On one foot
death will come
and raise its head
Facing it, I will embrace this man strongly
and strangle all the poems in his hands
I will crush my bones under his hot breaths
My lungs are becoming two tubes
my feet like a battlefield
my heart a noose.
Am I really dead?
Only a while ago
I was smelling that homeland.
In between all this intense training, I’ve been spending a lot of time with في حـضـرة الـغـيـاب (In the Presence of Absence) - the book not the terrible show. Of course, I have to read the English and Arabic side by side but it’s as lovely as a self composed funeral speech could be. This is from the forward of the English translation by Sinan Antoon.
Oscar Wilde (via libraryland)
i used to teach slam poetry to high schoolers.
“Folks, I’m telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean-
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.”—Langston Hughes, born today in 1902
On the telly,
The British man wonders,
“Why did the Roanoke settlers disappear?
And what tore them asunder?”
I must protest.
Or confess.
The settlers are not gone. They’re here.
In my belly.
(by Sherman Alexie; via Guernica Magazine)
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.(Submitted by theoldlie)
Nikki Finney reading from her award-winning book of poetry, “Head Off & Split”
Just watch.
