Category: Poems & poem-like things

Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)

Posted on by Laura M Kaminski

Reflection

Don’t wrap your frame
in other fabrics, disguise
yourself with fig leaves,

don’t paint your face
before you face the world
in the morning; scrub it.

Don’t yield to pressure
to impress with who and
what you are; instead,

unlock the tinderbox
and find the spark, discover
what’s within you that’s

awaiting recognition. Take
your skeleton, grant it
permission to emerge

wearing no more than
flesh, remove the drapes
you’ve used to cover up

the mirror, release it
from its hook and tilt it,
for a moment dare

to catch your own
reflection, be lit by every
flicker and gleam.


After/inspired by the following poems on Via Negativa: “Arguments with destiny: 14” by Luisa A. Igloria, “False Idols” by Kristen-Berkley-Abbott, and “Portuguese error” by Oswald de Andrade, trans. Natalie d’Arbeloff.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Arguments with destiny: 15

“How did I get to be this jellied substance
moaning between two worlds?”

(“¿Cómo me hice gelatina y sustancia
gemido entre este mundo y el otro?”)

~ from Génesis doméstico / My Private Genesis by Teresa Calderón, trans. Jean Morris

When I come back in another life can it be
as child, not as mother? I want to be

the one whose growing shape unseen hands
palpate during those months of expectancy—

The one whose newly fluting ears show up,
smudged triangles on the ultrasound.

And immediately thereafter’s an excuse
to go shopping for a small speaker

to hold nearest the flesh that houses,
through which the notes of Grieg’s

“Holberg Suite” or an Albeniz tango
might be poured… Instead of the one

who feeds, can I be the one who’ll wake
through the night, hungry, always hungry

for the moon’s blue milk, then dandled
like a bud on a thin green stem?

The corridor through which I’m pulled
is narrow and mud-spattered;

the coat of vernix that I wear,
beginning to thin in patches. Then

finally the hoist or catch as I emerge:
wet, wordless, wobbly, wailing—

Thoroughly at the world’s mercy, body
of cells divided, delivered for mothering.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Genesis domestico....

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Angler

(Lord’s day). To church in the morning and home to dinner, where come my brother Tom and Mr. Fisher, my cozen, Nan Pepys’s second husband, who, I perceive, is a very good-humoured man, an old cavalier. I made as much of him as I could, and were merry, and am glad she hath light of so good a man. They gone, to church again; but my wife not being dressed as I would have her, I was angry, and she, when she was out of doors in her way to church, returned home again vexed. But I to church, Mr. Mills, an ordinary sermon. So home, and found my wife and Sarah gone to a neighbour church, at which I was not much displeased. By and by she comes again, and, after a word or two, good friends. And then her brother came to see her, and he being gone she told me that she believed he was married and had a wife worth 500l. to him, and did inquire how he might dispose the money to the best advantage, but I forbore to advise her till she could certainly tell me how things are with him, being loth to meddle too soon with him. So to walk upon the leads, and to supper, and to bed.

A morning to fish:
as much light as
a found church.
No other money but lead.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 15 June 1662.

Posted on by Jean Morris

Génesis doméstico / My Private Genesis by Teresa Calderón

This entry is part 8 of 38 in the series Poetry from the Other Americas

Teresa CalderónBorn in 1955 in Chile to a family of writers and of the Left, Teresa Calderón produced nine collections of poetry between 1979 and 2009, as well as editing — with her poet husband Tomás Harris and poet sister Lila Calderón — several significant anthologies of Chilean poetry. She’s also the author of many novels. She writes often and powerfully of female experience, but refuses identification with feminism. In recent years she’s expressed disillusion with the Centre-Left coalition governments that returned Chile to democracy after the coup and dictatorship that overshadowed her early adulthood, in particular with their policies — or lack of policies — for arts and culture.


My Private Genesis

There in the watery vault
each half of my genetic code was reaching out
A tiny ovum having yielded to insistent sperm
was waiting for the darkest night
the silence right before the miracle
The cell now fertile opened like a flower
and I began becoming hair and nails and skin
A feeling blinking
floating mass
thumb-sucking through the sleepless nights
of journeying to human form
What flash of fear shot through my brain
as the expulsion from my paradise began?
Who gave me breath to undertake the crossing
from the wide-open tunnel
between my mother’s bloody legs?
How did I get to be this jellied substance
moaning between two worlds?
Naked and crying where I skidded to a halt
my skin all bruised the rope around my neck
and this dark mark upon my brow
Naked and crying
my first dawn with sightless eyes
the lighthouse beam the moon still in the sky
Like a flower decomposing underground
I shall return to the beloved city I was forced to leave
naked and crying tumbling foetus-like in fateful waters
growing long roots towards rebirth

Génesis doméstico

En la bóveda acuosa
se buscaban las mitades de mi información genética
Un óvulo pequeño rendido al apremio del espermio
esperaba la noche más oscura
el silencio que precede al milagro
Fecundada la célula se abrió como una flor
y empecé a volverme pelo uñas piel
sensaciones y pestañas
Una masa flotante
se mordía el pulgar en las noches de insomnio
acercándose a la apariencia humana
¿Qué ráfaga de miedo me atravesó el cerebro
cuando empezó la expulsión del paraíso?
¿Quién me dio el aliento para iniciar la travesía
desde el túnel abierto
entre las piernas sangrantes de mi madre?
¿Cómo me hice gelatina y sustancia
gemido entre este mundo y el otro?
Desnuda y llorando dónde vine a parar
con la piel amoratada la soga al cuello
y esta marca oscura sobre la frente
Desnuda y llorando
mi primera madrugada los ojos ciegos
el faro y una luna abierta en el cielo
Regresaré como esa flor que se deshace bajo tierra
a la ciudad amada que me obligó a partir
desnuda y llorando dando tumbos fetales en el agua fatal
alargada en raíces para volver a nacer

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Arguments with destiny: 14

“— I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t know if I’m staying
or passing through.”

(“— não sei, não sei. Não sei se fico
ou passo.”) ~ “Motive,” Cecília Meireles, trans. Natalie d’Arbeloff

The printed dress is in the bag,
its tag attached, its pleats
turned over for return

or for exchange: what’ll catch
the eye instead? Peacock
swirls or ombre tones,

soft drapes of fabric will dissolve
in too much bleach or too much sun
—So many skins, and only one

frame on which to try them all,
with which to alter the outline of
that figure journeying in the void.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Contrary Moon: Three poems by Cecilia Meireles.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Sheriff

Up by four o’clock in the morning and upon business at my office. Then we sat down to business, and about 11 o’clock, having a room got ready for us, we all went out to the Tower-hill; and there, over against the scaffold, made on purpose this day, saw Sir Henry Vane brought. A very great press of people. He made a long speech, many times interrupted by the Sheriff and others there; and they would have taken his paper out of his hand, but he would not let it go. But they caused all the books of those that writ after him to be given the Sheriff; and the trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might not be heard.
Then he prayed, and so fitted himself, and received the blow; but the scaffold was so crowded that we could not see it done. But Boreman, who had been upon the scaffold, came to us and told us, that first he began to speak of the irregular proceeding against him; that he was, against Magna Charta, denied to have his exceptions against the indictment allowed; and that there he was stopped by the Sheriff. Then he drew out his, paper of notes, and begun to tell them first his life; that he was born a gentleman, that he was bred up and had the quality of a gentleman, and to make him in the opinion of the world more a gentleman, he had been, till he was seventeen years old, a good fellow, but then it pleased God to lay a foundation of grace in his heart, by which he was persuaded, against his worldly interest, to leave all preferment and go abroad, where he might serve God with more freedom. Then he was called home, and made a member of the Long Parliament; where he never did, to this day, any thing against his conscience, but all for the glory of God. Here he would have given them an account of the proceedings of the Long Parliament, but they so often interrupted him, that at last he was forced to give over: and so fell into prayer for England in generall, then for the churches in England, and then for the City of London: and so fitted himself for the block, and received the blow. He had a blister, or issue, upon his neck, which he desired them not hurt: he changed not his colour or speech to the last, but died justifying himself and the cause he had stood for; and spoke very confidently of his being presently at the right hand of Christ; and in all, things appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner, and showed more of heat than cowardize, but yet with all humility and gravity. One asked him why he did not pray for the King. He answered, “Nay,” says he, “you shall see I can pray for the King: I pray God bless him!”
The King had given his body to his friends; and, therefore, he told them that he hoped they would be civil to his body when dead; and desired they would let him die like a gentleman and a Christian, and not crowded and pressed as he was.
So to the office a little, and so to the Trinity-house all of us to dinner; and then to the office again all the afternoon till night. So home and to bed. This day, I hear, my Lord Peterborough is come unexpected from Tangier, to give the King an account of the place, which, we fear, is in none of the best condition. We had also certain news to-day that the Spaniard is before Lisbon with thirteen sail; six Dutch, and the rest his own ships; which will, I fear, be ill for Portugall.
I writ a letter of all this day’s proceedings to my Lord, at Hinchingbroke, who, I hear, is very well pleased with the work there.

The sheriff is scaffold and crowd,
a born gentleman with never
anything against his conscience
and a city of desire.

The right hand of Christ
appeared on his body
like night on a sail.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 14 June 1662.

Posted on by Kristin Berkey-Abbott

False Idols

“Every few months we thin
the coffers in our temples.”
Arguments with destiny: 12 by Luisa A. Igloria

We worship the god
of self-improvement plans, that idol
made of the gold of all our hopes
for lives changed
by exercising more, losing weight,
adding this, subtracting
that, these plans cost.

We thin our coffers
at the temples of our false
gods. Instead of potluck
suppers, we go to one more workout or work
late in our fluorescent offices.

We have banished
the other prophets who declared
a different gospel of improving
ourselves by purifying our souls.
Let those prophets preach
to the wind-scoured landscapes.
Let them eat locusts for lunch.
We shall dine on food cultivated organically,
We shall drink wines made with grapes
grown in a far away soil.

Only late at night, our electronics
silenced, do we hear
that still, small voice
that declares all of creation
to be good and very good,
perfection inherent in our beings,
that small flickering pilot light of grace.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Arguments with destiny: 13

“that sudden back-country…” ~ D. Bonta

You can’t take it with you, therefore let’s use it all up.
Let’s open every can of condensed soup, not even heat them up.

Slowly but surely, let’s make our way down every bag
of sugar in the house. The flour’s almost all used up.

The commercial said Love does not comfort. Perhaps not by itself
is what they mean; perhaps the top of the piano must come up.

Heat loves the shade and the birds haven’t finished off all the berries
on the bush— Come eat and stain your mouth after the wash is put up.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Correspondence.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Contingency

Up by 4 o’clock in the morning, and read Cicero’s Second Oration against Catiline, which pleased me exceedingly; and more I discern therein than ever I thought was to be found in him; but I perceive it was my ignorance, and that he is as good a writer as ever I read in my life.
By and by to Sir G. Carteret’s, to talk with him about yesterday’s difference at the office; and offered my service to look into any old books or papers that I have, that may make for him. He was well pleased therewith, and did much inveigh against Mr. Coventry; telling me how he had done him service in the Parliament, when Prin had drawn up things against him for taking of money for places; that he did at his desire, and upon his, letters, keep him off from doing it. And many other things he told me, as how the King was beholden to him, and in what a miserable condition his family would be, if he should die before he hath cleared his accounts. Upon the whole, I do find that he do much esteem of me, and is my friend, and I may make good use of him.
Thence to several places about business, among others to my brother’s, and there Tom Beneere the barber trimmed me.
Thence to my Lady’s, and there dined with her, Mr. Laxton, Gibbons, and Goldgroove with us, and after dinner some musique, and so home to my business, and in the evening my wife and I, and Sarah and the boy, a most pleasant walk to Halfway house, and so home and to bed.

I write my life.
If my letters die before I do,
I may make use
of the lax music
in my bed.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 13 June 1662.

Posted on by Laura M Kaminski

Bamboo

poem ending with lines from Natalie d’Arbeloff’s
translation of “Motivo” by Cecília Meireles

Bamboo can be food, its tender shoots
stripped and swirled in flavorful hot
oils in a basin of well-seasoned steel.
It can be nourishing, bamboo.

Bamboo can be a habitat, a refuge
of tall green pillars, camouflage
safety, welcome shack with shade.
It can be sufficient home, bamboo.

Bamboo can be long tubes, dried
and cut, angled beneath the splashing
of the fountain or the roof, accepting
in its hollowness, directing water’s journey.
It can be a flowing pipe, bamboo.

Bamboo can be lumber, cut and dried
and tied, a fence to keep the garden
safe at home, a ladder for the beans
and roses climbing upward for the sun.
It can create a paradise, bamboo.

And yet, the ones that speak, when they
speak of bamboo, they do not talk of
new growth in loving terms, slanted braids
in glazed ceramic pots, their overlapping
angles secured in ribbon-gold —
it can be beautiful, bamboo —

but rather of a war, of daily sweat,
of stomping each new shoot
that emerges in the yard, of broken
mowers, of heavier metals, of
trying new solutions to repel
this invasive enemy, bamboo.

Nourishing, sufficient home,
a flowing pipe, a paradise,
this lucky-braided beautiful —
it is not welcome here, bamboo.

But those who listen can still
hear it whisper as it grows:

I sing because the moment exists
and my life is complete.

And one day I know that I’ll be mute:
— that’s all.