Mar 8
it is the earth that grounds us for the lightning strike:
. . .
from "THE GRIMOIRE" by D.A. Powell
seen from Tunisia
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seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from China
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seen from Russia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
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seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Philippines
seen from Australia
it is the earth that grounds us for the lightning strike:
. . .
from "THE GRIMOIRE" by D.A. Powell
From D.A. Powell:
“Jeffery Berg's Re-Animator comes at you with all the shock and surprise of a phantasmagorical horror movie, with 'edits so quick it makes the murders feel/ swift,' a perfect way to encapsulate the 1980s for those of us who lived through aids and the absolute indifference of the Reagan administration.”
Pre-order here from Indolent Books.
favourite poems of april
daniel nyikos potato soup
mary oliver when death comes
walt whitman leaves of grass: “whoever you are holding me now in hand”
kazim ali refuge temple
d.a. powell republic
toi derricotte natural birth: “november”
cathy song the age of reptiles
dante émile sharing a cigarette with joan of arc
rigoberto gonzalez other fugitives and other strangers: “the strangers who find me in the woods”
mary oliver new and selected poems: “the summer day”
d.a. powell chronic: “continental divide”
kahlil gibran the seven selves
franz wright night walk
mary oliver the black snake
martha collins day unto day: “over time”
ada limón the bird knows he is going to die and wishes not to (recommended to me by @craigslistening <33)
aish (@sapientes) rubin’s vase
tom pickard nectarine
alicia ostriker song
d.a. powell the expiration date on the world is not quite the same as the expiration date on my prophylactic
james dickey the whole motion: collected poems 1945-1992: “the strength of fields”
everett owens strength from a mountain
denise levertov o taste and see: new poems: “the secret”
david st. john the place that inhabits us: “peach fires”
robinson jeffers their beauty has more meaning
thomas centolella almost human: “the hope i know”
elizabeth willis address: “in strength sweetness
amiri baraka s o s: poems 1961-2013: “tender arrivals”
mary oliver the black walnut tree
stephen spender new collected poems: “song”
support me
April 3, 2024: Positivity, D.A. Powell
Positivity D.A. Powell
“Anyway, it isn’t forever,” Chris said, “eventually you’re dead.” And we laughed
Besides, everything is better now. Not us but implants, blenders, children, heart attacks. There’s never been a better time to be alive than when you are. If you are. Black-throated blue warbler says chewchewchewchewchewww drawing the last chew out like a sucking drainpipe to say he has mated and is satisfied. Say what you will about that. His joy is uncontainable
and yet it has a form, a measure, to make it clear he’s not upset or feeling anxious. And if he’s bragging, well, it’s no shame to brag that you’re happy.
Honeybees cavorting on the goldenrod are working toward a common goal they’ll never see achieved. They lay down the walls of their cathedral of honeycomb and will not cope the spire, busy in the present task, trusting that the work continues. I’d like to write a children’s book called everybody dies. Upbeat, of course, and pragmatic. You only got so many days. Don’t think about death; when you’re ready, death will think about you. Go out tonight with your friends, like Chris, who went out big or not at all. Have a ball. Plan ahead.
--
Hear the poet read this aloud.
also by D.A. Powell (shared in year 1 of this project!): [this is what you love: more people. you remember]
More like this:
Overjoyed, Ada Limón
you can’t be a star in the sky without holy fire, Frank X. Gaspar
Today in:
2023: Picture This, Jiordan Castle 2022: Alba, Madeleine Cravens 2021: July, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz 2020: Poem Beginning With A Retweet, Maggie Smith 2019: Waiting for Happiness, Nomi Stone 2018: United, Naomi Shihab Nye 2017: If You Are Over Staying Woke, Morgan Parker 2016: High School Senior, Sharon Olds 2015: Dog in Bed, Joyce Sidman 2014: Persephone Writes to Her Mother, Tara Mae Mulroy 2013: Hook, James Wright 2012: How to Build an Owl, Kathleen Lynch 2011: Expecting, Kevin Young 2010: The Choir, Luke Kennard 2009: I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone, Stephen Dunn 2008: Visible World, Richard Siken 2007: Anywhere Else, Maggie Dietz 2006: After Work, Richard Jones 2005: The Sheep-Child, James Dickey
does god discriminate, slashing some flags, amendments ever farther above the chapels, pale heaven expires mortar the mosque means build not bomb—the moral center gives only an honest fellow [please provide] might renounce christ, this machinery of helmets, prosthetic limbs, human skin refusing, louder than the drone above the disputed zones all ages are difficult ages: flight, the bits of metal raining down clarity never arrives, it is a spar in a far mine, it cost us dearly
"democrac," from Chronic (2009) by D.A. Powell
Chicory illustration by Leanne Shapton; “Tender Mercies” poem by D.A. Powell, from American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide (Harry N. Abrams, 2022)
Tender Mercies
The dandelions, ditch-blown brood, the evening snow and dew-soaked phlox, the Brewer’s pea, the Jepson’s pea (these, the bright eyes of the viridian fields) in chaparral, the hillside pea and angled pea, intensities of light and pomp that distress the easy upswept grass. The smack the rain plants as it smudges past and penetrates the canvas.
The smattering on field and railroad tracks, both hardy blooms and dainty flowers, the judge’s house, the chicken farm, a migratory camp, a flesh motel, a stucco digs where all that mitigates the August swelter is the swamp cooler’s immutable burr, a straggling house that draws its water from a hard-water well and flushes out with the help of a crude sump pump.
Before the flatland is occluded by the staunch of light at end of day, I wanted to be content with all its surfaces: weed, barb, crack, rill, rise... But every candid shoot and fulgent branch depends upon the arteries beneath. The houses have their siphons and their circuit vents. The heart—I mean the literal heart— must rely upon its own plaqued valves; the duodenal canal, its unremitting grumble. The brain upon its stem, and underneath, a network, vast, of nerves that rationalize.
The earth’s a little harder than it was. But I expect that it will soften soon, voluptuous in some age hence, because we captured it as art the moment it was most itself: fragile, flecked with nimbleweed, and so alone, it almost welcomed its own ravishment.
I was a maiden in this versicolor plain. I watched it change. Withstood that change, the infidelities of light, the solar interval, the shift of time, the shift from farm to town. I had a man that pressed me down into the soil. I was that man. I was that town.
They call the chicory “ragged sailors” here: sojourners who have finally returned and are content to see the summer to its end. Be unafraid of what the future brings. I will not use this particular blue again.
—for Betty Buckley
what was his name? I’d ask myself, that guy with the sideburns
and charming smile
the one I hoped that, as from a sip of hemlock, I’d expire with him
on my tongue
D. A. Powell, from Corydon & Alexis, Redux, 2006
“Open Gesture of an I,” D.A. Powell
I want to give more of my time to others the less I have of it, give it away in a will and testament, give it to the girls’ club, give it to the friends of the urban trees.
Your life is not your own and never was. It came to you in a box marked fragile. It came from the complaint department like amends on an order you did not place with them. Who gave me this chill life.
It came with no card. It came without instruction. It said this end up though I do not trust those markings. I have worn it upside downs. I have washed it without separating and it did not shrink. Take from it what you will. I will