Headspace (n.) @phantasmsfromanorderedworld - Tumblr Blog

Mary don’t you weep when Pharaoh’s army turns a father’s son into a holy ghost like trinity like Jesus like we’re still waiting for our promised land but tomorrow ain’t promised & we die like we haven’t sacrificed enough. Baptized in pools of street corners like we’re the ones who need saving. Arms raised like braille against glory. We lift our hands so they know we are here. We lift our hands because we question why what we raise always get shot down. We lift our hands drenched in a black boy’s blood hung over the heads of tears & candles & high school photos & fists & we pray & we pray & we pray everyday that God’s got ’em

Savon Bartley, “Crossroads (After Bone Thugs N Harmony),” published as part of Public Pool’s Right Now response series. Check out more poems from it here. (via bostonpoetryslam)

#black lives matter

brennatwohy

Womanhood is learning how to witch yourself in slow motion. When they say your name like a curse, say it back to them like an incantation. When they call you cold, show them how you conjure fire.

Brenna Twohy (via brennatwohy)

#womanhood #witch

litverve

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver, “Praying” in Thirst: Poems (via litverve)

Grief a dog that keeps dogging me— Good Grief, I say. It’s me he’s teaching to beg—

Slow Drag Blues, by Kevin Young

#grief

endless-unfolding

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco. Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two” and expect it to be handed back to you on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit. Anyone who says, “Here’s my address, write me a poem,” deserves something in reply. So I’ll tell a secret instead: poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes, they are sleeping. They are the shadows drifting across our ceilings the moment before we wake up. What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.

—Naomi Shihab Nye, from “Valentine for Ernest Mann,” in Red Suitcase

theparisreview

We are always trying to have the last word over what will finally have the last word over us.

Luisa Valenzuela, The Art of Fiction No. 170 (via theparisreview)

bostonpoetryslam

I’m not doing well with pressure. But tell my mother I always have second helpings of propaganda, boots wear me well with stockings and I don’t talk to the boy in his father’s medals. Don’t tell her that I’ve trench foot from feeding off the wrong wars that I’ve been drafted into the sky but it is falling.

Farah Ghafoor, “diaries of a grinded battalion,” published in Alyss (via bostonpoetryslam)

Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters. And as for grown-ups...Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have...The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman

#the ocean at the end of the lane #neil gaiman #grown-ups #adulting #monsters