Poetry Slam Tuesdays: To Be Wild and Perfect for a Moment, Before

Peonies
by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
 to break my heart
  as the sun rises,
   as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open--
 pools of lace,
  white and pink--
   and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
 into the curls,
  craving the sweet sap,
   taking it away

to their dark, underground cities--
 and all day
  under the shifty wind,
   as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
 and tip their fragrance to the air,
  and rise,
   their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
 gladly and lightly,
  and there it is again--
   beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
 Do you love this world?
  Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
   Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
 and softly,
  and exclaiming of their dearness,
   fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
 their eagerness
  to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
   nothing, forever?

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: the dance & the terror (the dead musicians & the hope)

It's been far too long since we've revisited For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.

Sooner or later, I will likely have excerpted the entire choreopoem, piece by disjointed piece. But for now, this:

lady in purple

i lived wit myths & music waz my old man & i cd dance
a dance outta time/ a dance wit no partners/ take my
pills & keep right on steppin/ linger in non-english
speakin arms so there waz no possibility of understandin
& you YOU
came sayin i am the niggah/ i am the baddest muthafuckah
out there/
i said yes/ this is who i am waitin for
& to come wit you/ i hadta bring everythin
the dance & the terror
the dead musicians & the hope
& those scars i had hidden wit smiles & good fuckin
lay open
& i dont know i dont know any more tricks
i am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt me
more than i ever danced outta/ into oblivion isnt far enuf
to get outta this/ i am ready to die like a lily in the
desert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ here
is what i have/ poems/ big thighs/ lil tits/ &
so much love/ will you take it from me this one time/
please this is for you/ arsenio's tres cleared the way
& makes me pure again/ please please/ this is for you
i want you to love me/ let me love you/ i dont wanna
dance wit ghosts/ snuggle lovers i made up in my drunkenness/
lemme love you just like i am/ a colored girl/ i'm finally bein
real/ no longer symmetrical & impervious to pain

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: From the Wild First Surprising Ones

Prayer for a Marriage
by Steve Scafidi, for Kathleen

When we are old one night and the moon
arcs over the house like an antique
China saucer and the teacup sun

[via here]

follows somewhere far behind
I hope the stars deepen to a shine
so bright you could read by it

if you liked and the sadnesses
we will have known go away
for awhile—in this hour or two

before sleep—and that we kiss
standing in the kitchen not fighting
gravity so much as embodying

its sweet force, and I hope we kiss
like we do today knowing so much
good is said in this primitive tongue

from the wild first surprising ones
to the lower dizzy ten thousand
infinitely slower ones—and I hope

while we stand there in the kitchen
making tea and kissing, the whistle
of the teapot wakes the neighbors.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Help Yourself, Motherfucker

To kick off the first poetry slam of 2013, I figured it was a perfect time to get back to one of my favorites, that old asshole Bukowski.

Here's a favorite:

small talk
by Charles Bukowski

all right, while we are gently celebrating tonight
and while crazy classical music leaps at me from
my small radio, I light a fresh cigar
and realize that I am still very much alive and that
the 21st century is almost upon me!

I walk softly now toward 5 a.m. this dark night.
my 5 cats have been in and out, looking after
me, I have petted them, spoken to them, they
are full of their own private fears wrought by previous
centuries of cruelty and abuse
but I think that they love me as much as they
can, anyhow, what I am trying to say here
is that writing is just as exciting and mad and
just as big a gamble for me as it ever was, because Death
after all these years
walks around in the room with me now and speaks softly,
asking, do you still think that you are a genuine
writer? are you pleased with what you’ve done?
listen, let me have one of those
cigars.

help yourself, motherfucker, I say.

Death lights up and we sit quietly for a time.
I can feel him here with me.

don’t you long for the ferocity
of youth? He finally asks.

the asshole, the poet. [via flavorwire]

not so much, I say.

but don’t you regret those things
that have been lost?

not at all, I say.

don’t you miss, He asks slyly, the young girls
climbing through your window?

all they brought was bad news, I tell him.

but the illusion, He says, don’t you miss the
illusion?

hell yes, don’t you? I ask.

I have no illusions, He says sadly.

sorry, I forgot about that, I say, then walk
to the window
unafraid and strangely satisifed
to watch the warm dawn
unfold.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Fierce as a Dog

CHICAGO
By Carl Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Bareheaded,

Shoveling,

Wrecking,

Planning,

Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: 'Well, It's Pretty Involved'

You know what hasn't happened here in too long? A little Bukowski, that's what. I was just staring at my pile of Bukowski books and thought, I kinda miss that asshole.

So without further ado, from You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense:
 
coffee

[via here]

I was having a coffee at the
counter
when a man
3 or 4 stools down
asked me,
"listen, weren't you the
guy who was
hanging from his
heels
from that 4th floor
hotel room
the other
night?"

"yes," I answered, "that
was me."

"what made you do
that?" he asked.

"well, it's pretty
involved."

he looked away
then.

the waitress
who had been
standing there
asked me,
"he was joking,
wasn't
he?"

"no," I
said.

I paid, got up, walked
to the door, opened
it.

I heard the man
say, "that guy's
nuts."

out on the street I
walked north
feeling
curiously
honored.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: The Way Her Exasperation Eased With the Hair

Looks
by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

[via flickr]

Perhaps everyone else has forgotten it,
but in the days when my mother
poured her midsection into a girdle;
when she gathered her nylons into flimsy donuts
before unrolling them, up one leg and then the other;
in the days when we, her daughters,
fastened bulky sanitary napkins
to sanitary napkin belts,
there was Dippity Do.

My mother dabbed the greenish blue gel from the jar,
reached up and slid a section of hair through her fingers,
then wound the hair around a bristly curler,
securing it against her scalp
with a plastic curler pin.

Now, my daughters trap and pull their naturally wavy hair
through the jaws of a straightener
so that their hair might be "as straight as a pin"
which is exactly the way
my mother used to describe her own hair
and, with an sense of tragedy, mine as well.

I don't know who decides whether curly or straight
is the right look for hair
and I can't say that I care,
but what matters to me still

is the way the light changed in my mother's eyes
as her gaze shifted
from her own reflection in the mirror
down to mine;
the way her exasperation eased
with the hair, the Dippity Do, the curlers;
the way the wrinkles over her cheekbones deepened,
and a smile emerged
as if we were co-conspirators,
co-creators, in some grand drama

as I handed her another curler,
another pin.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Like the Dark-Haired Girl in Blue

Clearing the Space

by Phillip Lopate

I am clearing the space for a lover
to enter my life, I am clearing off a big space.
Today when I went bicycling I saw
on the grass one lover pair after another.
They were lying on each other, like rugs, or fur coats,
and all you could see was the shag of a redhead
or the lips a boy pressed down on a girl
while their lips held chastely still.

I walked my bicycle past them, thinking
for a moment of every lover I had ever enjoyed,
and when none of them made my heart sink
and when I experienced no pain,
then I knew I was free of them
and that I was clearing a new space
as big as my life, as big as the pasture
the lovers were linked on.

I am preparing a space for the loved one,
I know what she looks like already.
She looks like the dark-haired girl in blue
I only saw for a second, before her Spanish lover
smothered her.
Then, when I circled back on my bike, she was on top.
But I rode on, because my time will come
and meanwhile I'm preparing a space,
I am cutting the grass, for the loved one to walk on;
I am cleaning my heart, making my thoughts
unrancorous,
learning to be patient.
And if it should prove not to be in the end
a woman, not to be a human lover entering
after all, but something fuller and sadder, like the
world,
like God, I will only say, I suspected it all along.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: When She Sings

I’ve had this Neko Case song in my head
For hours

Hey when she sings when she sings when she sings like she runs
Moves like she runs

And I’ve been feeling homesick for something that doesn’t exist
For years

Go on, go on scream and cry
You’re miles from where anyone will find you

It’s okay, though, really
Mostly just that I keep wanting
A conversation
That I cannot have

Cause I was once told to write a letter
That cannot be sent

Hey when she moves, when she moves when she moves like she runs

We used to toy with these grandiose ideas
Of things that were gonna happen
(they never did happen)

And it makes me a little sad
I’m more than a little wistful

So I went to the coffee shop
And I bought a mint tea
You weren’t there
Because you’re never any where

Hey there there's such deadly wolves 'round town tonight
Round the town tonight

They gave me my tea
On a little dish
With a tiny spoon
And even cramped at the tiniest table
Leaning over my massive Joan Didion book
It was perfect even if it was not
The other chair would stay empty,
So I propped my foot on it

Oh how I forgot what it’s like

Overwhelmed, I flipped around
Read about migraines and Georgia O’Keefe
Until I couldn’t concentrate any more,
So I pulled out my red journal
And began frantic scribbles of thoughts

Trees break the sidewalk and the sidewalk skins my knees

There’s an empty spot on the wall
Where I knocked the record off
Now there’s only a nail, bare

In my head, I compared it to myself
Then scoffed at my own ridiculousness
Wanting to laugh with him again
About how dramatic I felt
But he wasn’t there either

The look on your face yanks my neck on the chain

Today I tried to picture you
Reading my writing
I was hoping you might smile
Praying you’d be proud

And I would do anything
To see you again

I didn’t have the answer
I haven’t written a letter
I couldn’t cry

So I just held my head high
Against the Chicago wind
My collar flipped up
My boots clacking on the sidewalk

And I smiled,
Even though the wind was cold
Against my face

Because I think that maybe, just maybe
That when I’m alone
I walk fast, head up high,
Just like you did.
Right at that thought,
A stranger passed me and smiled

I knew it’d be okay.

Hey when she sings when she sings when she sings like she runs
Moves like she runs

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: The Best of All My Days (O You)

ANIMALS
by Frank O'Hara

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Digressions

I was going to transcribe a Frank O'Hara poem for today's poetry slam,
but really, it's tonight, and tonight is almost tomorrow,
& I just wrote my last Groupon for the day
in bed with a heating pad
listening to Tori Amos, and only Tori,
for the first time in months & months.
I'm wearing my Sly shirt & forgot to take off
the wristband from Lauren's show
& I was going to type out O'Hara's DIGRESSION ON NUMBER I, 1948,
mostly because it starts with the line,
"I am ill today but I am not too ill/I am not ill at all"
which sums up everything & nothing
of my own day,
because I am ill today but not too ill,
& I might not be ill at all, really,
plus I'm not sure if I even get his second stanza
& as I started typing it I felt like a fraud
because I didn't know what a "complicated Metzinger"
was in the slightest
& right as I thought that, the book fell shut
& I reopened it to the wrong page,
instead to his poem
YOU ARE GORGEOUS AND I'M COMING
and I couldn't help but smile,
because I get that, if only that:

"yes it may be that dark and purifying wave, the death of boredom
nearing the heights themselves may destroy in the pure air
to be further complicated, confused, empty but refilling, exposed to light"

This isn't about you, so you probably won't care.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Inside This Prison of Words Unsaid

You remember my wife, right?


 

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: You Already Have Wings

I just realized that I've never posted a Rumi poem for the poetry slams, and that had to be rectified immediately.

Hopefully, you'll quickly see why. Happy Tuesday.

SUBLIME GENEROSITY

by Rumi

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.

He said, "You’re not mad enough.
You don’t belong in this house."

I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, "Still not wild enough
to stay with us!"

I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.

He said, "Its not enough."
I died.

He said, "You're a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting."

I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, "Now you are the candle
for this assembly."

But I’m no candle. Look!
I’m scattered smoke

He said, "You are the Sheikh, the guide."
But I’m not a teacher. I have no power.

He said, "You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings."

But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.

Then new events said to me,
"Don’t move. A sublime generosity is
coming towards you."

And old love said, "Stay with me."

I said, "I will."

You are the fountain of the sun’s light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
Changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

This comes of smiling back
at your smile.

The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.

That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Not Yet, But I Intend to Start Today

What the Doctor Said
By Raymond Carver

He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I'm real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: I Kept Hearing It

The Games We Play, or,

An Ode to Lana Del Rey (& Me)

This is where we met, he said,
Not looking, but looking,
Smiling at the joke they haven't said
It's too ridiculous,
It's nothing,
It's everything.
He said she was killing him,
She shook her head and said something smart,
But completely stupid.
Cause if she could,
She would have said:
'This is killing me
And I feel like a joke
Until you look at me and make me feel
Like me again'
Something whole, and real, and good.
The question
That lingered in the air between them

I wanted to know why he looked at me
Like that
When all I've done was nothing
and yet he says these things, but, still,
looks at me like that
like I could be, and I am,
the most exceptional woman on earth,
or at least this place,
where I sit alone
but surrounded
and feel you stare
only to realize you're not, at all,
so I hate you and want you
and wish we would just disappear
maybe "go play a video game" 
so I can only remind myself
maybe it is just a game
for two

and I listened to that damn song
I had told you to listen to
So many, many times
I kept hoping it would burn out
But it didn't
Instead I just kept hearing it.

It took my all not to weep
At the knowing.

You know it, too.
So let's keep it like this:
The joke we've never said
Cause it's on us.



It’s not even the same table these days,
but still I cling to the notion
that I have an idea what’s going on
when I don’t, I don’t,
I don't know anything at all.
like Lizzy Grant sang,

“I was born bad, but then I met you,
you made me nice for awhile,
but my dark side’s true”

We all do what we have to do.
'Whiskey on my tongue'
And I do think it's kinda fun,
but I'm flat outta luck, too.
She puts a sparkle in your eye
where I keep extinguishing the flame.

Sylvia wrote that
“we should meet in another life
we should meet in air, me and you”
I love that bit
(don’t you?)

Oh, baby, I want you, I want you.

It’s hysterical, really,
when you consider all the facts.
how am I supposed to get to that cloud?
it’s like writing in the tub
holding pen and paper mid-air.
my bubble bath cost $22
and I couldn’t even afford that Tecate

I ran the bathwater too hot
sweat was pulsing down my temples
(‘you’re no good for me/
but baby I want you, I want you, I want you’)
Still, I refuse to get out.
Not yet.
I paid for this shit.

Just let me soak in it,
won't you?



Lana, or can I call you Lizzy?
I hope you’ll be in love forever.
Maybe we'll be in love forever.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: The Catastrophe of My Personality

A glass of red wine and Frank O'Hara. I highly recommend it. This poem, in particular. I'd say it makes me want to cry, but that's too obvious, huh. But God! The way he talks about his "wounded beauty" makes my heart aflutter, too.

I often wait for "for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting."

Perhaps I am myself again. Words!

MAYAKOVSKY

By Frank O'Hara

1
My heart’s aflutter!
I am standing in the bath tub
crying. Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.

2
I love you. I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.

Words! be
sick as I am sick, swoon,
roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare down
at my wounded beauty
which at best is only a talent
for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win
what a poet!
and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.
I embrace a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.

3
That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest
oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks
what a funny place to rupture!
and now it is raining on the ailanthus
as I step out onto the window ledge
the tracks below me are smoky and
glistening with a passion for running
I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

4
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Taped to the Wall of My Cell

Today's (multimedia!) poetry slam comes courtesy of my brother Jay, who sent me this poem by the prison poet, Etheridge Knight. Not sure if "prison poet" is really the proper term here, but Knight wrote a book of poetry while serving an eight-year stint in the Indiana State Prison, so if not proper, it's at least accurate.



For all you poetry slam traditionalists, read the full poem here.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Using All Our Words

My friend Mike sent me this poem last week—a bit of inspiration as I embarked on my writing experiment—and I am in love with it. Enjoy.

The Quiet World
By Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

Do you write poems? Do you read poems? How about you send me one, and maybe it'll be on the next poetry slam! NEAT! Email me at alisonhamm@gmail.com or get in touch on the Tweeter.

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Cubicle Craze

Welcome to the Cubicle
Back to back
For hours
In this weird space
No windows or doors
Can't even sneeze in private
typing, typing, typing

Wonder if you knew
That if you turned around
At the right moment
You might catch my life on the screen
Maybe see me trying not to fall into the monitor

Back to back
For hours
Push your chair too far & run over a foot
Majority of my waking hours
Staring into a corner and a monitor

There's a wall of Post-its
And a phone that might be a prop
A printout of Prince
LOLs and Purell and Scotch tape and Pez

This is the cubicle.

How's the back of my head today?


And for poetic relief, a poem by Joyce Carol Oates!

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: Seared in a Flame

Bring Me In Under Your Wing
Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Odessa, early 20th c.

Bring me in under your wing,
    be sister for me, and mother,
the place of you, rest for my head,
     a nest for my unwanted prayers.

At the hour of mercy, at dusk,
    we'll talk of my secret pain:
They say, there's youth in the world—
    What happened to mine?

And another thing, a clue:
    my being was seared in a flame.
They say there's love all around—
   What do they mean?

The stars betrayed me–there
    was a dream, which also has passed.
Now in the world I have nothing,
     not a thing.

Bring me in under your wing,
    be sister for me, and mother,
the place of you, rest for my head,
     a nest for my unwanted prayers.

—Translated from Hebrew by Peter Cole

From "Five Poems of Kabbalah," Various Authors, The Paris Review, Spring 2011 No. 196