Autumn 4

 

 

 

 

Autumn 3

 

 

 

 

Moved

If you're lookin' for Bob and I, we've moved, here.  Just move your bookmark and reader, over there.

George Washington

It was on this day in 1789 that George Washington took office as the first president of the United States. Two weeks earlier, he had begun his journey from his home in Mount Vernon to New York City, where the inauguration would take place. He wrote in his journal on April 16th:


About 10 o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York in company with Mr. Thompson, and Colonel Humphries, with the best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations.

It took him seven days to travel the 300-mile route to New York City, then the nation's capital. He passed through crowds of cheering well-wishers along the way, following a path that went through Alexandria, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Trenton, Princeton, and New Brunswick. When he reached Bridgetown, New Jersey, there was waiting for him a large barge built just for the occasion and manned by 13 pilots all dressed in white. A Spanish vessel anchored in the harbor fired 13 guns as a salute and displayed the flags of nations all over the world.

It took the House and the Senate a few more days to work out the details of the inauguration, including how to address the president. Vice President John Adams thought it should be, "His Highness, the President of the United States and Protector of their Liberties." Others thought "His Serene Highness" or "His Excellency" or "Mr. Washington" were better choices. The ad hoc Congressional Committee finally decided on "The President of the United States."

The Oath of Office took place at Federal Hall on the corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street, on a balcony outside so that many people could witness it. Washington wore a dark brown suit, white silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and a sword. New York Chancellor Robert Livingston administered the Oath: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Washington appended the words "so help me God" to the Oath and then kissed the open Bible, which had been missing moments before the ceremony, and when found for the oath had been hastily opened to a random page, which turned out to be Genesis 49. In his inaugural address, Washington asked for the divine blessing of the "benign Parent of the Human Race" on the new government.

Moving

Earlier this month this blog was "hijacked", until it was recovered , and switched to a blogspot.com address, I started a new blog, PrytzFamily and I transfered a month's worth of post - over there. This blog has been open for a year and half, my "look" had gotten stale. By being forced into a now spot, I started at the beginning, and I like PrytzFamily, better! I'm moving over there permanently. At the end of April this blog will stop publishing, so please bookmark my new address.

Poems about George Washington

A Wish for February
Donovan Marshall

The Father of His Country
Was once a lad like me.
He played and wrestled on the green
And swung from leafy tree.
But when his country called him
He put aside his play.
I hope that I, like Washington,
May serve my land some day!


George Washington
Winifred C. Marshall

I wonder if George Washington
Was very fond of books,

And if he like to hunt and fish,
And wade in little brooks.

I wonder if his pocket bulged
Like mine with precious things,

With marbles, cookies, tops, and balls,
And nails, and glass, and strings.

I wonder if he whistled tunes
While mending broken toys -

My father says George Washington
Was much like other boys.


George Washington
Meish Goldish

George Washington,
You're number one!
George Washington,
You're number one to me!

Leader of the army,
An able genreal, George.
Strongly and bravely,
You led at Valley Forge!

Father of our country,
Our first President.
Proudly and wisely,
You led the government!

We celebrate your birthday,
Our capital has your name.
Your picture's on a dollar bill,
So all will know your fame!

You never told a lie, Goerge,
You were brave and smart.
First in honor, first in peace,
First in our heart!


How Washington Dressed
Gertrude M. Robinson

When Washington was president,
He wore the queerest clothes;
His shoes had silver buckles on -
Now, why, do you suppose?

His suit was made of velvet cloth
With buckles at the knee;
He wore lace ruffles on his coat
When he went out to tea.

His hair was tied with ribbons, too,
And braided like a girl's.
How could he be a president,
And wear his hair in curls?


A Nation's Hero
Winifred C. Marshall

The flags fly, the bands play;
Give him the honor due
To one who served his country well,
A leader brave and true.

First in defense and first in peace;
In our hearts, as of yore,
He holds first place, George Washington,
Our hero, evermore.

Letter Home

Letter Home by Ellen Steinbaum,

from Container Gardening.

I love you forever

my father's letter tells her

for forty-nine pages,

from the troopship crossing the Atlantic

before they'd ever heard of Anzio.

He misses her, the letter says,

counting out days of boredom, seasickness,

and changing weather,

poker games played for matches

when cash and cigarettes ran out,

a Red Cross package—soap,

cards, a mystery book he traded away

for The Rubaiyyat a bunkmate didn't want.

He stood night watch and thought

of her. Don't forget the payment

for insurance, he says.

My mother waits at home with me,

waits for the letter he writes day by day

moving farther across the ravenous ocean.

She will get it in three months and

her fingers will smooth the Army stationery

to suede.

He will come home, stand

beside her in the photograph, leaning

on crutches, holding

me against the rough wool

of his jacket. He will sit

alone and listen to Aïda

and they will pick up their

interrupted lives. Years later,

she will show her grandchildren

a yellow envelope with

forty-nine wilted pages telling her

of shimmering sequins on the water,

the moonlight catching sudden phosphorescence,

the churned wake that stretched a silver trail.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

images from google images

Everything We Do

Everything We Do by Peter Meinke,
from Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems.

Everything we do is for our first loves
whom we have lost irrevocably
who have married insurance salesmen
and moved to Topeka
and never think of us at all.

We fly planes & design buildings
and write poems
that all say Sally I love you
I'll never love anyone else
Why didn't you know I was going to be a poet?

The walks to school, the kisses in the snow
gather as we dream backwards, sweetness with age:
our legs are young again, our voices
strong and happy, we're not afraid.
We don't know enough to be afraid.

And now
we hold (hidden, hopeless) the hope
that some day
she may fly in our plane
enter our building
read our poem

And that night, deep in her dream,
Sally, far in darkness, in Topeka,
with the salesman lying beside her,
will cry out
our unfamiliar name.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Photo by myself.

Looking Back in My Eighty-first Year

Looking Back in My Eighty-first Year, by Maxine Kumin,
from Still to Mow.

How did we get to be old ladies—
my grandmother's job-when we
were the long-leggèd girls?
—Hilma Wolitzer

Instead of marrying the day after graduation,
in spite of freezing on my father's arm as
here comes the bride struck up,
saying, I'm not sure I want to do this,

I should have taken that fellowship
to the University of Grenoble to examine
the original manuscript
of Stendahl's unfinished Lucien Leuwen,

I, who had never been west of the Mississippi,
should have crossed the ocean
in third class on the Cunard White Star,
the war just over, the Second World War

when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,
two eyes and a nose draped over
a fence line. How could I go?
Passion had locked us together.

Sixty years my lover,
he says he would have waited.
He says he would have sat
where the steamship docked

till the last of the pursers
decamped, and I rushed back
littering the runway with carbon paper...
Why didn't I go? It was fated.

Marriage dizzied us. Hand over hand,
flesh against flesh for the final haul,
we tugged our lifeline through limestone and sand,
lover and long-leggèd girl.



Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Image from Google Images, I love both these photos and couldn't decide.

After Our Daughter's Wedding

After Our Daughter's Wedding by Ellen Bass
from Mules of Love

While the remnants of cake
and half-empty champagne glasses
lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering
in the slanting light, we left the house guests
and drove to Antonelli's pond.
On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried.
A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light.
"Do you feel like you've given her away?" you asked.
But no, it was that she made it
to here, that she didn't
drown in a well or die
of pneumonia or take the pills.
She wasn't crushed
under the mammoth wheels of a semi
on highway 17, wasn't found
lying in the alley
that night after rehearsal
when I got the time wrong.
It's animal. The egg
not eaten by a weasel. Turtles
crossing the beach, exposed
in the moonlight. And we
have so few to start with.
And that long gestation—
like carrying your soul out in front of you.
All those years of feeding
and watching. The vulnerable hollow
at the back of the neck. Never knowing
what could pick them off—a seagull
swooping down for a clam.
Our most basic imperative:
for them to survive.
And there's never been a moment
we could count on it.

Today is Carrie's and Ole's anniversary. After their wedding, Bob and I had such a let down, after all the months of hub-bub of wedding preparations. We were very lucky for several reasons, one was Carrie's choice of a husband; another was that Carrie did most of the "work" involved in the planning of "her day". I was her back-up and Bob wrote the checks.

National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Hardware

Hardware by Ronald Wallace

from Time's Fancy.

My father always knew the secret

name of everything—

stove bolt and wing nut,

set screw and rasp, ratchet

wrench, band saw, and ball—

peen hammer. He was my

tour guide and translator

through that foreign country

with its short-tempered natives

in their crewcuts and tattoos,

who suffered my incompetence

with gruffness and disgust.

Pay attention, he would say,

and you'll learn a thing or two.

Now it's forty years later,

and I'm packing up his tools

(If you know the proper

names of things you're never

at a loss) tongue-tied, incompetent,

my hands and heart full

of doohickeys and widgets,

whatchamacallits, thingamabobs.

National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

I'll Be Seeing You

I'll Be Seeing You by Jo McDougall 

World War II is slipping away, I can feel it.
Its officers are gray.
Their wives who danced at the USO
are gray, too.

Veterans forget their stories. Some lands they fought in 
have new names, and Linda Venetti
who deserted the husband who raised cows
to run off with an officer
has come home to look after her mother
and work the McDonald's morning shift.

William Holden is dead,
and my mother, who knew all the words
to "When the Lights Go On Again All over the World."

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

The Door

The Door, by Charles Simic

Step up to the door.

Softly, softly

As if approaching

A house of cards.

Bare feet allowed.

Dogs allowed.

The sun and the moon and the evening

Wind allowed.

In the shadow of this door

You'll play in the smallest theaters

With a bit of dark gravel

And a solitary white bread crumb.

The door that thinks

With your eyes

Thinks and thinks

Even while you're away.

If you can find a doorstep,

Carry your bride over it

And leave your shoes behind

Alone with the night falling.

If you can see a keyhole in this door,

Put your ear against it

And listen to the sounds of love

On the other side.

Don't try to open the door.

The child you were once

Will come out with eyes blindfolded

And lose itself in the crowd.

The door opens by itself

While you sleep.

All keys you ever lost,

All rusty keys

Lie behind it unused.

The door opens by itself.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

image from my files

Book Review

I usually do book reviews at Loves Book N Tea, but I wanted to tell more people about this fabulous book.  When you read Outcast United, not only will your learn about the terrific kids that make up the Fugees, and their dedicated coach, you get a lesson in global politics.  Here's a synopsis:

Set against the backdrop of an American town that without its consent had become a vast social experiment, Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach. Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals. At the center of the story is fiery Coach Luma, who relentlessly drives her players to success on the soccer field while holding together their lives—and the lives of their families—in the face of a series of daunting challenges.

This fast-paced chronicle of a single season is a complex and inspiring tale of a small town becoming a global community—and an account of the ingenious and complicated ways we create a home in a changing world.

Read it, you'll be glad you did.

The Loon by James Tate

I hope when you read this, you pause and say hmmm!

"The Loon" by James Tate
from Return to the City of White Donkeys.

A loon woke me this morning. It was like waking up
in another world. I had no idea what was expected of me.
I waited for instructions. Someone called and asked me
if I wanted a free trip to Florida. I said, "Sure. Can
I go today?" A man in a uniform picked me up in a limousine,
and the next thing I know I'm being chased by an alligator
across a parking lot. A crowd gathers and cheers me on.
Of course, none of this really happened. I'm still sleeping.
I don't want to go to work. I want to know what the loon is
saying. It sounds like ecstasy tinged with unfathomable
terror. One thing is certain: at least they are not speaking
of tax shelters. The phone rings. It's my boss. She says,
"Where are you?" I say, "I don't know. I don't recognize
my surroundings. I think I've been kidnapped. If they make
demands of you, don't give in. That's my professional advice."
Just then, the loon let out a tremendous looping, soaring,
swirling, quadruple whoop. "My god, are you alright?" my
boss said. "In case we do not meet again, I want you to know
that I've always loved you, Agnes," I said. "What?" she said.
"What are you saying?" "Good-bye, my darling. Try to remember me
as your ever loyal servant," I said. "Did you say you loved
me?" she said. I said, "Yes," and hung up. I tried
to go back to sleep, but the idea of being kidnapped had me
quite worked up. I looked in the mirror for signs of torture.
Every time the loon cried, I screamed and contorted my face
in agony. They were going to cut off my head and place it on
a stake. I overheard them talking. They seemed like very
reasonable men, even, one might say, likeable.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

"Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem'"

"Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem'"
by Barbara Crooker, from Line Dance

Today, the sky's the soft blue of a work shirt washed
a thousand times. The journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step. On the interstate listening
to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist
say, "The universe is not only stranger than we
think, it's stranger than we can think." I think
I've driven into spring, as the woods revive
with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy
scarves flung over bark's bare limbs. Barely doing
sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called Glory Bound,
and aren't we just? Just yesterday,
I read Li Po: "There is no end of things
in the heart," but it seems like things
are always ending—vacation or childhood,
relationships, stores going out of business,
like the one that sold jeans that really fit—
And where do we fit in? How can we get up
in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do,
put one foot after the other, open the window,
make coffee, watch the steam curl up
and disappear. At night, the scent of phlox curls
in the open window, while the sky turns red violet,
lavender, thistle, a box of spilled crayons.
The moon spills its milk on the black tabletop
for the thousandth time.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Middle-Aged Men, Leaning

Middle-Aged Men, Leaning by Bruce Taylor

They lean on rakes.
It's late, it is evening
already inside their houses.

The children are gone.
Their wives are on the phone
talking softly to someone else.

This frost, this early Fall
upon their minds, a small
measure of patience and regard

as if the twilight world
in bright papery pieces
diminished so and thus.

~
They lean on hoes
in Spring the green earth
turned once more beneath them

their eyes full of flowers
their hands full too
of the planting still to do

the weeds and drought awaiting
their pocketful of seed
the water they must carry.

~
In an early winter dark they lean
on shovels, a graying heart
a last bad rap inside them,

looking upward toward the sky
the yard, the driveway, the car
the street, the world

itself for all they know
buried by the falling snow
even as they gasp to breathe

and re-breathe the visible breath,
like a burst cartoon balloon
of an old imperfect prayer.

~
In summer, after long mowing,
they lean toward a growing
silence in the plush grasses

in leaves of many greens
in trees of their own colors
where grackle and crow

each to its own shadow
in the dusky reach of branches
gather quietly to stay.

in the dusky reach of branches
gather quietly to stay.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

The Man Next Door Is Teaching His Dog to Drive

The Man Next Door Is Teaching His Dog to Drive
by Cathryn Essinger from My Dog Does Not Read Plato.

It all began when he came out one morning
and found the dog waiting for him behind the wheel.
He thought she looked pretty good sitting there,

so he started taking her into town with him
just so she could get a feel for the road.
They have made a few turns through the field,

him sitting beside her, his foot on the accelerator,
her muzzle on the wheel. Now they are practicing
going up and down the lane with him whispering

encouragement in her silky ear. She is a handsome
dog with long ears and a speckled muzzle and he
is a good teacher. Now my wife, Millie, he says,

she was always too timid on the road, but don't you
be afraid to let people know that you are there.
The dog seems to be thinking about this seriously.

Braking, however, is still a problem, but he is building
a mouthpiece which he hopes to attach to the steering
column, and when he upgrades to one of those new

Sports Utility Vehicles with the remote ignition device,
he will have solved the key and the lock problem.
Although he has not yet let her drive into town,

he thinks she will be ready sometime next month,
and when his eyes get bad and her hip dysplasia
gets worse, he thinks this will come in real handy.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Unfortunate Coincidence

Unfortunate Coincidence by Dorothy Parker
From Enough Rope

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying,
Lady, make a note of this —
One of you is lying.

First printed in Life, (8 April 1926) p. 11

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Winter Song

Winter Song by Aaron Kramer,
from Wicked Times.

Under a willow
close by a brook
her lap for a pillow
her eyes for a book

she like a drummer
practiced her art
all spring and all summer—
the drum was my heart.

Hear how the willow sighs to the sun:
It is over and done with, over and done!
Hear the cold brook, that can hardly run:
It is over and done with, over and done!

Under what maple
close by what lake
will she lie next April?
Whose heart will she break?

Photo edited from vial3tt3r

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Happy Birthday, Brett

Eating Together

Eating Together by Kim Addonizio
from What Is This Thing Called Love.

I know my friend is going,
though she still sits there
across from me in the restaurant,
and leans over the table to dip
her bread in the oil on my plate; I know
how thick her hair used to be,
and what it takes for her to discard
her man's cap partway through our meal,
to look straight at the young waiter
and smile when he asks
how we are liking it. She eats
as though starving—chicken, dolmata,
the buttery flakes of filo—
and what's killing her
eats, too. I watch her lift
a glistening black olive and peel
the meat from the pit, watch
her fine long fingers, and her face,
puffy from medication. She lowers
her eyes to the food, pretending
not to know what I know. She's going.
And we go on eating.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Poem or Advice?

A Word to Husbands

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong admit it;
Whenever you’re right shut up.

~Ogden Nash

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Great Depression Story

Great Depression Story by Claudia Emerson
from Figure Studies

Sometimes the season changed in the telling,
sometimes the state, but it was always during

the Depression, and he was alone in the boxcar,
the train stalled beneath a sky wider

than any he'd seen so far, the fields of grass
wider than the sky. He'd been curious

to see if things were as bad somewhere else
as they were at home. They were—and worse,

he said, places with no trees, no water.
He hadn't eaten all day, all week, his hunger

hard-fixed, doubled, gleaming as the rails. A lone
house broke the sharp horizon, the train dreaming

beneath him, so he climbed down, walked out,
the grass parting at his knees. The windows

were open, curtainless, and the screendoor,
unlatched, moved to open, too, when he knocked.

He could see in all the way through to the kitchen—
and he smelled before he saw the lidded

pot on the stove, the steam escaping. Her clothes
moved on the line for all reply, the sheets,

a slip, one dress, washed thin, worn to translucence;
through it he could see what he mistook for fields

of roses until a crow flew in with the wind—
sudden, fleeting seam. By the time he got back to the train,

he'd guessed already what he'd taken—pot
and all—a hen, an old one that had quit

laying, he was sure or she wouldn't have killed it.
The train began to move then, her house falling

away from him. The story ended with the meat
not quite done, but, believe him, he ate it

all, white and dark, back, breast, legs, and thighs,
strewing the still-warm bones behind him for miles.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

The Well Bread Dog

I love this poem, for the surprise at the end. What do you think?

The Well Bread Dog by John Hegley

One evening John came home from work
went into the kitchen to make himself a nice cup of tea
and on the kitchen table, in a plastic bag,
he discovered a large sliced loaf
with one of the crusts missing

Actually it was a very large sliced loaf,
about the size of a rabbit hutch,
and John, who lived very much alone,
knew that he hadn't put it there and wondered who had.

Just then there was a rap-a-tap-tap at the front door.
It was John's new next-door-neighbour.

"Excuse me barging in", she said,
"but you haven't seen my dog have you?".

"What does it look like?", inquired John concernedly.

"Like a large sliced loaf", replied the neighbour.

"With one of the crusts missing?", asked John.

"Yes", replied the neighbour, "she had a fight".

John smiled, went out into the kitchen,
and returned with the mysterious loaf.

"Is this her by any chance?" he asked.

And the neighbour said,
"No".


Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

The Fall

The Fall by George Bilgere

Although there were no witnesses
In the hallway outside the women's room
Of the Hotel Coronado,
When my aunt stumbled
And fell to her knees on the ancient marble

It must have been like the swordsman
Falling in The Seven Samurai,
A whole dynasty collapsing,
Falling out of its bones

Into the mud. I was reading
The sports section in the lobby
When a boy, probably sixteen or so,
Ran in and called my name.

An old woman has fallen, he said,
Frightened that something
So enormous could happen, that fate
Should cast him as an emissary
Announcing dynastic collapse
Instead of just a high school kid,

And I stood up and ran to her
Although I'm fifty-six now, and breaking
Into a spontaneous run feels like
Trying out a language you'd lost
As a kid who'd swapped countries.

And there she sat, lean and elegant,
Like an athlete who'd collapsed
From sheer exhaustion, her legs
Drawn up to her chin as she fought
To lift the whole city again,

The crumbling Coronado,
Where Miles Davis used to jam,
And the Continental, where the Gershwins
Hung out at the Tack Room,
And the abandoned Fox Theater
Where she saw Olivier's Hamlet

And even the boarded up
Forest Park Boat house, where her father
Used to take her for ice cream
In the sweltering St. Louis summers.

An old woman has fallen.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share? Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

Photo from Google Images

Happy Birthday Erin

Piano

Piano by Patrick Phillips,
from Boy


Touched by your goodness, I am like
that grand piano we found one night on Willoughby
that someone had smashed and somehow
heaved through an open window.

And you might think by this I mean I'm broken
or abandoned, or unloved. Truth is, I don't
know exactly what I am, any more
than the wreckage in the alley knows
it's a piano, filling with trash and yellow leaves.

Maybe I'm all that's left of what I was.
But touching me, I know, you are the good
breeze blowing across its rusted strings.

What would you call that feeling when the wood,
even with its cracked harp, starts to sing?

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Image from google images

Earl

Earl by Louis Jenkins,

from North of the Cities

In Sitka, because they are fond of them,
People have named the seals. Every seal
is named Earl because they are killed one
after another by the orca, the killer
whale; seal bodies tossed left and right
into the air. "At least he didn't get
Earl," someone says. And sure enough,
after a time, that same friendly,
bewhiskered face bobs to the surface.
It's Earl again. Well, how else are you
to live except by denial, by some
palatable fiction, some little song to
sing while the inevitable, the black and
white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling
toward you out of the deep?

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Locomotion

Locomotion by Philip Bryant,
from Sermon On A Perfect Spring Day

I heard the
locomotion behind
the album by Monk my father
was playing.
The finely tuned
machine humming like
a top, purring like a kitten.

The first time I
saw the Santa Fe "Super Chief"
at Union Station in Chicago,
gleaming as a silver bullet
carrying the blue uniformed
conductor who gave a low whistle
and "All Aboard" for places as far away as Kansas,
Laredo, Tucson, Las Vegas, Palm Springs.

At that point
I knew it all had
something to do with jazz music.
The slow hiss of
the engine, the steam
let out by the jowls of the locomotive,
and the massive, muscular wheels turning
slowly counterclockwise to the engine's beat

Come on Baby Do the Locomotion
Come on Baby Do the Locomotion With Me

heading out onto the open tracks,
that smoke-blown phrase repeated
over and over in my head through the years,
as miles of the real American landscape
began, slowly, to unfold.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.


Image from Google images

Fair Warning

Fair Warning by Alden Nowlan

I keep a lunatic chained
to a beam in the attic. He
is my twin brother whom
I'm trying to cheat
out of his inheritance.
It's all right for me
to tell you this because
you won't believe it.
Nobody believes anything
that's put in a poem.
I could confess to
murder and as long as
I did it in a verse
there's not a court
that would convict me.
So if you're ever
a guest overnight
in my house, don't
go looking for
the source of any
unusual sounds.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Personals

Personals by Robert Phillips
from Spinach Days

I'm honest, discreet, and no way a lech.
Staying home with a rented video is just fine.
I'm seeking a friend first, we'll see what happens next.

My definition of fun is not very far-fetched:
Enjoy fishing, four-wheeling, casinos, and wine.
I'm honest, discreet, and no way a lech.

Want face-to-face conversation, no phone sex,
Non-smoking, drug-free women—the old-fashioned kind.
I'm seeking a friend first, we'll see what happens next.

I like a lady to let her hair down, get a little wrecked.
I have brown hair, brown eyes, am built along trim lines.
I'm honest, discreet, and no way a lech.

I'm thirty-seven, white, have two teenagers by my ex.
Looking for a lady, any age or race, similarly inclined.
I'm seeking a friend first, we'll see what happens next.

No psychos! (My ex didn't play with a full deck.)
I live on the northwest side, near the refinery.
I'm honest, discreet, and no way a lech.
I'm seeking a friend first. We'll see what happens next.


This poem made my laugh, I'm betting he's a lecherous, dishonest, and indiscreet!

image from Google images

Song

Song by Edwin Denby

I don't know any more what it used to be
Before I saw you at table sitting across from me
All I can remember is I saw you look at me
And I couldn't breathe and I hurt so bad I couldn't see.

I couldn't see but just your looking eyes
And my ears was buzzing with a thumping noise
And I was scared the way everything went rushing around
Like I was all alone, like I was going to drown.

There wasn't nothing left except the light of your face,
There might have been no people, there might have been no place,
Like as if a dream were to be stronger than thought
And could walk into the sun and be stronger than aught.

Then someone says something and then you spoke
And I couldn't hardly answer up, but it sounded like a croak
So I just sat still and nobody knew
That since that happened all of everything is you.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through.

There Will Come Soft Rains

There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale

from Collected Poems, Revised Edition.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.



image from my files

Marriage

To keep your marriage brimming,

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong admit it;

Whenever you’re right shut up.

~Ogden Nash

Do you have a poem you love, and want to share?

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.