​চিলেকোঠা : The Room on the Roof

There is secret room on every roof that holds poetry and the uncovering of your soul on a stark blue summer sky and nights so dark and lightless that you can finally see all the stars.

[lifeinpoetry]

I am, in most parts, made / entirely of longing.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Three, Bakandamiya

[chileykotha]

Illicit - part 2

Why did you dress like you did when I fell in love with you.

Like a banker. Corporate man. My boss.

That's what I used to call you in my head.

When I was staring at you in the meeting room,

Your shirt at the waist was a little undone, and

little bit of your naval hair would peek put,

and instantly assasinate me.

Now, after a decade (or more?)

in the different universe,

in a different place,

with a whole different us –

you reminded me of our bonded illicitness,

our dirty little secret.

(it's gotten very neat of late and I had forgotten)

This city, our old dreams, and old lies we told the world.

Such excitement mixed with an anguish,

of why still why still why….

Sometimes I wonder if I will like this enough,

when it's all aboveboard.

Maybe we will be old and adjust again.

But maybe we will never come clean.

[chileykotha]

Do good poets make a good person?

I am forcing myself, to be careless with words, again. because the best poetry is cruelty, that you wouldn't speak out loud, if you were in front of someone you love.. but you freely put it on paper. Scathing, cutting sharp words, like hearts are woundless things that can't bruise. Like wristbones cant break.

But, if you are not ruthless, and you are careful, of how the other person feels, then you would never write these things about them right? Like how can you, a good person, say these thoughts out aloud. The idea of kindness, The idea of care, The idea of thinking about the impact – Doesn't occur in a poet's mind, Doesn't exist in a poet's world of extremes. If it does, it doesn't make for a good poem. Or a poet.

[apoemaday]

Kitchen Window

by Richard Siken

Several men were not my father. Some I avoided, some I wanted to impress. In high school, I tried to grow up at a friend's house. We studied the periodic table and listened to records. Sometimes they bought pizza or fried chicken and everyone was encouraged to eat at the table together. His stepfather always watched me closely. He saw the wariness one learns from being neglected — eating too fast, being overly grateful, always knowing who was in the house: their motivations, moods, and locations. With his stepson he was attentive. With me, on the occasions when our paths crossed privately, he spoke with the gentle unavailability one reserves for creatures that are wounded and backed into a corner. I radiated an inappropriate heat that I did my best to hide. Graciously, he ignored it. He was generous, vain, tall and almost handsome, beamed a certain nonchalance and didn't slouch in chairs. It registered. On Christmas morning, early, when I knocked on the glass of the kitchen window, he looked up and shook his head, mouthed Not today. I appreciated the clarity. It was his family, not mine.

[canthaveshitingotham-crucified]

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

[canthaveshitingotham-crucified]

you get it. you get the themes. i dont have time to do it justice. just look at it its on the ceiling

[brenna]

[teaboot]

[wheresmyphonemp3]

[fadingponycookiedream]

[andsorrowsend]

[werefeathers]

[chileykotha]

One day we will calmly finish wong kar wai's 'In the Mood for Love'. Start to end. Every time we start it, midway we stop and start kissing. Sometimes we get too high to finish it. Sometimes we see only parts of it. Maybe like that we have finished the film, disjointed, in pieces, all over the place. Never in a single sitting. Never uninterrupted by deep sorrow and embrace. Sometimes the movie plays on in the living room while we lie in bed and talk. It's finishes but we haven't seen the end. We don't know how it ends. How can we finish the movie? Watch till the end credits roll. What's left if we finish the movie?

[apoemaday]

Missed Time

by Ha Jin

My notebook has remained blank for months thanks to the light you shower around me. I have no use for my pen, which lies languorously without grief.

Nothing is better than to live a storyless life that needs no writing for meaning — when I am gone, let others say they lost a happy man, though no one can tell how happy I was.

[chileykotha]

I haven't written...

[apoemaday]

Mushrooms

by Sylvia Plath

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.

[chileykotha]

Morning After

Some dreams are stuck in the throat

They cannot be spoken aloud

There's a chance —

they turn into prophecy,

All my dreams are worst case scenarios,

and nightmares use my power of manifestation

and feels very real, very fast

the good dreams are weak dreams

No pull, no aftertaste of sweetness

its the end of everything dreams

the you die I die dreams

the morning after they found my body dreams

those linger like alkaline in my mouth,

burning, acrid smell that's stuck in the back of my throat

ashes and bonedust.

In one such,

where you die so far away,

that no one remembers to tell me,

or they don't tell me –

or they dont want me to know

I am inconsequential at best in your real life,

I am the villain at worst.

Why would anyone tell me?

And, I keep sending you messages,

But don't call,

(as I am not allowed to call)

and I get angry, and sad, and angry

I think you are finally rid of me,

Abandoned again and again,

Left behind, again.

but it's a dream –

(I know it's a dream —

at the back of my mind)

A niggle is there -

that I know you are dead.

But dead without me,

Is also a kind of left behind.

Then I wake up

and choke down,

and swallow dreams whole.

Swallow entire realities,

digest the universe in which you are leaving...

Choke down dimensions of grief,

Wash my mouth out,

because if they linger into wakefulness,

they will be true.

Then I send out a message in the dark,

and it goes to the void.

[apoemaday]

The Meaning of Existence

by Les Murray

Everything except language knows the meaning of existence. Trees, planets, rivers, time know nothing else. They express it moment by moment as the universe.

Even this fool of a body lives it in part, and would have full dignity within it but for the ignorant freedom of my talking mind.

[solkysst]

“I hope you all find yourselves sleeping with someone you love, maybe not all of the time, but a lot of the time. The touch of a foot in the night is sincere. I hope you like your work, I hope there’s mystery and poetry in your life — not even poems, but patterns. I hope you can see them. Often these patterns will wake you up, and you will know that you are alive, again and again.”

— Eileen Myles, “Universal Cycle.” The Importance of Being Iceland. (via llleighsmith)

[weltenwellen]

Franny Choi, from “Catastrophe is Next to Godliness”

[everydayrarity]

[Text transcription: Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in. I want an excuse to change my life. End transcription]

[hippity-hoppity-brigade]

Here's the whole poem, because it's breathtaking:

Catastrophe Is Next to Godliness

A poem for Sunday

By Franny Choi

Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in. I want an excuse to change my life.

The day A. died, the sun was brighter than any sun. I answered the phone, and a channel opened between my stupid head and heaven, or what was left of it. The blankness stared back; and I made sound after sound with my blood-wet gullet. O unsayable—O tender and divine unsayable, I knew you then: you line straight to the planet’s calamitous core; you moment moment moment; you intimate abyss I called sister for a good reason.

When the Bad Thing happened, I saw every blade. And every year I find out what they’ve done to us, I shed another skin. I get closer to open air; true north.

Lord, if I say Bless the cold water you throw on my face, does that make me a costume party. Am I greedy for comfort if I ask you not to kill my friends; if I beg you to press your heel against my throat—not enough to ruin me, but just so—just so I can almost see your face—

[gustaving]

From Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish

[gothsbian]

i hope this is alright for me to add, but this poem references a line from one of hitler's speeches ordering the genocide of polish jews. at the end of the speech, he justified the genocide by saying "who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the armenians?" in a very literal way, genocides are interconnected and used to justify one another. the holocaust was partially modeled after the united states' genocide of indigenous people. british colonialism around the world had its roots in colonized ireland. this is why it is so important to remember the victims of all genocides across history, and why it is so important for oppressed peoples to stand together in solidarity.

[chileykotha]

They talk of unlucky in love. What they don't know is.... The ones who have really found love Are very unlucky, because It ends you.

[chileykotha]

পুরনো কাগজপত্র, বাতিল রেডিও

আমার হৃদয়, জেনো, চিলেকোঠাপ্রিয়।

সে কিছু বিশেষ চায় না। বিশেষণও নয়।

তাকে তো দুরূহ বোঝা। সহজ, প্রণয়।

সে যে আছে, ভুলে থেকো। মনে কোরো, নেই।

স্মৃতিরা সমাধি চায় চিলেকোঠাতেই।

~

শ্রীজাত

#chileykotha #srijato

[chileykotha]

মরশুমি

ঘোর বর্ষায় এসো

আধো বন্ধকরে ঢেকে থাক পথ

জল জমা রাস্তা পেরিয়ে এসো

ইলশেগুড়ি না,

আকাশভাঙ্গা অঝোরে এসো হে।

কাদা পায়ে এসো,

বৃষ্টিতে ধুয়ে যাবে সবই,

ছাতা অজুহাতে হাত পাবে ছাড়া

পারা বেড়াবার।

ঝোড়ো কাক ছাড়া

কেউ স্বাক্ষী নেই আজ,

বৃষ্টির আড়ালে এসো হে।

নাহয় হবে জ্বর একটু ,

গরম চায়ে আরাম,

গলার ভিতরে একটু চুলকাবে

ভাববে ঠান্ডাটা লাগলো কখন ?

উত্তরের উষ্ণতা টা ধরে রেখো।

তারপর পরের বার

ঘোর বর্ষায় এসো, আবার

যতবার নিম্নচাপ সতর্কীকরন,

বেরিয়ে পরো মাথা ঢেকে

হাওয়াই চপ্পলে এসো হে।

আমাদের আশ্রয় বর্ষা

বছরে দুমাস অভিসার।

[marthajefferson]

“Even memory is an act of imagination, you never tell the same story twice, not even to yourself.”

— Michael Burkard, as featured in Mary Ruefle’s On Imagination (via luthienne)

[chileykotha]

Us when we write the multiverse book