Month: September 2008

Posted on by Teju Cole

Shifting Load

a letter from Teju Cole

Nature: in the dream
it sounds like a thump,
a guest rapping
the floor boards from below.

Raccoon, groundhog,
milk snake in the walls,
the sound of summer
perfecting its two-step.

Country cousin,
I work a two-strand braid,
from outside in—
culture na yarn, na jolly

wey man dey take carry
burden for him head,
nature come dey help am
comot the load again.

The Soul Washer
protects another’s life.
Born the same week-day
as the Asante king,

he wears around his neck
a disc of solid gold—
the disc absorbs all evil
lofted at the king—

gold and man agree
to carry such a load.
Nature thumps again—
let me out or let me in,

the sound of summer
perfecting its two-step—
raccoon, groundhog,
milk snake in the walls.

Download the MP3

© Teju Cole 2008

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Back to School (coda)

Lincoln School 1

You never noticed the fine
print on the box
your school arrived in:
some disassembly required.
It’s a learning experience, though,
no doubt. First
you must discard all the memories
in separate, government-
approved locations,
then extract your transcripts as if
they were nests of copper wire
& lengths of pipe
to be shipped off to China.
The bricks must be given passing grades
so they can advance
to the next life. Then
you will find a small, bar-coded label
on the bottom step.
This will be your history.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Confessions of an Invisible Penis

I’m here for you, baby — right
out of reach. I throb in sync
with the cycles of the moon.
When you wake in the night & hear
a faint dripping, that’s me,
marking territory in the linen closet.

Oh what a friend you have
in Penis: a faithful familiar,
easy to love despite my wet nose
& my habit of poking it in every
secret thing. Walk with me.
Can you feel it growing taut,
my invisible leash?

I am the jewel in your lotus,
the genie in your bottle,
waiting for just the right rub.
Still your heart, empty your mind
& I’ll come, granting all
your clearly superfluous wishes.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Back to School

no job to big

I enter town by an alley off the railroad adjoining the parking lot for G&R Excavating and Demolition — “The Professional Homewreckers,” they call themselves. “No Job to Big or Small.” Sic. Walking into town on a quiet Sunday morning to use my sister-in-law’s computer, my route takes me along the railroad tracks and under I-99, where the 35-year-old overpass is undergoing extensive reconstruction. Workers have wrapped the massive steel girders with chainlink fence and covered that with burlap. It reminds me of a pupating caterpillar, the difference being of course that when it emerges from its chrysalis it will still be a highway bridge. I glance back at the end of our mountain, and see that it’s topped by a wisp of cloud that belies its diminuitive elevation: the sun-struck forest exhaling into the crisp morning air.
Continue reading “Back to School”

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Rockin’ new links

International Rock-Flipping Day, September 2, 2007 International Rock-Flipping Day 2008 is now only a week away: Sunday, September 7 (with an alternate date for public schools on the preceding Friday, September 5th). If you missed IRFD 2007, or have forgotten how much fun that was, my mother’s nature column for September will tell you all about it.

Please help spread the word. For more information, see the complete Rock-Flipping Day file.

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Festival of the Trees #27 is up.

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Postal Poetry shifts to a M-W-F posting schedule, starting today with a postcard from Tom Montag and Marja-Leena Rathje, “blue.”

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After briefly alighting at WordPress.com, the dynamic group of female online poets calling themselves the Poetry Collaborative have settled into beautiful new digs at thepoetrycollaborative.org. This is an exciting, ground-breaking site: where else can you watch collaboratively written poems grow by the day and by the hour, and be privy to side discussions between the authors? Start following the PoCo now and you should have clear bragging rights in six months or so. Because it’s gonna be huge, the Huffington Post of the poetry blogosphere. You read it here first.