10 Mar: "how many moment must..." by ee cummings

how many moments must(amazing each

how many centuries)these more than eyes

restroll and stroll some never deepening beach

locked in foreverish time’s tide at poise,

love alone understands:only for whom

i’ll keep my tryst until that tide shall turn;

and from all selfsubtracting hugely doom

treasures of reeking innocence are born.

Then, with not credible the anywhere

eclipsing of a spirit’s ignorance

by every wisdom knowledge fears to dare,

how the(myself’s own self who’s)child will dance!

and when he’s plucked such mysteries as men

do not conceive–let ocean grow again

9 Mar: "I Know Not Why" by Morris Rosenfield

I Know Not Why

I lift mine eyes against the sky,
The clouds are weeping, so am I;
I lift mine eyes again on high,
The sun is smiling, so am I.
Why do I smile? Why do I weep?
I do not know; it lies too deep.

I hear the winds of autumn sigh,
They break my heart, they make me cry;
I hear the birds of lovely spring,
My hopes revive, I help them sing.
Why do I sing? Why do I cry?
It lies so deep, I know not why. 

Morris Rosenfeld

8 Mar: "O Me! O Life!" by Walt Whitman

O Me! O Life!

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BY WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.





Play the video to hear Robin Williams read it for you.

7 Mar:"Red Beans"

Red Beans

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BY VICTOR HERNÁNDEZ CRUZ

Next  to white rice

it looks like coral

sitting next to snow

Hills of starch

border

The burnt sienna

of irony

Azusenas being chased by

the terra cotta feathers

of a rooster

There is a lava flow

through the smoking

white mounds

India red

spills on ivory

Ochre cannon balls

falling

next to blanc pebbles

Red beans and milk

make burgundy wine

Violet pouring

from the eggshell

tinge of the plate.

6 Mar: "if your complexion is a mess"

[if your complexion is a mess]

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BY HARRYETTE MULLEN

if your complexion is a mess 

our elixir spells skin success 

you’ll have appeal bewitch be adored 

hechizando con crema dermoblanqueadora 

what we sell is enlightenment 

nothing less than beauty itself 

since when can be seen in the dark 

what shines hidden in dirt 

double dutch darky 

take kisses back to Africa 

they dipped you in a vat 

at the wacky chocolate factory 

color we’ve got in spades 

melanin gives perpetual shade 

though rhythm’s no answer to cancer 

pancakes pale and butter can get rancid

5 Mar: "The Hand" by Mary Ruefle

The Hand

Mary Ruefle, 1952

The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom 
who knows the answer, because the person
in question is yourself, and on that 
you are the greatest living authority,
but you don’t raise your hand.
You raise the top of your desk
and take out an apple.
You look out the window.
You don’t raise your hand and there is
some essential beauty in your fingers,
which aren’t even drumming, but lie 
flat and peaceful.
The teacher repeats the question. 
Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,
a robin is ruffling its feathers
and spring is in the air.

4 Mar: "Poem for Salt" by Leroy V. Quintana

Poem for Salt

 The biggest snowstorm to hit Denver in twenty years.
 What is the world to do, freed from the shackles
 of the eight hours needed to earn its daily salary?
 
 Only on a day such as this does salt overshadow gold.
 Salt, with its lips of blue fire, common as gossip,
 ordinary as sin. Like true love and gasoline,
 missed only when they run out. Salt spilling
 from a blue container a young girl is holding,
 along with an umbrella, on the label of a blue
 container of salt that the woman across the street,
 under her umbrella is pouring behind her left rear wheel,
 to no avail this discontented, unbuttoned December
     morning.

3 Mar: "Unholy Sonnets" by Mark Larman

Unholy Sonnet 1

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BY MARK JARMAN

Dear God, Our Heavenly Father, Gracious Lord,  

Mother Love and Maker, Light Divine, 

Atomic Fingertip, Cosmic Design, 

First Letter of the Alphabet, Last Word, 

Mutual Satisfaction, Cash Award, 

Auditor Who Approves Our Bottom Line,  

Examiner Who Says That We Are Fine, 

Oasis That All Sands Are Running Toward. 

I can say almost anything about you, 

O Big Idea, and with each epithet, 

Create new reasons to believe or doubt you,  

Black Hole, White Hole, Presidential Jet. 

But what’s the anything I must leave out? You  

Solve nothing but the problems that I set.

2 Mar: "Listen" by Miller Williams

Listen 

I threw a snowball across the backyard. 
My dog ran after it to bring it back. 
It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow. 
She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing. 
She searched in widening circles until I called her. 

She looked at me and said as clearly in silence
as if she had spoken, 
I know it's here, I'll find it, 
went back to the center and started the circles again. 

I called her two more times before she came
slowly, stopping once to look back. 

That was this morning. I'm sure that she's forgotten. 
I've had some trouble putting it out of my mind.

1 Mar: "Lines" by Martha Collis

Lines

by Martha Collins

Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don't
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over
or out, between two points of no
return's a line of flight, between
two points of view's a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line's no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.