Hard Life with Memory by Wisława Szymborska translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanisław Barańczak

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I’m a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don’t,
step out, come back, then leave again.

She wants all my time and attention.
She’s got no problem when I sleep.
The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.

She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.

In her stories I’m always younger.
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me.

She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.

She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today’s sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.

At times I get fed up with her.
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too.

 

The Secret by Denise Levertov

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Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don’t know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can’t find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

Language by Camille T. Dungy

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Silence is one part of speech, the war cry
of wind down a mountain pass another.
A stranger’s voice echoing through lonely
valleys, a lover’s voice rising so close
it’s your own tongue: these are keys to cipher,
the way the high hawk’s key unlocks the throat
of the sky and the coyote’s yip knocks
it shut, the way the aspens’ bells conform
to the breeze while the rapid’s drum defines
resistance. Sage speaks with once voice, pinyon
with another. Rock, wind her hand, water
her brush, spells and then scatters her demands.
Some notes tear and pebble our path. Some notes
gather: the bank we map our lives around.

Tear It Down by Jack Gilbert

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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 racoon 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 the body.

Caged Bird by Maya Angelou

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A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1899)

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I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

Soul Music by Angelique Wright

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Like an instrumental that goes on forever
You play my body when we’re together
Making sure to fine tune all the keys
The rhythm of you beating deeply into me
Passion unfolding in the perfect tone
Increasing the speed of your tempo
Bodies rocking in harmony
Getting caught up in the rhapsody
With every motion you compose a new score
No need for an interlude the duet’s what I’m here for
Unending passion building with each verse
Don’t need a refrain
Don’t need to rehearse
Whether in unison or as a solo
I love the music you sing to my soul

Abecedarian Yellow by Dan Vera

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A is for apple.
B is for banana – treasure fruit of the tropics
which replaced the apple on the breakfast table of Victorian America.
C is for Carmen Miranda smiling
from the label of the bunch of bananas.
D is for drugs to disrupt nature’s cycle,
for longevity to cut and ship and freight by steamship
a green banana to the market and your table.
E is for ethylene gas, which is what the drugs suppress in fruit,
for longevity to cut and ship and freight by steamship
a green banana to the market and your table.
F is for fruit, obviously.
G is for Guatemala.
H is for Honduras,
or H could be for O. Henry who gave them a name:
“banana republics” — governments ruled by giant fruit companies
like Dole and United Fruit through American intervention. Yes,
I is for intervention. Are you still with me?
J is for junta, with an h-like j from the Spanish,
as in “military junta” set up by intervention to sustain control
and ensure cheap labor in countries like Honduras and Guatemala
so that bananas can get to your table cheaper
than an apple which grows in your yard.
K is for kitchen — your kitchen,
where history and blood commingle each morning
in the green curve of an
L-shaped fruit from countries with
Monoculture agriculture, which is nuts.
N is for nuts, because we’ve been through this before,
Over and over again.
P is for “Panama disease,” which wiped out
the last variety of shippable banana in the 1950s
and may soon wipe out our current one.
¿Que? ¿Que?
R is for ripe.
S is for surprise!
T is for trouble–
Undeniable trouble.
V is for Victoria–Queen Victoria who died in 1901–
we’ve been at this that long with bananas.
W is for wrapping up,
X is for eXtinction of a species of yellow fruit
or berry, depending on your view.
Y is for yellow and
Z is for zed
which signifies end.