POEM OF THE DAY BY ZBIGNIEW HERBERT

I Would Like to Describe
I would like to describe the simplest emotion joy or sadness but not as others do reaching for shafts of rain or sun I would like to describe a light which is being born in me but I know it does not resemble any star for it is not so bright not so pure and is uncertain I would like to describe courage without dragging behind me a dusty lion and also anxiety without shaking a glass full of water to put it another way I would give all metaphors in return for one word drawn out of my breast like a rib for one word contained within the boundaries of my skin but apparently this is not possible and just to say - I love I run around like mad picking up handfuls of birds and my tenderness which after all is not made of water asks the water for a face and anger different from fire borrows from it a loquacious tongue so is blurred so is blurred in me what white-haired gentlemen separated once and for all and said this is the subject and this is the object we fall asleep with one hand under our head and with the other in a mound of planets our feet abandon us and taste the earth with their tiny roots which next morning we tear out painfully -Zbigniew Herbert

POEM OF THE DAY BY TONY HOAGLAND

Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet
At this height, Kansas is just a concept, a checkerboard design of wheat and corn no larger than the foldout section of my neighbor's travel magazine. At this stage of the journey I would estimate the distance between myself and my own feelings is roughly the same as the mileage from Seattle to New York, so I can lean back into the upholstered interval between Muzak and lunch, a little bored, a little old and strange. I remember, as a dreamy backyard kind of kid, tilting up my head to watch those planes engrave the sky in lines so steady and so straight they implied the enormous concentration of good men, but now my eyes flicker from the in-flight movie to the stewardess's pantyline, then back into my book, where men throw harpoons at something much bigger and probably better than themselves, wanting to kill it, wanting to see great clouds of blood erupt to prove that they exist. Imagine being born and growing up, rushing through the world for sixty years at unimaginable speeds. Imagine a century like a room so large, a corridor so long you could travel for a lifetime and never find the door, until you had forgotten that such a thing as doors exist. Better to be on board the Pequod, with a mad one-legged captain living for revenge. Better to feel the salt wind spitting in your face, to hold your sharpened weapon high, to see the glisten of the beast beneath the waves. What a relief it would be to hear someone in the crew cry out like a gull, Oh Captain, Captain! Where are we going now?      -Tony Hoagland

POEM OF THE DAY BY PAUL ROLA

HOT NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE
 

Nights out here this year have been terrible hot,
Kinda’ like hell,
But without havin’ to put up with all the deceased family members.
Tonight is one of those nights when
You wished you only had one leg
So’s it wouldn’t have to lay up against the other one.

You almost hate to try to go to sleep
Cause when you close your eyes
It makes your eyeballs sweat.

The humidity is truly hangin’ heavy in the air,
Makes your clothes heavy.
Hell it makes everything heavy.
Even Willie’s singin’ seems to be about a half a tone low
By the time the sound gets to me.

That coyote has developed a sinus cough,
Kinda’ gurgles when he howls.
Why even the cattle have been beggin’ us to skin ‘em
So they can get some relief
From them fur coats.

The only thing that keeps me a goin’ through the night
Is that I know it will be day break soon
And even though we’ll have to face the full force of that sun
It gives me a certain kinda’ relief to know
I can bitch and cuss out loud
Without wakin’ anybody up.


-Paul Rola

POEM OF THE DAY BY GEORGE WALLACE

WAIST DEEP IN THE DOO WHA DIDDY
protect the rich -- join the party!
come on out it’s the fourth of july
it's pioneer days & a mighty fine
country we live in, why yes it is!
-- took it from the indians & the
old cistern of capitalism is doing
its thing -- boys we live in a good
damn country, boomerangers &
misadventurers start your engines
of opportunity -- cruise the streets
drink your poison -- we’re waist deep
in the doo wha diddy -- all night long
all axe-handle night -- why you're
looking ram tough tonight, darling!
sing it out while the people of color
smoke their angry cigarettes & hang
around outside the county courthouse --
sing it out with kate smith belt it out
people! hands over your god bless
america hearts! it’s the seventh inning
the home team’s alive & the home team’s
winning -- poppa drink your beer -- momma
dish out some more of that good green stuff.
freedom’s for the taking! easy opportunity!
why listen to filthy protestors on wall street
when you can vote for the smiling man
who robs you over and over again in
the name of freedom? the good stuff
trickles down boys & girls the oil wells
pump magic into your veins o let the
rowdies have their fun let the good
times roll laissez les old folks scoop
their cat food dinner tin cans -- let
the children & grandchildren of
immigrants take their place on
the wrong side of the picket line.
cross the line, serve thirty days in jail.
o beat down the suckers & the cop-baiters
let the troublemakers & the infiltrators
the provocateurs & bible beating shotgun
wielding cowboys run wild in the land of
the free -- & who among us’ll blame them?
who? who’s that waiting in the dangerous
shadows of the rio grande? who's that guy
jimmy-jamming the voting booth? why it’s
just me, folks -- another good american
trying to protect the american way!
fuck that boy stuck waist deep
in the doo-wha-diddy.


-George Wallace

POEM OF THE DAY BY DEZ TENHAM

A Reason Not To Love

Satisfied with understanding the general gist of things
there is so much to look into, stars suns and faces
how could you expect the trauma of sentience
to not come with the anxious powers of observation
so inclined to attempt to take on the import of
more, the universe coax-pushing
the body
the self,
ground against pavement-synthesis
steamroller that does not crush but drives
pressed by the gravity of organic-magnetism
Scrape-shaven into road-rash dust and debris
Less than a blink-becoming of basic chemical compounds again
Building blocks for mushrooms and echoes of thought.


-Dez Tenham

A HESITANT ODE TO A BUMBLE BEE

You there,

ya big, fat grumblin’
bumble bee,

you sound to me
like the chronically fuzzed-out
electro-static feedback
of a beat-up ’62 Fender Strat
(or maybe a ’63).

I see ya, there,
buzzin’ around the shimmering,
glistening early morning air,

sniffin’ about, here and there,
bobbin’ and weavin’, in and out
like a Mexican or South Korean
featherweight, in and out
and all around the newly blooming
Marigolds and Hyacinths
and those incessantly perfuming
Mimosas and Spearmints
and eros-inducing Linden trees…

Now, don’t you be
stingin’ on me!

-Jason Ryberg, 2012

POEM OF THE DAY BY JOHN MACKER

Diego

 

We buried my old dog Diego

on St. Patrick's day, next to the arroyo
one of the driest of devil winters. he
looked like any other dog in New Mexico,
like the Santo Domingo pueblo dogs,
asleep on the dusty earth in the shade,
dreamy respite
from the Corn Dance heat.
I wanted to write:
I wept tears of Irish whisky on his grave but
all I kept thinking was the Great Spirit must've
discovered that placing his soul on earth
for a spell
during my life,
beat
having to answer for all the sorrows
of the world, if only for a moment,
any day.

 

-John Macker