El Olvido

BY JUDITH ORTIZ COFER

It is a dangerous thing
to forget the climate of your birthplace,
to choke out the voices of dead relatives
when in dreams they call you
by your secret name.
It is dangerous
to spurn the clothes you were born to wear
for the sake of fashion; dangerous
to use weapons and sharp instruments
you are not familiar with; dangerous
to disdain the plaster saints
before which your mother kneels
praying with embarrassing fervor
that you survive in the place you have chosen to live:
a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls,
a forgetting place where she fears you will die
of loneliness and exposure.
Jesús, María, y José, she says,
el olvido is a dangerous thing.

*El olvido means forgetfulness in Spanish.

The Sacred

The Sacred
Stephen Dunn

After the teacher asked if anyone had a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank

in their chairs, the most serious of them all said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming up, the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person

who understood the bright altar of the dashboard and how far away
a car could take him from the need

to speak, or to answer, the key in having a key
and putting it in, and going.

cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty

A poem by Lucille Clifton

cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty
or what i am capable of.

when i wanted the roaches dead i wanted them dead
and i killed them. i took a broom to their country

and smashed and sliced without warning
without stopping and i smiled all the time i was doing it.

it was a holocaust of roaches, bodies,
parts of bodies, red all over the ground. 

i didn’t ask their names. they had no names worth knowing.

now i watch myself whenever i enter a room.
i never know what i might do.

Abandoned Farmhouse - Ted Kooser

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm—a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

And the Ghosts - Graham Foust

I Have News for You - Tony Hoagland

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing as a symbol of ruined childhood

and there are people who don't interpret the behavior of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.

There are people who don't walk past an empty swimming pool and think about past pleasures unrecoverable

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians. I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings

do not send their sinuous feeder roots deep into the potting soil of others' emotional lives

as if they were greedy six-year-olds sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.

Do you see that creamy lemon-yellow moon? There are some people, unlike me and you,

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as unattainable as that moon; thus, they do not later have to waste more time defaming the object of their former ardor.

Or consequently run and crucify themselves in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.

I have news for you—there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in and let it touch them all over their faces and their bodies.

Dorie Off To Atlanta

Mark Halliday


Jen? Hi, it’s Dorie. I’m on the bus to LaGuardia. … Atlanta.
What? … Maybe. I’m not really sure. I mean his schedule is so
whacked,
y’know? … But anyway. I was telling you about Marcie. Yeah.
So
I said to her, I said, Marcie, this one seems different, y’know?
I said the last few guys you’ve dated–from what you’ve told
me–
I mean frankly– … Yeah. I said, Marcie, they might be
like very charming, y’know, and with great jobs, but frankly–
what it comes down to is, Let’s hit the bed,
and in the morning, Thanks for the excellent coffee. Y’know?
But this guy– … What? It’s Jason. Yeah.
So I said Marcie, from what you’ve said, Jason sounds
different–
and from what Bob said about him also. … Bob knows him
from some project last fall. So I said Marcie, you’ve had, what,
two coffees, two lunches, and a dinner, and he still hasn’t– …
No, Bob says he’s definitely straight. …
I think there was a divorce like six years ago or something. But
my–
What? … That’s right, yeah, I did. At Nathan’s party after some
show …
Yeah, “The Duchess of Malfi,” I forgot I told you. What? …
Only for five minutes–one cigarette, y’know? … Kind of low-
Key,
like thoughtful. But my point is– … Yeah, exactly! So I said,
Marcie, this is a guy who understands, y’know,
that bed is like part of something, y’know?
Like it’s not the big objective for godsake. It’s like an aspect–
What? … Exactly–it’s an expression of something much more–
Yes!–it’s like, Can we be companions in life, y’know?
So I said, Marcie, for godsake–if you don’t give this guy
like a serious chance, somebody else–y’know? … Right,
I mean let’s face it– … Jen? I’m losing you here–am I breaking
up?
Jen, I’ll call you from the airport–Okay bye.

From The Gettysburg Review, vol. 17 no. 1
Gettysburg College

Void Life

Mark Otuteye

I Hear America Singing

Walt Whitman


I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

Slow Children at Play

Cecilia Woloch


All the quick children have gone inside, called
by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands
honey-dinner’s-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home-
and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off
paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths, ohs, that glow and go out and glow. And their slow mothers flickering,
pale in the dusk, watching them turn in the gentle air, watching them
twirling, their arms spread wide, thinking, These are my children, thinking, Where is their dinner? Where has their father gone?

Radio

Laurel Blossom


No radio
in car

No radio on board

No radio
Already stolen

Absolutely no radio!

Radio broken
Alarm is set
To go off

No radio
No money

No radio
no valuables

No radio or
valuables
in car or trunk

No radio
Stolen 3X

No radio
Empty trunk
Empty glove compartment
Honest

In car
Nothing of value

No radio
No nuthin
(no kidding)

Radio Broken
Nothing Left!

Radio Gone

Numbers

Mary Cornish


I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.

Doing Without

David Ray

This is a poem about not having things.


        Doing without's an interesting
custom, involving such in-
         visible items as the food
that's not on the table, the clothes
         that are not on the back
the radio whose music
         is silence. Doing without
is a great protector of reputations
         since all places one cannot go
are fabulous, and only the rare and
         enlightened plowman in his field
or on his mountain does not overrate
         what he does not or cannot have.
Saluting through their windows
         of cathedral glass those restaurants
we must not enter (unless like
         burglars we become subject to
arrest) we greet with our twinkling
         eyes the faces of others who do
without, the lady with the
         fishing pole, and the man who looks
amused to have discovered on a walk
         another piece of firewood.

from Gathering Firewood, 1974
Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT

On Reading Harry Potter

Rhiannon D., age 16, Australia


When I was six, he was eleven
I learnt how to be brave.
When I was seven, he was twelve
I learnt to misbehave.
When I was eight, he was thirteen
He taught me how to cry.
When I was nine, he was fourteen
He showed me how to try.
When I was twelve, and he fifteen
He taught me to forgive.
When we were fourteen and sixteen
I learnt what it was to live.
When we were fifteen and seventeen
He showed me he could bleed.
But growing up with Harry taught me, mostly, how to read.

Poem 903

Emily Dickinson


I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

Kat’s Rewrite of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141

from 10 Things I Hate about You


I hate the way you talk to me
And the way you cut your hair.
I hate the way you drive my car.
I hate it when you stare.
I hate your big dumb combat boots
And the way you read my mind.
I hate you so much it makes me sick.
It even makes me rhyme.

I hate it...
I hate the way you're always right.
I hate it when you lie.
I hate it when you make me laugh;
Even worse when you make me cry.

I hate it when you're not around
And the fact that you didn't call,
But mostly I hate the way
I don't hate you;
Not even close;
Not even a little bit;
Not even at all.

The Shark

John Ciardi


My sweet, let me tell you about the Shark.
Though his eyes are bright, his thought is dark.
He’s quiet—that speaks well of him.
So does the fact that he can swim.
But though he swims without a sound,
Wherever he swims he looks around
With those two bright eyes and that one dark thought.
He has only one but he thinks it a lot.
And the thought he thinks but can never complete
Is his long dark thought of something to eat.
Most anything does. And I have to add
That when he eats, his manners are bad.
He’s a gulper, a ripper, a snatcher, a grabber.
Yes, his manners are drab. But his thought is drabber.
That one dark thought he can never complete
of something—anything—somehow to eat.

Be careful where you swim, my sweet.

First Person Demonstrative

Phyllis Gotlieb












I’d rather
heave half a brick than say
I love you, though I do
I’d rather
crawl in a hole than call you
darling, though you are
I’d rather
wrench off an arm than hug you
    though
it’s what I long to do
I’d rather
gather a posy of poison ivy than
ask if you love me
so if my
hair doesn’t stand on end it’s
    because
it knows its place
and if I
don’t take a bite of your ear
    it’s because
I never tease it
and if my
heart isn’t in my mouth it’s
    because
gristle gripes my guts
and if you
miss the message better get new
glasses and read it twice

An Egotist's Prayer

Elizabeth Peláez Norris


Lord, make me the center of attention
Like a movie star at a Republican or Democratic Convention,
It doesn’t really matter
If it’s the former or the latter
As long as I share the spotlight with no other,
And Lord, I hate to be a bother
But could you give me an Ogden Nash sense of humor
’Cause unless I’m wigged from a brain tumor there has to be some truth to the rumor
That he was witty in a wacky sort of way
Yet he was cultured, so they say,
For his pearls of wisdom cast before swine fell willy-nilly as from a broken string
Which reminds me, teach me to be humble so by my example humility I’d bring
To those who held me up on a pedestal
And help me be a good listener lest all
Not learn to listen to others as they listen unto me
And David Letterman who gets a hefty fee
  Lord, grant that in this life I may be honored with drum and fife
  Then thereafter in some Wax Museum or Hall of Fame I will truly be born to eternal life.

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost


I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

From New Hampshire 1923