What to Do

Wake up early, before the lights come on

in the houses on a street that was once
a farmer’s field at the edge of a marsh.

Wander from room to room, hoping to find
words that could be enough to keep the soul
alive, words that might be useful or kind

in a world that is more wasteful and cruel
every day. Remind us that we are
like grass that fades, fleeting clouds in the sky,

and then give us just one of those moments
when we were paying attention, when we gave
up everything to see the world in

a grain of sand or to behold
a rainbow in the sky, the heart
leaping up.

Joyce Sutphen, janicefalls.wordpress.com/blog July 28, 2021

Erasers

As punishment, my father said, the nuns

   would send him and the others

out to the schoolyard with the day’s erasers.

 

Punishment?  The pounding symphony

   of padded cymbals clapped

together at arm’s length overhead

 

(a snow of vanished alphabets and numbers

   powdering their noses

until they sneezed and laughed out loud at last)

 

was more than remedy, it was reward

   for all the hours they’d sat

without a word (except for passing notes)

 

and straight (or near enough) in front of starched

   black-and-white Sister Martha,

like a conductor raising high her chalk

 

baton, the only one who got to talk.

   Whatever did she teach them?

And what became of all those other boys,

 

poor sinners, who had made a joyful noise?

   My father likes to think,

at seventy-five, not of the white-on-black

 

chalkboard from whose crumbled negative

   those days were never printed,

but of word-clouds where unrecorded voices

 

gladly forgot themselves.  And that he still

   can say so, though all the lessons,

most of the names, and (he doesn’t spell

 

this out) it must be half the boys themselves,

   who grew up and dispersed

as soldiers, fathers, husbands, now are dust.

Mary Jo Salter, Open Shutters (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) 

Breakfast

My father taught me how to eat breakfast
those mornings when it was my turn to help
him milk the cows. I loved rising up from

the darkness and coming quietly down
the stairs while the others were still sleeping.
I'd take a bowl from the cupboard, a spoon

from the drawer, and slip into the pantry
where he was already eating spoonfuls
of cornflakes covered with mashed strawberries

from our own strawberry fields forever.
Didn't talk much—except to mention how
good the strawberries tasted or the way

those clouds hung over the hay barn roof.
Simple—that's how we started up the day.

Joyce Sutphen, First Words (Red Dragonfly) 

The Word

Down near the bottom

of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"
and "broccoli," you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,

but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.

Tony Hoagland, Sweet Ruin (University of Wisconsin Press, 1992)

Radio

No radio

in car

 

No radio on board

 

No radio

Already stolen

 

Absolutely no radio!

 

Radio broken

Alarm is set

To go off

 

No radio

No money

 

No radio

no valuables

 

No radio or

valuables

in car or trunk

 

No radio

Stolen 3X

 

No radio

Empty trunk

Empty glove compartment

Honest

 

In car

Nothing of value

 

No radio

No nuthin

(no kidding)

 

Radio Broken

Nothing Left!

 

Radio Gone

Note Hole in Dashboard

 

Warning!

Radio Will Not Play

When Removed

Security Code Required

 

Would you keep

Anything valuable

In this wreck?

 

No valuables

In this van

 

Please do not

Break-in

Unnecessarily

 

Thank you

For your kind

Consideration

 

Nothing of value

in car

No radio

No tapes

No telephone

Laurel Blossom, The Papers Said (Greenhouse Review Press, 2001)

Under a Forty-Watt Bulb

These days he goes down the steep cellar stairs 

sideways, facing the wall, both hands clamped on 

the rail as he lowers a foot to the next step, 

not looking down but feeling the way with the toe 

of his slipper, placing the foot firmly, then waiting

a moment before lowering the other foot, fitting  

it next to the first, his thin leather slippers 

parked side by side as they’d be in a closet. Then

loosening one hand, sliding it down, getting

a good grip, the other hand following, gripping,

one foot swinging out, swinging down, its toe 

tapping the riser to feel it, then setting it down, 

the other foot following, step down to step without 

looking, his eyes to the wall as he counts his way 

lower, ten steps to the bottom, both feet on each step

down and down, as if to the bottom of time 

where everything’s settled, then back, step by step, 

but now climbing forward, a little more labored, 

pushing a quart jar of peaches from each step

to the step just above, one step at a time, a man

following peaches, only one hand on the rail.

Ted Kooser, Rattle #72 Summer 2021 

Knots

Trying to tie my shoes, clumsy, not able to work out
the logic of it, fumbling, as my father stands there,
his anger growing over a son who can’t even do
this simplest thing for the first time, can’t even manage
the knot to keep his shoes on—You think someone’s
going to tie your shoes for you the rest of your life?—
No, I answer, forty-five years later, tying my shoe,
hands trembling with this memory. My father
and all those years of childhood not being able to work out
how he loved me, a knot so tight it has taken all my life
to untie.

Joseph Stroud, Of This World: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1998) 

15 cent Futures

 Epiphany Davis, 1825

I set up my cash box and my bones and cards

on Broadway, most days, offering what I see

of what’s to come. For a donation, words

fall from my mouth, surprising even me.

 

Uncle Epiphany doesn’t forecast death

or illness worse than gout or a broken bone.

The sailors stop. They listen with caught breath

as I tell them some girl’s heart is still theirs alone.

 

(… or not. Young love is such a butterfly.)

Girls come, arms linked, giggling behind their fans.

The sad come. Uncle Epiphany does not lie.

I close shop, and come back up here to my land.

 

It’s a new world up here, of beggar millionaires:

neighbors who know how we all scrimped and saved

to own this stony swamp with its fetid air,

to claim the dream for dreamers yet enslaved.

 

I’m Epiphany Davis. I am a conjure-man.

I see glimpses. Glass towers … A horseless vehicle …

An American President who is half African …

Until you pay me, that’s all I’m going to tell.

Marilyn Nelson, Namelos Editions, 2015

Unwanting

I carried the doll’s house from the junk shop
along the promenade to where I’d parked.
You have to rescue what you can or make do
with cardboard versions of boats, treehouses
and camper vans. It is hard to let things go,
to turn them out, easier if you can sell
and top up bank accounts. My car is full
of toy rabbits, a doll’s pushchair, and bears
with their own clothes. We’ve tried boot fairs
and adverts in the paper; now charity shops call.
Someone else will find a bargain, love them,
pass them on, and we will fill the space with
something else we do not need but have found
cheap and for a moment desired. It is hard to
unwant things, to be content, to say goodbye.

Robert Loydell, poetrybreakfast.com May 17, 2019 

The Worst Part

Do you know what the worst part is?

I understand Romeo and Juliet now.

I understand the childish longing for a real connection to someone, anyone

No matter their name, their age, their morals

No matter what people tell you, or what you tell yourself

Instead, you let their words fall upon your tongue

You let their music ring in your ears

You let their gaze become yours

You let their strings attach themselves without notice

I thought I was taking my time,

Until I looked back and remembered these years were weeks

I thought you were making me stronger,

Until I saw my weakness posing in the mirror

I thought I was finally taking control of my own life

Until I noticed the path I was on

I thought you were my knight in shining armor

Until I realized I was still in the tower

I was so afraid of losing what I had just gained that I didn’t wait for you to poison me.

I poisoned myself.

You didn’t kill me. I killed myself for you.

And you know what the worst part is?

We weren’t even dating.

When someone asks to see my list of past loves,

You name won’t be there

I can’t even say you broke my heart,

Cause that would mean I gave it away too quickly

Heartbreak is reserved for the committed,

And you were anything but that

But do you want to know the worst part? The worst part of it all?

I didn’t learn my lesson

I would do it again in a fractured heartbeat.

Bea Gunding, NPR Poetry with Kwame  Alexander September 7, 2021

1st Vote

It was hers.

She had this choice
behind curtained bliss,
Dad’s chest full on the other side
as her tapered hand
pulled the lever.

No matter how wide
the final margin,
a lone ballot
never counted so much.

Kamilah Aisha Moon, American Life in Poetry #858 August 30, 2021

Safety Net

This morning I woke

thinking of all the people I love
and all the people they love
and how big the net
of lovers. It felt so clear,
all those invisible ties
interwoven like silken threads
strong enough to make a mesh
that for thousands of years
has been woven and rewoven
to catch us all.
Sometimes we go on
as if we forget
about it. Believing only
in the fall. But the net
is just as real. Every day,
with every small kindness,
with every generous act,
we strengthen it. Notice,
even now, how
as the whole world
seems to be falling, it
is there for us as we
walk the day’s tightrope,
how every tie matters.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, janicefalls.wordpress.com, August 4, 2021

Hospital Parking Lot

Headscarf fluttering in the wind,
stockings hanging loose on her vein-roped
legs, an old woman clings to her husband

as if he were the last tree standing in a storm,
though he is not the strong one.

His skin is translucent—more like a window
than a shade. Without a shirt and coat,

we could see his lungs swell and shrink,
his heart skip. But he has offered her his arm,
and for sixty years, she has taken it.

Terri Kirby Erickson, American Life in Poetry #530 May 17, 2015 

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph, poetrying.wordpress.com July 19, 2021