31 Dec: from "The Schooner Flight" by Derek Walcott

Christ have mercy on all sleeping things!   

From that dog rotting down Wrightson Road   

to when I was a dog on these streets;   

if loving these islands must be my load,   

out of corruption my soul takes wings.   

But they had started to poison my soul

with their big house, big car, big-time bohbohl,   

coolie, nigger, Syrian, and French Creole,   

so I leave it for them and their carnival—

I taking a sea bath, I gone down the road.   

I know these islands from Monos to Nassau,   

a rusty head sailor with sea-green eyes   

that they nickname Shabine, the patois for   

any red nigger, and I, Shabine, saw   

when these slums of empire was paradise.   

I’m just a red nigger who love the sea,   

I had a sound colonial education,

I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,   

and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation, 

30 Dec: "How to Listen" Jacqueline Woodson

29 Dec: "When I Tell My Family" Jacqueline Woodson

28 Dec: "Ghost" by Jacqueline Woodson

27 Dec: "You who want ..."

"You who want ..."

Related Poem Content Details

BY HADEWIJCH, II

TRANSLATED BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

You who want 

knowledge, 

seek the Oneness 

within. 

There you 

will find 

the clear mirror 

already waiting.

26 Dec: "The Nightingale in Badelunda" by Tomas Transtromer

"The Nightingale in Badelunda"

In the green midnight at the nightingale's northern limit. Heavy leaves hang in trance, the deaf cars race towards the neon-line. The nightingale's voice rises without wavering to the side, it is as penetrating as a cock-crow, but beautiful and free of vanity. I was in prison and it visited me. I was sick and it visited me. I didn't notice it then, but I do now. Time streams down from the sun and the moon and into all the tick-tock-thankful clocks. But right here there is no time. Only the nightingale's voice, the raw resonant notes that whet the night sky's gleaming scythe.

25 Dec: "Open and Closed Spaces" Tomas Transtromer

Open and Closed Spaces

A man feels the world with his work like a glove.
He rests for a while at midday having laid aside the gloves on the shelf.
There they suddenly grow, spread
and black-out the whole house from inside.

The blacked-out house is away out among the winds of spring.
'Amnesty,' runs the whisper in the grass: 'amnesty.'
A boy sprints with an invisible line slanting up in the sky
where his wild dream of the future flies like a kite bigger than the
             suburb.

Further north you can see from a summit the blue endless carpet of 
             pine forest
where the cloud shadows
are standing still.
No, are flying.

24 Dec: "Under Pressur" by Tomas Tranströmer

Under Pressure

The blue sky's engine-drone is deafening.
We're living here on a shuddering work-site
where the ocean depths can suddenly open up -
shells and telephones hiss.

You can see beauty only from the side, hastily,
The dense grain on the field, many colours in a yellow stream.
The restless shadows in my head are drawn there.
They want to creep into the grain and turn to gold.

Darkness falls. At midnight I go to bed.
The smaller boat puts out from the larger boat.
You are alone on the water.
Society's dark hull drifts further and further away.

23 Dec: "The Half-Finish Heaven" by Tomas Tranströmer

The Half-Finished Heaven

Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.

The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draught.

And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.

Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.

Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.

The endless ground under us.

The water is shining among the trees.

The lake is a window into the earth.

22 Dec: Human or Machine

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/27/480639265/human-or-machine-can-you-tell-who-wrote-these-poems

21 Dec: "Mushroom" by Sylvia Plath

Mushrooms

Overnight, very

Whitely, discreetly,

Very quietly

Our toes, our noses

Take hold on the loam,

Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,

Stops us, betrays us;

The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on

Heaving the needles,

The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.

Our hammers, our rams,

Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,

Widen the crannies,

Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,

On crumbs of shadow,

Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.

So many of us! 
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are

Tables, we are meek,

We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers

In spite of ourselves.

Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning

Inherit the earth.

Our foot’s in the door.

-Sylvia Plath

20 Dec: "Snail" by Federico Garcia Lorea

Snail

from Canciones, 1921-1924 (1927)

Spanish			English
Caracola			Snail
Me han traído una caracola.			They have brought me a snail.
Dentro le canta			Inside it sings
un mar de mapa.			a map-green ocean.
Mi corazón			My heart
se llena de agua	5		swells with water,	5
con pececillos			with small fish
de sombra y plata.			of brown and silver.
Me han traído una caracola.			They have brought me a snail.
			--translated by William Jay Smith

19 Dec: "Breakfast" by Wilfrid Gibson

Breakfast

Related Poem Content Details

BY WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,

Because the shells were screeching overhead.

I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread

That Hull United would beat Halifax

When Jimmy Stainthorpe played full-back instead

of Billy Bradford.  Ginger raised his head

And cursed, and took the bet; and dropt back dead.

We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,

Because the shells were screeching overhead.

18 Dec: "You" by Frank Standford

You

Related Poem Content Details

BY FRANK STANFORD

Sometimes in our sleep we touch 

The body of another woman 

And we wake up 

And we know the first nights 

With summer visitors 

In the three storied house of our childhood. 

Whatever we remember, 

The darkest hair being brushed 

In front of the darkest mirror 

In the darkest room.   

17 Dec: "Looking at the Stars" by Robert Bly

Looking at the Stars

by Robert Bly

I still think about the shepherds, how many stars
They saw. We owe our love of God to these sheep
That had to be followed, or companioned, all night.
One can’t just let them run. By midnight

The stars had already become huge talkers.
The Parent sits in her proud Chair, and is punished.
The Dog follows the Hunter. Each time a story ends
There is such a long pause before another begins.

Those of us who are parents, and getting older,
Long, as tonight, for our children to stand
With us, looking at the stars. Here it is,
Eight thousand years later, and I still remember.

16 Dec: "Autobiographia Literaria" by Frank O'Hara

"Autobiographia Literaria" by Frank O'Hara

When I was a child
I played by myself in a 
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds 
flew away.

If anyone was looking 
for me I hid behind a 
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."

And here I am, the 
center of all beauty! 
writing these poems!
Imagine!

15 Dec: "Untitled" by Ashley King

14 Dec: "On Time" by John Milton

On Time

John Milton, 1608 - 1674

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,   
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,   
Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;   
And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,   
Which is no more then what is false and vain,  
And meerly mortal dross;   
So little is our loss,   
So little is thy gain.   
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,   
And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss   
With an individual kiss;   
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,   
When every thing that is sincerely good   
And perfectly divine,  
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine   
About the supreme Throne   
Of him, t’whose happy-making sight alone,   
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall clime,   
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,  
Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,   
  Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.

13 Dec: "The Best Days" by Quinton Duval

12 Dec: "Allegro" by Tomas Transtromer

Allegro

I play Haydn after a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively and calm.

The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag - it signifies:
"We don't give in. But want peace.'

The music is a glass-house on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.

11 Dec: "Question" by May Swenson

"Question" by May Swenson

Body my house 

my horse my hound   

what will I do 

when you are fallen 

Where will I sleep   

How will I ride   

What will I hunt 

Where can I go 

without my mount   

all eager and quick   

How will I know   

in thicket ahead 

is danger or treasure   

when Body my good   

bright dog is dead 

How will it be 

to lie in the sky 

without roof or door   

and wind for an eye 

With cloud for shift   

how will I hide?

10 Dec: "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath

“Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

9 Dec: "Runner" by Walt Whitman

 "Runner" by Walt Whitman

ON a flat road runs the well-train’d runner;
He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs;
He is thinly clothed—he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists, and arms partially rais’d.

8 Dec: "Today" by Frank O'Hara

TODAY
                         
                         
   Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!
   You really are beautiful! Pearls,
   harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all
   the stuff they've always talked about
                       
   still makes a poem a surprise!
   These things are with us every day
   even on beachheads and biers. They
   do have meaning. They're strong as rocks.


   [1950]

7 Dec: "Mushroom Hunting in the Jemez Mountains" by Arthur Sze

6 Dec: "The Night Is Freezing Fast" by A. E. Housman

The Night Is Freezing Fast The night is freezing fast,     To-morrow comes December;         And winterfalls of old Are with me from the past;     And chiefly I remember         How Dick would hate the cold. Fall, winter, fall; for he,     Prompt hand and headpiece clever,         Has woven a winter robe, And made of earth and sea     His overcoat for ever,         And wears the turning globe. A.E. Housman

5 Dec: "When that I Was and a Little Tiny Boy" by William Shakespeare

"When that I Was and a Little Tiny Boy" by William Shakespeare

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
  For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut the gate,
  For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
  For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
  For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,
  And we'll strive to please you every day.

4 Dec: "A Long Time More" by Dara Wier

"A Long Time More" by Dara Wier

I will say to you let’s go
when we are dead together

let’s not be dead any longer,
not there with all the already gone,

not where nothing we want we’ll know,
no more I have to have this now,

no more not one time more not ever.
Back where we’ve come from,

back there we’ll go.
We will be thirsty again together

and find food and clothes and comfort,
and this time take time

this time neither too fast
this time ever more slow.

3 Dec: "Intro to Poetry" by Steven Bauer

"Intro to Poetry" by Steven Bauer

You thought it was math that taught
the relation of time and speed
but it’s farther than you knew
from that sun-lit white-walled classroom
to this darkened lounge with its couch
and overstuffed chairs. How many miles,
would you say, since you talked
as if poetry were no distorting mirror,
one-way street? But listen, sometimes
it’s like this, a stranger’s Ford pulls up,
and you, with no plans for the afternoon,
get in. He doesn’t talk, stares at the road
and it’s miles before you understand
you didn’t want to travel. His lips say no
as you reach for the radio’s knob.


In this silence you fall deeper
into yourself, and even the car
disappears, the stranger’s face blurs
into faded upholstery, and all things
being equal, you’re alone as though
you’ve wandered into a forest with night
coming on, no stars, the memory of sun
and a voice’s asking Is this my life?

2 Dec: "A Blessing" by James Wright

"A Blessing" by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.   

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me   

And nuzzled my left hand.   

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

1 Dec: "The Sandy Hole" by Jane Kenyon

"The Sandy Hole" by Jane Kenyon

The infant's coffin no bigger than a flightbag ....
The young father steps backward from the sandy hole,
eyes wide and dry, his hand over his mouth.
No one dares to come near him, even to touch his sleeve.