20 Sep 2019: "Overwhelmed Eureka" by Jimmy Nameles

"Overwhelmed Eureka"

Based on a news report from 1935: California Mob Lynches Police Slayer

Honorary chief and veteran of the great war

Overwhelmed by pathetic criminals on a highway patrol

A $35 robbery

Did the officers 

Know?

No!

Everyone in Yreka found out

The heat rose

Jack Daw's funeral sparked a summer storm

50 masked men grasped the law in their hand

Mob justice prevailed 

Deputy overthrown

Accused killer 

Clyde Johnson 

S

 W

  I

  N

  G

  I

 N

G

From a pine

15 Sept 2019: "Paradox" by Jessie B. Rittenhouse

                Paradox
I went out to the woods to-day
   To hide away from you,
From you a thousand miles away—
   But you came, too.

And yet the old dull thought would stay,       
   And all my heart benumb—
If you were but a mile away
   You would not come.

-Jessie B. Rittenhouse

14 Sept 2019: "Rotary" by Christina Pugh

Rotary

Closer to a bell than a bird,
that clapper ringing
the clear name
of its inventor:

by turns louder
and quieter than a clock,
its numbered face
was more literate,

triplets of alphabet
like grace notes
above each digit.

And when you dialed,
each number was a shallow hole
your finger dragged
to the silver
comma-boundary,

then the sound of the hole
traveling back
to its proper place
on the circle.

You had to wait for its return.
You had to wait.
Even if you were angry
and your finger flew,

you had to await
the round trip
of seven holes
before you could speak.

The rotary was weird for lag,
for the afterthought.

Before the touch-tone,
before the speed-dial,
before the primal grip
of the cellular,

they built glass houses
around telephones:
glass houses in parking lots,
by the roadside,
on sidewalks.

When you stepped in
and closed the door,
transparency hugged you,
and you could almost see

your own lips move,
the dumb-show
of your new secrecy.

Why did no one think
to conserve the peal?

Just try once
to sing it to yourself:
it's gone,

like the sound of breath
if your body left.


-Christina Pugh, Poetry 180 | 119

13 Sept 2019: "The Hanging Man" by Sylvia Plath

The Hanging Man

By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.

The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid :
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.

A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.

-Sylvia Plath, Ariel

12 Sept 2019: "Each life converges to some centre..." by Emily Dickinson

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,
 
Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,        
Too fair
For credibility’s temerity
To dare.
 
Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach        
Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
To touch,
 
Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints’ slow diligence        
The sky!
 
Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.  

-Emily Dickinson

11 Sept 2019: "To an old pond..." by Matsuo Basho

To an old pond

A frog leaps in.

And the sound of the water.

-Matsuo Basho

10 Sept 2019: "Even a thatched hut..." by Matsuo Basho

Even a thatched hut

May change with a new owner

Into a doll’s house.

-Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

9 Sept 2019: "My Prayer" by Henry David Thoreau

My Prayer

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf

Than that I may not disappoint myself;

That in my action I may soar as high

As I can now discern with this clear eye.

And next in value, which thy kindness lends,

That I may greatly disappoint my friends,

Howe'er they think or hope that it may be,

They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me.

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,

And my life practise more than my tongue saith;

That my low conduct may not show,
 
⁠  Nor my relenting lines,

That I thy purpose did not know,
 
⁠  Or overrated thy designs.

-Henry David Thoreau

8 Sept 2019: "Ode to Gray" by Sherman Alexie

Ode to Gray


Has anybody written an ode to gray?

Well, if not, let me be the first. Let me praise

The charcoal pit, tweed suit, and cloudy x-ray

That reveals, to your amateur dismay,

Nothing you understand. Who has been amazed

Enough to write a breathy love song to gray and gray’s

Nearly imperceptible interplay

With other grays? O, how beautiful the haze

Of charcoal pits, tweed suits, and cloudy x-rays

Of airport luggage. I love the dog day,

The long delay, and existential malaise.

Has anybody written an ode to gray?

If not, then let me proceed without delay.

O, let me construct an army made of clay.

Marching, marching, they will be my ode to gray,

To charcoal pit, tweed suit, and cloudy x-ray.


-Sherman Alexie

7 Sept 2019: "The Apology" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

           The Apology

Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery,
But 'tis figured in the flowers,
Was never secret history,
But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson