Let's Talk About Death with Michelle Dante

 

Puerto Penasco Birthday Celebration

 

Kissing In Vietnamese

Kissing in Vietnamese 

My grandmother kisses

as if bombs are bursting in the backyard,

where mint and jasmine lace their perfumes

through the kitchen window,

as if somewhere, a body is falling apart

and flames are making their way back

through the vessels in a young boys thigh,

as if to walk out the door, your torso 

would dance with exit wounds. 

When my grandmother kisses, there would be no flashy smooching, no western music 

of pursed lips, she kisses as if to breathe 

you inside her, nose press to cheek 

so that your sent pearls into drops of gold inside her lungs, as if while she holds you, death also, is clutching your wrist.

My grandmother kisses as if history 

never ended, as if somewhere, 

a body is still falling apart

Ocean Vuong

More Poems

Jesus Never Understood My Grandmother's Prayers

My grandmother never learned Spanish

was afraid of forgetting her gods

was afraid of waking up in the morning

without the prodigals of her offspring in her memory.

My grandmother believed that you could only

talk to the wind in Zoque

but she kneeled before the saints

and prayed with more fervor than anyone.

Jesus never heard her

my grandmother's tongue

smelled like rose apples

and her eyes lit up when she sang

with the brightness of a star.

Saint Michael Archangel never heard her

my grandmother's prayers were sometimes blasphemies

jukis'tyt she said and the pain stopped

patsoke she yelled and time paused beneath her bed.

In that same bed she birthed her seven sons.

 Mikeas Sanchez

(Translated by David Shook)

....

(Thanks Nina)

The Two-Headed Calf

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

– Laura Gilpin

...

Something beautiful from Alison Luterman for today:

I Confess

I stalked her

in the grocery store: her crown

of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,

her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,

watching

the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her

basket,

beaming peace like the North Star.

I wanted to ask,"What aisle did you find

your serenity in, do you know 

how to be married for fifty years or how to live

alone,

excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to

possess

some knowledge that makes the earth turn and

burn on its axis --"

But we don't request such things from strangers

nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair."

....

I no longer pray—now I drink dark chocolate and let the moon sing to me.

I no longer pray—I let my ancestors dance through my hips at the slightest provocation.

I no longer pray—I go to the river and howl my ancient pain into the current.

I no longer pray—I ache, I desire, I say “yes” to my longing.

I no longer pray as I was taught but as the stars crawl onto my lap like soft animals at nighttime and God tucks my hair behind my ears with the gentle fingers of her wind and a new intimacy is uncovered in everything, perhaps it’s that I’m finally learning how to pray.

— Chelan Harkin

...

The worst thing we ever did was put God in the sky out of reach pulling the divinity from the leaf, sifting out the holy from our bones, insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement through everything we’ve made a hard commitment to see as ordinary, stripping the sacred from everywhere to put in a cloud man elsewhere, prying closeness from your heart.

The worst thing we ever did was take the dance and the song out of prayer made it sit up straight and cross its legs removed it of rejoicing wiped clean its hip sway, its questions, its ecstatic yowl, its tears.

The worst thing we ever did is pretend God isn’t the easiest thing in this Universe available to every soulin every breath.

Chelan Harkin

...

If you think the Eccentric God who made the octopus is gonna judge you for your sins, I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark.

If you think this Wild God that spins galaxies as a pastime cares to get fussy about your mistakes or has ever made anything that wasn’t born perfect and luminous, you might need to repent.

If you can’t yet admit how lovable and infinitely worthy the fullness of your human nature is and if you think God wants to do anything but perpetually pour an abundance of love gifts upon you, well, my dear, your soul just might need to go to confession.

Chelan Harkin

National Poetry Month

 Happy National Poetry month, friends. Here's one from Raymond Carver for today ...

Grief

Woke up early this morning and from my bed

looked far across the Strait to see

a small boat moving through the choppy water,

a single running light on. Remembered

my friend who used to shout 

his dead wife's name from hilltops

around Perugia. Who set a plate

for her at his simple table long after

she was gone. And opened the windows

so she could have fresh air. Such display 

I found embarrassing. So did his other 

friends. I couldn't see it. 

Not until this morning.