Weekly Edition #2
Lives of the Poets by Kim Addonizio One stood among the violets
listening to a bird. One went to the toilet
and was struck by the moon. One felt hopeless
until a trumpet crash, and then lo,
he became a diamond. I have a shovel.
Can I turn it into a poem? On my stove
I’m boiling some milk thistle.
I hope it will turn into a winged thesis
before you stop reading. Look, I’m topless!
Listen: approaching hooves!
One drowned in a swimming pool.
One removed his shoes
and yearned off a bridge. One lives
with Alzheimer’s in a state facility, spittle
in his white beard. It
turns out words are no help.
But here I am with my shovel
digging like a fool
beside the spilth and splosh
of the ungirdled sea. I can’t stop.
The horses are coming, the thieves.
I still haven’t found lasting love.
I still want to hear viols
in the little beach hotel
that’s torn down and gone.
I want to see again the fish
schooling and glittering like a veil
where the waves shove
against the breakwater. Gone
is the girl in her white slip
testing the chill with one bare foot.
It’s too cold, but she goes in, so
carefully, oh. Art by Fatih Aslan
Other poems I enjoyed this week: (Read the full poem in the link)
"What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?"
-Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
"Even after she cut into my shoulder
Coldly, with a scalpel, resetting my clavicle,
Tying it down with borrowed ligament and screwing it
Into place, even after she sutured me shut,
Sewing the two banks of skin across the thin blood river,
Watching me sleep the chemical sleep
Until tender and hazy I awoke —"
"You were never meant to be human
You must be the grass
You must grow wildly over the graves"
-Children Listen by Roger Reeves
"The mountain's
immense green and brown triangle reflects on itself
in lakewater, doubling its shape and colour there,
its stillness something drastic, an aspect of dread—as if
a lover tried to remember that loved other body
by looking in the mirror."
-Summer Evening by Eamon Grennan
"Praise to
the goddess of the internet search, who returns
with her basket of grain,
67,000 helpful suggestions
to everything we request:
how to solve a Rubik’s Cube,
what to do when you’re bored,
how old is the earth,
how to clear cache,
what animal am I,
why do we dream,
where are you now, come back."
-Questions by Rachel Richardson
Recommended Listening:
If I Didn't Care - The Ink Spots
Francisco Tárrega - Variaciones sobre "El Carnaval de Venecia" de Paganini
Come And Go With Me- The Dell Vikings
We The People - A Tribe Called Quest
Bela Fleck And Abigail Washburn: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
Links of the Week:
Dancing In Movies Pride month: Seven poems to remind us of desire in all its forms Carl Kleiner's short film elevates dying tulips into art Symmetry Guillermo Del Toro's 11 Rules for Becoming a Visionary Filmmaker Cyclo Knitter