Bee Fuchsia by Eamon Grennan

Bee Fuchsia

 

At the first brief lull

In terrible weather

Bees are back, each

Entering headfirst

The upside-down open

Nectar-heavy skirts

Of wet fuchsia flowers

And seeming to stay

Quite still in that laden

Inner space, only

The smallest shudder

Of the two together

When the bee-tongue

Unrolls and runs

Its tiny red carpet

Into the heart

Of what is no mystery

But the very vanishing

Point and live centre

Of the flower’s instant

Irrevocable unfolding,

Then stillness again

While this exchange

(Layer after layer of

Dusty goodness lipped,

Given) is taking place—

The flower flushed

And swelling a little,

The bee gently but

Hungrily clutching.

[I won’t be able to write from the grave] by Fanny Howe

[I won’t be able to write from the grave]

 

I won’t be able to write from the grave

so let me tell you what I love:

oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,

cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,

the children nearby, poems and songs,

a friend sleeping in my bed–

 

and the short northern lights.

Winter Solstice by Henri Cole

Winter Solstice

 

Claire says the day will be one second longer.

Darkness will no longer exceed light.

But the weather is abysmal,

so hatred of gloom is not an option. I want to live

to be ninety-five, too, and still be assembling

words into music and truth. For now,

I regard a conference of stars, with fast-moving clouds.

Sometimes my dreams are like explosion pits,

with scary lava. Yet the Earth remains constant,

tilting away from the sun and back,

like a robin to a bare branch.

Be somebody with a body, the stars command;

Don’t be a nobody. I know them by heart,

as they sink and as they rise.

Dear Ilium, by Chiyuma Elliott

Dear Ilium,

 

Some of those battles were pointless.

I opened the tent flaps and peered out at the world.

The bird learned to copy so many sounds;

its entrails were clogged with bright bits of plastic.

What was our strategy again?

And why did the wind wince

as it skirted the brilliant corners downtown?

Some of those battles were jointless,

footless, feckless. Yet I polished the armor

and sat on the ground

and shot no sheriffs and smoked no spliffs

and sang songs that applied no pressure

when we ran out of bandages.

But some of those battles were spotless.

The signs said fuck 12, the seconds ticked past.

The thoughtless old ships rusted in the bay.

We lost we won we painted

new ships and faces on plywood,

and the birds wheeled and sang.

What's a victory, what's a garden?

We burned some cities,

we shattered some glass.

The Poem by Franz Wright

The Poem

 

It was like getting a love letter from a tree

Eyes closed forever to find you--

 

There is a life which

if I could have it

I would have chosen for myself from the beginning

from “Poems to Czechoslovakia” by Marina Tsvetaeva

from “Poems to Czechoslovakia”

 

Black mountain

 

black mountain

blocks the earth’s light.

Time—time—time

to give back to God his ticket.

 

I refuse to—be. In

the madhouse of the inhumans

I refuse to—live. To swim

 

on the current of human spines.

I don’t need holes in my ears,

no need for seeing eyes.

I refuse to swim on the current of human spines.

 

To your mad world—one answer: I refuse.

 

                                      •

 

They took—suddenly—and took—openly—

took mountains—and took their entrails,

they took coal, and steel they took,

they took lead, and crystal.

 

And sugar they took, and took the clover,

they took the West, and they took the North,

they took the beehive, and took the haystack,

they took the South from us, and the East.

 

Vari—they took, and the Tatras—they took,

they took our fingers—took our friends—

 

But we stand up—

as long as there’s spit in our mouths!

 

(translated by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Vaelntine)

 

Memorial Hoops by Reginald Dwayne Betts

 Memorial Hoops

 

The day broke a record for cold, for us wanting

To be anywhere but outside, & it was late

May, the weekend we called Memorial. My mother

Is a veteran, but that is a story for another time,

& we were driving into the mother of rivers state,

My youngest son, named after two men, one who

Turned a trumpet into a prayer, the other who

Before a piano became whatever those who know say

G-d sounds like, me, & friends, who like me, imagined

Watching their sons trade baskets with strangers

Was some kind of holy. Around us was more granite

Than Black folks & I carried Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man

In my knapsack, hesitant to return to all the astonishing

Ways we make each other suffer &, still, somehow,

Survive, & astonished most by how we remember. I’ve

Forgotten my fair share of things that matter. But

Who am I kidding? The weekend was about

Basketball. We’d driven three hours to this colder

Weather. My youngest boy hoped he’d heat up once

A ball touched his hands. Did I say we named the child

After the idiosyncrasies of Jazz, all because as children

I don’t think my wife & I knew enough ambition

To save us from what we’d encounter. These were the days

 

When he and the nine he suited up with desired

Little more than to hear the rasp of a ball against whatever

Passed for wood in a gym with a hoop. There is something

To be said about how basketball makes men of boys and boys

Of men. The ref who chattered with us parents wondered

Why a cousin the age of the ballers ate chips for breakfast.

The other team had a player who made me think, though

She be but little she is fierce, as she, the only girl on

The court slipped a jewel into that hovering crown

We cheered, even those of us whose boys sought to dribble

& jump shot their way to the glory of a win. & when Miles

Came down as if he knew what would happen. I didn’t hold

My breath. A crossover, the ball then swung around his back,

The kid before him lost on some raft in a wild river. Maybe

He knew the ball would fall true because he turned around

To watch us as much as to get back on defense. We laughed

& laughed & watched as kids barely large enough to launch

All of that need at a target did so, again & again.