Poemunity — your poem community

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread; And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

There was this bear cam on the Internet. It was pointed at a place called Katmai National Park, Alaska. A few years ago my friend sent me a link to it. I would watch it sometimes but I never saw any bears. Maybe it was bad luck because my friend said she saw bears. All I ever saw was the enormous river rushing and the tall pines in the background doing nothing. I mean, that was OK, of course. I loved the sound of the river and wind in trees and the sheer thrill that such a sublime nothingness could be witnessed like this. But I wanted to see a bear. It seemed even more thrilling to be typing in a cubicle and suddenly out of nowhere there’s a bear on your screen that maybe 50 other people in the world catch a glimpse of. Maybe they are on a break from Facebook or filling out a spreadsheet and BOOM, a bear. So I thought while I was writing this that I would just check the bear cam online and sure enough a fat bear is in the middle of the river eating a salmon right there in the Katmai National Park. I get up from my desk and tell my colleagues “You guys, come here!” and my colleagues come in my office but by the time they run in the bear crosses the river, or pixelated screen or whatever, salmon in his jaws and the only thing there is the river and trees and they say, “Sandra, this is boring,” and walk back to their own offices.

My doctor's packed the place for years because he's known for making huge things sometimes disappear. His routine is predictable, effortless. Pick a number, any number: he's pointing to his framed pain scale. He pauses for effect. The six second sequenced faces are a kid—time-lapsed— at a magic show gone wrong. Onstage in Vegas once, the rare white tiger snapped. Inexplicable: my numbers creeping up each week. My doctor backs out quickly, as if dragged off in some beast's jaws.

These lacustrine cities grew out of loathing Into something forgetful, although angry with history. They are the product of an idea: that man is horrible, for instance, Though this is only one example. They emerged until a tower Controlled the sky, and with artifice dipped back Into the past for swans and tapering branches, Burning, until all that hate was transformed into useless love. Then you are left with an idea of yourself And the feeling of ascending emptiness of the afternoon Which must be charged to the embarrassment of others Who fly by you like beacons. The night is a sentinel. Much of your time has been occupied by creative games Until now, but we have all-inclusive plans for you. We had thought, for instance, of sending you to the middle of the desert, To a violent sea, or of having the closeness of the others be air To you, pressing you back into a startled dream As sea-breezes greet a child’s face. But the past is already here, and you are nursing some private project. The worst is not over, yet I know You will be happy here. Because of the logic Of your situation, which is something no climate can outsmart. Tender and insouciant by turns, you see You have built a mountain of something, Thoughtfully pouring all your energy into this single monument, Whose wind is desire starching a petal, Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears.

These poems, these poems, these poems, she said, are poems with no love in them. These are the poems of a man who would leave his wife and child because they made noise in his study. These are the poems of a man who would murder his mother to claim the inheritance. These are the poems of a man like Plato, she said, meaning something I did not comprehend but which nevertheless offended me. These are the poems of a man who would rather sleep with himself than with women, she said. These are the poems of a man with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket’s hands, woven of water and logic and hunger, with no strand of love in them. These poems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeant as elm leaves, which if they love love only the wide blue sky and the air and the idea of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said, and not a beginning. Love means love of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing. These poems, she said.... You are, he said, beautiful. That is not love, she said rightly.

These things I do remember; O I pour My soul out for them. All the ages long Hatred pursueth us; through all the years Ignorance like a monster hath devoured Our martyrs as in one long day of blood. Rulers have rise through the endless years, Oppressive, savage in their witless power, Filled with a futile thought: to make an end Of that which God had cherished. There was once A tyrant searching in the Book of God For some word there to serve him as a sword To slay us; and he found the line which spake: “He that doth steal a man and selleth him, He shall be surely put to death.” That king, That dark-designing servant of false gods, Summoned to him ten sages of the Law, Saying: “Pervert the truth not with your lies, But judge this thing: What if a man be found Stealing his brother—one of Israel’s sons— And making merchandise and selling him?” And the ten sages spake: “That thief shall die.” “Your fathers”—said the tyrant, “where are they, That sold their brother to a company Of Ishmaelites? Lo, ye shall now receive Justice of Heaven upon you; for if they, Were now in life, then ye yourselves should judge; But now ye bear on you your fathers’ sin.” “If we have sinned,” they said, “then we shall bear His sentence, Whose compassion fills the world.” “Give us three days,” they spake. And they all looked Unto the High Priest, Rabbi Ishmael, Saying, “Arise, arise, pronounce the Name; Know from our God if this be His decree.” Then Rabbi Ishmael, in purity, Pronounced the Name, and rising up on high, Made question of the angel clothed in white, Who spake: “O righteous! O beloved! I, Hearkening within the secret region, heard That ye indeed be captured.” Thus he spake, And Rabbi Ishmael, descending, told His fellows all their doom. And that dread king Bade the ten sages to be slain in woe And torture. Lo! I saw them all: They stepped out of the ages, and they walked Before the deathless spirit that is mad With hunger for destruction of God’s own. Two of the great in Israel were brought forth To slaughter first:—the High Priest Ishmael, And Rabban Simeon, son of Gamliel, A prince in Israel. And this one implored, “O slay me ere ye slay him, lest I see The death of him who ministers to God!” And lo the lot fell, and they slew him first. And Ishmael raised the severed head and cried— Bitterly loud as calls a trumpet blast:— “How is the tongue that taught the glorious Message Brought low to lick the dust!” And while he wept The tyrant’s daughter stood, and gazing on His beauty, made petition for his life With vain entreaty. Terror makes me dumb To tell the tortures that mine eyes beheld; Only that when the murderous hand had reached His brow, the holy symbol’s seat, he cried With one most bitter cry to his soul’s Lord. Seraphim, in the heights of heaven, called In anguish: “This is then the Law, and this The wage thereof, O Thou who spreadest out Light as a garment! Thus the foe blasphemes Thy great and awful Name, and scorns Thy Law!” But out of Heaven’s height a voice replied: “Let no sound more be uttered, lest I turn The world to water, and My throne’s footstool To sudden chaos. This is My decree; Accept it, all of you who loved the Law Which I created ere the world was made.” Thus were the princes of the Law brought low, The corner-stones jeweled with precepts. Now Rabbi Akiba was led forth to die; Hananya, too, who was Teradyon’s son, Torn from his place; and yet he held the scroll Fast in his arms.—O God, blot out their pain. Mourn, O my people, not yet widowed;—still As in a vision, for a worthless whim I see your holiest slaughtered; see their blood Shed in the Name of Heaven—as even now The blood of Huspith the Interpreter. Trembling takes hold on all who hear, and tears Flow from all eyes, and all delight is dead; For Eliezer falls, Shamua’s son. How have our strong oppressors fed on us! How do they give us water of gall to drink— Slaying Hanina, son of Hakinai! They will not take a ransom, they must take The lives of those who speak the Law’s sweet words, Yea, even now the Scribe Yeshebab’s life. Sons of unrerason strike us with their fear More than the kings of earth; they slay of us Many and many; verily they cast Judah, the son of Dama, unto death! Ah, Thou has said, Jacob shall be a fire, Joseph a flame—lo, the last ashes die. O bring the burning of the day of doom, For Judah, son of Baba, is not spared. Here were ten righteous men; lo, they are slain. This hath befallen us. All this I tell As I beheld it passing through the years Of bygone ages. And subdued and crushed, We pour our hearts out supplicating Thee. Lord, Lord, give ear; O pitying, merciful, Look from Thine height upon the blood outpoured Of all Thy righteous. Make an end of blood Poured out and wasted; wash the stain away, God, King, who sittest on a gracious Throne.

Even gods, though they were born in our own heads, died out to myth. Just as no one can point to the source of the spring or later at sea can say: this is the water from deep in the earth, that flowed from the mountaintops, so is the stream of mortals and gods. About my origins I know nothing. I married the earth, a child grew in me, fell out of me at last, and I babbled: little mutt of mine, I’ll name you, dunk you in invulnerability. He smiled at me, held me tightly by the heel and said mama.

Pathetic bright-dark, crawling with history. Leave it to the angels to judge me.  Gunfire In the distance, I keep my houselights on During the day.  No absence of memory, Please, I am only just getting started.  It Is precisely the moment to which you “adhere,” Drawing the wounds on a faded photograph. You say your deepest powers only come Once in a lifetime, you say that we blink Over ourselves.  The limit of anywhere is To forgive, and the classic metaphor for Effort stumbles at a grave.  I am looking for you Always.  This is the very moment of stepping Outside and being thrown into a glare of light.

They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit ling’ring here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear. It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, After the sun’s remove. I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days: My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmering and decays. O holy Hope! and high Humility, High as the heavens above! These are your walks, and you have show’d them me To kindle my cold love. Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just, Shining nowhere, but in the dark; What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust Could man outlook that mark! He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest, may know At first sight, if the bird be flown; But what fair well or grove he sings in now, That is to him unknown. And yet as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul, when man doth sleep: So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes And into glory peep. If a star were confin’d into a tomb, Her captive flames must needs burn there; But when the hand that lock’d her up, gives room, She’ll shine through all the sphere. O Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under thee! Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty. Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass, Or else remove me hence unto that hill, Where I shall need no glass.

i In view of the fading animals the proliferation of sewers and fears the sea clogging, the air nearing extinction we should be kind, we should take warning, we should forgive each other Instead we are opposite, we touch as though attacking, the gifts we bring even in good faith maybe warp in our hands to implements, to manoeuvres ii Put down the target of me you guard inside your binoculars, in turn I will surrender this aerial photograph (your vulnerable sections marked in red) I have found so useful See, we are alone in the dormant field, the snow that cannot be eaten or captured iii Here there are no armies here there is no money It is cold and getting colder, We need each others’ breathing, warmth, surviving is the only war we can afford, stay walking with me, there is almost time / if we can only make it as far as the (possibly) last summer