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joeharlowe.bsky.social
Seosamh
@joeharlowe.bsky.social
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Hooman bean.
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joeharlowe.bsky.social
August 31, 2024 at 9:24 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#janeclarke #whenwintercomes #poetry #poems
When winter comes remember what the blacksmith knows – dim light is best at the furnace, to see the colours go from red to orange to yellow, the forging heat that tells the steel is ready to be held in the mouth of the tongs and it’s time to lengthen and narrow with the ring of the hammer on the horn of an anvil, to bend until the forgiving metal has found its form, then file the burrs, remove sharp edges, smooth the surface, polish with a grinding stone and see it shine like gold.
August 29, 2024 at 12:33 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#sharonolds #newmother #poetry #poem
A week after our child was born, you cornered me in the spare room and we sank down on the bed. You kissed me and kissed me, my milk undid its burning slip-knot through my nipples, soaking my shirt. All week I had smelled of milk, fresh milk, sour. I began to throb: my sex had been torn easily as cloth by the crown of her head, I'd been cut with a knife and sewn, the stitches pulling at my skin- and the first time you're broken, you don't know you'll be healed again, better than before. I lay in fear and blood and milk while you kissed and kissed me, your lips hot and swollen as a teen-age boy's, your sex dry and big, all of you so tender, you hung over me, over the nest of the stitches, over the splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who finds a wounded animal in the woods and stays with it, not leaving its side until it is whole, until it can run again.
August 27, 2024 at 8:20 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
August 25, 2024 at 3:43 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#naomishihabnye #istillhaveeverythingyougaveme #poems #poetry
I Still Have Everything You Gave Me It is dusty on the edges. It is slightly rotten. I guard it without thinking. I focus on it once a year when I shake it out in the wind. I do not ache. I would not trade.
August 18, 2024 at 8:44 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#doireannníghriofa #anechoofocean #poetry #poems
A dark November evening in the house of my grandmother sharp skeletons of trees scraped and creaked, scratching window panes. Folded within her old shawl, I sat by the range, turf glowing red behind the black—toothed grimace of the grate. Around me, they murmured, weaving the endless web of scuffles, scandals, schedules of funerals, of news from those in Australia and America and the lives of locals, of old friends and enemies, centuries of our blood mingled, mixed in this rough, rocky soil. I nestled further into my nook sombre orphan pressed my cheek to her chest until all I heard was the steady, sturdy thump of her heart, the ebb and flow of ceaseless tide, an echo crashing through cliff caves.
August 17, 2024 at 6:39 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#imperfect #lindagregg #poetry #poems
August 16, 2024 at 9:45 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#bradaaronmodlin #whatyoumissed #poetry #poems
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else— something important—and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks, and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts are all you hear; also, that you have enough. The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence. And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions, and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person add up to something
August 16, 2024 at 10:59 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
August 15, 2024 at 11:41 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#frannychoi #catastropheisnexttogodliness #poetry #poems
Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in. I want an excuse to change my life. The day A. died, the sun was brighter than any sun. I answered the phone, and a channel opened between my stupid head and heaven, or what was left of it. The blankness stared back; and I made sound after sound with my blood-wet gullet. O unsayable-O tender and divine unsayable, I knew you then: you line straight to the planet's calamitous core; you moment moment moment; you intimate abyss I called sister for a good reason. When the Bad Thing happened, I saw every blade. And every year I find out what they've done to us, I shed another skin. I get closer to open air; true north. Lord, if I say Bless the cold water you throw on my face, does that make me a costume party. Am I greedy for comfort if I ask you not to kill my friends; if I beg you to press your heel against my throat—not enough to ruin me, but just so-just so I can
August 15, 2024 at 11:38 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#tarkovsky #poetry #poems
Arseny Tarkovsky (trans. Richard McKane) I dreamed this dream and I still dream of it... I dreamed this dream and I still dream of it and I will dream of it sometime again. Everything repeats itself and everything will be reincarnated, and my dreams will be your dreams. There, to one side of us, to one side of the world wave after wave breaks on the shore: there's a star on the wave, and a man, and a bird, reality and dreams and death — wave after wave. Dates are irrelevant. I was, I am, I will be. Life is a miracle of miracles, and I kneel before the miracle alone like an orphan, alone in the mirrors, enclosed in reflections, seas and towns, shining brightly through the smoke. A mother cries and takes her baby on her knee
August 14, 2024 at 11:22 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#charifshanahan #thirtyfifthyear #poetry #poems
Dread remains. I keep looking For a thing I can’t name, though I try “Purpose,” “meaning,” “presence.” I circle my worst fear in life, which is my life: What to do with it, how to shape it, and so on. It’s something like a tiger circling a cage Inside a cage that I circle. It’s a privilege, I know. Still, I can’t land on a five-year plan So I return text messages and look For doors: to the laundry room, The basement, the self. I ask questions I can manage—How may I be of service?— And questions I can’t—Why are we here? Do “you” think of “us” as “here” “together”? I try a new city every two to four years, Then complain about a lack of continuity, Of roots. Every morning, I stretch out On my foam roller, make a protein shake, And take a shot of apple cider vinegar To lower my A1C. I moisturize. I sip tea. At night, when my body begs for a range Of macronutrients, I stretch out across The couch and eat a handful of jellybeans, A domestic glamour shot, with anything On Netflix that runs long enough to be The background noise I need to avoid Returning to those questions, or looking For the name of the thing I’m looking for. And what I can’t understand is that I know A dear older friend was right to remind me, once, Though it’s returned to me again and again And again: You are actually very good at joy—
August 12, 2024 at 4:41 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#p #clarewahmanholm #poetry #poems
P is for picture book, the pillow at our backs, my daughter in her Peppa Pig pajamas. P is for peace and peace lily and Peace rose; for peek-a-boo and this little piggy. I open Plip Plop Pond's flashspun polyethylene pages and point to the polliwogs and lily pads. Let P not be for the Permian Basin and its pipelines and petrochemical plants. Let the phosphorus not proliferate, the pH not plunge. I flip to Paddington, perched politely outside the Lost Property Office, and try not to picture the cruise ships pumping sewage into Peruvian ports. But P is for plague ship. P is for Point Nemo, where de-programmed spacecraft pinwheel into smaller and smaller rain, pepper the waves with paint chips. Around it, the Garbage Patch purls its plastics into pieces smaller than plum pits, smaller than pixels, pinpricks, plankton. P is for plastic, more permanent than permafrost. I open Each Peach Pear Plum to spy it hidden in the ptarmigan, the pheasant, in the phthalo blue of the Portuguese man o' war. I read The Princess and the Pea and feel the pellets in each layer of the ocean: epipelagic, mesopelagic, past where light penetrates, into the bathypelagic, abyssopelagic, where scientists have found polyester in the molten putty between the Pacific and Philippine plates. P is for the pontoons of Polar Spring, Propel, and Panama Blue. I sing "Baby Beluga" and see pods of pilot whales with pool floaties pretzeled inside their pelvic cavities. I turn the page but it's a palindrome of panic. The petrel preens petroleum from its plumage. The propeller pulps the back of the porpoise. The pressure on my windpipe will not unwrap itself. My daughter has slipped into sleep. I place her outside my arm's parenthesis so she can't feel my pulse pounding. P is for parachute, I whisper. P is for pearl, penicillin, picnic, planetarium, platypus, plink, the pocket-sized pipistrelle, the Ponderosa and its pine beetles. I turn up the pink noise on her sound machine so
August 12, 2024 at 4:26 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#ilyakaminsky #welivedhappilyduringthewar #poetry #poems
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house. I took a chair outside and watched the sun. In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in the house of money in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) lived happily during the war.
August 11, 2024 at 10:15 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#listening #reading #books #novels #wifedom #annafunder
August 7, 2024 at 9:08 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#reel #barbaracrooker #poetry #poems
Maybe night is about to come calling, but right now the sun is still high in the sky. It's half-past October, the woods are on fire, blue skies stretch all the way to heaven. Of course, we know that winter is coming, its thin winding sheets and its hard narrow bed. But right now, the season's fermented to fullness, so slip into something light, like your skeleton; while these old bones are still working, my darling, let's dance.
August 7, 2024 at 1:15 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#adalimón #howtotriumphlikeagirl #poetry #poems
How to Triumph Like a Girl BY ADA LIMÓN I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let’s be honest, I like that they’re ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it’s going to come in first.
July 23, 2024 at 8:35 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#louisebogan #leave-taking #poetry #poems
Leave-Taking BY LOUISE BOGAN I do not know where either of us can turn Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other. I do not know how we can bear The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon, Or many trees shaken together in the darkness. We shall wish not to be alone And that love were not dispersed and set free— Though you defeat me, And I be heavy upon you. But like earth heaped over the heart Is love grown perfect. Like a shell over the beat of life Is love perfect to the last. So let it be the same Whether we turn to the dark or to the kiss of another; Let us know this for leavetaking, That I may not be heavy upon you, That you may blind me no more.
July 21, 2024 at 4:02 AM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#aerialview #jerichobrown #poetry #poem #poems
People who romanticize an Africa They’ve never seen Like to identify themselves With lions. It’s all roar and hunt, Quick fucks and blond manes. People love the word pride. Haven’t you seen the parades? Everybody adores a lion But me. I want to be a giraffe. I’m already tall and long-necked. In the real Sahara, a giraffe beats A lion’s ass every day On Instagram. I’ve seen A giraffe shake the leaping cat Off its back and toss it like litter. I’ve seen a giraffe stomp hooves Down hard on the lion’s face Before it got the chance To meow. I want to be a giraffe And eat greens of every variety Straight out the tree. I already Like to get high. Lions need Animals like us. We need no prey. I already won’t chase anybody For my food. But maybe I can still be romantic. Maybe I can still be romantic in spite Of my pride. Someone will notice. Up the sky, not down the street. You can watch me while I watch you And the rest of the savanna From my aerial view. Lord, Let me get higher. Just one of me
July 19, 2024 at 9:39 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#katiefariss #poetry #oem
Outside Atlanta Care Centre I return to this pint of wonder What kind of animal began to stand on such small feet? And only two? What vertical absurdity! What upright madness! Perhaps we were imitating the trees- lifting our arms, wishing for roots- and then forgot to set ourselves back down on our four more rational feet- our longing grew our fingers longer- twigs into branches- for if you long hard enough, do you not find fruit in your palms? I return to this point of wonder.
July 18, 2024 at 7:54 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#janehirshfield #likeothers #poetry #poems
Like Others Jane Hirshfield In the end, I was like others. A person. Sometimes embarrassed, sometimes afraid. When “Fire!” was shouted, some ran toward it, some away— I neck-deep among them.
July 18, 2024 at 12:09 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#spring #hopkins #poetry #poems
Spring BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy, Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
July 17, 2024 at 12:14 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
#poetry #poems #janekenyon
The Blue Bowl BY JANE KENYON Like primitives we buried the cat with his bowl. Bare-handed we scraped sand and gravel back into the hole. It fell with a hiss and thud on his side, on his long red fur, the white feathers that grew between his toes, and his long, not to say aquiline, nose. We stood and brushed each other off. There are sorrows much keener than these. Silent the rest of the day, we worked, ate, stared, and slept. It stormed all night; now it clears, and a robin burbles from a dripping bush like the neighbor who means well but always says the wrong thing.
July 16, 2024 at 2:08 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
A Genre Painting
Margaret Atwood
#atwood #poetry #poem #poems
A picture of Poulanass waterfall, in Glendalough. It’s a sunny day, and light filters through the canopy, dapples the ground. There are ferns in the picture, and straight-limbed beech and birch trees. Just out of sight, my sister Rachel and my mother. My father died a month ago, and I am visiting from Australia. I have been gone so long; I feel I will never belong here again. Here are the tulips budded and full-blown, their swoops and dips, their glosses and poses, the satin of their dark. Here are the linen napkins, texture and crinkle, the way they soak up light from the dwindled candle, the light blues of their shadows. Here are the skinned rabbits hanging from strings opened to muscle, to shiny gristle, to raw flesh you can smell: hot rust, swamp water. Here is the woman working a knife among onions and innards, her sleeves turned back, besmeared. She's looking at us aslant: she knows what bodies eat. This is her job or prayer, her grace, her offering: these guts and dying petals, the candle guttering down.
July 9, 2024 at 10:37 PM
joeharlowe.bsky.social
Sorrow is Not My Name
Ross Gay.
(after Gwendolyn Brooks)
No matter the pull toward the brink. No matter the florid, deep sleep awaits. There is a time for everything. Look, just this morning a vulture nodded his red, grizzled head at me, and I looked at him, admiring the sickle of his beak. Then the wind kicked up, and, after arranging that good suit of feathers he up and took off. Just like that. And to boot, there are, on this planet alone, something like two million naturally occurring sweet things, some with names so gorgeous as to kick the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks at the market. Think of that. The long night, the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah. But look: my niece is running through a field calling my name. My neighbour sings like an angel and the end of my block is a basketball court. I remember. My colour’s green. I’m spring. A picture of a sunset over Dun Laoghaire, seen through a gap in a wall in Sandycove. The wall is thick, stone, old; it is rounded at the top. There are handrails leading down to a beach visible through the gap also. The water is calm, almost still, and it is tinged with red and purple. There are clouds in the sky; predominantly grey but pink and orange where they catch the light of the setting Sun. There is a central patch of golden yellow light in the picture, the last vestige of the shimmering orb which has passed out of sight now. Just to the right - not visible at all in the picture, but clearly there in my mind as I consider the scene- are the forty foot bathing place and the Martello tower that provided thé initial setting for Joyce’s Ulysses.
July 9, 2024 at 8:15 AM