April 30, 2013: Tear It Down, Jack Gilbert

Tear It Down
Jack Gilbert

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.

==

Jack Gilbert — who I used to call maybe the greatest living poet — died this past year.  Here are some more of his:

+ I Imagine The Gods
+ A Brief for the Defense
+ Getting Away with It
+ Not Getting Closer
+ Alone

On this day in:

2012: from An Atlas of the Difficult World, Adrienne Rich
2011: Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal, Naomi Shihab Nye
2010: from Pioneers! O Pioneers!, Walt Whitman
2009: from The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
2008: from Five-Finger Exercises, T.S. Eliot
2007: Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot
2006: Preludes, T.S. Eliot
2005: A Song for Simeon, T.S. Eliot

Aaaand, that’s a wrap on National Poetry Month 2013!  Thanks so much for reading along.  See you next year: same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.  In the meantime, you can make your way through the archive of poems from past years to see what you find. Getting to be quite a few in there.

April 29, 2013: The Ghost of Frank O’Hara, John Yohe

The Ghost of Frank O’Hara
John Yohe

The ghost of Frank O’Hara taps me on
the shoulder whispering
                                                and what about
the humor what about talks with the sun
and things that happen at the movies out
of sight of parents don’t forget the thirst
of being in Manhattan in the heat
and Coke the drink
                                      remember too your first
love passion music though it might not come out
in words it’s there in you but I was sad
and said what good is humor in a poem
when people die Manhattan Fire Island
we
      bought falafels which we thought weren’t bad
and walked to Central Park for space and some
children were laughing and he said ask them

==

That’s right, another excuse for me to link Frank. Find the connections to this poem!

Animals | Anxiety | Ave Maria, Frank O’Hara | For Grace, After A Party | Gamin | Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think | A Step Away From Them | Steps

Via Rattle, which publishes interesting, accessible poetry.

On this day in:

2012: All Objects Reveal Something About the Body, Catie Rosemurgy
2011: Prayer, Marie Howe
2010: The Talker, Chelsea Rathburn
2009: There Are Many Theories About What Happened, John Gallagher
2008: bon bon il est un pays, Samuel Beckett
2007: Root root root for the home team, Bob Hicok
2006: Fever 103°, Sylvia Plath
2005: King Lear Considers What He’s Wrought, Melissa Kirsch

April 28, 2013: Ave Maria, Frank O’Hara

Ave Maria
Frank O’Hara

Mothers of America
                                     let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to 
it’s true that fresh air is good for the body
                                                                             but what about the soul 
that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you must
                                                                            they won’t hate you 
they won’t criticize you they won’t know
                                                                            they’ll be in some glamorous country 
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey

they may even be grateful to you
                                                            for their first sexual experience 
which only cost you a quarter
                                                       and didn’t upset the peaceful home 
they will know where candy bars come from
                                                                                 and gratuitous bags of popcorn 
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg 
near the Williamsburg Bridge
                                                       oh mothers you will have made the little tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies 
they won’t know the difference
                                                         and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy 
and they’ll have been truly entertained either way
instead of hanging around the yard
                                                                 or up in their room
                                                                                                     hating you
prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet 
except keeping them from the darker joys
                                                                             it’s unforgivable the latter 
so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice
                                                                                      and the family breaks up 
and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set
                                                                                                        seeing 
movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

==

Frank O’Hara, golden god:

Animals | Anxiety | For Grace, After A Party | Gamin | Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think | A Step Away From Them | Steps

On this day in:

2012: The Letter, Linda Gregg
2011: Like Kerosene, Olena Kalytiak Davis
2010: Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Koch
2009: from Tag, Anne Carson
2008: The Leaving, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2007: Theories of Time and Space, Natasha Trethewey
2006: Dream Song 145, John Berryman
2005: Having It Out With Melancholy, Jane Kenyon

April 27, 2013: Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey, Hayden Carruth

Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey
Hayden Carruth   

Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren’t we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I
thought my heart would burst.
And Brad M. pressing with the
soft stick and Joe-Anne
singing low. Here we are now
in the White Tower, leaning
on one another, too tired
to go home. But don’t say a word,
don’t tell a soul, they wouldn’t
understand, they couldn’t, never
in a million years, how fine,
how magnificent we were
in that old club tonight.

==

On this day in:

2012: My Place, Franz Wright
2011: from The Wild Geese, Wendell Berry
2010: Love After Love, Derek Walcott
2009: To This May, W.S. Merwin
2008: Father, Ted Kooser
2007: from Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, Galway Kinnell
2006: Crusoe in England, Elizabeth Bishop
2005: Dream Song 1, John Berryman

April 26, 2013: Habitation, Margaret Atwood

Habitation
Margaret Atwood

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest,
the edge of the desert

                the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire

==

On this day in:

2012: About Marriage, Denise Levertov
2011: In Praise of My Bed, Meredith Holmes
2010: Black Swan, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2009: In Me as the Swans, Leslie Williams
2008: Gnosticism V, Anne Carson
2007: American Names, Stephen Vincent Benet
2006: since feeling is first, e.e. cummings
2005: The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats

April 25, 2013: To Myself, Franz Wright

To Myself
Franz Wright

You are riding the bus again
burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80, 
the sole passenger

with an overhead light on. 
And I am with you.
I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,

the little lights off in the distance 
(in one of those rooms we are 
living) and I am the rain

and the others all
around you, and the loneliness you love,
and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,

and the catastrophic dawn,
the nicotine crawling on your skin—
and when you begin

to cough I won’t cover my face,
and if you vomit this time I will hold you: 
everything’s going to be fine

I will whisper.
It won’t always be like this.
I am going to buy you a sandwich.

==

Poems for comfort:

+ What the Living Do, Marie Howe
+ Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
+ The Sciences Sing a Lullabye, Albert Goldbarth

On this day in:

2012: Manet’s Olympia, Margaret Atwood
2011: Three Rivers, Alpay Ulku
2010: Ode to Hangover, Dean Young
2009: We become new, Marge Piercy
2008: The Only Animal, Franz Wright
2007: Dream Song 385, John Berryman
2006: The Quiet World, Jeffrey McDaniel
2005: Man and Wife, Robert Lowell

April 24, 2013: Near the Race Track, Brigit Peegen Kelly

Near the Race Track
Brigit Peegen Kelly

(for Michael)

You will remember the ice cream store,
rising where you did not expect it.
You were stabbing the air with your umbrella
and cursing, you looked up
and in one breath moved into your tongue.
                       Joy is more than a pause.
It is the day swelling like a balloon,
like the hundred hot air balloons
you saw by the race track: cars stalled
on the highway—no police anywhere—

and all that silence rising.

Joy can be made out of cloth and heated
with gas. It can ascend from our hands
and halt us in our shoes. We
can have too few mouths to hold it—
we can be lost in the middle of the day,
by the highway, in the heat.

==

More everyday joy:
+ Meanwhile, Richard Siken
+ Now comes the long blue cold, Mary Oliver
+ Steps, Frank O’Hara

On this day in:

2012: from Ask Him, Raymond Carver
2011: Sweet Star Chisel, Dearest Flaming Crumbs in Your Beard Lord, John Rybicki
2010: Rain Travel, W.S. Merwin
2009: Goodnight, Li-Young Lee
2008: Bearhug, Michael Ondaatje 
2007: Meditation at Lagunitas, Robert Hass
2006: Autumn, Rainer Maria Rilke
2005: On Turning Ten, Billy Collins

April 23, 2013: The Triumph of the Infinite, Mark Strand

The Triumph of the Infinite
Mark Strand

I got up in the night and went to the end of the hall. Over the
door in large letters it said, “This is the next life. Please come
in.” I opened the door. Across the room a bearded man in a
pale-green suit turned to me and said, “Better get ready, we’re
taking the long way.” “Now I’ll wake up,” I thought, but I was
wrong. We began our journey over golden tundra and patches
of ice. Then there was nothing for miles around, and all I could
hear was my heart pumping and pumping so hard I thought I
would die all over again.

April 22, 2013: Paralysis, Peter Boyle

Paralysis
Peter Boyle

Laid out flat
in the back of the station wagon my father borrowed
I look up:
the leaves are immense,
green and golden with clear summer light
breaking through –
though I turn only my neck
I can see all of them
along this avenue that has no limits.
 
What does it matter
that I am only eyes
if I am to be carried
so lightly
under the trees of the world?
From beyond the numbness of my strange body
the wealth of the leaves
falls forever
into my small still watching.

==

(On the author’s childhood polio.)

Happy Earth Day: Browse the earth day poetry tag.

2012: from Mayakovsky, Frank O’Hara
2011: Northern Pike, James Wright
2010: Humpbacks, Mary Oliver
2009: Alone, Jack Gilbert
2008: From Blossoms, Li-Young Lee
2007: For Grace, After A Party, Frank O’Hara
2006: Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
2005: A Brief for the Defense, Jack Gilbert

April 21, 2013: 30th Birthday, Alice Notley

30th Birthday
Alice Notley