Weekly Edition #18
September by Jennifer Michael Hecht
Tonight there must be people who are getting what they want.
I let my oars fall into the water.
Good for them. Good for them, getting what they want.
The night is so still that I forget to breathe.
The dark air is getting colder. Birds are leaving.
Tonight there are people getting just what they need.
The air is so still that it seems to stop my heart.
I remember you in a black and white photograph
taken this time of some year. You were leaning against
a half-shed tree, standing in the leaves the tree had lost.
When I finally exhale it takes forever to be over.
Tonight, there are people who are so happy,
that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow.
Somewhere, people have entirely forgotten about tomorrow.
My hand trails in the water.
I should not have dropped those oars. Such a soft wind.
Art by Pablo Picasso
Other poems I read this week:
"When I am dead, open my grave and see
The cloud of smoke that rises round thy feet:
In my dead heart the fire still burns for thee;"
"I didn’t want you to come home to
see that everything has changed
nothing is familiar. On the other
hand, I wanted you to see
that everything has changed
nothing is familiar."
-Before you returned by Kayte Young
"There is no end to ego,
with its museum of disappointments.
I want to take my neighbors into the garden
and show them: Here is consolation.
Here is your pity. Look how much seed it drops
around the sparrows as they fight.
It lives alongside their misery.
It glows each evening with a violent light."
"Turn yourself into
the real you
you can only discover
by being other.
Voila! You’re free.
Learn to love the awkward silence
you are going to be." -Survival Guide by Joy Ladin
"Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free." -Theme For English B by Langston Hughes
Recommended Listening:
No More Home, No More Love - Soko
Boscando la vida tropical - Malabi Tropical
Time - Angelo De Augustine feat. Sufjan Stevens
Blues Run The Game - Jackson C. Frank Cover (Simon and Garfunkel cover)
You'll never know the good fellow I've been - The Barbershop Squartet
Links of the Week: John Callahan's "I Think I Was An Alcoholic" Watch: Lust For Life Inside the rooms where 20 books were written Animals Sitting On Capybaras The CIA’s Former Chief of Disguise Show How Spies Use Costumes in Undercover Operations Who Sampled
The Enduring Allure of Artificial Reality
Comic: Debbie Tung
"A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.”
-Ray Bradbury