Poems

The Meaning Of Simplicity

Posted on by A. Long

I hide behind simple things so you’ll find me,

if you don’t find me, you’ll find the things,

you’ll touch what my hand has touched,

our hand prints will merge.

 

The August moon glitters in the kitchen

like a tin-plated pot (it gets that way

because of what I’m saying to you),

it lights up the empty house and

the house’s kneeling silence–

always the silence remains kneeling.

 

Every word is a doorway

to a meeting, one often cancelled,

and that’s when a word is true:

when it insists on the meeting.

–Yannis Ritsos, Greece

Prayer

Posted on by A. Long

our Father I do love to walk
down to the shore at dawn
while the ground is cold
and there sprinkle my cells
to smashed ocean radios
I dream that I was born
with no tongue and that
I can neither ask nor
answer nor understand
questions about where
I come from that the waves
are my clapping sisters
so many dark swallowed
ships my deleted thoughts
cannon and coin pulp
my new body and that any
one of a million canyons
trembling with the psalms
of stones is my easily
remembered mother who
easily remembers me

–By ​Nathan Parker

To YHWH

Posted on by A. Long

why make me this way

all painted and poet brown

like black women sleeping in silk caps

praying it lays their hair flat

not born but bred 

to carry the cotton sack

a touch away from the fairy tales

we tell ourselves

 

buried bones triple axle across a lake of frozen dreams

 

The way I’m is

I’ve loved left and leapt

changing my heart’s mind with the cool breeze of a whim

unable to warm my daughter’s hands

the invisible man,

whose breaths give him away in winter 

 

I put on normalcy like a stiff cloak

to tackle the little anxieties of the day

at home, unsheathed and alone

I wonder aloud

Why I’m made this way

 

Smear this idea of fate 

on with a thick brush

dipping in faith

to replenish the bristles

as I write the rest down

from my burning castle

 

The Comparison

Posted on by A. Long

Poetry crept in one night

wrapping me up in his arms

wordlessly

I said you are my inspiration

there’s no greater gathering

of you and me

than my notebook

I don’t think he believed me

 

He compared us to a summer’s day

Blake’s tiger

Wheatley’s forever

Sylvia Plath’s deathless nights

Hughes’ huesbluessoul

Baraka’s beat

Morrison’s ghosts

he compared me to the ones who had long since died

or the greats who had given his name over to fame

and yelled we are all alike

the users

musers

ponderers

penners

and thinkers

misunderstanding stung his eyes

so he yelled some more

until he was tired

until he hadn’t noticed that I had turned away to hide

foolishly I had always thought him mine

a secret the world couldn’t access

a feeling without present or past

the ethereal

only I could capture with my pen

thirteen years of unwavering devotion

and he’d leave

on a whim

I grated my heart on pride and lied

telling him to go if me wasn’t enough

that there was nothing more to give

not knowing if I’d live through the night

that poetry

didn’t love me right

that i have known the dead

Posted on by A. Long

that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
as they spoon the succotash and
noodles
into a skull
past
caring.

that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
in a world long ago
gone

leaving this is
nothing.
loving it was
too.

that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
fingers thin to the
bone,
I offer no
prayers.

that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying

dying
I have known the dead

here on earth
and elsewhere;
alone now,
alone then,
alone.

–Charles Bukowski

My Stop Is Grand

Posted on by A. Long

I have no illusion
some fusion
of force and form
will save me,
bewilderment
of bonelight
ungrave me

as when the L
shooting through a hell
of ratty alleys
where nothing thrives
but soot
and the ratlike lives
that have learned to eat it

screechingly peacocked
a grace of sparks
so far out and above
the fast curve that jostled
and fastened us
into a single shock of—
I will not call it love

but at least some brief
and no doubt illusionary belief
that in some surge of brain
we were all seeing
one thing:
a lone unearned loveliness
struck from an iron pain.

Already it was gone.
Already it was bone,
the gray sky
and the encroaching skyline
pecked so clean
by raptor night
I shuddered at the cold gleam

we hurtled toward
like some insentient herd
plunging underground at Clark
and Division.
And yet all that day
I had a kind of vision
that’s never gone completely away

of immense clear-paned towers
and endlessly expendable hours
through which I walked
teeming human streets,
filled with a shine
that was most intimately me
and not mine.

–Christian Wiman

The Park

Posted on by A. Long

I’m cold 

hungry

didn’t have breakfast

guess this is what happens when winter comes

this chilly bench

warmth fleeting in this lonely park

except for a father and his kid I guess

eh I don’t exist

to anyone

at least they’re having fun

It’s colder

I’m colder

sucking on this smoke to ward off frostbite

They’re leaving

she watches me

I guess I should smile

I’m still a person

I hope I am.

 

3. A Term In Memphis: slaveships

Posted on by A. Long

loaded like spoons
into the belly of Jesus
where we lay for weeks for months
in the sweat and stink
of our own breathing
Jesus
why do you not protect us
chained to the heart of the Angel
where the prayers we never tell
and hot and red
as our bloody ankles
Jesus
Angel
can these be men
who vomit us out from ships
called Jesus    Angel    Grace of God
onto a heathen country
Jesus
Angel
ever again
can this tongue speak
can these bones walk
Grace Of God
can this sin live

–Lucille Clifton

Hunk of Rock

Posted on by A. Long

Nina was the hardest of them
all,
the worst woman I had known
up to that moment
and I was sitting in front of
my secondhand black and white
tv
watching the news
when I heard a suspicious
sound in the kitchen
and I ran in there
and saw her with
a full bottle of whiskey –
a 5th –
and she had it and
was headed for the back porch
door
but I caughter her and
grabbed the bottle.
“give me that bottle, you
fucking whore!”
and we wrestled for the
bottle
and let me tell you
she gave me a good fight
for it
but
I got it away from her
and I told her to
get her ass out of
there.
she lived in the same place
in the back
upstairs.

I locked the door
took the bottle and a
glass
went out to the couch
sat down and
opened the bottle and
poured myself a good
one.

I shut off the TV and
sat there
thinking about what a
hard number
Nina was.
I came up with
at least
a dozen lousy things
she had done
to me.

what a whore.
what a hunk of rock.

I sat there drinking
the whiskey
and wondering
what I was doing
with Nina.

then there was a
knock on the
door.
it was Nina’s friend,
Helga.

“where’s Nina?”
she asked.

“she tried to steal
my whiskey, I
ran her ass
out of here.”

“she said to meet
her here.”

“what for?”

“she said me and her
were going to do it
in front of you
for $50.”

“$25”

“well, she’s not
here… want a
drink?”

“sure…”

I got Helga a glass
poured her a
whiskey.
she took a
hit.

“maybe,” she said,
“I ought to go get
Nina.”

“I don’t want to see
her.”

“why not?”

“she’s a whore.”

Helga finished her
drink and I poured
her another.
she took a
hit.

“Benny calls me a
whore, I’m no
whore.”

Benny was the guy
she was shacked
with.

“I know you’re no
whore, Helga.”

“thanks. Ain’t ya got no
music?”

“just the radio…”

she saw it
got up
turned it
on.
some music came
blaring out.

Helga began to
dance
holding
her whiskey
glass in one
hand.
she wasn’t a good
dancer
she looked
rediculous.

she stopped
drained her drink
roller her glass along the
rug
then ran toward
me
dropped to her knees
unzipped me
and then
she was down
there
doing tricks.

I drained my
drink
poured another.

she was
good.
she had a college
degree
some place back
East.

“get it, Helga, get
it!”

there was a loud
knock
on the front
door.

“HANK, IS HELGA
THERE?”

“WHO?”

“HELGA!”

“JUST A MINUTE!”

“THIS IS NINA, I WAS
SUPPOSED TO MEET
HELGA HERE, WE HAVE A
LITTLE SURPRISE FOR
YOU!”

“YOU TRIED TO STEA
MY WHISKEY, YOU
WHORE!”

“HANK, LET ME
IN!”

“get it, Helga, get
it!”

“HANK!”

“Helga, you fucking whore…
Helga, Helga, Helga!!”

I pulled away and
got up.

“let her in.”

I went to the
bathroom.

when I came out they
were both sitting there
drinking and smoking
laughing about
something.
then they
saw me.

“50 bucks,” said Nina.

“25 bucks,” I said.

“we won’t do it
then.”

“don’t then.”

Nina inhaled
exhaled.
“all right, you
cheap bastard, 25
bucks!”

Nina stood up and
began taking her
clothes off.

she was the hardest
of them
all.

Helga stood up and
began taking her
clothes off.

I poured a
drink.
“sometimes I wonder
what the hell is
going on
around here,” I
said.

“don’t worry about
it, Daddy, just
get with it.”

“just what am i
supposed to
do?”

“just do
whatever the fuck
you feel
like doing,”
said Nina
her big ass
blazing
in the
lamplight.

–Charles Bukowski