lunchboxpoems

[lunchboxpoems]

KAT GIORDANO

#kat giordano #dog poem #poem #poetry #poetry month

[lunchboxpoems]

WHEN MY DEAD FATHER CALLED

Last night I dreamt my father called to us.

He was stuck somewhere. It took us

A long time to dress, I don't know why.

The night was snowy; there were long black roads.

Finally, we reached the little town, Bellingham.

There he stood, by a streetlamp in cold wind,

Snow blowing along the sidewalk. I noticed

The uneven sort of shoes that men wore

In the early Forties. And overalls. He was smoking.

Why did it take us so long to get going? Perhaps

He left us somewhere once, or did I simply

Forget he was alone in winter in some town?

ROBERT BLY

#Robert bly #poem #poetry #father poem #poetry month

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M SOLEDAD CABALLERO

#m Soledad caballero #poem #poetry #poetry month

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LOVE POEM, WITH BIRDS

They are your other flame. Your world

begins and ends with the dawn chorus,

a plaint of saw-whet owl, and in between,

the seven different neotropical warblers

you will see on your walk to the mailbox.

It takes a while. I know now not to worry.

Once I resented your wandering eye that 

flew away mid-sentence, chasing any raft

of swallows. I knew, as we sat on the porch 

unwinding the cares of our days, you were 

listening to me through a fine mesh of oriole,

towhee, flycatcher. I said it was like kissing

through a screen door: You’re not all here.

But who could be more present than a man

with the patience of sycamores, showing me

the hummingbird’s nest you’ve spied so high 

in a tree, my mortal eye can barely make out 

the lichen-dabbed knot on an elbow of branch.

You will know the day her nestlings leave it.

The wonder is that such an eye, that lets not

even the smallest sparrow fall from notice,

beholds me also. That I might walk the currents

of our days with red and golden feathers

in my hair, my plain tongue laced with music.

That we, the birds and I, may be text and

illumination in your book of common prayer.

BARBARA KINGSOLVER

#barbara kingsolver #poem #poetry #birds #bird poem #love poem #poetry month

[lunchboxpoems]

TO BE BRAVE, I LOOK TO THE DAFFODIL

To be brave, I look to the daffodil. A stupid flower, I’ve always thought – too eager to enter a world not fully thawed. Shrinking  after just one cold night. I surround myself with pluck. Always one for adventure: running naked  across campus into a stranger’s car as rite of passage, jumping into the freezing bay. Hitchhiking home but afraid to speak in class. To order in my mother’s tongue, my mother’s food. I let the dark take on its own shapes, unchecked. No, I am not brave, but I like the people who are. Who never overprepare or let their anxieties  stop them. For whom things always work out.  I’m chasing the high from one novelty to another, wanting adventure but so unwilling to find it on my own. Instead, I lose myself in people who live unafraid. Bravery by osmosis. This might be the truest thing I say today and it scares me. To admit that on my own, I was never wild. All this time I thought the daffodil’s dropped  petals, the green leaves that remained, marked an ending.  But underground she is rebuilding for next spring.  For when she’ll dare, again, to push through the frostbitten earth. Year after year, it goes on like this.

SUSAN NGUYEN

#susan nguyen #poem #poetry #spring poem #daffodils

[lunchboxpoems]

#poem #poetry #sadness

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[lunchboxpoems]

THE WORLD

I thought that you were an anchor in the drift of the world; but no: there isn't an anchor anywhere. There isn't an anchor in the drift of the world. Oh no. I thought you were. Oh no. The drift of the world.

WILLIAM BRONK

#william bronk #poem #poetry

[lunchboxpoems]

#joseph fasano #poem #poetry month

[lunchboxpoems]

#poetry #poetry month

[lunchboxpoems]

HANIF ABDURRAQIB

#hanif abdurraqib #not poetry #grief

[lunchboxpoems]

I ONLY LOVE YOU MORE BECAUSE THE WORLD IS ENDING

The news isn't good, and neither of us feels

like pretending, though the list of what we hope for

grows longer by the day. More news, good

or otherwise, everything witnessed by the light

of fires, and something we cherished always

burned away. So let me say this first: Brenda,

I love you. You make the world more beautiful--

how could I not love you for that? There are people

I'd die for, only they are not my children.

What I really mean is there are people I live for,

and if they died, I'd feel for a time out of time

with time. But I know as you do that endings are

upon us while love goes on starting over and over.

What this means lately is that each time I watch

a fly that thought it wanted to be inside try

with the whole measure of itself to get back out--

when the concussive sound gets to be too much,

I open every window in the house. If not for me,

if not for my life, then for those people I keep

finding my way deeper into life by loving. If not

for me, then for you and your children, Brenda.

But you ask if all of this pain hinders our capacity

to feel, and of course, we have to ask ourselves

because it's wise to put words to what drives us,

to say thirst

when the throat tugs the shirttails

of the mind and grief

when it leadens its surface.

If I'm going to lose--I can see that I am now--

let me at last be what I was made to be and say,

my only gift was that I was never afraid to love,

and love, I've never been more afraid.

BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY

#brenda shaughnessy #poem #poetry

[lunchboxpoems]

MARY OLIVER

#mary oliver #poem #poetry #dog poem #dog poetry #dogs

[lunchboxpoems]

AFTER WE TRY TO SWITCH OUR HEARTS BACK ON

There are no mountains in Ohio so, on Sundays, I take my heart out for a drive. We speed a little. I rush the hills fast so I feel them in my throat. Later, I let someone kiss my mouth. Brandi Carlile’s voice breaks on the record player and I buy all the strawberries I can find because they are furious and red and beautiful. In the evening, we dance around the kitchen — dogs shaking off rain. I wear a little black dress for the first time in 8 months. My heart cracks like an egg. The world spins so loudly now. In the swim- ming pool, the checkout line, the middle of the street, I want to ask — is it over? Are we different? What happens now?

JOY SULLIVAN

#joy sullivan #poem #poetry #poetry month

[lunchboxpoems]

THE SKY KEEPS SURPRISES

the wound is bleeding into white

the wound is threading clouds

across the eye, across its view

            and how can it be

                       that I am

caught

            by the end of this road

by the beginning of a faraway

flame

            off guard

                       I find my steps

going back and forth on pavement

in the middle of the street

                                     a follower

of clouds

            a sort of

                       clown

does anybody see?

            against this view, why

do I feel

            myself

            invisible and invincible

a leaking thing at times

            there among the buildings

and windows

            all above my head

            I could be seen

a fool

            and

                       I am I am.

AHMAD ALMALLAH

#ahmad alhmallah #poem #poetry

[lunchboxpoems]

A STATEMENT FROM NO ONE, INCORPORATED

“what is it when a death is ruled a homicide but no one is responsible for it”—Hanif Abdurraqib We are not responsible. We have not the capacity to respond, cannot take your call, are not obliged. We promise nothing in return except that we will return, asking that the potential profit this lost life’s labor could have produced be accounted for, and blaming our Black dead president for the deficit. We are deficient and without your damage the world is difficult work to live on. We live on the unanswerable, assert that acknowledgment is inartistic, history is regressive, and aggression looks like no one we know. No one is responsible while we have the luxury to see ourselves as infinite ones, ocean of individual possibility. We are so many blades in the yard the wind runs screaming invisibly through. We need to have a deeper dialogue about the need for deeper dialogue, but oh oh, we are always these spondees of speechlessness and cannot process your request, are too busy about our dreams. The celestial bodies appear from here, ripe for colonies and more questions. We are over earthly inquiry and unfortunately, though your sigh traveled light-years from the dark matter of gravity we’re intrigued to find you now are, we will not see you today (we are recessed on narrowing beaches, toasting our gods with a wellsprung red we cannot source but are confident the year was relatively good), but here, for your trouble, for coming so far:

JUSTIN PHILLIP REED

#justin phillip reed #poem #poetry

[lunchboxpoems]

SWEETHEARTS

One day

either you

or me

as if drugged

will be staring

at a collage

of photos

in an unfamiliar

foyer,

the other

sleeping

in the next room over

inside a shiny box

like a saw-in-half trick

where everyone

seated in rows

is waiting for something

to happen.

I know

I’ll be stuck

in that first room

where old friends

who knew

you briefly

but remember your smile

will hang out,

away from family.

I’ll be there,

almost

out the door,

alone

waiting as if for you

to come out

of the bathroom,

so we could

stand again

like we did our entire lives,

together

in the darkest corners,

making

dirty jokes,

not knowing what to say

to sadness,

eager to leave

when nobody’s

looking,

out across

a silver parking lot

like geese

breaking off

a lake.

C. L. O’DELL

#cl odell #poetry #love poem #poem #grief #marriage poem #funeral poem