Tuesday Poem: "Advertisement" by Wisława Szymborska

I’m a tranquilizer.
I’m effective at home.
I work in the office.
I can take exams
on the witness stand.
I mend broken cups with care.
All you have to do is take me,
let me melt beneath your tongue,
just gulp me
with a glass of water.

I know how to handle misfortune,
how to take bad news.
I can minimize injustice,
lighten up God’s absence,
or pick the widow’s veil that suits your face.
What are you waiting for—
have faith in my chemical compassion.

You’re still a young man/woman.
It’s not too late to learn how to unwind.
Who said
you have to take it on the chin?

Let me have your abyss.
I’ll cushion it with sleep.
You’ll thank me for giving you
four paws to fall on.

Sell me your soul.
There are no other takers.

There is no other devil anymore.


by Wisława Szymborska (translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak)

For more information on poet, Wisława Szymborska, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wisaawa-szymborska

Tuesday Poem: "Saying Goodbye to Very Young Children" by John Updike

They will not be the same next time. The sayings  
so cute, just slightly off, will be corrected.  
Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged in  
the more securely to the worldly buzz  
of television, alphabet, and street talk,  
culture polluting their gazes' pure blue.  
It makes you see at last the value of  
those boring aunts and neighbors (their smells  
of summer sweat and cigarettes, their faces                        
like shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves)  
who knew you from the start, when you were zero,  
cooing their nothings before you could be bored  
or knew a name, not even your own, or how  
this world brave with hellos turns all goodbye.


by John Updike

For more information about poet, John Updike, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike

Tuesday Poem: "Hard-Wired" by Jenny Xie

A misfortune can swell
for a long, long time in the mind.

While goodness shrinks
down to a hard shell.

I reach for the hammer,
but it doesn't crack.

Evolutionarily, it makes sense.

These fishbone days, this fatty grief.


by Jenny Xie

For more information about poet, Jenny Xie, see:

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/jenny-xie-0

Tuesday Poem: "They'll say: "She must be from another country" by Imtiaz Dharker

When I can’t comprehend
why they’re burning books
or slashing paintings,
when they can’t bear to look
at god’s own nakedness,
when they ban the film
and gut the seats to stop the play
and I ask why
they just smile and say,
‘She must be
from another country.’

When I speak on the phone
and the vowel sounds are off
when the consonants are hard
and they should be soft,
they’ll catch on at once
they’ll pin it down
they’ll explain it right away
to their own satisfaction,
they’ll cluck their tongues
and say,
‘She must be
from another country.’

When my mouth goes up
instead of down,
when I wear a tablecloth
to go to town,
when they suspect I’m black
or hear I’m gay
they won’t be surprised,
they’ll purse their lips
and say,
‘She must be
from another country.’

When I eat up the olives
and spit out the pits
when I yawn at the opera
in the tragic bits
when I pee in the vineyard
as if it were Bombay,
flaunting my bare ass
covering my face
laughing through my hands
they’ll turn away,
shake their heads quite sadly,
‘She doesn’t know any better,’
they’ll say,
‘She must be
from another country.’

Maybe there is a country
where all of us live,
all of us freaks
who aren’t able to give
our loyalty to fat old fools,
the crooks and thugs
who wear the uniform
that gives them the right
to wave a flag,
puff out their chests,
put their feet on our necks,
and break their own rules.

But from where we are
it doesn’t look like a country,    
it’s more like the cracks
that grow between borders
behind their backs.
That’s where I live.
And I’ll be happy to say,
‘I never learned your customs.
I don’t remember your language
or know your ways.
I must be
from another country.’


by Imtiaz Dharker

For more information on poet, Imtiaz Dharker, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imtiaz_Dharker