Days go by and I don't write one poem or get poetry in my Inbox. Then one morning I wake up starving. After a few minutes to come completely awake, I know! I'm craving poetry. It's a hunger for what is real, for beauty and concrete images. Talking to motel owners, writing grants and working at board meetings is challenging and sometimes even rewarding, but it does nothing for the growling belly that wants only poetry. Last year I challenged two other poets to write a poem a day for 30 days. We actually did it twice, so that for two months we were satiated. I speak Brazilian Portuguese and we have a word that literally translates as FULL, but the real meaning is the kind of satisfaction that is sexual fulfillment. Reading a poem is sometimes like that. Let poetry and justice roll down like a river.
3 comments:
This is an old one- written at Sparrows last year and read at the open mic but I am so sick of the politics around me I had to post it. This morning I read the paper and I want to write a poem about money like the last post asked, but money isn't my struggle with the world. Sure, I'd love to not have to work at my job and then write all the time but I wonder where my inspiration would come from if I didn't have those people at work around. I'd be a lot calmer, but would I be satisfied? I'll let you know. I might not have a job after Tuesday.
Do Your Shoes Smell Like Mine?
by Julie Cummings
Because until your shoes are covered in it
until it seeps through onto your skin
you won’t know how it feels
to have to prove to some nurse that
the woman standing next to you
is not just a friend
that “family only” includes her
how it feels to open the newspaper
and read again and again that 57%
of the people hate you
and I know you mean well when
you join me on a walk and effortlessly
sidestep the piles while I trod right through them
then ask me at lunch do you want to get
married/ have kids/ keep your job
and I want to scream yes, and
yes and yes take your hand then lead you through
it give you my shoes, hell- give you
my feet- just so once you
can see that every time you take
a stick to the sole of your shoe
and scrape it off it lands on
me it lands on me
and I don’t want to walk
through it anymore
I don’t want to be covered in the smell
I want my feet cleansed
like Jesus and
I want this world to do it.
julie said...
Let Poetry and Justice Roll Down Like a River
by Julie Cummings
God forgive
The United States of America
cover my parched skin
with water
I am still burning
Post a Comment