Your Favorite Poems

[Anastasia11]

The face in the mirror strange.

Wax lips curling hopeful

not her lips

nor the eyes her eyes.

She is peeling away from the vessel,

slipping out of the skin.

Isn’t it curious

the body below watching the face in the glass?

How she smiles at the stranger

then splinters into shards?

So easy to splinter and fly away.

Now she is a sparrow, small and brown,

scratching at broken pieces,

a spider on the ceiling

ravenous,

many legged,

a goat scrabbling up and up chinks

in the wall.

Broken, ravenous, scrabbling

she collects the shards

and swallows them.

It hardly hurts at all.

[Kätzchen]

[Kätzchen]

"This is the kind of friend you are-
Without making me realize my soul's anguished history,
You slip into my house at night,
And while I am sleeping,
You silently carry off all my suffering
and sordid past in your beautiful hands,"
— Hafiz of Shiraz

[Vincent]

Like You
Roque Dalton, 1935 - 1975
translated by Jack Hirschman

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

[Kätzchen]

Here is a few excerpts from an essay written by Audre Lorde, which was first published in Chrysalis: A Magazine of Female Culture (no. 3; 1977) and is featured in Audre Lorde's book Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Feminist Theory).






Poetry Is Not A Luxury *

~ Audre Lorde

The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has a direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are -- until the poem -- nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feelings births idea, as knowledge births (preceeds) understanding.

As we learn to bear the intimacy of scrutiny and to flourish within it, as we learn to use the products of that scrutiny for power within our living, those fears which rule our lives and form our silences begin to lose their control over us.

For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises (…).

These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness.

For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives (pp. 36-37).

[Kätzchen]

The other day, I came across an exhibit of poetry, which was very inspiring to me. The poetry exhibit was put together by The Poetry Project. This particular poem was written for the Poetry Project, back in 2008, and when I stood in the alcove of the gallery, where this giant wall poster with the poetry was hanging, I read it to myself and felt heard. Like the poet, not even knowing me or others like me, heard me. His poem felt so validating, in that I have grown into my own beautiful self over time and although it has taken years for me to internalize the notion that I do not need anyone to complete me, I felt like it was a watershed moment, the moment I read the poet's poem. I like it a lot because it feels authentic. It is authentic. I am authentic all on my own, because I am complete on my own. In the words of the poet: "My heart needs no one to feel complete."


Here is the poem I found at the poetry exhibit:

You are mighty, a force unknown.
Your heart needs no one to feel complete.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Author/Poet: James McInerney (2008).

[Kätzchen]

The Genius of the Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art




-Charles Bukowski

[Kätzchen]

[BullDog]

When Great Trees Fall

By Maya Angelou

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

[Kätzchen]

After A While


After a while, you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn the love doesn't mean leaning

and company doesn't always mean security

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises

And you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

With the grace of a woman

and not the grief of a child

And you learn to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.


So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for somebody to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

that you are really strong and that you really do have worth.

And you learn and you learn,

with every goodbye you learn.

by Veronica A. Shoffstall (1971)

[Stone-Butch]

https://youtu.be/HJfbrJs4VqI

The Glove and the Lions








This is truly one of my favorites.

[Kätzchen]

[Stone-Butch]

[Kätzchen]

Link to full text of her inaugural poem & news article:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/01/...amanda-gorman/

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by daisygrrl

"The Last Time" by Marie Howe
(from What the Living Do, focusing on her brother's struggle with AIDS)


The last time we had dinner together in a restraurant
with white table clothes, he leaned forward

and took my two hands in his and said,
I'm going to die soon. I want you to know that.

And I said, I think I do know.
And he said, what surprises me is that you don't.

And I said, I do. And he said, What?
And I said, Know that you're going to die.

And he said, No, I mean know that you are.

I just love this poem. It makes me think of my Rico, who did nearly the same thing with me, telling me over a quiet dinner together about his stage 4 Kidney cancer and the ensuing moments following his personal admission to me. Those moments we shared that summer evening over dinner are indelible in my heart of hearts.

Thanks for sharing Maria Howe's poem (The Last Time).

PS/ I like your signature line quote, too.

You can’t change that system by just getting your own rights, tinkering with the engine and leaving.
You have to take on the whole machine. ~Riki Anne Wilchins