30 April: "Be More Like Bjork" by Camille Guthrie

 
"Be More Like Bjork"

First sew yourself into a pom pom mushroom

Strut across the thirstland past faerie lights

Shout complaints inside volcanic mancaves

Scout for the last unlocated spring of ylem

Then plait a cottage out of kestrel fluff

Stir potato eyes into a vat of dislocated feelings

Write a luculent novel five winters long

Till dismay ferments enough nuclear energy to power

Your moon buggy beyond the nacaret fields

Stopping only to gather the pollen of the Umbiferous True

Then plunge over cliffs sporting moth wings

Dropping to the bottommost of the besprinkled sea

And make your way up through the rain shadow

On two cat feet in hostile territory

All the while you compose a callithumpian song

To nail a ritual within the astrobleme

So bend dragons and constellate your enemies

Fox on your shoulder spend a month sun-grazing

A hundred hawks exploding before your stride

Which will bring you luck on this godawful day

You must make a new life by yourself like all

Lurching tellurians stuck in eviternity

29 April: "February 12, 1963" by Jacqueline Woodson

I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital

Columbus, Ohio,

USA—

a country caught

 

between Black and White.

 

I am born not long from the time

or far from the place

where

my great-great-grandparents

worked the deep rich land

unfree

dawn till dusk

unpaid

drank cool water from scooped-out gourds

looked up and followed

the sky’s mirrored constellation

to freedom.

 

I am born as the South explodes,

too many people too many years

enslaved, then emancipated

but not free, the people

who look like me

keep fighting

and marching

and getting killed

so that today—

February 12, 1963

and every day from this moment on,

brown children like me can grow up

free. Can grow up

learning and voting and walking and riding

wherever we want.

 

I am born in Ohio but

the stories of South Carolina already run

like rivers

through my veins.

28 April: :To Light" by LInda Hogan

To Light

At the spring
we hear the great seas traveling
underground,
giving themselves up
with tongue of water
that sing the earth open.

They have journeyed through the graveyards
of our loved ones,
turning in their grave
to carry the stories of life to air.

Even the trees with their rings
have kept track
of the crimes that live within
and against us.

We remember it all.
We remember, though we are just skeletons
whose organs and flesh
hold us in.We have stories
as old as the great seas
breaking through the chest,
flying out the mouth,
noisy tongues that once were silenced,
all the oceans we contain
coming to light.

~ Linda Hogan 

27 Apr: "Aaron Is Dead" by Tim Berners-Lee

Aaron is dead.

Wanderers in this crazy world,
we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.

Hackers for right, we are one down,
we have lost one of our own.

Nurtures, careers, listeners, feeders,
parents all,
we have lost a child.

Let us all weep.

-Tim Berners-Lee

26 April: Dream Keeper" by Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world. 

25 April: "Dream Variations" by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
    Dark like me—
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance!  Whirl!  Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
    Black like me.

24 April: "Dream" by Langston Hughes

Dreams by Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.


Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

23 Apr: "The Tyger" by William Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 

On what wings dare he aspire? 

What the hand, dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 

And when thy heart began to beat, 

What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain? 

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

22 Apr: "Non-Believers” by Jimmy Nameles

To people who call people nonbelievers

You call yourself believer because you believe one thing

You call me a non-believer because I disagree

Yet my skepticism is an Empire State built on the foundations of many beliefs

How many things do you disbelieve?

Evolution.

Climate change.

Big Bang.
Radioactive dating.

Fossil records.

DNA.

21 Apr: "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

20 Apr: "It's Raining In Love" by Richard Brautigan

 I don't know what it is, 
 but I distrust myself 
 when I start to like a girl 
 a lot. 

 It makes me nervous. 
 I don't say the right things 
 or perhaps I start 
 to examine, 
 evaluate, 
compute 
 what I am saying. 

 If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?" 
 and she says, "I don't know," 
 I start thinking : Does she really like me? 

 In other words 
 I get a little creepy. 

 A friend of mine once said, 
 "It's twenty times better to be friends 
 with someone 
 than it is to be in love with them." 

 I think he's right and besides, 
 it's raining somewhere, programming flowers 
 and keeping snails happy. 
 That's all taken care of. 

 BUT 

 if a girl likes me a lot 
 and starts getting real nervous 
 and suddenly begins asking me funny questions 
 and looks sad if I give the wrong answers 
 and she says things like, 
 "Do you think it's going to rain?" 
 and I say, "It beats me," 
 and she says, "Oh," 
 and looks a little sad 
 at the clear blue California sky, 
 I think : Thank God, it's you, baby, this time 
 instead of me.

19 Apr: "To You" by Kenneth Koch

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut

That will solve a murder case unsolved for years

Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window

Through which he saw her head, connecting with

Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red

Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;

For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not

Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a

Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails

In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from

The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;

I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields

Always, to be near you, even in my heart

When I’m awake, which swims, and also I believe that you

Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to

The place where I again think of you, a new

Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow

Of a ship which sails

From Hartford to Miami, and I love you

Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun

Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

18 Apr: "White Towels" by Richard Jones

WHITE TOWELS

Richard Jones

I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,
telling the story of my life
to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.
I carry them through the house
as though they were my children
asleep in my arms.

17 Apr: "Autobiographia" by G.E. Patterson

I had everything and luck: Rings of smoke
blown for me; sunlight safe inside the leaves
of cottonwoods; pure, simple harmonies
of church music, echoes of slave songs; scraps
of candy wrappers -- airborne. Everything.
Mother and father, brother, aunts, uncles;
chores and schoolwork and playtime. Everything.

I was given gloves against winter cold.
I was made to wear gloves when I gardened.
I was made to garden; taught to hold forks
in my left hand when cutting, in my right
when bringing food to my mouth. Everything.

I had clothes I was told not to wear outside;
a face you could clean up almost handsome;
I had friends to fight with and secrets, spread
all over the neighborhood; the best teachers,
white and colored. I'm not making this up.
I knew that I had everything. Still do. 

16 Apr: "National Park" by Fady Joudah

National Park

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BY FADY JOUDAH

We saw a lot more of them dead than alive

the living diffident by the side of the road

as the far-off mountains flanked and intoxicated

the speedometer into saunter

 

The dead were interspersed on the asphalt

their poor vision uncorrected by their auditory keenness

like a blind spot in a poet

 

and their fender-mangled corpses

were occasionally ripped in two

before vultures reached them

 

In our rental van

we left no mother bereft

and orphaned no piglets

 

Turkey buzzards and American vultures

were the javelinas’ gift to us

 

red and black scavengers

that perched on ranchland fences

the full span of highway

they’d circle above in diminishing downward spirals

 

or flinch at each other’s puffs and swells

or away from incoming vehicles

 

Still they shared the dead among them

as we sometimes share our dead

when we love our dead

 

Javelina the Arabic word for mountain

in its root and then the mountain

coming closer to an ear

became a spear

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15 Apr: "Signature Song" by Bill Berkson

Signature Song

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BY BILL BERKSON

Bunny Berigan first recorded “I Can’t Get Started”

with a small group that included Joe Bushkin, Cozy Cole

and Artie Shaw in 1936.

Earlier that same year, the song,

written by Ira Gershwin and Vernon Duke,

and rendered as a duet patter number by Bob Hope and Eve

Arden, made its debut on Broadway in The Ziegfeld Follies. 

By 1937, when Berigan re-recorded it in a big-band setting,

“I Can’t” had become his signature song, 

even though, within a few months, Billie Holiday would record

her astonishing version backed

by Lester Young and the rest of the Basie Orchestra.

 

Lovers for a time, Lee Wiley and Berigan began appearing

together on Wiley’s fifteen-minute CBS radio spot,

Saturday Night Swing Club, in 1936.

Berigan died from alcoholism-related causes on June 2, 1942.

Although “I Can’t Get Started” is perfectly suited to Wiley’s

deep phrasing and succinct vibrato, she recorded the ballad only

once, informally, in 1945, during a Town Hall performance date.

The Spanish Civil War started in 1936 and ended in 1939

with Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s forces entering Madrid.

“I’ve settled revolutions in Spain” goes Gershwin’s lyric, just as odd.

14 Apr: "First Thing" by Bill Berkson

First Thing

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BY BILL BERKSON

Drown on all fours

Pennies from a box flood the frump market

Blasts of nacre, triage under weather’s speckled pool

The idée fixe never happens yet can’t be ignored

Still the moon is half full?

Speak for yourself with your hands up

The search is on

Search and destroy, if you will

Elimination starting with a lit fuse

Vacuumed anon

Your pleasure is the lee shore

Thunder smites the tundra’s paw

This should be memorable

Legs whited out

The runners advance

13 April: "Ballad in A" by Cathy Park Hong

A Kansan plays cards, calls Marshall

a crawdad, that barb lands that rascal a slap;  

that Kansan jackass scats, 

camps back at caballada ranch.

Hangs kack, ax, and camp hat. 

Kansan’s nag mad and rants can’t bask,

can’t bacchanal and garland a lass, 

can’t at last brag can crack Law’s balls,

Kansan’s cantata rang at that ramada ranch, 

Mañana, Kansan snarls, I’ll have an armada

and thwart Law’s brawn,

slam Law a damn mass war path.

Marshall’s a marksman, maps Kansan’s track, 

calm as a shaman, sharp as a hawk,

Says: That dastard Kansan’s had

and gnaws lamb fatback.

At dawn, Marshall stalks that ranch,

packs a gat and blasts Kansan’s ass

and Kansan gasps, blasts back.

A flag flaps at half-mast.

12 Apr: "I want to Read at the White House" by Joshua Clover

I want to read at the white house.

I want to read poems at the white house.

I want to read poems at the white house with all the pomp available.

With celebratory music and all my beloveds watching.

With Baraka and DiPrima and Roque Dalton behind me

I want to read at the white house.

I want to read poems at the white house wearing my favorite clothes probably a hoodie or perhaps my Belgian suit.

Belgium is a failed state in the heart of Europe which is something to aspire to.

I like Belgium and one day I might like to read poems at the palace of the nation but for now I want to read poems at the white house.

I want to read poems and sing karaoke and I will probably tell a few nervous jokes.

It will be like all the other readings.

We will be there together.

I want to read poems at the white house and then like any house reading we will all clean up together.

We will clean up the mess we have made together.

All that rubble and all those ashes. These are my conditions.

11 Apr: Dworzec" by Emily Perez

on a line from Szymborska

My departure from the city of O.?

I took no leave.

I’d learned to sleep angry.

On a train I was contained.

The water under the bridge

was just that. Shunned metaphor.

It did not send waves of regret

or make me reflect.

It did not baptize, wash away, or cleanse.

The countryside appeared

like the sides of any country

where rain falls and cows chew yellow flowers.

The world was not too much

or too much with me.

I stomached it.

In the photograph I only look lonely

because I was alone.

You cannot see the envelope on my lap

or the letters lodged under sweaters in my suitcase.

I carried only one bag, what I could manage

in a crowd.

You can imagine I held a thick book

from which nothing could distract me.

You can imagine my head high, eyes dry.

I did not see my departure as a failure, or a fall.

I’d dodged a bullet. Been reborn. 

You can imagine it that way.

Only none of it was like that,

not like that at all.