Good Bones
 

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-adivsed 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 broke, 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.


~ Maggie Smith

Justice is the only worship.
Love is the only priest.
Ignorance is the only slavery.
Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now,
the place to be happy is here.
The way to be happy is to make
others so.
Wisdom is the science of happiness.

- Robert G. Ingersoll

Always For The First Time


Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house
It is there that from one second to the next
In the inviolate darkness
I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring
The one and only rift
In the facade and in my heart
The closer I come to you
In reality
The more the key sings at the door of the unknown room
Where you appear alone before me
At first you coalesce entirely with the brightness
The elusive angle of a curtain
It's a field of jasmine I gazed upon at dawn on a road in the vicinity of Grasse
With the diagonal slant of its girls picking
Behind them the dark falling wing of the plants stripped bare
Before them a T-square of dazzling light
The curtain invisibly raised
In a frenzy all the flowers swarm back in
It is you at grips with that too long hour never dim enough until sleep
You as though you could be
The same except that I shall perhaps never meet you
You pretend not to know I am watching you
Marvelously I am no longer sure you know
You idleness brings tears to my eyes
A swarm of interpretations surrounds each of your gestures
It's a honeydew hunt
There are rocking chairs on a deck there are branches that may well scratch you in the forest
There are in a shop window in the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
Two lovely crossed legs caught in long stockings
Flaring out in the center of a great white clover
There is a silken ladder rolled out over the ivy
There is
By my leaning over the precipice
Of your presence and your absence in hopeless fusion
My finding the secret
Of loving you
Always for the first time


- Andre Breton

Crocus
 

First flower of spring pressing
through snow like plum trumpet
proud young mouths awaiting rain.
A waxy and delicate promise
for earthworm month, sparrow season.
Last flower of winter pressing
through snow like end credits
grand gesture, the urgent purpling
wound necessary for a warm
glossy blossoming that will follow.

-Rao

Daisy
 

No matter how often you
are called beautiful, it is
still possible to remain shy
She removed her moonbeam robe
first, Then the dew dress.
Now in glaring light she
reveals the reserved purr of
yellow ochre in her throat
She blushes while I stare
and quitely record my observations.


-Rao

Neruda
 

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII
By Pablo Neruda
Translated by Mark Eisner

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

The Moon was so full tonight
 

The moon was so full tonight
the waves
rolled over laughing.
They're in cahoots .

as soon as the sky
runs out of blue
the waves call
the moon over and
raise up thier skirts
for a wild night.

After they quiet down
a glistening white stripe
appears on the wet sand.

Listen: after the tide slip out
a drunken chorus arises.
When everything is spent
a love song remains.
They are singing
a sweet song about you.
They all love you.

Like the rest of us
They'd do anything
to bring your radiance
a little closer.

Ellen O'Brian

in keeping with the theme of the moon...
 

Suddenly, in the sky at dawn, a moon appeared
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

Suddenly, in the sky at dawn, a moon appeared,
Descended from the sky
Turned its burning gaze on me,
Like a hawk during the hunt seizing a bird,
Grabbed me and flew with me high into heaven.
When I looked at myself, I could not see myself
For in this moon, my body, by grace, had become soul.
And when I traveled in this soul, I saw nothing but moon,
Until the mystery of eternal theophany lay open to me.
All the nine heavenly spheres were drowned in this moon.
The skiff of my being drowned, dissolved, entirely, in that Sea.
Then, that Sea broke up into waves, Intelligence danced back,
And launched its song,
And the Sea covered over with foam,
And from each bubble of foam something sprang, clothed in form,
Something sprang from each light-bubble, clothed in a body.
Then each bubble of body-foam received a sign from the Sea,
Melted immediately and followed the flow of its waves.
Without the saving, redeeming help of my Lord,
Shams-ul-Haqq of Tabriz,
No one can contemplate the moon, no one can become the Sea.

When a student dies
 

When you lay there, a brown body floating against
the edges of a tub, the warm water against
your now cold skin, I hope the last ripples that seep
into your blood remind you to picture the forest,
the vestments, the wardrobe, the lion's mane
and four little white kids you read about days before.
The book , the witch, the rug in my classroom
the bookshelf, how to check out a book, bookmarks,
the way to turn the page ,the way to treat
a book is the way you hold a child, is the way
you should be held, with your head up,
your face above the water, not pinned down, no , not
always running from a drunk, run in the fields, hurry,
defend your life. defend Narnia, live in the back
half of the ropero , escondete hasta que la noche se amaina.
Imagine warm nights telling Peter and Edmund about
how to beat back a dragon in your real world- off
the darken streets of Rampart and Renwick. Let
little lucy smile at you, tell you to sleep in the grass.
Look up at the stars, eyes closed, your arms floating
by your sides, the edges of grass against your body.
Listen to the sound of water in the river next to you,
the rain that drops across your face, water all around as you , lay
there, lay in there, no longer cold, warm, away from harm.
Live with Mr. Tummus , mijito, live in the pages, live in Narnia ,
where you can hide forever.

-Lupe Mendez Texas laureate 2022
Local poet

Memorial day poem
 

At The Vietnam Memorial


Today takes the color of the sun,
The air is filled with fine with it;
The dead leaves, lumped
and molted; flattened grass
take it like platinum;
the mall , simple, bare
plan of a tree standing
clothed and sudden in it's
clean explicable light

Across the muddy
grounds of Constitution
Gardens, we've come to find
your brothers name etched
in the long black muster
of sixteen years of war-
the earth walked raw
this morning by workman still
gravelling paths and people
brought here by dreams
more solemn than grief.

A kid in a sweater hurries
past us, face clenched
against tears. And couples,
gray haired, touching hands,
there midwestern faces calm
plain as the stenciled names
ranked on the black marble
in order of casualty,
the 57, 939 dead soldiers

R. Dana

War poem
 

Emily Dickinson, ‘If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking’
 

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain

❤️❤️❤️❤️
 

Butch-Femme
 

In a realm where hearts embrace the night, Two souls entwined in love's soft light. Butch and femme, their spirits dance, A symphony of passion and romance.

Butch, strong and fierce, like a tempest's rage, A lioness in a tender cage. Her heart beats wild, her spirit free, Yet, in love's presence, she finds tranquility.

Femme, gentle as a whispered breeze, Her love a balm that eases, appease. With grace and charm, she draws them near, A goddess, captivating, without peer.

In their union, a balance formed, A love that's daring, yet adorned. Strength and tenderness intertwined, In each other's arms, they find peace of mind.

Their love defies the world's decree, Breaking chains that sought to decree. For love knows not the bounds they seek, In every shade and hue, it finds its peak.

Their hearts alight with passion's flame, Butch and femme, they are not the same. Yet, together, they create a tapestry rare, A love so bold, a love so fair.

Through judgment's eyes, they face the storm, But true love weathers, like the oak stands strong. Their souls entwined, they find their way, Bound by love's force, come what may.

In the beauty of butch and femme's embrace, Two halves converge, two hearts in chase. For love knows not the names we wear, It sees the soul, the love we share.

So let them love, and let them be, In this world of infinite diversity. For in the tapestry of love's grand art, Butch and femme etch their names on the heart.

Alex

I KNOW NOT HOW IT FALLS ON ME
 

I know not how it falls on me
This summer evening, hushed and lone
Yet the faint wind comes soothingly
With something of an olden tone

Forgive me if I've shunned so long
Your gentle greeting earth and air
But sorrow weathers even the strong
And who can fight against despair.

Emily Bronte

What use is it to slumber here
 

I love your hands:
They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands;
Hair grows on the back near the wrist . . . .
I have seen the nails broken and stained
From hard work.
And yet, when you touch me,
I grow small . . . . . . . and quiet . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . And happy . . . . . . . .
If I might only grow small enough
To curl up into the hollow of your palm,
Your left palm,
Curl up, lie close and cling,
So that I might know myself always there,
. . . . . . . Even if you forgot.


Angelina Weld Grimké

The Audacious Goal
 

My poetry has the audacious goal to take your breath away
that you might stop, even for that moment,
taking it for granted and want it back.

My poetry has
the audacious goal to stop you in the tracks of your busy life,
even briefly,
and help you fall
from the unstable worship of celebrial gods
back into the soft bed of your heart.

My poetry has the audacious goal to remind you,
if only for a breath that there's loveliness built into you
that's more intimate and essential than even your DNA
and my poetry has the audacious goal of inviting itself into you
to ring the bell of remembrance.


My poetry desires to be a sacred interruption!
To remove the veil if only for a glimpse that you may consider
how perfectly set the jewel of our Earth is
in relation to the golden amulet of the sun
and the similar relationship between our hearts and God .

My poetry has the audacious goal to grab a handful of God
and if only for an instant give that back to your heart.

Chelan Harkin