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poetree[Content notes for Sweetness: cancer, mass murder, car accidents.]
AN ABSOLUTELY ORDINARY RAINBOW
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There's a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Some will say, in the years to come, a halo
or force stood around him. There is no such thing.
Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him
but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,
the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us
trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream
who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.
Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit—
and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand
and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;
as many as follow her also receive it
and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,
the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out
of his writhen face and ordinary body
not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,
hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea—
and when he stops, he simply walks between us
mopping his face with the dignity of one
man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.
Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.
-- Les Murray
Thank you, so much, for having me this week: it has been an absolute pleaure. Most of the poems I've shared with you I first came across in the trilogy of anthologies by Bloodaxe Books, Being Alive, Staying Alive, Being Human. I wish I'd had more energy to write you better posts, but I hope that what I've done has sufficed. <3
SWEETNESS
Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac
with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving
someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.
I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet...
Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low
and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief
until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care
where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.
-- Stephen Dunn
PRAYER
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.
Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.
Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
-- Carol Ann Duffy
AN ABSOLUTELY ORDINARY RAINBOW
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There's a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Some will say, in the years to come, a halo
or force stood around him. There is no such thing.
Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him
but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,
the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us
trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream
who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.
Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit—
and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand
and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;
as many as follow her also receive it
and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,
the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out
of his writhen face and ordinary body
not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,
hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea—
and when he stops, he simply walks between us
mopping his face with the dignity of one
man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.
Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.
-- Les Murray
YELLOW-BROWN BABIES FOR THE REVOLUTION
This not about yellow brown babies for the revolution.
This is not about a hand job for my personal identity seeking orgasm of self-discovery
This is not about planting nationalists penis flags into earth mother vaginas
This is not about skinning yellow brown hides so that I can make a flag
This is not about soy sauce eyes and rice stick thighs
This is not about kings or queens, emperors or concubines
This is about love.
This is about laughing in our own language,
the language we can only create together,
the laughter we can create
if we both know what it’s like to live without it,
to know we mixed rice with bread
and ate silence,
quietest ingredient in the melting pot,
and we lived on it -
This
is about love,
turning up love’s volume till we shake,
till our arms and legs move, till we shout with multiple tongues
and whisper in each other’s ears
I will never ask you to change your name
I will never ask you to change your name
your name is at home on my tongue
do you hear me
in this land that wants us blind, deaf, asleep and defeated
we have to make our own music
becuz none of these songs have ever been for us,
for the fight inside of us,
pounding fist of the heart against the soul,
the clashing notes inside of our minds,
this is to know what it is like
to have to fight
to love ourselves
this gravity
that sings circular songs in our gut,
we make these songs into homes and we make these homes ours,
there are windows in brown eyes and doors inside of your story
and stairs inside your head and ca phe in your black hair
so let’s stay up late,
let’s live off of spinning door knobs,
the thunder of bilingual laughter,
and if we need the night outside to be darker
we’ll turn to each other’s black hair and lose ourselves there,
and the rain will be pearls,
and blades of lightning will crackle up and down our spines
and we will lift ourselves into the storm
this is about love,
the gradual precipitation that builds to a song,
a song that is a storm that rides a beat of raindrops on rooftops
and city streets and makes it look like the stars weep
the love that most will run and hide from
but some
will stand out and risk sickness
arms wide and head to the sky
because some things must, must soak into our skin
that’s the song I need to hear,
that I know I hear,
that lives in my ears
that’s the song that I know one day, will come out right
that’s the song that can’t exist
without you
this is the last song on earth,
this is the last song on earth
there is nothing else,
there is nothing else
so fill your lungs
and sing
-- Bao Phi
Thank you, so much, for having me this week: it has been an absolute pleaure. Most of the poems I've shared with you I first came across in the trilogy of anthologies by Bloodaxe Books, Being Alive, Staying Alive, Being Human. I wish I'd had more energy to write you better posts, but I hope that what I've done has sufficed. <3
