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A Poem Written in Replication of My Father's Unfinished Novel Which He Would Read to Hs Children Whenever He Was Drunk

Indian summer. Leaves fallen from government trees. They remind me of sex. My mother and father dead. My father fell at Okinawa, shot by a Japanese sniper. I do not hate the Japanese. My lover is Japanese. She reminds me of sex. Pregnant, my mother coughed blood into paper tissue. She died two weeks after I was born. Now my Japanese lover is pregnant. She whispers stories to her stomach about a small island in the Pacific where her father killed an American soldier during the war. My lover and I wonder aloud if her father killed my father. We shiver in the heat of it. It reminds us of sex. After my parents died, I lived with my aunt, who had enough money to send me to Catholic school. I was the only Indian who went to Catholic school on purpose. I learned to play piano. I jitterbugged with Catholic girls and their pale thighs. They smelled like sex. I fell in love with all of them. I learned chord after chord. Sex. Often, these days, I stand at the window of my reservation home while my Japanese lover sleeps alone in the scattered bed. She is pregnant. Her father and mother live with the dead in Hiroshima. My father and mother are also dead. Piano. Chord after chord. Island. That Window. This Window. One Indian boy runs blindly through the trees. A shadow falls over everything. Sex. Leaf, faith. Glass. If I stand at this window long enough I will see the long thread of history float randomly through the breeze. This is all I know about peace.

— Sherman Alexie, One Stick Song (2000)

#A Poem Written in Replication of My Father's Unfinished Novel Which He Would Read to Hs Children Whenever He Was Drunk #Sherman Alexie #One Stick Song #poetry #writing #literature #poets on tumblr #WWII #WW2 #Indian #Native American #American Indian

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Migration, 1902

The salmon swim so thick in this river that Grandmother walks across the water on the bridge of their spines.

— Sherman Alexie, One Stick Song (2000)

#Migration 1902 #Migration #Sherman Alexie #One Stick Song #poetry #writing #literature #poets on tumblr #Native American #Indian #American Indian

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[untitled poem] (1856)

Don’t believe it, my friend, don’t believe it When in a fit of grief I say that I stopped loving you— Don't trust the low tide, don't trust the betrayal of the sea, It returns to the earth, loving. I'm already sad, full of the same passion, I will give you my freedom again— And the waves are already running, with their opposite noise, From afar to your favorite shores. Don't believe it, my friend, don't believe it, Don't believe it, my friend, don't believe it When in a fit of grief I say that I stopped loving you— Don't trust the low tide, don't trust the betrayal of the sea, It returns to the earth, loving.

— Aleksey Tolstoy, adapted by Pyotr Tchaikovsky in his 6 Romances, Op. 6 (source)

#Tolstoy #Aleksey Tolstoy #poetry #writing #literature #romantic era #1850s #Tchaikovsky

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Levels of Meaning

—for Stephen Kessler a woman burns. the woman in the house burning a woman outside watches the flames the woman who writes about the woman in the house who burned the woman who reads about the woman in the house who burned the rich woman who funds fire departments the stalwart woman who raises funds to help the families of women burned in fires the women who have burn scars having survived to lecture on the value of fire safety the woman who threatens to burn the woman seer who predicts a slow & painful burning the woman who says, "help. i'm on fire." the professional woman firefighter the woman who builds hearths of cold stone the woman who warms herself by fire the woman who eats fire the woman who takes the fire out of her lovers the woman everyone fears because she's made of fire

— Wanda Coleman, Bathwater Wine (1998)

#Levels of Meaning #Wanda Coleman #Bathwater Wine #poetry #writing #literature #poets on tumblr

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Regurgitations

he is rotting on the roadside he smells of shit and sangria they say someone cut him a new smile after they relieved him of his nose they say he was pushed from a skyscraper in New York they say his mother has taken him back to her womb they say he strangled on the vomit of false rumors they say his killer, also his lover lingered over his corpse they say that the dark birds flying away with his flesh in their beaks and claws will become his children

— Wanda Coleman, Bathwater Wine (1998)

#Regurgitations #Wanda Coleman #Bathwater Wine #poetry #writing #literature #poets on tumblr

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A Rage Revivified

bones bearing the weight of bones the suicides have returned sailor's knots & nooses are undone they climb down from stubby-legged stools, seize bolted doors by their knobs fling them open drink the heat of hungry things the pills jump whole from the trembling palm, which becomes a fist, back into the bottle like a spent jinn bullets gone listless drop bloodfree to backshed floors wrists glisten return notepaper & apologies to letter drawers uncut, as immaculate as the razor's gleam something strident has been remembered bursts thru the muddied window so strong it liberates the lungs from the enormity of gas the suicides are risen revolt on Main Street / a riot of rebuffed silences the suicides are raise-fisted reach deep into foam-stained pockets bash the merciless with algae-covered stones

— Wanda Coleman, Bathwater Wine (1998)

#A Rage Revivified #Wanda Coleman #Bathwater Wine #poetry #writing #literature #protest poem #poets on tumblr

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(not the sun. but the fuzzy glint of former light captured briefly in boot leather mid-tample

— from "American Sonnet 81", by Wanda Coleman, Bathwater Wine (1998)

#American Sonnets #American Sonnet 81 #Wanda Coleman #Bathwater Wine #poetry #quotes #excerpts #poetry on tumblr #poets on tumblr #literature

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American Sonnet 47.

—after Ugo Foscolo my adolescent fatherland is plagued by fear's outbreak pustules of public mendaciousness erupt like boils on godhead. i would medicate it—urge maturity—soothe with a balm of tears and heartbane. but i moan alone in my sinkhole, scribble insanely the whole telling, how my mind, leveled again and again, has been rebuilt in splendor over traffic-ridden squalor and liquor dens. i have been touched by The Sacred and The Bard yet fail to ease my melancholy soul with psalm, erasing and rewriting and erasing until all light is extinguished in an avalanche of paper, beneath the rubble my arthritic clawings toward what? the day has arrived when the blind beggar strays through the plain of smokes, gropes among the dead whose pain is not assuaged, makes her way into the crypt, takes an urn to her lips, consumes ash for nourishment

— Wanda Coleman, Bathwater Wine (1998)

#American Sonnets #American Sonnet 47 #Wanda Coleman #Ugo Foscolo #poetry #writing #literature #poets on tumblr #Bathwater Wine #Bath Water Wine #slam poetry #sonnet

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Questions About Angels

Of all the questions you might want to ask about angels, the only one you ever hear is how many can dance on the head of a pin. No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit o earth or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge. Do they fly through God's body and come out singing? Do they swing like children from the hinges of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards? Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors? What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes, their diet of unfiltered divine light? What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall these tall presences can look over and see hell? If an angel fell off a cloud would he leave a hole in a river and would the hole float along endlessly filled with the silent letters of every angelic word? If an angel delivered the mail would he arrive in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume the appearance of the regular mailman and whistle up the driveway reading the postcards? No, the medieval theologians control the court. The only question you ever hear is about the little dance floor on the head of the pin where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly. It is designed to make us think in millions, billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one: one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet, a small jazz combo working in the background. She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over to glance at his watch because she has been dancing forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

— Billy Collins, Questions About Angels (1999)

#Questions About Angels #Billy Collins #poetry #writing #literature #how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? #angels

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The Hunt

Somewhere in the rolling hills and farm country that lie beyond speech Noah Webster and his assistants are moving across the landscape tracking down a new word. It is a small noun about the size of a mouse, one that will be seldom used by anyone, like a synonym for isthmus, but they are pursuing the creature zealously as if it were the verb to be, swinging their sticks and calling out to one another as they wade through a field of waist-high barley.

— Billy Collins, Questions About Angels (1999)

#The Hunt #Billy Collins #Questions About Angels #poetry #writing #literature #synonyms #Webster's Dictionary #Noah Webster

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After Botticelli's "Birth of Venus"

Aphrodite, foam-born, blown shoreward on her wide shell with the breeze tickling her bottom and a large crowd gathered on the beach to greet and gawk. The authorities there, too— men with large batons, trained in mob control. 　　　　　　　Someone selling hot dogs and souvenir brochures of the obvious. Meanwhile the goddess herself has that blissed-out, postcoital expression that indicates she's not all there—were she a boxer with a decent manager he'd recognize that look; right now he'd be tossing in the towel, reaching for a bright silk robe to wrap his pal.

— Gregory Orr, We Must Make a Kingdom of It (1986)

#We Must Make a Kingdom of It #After Botticelli's Birth of Venus #Gregory Orr #poetry #writing #literature #Botticelli #Birth of Venus #mythology #renaissance #boxing

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Interview with a Falling Angel

You should know—this human form I have: I'm only passing through on my way to lesser things; my ultimate goal's to become a stale breadcrumb that's the object of delight for a mouse gathering its hasty treasure while the cat prowls the upper floors. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 You see, I'm God's voice practicing a descending scale. When He hits the lowest note—watch out.

— Gregory Orr, We Must Make a Kingdom of It (1986)

#Interview with a Falling Angel #We Must Make a Kingdom of It #Gregory Orr #poetry #writing #literature #angels #god #mouse #1980s

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A Toast

A branch smooth as the rubbed foot of Saint Peter, puce, porous, rinsed by wind. Clean spear of a skeleton. Bridge of a Roman nose. Cask of air. When I walk into that croft, the trees at my back like a reredos carved by rain, then the day could pour like ouzo into my crystal thimble— a shot of air for friendship, a bar of bleached light for the necklace of stones strung on the chalky ridges— a blackbird smearing the trees for our daughters in the alizarin of day. Then, a swallow could hook its neck on a rafter, a hawk mistake a lure for God and Country, I wouldn't know— my shot glass a splintered flock of feathers in the wind.

— Peter Balakian, June-tree: New and Selected Poems (2001)

#A Toast #Peter Balakian #June Tree #New and Selected Poems #poetry #writing #literature

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Modern poetic translation of the 14th-century anonymous poem The Pearl

#The Pearl #Pearl Manuscript #Pearl Poet #translations #medieval poetry #14th century #Middle English #medieval #middle ages

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PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.

you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.

to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.

to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.

if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. but you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)

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I, too, was clad in a black robe, but neither a priest nor an ordinary man of this world was I, for I wavered ceaselessly like a bat that passes for a bird at one time and for a mouse at another.

— from A Visit to Kashima Shrine, Matsuo Bashō, transl. Nobuyuki Yuasa

#Basho #Bashō #Nobuyuki Yuasa #A Visit to Kashima Shrine #poetry #travelogue #quotes #excerpts

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28.

Another haiku? Yet more cherry blossoms— not my face.

— Bashō, On Love and Barley (translated by Lucien Stryk)

#Basho #Bashō #poetry #haiku #Japan #spring #literature #poets on tumblr #Lucien Stryk