POEM OF THE DAY BY PHILIP SCHULTZ

WHAT I LIKE AND DON'T LIKE


I like to say hello and goodbye.
I like to hug but not shake hands.
I prefer to wave or nod. I enjoy
the company of strangers pushed
together in elevators of subways.
I like talking to cabdrivers
but not receptionists. I like
not knowing what to say.

I like talking to people I know
but care nothing about. I like
inviting anyone anywhere.
I like hearing my opinions
tumble out of my mouth
like toddlers tied together
while crossing the street
trusting they won’t be squashed
by fate. I like greeting-card clichés

but not dressing up or down.
I like being appropriate
but not all the time.
I could continue with more examples
but I’d rather give too few
than too many. The thought
of no one listening anymore—
I like that least of all.

-Philip Schultz

POEM OF THE DAY BY WALT WHITMAN

A Clear Midnight
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars. -Walt Whitman

POEM OF THE DAYBY JOHN BURNSIDE

Witness

In the small hours, the smallest of rain
and that animal joy of being abroad in the dark
with something unseen.

He said he would come again
in altered form:
the palest trace of smoke, or touch-me-not,
a charm of finches dipping through the meadows,

and something was there, when the first light
bloomed on her hands;
something was there, like a shadow
unpicked from the shadows.

Hadn't it always seemed odd
that the dead held their peace,
some herd sense drawing them in
to water and silence?

In scripture, they are mostly dust and pollen,
the colours subdued, the markings nondescript,
a step away from nothing, measured out
in clicks and whistles, over the stickled world;

and surely it must have seemed odd
that they never returned,
but meshed with one another in the earth,
a history of bloodline and attention
unwinding from the known the next-beloved.

John Burnside

POEM OF THE DAY BY PHILIP LEVINE

On 52nd Street
Down sat Bud, raised his hands, the Deuces silenced, the lights lowered, and breath gathered for the coming storm. Then nothing, not a single note. Outside starlight from heaven fell unseen, a quarter- moon, promised, was no show, ditto the rain. Late August of '50, NYC, the long summer of abundance and our new war. In the mirror behind the bar, the spirits--imitating you-- stared at themselves. At the bar the tenor player up from Philly, shut his eyes and whispered to no one, "Same thing last night." Everyone been coming all week long to hear this. The big brown bass sighed and slumped against the piano, the cymbals held their dry cheeks and stopped chicking and chucking. You went back to drinking and ignored the unignorable. When the door swung open it was Pettiford in work clothes, midnight suit, starched shirt, narrow black tie, spit shined shoes, as ready as he'd ever be. Eyebrows raised, the Irish bartender shook his head, so Pettiford eased himself down at an empty table, closed up his Herald Tribune, and shook his head. Did the TV come on, did the jukebox bring us Dinah Washington, did the stars keep their appointments, did the moon show, quartered or full, sprinkling its soft light down? The night's still there, just where it was, just where it'll always be without its music. You're still there too holding your breath. Bud walked out. -Philip Levine

POEM OF THE DAY BY THOMAS LUX

Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy


For some semitropical reason
when the rains fall
relentlessly they fall

into swimming pools, these otherwise
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long

and they can’t climb the ladder out.
They usually drown—but
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is justice,
a reward for not loving

the death of ugly
and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake,
rats) creatures, if

you believe these things, then
you would leave a lifebuoy
or two in your swimming pool at night.

And in the morning
you would haul ashore
the huddled, hairy survivors

and escort them
back to the bush, and know,
be assured that at least these saved,
as individuals, would not turn up

again someday
in your hat, drawer,
or the tangled underworld

of your socks, and that even—
when your belief in justice
merges with your belief in dreams—
they may tell the others

in a sign language
four times as subtle
and complicated as man’s

that you are good,
that you love them,
that you would save them again.


-Thomas Lux

20 MILES TO STURGEON BAY (OR, I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO USE THE LINE, “IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT...”)

and there I was wrestling a five ton truck
with a fifteen foot trailer (and both packed tight,
top to back) down a twisting two-lane coastal road
(with no signs, stops or shoulders) up there
on that skinny Wisconsin peninsula
that pokes so broken pinky-like out into
the black and briny void of Lake Michigan.
But at least it was relatively warm and dry
inside the cab though my partner and I
were still a bit shaken and chilled to the marrow
of our respective bones by the over-all unnerving
if not full-on traumatizing work conditions
we were then currently experiencing-
meaning the absolutely unrelenting
storybook/Hollywood-style thunder and lightning
and rain (with the occasional visitation of hail,
now and again,) and damn-near zero
visibility beyond the headlight’s anemic
glow on the slick, hairpin curvature
of the road ahead and of course the odd moment
of HOLY CRAP WE’RE GONNA DIE!
But hey, at least we’ve got half a tank of gas,
half a bag of giant pretzel sticks,
a couple cans of some psychotic energy drink
rolling around somewhere in here,
and ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses”
is just now coming on the radio
and the sign by the side of the road
says:“20 Miles to Sturgeon Bay”
and it looks like we just might
make last call with
time to spare.

-Jason Ryberg, 2010

POEM OF THE DAY BY EWA LIPSKA

Splinter

I like you a twenty-year-old poet writes to me.
A beginning carpenter of words.

His letter smells of lumber.
His muse still sleeps in rosewood.

Ambitious noise in a literary sawmill.
Apprentices veneering a gullible tongue.

They cut to size the shy plywood of sentences.
A haiku whittled with a plane.

Problems begin
with a splinter lodged in memory.

It is hard to remove
much harder to describe.

Wood shavings fly. The apple cores of angels.
Dust up to the heavens.

Ewa Lipska