When you fall for a man who could never love you • National Poetry Month

Ask your computer for a "woman poet."
Be grateful for such a wonderful answer, and for such a stunning poet.

When you fall for a man who could never love you
don’t say I didn’t warn you
when you fuck your way to his heart
and find broken chandeliers
from every time he was hung
and cut down while still shining
don’t say I didn’t warn you
Be foolish
Be foolish
Be foolish
burn down the caution signs
bulldoze the barriers between his past
and your passion
it’s the only way you’ll learn
you’re not his firefighter
it’s not your job to save him

by Aman K. Batra

The Same River • National Poetry Month

The Same River 

Yes, yes, you can’t step into the same
river twice, but all the same, this river
is one of the things that has changed
least in my life, and stepping into it
always feels like returning to something
far back and familiar, its steady current
of coppery water flowing around my calves
and then my thighs, my only waders
a pair of old shorts. Holding a fly rod
above my head, my other arm out
for balance, like some kind of dance,
trying not to slip on the mossy rocks,
I make my way out to the big rock
I want to fish from, mottled with lichen
that has dried to rusty orange, a small
midstream island that a philosopher
might use to represent stasis
versus flux, being amidst becoming,
in some argument that is larger
than any that interests me now
as I climb out dripping onto the boulder
and cast my line out to where the bubbles
form a channel and trail off in a V
that points to where the fish might be,
holding steady amid the river’s flow.

by Jeffrey Harrison 
From Into Daylight
Courtesy The Writer's Almanac

Mercy • National Poetry Month

I should not be this happy about the Pulitzer Prize announcement, and yet I'm practically giddy. So many important writers, so much important material, was honored this year, and I met a new poet. I am again agog, and touched, and grateful for such a brilliant, thoughtful mind. 

Mercy

the war speaks at night
with its lips of shredded children,
with its brow of plastique
and its fighter jet breath,
and then it speaks at daybreak
with the soft slur of money
unfolding leaf upon leaf.
it speaks between the news
programs in the music
of commercials, then sings
in the voices of a national anthem.
it has a dirty coin jingle in its step,
it has a hand of many lost hands,
a palm of missing fingers,
the stump of an arm that it lost
reaching up to heaven, a foot
that digs a trench for its dead.
the war staggers forward,
compelled, inexorable, ticking.
it looks to me
with its one eye of napalm
and one eye of ice,
with its hair of fire
and its nuclear heart,
and yes, it is so human
and so pitiful as it stands there,
waiting for my hand.
it wants to know my answer.
it wants to know how i intend
to show it out of its misery,
and i only want it
to teach me how to kill.

by Tyehimba Jess
courtesy poets.org

Celebrating Library Workers During National Poetry Month

April 11 is National Library Workers' Day. In celebration, we enjoy a poem by Nikki Giovanni. (Read the rest in this wonderful Brain Pickings article about Ms. Giovanni's poems about librarians.)

A Poem for My Librarian, Mrs. Long
(You never know what troubled little girl needs a book)

At a time when there was not tv before 3:00 P.M.
And on Sunday none until 5:00
We sat on the front porches watching
The jfg sign go on and off greeting
The neighbors, discussion the political
Situation congratulating the preacher
On his sermon
There was always the radio which brought us
Songs from wlac in nashville and what we would now call
Easy listening or smooth jazz but when I listened
Late at night with my portable (that I was so proud of)
Tucked under my pillow
I heard nat king cole and matt dennis, june christy and ella fitzgerald
And sometimes sarah vaughan sing black coffee
Which I now drink
It was just called music

There was a bookstore uptown on gay street
Which I visited and inhaled that wonderful odor
Of new books
Even today I read hardcover as a preference paperback only
As a last resort

And up the hill on vine street
(The main black corridor) sat our carnegie library
Mrs. Long always glad to see you
The stereoscope always ready to show you faraway
Places to dream about

Mrs. Long asking what are you looking for today
When I wanted Leaves of Grass or alfred north whitehead
She would go to the big library uptown and I now know
Hat in hand to ask to borrow so that I might borrow

Probably they said something humiliating since southern
Whites like to humiliate southern blacks

But she nonetheless brought the books
Back and I held them to my chest
Close to my heart
And happily skipped back to grandmother’s house
Where I would sit on the front porch
In a gray glider and dream of a world
Far away

I love the world where I was
I was safe and warm and grandmother gave me neck kissed
When I was on my way to bed

But there was a world
Somewhere
Out there
And Mrs. Long opened that wardrobe
But no lions or witches scared me
I went through
Knowing there would be
Spring

by Nikki Giovanni
courtesy of Brain Pickings

The cup of Eliyahu • National Poetry Month

The cup of Eliyahu

In life you had a temper. 

Your sarcasm was a whetted knife. 

Sometimes you shuddered with fear 

but you made yourself act no matter 

how few stood with you. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

Now you return to us 

in rough times, out of smoke 

and dust that swirls blinding us. 

You come in vision, you come 

in lightning on blackness. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

In every generation you return 

speaking what few want to hear 

words that burn us, that cut 

us loose so we rise and go again 

over the sharp rocks upward. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

You come as a wild man, 

as a homeless sidewalk orator, 

you come as a woman taking the bima, 

you come in prayer and song, 

you come in a fierce rant. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that she may come in.

Prophecy is not a gift, but 

sometimes a curse, Jonah 

refusing. It is dangerous 

to be right, to be righteous. 

To stand against the wall of might. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

There are moments for each 

of us when you summon, when 

you call the whirlwind, when you 

shake us like a rattle: then we 

too must become you and rise. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that we may come in.

by Marge Piercy

Courtesy The Poetry Foundation 

The Art of Sleep • National Poetry Month

The Art of Sleep

In the crowded bed, hemmed in by
my husband, his hand resting
on my hip, his fingers softly flexing
in slumber, you’re here, I’m here.
When he moves, he takes the blankets,
but not my personal Patience
and Fortitude, tails draped across
my legs. Sighing, shifting, stretching,
pressing, calescent, discouraging
desertion. In repose,

the nighttime mandala

recasts itself, but the nucleus remains,
awake, the imperfection
in the family isha.

by Chris Fow Cohen

Shared with the author's permission

Film Reels Burn Faster Than You'd Believe, but don't try at home • National Poetry Month

Imagine approaching strangers and asking them to write a poem on the spot. Now imagine doing it in New York City. On the subway. Every day. It's the inspiration behind 365 Day Subway: Poems by New Yorkers (which also is on Facebook). 


Film Reels Burn Faster Than You'd Believe, but don't try at home


Film reels burn faster than
You’d believe
Like pages from your diary or
That shopping list of yours
I found
And tossed into the sun.

Remember that frolick we
Spent dancing
In the weeds of Coney Island?
The water froze our hearts but
Those rollercoasters smashed
Into our brains, so
It turned out alright.

When I packed your things
Up
I hid the box up in my closet
At home, tied in that
Bow you made of
Human hair,
And rolled
Down the hills
Into the bloody bloody dust
Of tomorrow.

By Ben 

Courtesy 365 Day Subway: Poems by New Yorkers