(Poem #129)Boston And this is good old Boston The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God |
Boston -- John Collins Bossidy
Kashmir -- Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
(Poem #128)Kashmir Whoa, let the sun beat down upon my face And stars to fill my dream I am a traveler of both time and space To be where I have been T’ sit with elders of the gentle race This world has seldom seen Th’ talk of days for which they sit and wait All will be revealed Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace Whose sounds caress my ear But not a word I heard could I relate The story was quite clear Whoa-hoh, whoa-wa-oh Oooh, oh baby, I been flyin’ Lord, yeah, mama, there ain’t no denyin’ Oh, oooh yes, I’ve been flying Mama, mama, ain’t no denyin’, no denyin’ Oh, all I see turns to brown As the sun burns the ground And my eyes fill with sand As I scan this wasted land Tryin’ to find, tryin’ to find where I beeeeeuhoaoh Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon Will return again Sure as the dust that floats b’hind you When movin’ through Kashmir Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails Across the sea of years With no provision but an open face ‘Long the straits of fear Whaoh, whaoh Whaoh-oh, oh Ohhhh Well, when I want, when I’m on my way, yeah When I see, when I see the way, you stay-yeah Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, well I’m down, yes Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, well I’m down, so down Ooh, my baby, oooh, my baby, let me take you there Oh, oh, come on, come on Oh, let me take you there Let me take you there Whoo-ooh, yeah-yeah, whoo-ooh, yeah-yeah, let me take you |
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe -- Elizabeth Alexander
(Poem #127)Ars Poetica #100: I Believe Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. Poetry is where we are ourselves (though Sterling Brown said "Every 'I' is a dramatic ‘I’"), digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook. Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love, and I'm sorry the dog died. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other? |
Ticket -- Meg Kearney
(Poem #126)Ticket I have a ticket in my pocket that will take me from Lynchburg to New York in nine hours, from the Blue Ridge to Stuy Town, from blue jays wrangling over sunflower seeds to my alarm clock and startled pigeons. If I had a daughter I'd take her with me. She'd sit by the window wearing the blue dress with the stars and sickle moons, counting houses and cemeteries, watching the knotted rope of fence posts slip by while I sat beside her pretending to read, but unable to stop studying her in disbelief. Her name would tell her that she's beautiful. Belle. Or something strong, biblical. Sarah. She would tolerate the blue jay and weep for the pigeon; she would have all the music she wanted and always the seat by the window. If I had a daughter she would know who her father is and he would be home writing letters or playing the banjo, waiting for us, and I would be her mother. We'd have a dog, a mutt, a stray we took in from the rain one night in November, the only stray we ever had to take in, one night in our cabin in the Catskills. It would be impossibly simple: two train tickets; a man, a dog, waiting; and a girl with her nose pressed to the window. |
I'm not Lonely -- Nikki Giovanni
(Poem #125)I'm not Lonely i'm not lonely sleeping all alone you think i'm scared but i'm a big girl i don't cry or anything i have a great big bed to roll around in and lots of space and i don't dream bad dreams like i used to have that you were leaving me anymore now that you're gone i don't dream and no matter what you think i'm not lonely sleeping all alone |
Parting -- Emily Dickinson
(Poem #124)Parting My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If immortality unveil A third event to me So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. |
Telegraph Road -- Mark Knopfler
(Poem #123)Telegraph Road A long time ago came a man on a track Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back And he put down his load where he thought it was the best Made a home in the wilderness Built a cabin and a winter store And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore The other travelers came walking down the track And they never went further and they never went back Then came the churches then came the schools Then came the lawyers then came the rules Then came the trains and the trucks with their load And the dirty old track was the telegraph road Then came the mines - then came the ore Then there was the hard times then there was a war Telegraph sang a song about the world outside Telegraph road got so deep and so wide Like a rolling river And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze People driving home from the factories There's six lanes of traffic Three lanes moving slow I used to like to go to work but they shut it down I've got a right to go to work but there's no work here to be found Yes and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed We're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles They can always fly away from this rain and this cold You can hear them singing out their telegraph code All the way down the telegraph road I'd sooner forget but I remember those nights When life was just a bet on a race between the lights You had your head on my shoulder you had your hand in my hair Now you act a little colder like you don't seem to care But believe in me baby and I'll take you away From out of this darkness and into the day From these rivers of headlights these rivers of rain From the anger that lives on the streets with these names 'cause I've run every red light on memory lane I've seen desperation explode into flames And I don't want to see it again From all of these signs saying sorry but we're closed All the way down the telegraph road |
Numbers -- Mary Cornish
(Poem #122)Numbers I like the generosity of numbers. The way, for example, they are willing to count anything or anyone: two pickles, one door to the room, eight dancers dressed as swans. I like the domesticity of addition-- add two cups of milk and stir-- the sense of plenty: six plums on the ground, three more falling from the tree. And multiplication's school of fish times fish, whose silver bodies breed beneath the shadow of a boat. Even subtraction is never loss, just addition somewhere else: five sparrows take away two, the two in someone else's garden now. There's an amplitude to long division, as it opens Chinese take-out box by paper box, inside every folded cookie a new fortune. And I never fail to be surprised by the gift of an odd remainder, footloose at the end: forty-seven divided by eleven equals four, with three remaining. Three boys beyond their mothers' call, two Italians off to the sea, one sock that isn't anywhere you look. |