Among all the world’s crazy Poetry books There is none like this one By Gwendolyn Brooks
Till now I thought Wallace Stevens the best Of rococo poets for Among all the world’s crazy Poetry books There is none like this one By Gwendolyn Brooks
Till now I thought Wallace Stevens the best Of rococo poets for his Harmonious zest
Or Marianne Moore And her cockatoo muse Who sang baseball statistics To boys who shined shoes
But Brooks is the rococoest And coolest of them all Dropping words like bright leaves That twirl when they fall
And the beat of her lines And the pulse of her mind Played the quicksilver song Of the wild winter wind
An Art Tatum of word-music Her fingers did fly On the black keys and the white keys Of the piano sky
And the jazz of her streets With its strong kitchen smells On the sleep of dead babies Cast lullaby spells
And men gone off to war And men leaving their wives And girls dreaming sweet dreams Of better black lives
And those eating beans and Those munching on salads They’re all here in her poems Which read like good ballads
There she sat at her typewriter Night after night Overhearing the neighbours Make love and fight
And in the pool halls of her heart Coloured balls clicked Cigarettes ashed Time in clocks ticked...more
If I knew the answer to How Can I Make a Poem? I’d find far better things to do With my time when I’m home
There is for instance a whole lot Of cleaning If I knew the answer to How Can I Make a Poem? I’d find far better things to do With my time when I’m home
There is for instance a whole lot Of cleaning to be done Vacuuming the places Where no sunshine ever shone
And there’s that picture leaning there Against my bedroom wall Which I’ve been meaning to hang up Since when was it last Fall?
The toilet too it seems to say Hey don’t you even care That water trickles out of me A whispered evening prayer?
My son needs help with homework My wife says we should talk My income taxes are unpaid My body wants to walk
But I don’t know the answer to How Can I Make a Poem? So I neglect everything else I have to do at home...more
Meet Jean Roscoff who’s sixty-five This novel’s anti-hero Author of an essay on The poet Robert Willow
Jean the very definition Of what failure is Divorced Meet Jean Roscoff who’s sixty-five This novel’s anti-hero Author of an essay on The poet Robert Willow
Jean the very definition Of what failure is Divorced neurotic cranky and A slave to drunkenness
He claims to be a liberal Free-thinking anti-racist For having marched in ’85 With banners and raised fist
His daughter is the lesbian His broad thinking will accept His ex-wife the rendezvous He wishes he had kept
But like so many who’ve gone bald He has some trouble with Tuning into a Millennial’s Mystifying bandwidth
For instance he can’t understand Why people would attack His book about a writer who So happens to be black
So what if he forgot to mention The colour of his skin Is that really so important To a French Historian?
The more he tries to justify Himself with words or ink In social media quicksand The deeper he does sink
When Jean becomes a victim of Some cyber-bullying He wishes he had access to Doc Brown’s DeLorean
To travel back to ’85 When he felt young and free And could let words out of his mouth With impunity...more
One Day flying Above the desert You crash-land behind a Dune now you are stranded Without a single drop of water In sight to quench the thirst which Like a v One Day flying Above the desert You crash-land behind a Dune now you are stranded Without a single drop of water In sight to quench the thirst which Like a vice tightens your throat until you Choke and fires flash in the corners of your Eyes and for 1,000 miles all around hot desert sand
Just when you think you have reached the very end You round one last dune and can’t believe your Eyes—is this another mirage or are those Footprints you see in the sand?—yes You and your shadow will survive Never has water tasted so Sweet never so vital Life is accorded One more Day...more
O Mexico City slip on your neon corset and illumine the faces of your six million poets your skinny long-haired seventies rascals w Los Detectives Salvajes
O Mexico City slip on your neon corset and illumine the faces of your six million poets your skinny long-haired seventies rascals with their tight-ass jeans and vanity skulls skulking under streetlights on Calle Colima Luscious Skin Belano Ulises Lima and so many others who in a fever-dream trample night’s bosom until dawn’s first beam bleeds light into every corner of your criminal mind (and awakens the birds whom no one can find) O Mexico City where poets are savage detectives searching for lost poems to salvage where pimps with above average-size penises think they can own and control street-corner Venuses where there are magazine editors painters and addicts waitresses living with boyfriends in attics and rooftop poets who are visceral realists and lovers and muggers and drunkards and misfits and the list goes on forever like this book goes on forever but I don’t mind I could read on forever O Méjico you take up a good fraction of it Bolaño who wrote novels but was really a poet loved you more than he loved his own mother to his rambling soul you shone like no other me I walked your streets in nineteen-ninety-six your violent skies took my breath away Then I got sick...more
I just moved out of a flat We lived in for four years About the size of a hat Filled to the brim with tears
Livingroomdiningroombedroom Were all squeezed i I just moved out of a flat We lived in for four years About the size of a hat Filled to the brim with tears
Livingroomdiningroombedroom Were all squeezed into one All I needed was a broom To tidy up my kingdom
No room had I of my own (My wife used the spare room) Five hundred books and a phone Were my only heirloom
The real ruler of the nation Was our five-year-old son Who occupied every square inch Like Attila the Hun
A small corner of the table Where we ate was all I had To pen a poem or a fable Of this I'm very glad
Not in a room but in a stanza I lived life to the full Busy busy were my hands Ah! life was never dull
We now live in a bigger flat And I have my own desk Should I be excited that My life’s less picturesque?
And from my many windows I will see many moons And sometimes there might be rainbows But will my rhymes have rooms?...more
If I were Maya Angelou I’d see things as they are Not from too high or from too low Or too close or too far
I’d tread a stage of light and sing My heart o If I were Maya Angelou I’d see things as they are Not from too high or from too low Or too close or too far
I’d tread a stage of light and sing My heart out to the crowd I wouldn’t miss a chance to fling My thoughts aloft and loud
For in a life of suffering Injustice night and day Instead of coming out askew And throwing life away
I’d take my lack of privilege And crush it in my fist And hold it to my lips and blow It like a flower kissed
If I were Maya Angelou I’d play things as they are I wouldn’t even need to do so On a blue guitar
But there is only one of me And no more Angelou And though I sing a melody I sing it soft and low...more
The world is full of fascists There are fascists in my lettuce I can taste their upraised fists Eat our salads they won’t let us
The world is full of fasc The world is full of fascists There are fascists in my lettuce I can taste their upraised fists Eat our salads they won’t let us
The world is full of fascists Goose-stepping through my dreams Crushing flowers and midnight trysts —One of their many evil schemes
The world is full of fascists They won’t seem to go away Like the bully who insists That his violence is only play
The world is full of fascists Some are even in my soup Others may be masochists To Nazi grub I’ll never stoop
The world is full of fascists But I'll keep on reading books Penned by poets whose shopping lists Include new penises and boobs...more
I Tituba Black Witch of Salem Look back on the ghosts of the past And hail them
Abena my mother whom I barely knew And Man Yaya who showed me what herbs I I Tituba Black Witch of Salem Look back on the ghosts of the past And hail them
Abena my mother whom I barely knew And Man Yaya who showed me what herbs I could brew
To them I owe supernatural gifts For the sun and the moon and the stars I can shift
And by mixing the blood of a calf with my tears I can cut off a life or increase it By years
Though I am more prone to goodness than not A vengeful spirit at times makes me So hot
I could give in to hatred and kill Maim and torture like others but I'll Do no such ill
We witches already have a bad reputation It is us who are blamed for the fall Of each nation
If a dog be sick or its master unwell Me and my sisters are hunted and pushed Down a well
Never mind if we sink or if we do swim It’s the judge’s decision can’t Argue with him
And me I was born a witch and a slave With black skin on my bones no white God Wants to save
No matter which way I turn I will lose Between the galleys and the gallows I must choose
And who will remember me when I am gone? A daughter a son a good friend I have none
My skin it now blends with the prickly bark Of a tree spreading branches so thick And so dark
A home I provide for insects and birds And shade for Lost Babes who can still hear My words
I Tituba Black Witch of Salem Call out to the ghosts of the future And hail them...more
Cheating husbands and cheeky wives Live their ordinary lives In the pages of Munro There will they remain forever In that cold Canadian weather Whether the Cheating husbands and cheeky wives Live their ordinary lives In the pages of Munro There will they remain forever In that cold Canadian weather Whether they like it or no
It’s so sad their author died She who kept so occupied Injecting life into her words But at ninety-two years old Her soul decided to unfold Its wings and make off with the birds
It left cheating wife and husband Stuffed its suitcase cleaned its house and Set off for the golden coast Where tall mountains and the sea Remind souls eternally Of what they hunger for the most...more
Poor Auster died two weeks ago so I thought I would read A book he wrote when he was young and fame a little seed (The seedlin Fourteeners in a Flowerpot
Poor Auster died two weeks ago so I thought I would read A book he wrote when he was young and fame a little seed (The seedling grew and soon enough a forest did ensue Extending over everything including me and you) Right now we’re in the Eighties though and Paul's still an unknown Slender Brooklyn sapling poet without a telephone Who’d figured out you can’t survive by writing poetry Cuz verses will not make you rich however hard you try A flower pot will do just fine if you wish to grow flowers But what if you want to deploy your formidable powers? For this the Novel gives you all the breadth and space you need To bring to full fruition the potential of your seed So was Paul's seed-potential met in this book made of glass? As much as I’d like to say Yes my answer’s No Alas It started off a mystery and quickly drew me in But somehow my attention dwindled and my eyes grew dim And about forty pages in I found I’d yawned so much That my entire jawline smarted at the merest touch I’m not averse to cleverness or emptiness per se So long as it’s all written in a funny sort of way To love a door I think I could if hung on words of wood If verbs that made it open made it open as it should Or give me just one character of real flesh and blood He doesn’t even necessarily have to be a stud But Quinn left me indifferent and Peter Stillman too They could have jumped off Brooklyn Bridge for all I cared boo hoo At just one hundred thirty pages Lord this felt so long Perhaps it could have been condensed into a single song?...more
Some books enter your life like a breath of fresh air Blowing open the windows of a mind Grown so stuffy it smells like a beast slept in there —They let Some books enter your life like a breath of fresh air Blowing open the windows of a mind Grown so stuffy it smells like a beast slept in there —They let in light where you thought you were blind
Some books teach you to read or to think or to love Or simply to admire their pages The one in your hand teaches all of the above Without ever turning you into sages
There is something this book will remind you to do Which you must do before you are dead And if you have it in mind to ask me to tell you What it is—I'll just keep quiet instead...more