Tuesday Poem: "Fights" by Chelsey Minnis

Point of information: What do you know about anything?
I’ll give you extra time to figure it out.
No, I’m not going to cry.
I’m going to smash the geraniums.
Do you mind, darling?

I like it when you shake your fist at a painted portrait.
May I ask why you’re so terrible?
I love you but you want to go to blazes.
Have you ever even tasted my tears?
The empty champagne glasses were waiting beautifully.

Don’t look at me with that sparkle.
I don’t like it.
Everyone shouldn’t ruin everything.
I never win an argument, but there are other things in life.
Does anybody ever get that look out of their eyes?

I’ve had the right attitude once or twice.
I nearly went out of my mind.
What are you? A perfect rat?
I adore rats. Rats are sweet.
Now, let’s have some yelling.

Darling, this is a cylindrical satin sofa cushion.
I’m going to beat you with it.
Now, a lot of people don’t know what I’m talking about.
That’s what’s so wonderful.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to accept that free ticket out of town.

Bulletin: You’re no good.
I don’t care who catches it.
It’s a swell night for a cry.
That’s KO with me.
Let’s have ringside seats.

Bulletin: You’re still no good.
I think you’re the most no-good person I’ve ever known.
And that concludes tonight’s sermon.
I know what you’re thinking.
Maybe we’d get somewhere.

by Chelsey Minnis

For more information about the poet, Chelsey Minnis, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/chelsey-minnis

Tuesday Poem: "Leaves" by Derek Mahon

The prisoners of infinite choice
Have built their house
In a field below the wood
And are at peace.

It is autumn, and dead leaves
On their way to the river
Scratch like birds at the windows
Or tick on the road.

Somewhere there is an afterlife
Of dead leaves,
A stadium filled with an infinite
Rustling and sighing.

Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have lived
Have found their own fulfilment.

by Derek Mahon

For more information about the poet, Derek Mahon, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derek-mahon

Tuesday Poem: "Black Moon" by Matthew Sweeney

For white he used toothpaste, 
for red, blood – but only his own 
that he hijacked just enough of each day. 

For green he crushed basil in a little 
olive oil. His yellow was egg yolk, 
his black, coal dust dampened with water. 

He tried several routes to blue 
before stopping at the intersection 
of bilberry juice and pounded bluebells. 

His brown was his own, too, applied 
last thing in the day before the first 
Laphraoig, and the stone jug of ale. 

He used no other colours, but his tone 
was praised by Prince Haisal, no less, 
which got him a rake of commissions 

and a residency-offer in Kuwait 
which he turned down. At home 
the Royal Family was less generous 

so he painted them all, in a series 
that came to be called his brown period, 
though this was strictly incorrect. 

He never exhibited with other painters, 
never drank with them, spoke of them – 
never even spat at their work. 

A cave in the Orkneys was his last dwelling 
and he rode a horse to his studio. 
There were no people in these paintings, 

which were found piled up on one another 
inside the cave, with no sign of him, 
and on top was a depiction of a black moon.

by Matthew Sweeney

For more information about poet, Matthew Sweeney, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/matthew-sweeney

Tuesday Poem: "Callers" by Christine Evans

It is always a shock when they take off their caps, 

Those neighbouring farmers who call at our house.

They have to, of course, to have something to roll 

Or to press or twist in their blunt, nervous hands; 

But it makes them instantly vulnerable 

With their soft bald spots or thinning forelocks. 

They seem at once smaller, and much more vivid: 

Leaping out of type to personality. 

The smell of their beasts comes in with them, 

Faint as the breath of growing things in summer, 

Rich, as the days draw in, with cake and hay and dung. 

They are ill at ease in the house: 

One feels they would like to stamp and snort, 

Looking sideways, but have been trained out of it – 

As with leaving mucky boots beside the door. 

Only small, swarthy men with the friendly smell on them; 

Yet walls press close and the room seems cluttered. 

I am glad to go and make obligatory tea 

As their voices sway, slow with the seasons, 

And, ponderously, come to the point.

by Christine Evans

For more information on poet, Christine Evans, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Evans_(poet)

Tuesday Poem: "Getting Older" by Elaine Feinstein

The first surprise: I like it. 

Whatever happens now, some things 

that used to terrify have not: 

I didn't die young, for instance. Or lose 

my only love. My three children 

never had to run away from anyone. 

Don't tell me this gratitude is complacent. 

We all approach the edge of the same blackness 

which for me is silent. 

Knowing as much sharpens 

my delight in January freesia, 

hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say 

as we lie close on some gentle occasion: 

every day won from such 

darkness is a celebration.

by Elaine Feinstein

For more information about poet, Elaine Feinstein, see:

https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/elaine-feinstein

Tuesday Poem: "Circle" by Pádraig Ó Tuama

It’s funny how things come in
circles.
You, sitting on a step,
smoking a cigarette,
watching leaves fall off a
slowly stripping tree.
Me, hanging photos on a wall,
including one of you
receiving, like a priestess,
your lover’s confession.
Me telling stories of
your conversations.
You, weeping
when your dad asked you
how you were.
Me writing poems about life
while I was slowly plunging into
death.
You breathing in those
same lines,
sitting on a step,
smoking a cigarette.

by Pádraig Ó Tuama

For more information about the poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama, see:

https://poets.org/poet/padraig-o-tuama

Tuesday Poem: "air and light and time and space" by Charles Bukowski

'- you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create.'

no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for. 

by Charles Bukowski 

For more information on the poet, Charles Bukowski, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-bukowski

Tuesday Poem: "Women Whose Lives are Food, Men Whose Lives are Money" by Joyce Carol Oates

Mid-morning Monday she is staring
peaceful as the rain in that shallow back yard
she wears flannel bedroom slippers
she is sipping coffee
she is thinking—
                            —gazing at the weedy bumpy yard
at the faces beginning to take shape
in the wavy mud
in the linoleum
where floorboards assert themselves

Women whose lives are food
breaking eggs with care
scraping garbage from the plates
unpacking groceries hand over hand

Wednesday evening: he takes the cans out front
tough plastic with detachable lids
Thursday morning: the garbage truck whining at 7
Friday the shopping mall open till 9
bags of groceries unpacked
hand over certain hand

Men whose lives are money
time-and-a-half Saturdays
the lunchbag folded with care and brought back home
unfolded Monday morning

Women whose lives are food
because they are not punch-carded
because they are unclocked
sighing glad to be alone
staring into the yard, mid-morning
mid-week
by mid-afternoon everything is forgotten

There are long evenings
panel discussions on abortions, fashions, meaningful work
there are love scenes where people mouth passions
sprightly, handsome, silly, manic
in close-ups revealed ageless
the women whose lives are food
the men whose lives are money
fidget as these strangers embrace and weep and mis-
            understand and forgive and die and weep and embrace
and the viewers stare and fidget and sigh and
begin yawning around 10:30
never made it past midnight, even on Saturdays,
watching their braven selves perform

Where are the promised revelations?
Why have they been shown so many times?
Long-limbed children a thousand miles to the west
hitch-hiking in spring, burnt bronze in summer
thumbs nagging
eyes pleading
Give us a ride, huh? Give us a ride?

and when they return nothing is changed
the linoleum looks older
the Hawaiian Chicken is new
the girls wash their hair more often
the boys skip over the puddles
in the GM parking lot
no one eyes them with envy

their mothers stoop
the oven doors settle with a thump
the dishes are rinsed and stacked and
by mid-morning the house is quiet
it is raining out back
or not raining
the relief of emptiness rains
simple, terrible, routine
at peace

by Joyce Carol Oates

For more information about the poet, Joyce Carol Oates, see:

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

Tuesday Poem: "The Week Before She Died" by Elise Paschen

I dream us young, again,
mother and daughter back
on 69th Street inside
our old brownstone—across
from the church, patch of lawn— 

a house neglected, wrecked,
as if the family
had been forced at gunpoint
to move away. In corners
dirt stacked like miniscule

anthills; along the edges
of room—crumpled clothes, bodiless;
littered across the floor
dry-cleaning bags, vestiges
of what they once protected.

A Turkish scarf, embroidered
with sequins, glitter, beads,
tantalizes. My mother
holds it close, says, “You should 
wear it.” The doorbell rings.

At the top of the stairs
he waits for us to answer.
My mother’s ballet partner, 
Russian, stows something covert
behind his almond eyes. With three

regal strides he commands
our gaze, pronounces the red
brocade robe his, lofts high 
the scarf, the sash he flung
in Giselle, circling the empty 

living room. With mischief he bows
low before my mother. Her love
for him, a mountain. The doorbell 
chimes. A blond, blue-eyed dancer,
in epaulets, arrives.

She straightens shoulders, turns,
walks away. Rudy asks 
Erik, “Did you ever tell her 
about us?” No response. The secrets 
men keep, my mother knows. 

by Elise Paschen

For more information about poet, Elise Paschen, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elise-paschen

Tuesday Poem: "Aunt Helen" by T.S. Eliot

Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable square
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was silence in heaven
And silence at her end of the street.
The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet —
He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.
The dogs were handsomely provided for,
But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.
The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees —
Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.

by T.S. Eliot

For more information on poet, T.S. Eliot, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot

Tuesday Poem: "Climbing Milestone Mountain, August 22, 1937" by Kenneth Rexroth

For a month now, wandering over the Sierras,   
A poem had been gathering in my mind,   
Details of significance and rhythm,
The way poems do, but still lacking a focus.   
Last night I remembered the date and it all   
Began to grow together and take on purpose.
   We sat up late while Deneb moved over the zenith   
And I told Marie all about Boston, how it looked   
That last terrible week, how hundreds stood weeping   
Impotent in the streets that last midnight.
I told her how those hours changed the lives of thousands,
How America was forever a different place   
Afterwards for many.
                              In the morning
We swam in the cold transparent lake, the blue   
Damsel flies on all the reeds like millions   
Of narrow metallic flowers, and I thought   
Of you behind the grille in Dedham, Vanzetti,
Saying, “Who would ever have thought we would make this history?”
Crossing the brilliant mile-square meadow   
Illuminated with asters and cyclamen,   
The pollen of the lodgepole pines drifting   
With the shifting wind over it and the blue   
And sulphur butterflies drifting with the wind,   
I saw you in the sour prison light, saying,   
“Goodbye comrade.”
                           In the basin under the crest
Where the pines end and the Sierra primrose begins,   
A party of lawyers was shooting at a whiskey bottle.   
The bottle stayed on its rock, nobody could hit it.
Looking back over the peaks and canyons from the last lake,   
The pattern of human beings seemed simpler   
Than the diagonals of water and stone.   
Climbing the chute, up the melting snow and broken rock,
I remembered what you said about Sacco,
How it slipped your mind and you demanded it be read into the record.
Traversing below the ragged arête,
One cheek pressed against the rock
The wind slapping the other,
I saw you both marching in an army
You with the red and black flag, Sacco with the rattlesnake banner.
I kicked steps up the last snow bank and came   
To the indescribably blue and fragrant
Polemonium and the dead sky and the sterile
Crystalline granite and final monolith of the summit.   
These are the things that will last a long time, Vanzetti,
I am glad that once on your day I have stood among them.   
Some day mountains will be named after you and Sacco.   
They will be here and your name with them,
“When these days are but a dim remembering of the time   
When man was wolf to man.”
I think men will be remembering you a long time   
Standing on the mountains
Many men, a long time, comrade.

by Kenneth Rexroth

For more information about poet, Kenneth Rexroth, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kenneth-rexroth