17 Strength poems

I sleep eight hours now i protect my weekends i cook meals and eat them slowly they wanted us exhausted they needed us too tired to organize i rest on purpose i rest like it matters it does

Showing up is the whole thing not perfectly not loudly just showing up again and then again the work is long we were always going to be tired we show up tired

Still standing after the year i had barely, maybe but standing counts standing is the whole thing

Women who sleep on stones are like brick houses that squat alone in cornfields. They look weatherworn, solid, dusty, torn screens sloughing from the window frames. But at dusk a second-story light is always burning. Used to be I loved nothing more than spreading my blanket on high granite ledges that collect good water in their hollows. Stars came close without the trees staring and rustling like damp underthings. But doesn’t the body foil what it loves best? Now my hips creak and their blades are tender. I can’t rest on my back for fear of exposing my gut to night creatures who might come along and rip it open with a beak or hoof. And if I sleep on my belly, pinning it down, my breasts start puling like baby pigs trapped under their slab of torpid mother. Dark passes as I shift from side to side to side, the blood pooling just above the bone. Women who sleep on stones don’t sleep. They see the stars moving, the sunrise, the gnats rising like a hairnet lifted from a waitress’s head. The next day they’re sore all over and glad for the ache: that’s how stubborn they are.

1. A man can stand with both feet touching the ground until his legs no longer reach that far, until the ground disappears. 2. Giant Baba stands six feet ten inches tall, taller in Japan. It doesn’t matter how tall you are. 3. A man can hold a woman, can’t stand to lose her to the heart’s wreckage. His body will fall apart one day—a rock crab’s chassis stripped clean by seagulls, a dandelion gone to seed. 4. Giant Baba stands over seven feet tall. When he lifts you over his head, you will be eight and a half feet above the ground. 5. A man can stand for anything when seen from below—fatherhood, majesty, satisfaction after conquest. In the end all men are seen from above—patch of lawn, chunk of stone. 6. Giant Baba towers above your house, dangles you by the ankle. Your life looks so small from the sky. 7. A man and a woman can wrestle together in the same bed. A man and a woman and a marriage can brawl all night. 8. Giant Baba looms dark against the stars, back blotting out the Milky Way, arms cradling you and your family history. Listen to his mammoth heartbeat, war drum, earthquake. Just listen. 9. A man can stand naked in a foreign country, can search for meaning in strange tongues. He tries to find himself in stories about famous battles, about giants. It doesn’t matter where he stands. 10. Giant Baba’s body is made of girders and mastodon bones. When you stand outside to look at your house from new angles, when you think of how your father died, the giant will be there to catch you.

Be strong Bernadette Nobody will ever know I came here for a reason Perhaps there is a life here Of not being afraid of your own heart beating Do not be afraid of your own heart beating Look at very small things with your eyes & stay warm Nothing outside can cure you but everything's outside There is great shame for the world in knowing You may have gone this far Perhaps this is why you love the presence of other people so much Perhaps this is why you wait so impatiently You have nothing more to teach Until there is no more panic at the knowledge of your own real existence & then only special childish laughter to be shown & no more lies no more Not to find you no More coming back & more returning Southern journey Small things & not my own debris Something to fight against & we are all very fluent about ourselves Our own ideas of food, a Wild sauce There's not much point in its being over: but we do not speak them: I had written: "the man who sewed his soles back on his feet" And then I panicked most at the sound of what the wind could do to me if I crawled back to the house, two feet give no position, if the branches cracked over my head & their threatening me, if I covered my face with beer & sweated till you returned If I suffered what else could I do

To fight aloud, is very brave - But gallanter, I know Who charge within the bosom The Calvalry of Wo - Who win, and nations do not see - Who fall - and none observe - Whose dying eyes, no Country Regards with patriot love - We trust, in plumed procession For such, the Angels go - Rank after Rank, with even feet - And Uniforms of snow.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

When I had no roof I made Audacity my roof. When I had No supper my eyes dined. When I had no eyes I listened. When I had no ears I thought. When I had no thought I waited. When I had no father I made Care my father. When I had No mother I embraced order. When I had no friend I made Quiet my friend. When I had no Enemy I opposed my body. When I had no temple I made My voice my temple. I have No priest, my tongue is my choir. When I have no means fortune Is my means. When I have Nothing, death will be my fortune. Need is my tactic, detachment Is my strategy. When I had No lover I courted my sleep.

White flabbiness goes brown and lean, Dumpling arms are now brass bars, They’ve learnt to suffer and live clean, And to think below the stars. They’ve steeled a tender, girlish heart, Tempered it with a man’s pride, Learning to play the butcher’s part Though the woman screams inside— Learning to leap the parapet, Face the open rush, and then To stab with the stark bayonet, Side by side with fighting men. On Achi Baba’s rock their bones Whiten, and on Flanders’ plain, But of their travailings and groans Poetry is born again.