10 Poems // February 10
i am prepared now to force clarity upon you
1//
The Goodyear Blimp // Laura Jensen
The Goodyear Blimp has lost itself,
has gone down peaceful in a cornfield.
The grounded pilot walks out of the field,
no one hurt, no one around but the blackbirds,
who laughed and kept laughing. He walked
down the empty road in the middle of the day.
It was fine to be uninjured,
to have hurt no one, to walk
in the brief sweet world of the saved.
2//
from Achingly Beautiful How the Sky Blooms Umber at the End of the Day, Through the Canopy // Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Sometimes music played.
Sometimes I’d smell supper. Neighbors stopped
to say hello. Achingly beautiful how the sky
looked as I stood after they left. Nicer somehow
in the middle. All the trees tucking blackbirds
into their darkness. It really did take this long.
3//
I have to tell you // by Dorothea Grossman
I have to tell you,
there are times when
the sun strikes me
like a gong,
and I remember everything,
even your ears.
4//
from Dark Festival // Katherine Osborne
I can only pay attention if I think
it has to do with me. Tell
me what a bitcoin is, explain it in
low light & tell me danger, parachute,
the new year, if loved
5//
from Happiness // Jane Kenyon
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
6//
from Rain // Carol Ann Duffy
Not so hot as this for a hundred years.
You were where I was going. I was in tears.
I surrendered my heart to the judgement of my peers.
A century’s heat in the garden, fierce as love.
You returned on the day I had to leave.
I mimed the full, rich, busy life I had to live.
Hotter than hell. I burned for you day and night;
got bits of your body wrong, bits of it right,
in the huge mouth of the dark, in the bite of the light.
7//
from Ways in Which it is True // Sarah Jean Alexander
You are the reason people still search
for new people to kiss
Similarly to the way that you are the gateway chip to,
“Yes, I have eaten the whole bag”
I have never been satisfied and known it
In other words, I have simply never tried
It’s true that I run faster than I give myself credit for
just in case someone is going to try to race me for fun
when I am already too tired
and don’t want to have any fun
It’s true that while wearing sunglasses in public
a person becomes imperceptible
Not in the way that
no one can see you
or tell that you are walking in front of them on the sidewalk
But imperceptible in every other way
8//
My Mind Is // e. e. cummings
my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.
9//
from First // Carrie Fountain
My heart is so giant this evening,
like one of those moons so full
and beautiful and terrifying
if you see it when you’re getting out
of the car you have to go inside the house
and make someone else come out
and see it for themselves. I want every-
thing, I admit. I want yes of course
and I want it all the time. I want
a clean heart. I want the children
to sleep and the drought
to end. I want the rain to come
down—It’s supposed to monsoon
is what Naomi said, driving away
this morning, and she was right,
as usual. It’s monsooning. Still,
I want more.
10//
from The Wild Iris // Louise Glück
I cannot go on
restricting myself to images
because you think it is your right
to dispute my meaning:
I am prepared now to force
clarity upon you.