Animal of Light by Pablo Neruda

I am an animal of light
Penned in by its errors and its foliage.
The forest is deep: here my fellow men
Pululate, retreat or come and go,
Whilst I withdraw accompanied
By the escort that time determines:
Waves of the sea, stars of the night.

Since my eyes have seen other eyes so much
And my mouth kissed so much,
Since I have swallowed the smoke
From those vanished trains:
The old remorseless stations
And the dust of incessant bookshops,
The mortal man that is· me got tired
Of eyes, kisses, smoke, roads,
Books thicker than the earth.

And today in the depths of the lost wood
He hears the nose of the enemy and flees
Not from others but from himself
From interminable conversation ‘
From the chorus that sang along with us
About the meaning of life.

Because one occasion, because one word, because one
Syllable or the passing of a silence
Or the unburied sound of the wave
Leave me face to face with truth
And there is nothing more to decipher,
Nor anything more to talk about: that was all:
The gates of the forest closed,
The sun circles opening the leaves,
The moon rises up like a white fruit
And man conforms to his destiny.

Translation by: Ciaran Cosgrove

Dinosaurs in the Hood by Danez Smith

Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.
Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.

Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays
with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,
the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.
Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops
& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene

where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene
where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let
the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit
about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.
This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —

children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town
from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive
Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding
black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith
& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors

with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,
screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.
I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick
through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be
a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed

because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor
for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.
This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.
This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.
This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie

who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.
No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills
the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason
I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy
on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless

his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.

The Book of the Dead Man (Nothing) by Marvin Bell

Live as if you were already dead. – Zen admonition

1. About the Dead Man and Nothing

The dead man knows nothing.
He is powerless to stop the battles, he has no way to reattach the arms and legs.
He cannot stuff the fallen soldier’s insides back inside.
He has no expertise in the matter of civilian corpses, nor of friendly fire, nor beheadings, nor
revenge, nor suicide.
He does not know the depth of depth charges, or the exact pressure that detonates a land mine.
The dead man has given his all so that now, if he once knew, he knows nothing.
He is emptied, he is the resonant cavity of which he spoke when it was music he was thinking of.
Let him be now the leftover button of his work shirt.
Permit him his fading mirror, his sputtering circuits, his secrets, his tears, his noonday duels
with the sun.
Let him ride the roads in the bucket of an earth mover, can it hurt?
Let him stand under the icicles, can he catch cold?
For the dead man is stagnant without knowledge, and he cannot survive the demise of
philosophy or art.
To the dead man they were not spectacles, but survival skills.
To the dead man, the world was but a birthmark that befell original space.
To say that the dead man knows nothing is to see him at the beginning, who can it hurt?
Before all this, he was nothing.

2. More About the Dead Man and Nothing

Don’t bet he won’t be born.
Before all this, this that is so much, he was not himself.
He was the free heat of space and then the salt of the earth.
He was the ring around the moon, foretelling.
The dead man had no station when he came to be, just a strange nakedness in the light.
He did not know what he was to do, this was before clocks.
So he decided to stab the dirt, to tumble in happiness and writhe in pain, and to flap his way
into space.
To go home.
It was a swell idea for the dead man, and he pinned it to his chest.
Give him that, that he crystallized a plan, that he made from smoke something to him as real as
quartz, ivory, or the hoof of a gelding.
The dead man had the whole world to transform or perfect or outlive.
He wrote the book of nothing and no-time that entombed all time and all that took place in time.
The dead man could not be hammered by analysis.
Let him horn in on your fury, whatever it was, and it will abate.
The energy that became form will disperse, never again to be what we were.
Look out the window to see him, no, the other one.

Letter to those that order by Raul Zurita

Egmont Overture

For the icebergs of sorrow and for the presidents.
For the rivers of sorrow and for the presidents.
For the seas of sorrow and for the presidents.

For those who suffer, for those who weep, for those who fall.

Presidents, countries, landscapes who order: That’s how it was the arrival of the new ones, of the frozen lakes that were the sky, the rivers and the sea spuming above. Could you, women of my country presidents, play together the Overture of the countries? Could you interpret the flight of those deserts rising from the sands to the horizon? The desert of faces human when they burst to flock all the notes rising and they heard how the new earth put itself on the old and the brothers destroyed screamed asking for a new life.
That was the first end. After, when from the earth they saw the sky set itself, the constellations that drew the buffalos and stars of night, sounded kettledrum banging tongues, men and countries who came, while they forgot below woman of my country, the Indian pasture they tread. But because it is one alone the dream countrywomen countries, plains, who order and deserts, all the same they rose swimming in the infinite sonorant sea and the great movements opened razing them. Of symphony, orchestra and all the deserts they played themselves the first movement and scored the sands, the ocean played the second and the breakers surged, but the great overture, that one they wailed together, women of my country presidents.
Yes brothers who order; plains and mountains who order, waters, lakes and rivers who order, the notes reach over the planets that dream and listen, the liberty that dreams and listens. Oh yes countries, countrymen presidents of this world that has died: Not of life are things born again but of the torrent of notes. There they reverberate from the depths of those sands the countries erased and when it be no more than sand the firmament that we see then we can be chango, brotherly.
There you’ll hear the philharmonic of the deserts, the clarinada of sky coming forth from dust, of the old sands that guard the erased. They come my countrymen, countries, women of my country presidents. Like the great Egmont they come sounding below earth and they will be the color of their faces the new cities. That is how they shone the music of those countries falling down and all that comes and lives, that sounds and speaks, face of the ruined it will have.
That will be the homage, my comrades, like Ludwig Van it will be birthing the crash of those chords over the new stars that order, over the new of Cuzco, range of mountains and heights that order, over the new sands and deserts that govern and order.
All, yes, all extend themselves playing the great Egmont of the countries and the sound is more pure yes countrymen, than the hiss of the weep-filled waters of those rivers, like brothers.

~

Carta a los mandantes

Obertura Egmont

A los témpanos del dolor y a los presidentes.
A los ríos del dolor y a los presidentes.
A los mares del dolor y a los presidentes.

A los que sufren, a los que lloran, a los que caen.

Presidente, países, paisajes que mandan: Así fue la llegada de las nuevas, de los lagos congelados que fueron el cielo, los ríos y el mar espumeando arriba. ¿Podrían ustedes, paisas presidentes, tocar juntos la Obertura de los países? ¿Podrían interpretar el vuelo de los desiertos subiendo desde los arenales hasta el horizonte? El desierto de los humanos rostros cuando irrumpieron en tropel todas las notas subiendo y oyeron como la tierra nueva se ponía sobre la vieja y los hermanos destruidos gritron pidiendo una nueva vida.
Ese fue el final primero. Después, cuando desde la tierra vieron el cielo ponerse, las constelaciones que dibujaban los búfalos y las estrellas de la noche, sonaron timbaleando las lenguas, hombres y países que venían, mientras que se olvidaba abajo paisa, el pasto indio que pisaban. Pero porque es uno solo el sueño paisas paisajes, llanuras que mandan y desiertos, igual subieron nadando en el infinito mar sonoro y los grandes movimientos se abrieron arrasándolos. De sinfónica, orquesta y total se tocaron los desiertos la movida primera y surcaron los arenales, el océano tocó la segunda y surgieron las rompientes, pero la gran Obertura, esa la plañeron todos juntos, paisas presidentes.
Sí hermanos que mandan; llanuras y montañas que mandan, aguas, lagos y ríos que mandan, las notas abarcan los planetas que se sueñan y escuchan, la libertad que sueña y escucha. Oh sí países, paisanos presidentes de este mundo que ha muerto: No de la vida renacen las cosas sino del torrente de las notas. Allí vibran desde el hondor de los arenales los países borrados y cuando sólo de arena sea el firmamento que veamos entonces tal vez podremos ser chango, fraternos.
Ahí se escuchará la filarmónica de los desiertos, la clarinada del cielo saliendo del polvo, de los viejos arenales que guardan a los borrados. Ellos vienen paisanos, países, paisas presidentes. Como la gran Egmont vienen sonando bajo la tierra y serán del color de sus caras las nuevas ciudades. Así brillaron en la música los países cayendo y todo cuanto venga y viva, cuanto sueñe y hable, rostro de un destruido tendrá.
Ese será el homenaje, camaradas, como Ludwig Van será pariendo el estallido de los acordes sobre las nuevas estrellas que mandan, sobre las nuevas del Cuzco, serranías y alturas que mandan, sobre las nuevas arenas y desiertos que gobiernan y mandan.
Todos, sí, todos se largan tocando la gran Egmont de los países y el sonido es más puro sí paisanos, que el cholear de las lagrimosas aguas de estos ríos, fraternos.

The Hymn of a Fat Woman by Joyce Huff

All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.

This Poem by Vona Groarke

This is the poem that won’t open
no matter where you press.

This is the poem that cries on street corners
and plays at being lost.

This is the poem arranged at a tilt
so all the words slide off.

This is the poem with lacquered roses
closing in on themselves after dark.

This is the poem that plays itself out
in dives in the small hours.

This poem likes to fool around
in other people’s cars.

This poem gives away small coins
and winks at strangers’ kids.

This is the poem that understands
what it is to be a dog.

This is the poem with a teensy tattoo
you’ll never get to see.

This poem has no big plans for you,
which is something, as poems go.

The Foggy, Foggy Blue by Delmore Schwartz

When I was a young man, I loved to write poems
And I called a spade a spade
And the only only thing that made me sing
Was to lift the masks at the masquerade.
I took them off my own face,
I took them off others too
And the only only wrong in all my song
Was the view that I knew what was true.

Now I am older and tireder too
And the tasks with the masks are quite trying.
I’d gladly gladly stop if I only only knew
A better way to keep from lying,
And not get nervous and blue
When I said something quite untrue:
I looked all around and all over
To find something else to do:
I tried to be less romantic
I tried to be less starry-eyed too:
But I only got mixed up and frantic
Forgetting what was false and what was true.

But tonight I am going to the masked ball,
Because it has occurred to me
That the masks are more true than the faces:
—Perhaps this too is poetry?
I no longer yearn to be naïve and stern
And masked balls fascinate me:
Now that I know that most falsehoods are true
Perhaps I can join the charade?
This is, at any rate, my new and true view:
Let live and believe, I say.
The only only thing is to believe in everything:
It’s more fun and safer that way!

Picture by Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36671480

Peace Walk by William E. Stafford

We wondered what our walk should mean,
taking that un-march quietly;
the sun stared at our signs— “Thou shalt not kill.”

Men by a tavern said, “Those foreigners . . .”
to a woman with a fur, who turned away—
like an elevator going down, their look at us.

Along a curb, their signs lined across,
a picket line stopped and stared
the whole width of the street, at ours: “Unfair.”

Above our heads the sound truck blared—
by the park, under the autumn trees—
it said that love could fill the atmosphere:

Occur, slow the other fallout, unseen,
on islands everywhere—fallout, falling
unheard. We held our poster up to shade our eyes.

At the end we just walked away;
no one was there to tell us where to leave the signs.

My Mother Was No White Dove by Reginald Shepherd

no dove at all, coo-rooing through the dusk
and foraging for small seeds
My mother was the clouded-over night
a moon swims through, the dark against which stars
switch themselves on, so many already dead
by now (stars switch themselves off
and are my mother, she was never
so celestial, so clearly seen)

My mother was the murderous flight of crows
stilled, black plumage gleaming
among black branches, taken
for nocturnal leaves, the difference
between two darks:

a cacophony of needs
in the bare tree silhouette,
a flight of feathers, scattering
black. She was the night
streetlights oppose (perch
for the crows, their purchase on sight),
obscure bruise across the sky
making up names for rain

My mother always falling
was never snow, no kind
of bird, pigeon or crow

The wings of Daylight by W.S. Merwin

Brightness appears showing us everything
it reveals the splendors it calls everything
but shows it to each of us alone
and only once and only to look at
not to touch or hold in our shadows
what we see is never what we touch
what we take turns out to be something else
what we see that one time departs untouched
while other shadows gather around us
the world’s shadows mingle with our own
we had forgotten them but they know us
they remember us as we always were
they were at home here before the first came
everything will leave us except the shadows
but the shadows carry the whole story
at first daybreak they open their long wings