misery, and a terror. 10. Therefore, tell me: what will engage you? What will open the dark fields of your mind, like a lover at first touching? 11. Anyway, there was no barn. No child in the barn. No uncle no table no kitchen. Only a long lovely field full of bobolinks. 12. When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider the orderliness of the world. Notice something you have never noticed before, like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb. Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain, shaking the water-sparks from its wings. Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no. Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves. A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling. Live with the beetle, and the wind. This is the dark bread of the poem. This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.

Tony Ivanova
>>100793419

Thank you for posting the link, Amanda, and thank you for posting the actual text, Len. Here is the second one. Santiago The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding then revealing the way you should take, the road dropping away from you as if leaving you to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up, when you thought you would fall, and the way forward always in the end the way that you followed, the way that carried you into your future, that brought you to this place, no matter that it sometimes took your promise from you, no matter that it had to break your heart along the way: the sense of having walked from far inside yourself out into the revelation, to have risked yourself for something that seemed to stand both inside you and far beyond you, that called you back to the only road in the end you could follow, walking as you did, in your rags of love and speaking in the voice that by night became a prayer for safe arrival, so that one day you realized that what you wanted had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place you had lived in before you began, and that every step along the way, you had carried the heart and the mind and the promise that first set you off and drew you on and that you were more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach: as if, all along, you had thought the end point might be a city with golden towers, and cheering crowds, and turning the corner at what you thought was the end of the road, you found just a simple reflection, and a clear revelation beneath the face looking back and beneath it another invitation, all in one glimpse: like a person and a place you had sought forever, like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond; like another life, and the road still stretching on. David Whyte, Pilgrim

Tony Ivanova

Another one that I absolutely love by Joseph Brodsky. Enjoy. (untitled) Don’t leave your room. This is better left undone. You’ve got cheap smokes, so why should you need the sun? Nothing makes sense outside, happiness least of all. You may go to the loo but avoid the hall. Don’t leave your room. Don’t think of calling a taxi. Space consists of the hall and ends at the door; its axis bends when the meter’s on. If your tootsie comes in – before she starts blabbing, undressing – throw her out of the door. Don’t leave your room. Pretend a cold in the head. What could be more exciting than wallpaper, chair and bed? Why leave a room to which you will come back later, unchanged at best, more probably mutilated? Don’t leave your room. There might be a jazzy number on the radio. Nude but for shoes and coat, dance a samba. Cabbage smell in the hall fills every nook and cranny. You wrote so many words; one more would be one too many. Don’t ever leave your room. Let nobody but the room know what you look like. Incognito ergo sum, as substance informed its form when it felt despair. Don’t leave the room! You know, it’s not France out there. Don’t be an imbecile! Be what the others couldn’t be. Don’t leave the room! Let furniture keep you company, vanish, merge with the wall, barricade your iris from the chronos, the eros, the cosmos, the virus. Joseph Brodsky, 1969/1970 He was a soviet poet that left USSR for America when he had a chance. He has a lot of other great poems, but from what I found, this one has a most solid translation. From my perspective this is the feeling you get when you live in the country that does not want you to live. Love, Tony.

Tony Ivanova
>>100828625

And another one. Nikolay Zabolotsky Metamorphoses Translation by Daniel Weissbort How the world changes! And how I change as well! I am known by one name only, yet That which is named by me Is not I alone. We are many. I am a living being. So that the blood should not freeze in my veins, I died many times. Oh, how many dead bodies Have I raised from my own body! And if my reason should begin to see, To penetrate the earth's crust, it would find Me there, deep, lying Among the graves. It would show me Myself rocked on the waves of the sea, Myself riding the wind to unseen regions, My once so cherished, pitiful remains. But I am still alive! More openly, more fully Does the spirit embrace the wonderful tribe of creatures. Nature is alive. Alive among the rocks Is the living grain and my dead herbarium. Link into link, form into form. The world In all its living architecture is A singing organ, a sea of trumpets, a piano That does not fade, in joy or when it storms. How everything changes! What was a bird before Now lies, a sheet of paper scribbled over; A thought was once a simple flower; A poem moved in the shape of a plodding bull; And that which was I, perhaps may Grow again and multiply the world of plants. So, labouring to unravel This tangled ball of wool, Suddenly you perceive what we must call Immortality. Oh, our superstitions!

Len Tower Jr.
>>100819071

Nice poem. But the astronomers are pretty sure the Earth will melt into the Sun, as the Sun expands into a red giant in 5 billion years or so. -Len

Deborah Beale

Exultation is the going Of an inland soul to sea, Past the houses—past the headlands— Into deep Eternity— Bred as we, among the mountains, Can the sailor understand The divine intoxication Of the first league out from land? Emily Dickinson ---- Oh the escape, the release, of this one, which I love always

Helen

I appreciate this post and needed it this week. It's nothing in the scale of the bad news of this week, but I'm in the process of moving my life to a whole new city eight hours away where I know no-one. This is the sixth-ish time I've done this (I'm in a career where such moves are common) and one of the first times I'm staying in the same country, so it should be easier than before, but I'm nearly 30 now and it feels like it gets harder with age to 'start over' and make new connections. I feel the desire for stable community more than ever. I want to put down roots but not where I'm currently living. I want to buy a goddamn stand mixer. I don't have a poem to add, but some of those above helped me feel less apprehensive and alone, so thanks all.

Wordsmith Lynn

I love poetry. I have entire notebooks devoted to handwritten copies of my favorites, from back before the Internet. And now I have a whole folder on google drive for newer favorites. Some favorites from big name poets: The Quest by James Wright and Recuerdo by Edna St Vincent Millay. But here is one from Anne Porter, for most of her life, she was known as the wife of artist Fairfield Porter. She’d been a writer from childhood, but they had five kids and so she put most of her energy into being Fairfield’s wife and being a mom. After Fairfield died, she started writing more, and her first book of poetry was published when she was in her 80’s. After Psalm 137 Anne Porter We’re still in Babylon but We do not weep Why should we weep? We have forgotten how to weep We’ve sold our harps And bought ourselves machines That do our singing for us And who remembers now The songs we sang in Zion? We have got used to exile We hardly notice Our captivity For some of us There are such comforts here Such luxuries Even a guard To keep the beggars From annoying us Jerusalem We have forgotten you.

Natalie Gelman

I’ve always loved this poem and now especially as a new mom and trying to navigate life in this profound exhaustion while making time for my music and myself it means even more. The Invitation By Oriah Mountain Dreamer It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Michael Sardior

Howdy! Glad to read your words again. Looking forward to your reading. <3

Maureen Momo Freehill

Monet Refuses the Operation Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames? (TemZ) I will not return to a universe of objects that don’t know each other, as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent.  The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and change our bones, skin, clothes to gases.  Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end. Lisel Mueller, "Monet Refuses the Operation" from Second Language. Source: Second Language (Louisiana State University Press, 1996)

James Cowie

For a' That and a' That BY ROBERT BURNS Is there, for honest poverty, That hings his head, an' a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Our toils obscure, an' a' that; The rank is but the guinea's stamp; The man's the gowd for a' that, What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin-gray, an' a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, Their tinsel show an' a' that; The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that. Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that: For a' that, an' a' that, His riband, star, an' a' that, The man o' independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that. A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an' a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Their dignities, an' a' that, The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, an' a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, It's coming yet, for a' that, That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that.

James Cowie

By John Baine (Attila the Stockbroker) STORNOWAY Why did we come to Stornoway? I do not know. I cannot say. The sea is oil. The sky is grey. It rains and rains and rains all day. No pollock bite. No fiddles play. Just techno in a sad cafe A sullen waitress with a tray And dull religion to obey. I wish I was in Whitley Bay Up to my neck in Beaujolais Or prodding General Pinochet With an extremely sharp epee Or modelling my knob in clay While watching Galataseray Or somewhere different, anyway Because this place is quite manque And I do not intend to stay. Oh dirty, ugly Stornoway. Devoid of bass and sole and ray And cod, skate, place and mullet grey I came to fish, hear music play. It's crap. I'm going to go away!

Ashleigh M. Ferreira-Bartlett

Eeeeeeeeeek, a lot of mine are tooooooo long, so I went with one that most resonates with the current state of my heart. I wrote this while I was inlove with my late fiance, before we had become one. I did not write anything for almost two years (besides the occasional poetic rant on social media or something lame) after his passing. I was certain I wanted no more love than what I'd had- I was full, satiated, couldn't take another MORSEL. It's been six years now. I still ache. I still wonder. But I have grown around the gaping hole. However, the state of my heart is in major recovery- and I think this speaks to me now. Bear in mind, this must be nine years old. I was the first to have spoken, and I was the last to speak. I have said everything usually tucked into dusty corners, locked away in the deepest trenches of hearts, hidden beneath crooked floorboards and layers of pride. I have said everything, and it has temporarily broken and weakened me. These days I still find myself drowning in metaphors, Lost within every exquisite phrase which tastes like you. I am warmed and simultaneously chilled that most days still start and end with you. I've created roundabouts and detours that lead to dead ends where I try to redirect every thought of you. But when it rains, I am especially porous and you always- You will always- Leak through. I still hold with white knuckles the hope that I will one day call you mine. In that place between my ears and the space between these words, I reserve your glacial bedside. For you are the cross around my neck, heavy and weighted like the nights I laid awake and ached for you. You are every promise I've ever kept, every salty tear I've wept and brushed aside like the words you said but hadn’t meant. It was all for you. You are the storm. You have always been. The shelter that which I am to seek has never called to me, but you have. YOU, A symphony of everything beautiful and destructive that I've ever heard and held on to; The crushing sensation in my chest that wraps around my lungs and cries, 'I want you! YOU, and only you.' Lift me by my godforsaken roots and take me for all which I have gathered for you. I am a thinly glued mosaic of broken pieces and mistakes, battle scars and wounds. I am stitched and constantly renewed. But when I am through, I won't be enough. I will be Everything. I will be Everything for you.

Sarah

“As travel brings the needy To gain perspective Of conditions we Endure throughout cities To have a life.” By @thelynngentry, NYC subway poet and musician, who wrote this for my friend and I before I had a child and before covid halted my travels.

Coila

The emotional rollercoaster has less intense highs and lows lately but I'm not off the thing yet. 😅 Really hoping I can make it work to come see you perform solo! And, if I do get to, hoping to get to see you after for a minute or two. Are you doing that this time? It'll be way past my bedtime and I wouldn't blame you if it were past yours, too! 😅

Gaba Kulka

Radio by Frank O'Hara Why do you play such dreary music on Saturday afternoon, when tired mortally tired I long for a little reminder of immortal energy? All week long while I trudge fatiguingly from desk to desk in the museum you spill your miracles of Grieg and Honegger on shut-ins. Am I not shut in too, after a week of work don't I deserve Prokofieff? Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning to aspire to. I think it has an orange bed in it, more than the ear can hold.

Laura Morland
>>100853173

This poem is fabulous ! (And I'm writing from Paris.) Thank you for sharing it with us.

Andrew Funk

A favorite from Jim Harrison

Andrew Funk

I feel my failure intensely as if it were a vital organ the gods grew from the side of my head. You can't cover it with a hat and I no longer can sleep on that side it's so tender. I wasn't quite faithful enough to carry this sort of weight up the mountain. When I took my vows at nineteen I had no idea that gods were so merciless. Fear makes for good servants and bravery is fraudulent. When I awoke I wasn't awake enough. Jim Harrison

Marguerita Tajibnapis
>>100793661

My favorite! It was one of the readings at my husbands funeral. My brother-in-law who has subsequently also died, read it and it is a really special memory

Robyn Lynnelle Baker

A work in progress: Music. In prayer and meditation. It brings serenity and peace Just as it brings joy. And I’m engergized and impassioned by it. I’ll enjoy it at a feast. I’ll savor it like a decadent dessert. I’ll discover new tastes and travel with it. It will refresh and nourish me. I’ll dance with it. I’ll honor it And I’ll march and process with it. And I’ll waltz. Yes, I’ll waltz Music... All in a different time. All with a signature Yours. Mine. And I’ll take the baton. I will sing with the choir of loved ones And others I meet. But giving the baton to myself to direct the music I take into -and give from-my heart... I hear from others the music of their hearts-allowing them their baton... As I take up my own baton for myself. Hearing and composing All music- as in life-with love. Receiving, giving. In all natures of music. Within us and for all. There may be discord. There may be harmony. There may be only a simple melody But it will all be music ...And it will all be good...

Cyn

Please do not share this outside this Patreon. I am assembling a collection and previous publication counts even for social media, or semi private shares like this: All My Dead Ex’s The giant green marble table in your kitchen, always cold as a mortuary slab, can seat at least 12 but right now it’s just you and me and you keep trying to lay down No no no don’t! Your head flops to the side on your broken neck, your face half purple, swollen, juicy as a ripe plum. The white glitter of your hair on that side matted with drying blood.I keep propping you up, stay with me, stay with me, stay with me but something makes me look away and when I turn back you are draped over the green marble broken side down, blood pooling like wine spilled around your head. Your one open blue eye tells me you are dead. Then I wake up. For a moment it is still tonight. Then I remember it was 2011. The decade plus of thunder sobs and tearnados gave me my grandma’s face, older than our age. Resting bitch replaced by resting sad. The pretty we once were washed away by storm surge erosion scours off even waterproof makeup. I carried your scent for years, call it to the front and there you were. Gods know I wrote the description into a dozen poems - salt, smoke, ginger lily, you, but it won’t come to me anymore. I can remember the scent of my dog who died in 1999, but where is yours? I spray my drapes with your very expensive perfume that only smelled good mixed with your skin anyway. I quit smoking, so that note is gone. Gods I want a cigarette so bad but I don’t think voluntary cancer is the path to be with you again. Your scent was in my skin and now it’s gone. Those 5 stages of grief are from a shitty self help book from 1969. Not science, never peer reviewed. Now it’s part of the folklore. Everyone has a list, a time table, a calendar to show me when and how and in which order my grief must be processed. Because I’m doing it all wrong. I never bargained, there was no time. Denial? Can't deny the frost shrouded voicemail from your daughter telling me you’re dead and do not come. I am not welcome. Shock. Horror. Agony. Yes. All those. Depression lived in my bones before you. Now after you, the very fluid concept of my sanity makes depression feel like my velveteen rabbit, my familiar bedtime cuddle ripped from my arms and tossed on the burn pile. Acceptance? What part of death do I not understand? Fini - it’s over. Two weeks before we drove to Illinois to get married even though we wouldn’t be married at home. Two weeks before we bought the farm property I knew you would fill with rescue chickens and homeless pigs, you die in a stupid accident?! I want to break into your daughter’s house, smash the jar of your ashes on the mantle and vacuum you. It only took eleven years to get mad at you. Eleven years and two months. I called you my ex for the first time. You have been inducted into that venerable society - All My Dead Ex’s.

ElizaLou
>>100835910

Home will find you, and while at present it may be ever shifting and elusive, it will one day find you and you, it. Keep a sense of home in your heart and then you can take it with you wherever you go.