Monday, March 18, 2024

My Father Sings, to My Embarrassment (Monday Poem)

by Sandra M. Castillo

 

at Las Villas, a small Carol City bar with a makeshift stage,
where he spends too much time drinking,
pretending he can learn to play the guitar at forty-five,
become a singer, a musician,
who writes about "Que DifĂ­cil Es…."
to live in Spanish in Miami,
a city yet to be translated,
in a restaurant where he has taken us for Cuban food,
where I sit, frozen, unable to make a sound,
where Mother smiles,
all her teeth exposed,
squeezes my hand,
where Mae and Mitzy hide
under the table shielding them from shame
with a blood-red tablecloth,
leaving my mother and me,
pale-faced, trapped by the spotlight shining in our eyes,
making it difficult for us to pretend
we do not know the man in the white suit
pointing to us.
 

 
from My Father Sings, to My Embarrassment, by Sandra M. Castillo
White Pine Press, 2002

Monday, March 11, 2024

The Mower (Monday Poem)

 by Philip Larkin
 

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   
While there is still time.


 
from Collected Poems, by Philip Larkin 
Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001

Monday, March 4, 2024

The Mothering Blackness (Monday Poem)

by Maya Angelou
 

She came home running
       back to the mothering blackness   
       deep in the smothering blackness
white tears icicle gold plains of her face   
       She came home running

She came down creeping
       here to the black arms waiting
       now to the warm heart waiting
rime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face   
       She came down creeping

She came home blameless
       black yet as Hagar’s daughter
       tall as was Sheba’s daughter
threats of northern winds die on the desert’s face   
       She came home blameless


from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)

Monday, February 26, 2024

Momma Said (Monday Poem)

by Calvin Forbes
 

The slice I ate I want it back
Those crumbs I swept up
I’d like my share again
I can still taste it like it was

The memory by itself is delicious
Each bite was a small miracle
Both nourishing and sweet
I wish I had saved just a little bit

I know it wasn’t a literal cake
It’s the thought that counts
Like a gift that’s not store-bought
Making it even more special 

Like a dream that makes you
Want to go back to sleep
You can’t have your cake
And eat it too Momma said

I was defiant and hardheaded
And answered yes I can too
The look she gave me said boy
I hope you aren’t a fool all your life


from Poetry (July 2011)

 

Monday, February 19, 2024

Makin' Jump Shots (Monday Poem)

by Michael S. Harper
 

He waltzes into the lane
’cross the free-throw line,
fakes a drive, pivots,
floats from the asphalt turf
in an arc of black light,
and sinks two into the chains.

One on one he fakes
down the main, passes
into the free lane
and hits the chains.

A sniff in the fallen air—
he stuffs it through the chains
riding high:
“traveling” someone calls—
and he laughs, stepping
to a silent beat, gliding
as he sinks two into the chains.


 
Images of Kin, by Michael S. Harper 
University of Illinois Press, 1977
 

Monday, February 12, 2024

Mimesis (Monday Poem)

 By Fady Joudah

 
My daughter
wouldn’t hurt a spider
That had nested

Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking

She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it?


from Alight by Fady Joudah
Copper Canyon Press, 2013

Monday, February 5, 2024

Let Evening Come (Monday Poem)

by Jane Kenyon

 

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us   
comfortless, so let evening come.

 
 
from Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon
Graywolf Press, 1990