And Another One

It’s an excellent poem, with more background on the page, of interest to us here. Click the title.

After

Youna Kwak

I never feel so alive as when I am
writing and have no right
answer for what this means
for the lives of others, how

to live in the after which after
all means the now of our living
together when together
means death for all

those forbidden from
entering the home so
methodically built until after
they are dead. Only

after will locked doors
swing amply open to
admit the murdered
into rooms of vast

crushed comfort, whose
inhabitants eat and sleep
on furnishings carved
with corpses, stepping

with hospitable sorrow
around the bodies of the
dead, speaking dirges
into the phantom

darkness. What happens
in the quiet grave where
the living make themselves
at home, where noisily

they intend to thrive, where
the poem itself concedes
to suffering so it might persist
in blazing against it.

Enjoy Some Harlem Renaissance Poetry This Morning:

Click the poem title for more about this poet and her poem.

Things Said When He Was Gone

Blanche Taylor Dickinson 1896 – 1972

My branch of thoughts is frail tonight
As one lone-wind-whipped weed.
Little I care if a rain drop laughs
Or cries; I cannot heed

Such trifles now as a twinkling star,
Or catch a night-bird’s tune.
My whole life is you, to-night,
And you, a cool distant moon.

With a few soft words to nurture my heart
And brighter beams following love’s cool shower
Who knows but this frail wind-whipped weed
Might bear you a gorgeous flower!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 2, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

Observing Black History Month, Because This Is The Fkn’ US, Dammit!

The Negro’s “America” by Frank Barbour Coffin 1870–1951

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Would I could sing;
Its land of Pilgrim’s pride
Also where lynched men died
With such upon her tide,
Freedom can’t reign.

My native country, thee
The world pronounce you free
Thy name I love;
But when the lynchers rise
To slaughter human lives
Thou closest up thine eyes,
Thy God’s above.

Let Negroes smell the breeze
So they can sing with ease
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let justice reign supreme,
Let men be what they seem
Break up that lyncher’s screen,
Lay down all wrong.

Our fathers’ God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
How can our land be bright?
Can lynching be a light?
Protect us by thy might,
Great God our king!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 1, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

As always, click the title to get more about the poet and their work. Today’s background is especially poignant, and work the click.

Good Morning!

the cat, a black fur sausage with yellow Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries to get onto my head. It’s his way of telling whether or not I’m dead. by Worriedman

Margaret Atwood – “February” Read on Substack

I hope everybody goes and reads this terrific poem. It’s a joy to read. Every word is right. The focus of the poem shifts from a cat’s butthole to the spectre of widespread famine and the end of civilization. In like, two stanzas. That’s pretty nimble!

I can’t wait for this! Working a happy horse and a warm sunny day –

It’s not February yet. Just a few days though.

Barncat isn’t a black cat. More relentlessly gray.With pretty green eyes.

I am very fond of giant flowers that grow in the house in the dead of winter.

Starlings, in the field across the road.

Sunrise in the Greenhouse

Juice !

Juice loves late ’60s Grateful Dead.

I need to explore the Fen/Zardoz connection

That’s all I have room for – Thanks for dropping by.

Arise, indeed!

Dharmageddon (Untouchable Sonnet) | Abhijit Naskar | Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“A Well-Developed Character…”

Reality is Frequency (EM Sonnet) | Abhijit Naskar | Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

Snow in Florida

(The title is the link to the poem, to find out more about it and the poet.)

Florida Snow P. Scott Cunningham

The Everglades are burning. I’m fifteen.
I open the window, knock out the screen

and crawl up the tiles to the apex of the roof.
Overhead the black clouds march on hooves

from the sunset to the ocean. It’s rare for the wind
to carry the sugar burns in my direction.

I assume the purpose of the fires is to make
the sugar sweeter, but besides covering the state

in smoke, all they do is make the harvest cheaper.
Some men spent a fortune to drain the river

but the cost was all up front. The stalks get so dry some-
times a piece of lightning starts the fire for them

and what’s left behind can’t help becoming tinder.
I think the land will tire of not being water soon.

Tonight the air is cold and smells like winter.
Ashes fall around me like pieces of the moon.

Have A Poem!

Those who have snow, and those who don’t-enjoy, anyway! This one is on a Substack I follow.

The Snowfall Is So Silent Miguel de Unamuno1864 –1936

translated by Robert Bly

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless;
Snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls,
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere it escapes.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off
as it rains,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
They bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

The snowfall is silent

The snowfall is silent,
slow thing;
little by little and gently
rests on the ground
and shelters the plain.
The snow lies silently
white and light;
the snowfall makes no noise;
falls as oblivion falls,
flake by flake.
Softly shelters the fields
when the ice harasses them;
with its flashes of whiteness;
covers everything with its cloak
pure, silent;
does not escape on the ground
anything.
Where it falls, there it stays
light and light,
because the snow does not slip
as the rain slides,
but it stays and sinks in.
Flowers from the sky the flakes,
white lilies of the clouds,
that wither on the ground,
They come down in bloom,
but they are soon
melted;
They bloom only at the summit,
over the mountains,
sorrow of the earth,
and in their entrails they perish.
Snow, soft snow,
the one that falls so lightly
over the head,
on the heart,
come and shelter my sadness
the one that rests in reason.

From Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975 , translated by Robert Bly, edited by Hardie St. Martin, and published by Harper & Row. © 1976 by Hardie St. Martin. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

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I love reading. Life’s decent, too. 😉

What is a life well lived? ¿Qué es una vida bien vivida? – Abhijit Naskar

A Nice Old Poem

Find out all about it by clicking the title to see it all. (Also not proselytizing.)

January by Robert Bridges 1844 – 1930

Cold is the winter day, misty and dark:
The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent:
And patches of thin snow outlying, mark
The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:
The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,
With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;
The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill
And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs
Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill
Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,
Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies:
My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing,
Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold
To praise wintry works not understood,
Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,
Evil and good as one, and all as good.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 4, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.