As a young person I wasn’t particularly attracted to poetry. Every once in awhile I would come across a poem that touched me in a real life, and deep, soul-recognition kind of way simultaneously, but not so often that I sought it out. Now, poetry feeds me. I find radical nourishment in certain felt ideas and word pictures that open my heart with golden daggers and point to the knowing in my soul – where I can see a reflection of myself, where I can remember the largesse of what it is to be human and what it might be to be another human with utterly different experiences, yet with a shared heart, eyes and beingness.
I wanted to share some poems/poets that I want everyone to know and read and soak in, to feel the magic of their words pulled from otherworldly, imaginal realms, from the despair and ecstasy of life here now, and to celebrate words that can traverse worlds, pierce hearts and make one weep with joy or sorrow or both.
Joy Harjo is an incredible poet. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2019, and the first ever Native American – yes, ridiculous and true. And grateful for that nonetheless, as in, finally it has happened. She writes words that move me in such felt, visceral ways.
When the World as We Knew It Ended
BY JOY HARJO
We were dreaming on an occupied island at the farthest edge
of a trembling nation when it went down.
Two towers rose up from the east island of commerce and touched
the sky. Men walked on the moon. Oil was sucked dry
by two brothers. Then it went down. Swallowed
by a fire dragon, by oil and fear.
Eaten whole.
It was coming.
We had been watching since the eve of the missionaries in their
long and solemn clothes, to see what would happen.
We saw it
from the kitchen window over the sink
as we made coffee, cooked rice and
potatoes, enough for an army.
We saw it all, as we changed diapers and fed
the babies. We saw it,
through the branches
of the knowledgeable tree
through the snags of stars, through
the sun and storms from our knees
as we bathed and washed
the floors.
The conference of the birds warned us, as they flew over
destroyers in the harbor, parked there since the first takeover.
It was by their song and talk we knew when to rise
when to look out the window
to the commotion going on—
the magnetic field thrown off by grief.
We heard it.
The racket in every corner of the world. As
the hunger for war rose up in those who would steal to be president
to be king or emperor, to own the trees, stones, and everything
else that moved about the earth, inside the earth
and above it.
We knew it was coming, tasted the winds who gathered intelligence
from each leaf and flower, from every mountain, sea
and desert, from every prayer and song all over this tiny universe
floating in the skies of infinite
being.
And then it was over, this world we had grown to love
for its sweet grasses, for the many-colored horses
and fishes, for the shimmering possibilities
while dreaming.
But then there were the seeds to plant and the babies
who needed milk and comforting, and someone
picked up a guitar or ukulele from the rubble
and began to sing about the light flutter
the kick beneath the skin of the earth
we felt there, beneath us
a warm animal
a song being born between the legs of her;
a poem.
“When the World as We Knew It Ended” from How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems:1975-2001 by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 2002 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.wwnorton.com.Source: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975-2001 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2002)
A Map to the Next World
BY JOY HARJO
for Desiray Kierra Chee
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky.
My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged
from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.
For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.
The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It
must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.
In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it
was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.
Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the
altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.
Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our
children while we sleep.
Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born
there of nuclear anger.
Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to
disappear.
We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to
them by their personal names.
Once we knew everything in this lush promise.
What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the
map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav-
ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.
An imperfect map will have to do, little one.
The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s
small death as he longs to know himself in another.
There is no exit.
The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a
spiral on the road of knowledge.
You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking
from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh
deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.
They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.
And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world
there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.
You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song
she is singing.
Fresh courage glimmers from planets.
And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you
will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.
When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they
entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.
You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.
A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the
destruction.
Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our
tribal grounds.
We were never perfect.
Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was
once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.
We might make them again, she said.
Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.
“A Map to the Next World” from How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems:1975-2001 by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 2002 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.wwnorton.com.Source: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975-2001 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2002)
And more poems to feed you…. Some well known, others not so much, all for imbibing…
The Blurt
The man across the table waiting
for my take is not unkind. In fact,
his hair stands up sweetly like a boy’s
as he offers me some praise I must
deflect. A little jewel lobbed my way
and throwing beams from all its facets,
the kudo rides the charge of light
between our sturdy roles. Of course, I want
to catch it, enjoy the way it cools
the palm and will later weight
the paper on my desk, but even
as it lofts my open ego, I’m sure
others are more worthy, or worse,
that if I take it I’ll be jinxed
and never see its like again. Maybe
it’s just midwestern diffidence
that leaps to intercept the gem
and save it for the velvet drawer.
All this action happens over plates
of greens with tangled stems,
seeds and spices that tease
and sting the troubled tongue,
so when I down it all and open
for response, the blurt
who lives somewhere deep
in what might be raw gut
or lizard brain, sneaks up,
looks around with those
comic mobile eyes, and speaks,
oh God, that thing crouched
inside. I know there are those
to whom this ordinary shame
never comes, but mine’s alive
even in the kindest company.
It clicks its claws and likes to bare
ferocious little teeth, but it’s not,
like a cat, immune to what you think.
Sometimes it hangs around all night
when the encounter’s long forgotten
by the man across the table. The blurt
assigned to him a power and feeds
it in the dark with oily possibilities
that agitate toward dream.
Even when the worst has already
passed, and I’m no one again—
like a child, but without
a future’s magic wand,
the blurt knows how to hurt
by simply sticking to its source.
Source: Poetry (January 2020)
Glitter in My Wounds
BY CACONRAD
first and most important
dream our missing friends forward
burn their reflections into empty chairs
we are less bound by time than the clockmaker fears
this morning all I want is to follow where the stone angels point
birdsong lashing me to tears
heterosexuals need to see our suffering
the violent deaths of our friends and lovers
to know glitter on a queer is not to dazzle but to
unsettle the foundation of this murderous culture
defiant weeds smashing up through cement
you think Oscar Wilde was funny
well Darling I think he was busy
distracting straight people so they would not kill him if you knew how many times I have been told you’re not like my gay best friend who tells me jokes and makes me laugh no I sure as fuck am notI have no room in my life to audition for your pansy mascot you people can’t kill me and think you can kill me again I met a tree in Amsterdam and stood barefoot beside it for twentyminutes then left completely restored yet another poem not written by a poet
sometimes we need one muscle to
relax so the others follow
my friend Mandy calls after a
long shift at the strip club to say
while standing in line for death I am
fanning my hot pussy with your new book
will you sign it next week my fearless faggot sister
Source: Poetry (November 2018)
Last Night As I Was Sleeping
Antonio Machado (translated by Robert Bly)
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
February & my love is in another state
so when i walk down the street, i hold hands
with the wind. there’s a chimney coughing
up ahead & a sky so honey, i could almost taste it.
a cat struts away from me & two yellow eyes
become four: just like that,
i’m the loneliest creature on this block.
soon the streetlights will come alive
& television sets will light up with blues.
stay with me. while the sky is still golden,
hold the ladder so i can climb, & from
the highest rung, i can scrape away a drizzle
of light to wear around my neck. alone
is the star i follow. in love & in solitude:
alone is the home with the warmest glow.
Source: Poetry (December 2019)
