National Poetry Month: Tiel Aisha Ansari

 

"Before there was color photography"
(Tiel Aisha Ansari)

Before there was color photography
it was sepia sorrow and black-and-white laughs
that filled up our grayscale memory
with old-fashioned love caught in old photographs.
We kissed under rainbows in monochrome,
the girls in white dresses, the boys in black ties,
recorded both travel and coming home
in silver emulsions unsullied by dyes.
We flatter ourselves on development
of accurate, full-color vision that sets
our lives down in vivid emotion palettes.
We claim that it's truer to represent
the brilliance of love with a gaudy bouquet-
but love was as strong back when roses were gray.

  Tiel Aisha Ansari's work has appeared or is forthcoming in several print and online venues including Islamica Magazine, Mezzo Cammin, and The Lyric, and she is the author of the poetry collection Knocking from Inside, published by Ecstatic Exchange. Her blog is knockingfrominside.blogspot.com.   

National Poetry Month: David Rattray

"A red-framed print of the Summer Palace"

(David Rattray)

My mother died in her bed

one balmy night in May, 1974;

my hair wasn't yet gray.

At the head of the bed

was a red-framed print

of the Summer Palace near Peking

in salmon pink and tea green

over a lake with a little stream launch

and a bridge

to an island in the foreground.

She'd been there as a girl

and for 50 years later

dreamt of it

only to awake

in tears at not returning

to the summer palace of youth.

In her will she left me the picture --

it's on my study wall.

Last year a Sinologist came by, and I learned 

the bridge   

is incorrectly rendered.

There are in fact

17 arches, not 14 as shown.

Also, there are errors in perspective

and the Chinese writing in the clouds

over the lake

is cut and dried description, 

not the poetry I'd hoped.

"A red-framed print of the Summer Palace" by David Rattray (1958-1993) appeared in Sulfur #3, 1982. His translations included work by the 20th-century French writers Antonin Artaud and Rene Crevel; he published a book of collected stories and essays, How I Became One of the Invisible and a poetry collection, Opening the Eyelid (1990). He died unexpectedly of a brain tumor at the age of 57. (Photo of David Rattray by Ira Cohen.)

National Poetry Month: W.D. Snodgrass

W.D. Snodgrass

"Who Steals My Good Name"

(W.D. Snodgrass)

For the person who obtained my debit card number and spent $11,000 in five days

My pale stepdaughter, just off the school bus,

Scowled, "Well, that's the last time I say my name's

Snodgrass!" Just so, may that anonymous

Mexican male who prodigally claims

My clan lines, identity and the sixteen

Digits that unlock my bank account,

Think twice. That less than proper name's been

Taken by three ex-wives, each for an amount

Past all you've squandered, each more than pleased

To change it back. That surname you affect

May have more consequence than getting teased

By dumb kids or tracked down by bank detectives.

Don't underrate its history: one of ours played

Piano on his prison's weekly broadcast;

One got rich on a scammed quiz show; one made

A bungle costing the World Series. My own past

Could subject you to guilt by association:

If you write anything more than false checks,

Abandon all hope of large press publication

Or prizes—critics shun the name like sex

Without a condom. Whoever steals my purse

Helps chain me to my writing desk again

For fun and profit. So take thanks with my curse:

May your pen name help send you to your pen.

   "Who Steals My Good Name" by W.D. Snodgrass was originally published in Poetry magazine, April 2003, and collected in Not For Specialists (2006).  He gained early fame with his first book of poems Heart's Needle in 1959, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1960. He taught at Syracuse University for many years and died at his home in upstate New York in 2009.

National Poetry Month: Delia Gist Gardner

"Hail and Farewell"

Delia Gist Gardner

(Reflection from a cabin in Skull Valley, Arizona, over an old Indian camping ground, 1945)

 

Think not on my brittle bones mingling with dust, for

These

Are but a handful added

To those gone before.

Think, rather, that on this borrowed hilltop

One lived joyously, and died content.

 

In this dark soil

I found reminders, saying:

"You, too, will pass; savor for us

The wind and the sun."

 

From the smoke-blackened earth

I dug

A frail shell bracelet, shaped lovingly, skillfully,

For a brown skinned wrist, now dust.

The broken piece of clay

Was a doll's foot and leg, artfully curved ,

Made for brown-eyed child.

 

Pottery shards saying:

"Yours for a little time only

Take delight in this, as we did."

 

The tree will die; the vine wither and rattle in the wind.

For I broke a law of Nature.

I carried the water to the hilltop. Nevertheless,

For those after me there will be

These things I have loved:

 

Morning sun rays, slanting across the hilltop,

Lighting the great trees in the green meadow.

Wind, the great blue sky,

Peace of the encircling hills

And flaming glow of sunset.

"Hail and Farewell" appears in Cowgirl Poetry: One Hundred Years of Ropin' and Ridin', edited by Virginia Bennett, published by Gibbs-Smith, 2001. From the introduction: "Vintage writings were a rich discovery. 'Hail and Farewell,' found recited as a dramatic ending to Gail Steiger's CD of truthful cowboy music, was penned by Delia Gist Gardner, whose husband, Gail Gardner, wrote many classic cowboy poems, including 'The Sierry Petes' (better known as 'Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail'). Steiger related that no one knew that his grandmother had been a writer, yet after her death, this single poem as found among her things."

National Poetry Month: Martha Collins

from Blue Front 

(Martha Collins)

There were trees on those streets that were named for trees: Sycamore, Cedar, Poplar, Pine, Elm, where the woman's body was found, where the man's body was taken and burned—

There must have been trees, there were trees on Seventh Street, in front of the house that stands in the picture behind the carriage that holds the boy's mother, the boy's cousin, the boy—

And of course there were trees on Washington Avenue, wide boulevard lined with exotic ginkgoes, stately magnolias, there were trees on that street that are still on that street,

trees that shaded the fenced-in yards of the large Victorian houses, the mansion built by the man who sold flour to Grant for the Union troops, trees that were known to the crowd that saw

the victim hanged, though not on a tree, this was not the country, they used a steel arch with electric lights, and later a lamppost, this was a modern event, the trees were not involved.

......

"hang"

as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. a dress, a shirt on a line to fasten to dry. on the rack, or back in the closet again, a sweet curse on it all, sliver of nail, delayed attack. shamed creature, a curse on itself, so the act of doing it changes the verb, tense with not quite right. with rope, like a swing from a tree. from a pole, like a flag, or holidays, from an arch lit bright with lights. in the night, in the air like a shirt. without, or with only a shirt. without, like an empty sleeve.

Blue Front (Graywolf Press, 2006) is Martha Collins' booklength poem about a lynching in her father's home town of Cairo, Illinois in the year 1909, when he was five years old. From a review by Janet St. John in Booklist: "One November day, he was hoisted on a relative's shoulders to watch a bloodthirsty mob kill a black man and then, in an escalation of its 'hunger,' hang an accused white murderer. Collins carefully examines the event and its aftermath, especially the effect on her father. ... She then extends her thoughtful scrutiny to incorporate newspaper accounts, photographs, personal accounts, and history to expose the way racism permeates all layers of society. Collins employs a staccato, matter-of-fact tone that strikes like a sledgehammer at persistent, if hidden, hate. More than worthy as poetry, Blue Front is also a powerful statement about America and a potent reminder of humankind's terrible potential."

National Poetry Month: John Giorno

 

"Thanx 4 Nothing" - John Giorno

I want to give my thanks to everyone for everything,
and as a token of my appreciation,
I want to offer back to you all my good and bad habits
as magnificent priceless jewels,
wish-fulfilling gems satisfying everything you need and want,
thank you, thank you, thank you,
thanks.

May every drug I ever took
come back and get you high,
may every glass of vodka and wine I’ve drunk
come back and make you feel really good,
numbing your nerve ends
allowing the natural clarity of your mind to flow free,
may all the suicides be songs of aspiration,
thanks that bad news is always true,
may all the chocolate I ever eaten
come back rushing through your bloodstream
and make you feel happy,
thanks for allowing me to be a poet
a noble effort, doomed, but the only choice.

I want to thank you for your kindness and praise,
thanks for celebrating me,
thanks for the resounding applause,
I want to thank you for taking everything for yourself
and giving nothing back,
you were always only self-serving,
thanks for exploiting my big ego
and making me a star for your own benefit,
thanks that you never paid me,
thanks for all the sleaze,
thanks for being  mean and rude
and smiling at my face,
I am happy that you robbed me,
I am happy that you lied
I am happy that you helped me,
thanks, grazie, merci beaucoup.

May you smoke a joint with William,
and spend intimate time with his mind,
more profound than any book he wrote,
I give enormous thanks to all my lovers,
beautiful men with brilliant minds,
great artists,
Bob, Jasper, Ugo,
may they come here now
and make love to you,
and may my many other lovers
of totally great sex,
countless lovers
of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless
fabulous sex
in the golden age
of promiscuity
may they all come here now,
and make love to you,
if you want,
may each of them
hold each of you in their arms
balling
to your hearts
delight.
balling to your hearts
delight
balling to
your hearts delight
balling to your hearts delight.
             
May all the people who are dead
Allen, Brion, Lita, Jack,
and I do not miss any of you
I don’t miss any of them,
no nostalgia,
it was wonderful we loved each other
but I don’t want any of them back,
now, if any of you
are attracted to any of them,
may they come back from the dead,
and do whatever is your pleasure,
may they multiply,
and be the slaves
of whomever wants them,
fulfilling your every wish and desire,
(but you won’t want them as masters,
as they’re demons),
may Andy come here
fall in love with you
and make each of you a superstar,
everyone can have
Andy.
everyone can
have Andy.
everyone can have Andy,
everyone can have an Andy.

Huge hugs to the friends who betrayed me,
every friend became an enemy,
sooner or later,
I am delighted you are vacuum cleaners
sucking everything into your dirt bags,
you are none other than a reflection of my mind.
Thanks for the depression problem
and feeling like suicide
everyday of my life,
and now that I’m seventy,
I am happily almost there.                
               
Twenty billion years ago,
in the primordial wisdom soup
beyond comprehension and indescribable,
something without substance moved slightly,
and became something imperceptible,
moved again and became something invisible,
moved again and produced a particle and particles,
moved again and became a quark,
again and became quarks,
moved again and again and became protons and neutrons,
and the twelve dimensions of space,
tiny fire balls of primordial energy
bits tossed back and forth
in a game of catch between particles,
transmitting electromagnetic light
and going fast, 40 million times a second,
where the pebble hits the water,
that is where the trouble began,
something without substance became something with substance,
why did it happen?
because something substance less
had a feeling of missing out on something,
not
getting it
was not getting  it
not getting it,
not getting it,
imperceptibly not having something
when there was nothing to have,
clinging to a notion of reality;
from the primordially endless potential,
to modern day reality,
twenty billion years later,
has produced me,
gave birth to me and my stupid grasping mind,
made me and you and my grasping mind.

May Rinpoche and all the great Tibetan teachers who loved me,
come back and love you more,
hold you in their wisdom hearts,
bathe you in all-pervasive compassion,
give you pith instructions,
and may you with the diligence of Olympic athletes
do meditation practice,
and may you with direct confidence
realize the true nature of mind.

America, thanks for the neglect,
I did it without you,
let us celebrate poetic justice,
you and I never were,
never tried to do anything,
and never succeeded,
I want to thank you for introducing me to
the face of the naked mind,
thanx 4 nothing.


John Giorno wrote "Thanks 4 Nothing" for his 70th birthday in 2006. A poet and visual artist born in 1936 in New York City, Giorno attended Columbia University and worked as a stockbroker for a short time before meeting Andy Warhol in 1962. A romantic relationship ensued, and Giorno was featured in Warhol’s first film, Sleep (1963). The influence of pop art and Warhol’s Factory are evident in Giorno’s work, which developed out of verbal collages of appropriated texts drawn from advertising and signage. In 1971, following a trip to India, Giorno converted to Tibetan Buddhism. In his later years, he has become well known for his confrontational readings and his contributions as a gay rights activist; he founded the AIDS Treatment Project in 1984. In 2010, he had his first solo gallery show, Black Paintings and Drawings, which focused on the development of poem painting. He currently lives in New York City.

National Poetry Month: Dustin Brookshire

 

 

 

"First AIDS Test"
(Dustin Brookshire)


I was 19 when I had my first
AIDS test; no longer a virgin or
why else would we have
made that 15 minute drive
that seemed like 15 hours
to the testing center.
I had to go because of you,
but I can't blame you alone--
no, I was stupid, I let you
slide into me uncovered.
I let you enter me,
and the foolish part of
my brain gagged the sensible
part before it could say,
'This shouldn't happened.'
The foolish part of my brain
gagged and tied the sensible
part and quietly tucked her
away out of sight so he
could be heard and say,
'Let's get this started.'
Every time you entered me
I felt loved.
Every time you entered me
I trusted you more.
I craved you; you were my first.
And it was after six months
of our love making,
well, my love making
your lust indulging,
that I found out you shared
your bed with others---
so many others.
I shuddered.
I cried.
I screamed at God,
but it wasn't His fault.
It was yours;
it was mine.
And that's when I made
you take me to get the test.
I made you pay for it.
I refused to let you touch me after;
I refused to listen to your I'm sorries.
I was trying to find a safe world
where every billboard read NEGATIVE.
I was having a dream with a beautiful song
and everyone singing sang NEGATIVE.
For two weeks I waited.
Two weeks of prayers, promises, and
thoughts of what I'd do to you
if my life took a viral change.
But in the end, it came out negative---
I was born to live again.

Dustin Brookshire's poem "First AIDS Test" was published online at SubtleTea. His 2012 book of poems, To the One Who Raped Me, is published by Sibling Rivalry Press.