Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

Poetry of a one C M-T

[castrotophic]

not sure if anyone is interested in this but here is a list of the most joyfully vital poems I know :)

You're the Top by Ellen Bass

Grand Fugue by Peter E. Murphy

Our Beautiful Life When It's Filled with Shrieks by Christopher Citro

Everything Is Waiting For You by David Whyte

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Is Alive! by Emily Sernaker

Instructions for Assembling the Miracle by Peter Cooley

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Barton Springs by Tony Hoagland

Footnote to Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman

Tomorrow, No, Tomorrower by Bradley Trumpfheller

At Last the New Arriving by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

To a Self-Proclaimed Manic Depressive Ex-Stripper Poet, After a Reading by Jeannine Hall Gailey

In the Presence of Absence by Richard Widerkehr

Chillary Clinton Said 'We Have to Bring Them to Heal' by Cortney Lamar Charleston

Midsummer by Charles Simic

Today by Frank O'Hara

Naturally by Stephen Dunn

Life is Slightly Different Than You Think It Is by Arthur Vogelsang

Ode to My Husband, Who Brings the Music by Zeina Hashem Beck

The Imaginal Stage by D.A. Powell

Lucky Life by Gerald Stern

Beginner's Lesson by Malcolm Alexander

Presidential Poetry Briefing by Albert Haley

A Poem for Uncertainties by Mark Terrill

On Coming Home by Lisa Summe

G-9 by Tim Dlugos

Five Haiku by Billy Collins

The Fates by David Kirby

Upon Receiving My Inheritance by William Fargason

Variation on a Theme by W. S. Merwin

Easy as Falling Down Stairs by Dean Young

Psalm 150 by Jericho Brown

Pantoum for Sabbouha by Zeina Hashem Beck

ASMR by Corey Van Landingham

A Welcome by Joanna Klink

From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee

At Church, I Tell My Mom She’s Singing Off-Key and She Says, by Michael Frazier

Hammond B3 Organ Cistern by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Sorrow Is Not My Name by Ross Gay

You Can't Have It All by Barbara Ras

We Were Emergencies by Buddy Wakefield

To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably In the Next Stall by Kim Addonizio

Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller

The City Limits by A.R. Ammons

There Is a Lake Here by Clint Smith

[mactiir]

You're asexual? But...

“but sex is what makes us human!”

  in 1916 a French officer in his twenties writes his

doctoral dissertation under

heavy mortar fire.

he sends it by mail, a page

at a time, to his wife.

a week before he’s to step up to the podium and

defend his work rather than hiscountry

he is killed in action.

even as the bullets rip

through him he still wishes he could have become a professor

in French literature and

the university awards him a posthumous Ph.D.

sex is

  a woman breaks down in tears on the phone because

a week is not enough time to

get over a breakup.

her sister drives an hour across town,

comes up the front steps with

a gallon of ice cream and somebeer

and together they eat moose tracks and marathon

every

single

Godzilla movie

ever made.

  sex is

she’s late for work but her car isn’t

starting and even through her coat and hat she’s cold.

she knows she can’t be late again because she’s missed

one time too many already because her

father’s nurse was sick with the flu and someone

needed to help him bathe.

the clock ticks past fifteen after and she hits

the wheel like it’s a heavy bag as though that will help

steps on the gas like the car will go

and wonders how she will pay rent

and how she will feed her father.

sex is

  it takes three people to hold the predator down because

even with the cover over his head

a bleeding eye and shattered wing

he is trying to hurt them.

none of them have seen this bird before in their lives but

they bandage his wing and head and give him a painkiller and

put him in a warm place to sleep and heal because

it is right.

at first he is paralyzed and cannot

fly but soon he is taking steps

and then fluttering, and then soaring, and

six months later he is whole and healed and hunting.

once he is gone they never see him again

which means they’ve done their jobs right.

sex is

  in 1969 a girl watches grey-and-white footage on her parents’ tiny television and

can’t quite believe that what she is seeing is not a movie set but

another planet.

the men on the screen look a little like

aliens with bulbous heads and no faces and fat

marshmallow arms

but they are still men.

her mother puffs on a cigarette behind her and declares that

this is progress

even if it was just a small step.

the girl grows up to be not an astronaut but a secretary

and her boss calls her ‘sweetheart’.

but sex is

  a boy is taught that real men don’t cry so

he doesn’t.

when his best friend dies from a self-inflicted

gunshot wound, he locks himself

in the shower every day and sobs under scalding

water until it runs cold

so nobody will see him grieving

so nobody will see that tears are just love that

has no place left to go.

he learns to dull love rather than suppress its expression and

soon the owner of the liquor store knows him by name.

three DUIs, two evictions, and twelve steps later,

he is feeding people at a homeless shelter,

and telling them it’s all right to cry.

Sex is

  the broken man tells the comedian

that he didn’t mean to step in front of the car but the rain

made it hard to see.

he seems okay but his leg

does not.

the comedian clutches a grubby receipt with the driver’s

plate number scrawled on the back

in pink pen, stands out in the rain so the broken man

can have his umbrella,

and gives him the comedy routine that ruined his career

so the man doesn’t think about the pain in his leg.

once he’s out of the hospital, the fixed man sends him a thank-you card

with kittens on it.

what makes us human

  yawning is contagious,

and there is a species of bird whose young we call “pufflings”.

melodic collections of sound, spaced by silence,

can move us to tears.

the tallest building in the world is

two-thousand seven-hundred and seventeen feet tall.

in less than eighty years we went from our first powered flight

to touching the moon,

and in one-hundred from the first phone call

to instantaneous connection between thinking machines of our own creation.

we make pies out of tree organs

and let cow’s milk ferment until it hardens and then

we put them together, because apple pie with cheddar cheese is delicious.

what makes us human is

the earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are

two-hundred thousand years old .

we have had pet dogs

for sixteen-thousand of those years, longer

than corn

or the wheel.

the steps we take are part of

one of the most energy-efficient gaits the

animal kingdom has ever seen.

we invented the concepts of love

and hate

and justice, and mercy

and we invented the language to convey them.

we sharpened rocks, then metal, to convince other people

who don’t hold the same idea of those things as we do

because we think

it’s right.

we are two hundred millennia of love and disappointment and

sorrow and innovation and

mercy and kindness and dreams

and failure

and recovery.

but sex is what makes us human.

[elodieunderglass]

I’ve reblogged this before but I like a different verse best every time.

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

I don’t visit you in the cemetery.

Ten years ago I waited my turn

To drop a handful of dirt on the box

With you inside.

A week later, there was grass seed spread

On the dirt-clump rectangle.

Two months later,

Grass,

but still no headstone.

I haven’t been back.

On Tuesday nights I sit in our booth at that bar on the corner.

It’s a Mexican place now, so I order fajitas instead of fries.

September at the county fair,

I stand an hour in line for our favorite ride

And they strap in a stranger beside me.

Sometimes I order your favorite beer,

And sometimes I listen to your favorite bands,

And when I remember you talking, your voice is theirs.

Sometimes I walk by the empty corner where our house used to be.

And I sit on porches where you used to sit.

And I pass the building where you used to work.

And I talk to the people you used to talk to.

Everything about you is Past Tense,

But I’m surrounded with you.

I don’t visit you in the cemetery.

Why should anyone?

Every person who ever lives

Leaves behind 1000 graves

In every place they ever were.

And the rest of us spend our days

Watching where we walk.

Trying to avoid wide open pits

Open and hungry.

And everywhere I go,

I see them.

Some days,

I fall in.

[vosesnequam]

The Swallowed

A deep bank Opaque and solid yet untouchable Stretches out over the plain. Hiding within, Two-score warriors Wearing bows and fur Eyes alit waiting Watching Straining For a sound of the snuffling pig Or rabbit, Oryx or deer.

Arrows not yet notched These hunters -farmers- Know nothing else But the silken vapour surrounding everything. The sun has not burnt off the frost in years. Sun has forsaken them. It does not heed their cries. The people hunger And eat they must Forcing these bright marks Armed and determined To be swallowed By grey danger.

The whiteness that creeps and rushes, Swirls, misleads and conceals. They have wandered for miles, More than the fog itself ever dared Yet still, they are covered in it’s sticky grasp.

A movement Over there! Quickly ready the bows. Life expectancy too short Not to take every opportunity. The front scouts stumble down a sharp decline But the arrow strikes true, The Bowman focused in on potential food A single squark Cut short by whistled arrow; A Raven’s death. Bitter disappointment. As if the key to a foreign land, The fog thins in front of them And rising from the ground large stones appear Like dull teeth. What god must have committed These megaliths cease their slumber And stand tall? Under a weak light they still glitter like a reflection of the sun.

Half in wonder Half in fear The troupe crosses. Noting the bank and the ditch the scouts fell upon. Foreboding and set to guard. Not a welcome, but a trap For whatever is or was within. In their soundless dampened swathe, The fourty have forgotten their words But even with eloquence, The Stones demand a reverence That speech could not guarantee.

With hushed looks They venture in. Swarm the circle and breathe their wonder Such a marvel requires its due. They leave all they can spare. Rabbits feet, and charms of bone and broken pins (the gods appreciate a gift well used) Buried at central points.

As quick as they came The explorers melt away. Thinking of home With a fear they have forgot the way. What direction, all spilling white Do they take? What path brings comfort and family? They know not any more. The fog stole all.

Yet still they slink Away from the fog’s-eye ring Over the chalk white bank One by one they stole Until the Bowman. Picks up his unfortunate prize Intent on retrieving the instrument That caused the corvid’s demise. Absentminded, He tugs and crosses the boundary also. Mindless of the shadows lengthening Behind him where there had been light.

In less time it would take to shout Or warn, People shadows resolve Where they had not been minutes before Within the circle. As the Bowman’s foot touches down On the highest point So do the arrows rain. You cannot take from the stones, Only give. That is the way of things. That is their silent demand. And so he does. The company scatter. All intent on home-finding in different directions. Mourning their abandoned mate And their own swift departure. So The Bowman Lies sprawled. Back riddled With ghostly arrows. Dead before he hits The bottom of the ditch That will swallow him. Surrounded by the fog That swallowed them all. Slowly unseeing Thin tendrils As his mind goes cold So his view clears through the vapour like a lens. Outside the slick fingers of the damp Fog’s bounds Layers on the centuries: Abandoned carriages in snow, sick fear and frozen limbs; Soldiers on horseback, parade ground and target practice; He sees the lights of the cars blinding like the fire’s heart; Metallic beasts fly overhead like nightmarish birds; The sky weeps as if the dawn comes too early where the light pollution sticks to the edges. This he sees.

His fellows never make it home. The fog keeps its secrets well. It will never tell How the past and current converge Separated barely Behind a light-reflecting  Earth-kisser of a cloud. Awaiting one glassy eye  To peel back the layers And claim deathless witness.

[adrasteiax]

Emily Dickinson, from Part Four: Time And Eternity (X) in “The Collected Poems Of Emily Dickinson”

[lifeinpoetry]

Give me, lord, / an angry death. / A death as offensive / as those I’ve offended.

Miyó Vestrini, from “Brave Citizen,” Grenade in Mouth: Some Poems of Miyo Vestrini, tr. Anne Boyer & Cassandra Gillig (via lifeinpoetry)

[rainbowgraffiti]

[arospecpoetrynet]

It’s here, and right in time for some holiday cheer!

Welcome to issue 5 of our bi-annual art and poetry zine from arospec artists!

As always, huge thank you’s go to our designer @vosesnequam and to Emma for the cover designs.

Also, a personal thank you from me (Meeni) to all members of the network and all our readers. It’s been amazing working with you all.

DOWNLOAD the zine for free.

READ it online.

[gracebriarwoodwrites]

Why do the young poets  all write about Persephone? 

                               Maybe it’s because                                we can relate. 

To a goddess?

                               To being half                                sunshine                                and half                                grave. 

[soracities]

Lorna Dee Cervantes, Emplumada

[arospecpoetrynet]

Issue #4 of Don’t Talk to Me of Love is here! Get your bi-annual dose of art and poems from our arospec team of artists right here, right now!

Thank you to all artists and poets who participated, and special thanks to our designer @vosesnequam and to Emma for the cover art.

DOWNLOAD the zine for free.

READ it online.

[vosesnequam]

Hera

How does it feel

To know everything you are

To have everything you stand for

Made mockery of

By a man.

The one man above your reach.

The one man you should be able to trust.

Your equal

Your partner

Your King.

How does it feel to know in your bones

You can't stoop to his level.

Can't even the playing field.

That you must endure

Every

Snigger

Every

Drop

In respect

Every

Snide remark.

To lose a love that should be yours by right

And have nothing to replace it with.

To clutch your Ill children

With all that they are, and everything they were supposed to be

And know

That some of these women

don't even want to be mothers

Or even want him.

To watch as his children

Shine

and have to forgive them

For the sins of their father.

How does it feel

With the imbalance of power,

To be a symbol of marriage

And yet,

A perpetual

punchline?

[vosesnequam]

The Aromantic's Valentine

I tolerate you, I guess, you’re the bestest I could recite some cheesy rehearsed lines for you. Or,  how about I tell the truth? Hello best friend. I am watching the sunrise thinking of you. I hope your day is going well. Or about to go well. I hope people tell you all day long that they appreciate you like I do

which is a lot. You are my special person. Merry Christmas. -wait.

[arospecpoetrynet]

Issue #3 of Don’t Talk To Me Of Love is here, full of art and poetry goodness to warm up those cold winter months!

Thank you to all who participated, and special thanks to @vosesnequam for designing the inner pages and Emma for the awesome cover art.

DOWNLOAD the zine for free.

READ it online.

We hope you enjoy this issue! Don’t hesitate to connect with us, our writers and our guest artists to let them know what you think of our work!

[vosesnequam]

Where The Wind

We left with pink faces And the rain gave us petrichorial perfume. It had been serene: all hot sun and quiet moment, You by my side, Reading a book, Chatting to a colleague, As I lay there, looking at clouds. A thirty minute lunch break Soaking in rays. The quietest my head has been in months Out in the ‘courtyard’ Sat in the sun Where the wind couldn’t touch us.

Originally posted in Freedom! #2 Don’t Talk To Me Of Love

[vosesnequam]

Paradigm Shift

Paradigm shift

I recieved a kiss today On the cheek From a man I’d never met.

The druids They hollered Chanted Danced A spectacle for all to see

I was given a gift Like the children clustered around the Druidic Santa Dressed in coca cola red and white After he took off his antlered hat.

The mistletoe I wove into my hair -Plant antlers of my own- Thinking golden sickles and magic boughs Not kisses or christmas; Blissfully unaware of the father of two Waiting in the wings With wife watching on Lips poised.

[vosesnequam]

The Orange Man

We’re living in truth stranger than fiction Starting with a witch hunt For candidate Clinton. But the world resists, Balling hands into fists; Pussy hats and #weexist, Impeach The President on their bucket list.

And if I have to shed Indifference, put my head Up past the parapet And claim my share of guilt? I will look upon what this life has built, And take my stand. The Orange Man will be where my tolerance ends, Sending a message: I will defend those from the laws you bend; I will tend a garden of tolerance in my heart; Mend the bridges you burnt behind.

I guess, thank you for lighting this fire in me So that I finally see That whilst deeds may speak, It’s fake news that gains majority. And what can a white girl do, From all across the sea? Incite rebellion whilst drinking tea? Feed healthy media? Concede some battles, not let greed form the desire to be The Only One Who’s Right? I will defend free speech with all my might And not let ignorance cover it in shite. That race-/sex-ism can be ‘entitled opinion’? Let’s fight that notion. Rob it of it’s bite. Bring to light what lurks beneath, hiding in the night.

My droplet of change might yet be small Compared to the nature of the Orange Man’s gall, But even tall walls can fall when mauled by a force of conviction, And this dystopia should stay fiction. So until my people can stop being scared By the threat of this hellish orange nightmare, Until we tear down the society that venerates people like him? I will help do what I can so that compassion wins. Until life is fair, My teeth are bared.

Originally posted in FREEDOM! #2 Don’t Talk To Me Of Love