New Year’s Day, 2004 by Frederick Seidel

New Year’s Day, 2004

 

It used to be called the Mayfair

Leonardo Mondadori used to stay there.

The Lobby was the bar.

Fancy Italians were on display.

They sat in the lobby for years.

They seduced from the lavish armchairs.

They told their driver and car to be waiting outside

On their European cell phones.

I was a Traveller then upon the moor.

I walked directly through and down the three stairs.

Their women were theirs.

The Milanese women wore couture.

They smoked cigarettes and smiled and did not blink.

They were going to eat at Le Cirque.

Who could have been kinder than Leonardo?

It was a long time ago.

 

The Boy Died in My Alley by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Boy Died in My Alley

     to Running Boy

The Boy died in my alley

without my Having Known.

Policeman said, next morning,

"Apparently died Alone."

"You heard a shot?" Policeman said.

Shots I hear and Shots I hear.

I never see the Dead.

The Shot that killed him yes I heard

as I heard the Thousand shots before;

careening tinnily down the nights

across my years and arteries.

Policeman pounded on my door.

"Who is it?" "POLICE!" Policeman yelled.

"A Boy was dying in your alley.

A Boy is dead, and in your alley.

And have you known this Boy before?"

I have known this Boy before.

I have known this boy before, who ornaments my alley.

I never saw his face at all.

I never saw his futurefall.

But I have known this Boy.

I have always heard him deal with death.

I have always heard the shout, the volley.

I have closed my heart-ears late and early.

And I have killed him ever.

I joined the Wild and killed him

with knowledgeable unknowing.

I saw where he was going.

I saw him Crossed. And seeing,

I did not take him down.

He cried not only "Father!"

but "Mother!

Sister!

Brother."

The cry climbed up the alley.

It went up to the wind.

It hung upon the heaven

for a long

stretch-strain of Moment.

The red floor of my alley

is a special speech to me.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. by Noah Eli Gordon

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

I’d give you another day dizzy 

in its bracket for the reluctant circumference 

of a sad sad satellite’s antiquated orbital stoppage.

You can’t jump with a lead foot, can’t 

anthropomorphize insect anticipation, can’t 

pixelate postcard nostalgia, can’t 

trace a boy’s tiny hand and call him

king of anything that crosses your path, your past,

your iconographic reluctance to let go the toehold

of ordinary New York lasting so long at night, so

lusty in traffic & another orphan absently

kicking the underside of an orange plastic chair.

Poems shouldn’t make you wait for them to finish.

Like love, they should finish making you wait.

By the River by Tomas Tranströmer

By the River

Talking with contemporaries I saw heard behind their faces

the stream

that flowed and flowed and pulled with it the willing and the unwilling.

And the creature with stuck-together eyes that wants

to go right down the rapids with the current

throws itself forward without trembling

in a furious hunger for simplicity.

The water pulls more and more swiftly

as where the river narrows and flows over

in the rapids—the place where I paused

after a journey through dry woods

one June evening: the radio gives the latest

on the special meeting: Kosygin, Eban.

A few thoughts drill despairingly.

A few people down in the village.

And under the suspension bridge the masses of water hurl

past. Here comes the timber. Some logs

shoot out like torpedoes. Others turn

crosswise, twirl sluggishly and helplessly away

and some nose against the riverbanks,

push among stones and rubbish, wedge fast,

and pile up like clasped hands

motionless in the uproar . . .

       I saw heard from the bridge

in a cloud of mosquitoes,

together with some boys. Their bicycles

buried in the greenery—only the horns

stuck out.

(Translated by Robin Fulton)

 

Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay

Kingdom Animalia

When I get the call about my brother,

I’m on a stopped train leaving town

& the news packs into me—freight—

though it’s him on the other end

now, saying finefine— 

Forfeit my eyes, I want to turn away

from the hair on the floor of his house

& how it got there Monday,

but my one heart falls

like a sad, fat persimmon

dropped by the hand of the Turczyn’s old tree. 

I want to sleep. I do not want to sleep. See, 

one day, not today, not now, we will be gone

from this earth where we know the gladiolas.

My brother, this noise,

some love [you] I loved

with all my brain, & breath,

will be gone; I’ve been told, today, to consider this

as I ride the long tracks out & dream so good 

I see a plant in the window of the house

my brother shares with his love, their shoes. & there

he is, asleep in bed

with this same woman whose long skin

covers all of her bones, in a city called Oakland,

& their dreams hang above them

a little like a chandelier, & their teeth

flash in the night, oh, body. 

Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.

Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,

when dirt’s the only animal who will sleep with you

& touch you with

its mouth.

No Won-Tons for Whitey by Justin Chin

No Won-Tons for Whitey

The special’s not for you,

The brown rice much too white,

The soy sauce much too salty,

The noodles way too cheap.

No won-tons for whitey,

No nookie for you,

No razzle for baby,

No yum-yums for me.

The Fisting Bottom by Justin Chin

The Fisting Bottom

Soon, the carnival of me will be no more

than tossing sausages into an open cave.

The dark maw of Proud Monsters devouring

its shining arrogant young. For those who escape

the kill -- the wily, the motivated, the schemers,

the pure (certainly purer-than-thou), the chosen ones,

the untouchables -- the wreck is never far

from mind, never close at hand, but always sticks

to the back of the throat.

I have turned myself inside-out to turn

my understanding right-side-up or down; I have

wielded my weapon with cunning & grace & skill.

I have lived past the point

of impact; I have seen my disciples and my foes.

I have courted perfect loves and imperfect time; and still

I long to bloom. Rosebud

was never the name of my sled.