Art by Bett Norris
How to Break a Curse by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
Lemon balm is for forgiveness.
Pull up from the root, steep
in boiling water. Add locusts’ wings,
salt, the dried bones of hummingbirds.
Drink when you feel ready.
Drink even if you do not.
Pepper seeds are for courage.
Sprinkle them on your tongue.
Sprinkle in the doorway and along
the windowsill. Mix pepper and water
to a thick paste. Spackle the cracks
in the concrete, anoint the part
in your hair. You need as much
courage as you can get.
Water is for healing.
Leave a jar open beneath the full moon.
Let it rest. Water your plants.
Wash your face. Drink.
The sharpened blade is for memory.
Metal lives long, never grows weary
of our comings and goings. Wrap this blade
in newspaper. Keep beneath your bed.
Be patient, daughter.
Be patient.
Other poems I read last week:
"I was satisfied with haiku until I met you,
jar of octopus, cuckoo’s cry, 5-7-5,
but now I want a Russian novel,
a 50-page description of you sleeping,
another 75 of what you think staring out
a window. I don’t care about the plot
although I suppose there will have to be one,
the usual separation of the lovers, turbulent
seas, danger of decommission in spite
of constant war, time in gulps and glitches
passing, squibs of threnody, a fallen nest,
speckled eggs somehow uncrushed, the sled
outracing the wolves on the steppes, the huge
glittering ball where all that matters
is a kiss at the end of a dark hall." -from Changing Genres by Dean Young
"How am I doing, really? Really well
on the outside, so that everyone seeing me
murmurs, “So brave, so astonishing,”
while inside I am climbing onto that last bed,
spooning my body around yours,
and dying even more slowly than you did."
-from How Am I Doing, Really? by Jane Yolen
"A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs
A poem should be equal to:
Not true
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -
A poem should not mean
But be" -from Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish
"I don’t know when the boys
began to walk away with parts of myself
in their sticky hands; when loving
became a process of subtraction. Or why,
having given up what seems so much,
I’m willing to lose even more — erasing
all this body’s known, relearning it with you." -Love Letter by Melissa Stein
"I cannot drink water
It is mingled with the blood of young men who have died up in the mountains.
I cannot look at the sky
It is no longer blue; but painted red.
I cannot listen to the roar of the gushing stream
It reminds me of a wailing mother next to the bullet-ridden body of her only son.
I cannot listen to the thunder of the clouds
It reminds me of a bomb blast.
I feel the green of my garden has faded
Perhaps it too mourns.
I feel the sparrow and cuckoo are silent
Perhaps they too are sad." -Shakeel Shan
Recommended Listening:
Jack’s Theme (Three Sentences) - Siddhartha Khosla
Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto RV 443 / Maurice Steger, Cappella Gabetta
Walsh’s Hornpipe/The Old Torn Petticoat - Kevin Burke
So Real - The Young Punx (Bob Ross fans, you'll love this!)
Alice Phoebe Lou in A Place of My Own | The Mahogany Session EP
Links of the Week:
Found photos turned into collage GIFs by Hilary Faye
The Happiest Design Ethics Article You Will Ever Read
Watch: Negative Space
Olafur Eliasson's climate-centric show takes Tate by storm A love poem for lonely prime numbers
Instagram lovin':
I'm feeling so inspired after seeing David Ernst's new series of ink on photographs. Wrote to him on Instagram and did a little interview that's up on the website. Read it here.
Signing off with this doodle I made in the hope that it offers solace in these ajeeb times we're living in...
-Rohini