Sunday, December 25, 2016

Mary, Queen of the Ordinary, Irene Zimmerman

Litany for the Ordinary

Irene Zimmerman

Mary, Queen of the ordinary,
queen of spinning wheel and loom
who wove from ordinary stuff
the flawless fabric of
God's humanness;
queen whose pregnancy
put Joseph's other plans aside
and sent his saw singing
into cradlewood;
queen of water jars daily filled,
of swaddling clothes spread outdoors
to dry, of scrubbed floors
and everlastingly sawdusty son;
queen of skinned knees,
splintered fingers,
aching stomach, fevered head,
herbal teas;
queen of fresh-baked bread
whose wheaty power
put flesh on growing boy
and joy at evening meal--
Mary, queen of ordinary time and space,
thank you for your ordinary grace.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Gids Among Us, C. Dale Young

The Gods Among Us

BY C. DALE YOUNG

One of them grants you the ability

to forecast the future; another wrenches

your tongue from your mouth, changes you

into a bird precisely because you have been

given this gift. The gods are generous

in this way. I learned to avoid danger, avoid fear,

avoid excitement, these the very triggers that prompt

my wings from their resting place deep inside.

And so, I avoided fights, avoided everything really.

In the locker room, I avoided other boys,

all the while intently studying that space

between their shoulder blades, patiently looking

for the tell-tale signs, looking to find even

one other boy like me, the wings buried but

there nonetheless. I studied them from a distance.

When people challenge a god, the gods curse them

with the label of madness. It is all very convenient.

And meanwhile, a god took the form of a swan

and raped a girl by the school gates. Another

took the shape of an eagle to abduct a boy

from the football field. Mad world.

And what about our teachers? Our teachers

expected us to sit and listen. In Theology, there was

a demon inside each of us; in History,

the demons among us. So many demons

in this world. Who among us could have spoken up

against the gods, the gods who continued living

among us? They granted wishes and punishments

much the way they always had. Very few noticed them

casually taking the shape of one thing or another.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

The Birth of Superstition, Lynn Pedersen

The Birth of Superstition

BY LYNN PEDERSEN

It’s not hard to imagine: my ancestor—a dry season,

dust like chalk on her tongue—mixes

spit with clay,

traces a river on rock. Next day: rain.

Why shouldn’t she believe

in the power of rock and her own hand?

I carry this need for pattern and rule, to see connections

where there aren’t necessarily any.

After my first miscarriage,

I cut out soda, cold cuts.

After the second, vacuuming and air travel.

After the third—it’s chalk and spit again. I circle rocks,

swim the icy river.

And when my son is born, he balances

the chemical equation that is this world.

And logic?

Logic is my son’s kite, good so long as you have

wind, string,

something heavier than hope

to tether you.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

A Poem For The Cruel Majority, Jerome Rothenberg

A Poem for the Cruel Majority

BY JEROME ROTHENBERG

The cruel majority emerges!

Hail to the cruel majority!

They will punish the poor for being poor.

They will punish the dead for having died.

Nothing can make the dark turn into light

for the cruel majority.

Nothing can make them feel hunger or terror.

If the cruel majority would only cup their ears

the sea would wash over them.

The sea would help them forget their wayward children.

It would weave a lullaby for young & old.

(See the cruel majority with hands cupped to their ears,

one foot is in the water, one foot is on the clouds.)

One man of them is large enough to hold a cloud

between his thumb & middle finger,

to squeeze a drop of sweat from it before he sleeps.

He is a little god but not a poet.

(See how his body heaves.)

The cruel majority love crowds & picnics.

The cruel majority fill up their parks with little flags.

The cruel majority celebrate their birthday.

Hail to the cruel majority again!

The cruel majority weep for their unborn children,

they weep for the children that they will never bear.

The cruel majority are overwhelmed by sorrow.

(Then why are the cruel majority always laughing?

Is it because night has covered up the city's walls?

Because the poor lie hidden in the darkness?

The maimed no longer come to show their wounds?)

Today the cruel majority vote to enlarge the darkness.

They vote for shadows to take the place of ponds

Whatever they vote for they can bring to pass.

The mountains skip like lambs for the cruel majority.

Hail to the cruel majority!

Hail! hail! to the cruel majority!

The mountains skip like lambs, the hills like rams.

The cruel majority tear up the earth for the cruel majority.

Then the cruel majority line up to be buried.

Those who love death will love the cruel majority.

Those who know themselves will know the fear

the cruel majority feel when they look in the mirror.

The cruel majority order the poor to stay poor.

They order the sun to shine only on weekdays.

The god of the cruel majority is hanging from a tree.

Their god's voice is the tree screaming as it bends.

The tree's voice is as quick as lightning as it streaks across the sky.

(If the cruel majority go to sleep inside their shadows,

they will wake to find their beds filled up with glass.)

Hail to the god of the cruel majority!

Hail to the eyes in the head of their screaming god!

Hail to his face in the mirror!

Hail to their faces as they float around him!

Hail to their blood & to his!

Hail to the blood of the poor they need to feed them!

Hail to their world & their god!

Hail & farewell!

Friday, December 9, 2016

Any Morning, William Stafford

Any Morning
By William Stafford
(1914 - 1993)

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won't even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown

Thursday, December 8, 2016

The True-Blue American

BY DELMORE SCHWARTZ

Jeremiah Dickson was a true-blue American,

For he was a little boy who understood America, for he felt that he must

Think about everything; because that’s all there is to think about,

Knowing immediately the intimacy of truth and comedy,

Knowing intuitively how a sense of humor was a necessity

For one and for all who live in America. Thus, natively, and

Naturally when on an April Sunday in an ice cream parlor Jeremiah

Was requested to choose between a chocolate sundae and a banana split

He answered unhesitatingly, having no need to think of it

Being a true-blue American, determined to continue as he began:

Rejecting the either-or of Kierkegaard, and many another European;

Refusing to accept alternatives, refusing to believe the choice of between;

Rejecting selection; denying dilemma; electing absolute affirmation: knowing

in his breast

The infinite and the gold

Of the endless frontier, the deathless West.

“Both: I will have them both!” declared this true-blue American

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, on an April Sunday, instructed

By the great department stores, by the Five-and-Ten,

Taught by Christmas, by the circus, by the vulgarity and grandeur of

Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon,

Tutored by the grandeur, vulgarity, and infinite appetite gratified and

Shining in the darkness, of the light

On Saturdays at the double bills of the moon pictures,

The consummation of the advertisements of the imagination of the light

Which is as it was—the infinite belief in infinite hope—of Columbus,

Barnum, Edison, and Jeremiah Dickson.