april is: a poem a day for national poetry month

April 30, 2013: Tear It Down, Jack Gilbert

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:50:00 -0400

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

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:16:08 -0400

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!

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

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:51:21 -0400

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:

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

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:08:00 -0400

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

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:11:38 -0400

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

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:43:03 -0400

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

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:19:16 -0400

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

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:37:00 -0400

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.

More prose poems:
+ Open Letter to the Muse, Kristy Bowen
+ Please Take Back the Sparrows, Suzanne Buffam

More of the undiscovered country:
+ I Don’t Fear Death, Sandra Beasley
+ Death, Is All, Ana Božičević

On this day in:

2012: Mermaid Song, Kim Addonizio
2011: the laughing heart, Charles Bukowski
2010: from Jenny, Genya Turovskaya
2009: A Step Away From Them, Frank O’Hara
2008: Entry, Lisa Sewell
2007: Meanwhile, Richard Siken
2006: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, Amiri Baraka
2005: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne

April 22, 2013: Paralysis, Peter Boyle

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:52:00 -0400

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

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:16:00 -0400

30th Birthday
Alice Notley

May I never be afraid

especially of myself

but

Muhammed Ali are you telling

the truth?

Well you’re being true aren’t you and

you talk so wonderfully in your body

that protects you with physique of voice

raps within dance

May I never be afraid

rocked and quaked

the mantilla is lace

whose black is oak

But if I’m dark I’m strong

as my own darkness

my strength the universe

whose blackness is air

only starry

lace

But if I’m alive I’m strong

as life

Strong as the violets

in Marlon Brando’s fist

his dissemblance flourished into truth

She

took them

I’d take me too

I do

and my Ali I see you

a hard bright speck of me

the savage formalist

authentic deed of gossip

a kind body

Also: from Narrative: Ali, Elizabeth Alexander

On this day in…

2011: The Forties, Franz Wright
2010: Prayer of the Backhanded, Jericho Brown
2009: A Primer, Bob Hicok
2008: Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry, Howard Nemerov
2007: Open Letter to the Muse, Kristy Bowen
2006: A Sad Child, Margaret Atwood
2005: The Crunch, Charles Bukowski

April 20, 2013: To A Sad Daughter, Michael Ondaatje

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 18:26:48 -0400

To A Sad Daughter
Michael Ondaatje

All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
cuts and wounds
—all this pleases you.
O my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpen
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.

When I thought of daughters
I wasn’t expecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even your purple moods
when you retreat from everyone
to sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say ‘like’
I mean of course ‘love’
but that embarrasses you.
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
though you were moved
by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One day I’ll come swimming
beside your ship or someone will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.

I don’t care if you risk
your life to angry goalies
creatures with webbed feet.
You can enter their caves and castles
their glass laboratories. Just
don’t be fooled by anyone but yourself.

This is the first lecture I’ve given you.
You’re ‘sweet sixteen’ you said.
I’d rather be your closest friend
than your father. I’m not good at advice
you know that, but ride
the ceremonies
until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy
discovering your friends
I ache with loss
—but that is greed.
And sometimes I’ve gone
into my purple world
and lost you.

One afternoon I stepped
into your room. You were sitting
at the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
and sun spilled over you
like a thick yellow miracle
as if another planet
was coaxing you out of the house
—all those possible worlds!—
and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.

I cannot look at forsythia now
without loss, or joy for you.
You step delicately
into the wild world
and your real prize will be
the frantic search.
Want everything. If you break
break going out not in.
How you live your life I don’t care
but I’ll sell my arms for you,
hold your secrets forever.

If I speak of death
which you fear now, greatly,
it is without answers.
except that each
one we know is
in our blood.
Don’t recall graves.
Memory is permanent.
Remember the afternoon’s
yellow suburban annunciation.
Your goalie
in his frightening mask
dreams perhaps
of gentleness.

More parenting: A Little Tooth, Thomas Lux | Goodnight, Li-Young Lee

More hockey: February, Margaret Atwood

On this day in…

2011: Staying After, Linda Gregg
2010: Dream Song 14, John Berryman
2009: What We Kept, Megan Alpert
2008: Please Take Back the Sparrows, Suzanne Buffam
2007: It Happens Like This, James Tate
2006: Tantalus in May, Reginald Shepherd
2005: September Song, Geoffrey Hill

April 19, 2013: Thanks, W. S. Merwin

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:01:00 -0400

Thanks
W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

More Merwin.

On this day in:

2012: Sweetness, Stephen Dunn
2011: I Remember, Anne Sexton
2010: Letter, Franz Wright
2009: 23rd Street Runs Into Heaven, Kenneth Patchen
2008: HOUSEHOLD ACTIVITY NO. 26, J.R. Quackenbush
2007: from Briggflatts, Basil Bunting
2006: The Chores, Frannie Lindsay
2005: Direct Address, Joan Larkin

April 18, 2013: Wistful sounds like a brand of air freshener, Bob Hicok

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:15:02 -0400

Wistful sounds like a brand of air freshener
Bob Hicok

I will go to Belfast, Maine, and read my poetry to crabs.
I’ll stand on a platform of some kind in the company of wind
and look at pennants waving and think of the claws
of crabs waving in the wind of the Atlantic and be sad.
It’s not that I don’t have enough sadness, but I’m always looking
for better, more aquatic or tastier sadness, for the kind
of light that comes when the sky tilts its head at dusk
and wonders, in colors we understand as language, why this all
has to end. I could doff a Bogart hat and wag a tough cigarette
between my lips, smoke muscling up from my mouth as I say, it just does,
sweetheart, it just does, but the psychology of the fedora
escapes me. There’s bread and calisthenics and lice and radar
and jars of blue stuff in stores, and maybe what I’m doing
when I cry to certain songs at seventy miles an hour, is proving
I’ve noticed that out of the nothing that could be here,
everything is. So I will go to Belfast, Maine, and wonder
what it’s like to stand beside Main Street in the winter,
I’ll put my head against the brick buildings I’m betting
live there year-round and describe the tropics to them
by having warm thoughts, and if you’d like to meet me there,
I’ll be the man in the t-shirt that has an extra sleeve
in case the third arm I need shows up, because so far,
I’ve dropped almost everything I’m desperate to hold.

For K & K.

More Bob Hicok:

+ Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem
+ A Primer
+ An old story

On this day in:

2012: Not Getting Closer, Jack Gilbert
2011: Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car, Dan Pagis
2010: The Moss of His Skin, Anne Sexton
2009: It’s This Way, Nazim Hikmet
2008: The Problem With Skin, Aimee Nezhukumatathil
2007: Serenade, Terrance Hayes
2006: The Old Liberators, Robert Hedin
2005: Morning Song, Sylvia Plath

April 17, 2013: Catch a Body, Oliver Bendorf

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:01:00 -0400

Catch a Body
Oliver Bendorf

Salinger, I’m sorry, but “Don’t ever tell
anybody anything” is a string of words
I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. “Tell everyone everything” is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there’s someone in here we’re still alive!
So maybe it’s, “don’t be afraid.” We can
rewrite Icarus, flame-resistant feathers,
wax that won’t melt, I mean it, I’ll draw up
a prototype right now, that burning ball
of orange won’t stop us, it’ll be everything
we dream the morning after, even if we fall
into the sea—we are boats, remember?
We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire.

(Referencing the last lines of Catcher in the Rye.)

On this day in…

2012: No, Mark Doty
2011: from Narrative: Ali, Elizabeth Alexander
2010: Baseball Canto, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
2009: Nothing but winter in my cup, Alice George
2008: Poppies in October, Sylvia Plath
2007: I Imagine The Gods, Jack Gilbert
2006: An Offer Received In This Morning’s Mail, Amy Gerstler
2005: The Last Poem In The World, Hayden Carruth

April 16, 2013: Just Once, Anne Sexton

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:22:00 -0400

Just Once
Anne Sexton

Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River,
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my truth across a small humped bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.

I don’t know what to say about the bombings in Boston, my home city, or everyone affected by them. Poems for days like this:

+ A Brief for the Defense, Jack Gilbert
+ Boston, Aaron Smith
+ Sweetness, Stephen Dunn

On this day in:

2012: Talk, Noelle Kocot
2011: Why They Went, Elizabeth Bradfield
2010: Anxiety, Frank O’Hara
2009: The Continuous Life, Mark Strand
2008: An old story, Bob Hicok
2007: you can’t be a star in the sky without holy fire, Frank X. Gaspar
2006: For the Sisters of the Hotel Dieu, A.M. Klein
2005: Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem,
Bob Hicok

April 15, 2013: The Envoy, Jane Hirshfield

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:34:18 -0400

The Envoy
Jane Hirshfield

One day in that room, a small rat.
Two days later, a snake.

Who, seeing me enter,
whipped the long stripe of his
body under the bed,
then curled like a docile house-pet.

I don’t know how either came or left.
Later, the flashlight found nothing.

For a year I watched
as something — terror? happiness? grief? —
entered and then left my body.

No knowing how it came in.
Not knowing how it went out.

It hung where words could not reach it.
It slept where light could not go.
Its scent was neither snake nor rat,
neither sensualist nor ascetic.

There are openings in our lives
of which we know nothing.

Through them
the belled herds travel at will,
long-legged and thirsty, covered with foreign dust.

On this day in:

2012: Red Wand, Sandra Simonds
2011: Trying to Raise the Dead, Dorianne Laux
2010: Asking for Directions, Linda Gregg
2009: A Blessing, James Wright
2008: New York, New York, David Berman
2007: Waste Land Limericks, Wendy Cope
2006: There Are Two Worlds, Larry Levis
2005: America, Allen Ginsberg

April 14, 2013: This Be The Verse, Philip Larkin

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:55:00 -0400

This Be The Verse
Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

On this day in:

2012: We Did Not Make Ourselves, Michael Dickman
2011: Happiness (3), Jean Valentine
2010: When I Think, Jeanne Marie Beaumont
2009: The Poem, Franz Wright
2008: Morning Poem, Robin Becker
2007: Supple Cord, Naomi Shihab Nye
2006: Wish For a Young Wife, Theodore Roethke
2005: The Benjamin Franklin of Monogamy, Jeffrey McDaniel

April 13, 2013: Clothespins, Stuart Dybek

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:01:01 -0400

Clothespins
Stuart Dybek

I once hit clothespins
for the Chicago Cubs.
I’d go out after supper
when the wash was in
and collect clothespins
from under four stories
of clothesline.
A swing-and-a-miss
was a strike-out;
the garage roof, Willie Mays,
pounding his mitt
under a pop fly.
Bushes, a double,
off the fence, triple,
and over, home run.
The bleachers roared.
I was all they ever needed for the flag.
New records every game—
once, 10 homers in a row!
But sometimes I’d tag them
so hard they’d explode,
legs flying apart in midair,
pieces spinning crazily
in all directions.
Foul Ball! What else
could I call it?
The bat was real.

Baseball season, welcome back. More baseball poems for you:

+ Jackie Robinson, Lucille Clifton
+ Poem for Jack Spicer, Matthew Zapruder
+ Root root root for the home team, Bob Hicok
+ Getting Away with It, Jack Gilbert
+ Baseball Canto, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On this day in…

2012: Ghost Story, Matthew Dickman
2011: Graves We Filled Before the Fire, Gabrielle Calvocoressi
2010: On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam, Hayden Carruth
2009: The Bear-Boy of Lithuania, Amy Gerstler
2008: Today’s News, David Tucker
2007: All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann, Leonard Cohen
2006: Gamin, Frank O’Hara
2006: [this is what you love: more people. you remember], D.A. Powell

April 12, 2013: Hotel Orpheus, Jason Myers

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:20:00 -0400

Hotel Orpheus
Jason Myers

Rain, Eurydice, more rain.
It seems these mountains are married
to cold, damp clouds. I’ve known
no sun here, where you are
not. I sit by this window
and peel the skin from a pear.
Darling, I needed to see you
and now I see rain, hotel porn.
Somebody sent chrysanthemums,
some roses, an orchid. They smell
nothing like you. My nose is wasted
on onions and cilantro’s summer noise.
I won’t cry any more. I won’t wake
in the middle of the night and reach
for the phone to call you.
This rain, how it seems to seethe
like water hissing from the lips
of the kettle, begging one more dance
with Darjeeling. I watch the news
of India, a 70-year-old couple killed
in their hotel room. Didn’t Dickinson say
the world was made for lovers?
Well, she died alone and this pear
tastes like salt. O little town
with your shut-down steel factories,
build me a ship, there is a river
I need to cross with waters so dark
dawn looks like night and my own name
is sung on the waves like a curse.

(Reprinted with permission from the poet: thanks!)

On this day in:

2012: Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List, Andrea Carlisle
2011: Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think, Frank O’Hara
2010: The Impossible Marriage, Donald Hall
2009: The Rider, Naomi Shihab Nye
2008: from Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, John Berryman
2007: This Heavy Craft, P.K. Page
2006: Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz
2005: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine

April 11, 2013: The Flames, Kate Llewellyn

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:43:00 -0400

The Flames
Kate Llewellyn

You used to lean
on that cot rail
and wait
with the vigour of a flame
to leap into my arms
two feet tall and two years old
a sagging nappy
archless feet soft as cats’ tongues
and trodden underneath
a thick and clammy waterproof
warm from sleep
the sheet ruched at the end
toys heaped confused
neglected as the dead
a duck stuck in the corner
I could see the basket of your ribs
your hands were opened
and all your bones and life
leapt up to mine

you row daily up the river now
‘The Amazon’ they call you
tall and cheeky
legs long as oars
you’re taller than I am
and I still feel the spot
your head grated in my hip
you were lit inside my body
as a torch I carried you
now burning changing
you flare
into the light

More like this:
+ A Little Tooth, Thomas Lux
+ Morning Song, Sylvia Plath

2012: To See My Mother, Sharon Olds
2011: Across a Great Wilderness without You, Keetje Kuipers
2010: Poem About Morning, William Meredith
2009: Death, The Last Visit, Marie Howe
2008: Animals, Frank O’Hara
2007: Johnny Cash in the Afterlife, Bronwen Densmore
2006: Anne Hathaway, Carol Ann Duffy
2005: Sleep Positions, Lola Haskins

april is: a poem a day for national poetry month

April 30, 2013: Tear It Down, Jack Gilbert

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

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

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

April 26, 2013: Habitation, Margaret Atwood

April 25, 2013: To Myself, Franz Wright

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

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

April 22, 2013: Paralysis, Peter Boyle

April 21, 2013: 30th Birthday, Alice Notley

April 20, 2013: ﻿To A Sad Daughter,﻿ Michael Ondaatje

April 19, 2013: Thanks, W. S. Merwin

April 18, 2013: Wistful sounds like a brand of air freshener, Bob Hicok

April 17, 2013: Catch a Body, Oliver Bendorf

April 16, 2013: Just Once, Anne Sexton

April 15, 2013: The Envoy, Jane Hirshfield

April 14, 2013: This Be The Verse, Philip Larkin

April 13, 2013: Clothespins, Stuart Dybek

April 12, 2013: Hotel Orpheus, Jason Myers

April 11, 2013: The Flames, Kate Llewellyn

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

April 20, 2013: To A Sad Daughter, Michael Ondaatje