Poem of the Day, August 19
August
by Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this [...]
Poem of the Day. August by Mary Oliv...
Poem of the Day, August 19
August
by Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this [...]
Poem of the Day. Spell To Be Said Ag...
Poem of the Day, August 18
Spell To Be Said Against Hatred
by Jane Hirshfield
Until each breath refuses “they,” “those,” “them.”
Until the Dramatis Personae of the book’s first page says “Each one is you.”
Until hope bows to its hopelessness only as one self bows to another.
Until cruelty bends to its work and sees suddenly “I.”
Until a [...]
Poem of the Day. Against Dying by Ka...
Poem of the Day, August 17
Against Dying
by Kaveh Akbar
if the body is just a parable
about the body if breath
is a leash to hold the mind
then staying alive should be
easier than it is most sick
things become dead things
at twenty-four my liver was
already covered in fatty
rot my mother filled a tiny
coffin with picture frames
I spent the ye [...]
Poem of the Day. safe by Charles Buk...
Poem of the Day, August 16
Charles Bukowski was born #OTD in 1920
safe
by Charles Bukowski
the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and [...]
Poem of the Day. Absolute September ...
Poem of the Day, August 15
Happy Birthday to Mary Jo Salter, born #OTD 1954.
Absolute September
by Mary Jo Salter
How hard it is to take September
straight—not as a harbinger
of something harder.
Merely like suds in the air, cool scent
scrubbed clean of meaning—or innocent
of the cold thing coldly meant.
How hard the heart tugs at the end
of [...]
Poem of the Day. Kindness by Yusef K...
Poem of the Day, August 14
Kindness
by Yusef Komunyakaa
When deeds splay before us
precious as gold & unused chances
stripped from the whine-bone,
we know the moment kindheartedness
walks in. Each praise be
echoes us back as the years uncount
themselves, eating salt. Though blood
first shaped us on the climbing wheel,
the human mind lit [...]
Poem of the Day. Why I Don’t Piss i...
Poem of the Day, August 13
Why I Don’t Piss in the Ocean
by Maggie Dietz
Once my sister told me that from her summit at the city
pool she could see the yellow billows spread like gas
or dreams between kids’ legs. In something the size of the sea,
you can’t be sure who’s watching from above. Let’s say
it’s the Almighty, twirling His whistle, r [...]
Poem of the Day. Fox Bones by Chase...
Poem of the Day, August 12
Fox Bones
by Chase Twichell
To write a poem is to study oneself.
To strip away all but the sinews,
and then the sinews.
A jawbone stuck out of the dirt—
young fox with still-perfect teeth.
I keep in on my desk.
Everything is made of mystery.
And then it all disappears.
You can get the Lucubrations Poem of th [...]
Poem of the Day. The Second Coming b...
Poem of the Day, August 11
The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conv [...]
Poem of the Day. That Silent Evenin...
Poem of the Day, August 10
That Silent Evening
by Galway Kinnell
I will go back to that silent evening
when we lay together and talked in low, silent voices,
while outside slow lumps of soft snow
fell, hushing as they got near the ground,
with a fire in the room, in which centuries
of tree went up in continuous ghost-giving-up,
without a crac [...]
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