A Poem For Today | 20

In your next letter,

please describe

the weather in great detail. If possible,

enclose a fist of snow or mud,

everything you know about the soil,

how tomato leaves rub green against

your skin and make you itch, how slow

the corn is growing on the hill.

Thank you for the photographs

of where the chicken coop once stood,

clouds that did not become tornadoes.

When I try to explain where I’m from,

people imagine corn bread, cast-iron,

cows drifting across grass. I interrupt

with barbed wire, wind, harvest air

that reeks of wheat and diesel.

I hope your sleep comes easy now

that you’ve surrendered the upstairs,

hope the sun still lets you drink

one bitter cup before its rise. I don’t miss

flannel shirts, radios with only

AM stations, but there’s a certain kind

of star I can’t see from where I am—

bright, clear, unconcerned. I need

your recipes for gravy, pie crust,

canned green beans. I’m sending you

the buttons I can’t sew back on.

Please put them in the jar beside your bed.

In your next letter, please send seeds

and feathers, a piece of bone or china

you plowed up last spring. 

Please promise I’m missing the right things.

– Carrie Shipers

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A Poem For Today | 19

They amputated

your thighs off my hips.

As far as I'm concerned

they are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantle us

each from the other.

As far as I'm concerned

they are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good

and loving invention.

An aeroplane made from a man and wife.

Wings and everything.

We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

- Yehuda Amichai

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Entirety

I feel so full.

Full of all things.

Good and not so good.

Worry.

Desire.

Hurt and heartache.

Plans,

ambitions.

Confusion.

A liver still quite intoxicated.

A heart beating a little too fast.

Two croissants and a cup of tea.

My mother's love and my father's gumption.

And a growing fire,

of excitement and anticipation

for what is just around the corner.

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A Poem For Today | 18

We are always asked

to understand the other person's

viewpoint

no matter how

out-dated

foolish or

obnoxious.

One is asked

to view

their total error

their life-waste

with

kindliness,

especially if they are

aged.

But age is the total of

our doing.

they have aged

badly

because they have

lived

out of focus,

they have refused to

see.

Not their fault?

Whose fault?

Mine?

I am asked to hide

my viewpoint

from them

for fear of their

fear.

Age is no crime

but the shame

of a deliberately

wasted

life

among so many

deliberately

wasted

lives

is.

- Charles Bukowski.

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A Poem For Today | 17

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.

Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. 

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

- Pablo Neruda.

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The Lights Are Low

And it was a peaceful end to a brave day.

Sat by an open window,

rain hurling itself at the ground.

The sky erupting with chaos.

Resting, with ease.

Candles,

burning.

Time,

passing by.

None the wiser

to any previous distress.

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A Poem For Today | 16

Body Piece

Stand in the evening light until you

become transparent or until you fall

asleep.

- Yoko Ono

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A Poem For Today | 15

Men ask the way to the Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.

In summer, ice doesn't melt

The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.

How did I make it?

My heart's not the same as yours.

If your heart was like mine

You'd get it and be right here.

- Gary Snyder.

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A Poem For Today | 14

Sky Piece 1

Towards the end of the Second World War, I looked like

a little ghost because of the food shortage. I was hungry.

It was getting easier to just lie down and watch the sky.

That's when I fell in love with the sky, I think.

Since then, all my life, I have been in love with the sky.

Even when everything was falling apart around me,

the sky was always there for me. It was the only constant

factor in my life, which kept changing with the speed of

light and lightning. As I told myself then, I could never

give up on life as long as the sky was there.

Tell us when you first noticed the sky.

Tell us when you first noticed that the sky was beautiful.

- Yoko Ono

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After Too Many Glasses Of Wine

It's wonderful

to burn too fast.

Grow too fast and

be too fast.

And it feels shaky 

to drink too much coffee

and feel the burn of liquor

soaring through.

It feels triumphant

to smoke too much and

tell too much.

Feel too much.

Too many stars in the sky

and too many troubles

littering minds

with their anxiety.

And it feels too grand,

too scary, too surreal

to be loved too much.

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A Poem For Today | 13

Think of a number between one

and the age you are now. It can be

an age you liked

or one you have forgotten.

Divide by the number of pennies

you’ve thrown into a well

or a fountain or a koi pond.

Multiply by the number

of airplanes you have flown on,

rivers you have swum in,

buttons you have lost, novels

you haven’t written but plan to

someday when the number of hours

increases. Add the number of canyons

you have crossed

alone and on foot or in the car

with your friends. Add the number

of miles you’ve driven since then.

Subtract the stubby birthday candles,

dried wildflowers

real whale sightings, any change

in your pockets. Round up

by the number

of seasons in the sea,

wallflowers in a garden,

bow-ties in a gentleman’s drawer,

minutes since the last thing

you’ll remember in twenty years.

Write it down if you need to

and think of that number.

The number you are thinking of

matches the branching of the trees

the tempo of a xylophone solo

and the spiral in the staircase

in the hallway in a quiet museum.

- Sarah Suksiri

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A Poem For Today | 12

A beautiful blue fog

a satin cloud

a blemished star.

- David Kowalczyk

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A Poem For Today | 11

The universe took its time on you

crafted you precisely

so you could offer the world

something distinct from everyone else

so when you doubt

how you were created

you doubt an energy greater than both of us.

- Rupi Kaur

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A Poem For Today | 10

Above all else,

it is about leaving a

mark that I existed:

I was here.

I was defeated.

I was happy.

I was sad.

I was in love.

I was afraid.

I was hopeful.

I had an idea and

I had good purpose.

And that's why

I made works of art.

- Félix Gonzàlez-Torres

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A Poem For Today | 9

Women of Colour

Our backs

tell stories

no books have 

the spine to

carry.

- Rupi Kaur

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A Poem For Today | 8

In Former Days

In former days we'd both agree

that you were me, and I was you.

What has happened to us two,

that you are you, and I am me?

- Bhartṛhari

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Magnetic

Him to her,

her to him.

His paintings of her,

and her poems

about him.

A delicate

lust

of soft

skin, ideas

and admiration.

Questionable,

to others

but exquisite

and

unrequited

to only

them.

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A Poem For Today | 7

I am

a series of

small victories

and large defeats

and I am as

amazed

as any other

that

I have gotten

from there to

here.

- Charles Bukowski

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The Ocean Misses You

It's grand. Majestic, even.

And though the sea often conceals its great presence, it is every bit as important as the little things we worry about each day. 

It is still, but always present.

It keeps cleaning, rolling, maintaining itself, in the hope that one day, when you've put aside your many worries, you may stop by for a little visit.

The sea wishes for you to dip your feet in, curl sand under your toes.

And remember that the sea's presence is every ounce as grand and majestic as your own.

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A Poem For Today | 6

Be sure your pain is yours.

I have the tendency to adopt the hurt of others.

My heart tries to fix.

Sometimes it forgets to function for me.

- Donte Collins

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