A POEM A DAY

I'm just happy to be here.

Tag: napowrimo

April 18, 2015

17/30: A BRIEF ANNOTED LIST OF THE QUESTIONS MY STUDENTS ASK

Question: Mr. Zachary, is this poem good?

Translation: Last week, we learned what rejection meant.
I do not like the definition of that word. Is there anything
wrong with what I feel? Am I good enough? Nobody ever
listens to what I have to say. Last week, we learned what
worthy meant. I want to mean worthy.

Question: Mr. Zachary, does this poem have to rhyme?

Translation: If there are rules, I don’t want to break them.
I just hate when language has expectation. I don’t want
to be expected.

Question: Mr. Zachary, do I have to read this poem out loud?

Translation: I’ve never trusted my mouth. Inside is a voice I am
afraid to let out. Who is going to listen to me? What do you mean
the stage is mine? What do you mean I can command an audience
just by speaking?

Question: Mr. Zachary, what if we don’t know what to write?

Translation: How does anyone ever say what they mean? Self-
Expression is confusing. How can I matter just by saying so?
If I have a story, you mean I have to write it? I don’t want to say
what I have to say. You mean someone is listening?  I don’t think
so. No one wants to know what’s inside my head. Not even me.

 

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April 18, 2015

16/30: IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER, PLEASE DON’T GUESS.

Outside,
Lightning is all the sky talks about
Houston has a clapping chatter mouth,
bayou tongue, thundering teeth.
I drive by a series of buildings all dark
except the dance studio second-story window
where I see an elderly couple
waltzing
alone
together—
so this
is the face of love’s
rhythm after it has grown?
I am almost crash the car
in a flash of grace.
I’ll never be the same.
The rain makes it so easy to fall apart.
Stay inside of yourself.
The trees flurry with reason
Weather is all about rhythm
Nothing trembles for trembling’s sake
I can sleep through thunder
I can dream through thrashing
Why is nobody impressed?
What’s left of my body besides
the crumbs of love?
If you don’t know the answer,
please,
Don’t guess.

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April 15, 2015

15/30: THE AUTHOR IS A LAW STUDENT IS A POET IS NOT AFRAID

After Angel Nafis’ “Gravity”

Are you going to get a job How much debt are you in How do you ever have
time Won’t you lose your soul What type of law will you pursue Isn’t the Justice
System Broke Are you going to get a job Aren’t you lonely Doesn’t the work
seem impossible What if you fail What if you fail What if you fail What if
What if you hate your job How will you make a difference You know lawyers
are really good at killing themselves Are you going to kill yourself Why
aren’t you raising your voice Why are you so calm How can you be so happy
You mean you’re not worried at all How do you have any time to write poems
Why don’t you just be a poet But how will you get a job Isn’t poetry dead
Isn’t poetry dying Why do you keep writing How do you ever have time
Aren’t you lonely with all those words Isn’t language big Why are you smiling
Why so grateful How is it you get out of bed every morning How do you care
about people so much How is it you are okay with being wrong How is it
you are lost and calm How How How

How do you have
more energy
than
god

II.

And behind this door, lies the energy of god. The door is my mouth.
Odd isn’t it. I crack a smile, and shadows turn gold. Darkness
knocked-out. I jab with joy. I run the religion of It’s All Good. Nobody
should be this bright. But I ain’t nobody. See my thighs? Christmas trees.
See this face? A night-light. My heart is a furnace full of faith. Watch.
I make the stars Yo-Yo just by picking my nose. Watch. I create without waste.
Out of the frying pan, I’m ambitious like fried chicken. I taste better than
fried chicken. The secret to both fried chicken and love is tenderness.
I’m professionally tender. Lonely only overcooks. I don’t overcook.
If afraid is a kitchen, gimme a cast-iron skillet. Watch. Attention pays me.
I’m rich in moments. From henceforth, the new policy of my sex life will be
caring is cool. Not all poems you love will love you back. Each time
a person says poetry is dead, I open my mouth. Resurrection for breakfast.
Every season is on my reading list. The river is a clock. Watch. I got softer
hands than time. I don’t do Brunch, but I’ll eat your How Does He Do That
For Brunch.Language is the only umbrella that won’t quit on you. Failure’s
got bad breath and success tastes like strawberries. I fucking love strawberries.
I can bury you with sincerity. Batman swears to me. If I fall, I get back up.
I’m not worried. Grateful is my toothpaste. I brush my teeth every day.
If you want to kiss me, you gotta say please.

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April 14, 2015

13/30: I NAME MY GOD CARING IS COOL

After Emily Kendal Frey

If you level a building

Watch,

More light appears.

Whoever says fresh laundry is overrated

is probably afraid of death.

The best things in life are infinitely ending.

Take for example, the perfect parking spot.

I’m through with insincerity.

Caring is cool.

White privilege is real.

On behalf of joy,

I explain the creativity behind four-berry jam.

When my friends fall in love

The yeast in my heart rises.

Fly too close to the sun

and you might become heat resistant!

Goodbyes are sweltering.

If love has one condition,

Can it be breakfast in bed?

Another word for love is honest.

I hear Chrysanthemum tea

is the enemy of anxiety

A lot of people disagree

You can’t make me sad

Life is too rad

I say! Loudly! To the mirror! At home! Alone!

My great-grandma’s name was Bernadine.

I have neglected pretty thoughts.

I can name a million feelings

better than sadness.

You don’t have to convince me.

If you level a building,

Watch,

More light appears.

The bones of being alone

Break every last one.

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April 13, 2015

11/30: EATING COTTON CANDY IN THE RAIN

After Nikki Giovanni’s Lecture at the 2015 Austin International Poetry Festival

If you’re black or brown
in America and the police kill you,
a narrative is already written.
Character premonition.
The word accident
is no accident.
Pay attention to diction.
Headlines are stupid.
Everyone knows what happens.
If it bleeds, it leads.
Everyone knows who’s bleeding.
What are you doing to do?
Indifference is a bad decision.

You are going to die.
But under what circumstances?

Maybe the bones inside
every black and brown body
are all made of sugar
and the wrong people
have a sweet tooth
the wrong people
want cotton candy
bur the sugar does not belong to them
the wrong people
keep eating cotton candy
in the rain because it is so easy
to waste a body made of sugar
when all it is ever does
is rain.

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April 13, 2015

10/30: ANNOUCEMENTS

I do not surrender!

These eggs need salt!

The smile is still my natural habitat.

Chicken soup says I love you.

I haven’t set an alarm for my heart.

Sleeping in late is actually a form of medicine.

All your ex-girlfriends agree:

you did nothing wrong.

This just in!

One day, your name will be someone’s favorite song.

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April 11, 2015

9/30: THE LAST WORD IN THE ROOM

9/30:

You read a poem
And a woman says
Thank you.

You finish your set, covered in sweat,
and a man praises the rhythm
in your voice, says he could the hear
movement, feel the intention,
Says he could see
the craft behind all this
excavation,
assures you someone is always
paying attention.

A mother comes to you,
her voice is quiet but nurturing,
tells you about the sweet
sensitivity between each word you say,
how when you said how you felt,
beauty was all she could see
and you are buried by
The sincerity.

Before you, an audience
who has come here to hear
the stories you have to tell.

Someone asks to buy your poem
but none of this has ever been
about profit.

You were sixteen and sad
and a journal was all you had.

You were seventeen and sad
and a voice was all you had.

You were eighteen and sad
and the language had one purpose:
To Fix.
Then you step on a stage
and everyone knows your name.
You can’t keep your thoughts
to yourself, but everyone
still listens.

How lucky are you?

At this point,
You are twenty three and happy to announce
after the poems are read,
and the poets have left,
and all the audience believes
in poetry again,
you still have to stop and breathe it all in
you still have to hug every poet
because you could not be here without
them, because this is your community,
and when will your life ever be this meaningful?
this true?

Even when the poets have gone
love is the last word in the room.

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April 9, 2015

8/30: THE HANGINGS WILL BEGIN AND LIGHTNING WILL FLASH FROM THE WHITE MAN’S HANDS

Bloodshot.

Everywhere
I look
my eyes burn

The wrong light
emanates and no one wants
to collect the leftover darkness,
bear the ungraceful grasp of grief.

What came first,
the dark dance of a bullet or
the finger that pulled it?
No, let’s try that again.

What came first,
the dark dance of a bullet
or a State Sanctioned game of
musical graves?

Violence is not invisible
is not random
it is a resilient and
rhythmic institution.

If a police officer
kills
kills
kills
kills
kills
kills
with no one
around to see
did his gun make a sound?
Probably not.
Probably got muffled
by the other
bang
the lightning
backdrop of fire
flashing

What do I do with
this hive of fury?

A headline last month read:
“Black Man’s Body Found Hanging From Tree in Mississippi”
Another one declares
“All 43 Missing Mexican Students Are Dead”
Another one reads
“Somali Militants Kill 147 at Kenyan University”

I read and weep.
I read and weep.
I read and weep.
It is too loud in my head
But every time I wish to escape,
I cannot help but feel like a coward
too afraid to scour this dark interior
to wed anger with effort,
so I swallow my tongue,
let my mouth go numb,
because while I am alive,
how does one ever
protect the dead?

& this is the riddle of dread.

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April 7, 2015

6/30: REJECTAMENTA

6/30: REJECTAMENTA

“The poem that is merely painful revelations:
my impulse to tell you everything –
which may destroy everything”
– Theodore Roetheke

I know how it feels
when you trick your heart
into being someone else’s treat.
But smiling alone
with you
is how the blood
in my body
refused to rot,
rejected deceit,
rose like a wave &
now the mystery is
who wants to swim
in the mud of love?
who wants to break
the cycle of breaking?
No, I do not know all
my hauntings by name,
but a history of hurt is here,
constant presence, always relevant
but this
is not a poem about defeat.
This is merely pain revealing itself.
This is a monsoon of magnolias
against the grey blanket of morning.
This tired legacy of failed reciprocity
does not bewilder me, the promise of new joy
is a gentle riddle lust cannot solve,
if my heart is knotted, don’t let love resolve,
untie or cut the twist, I just need you to
show up and mean it.
I’ll forget the history of hurt
if you just keep showing up,
turn this historic loneliness
into something we can both fix
the both of us,
your arrival,
the beginning,
apotheosis—
finally, all my fear
furnace bound &
lovemaking
is the quiet smoldering,
which may destroy
everything.

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April 6, 2015

5/30: THAT VIOLENT BUSINESS

“…woe is translatable to joy if light
becomes darkness and darkness light,
as it will—“
-William Carlos Williams

On the day of the spring equinox,
I fed myself strawberries, ate black plums,
someone called me handsome and I hummed
to myself in the kitchen.

A quick note on the black plums:
the first time, I grabbed one was an accident
had to be the summer before last
the one I spent alone in my apartment
baffled by want, a linguist lost in love’s speeches,
studying for four months to take a test
so I could go to school for three more years
then take another test at the end of it. Anyways.
That next season, I read a poem out loud
to three other English majors in my Modernism class
about stolen plums, the deceptive sweetness
of language, the immediate contact with the present,
the need to reach through with what is wholly you,
and in that moment, the poet comes to know
the image is more useful
than what it represents & that’s what I’m saying!
I bite into a black plum not by my lonesome
but swirling with significance, a cloud of moments,
the long day stretched out like a highway
I cannot help but get stuck in the traffic
of my own imagination, impavid and impatient
& imagine me humming a number
equal parts lovely and somber, with plum breath
and the confidence of a compliment.
I think of all the mouths I let on my flesh,
eyes closed and touch filled with expiration,
like they expect the sweetest thing in season,
hoping for a brief revival just by holding my body, and
how this explains their reason for leaving, because who doesn’t understand
pleasure, who doesn’t eat a plum on the first day of spring
and throw the pit in the garbage, forgetting forgiveness,
you know, that violent business.

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