You Asked for It

I watched it every week
on our humble Motorola, although
the only episode I can remember now
is the one about the slingshot expert.

He was a grown man, as I recall,
At a distance of ten or twenty paces
he could pulverize one marble with another.
He could hit a silver dollar
tossed into the air. He was the kind
of father I wanted to have,
an expert shot, never missing.

And I think of him now, perhaps long dead,
or frail and gray, his gift forgotten.
Just another old guy on a park bench
in Fort Lauderdale, fretting about Medicare,
grateful for the sun on his back, his slingshot
useless in this new world.

 

Georgia Bilgere, writersalmanac.org May 13, 2015

Creation Myth

For Jordan – A Poem about Beginnings

That March day in Massachusetts. . .
When the second-rate poet went shopping,
He never thought he would buy that black shirt,
The one embroidered with that crazy
Eastern motif, the one he knew was not his style,
The one he only wore once, and now hangs
In the closet next to something else hanging
In the closet. His main thought was
“How would this look on stage this evening.”
He was vain that way. . . .

Likewise, when she wore the cleavage clinging
Pink halter-top, and pair of ultra-tight black pants:
The outfit that screams “I want men to respect me for my mind!”
Yes, the one that pilfers his speech even now—
She was only dressing for a comfortable night out
With a girlfriend, a girlfriend who flaked on her
At the last minute leaving her to go out alone.
She had never been to a poetry reading before,
And wasn’t used to going out alone. She almost didn’t go.
But, she did anyhow. She surprises that way.

They didn’t expect to meet—much less fall into one another
And walk the thin bridge being built between them.
He was a man with a rather pronounced liking for the ladies
Though surprisingly shy about women. (Especially that night.)
She—while not known for starting conversations
With second-rate poets was a little more forward than usual,
Especially that night. Somehow (and this is apocryphal, as stories
Do not corroborate), they wound up at IHOP.
And over a cup of coffee and a rooty tooty fresh and fruity,
He thought. . .maybe. . . ? She thought. . .hmm—maybe. . . ?

As for you? Well. . .you were not yet you.
Well. . .that is, you were you. . .potentially,
but you were not this ever parasitic tsunami
Of new discovery fueled by laughter and lactation,
Leaving broken drinking glasses and ruined CDs in your wake.
No, but you were somewhere. . .not quite there:
a small curved line faint and forming at the end
of some egg named “future.”

Then, they loved. And it was gooood! (That’s all I can tell you now.)
But, they loved again. . . .And again. . . .And during the August
Of one those agains the part of you which had been swimming
Inside him, dolphined toward the part of you
Buoyed in her—and you began growing into an island
Resembling them.

And when the growing was done,
You were lifted from inside the soft dark of her,
Into light, into screaming, into breath. 

After that, he took you into an empty room—
And while no one could see the two of you, he held you
Above his head, looked upward at the ceiling and imagined
The fluorescent lights a sea of stars stretched endlessly
Above a land smelling of salt water and village song.
And as must have happened in the lands your ancestors
Came from he held you close and trembling to his chest,
Told you your name. Thanked his father for your safe passage—
Then asked for strength and guidance from whatever hand authors fate.

 

Regie O’Hare Gibson, Harvard Divinity Bulletin Spring 2005

Boy Scouts Camping Out

We sat cross-legged peering into the fire
with a circle of tents at our back.

Flickering coals spotlighted the face
of the scout whose turn it was to talk.

Sucking on cigarettes, we voted on who
was the raunchiest girl in our class,

then swore on a rusty Swiss Army knife
that none of us would ever get hitched.

We wondered about our mothers and fathers
and swapped notes on our budding sisters.

By the time the sunlight began to trickle
through the treetops, we crawled back into

our tents coughing like cranes and fell
with swollen imaginations into heavy sleep.

 

Norbert Krapf, Somewhere in Southern Indiana (Time Being Books, 1993) 

Last Day of KIndergarten

In the photograph
the boy is ecstatic,
set free, a young king,
everything ahead of him.
There is nothing he can’t have
if he wants it and he wants it,
as does his friend beside him.
They are ready now to ride off
together and slay dragons,
rescue the world. It’s all here
in the park after the last bell;
it’s here in the green summer
they have been released to.
It’s here in their manhood.
They’ve only finished kindergarten
but they understand freedom
and friendship. They’re on top
of the picnic table, they’re on top
of the world in their tennis shoes,
they have raised their arms,
they are such men as could
raise continents; they have
survived. Look how their
fingers reach the sky
and their legs are sure as
horses. Their bodies
will forever do anything they ask.

Marjorie Saiser, I Have Nothing to Say about Fire (The Backwaters Press, 2016)

At the Church Door

I didn’t stay for the closing
hymns and prayers. I felt
out of sorts, so I left.

Someone was before me
at the door: a child, gazing
at a spot on her wrist.

She said, “Can you help me?”
“What is it?”
“A ladybug,” she said.

So I opened the door,
and she said, “It jumped off.”
We stood looking around.

“It’ll be all right,” I said.
She went in, and I left,
taking care where I stepped.

 

Louis Simpson, The Owner of the House (BOA Editions, 2003)

Fast Break

In Memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984

A hook shot kisses the rim and
hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop,

and for once our gangly starting center
boxes out his man and times his jump

perfectly, gathering the orange leather
from the air like a cherished possession

and spinning around to throw a strike
to the outlet who is already shoveling

an underhand pass toward the other guard
scissoring past a flat-footed defender

who looks stunned and nailed to the floor
in the wrong direction, trying to catch sight

of a high, gliding dribble and a man
letting the play develop in front of him

in slow motion, almost exactly
like a coach’s drawing on the blackboard,

both forwards racing down the court
the way that forwards should, fanning out

and filling the lanes in tandem, moving
together as brothers passing the ball

between them without a dribble, without
a single bounce hitting the hardwood

until the guard finally lunges out
and commits to the wrong man

while the power-forward explodes past them
in a fury, taking the ball into the air

by himself now and laying it gently
against the glass for a lay-up,

but losing his balance in the process,
inexplicably falling, hitting the floor

with a wild, headlong motion
for the game he loved like a country

and swiveling back to see an orange blur
floating perfectly through the net.

 

Edward Hirsch, Wild Gratitude (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986)

to my last period

well, girl, goodbye,

after thirty-eight years.

thirty-eight years and you

never arrived

splendid in your red dress

without trouble for me

somewhere, somehow.

 

now it is done,

and i feel just like

the grandmothers who,

after the hussy has gone,

sit holding her photograph

and sighing, wasn’t she

beautiful? wasn’t she beautiful?

 

Lucille Clifton, Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA Editions, 1991) 

Whittling: The Last Class

What has been written
about whittling
is not true

most of it

It is the discovery
that keeps
the fingers moving

not idleness

but the knife looking for
the right plane
that will let the secret out

Whittling is no pastime

he says
who has been whittling
in spare minutes at the wood

of his life for forty years

Three rules he thinks
In this way

have helped
Make small cuts
you may be able to stop before
what was to be an arm
has to be something else

Always whittle away from yourself

and toward something.
For God's sake
and your own
know when to stop

Whittling is the best example
I know of what most
may happen when

least expected

bad or good
Hurry before
angina comes like a pair of pliers

over your left shoulder

There is plenty of wood
for everyone
and you

Go ahead now

May you find
in the waiting wood
rough unspoken

what is true

or
nearly true
or

true enough.

 

John Stone, Music from Apartment 8 (Louisiana State University Press, 2004)

Why I Love Swimming Pools

I grew up in a resort town where they were
as frequent as houses. I love their false blue

which is more vivid than the sky and their shapes:
rectangle, L, oval, diamond. Some have waterfalls,

palm trees that rustle just above your head.
I like the smell of chlorine, the ladies

in sunglasses as still as human sacrifices
on their chaise lounges. There are umbrellas,

those swirls of happiness, and lifeguards dressed
in eternal youth. We wear sunscreen

thick with coconut oil and the rooms where we change
into swimsuits are like the telephone booths

Superman used. Like him we are different in our new form:
weightless, able to jump from high places and survive.

 

Faith Shearin, Moving the Piano (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2011)

Searching

I recall someone once admitting
that all he remembered of Anna Karenina
was something about a picnic basket,

and now, after consuming a book
devoted to the subject of Barcelona—
its people, its history, its complex architecture—

all I remember is the mention
of an albino gorilla, the inhabitant of a park
where the Citadel of the Bourbons once stood.

The sheer paleness of her looms over
all the notable names and dates
as the evening strollers stop before her

and point to show their children.
These locals called her Snowflake,
and here she has been mentioned again in print

in the hope of keeping her pallid flame alive
and helping her, despite her name, to endure
in this poem where she has found another cage.

Oh, Snowflake,
I had no interest in the capital of Catalonia—
its people, its history, its complex architecture—

no, you were the reason
I kept my light on late into the night
turning all those pages, searching for you everywhere.

 

Billy Collins, Aimless Love (Random House, 2013) 

Dreams and Nightmares

Last night as I lay sleeping,
   I had a dream so fair . . .
   I dreamed of the Holy City, well ordered and just.
   I dreamed of a garden of paradise,
     well-being all around and a good water supply.
   I dreamed of disarmament and forgiveness,
     and caring embrace for all those in need.
   I dreamed of a coming time when death is no more.

Last night as I lay sleeping . . .
   I had a nightmare of sins unforgiven.
   I had a nightmare of land mines still exploding
     and maimed children.
   I had a nightmare of the poor left unloved,
     of the homeless left unnoticed,
     of the dead left ungrieved.
   I had a nightmare of quarrels and rages
     and wars great and small.

When I awoke, I found you still to be God,
   presiding over the day and night
     with serene sovereignty,
   for dark and light are both alike to you.

At the break of day we submit to you
     our best dreams
     and our worst nightmares,
   asking that your healing mercy should override threats,
     that your goodness will make our
       nightmares less toxic
       and our dreams more real.

Thank you for visiting us with newness
       that overrides what is old and deathly among us.
Come among us this day; dream us toward
       health and peace,
we pray in the real name of Jesus
       who exposes our fantasies.

Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People (Abingdon, 2008)

Listen

I threw a snowball across the backyard.
My dog ran after it to bring it back.
It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow.
She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing.
She searched in widening circles until I called her.

She looked at me and said as clearly in silence
as if she had spoken,
I know it's here, I'll find it,
went back to the center and started the circles again.

I called her two more times before she came
slowly, stopping once to look back.

That was this morning. I'm sure that she's forgotten.
I've had some trouble putting it out of my mind.

 

Miller Williams, Some Jazz a While (University of Illinois Press, 1999)

Prayer for the Small Engine Repairman

Our Sundays are given voice
By the small engine repairman,
Whose fingers, stubby and black,
Know our mowers and tractors,
Chainsaws, rototillers,
Each plug, gasket and valve
And all the vital fluids.
Thanks to him our lawns
Are even, our gardens vibrant,
Our maples pruned for swings,
The underbrush whacked away.
"What's broke can always be fixed
If I can find the parts,"
He says as he loosens a nut,
Exposes the carburetor,
Tinkers and tunes until
To the slightest pull on the cord
The engine at once concurs.
Let him come into our homes,
Let him discipline our children,
Console and counsel our mates,
Adjust the gap of our passions,
The mix of our humors: lay hands
On the small engine of our days.

 

Charles W. Pratt, From the Box Marked Some Are Missing: New and Selected Poems (Hobblebush Books, 2010)

Blessing

May you wake with a sense of play,
An exultation of the possible.
May you rest without guilt,
Satisfied at the end of a day well done.
May all the rough edges be smoothed,
If to smooth is to heal,
And the edges be left rough,
When the unpolished is more true
And infinitely more interesting.
May you wear your years like a well-tailored coat
Or a brave sassy scarf.
May every year yet to come
Be one more bright button
Sewn on a hat you wear at a tilt.
May the friendships you’ve sown
Grown tall as summer corn.
And the things you’ve left behind,
Rest quietly in the unchangeable past.
May you embrace this day,
Not just as any old day,
But as this day.
Your day.
Held in trust
By you,
In a singular place,
Called now.

 

Carrie Newcomer, janicefalls.wordpress. com January 1, 2018

Things You Didn't Want to Play

Like Monopoly. Because you always ended up landing on Boardwalk
where the red hotel meant you owed two thousand dollars
all you had were mortgaged railroads. Or like checkers,
because really, what was fun about moving small plastic disks
diagonally and hearing the other kid say, “King me.” And soccer?
Only because your mother made you because she wanted
to be coach. You did want to play school, but no one else did,
so you were the principal, the teacher, the student,
giving yourself homework, grading it yourself. Writing in red
in your best cursive at the top of the page, “See me.”
You didn’t want to play basketball, because no one else
ever chose you for their team. Even though you were tall.
And you were chosen last for volleyball, too. And t-ball.
And Red Rover. And dodge ball. Is it any wonder your favorite
way to play was to visit the junkyard and find treasure?
Or to walk along the lake to look for flowers and worms?
Is it any wonder you learned to love playing alone
in quiet rooms with an empty page and a pen?
There was no way then you could have known
that it would save you—no, you just thought
you were playing the only way you knew how,
walking through the only doors

you knew how to open yourself.

Rosemerry Whatola Trommer, wordwoman.com October 2, 2020 

Found in an Old Prayer Book

There is more light than shadow.

There are more smiles than cares,

More grass grows on the meadow

Than brambles, weeds, and tares.

There is more song than weeping,

There is more sun than rain,

There is more golden reaping

Than lost and blighted grain.

There is more peace than terror,

There is more hope than fear,

There is more truth than error,

More right than wrongs appear.

On the long road to glory

We climb more than we fall,

And by and large the story

Comes out right after all.

 

Clarence Edwin Flynn