Poems

Poems

Funeral Blues

Aside | Posted on by A. Long

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

jenniferhecker.com

jenniferhecker.com

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

–W. H. Auden

What Will The World Print When

Posted on by A. Long

What will the world print
when I’m a famous dead and gone poet?

She liked blistex over lipgloss
dark chocolate and Ritz crackers
Brooklyn and Italy
dark poetry, like the confinements of a room
the stage
graffiti,
really cold spaces with lots of warm blankets
butter and mayo
converses.

She died a legend
that thrived in this world
a simple student with an open mic…poetry
humble
and to be honest,
always a tad bit hungry

Account

Posted on by A. Long

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.
Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.
I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.
But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own—but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.
The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.
–Czeslaw Milosz (Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Pinsky)

Every

Posted on by A. Long

Every Monday
my life falls into disarray
screaming depression binds me to the bed
Every Tuesday hurts a little less
I pick up the pieces and mull over the rest
Every Wednesday I fall back down
Every Thursday I pick myself up
On Fridays I am born again
On Saturdays I am happy
so happy that I am scared it won’t last
And then on Sundays
the fear manifests
I am alone and shaken by my own happiness
distressed I count the hours
attempt to clean this place
call a friend and when he doesn’t answer
desperately call again
I talk to God for direction
and forget to eat
Lie awake in the cold because I can’t afford the heat
I’m stuck in a stalemate with the wall
wondering how I could want so much
and not enough
Of all the things I thought I’d be
I never knew this could happen to me…

Thank God for the music and the mission for keeping me going

telling our stories

Posted on by A. Long

the fox came every evening to my door

asking for nothing. my fear

trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her

but she sat till morning, waiting.

at dawn we would, each of us,

rise from our haunches, look through the glass

then walk away.

did she gather her village around her

and sing of the hairless moon face,

the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?

child, I tell you now it was not

the animal blood I was hiding from,

it was the poet in her, the poet and

the terrible stories she could tell.

–Lucille Clifton

My Poetry, Short Poems

What Is Death

Aside | Posted on by A. Long

iol.co.za

iol.co.za

Death and calamity exist
to breach the unreachable walls built up around us.
like the crumbling of Lady Liberty’s twins
our arrogant towers would fall
leaving a hole devoid of petty prejudice
delivering us back to our original state
reminding us that we are only
human.

The Fire

Posted on by A. Long

passionate lunatics 

slaves to the cycles of the moon

dizzy as fire water

cold as snow

hot as adrenaline pumped thighs, escaping spanish bulls 

pulled together

like magnets

yanked apart just as easily

forever and never. they will always be.

jealous…insecure…drama kings and queens prancing across life’s stage

unstable nitroglycerin

mixture of pure joy.

The laughs and smiles

the sighs and fights

but it’s really all bottled in the way she cries

the sudden, salty, and sweet.

the only way to get the crazy out.

the only way to sustain without burning out.

The fire 

will help us keep warm

even feed you, but won’t 

let us live 

if we let it live       too long.

 

 

The Profile On The Pillow

Posted on by A. Long

After our fierce loving
in the brief time we found to be together,
you lay in the half light
exhausted, rich,
with your face turned sideways on the pillow
and I traced the exquisite
line of your profile, dark against the white,

delicate and lovely as a child’s.
Perhaps
you will cease to love me.
or we may be consumed in the holocaust,

but I keep, against the ice and the fire,
the memory of your profile on the pillow.

–Dudley Randall