Poems that mean something to you
A Hole In God
- Buddy Wakefield
you appeared like a body bag
fulla hymnal books
unzipped in half I
never saw so many door jams fall
outta anyone’s mouth
into math like that when
Tennessee put its crooked smile
on a wadded up map
and sent you packin’
west
good
gospel gospel got god
stuck to the rock he made and
and he mighta made it larger than us
or it mighta served to save this place
sure I coulda swore I heard you calling
for a shot at a grip on vice
doesn’t mean your mouth was moving
doesn’t mean I even heard you right
all I know is that your skin keeps calling
and I don’t care if it’s a busted flint
‘cause every time you pull your thumb down on it
I get [up up] back up to my feet
again
all of them
move move
like an offering plate
on’m one by one
it’s a penchant for a savior
a tendency to over – run
whatever shook do not get shook up
whatever’s lost you don’t get lost
even if they say you must give more than
everything you ever offered up
I know a voice does not come easy
I know the words fell out in bites
I know the moment when the
abandonment looked a lot like flight
you pulled whatever got left
inside
out right
- Buddy Wakefield
you appeared like a body bag
fulla hymnal books
unzipped in half I
never saw so many door jams fall
outta anyone’s mouth
into math like that when
Tennessee put its crooked smile
on a wadded up map
and sent you packin’
west
good
gospel gospel got god
stuck to the rock he made and
and he mighta made it larger than us
or it mighta served to save this place
sure I coulda swore I heard you calling
for a shot at a grip on vice
doesn’t mean your mouth was moving
doesn’t mean I even heard you right
all I know is that your skin keeps calling
and I don’t care if it’s a busted flint
‘cause every time you pull your thumb down on it
I get [up up] back up to my feet
again
all of them
move move
like an offering plate
on’m one by one
it’s a penchant for a savior
a tendency to over – run
whatever shook do not get shook up
whatever’s lost you don’t get lost
even if they say you must give more than
everything you ever offered up
I know a voice does not come easy
I know the words fell out in bites
I know the moment when the
abandonment looked a lot like flight
you pulled whatever got left
inside
out right
Kinder than Man by Athea Davis
And God,
please let the deer
on the highway
get some kind of heaven.
Something with tall soft grass,
and sweet reunion.
Let the moths in porch lights
go some place
with a thousand suns,
that taste like sugar
and get swallowed whole.
May the mice
in oil and glue
have forever dry, warm fur
and full bellies.
If I am killed
for simply living,
let death be kinder
than man.
And God,
please let the deer
on the highway
get some kind of heaven.
Something with tall soft grass,
and sweet reunion.
Let the moths in porch lights
go some place
with a thousand suns,
that taste like sugar
and get swallowed whole.
May the mice
in oil and glue
have forever dry, warm fur
and full bellies.
If I am killed
for simply living,
let death be kinder
than man.
FRIDA KAHLO TO MARTY MCCONNELL
leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.
leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.
Hey You
-Adrian Blevins
Back when my head like an egg in a nest
was vowel-keen and dawdling, I shed my slick beautiful
and put it in a basket and laid it barefaced at the river
among the taxing rocks. My beautiful was all hush
and glitter. It was too moist to grasp. My beautiful
had no tongue with which to lick—no discernable
wallowing gnaw. It was really a breed of destruction
like a nick in a knife. It was a notch in the works
or a wound like a bell in a fat iron mess. My beautiful
was a drink too sopping to haul up and swig!
Therefore with the trees watching and the beavers abiding
I tossed my beautiful down at the waterway against
the screwball rocks. Even then there was no hum.
My beautiful was never ill-bred enough, no matter what
you say. If you want my blue yes everlasting, try my
she, instead. Try the why not of my low down,
Sugar, my windswept and wrecked.
-Adrian Blevins
Back when my head like an egg in a nest
was vowel-keen and dawdling, I shed my slick beautiful
and put it in a basket and laid it barefaced at the river
among the taxing rocks. My beautiful was all hush
and glitter. It was too moist to grasp. My beautiful
had no tongue with which to lick—no discernable
wallowing gnaw. It was really a breed of destruction
like a nick in a knife. It was a notch in the works
or a wound like a bell in a fat iron mess. My beautiful
was a drink too sopping to haul up and swig!
Therefore with the trees watching and the beavers abiding
I tossed my beautiful down at the waterway against
the screwball rocks. Even then there was no hum.
My beautiful was never ill-bred enough, no matter what
you say. If you want my blue yes everlasting, try my
she, instead. Try the why not of my low down,
Sugar, my windswept and wrecked.
Four Winds
- Connor Oberst
Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There's people always dying, trying to keep 'em alive
There's bodies decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where
A squatter's made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl
She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair
But when great Satan's gone
The whore of Babylon
She just can't sustain
The pressure where it's placed
She caves
The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran is mute
If you burned them all together, you'd get close to the truth still
They're poring over Sanskrit under Ivy League moons
While shadows lengthen in the sun
Cast on a school of meditation built to soften the times
And hold us at the center while the spiral unwinds
It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines
Four winds, cry until it comes
And it's the sum of man
Slouching towards Bethlehem
A heart just can't contain
All of that empty space
It breaks
It breaks
It breaks!
Well, I went back by rented Cadillac and company jet
Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps
All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead
They said, "You'd better look alive"
And now it's off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps
In the black hills, the badlands, the calloused east
I buried my ballast, I made my peace
Heard four winds leveling the pines
But when great Satan's gone
The whore of Babylon
She just can't remain
With all that outer space
She breaks
She breaks
She caves
She caves
- Connor Oberst
Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There's people always dying, trying to keep 'em alive
There's bodies decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where
A squatter's made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl
She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair
But when great Satan's gone
The whore of Babylon
She just can't sustain
The pressure where it's placed
She caves
The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran is mute
If you burned them all together, you'd get close to the truth still
They're poring over Sanskrit under Ivy League moons
While shadows lengthen in the sun
Cast on a school of meditation built to soften the times
And hold us at the center while the spiral unwinds
It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines
Four winds, cry until it comes
And it's the sum of man
Slouching towards Bethlehem
A heart just can't contain
All of that empty space
It breaks
It breaks
It breaks!
Well, I went back by rented Cadillac and company jet
Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps
All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead
They said, "You'd better look alive"
And now it's off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps
In the black hills, the badlands, the calloused east
I buried my ballast, I made my peace
Heard four winds leveling the pines
But when great Satan's gone
The whore of Babylon
She just can't remain
With all that outer space
She breaks
She breaks
She caves
She caves
Eve's Protest
- Isabella DeSendi
Men insist I shouldn’t use my body to conquer
them when men have been using me
to look at loneliness less directly. I solve
their endless wars; I’m a rack to hang
headless hats. Is it lunacy or resilience
when something breaks but we keep on
pushing through it? Like the body, becoming sacred
is an act of love or self-deceit. Just look at Adam
wrenching out his rib for me. Things haven’t changed.
Lonely people are still desperate and busy
being loud about it. I would know.
I’m shapeless as a fledgling flattened
having surrendered all my bones.
Look, all I wanted was someone
I could show my wretchedness to, someone
who would be there, loving. Or else, I wanted
to feel winter coming and not feel like an animal
who’d forgotten to wake up. Do I really have to say it?
Even the sequoia tree’s leaves will redden
to ash, proving nature and God are good
at showing us all the ways we’re wrong.
Tell me, what woman hasn’t been
tempted, porous—only wanting
what she wanted. Do you blame me, Lord?
I’m only doing what you’ve done. Made a man
suffer then surrender before I let him love me.
If I was wrong to die for pleasure, so be it.
If I was wrong to make my man aware of his body
the way wind is aware of its shapelessness
only after a locomotive blows through a tunnel
and cleaves its loud nothing into more
billowing nothing, then I accept
what damage, brightness I’ve caused.
I know I’ve said this already
but I mean it: Once, I was good.
Now, standing by the pier, the sky opens up
in late-night light like a scab unwilling to close
and I admit, part of me is still like you, Lord.
Some days, I’m tired. Some days, all I want is to
eradicate the earth. Instead, a man I love enters me
slow as light stabbing its way through to morning.
O God, don’t refute this. I know your rage
is fueled by jealousy and your jealousy fueled
by sadness. You wish you could hold a body
like this and understand what I mean when I say
it was worth it. All of it. Yes, it was worth it.
- Isabella DeSendi
Men insist I shouldn’t use my body to conquer
them when men have been using me
to look at loneliness less directly. I solve
their endless wars; I’m a rack to hang
headless hats. Is it lunacy or resilience
when something breaks but we keep on
pushing through it? Like the body, becoming sacred
is an act of love or self-deceit. Just look at Adam
wrenching out his rib for me. Things haven’t changed.
Lonely people are still desperate and busy
being loud about it. I would know.
I’m shapeless as a fledgling flattened
having surrendered all my bones.
Look, all I wanted was someone
I could show my wretchedness to, someone
who would be there, loving. Or else, I wanted
to feel winter coming and not feel like an animal
who’d forgotten to wake up. Do I really have to say it?
Even the sequoia tree’s leaves will redden
to ash, proving nature and God are good
at showing us all the ways we’re wrong.
Tell me, what woman hasn’t been
tempted, porous—only wanting
what she wanted. Do you blame me, Lord?
I’m only doing what you’ve done. Made a man
suffer then surrender before I let him love me.
If I was wrong to die for pleasure, so be it.
If I was wrong to make my man aware of his body
the way wind is aware of its shapelessness
only after a locomotive blows through a tunnel
and cleaves its loud nothing into more
billowing nothing, then I accept
what damage, brightness I’ve caused.
I know I’ve said this already
but I mean it: Once, I was good.
Now, standing by the pier, the sky opens up
in late-night light like a scab unwilling to close
and I admit, part of me is still like you, Lord.
Some days, I’m tired. Some days, all I want is to
eradicate the earth. Instead, a man I love enters me
slow as light stabbing its way through to morning.
O God, don’t refute this. I know your rage
is fueled by jealousy and your jealousy fueled
by sadness. You wish you could hold a body
like this and understand what I mean when I say
it was worth it. All of it. Yes, it was worth it.
