Text of a poem reads: To the Harbormaster By Frank O’Hara I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings. I am always tying up and then deciding to depart. In storms and at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide around my fathomless arms, I am unable to understand the forms of my vanity or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder in my hand and the sun sinking. To you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage of my will. The terrible channels where the wind drives me against the brown lips of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet I trust the sanity of my vessel; and if it sinks, it may well be in answer to the reasoning of the eternal voices, the waves which have kept me from reaching you.

The vibrant abstract 1957 Joan Mitchell painting "To the Harbormaster", oil on canvas. Many vibrant dripping strokes of oil paint, in many colors (especially muted blues and deep reds, some olive green shades and just a touch of orange), over a white canvas.

here's frank o'hara's beautiful poem “to the harbormaster”, and the joan mitchell painting of the same name which was inspired by the poem.

john ashberry later read “to the harbormaster” at o'hara's funeral

FOR AARON BUSHNELL Wendy Trevino In just a few months, he could have been an Anti-war vet & anarchist. But that He be active duty was important. It was important to put on the uniform. It was important to not put it off. It was important to speak clearly. It Was important to set the phone down Just right. It was important to put the Hat on over the accelerant. It Was important not to panic when the Lighter didn't immediately light. It was Important his last words be FREE PALESTINE. It was important he die An anarchist. It was that important.

“for aaron bushnell”, by wendy trevino

#poetry #poetrysky

Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992 By Brenda Shaughnessy I forgot how lush and electrified it was with you. The shaggy fragrant zaps continually passing back and forth, my fingertip to your clavicle, or your wrist rubbing mine to share gardenia oil. We so purred like dragonflies we kept the mosquitoes away and the conversation was heavy, mother-lacerated childhoods and the sad way we'd both been both ignored and touched badly. Knowing that being fierce and proud and out and loud was just a bright new way to be needy. Please listen to me, oh what a buzz! you're the only one I can tell. Even with no secret, I could come close to your ear with my mouth and that was ecstasy, too. We barely touched each other, we didn't have to speak. The love we made leapt to life like a cat in the space between us (if there ever was space between us), and looked back at us through fog. Sure, this was San Francisco, it was often hard to see. But fog always burned off, too, so we watched this creature to see if it knew what it was doing. It didn't.

”gay pride weekend,s.f., 1992”, by brenda shaughnessy

#poetry #poetrysky

Essay on Craft by Ocean Vuong Because the butterfly’s yellow wing flickering in black mud was a word stranded by its language. Because no one else was coming — & I ran out of reasons. So I gathered fistfuls of  ash, dark as ink, hammered them into marrow, into a skull thick enough to keep the gentle curse of  dreams. Yes, I aimed for mercy —  but came only close as building a cage around the heart. Shutters over the eyes. Yes, I gave it hands despite knowing that to stretch that clay slab into five blades of light, I would go too far. Because I, too, needed a place to hold me. So I dipped my fingers back into the fire, pried open the lower face until the wound widened into a throat, until every leaf shook silver with that god -awful scream & I was done. & it was human.

"essay on craft", by ocean vuong

#poetry #poetrysky

terrorism

Having a Coke with You Frank O’Hara is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully as the horse it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

"having a coke with you", by frank o'hara

#poetry #poetrysky

takin a few days off btw i'm goin to the desert

Redemption by Pauli Murray Suffused in April twilight I lie beside you. Still as a sepulchre The room is vibrant with soundless voices. Each nerve and sinew finds its counterpart, Clings, blends and communes Without touch or speech. In this moment of benediction You have retrieved your Siegfried’s blade From years of rusted grief, While I, bright sword redeemed, Will flash once more in battle To blind the eyes of tyrants.

"redemption", by pauli murray

#poetry #poetrysky

Movement Song, by Audre Lorde I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck moving away from me beyond anger or failure your face in the evening schools of longing through mornings of wish and ripen we were always saying goodbye in the blood in the bone over coffee before dashing for elevators going in opposite directions without goodbyes. Do not remember me as a bridge nor a roof as the maker of legends nor as a trap door to that world where black and white clericals hang on the edge of beauty in five oclock elevators twitching their shoulders to avoid other flesh and now there is someone to speak for them moving away from me into tomorrows morning of wish and ripen your goodbye is a promise of lightning in the last angels hand unwelcome and warning the sands have run out against us we were rewarded by journeys away from each other into desire into mornings alone where excuse and endurance mingle conceiving decision. Do not remember me as disaster nor as the keeper of secrets I am a fellow rider in the cattle cars watching you move slowly out of my bed saying we cannot waste time only ourselves.

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do not remember me as disaster, nor as the keeper of secrets.

"movement song", by audre lorde

#poetry #poetrysky

When I Heard at the Close of the Day By Walt Whitman When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d, And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy, But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn, When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light, When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise, And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy, O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well, And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend, And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores, I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me, For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night, In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me, And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I was happy.

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"when i heard at the close of the day", by walt whitman

#poetry #poetrysky

"burning in the rain" by richard blanco Someday compassion would demand I set myself free of my desire to recreate my father, indulge in my mother’s losses, strangle lovers with words, forcing them to confess for me and take the blame. Today was that day: I tossed them, sheet by sheet on the patio and gathered them into a pyre. I wanted to let them go in a blaze, tiny white dwarfs imploding beside the azaleas and ficus bushes, let them crackle, burst like winged seeds, let them smolder into gossamer embers— a thousand gray butterflies in the wind. Today was that day, but it rained, kept raining. Instead of fire, water—drops knocking on doors, wetting windows into mirrors reflecting me in the oaks. The garden walls and stones swelling into ghostlier shades of themselves, the wind chimes giggling in the storm, a coffee cup left overflowing with rain. Instead of burning, my pages turned into water lilies floating over puddles, then tiny white cliffs as the sun set, finally drying all night under the moon into papier-mâché souvenirs. Today the rain would not let their lives burn.

"burning in the rain", by richard blanco

i'm only posting queer poetry this month btw strap in

Words by Pauli Murray We are spendthrifts with words, We squander them, Toss them like pennies in the air — Arrogant words, Angry words, Cruel words, Comradely words, Shy words tiptoeing from mouth to ear. But the slowly wrought words of love And the thunderous words of heartbreak — These we hoard.

"words", by pauli murray

#poetry #poetrysky

intifada incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L. by June Jordan I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED GENOCIDE TO STOP I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND REACTION I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC OUT THE WINDOWS I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY NOBODY COLD I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED BOUNDARIES TO DISAPPEAR I WANTED NOBODY ROLL BACK THE TREES! I WANTED NOBODY TAKE AWAY DAYBREAK! I WANTED NOBODY FREEZE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THEIR KNEES! I WANTED YOU I WANTED YOUR KISS ON THE SKIN OF MY SOUL AND NOW YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I STAND DESPITE THE TRILLION TREACHERIES OF SAND YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I HOLD THE LONGING OF THE WINTER IN MY HAND YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I COMMIT TO FRICTION AND THE UNDERTAKING OF THE PEARL YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I HAVE BEGUN I BEGIN TO BELIEVE MAYBE MAYBE YOU DO I AM TASTING MYSELF IN THE MOUTH OF THE SUN

“intifada incantation: poem #8 for b.b.L.”, by june jordan

The old man at the wheel by Frank Bidart Measured against the immeasurable universe, no word you have spoken brought light. Brought light to what, as a child, you thought too dark to be survived. By exorcism you survived. By submission, then making. You let all the parts of that thing you would cut out of you enter your poem because enacting there all its parts allowed you the illusion you could cut it from your soul. Dilemmas of choice given what cannot change alone roused you to words. As you grip the things that were young when you were young, they crumble in your hand. Now you must drive west, which in November means driving directly into the sun.

"the old man at the wheel", by frank bidart

Want, by Joan Larkin She wants a house full of cups and the ghosts of last century’s lesbians; I want a spotless apartment, a fast computer. She wants a woodstove, three cords of ash, an axe; I want a clean gas flame. She wants a row of jars: oats, coriander, thick green oil; I want nothing to store. She wants pomanders, linens, baby quilts, scrapbooks. She wants Wellesley reunions. I want gleaming floorboards, the river’s reflection. She wants shrimp and sweat and salt; she wants chocolate. I want a raku bowl, steam rising from rice. She wants goats, chickens, children. Feeding and weeping. I want wind from the river freshening cleared rooms. She wants birthdays, theaters, flags, peonies. I want words like lasers. She wants a mother’s tenderness. Touch ancient as the river. I want a woman’s wit swift as a fox. She’s in her city, meeting her deadline; I’m in my mill village out late with the dog, listening to the pinging wind bells, thinking of the twelve years of wanting, apart and together. We’ve kissed all weekend; we want to drive the hundred miles and try it again.

"want", by joan larkin

I On n'est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans. - Un beau soir, foin des bocks et de la limonade, Des cafés tapageurs aux lustres éclatants ! - On va sous les tilleuls verts de la promenade. Les tilleuls sentent bon dans les bons soirs de juin ! L’air est parfois si doux, qu'on ferme la paupiére ; Le vent chargé de bruits - la ville n’est pas loin - A des parfums de vigne et des parfums de biére... II - Voila qu'on aperçoit un tout petit chiffon D'azur sombre, encadré d'une petite branche, Piqué d'une mauvaise étoile, qui se fond Avec de doux frissons, petite et toute blanche... Nuit de juin ! Dix-sept ans ! - On se laisse griser. La sève est du champagne et vous monte a la téte... On divague ; on se sent aux lèvres un baiser Qui palpite là, comme une petite bête... III Le coeur fou robinsonne à travers les romans, - Lorsque, dans la clarté d'un pâle réverbère, Passe une demoiselle aux petits airs charmants, Sous l'ombre du faux col effrayant de son père. Et, comme elle vous trouve immensément naif, Tout en faisant trotter ses petites bottines, Elle se tourne, alerte et d'un mouvement vif... - Sur vos lèvres alors meurent les cavatines... IV Vous êtes amoureux. Loué jusqu'au mois d'août. Vous êtes amoureux. - Vos sonnets La font rire. Tous vos amis s‘en vont, vous êtes mauvais goût. - Puis l'adorée, un soir, a daigné vous écrire !... - Ce soir-àa..., - vous rentrez aux cafés éclatants, Vous demandez des bocks ou de la limonade... - On n'est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans Et qu'on a des tilleuls verts sur la promenade.

"novel", by arthur rimbaud
(in the original french text)

"novel", by arthur rimbaud" I We aren't serious when we're seventeen. —One fine evening, to hell with beer and lemonade, Noisy cafés with their shining lamps! We walk under the green linden trees of the park The lindens smell good in the good June evenings! At times the air is so scented that we close our eyes. The wind laden with sounds—the town isn't far— Has the smell of grapevines and beer . . . II —There you can see a very small patch Of dark blue, framed by a little branch, Pinned up by a naughty star, that melts In gentle quivers, small and very white . . . Night in June! Seventeen years old! —We are overcome by it all The sap is champagne and goes to our head... We talked a lot and feel a kiss on our lips Trembling there like a small insect... III Our wild heart moves through novels like Robinson Crusoe, —When, in the light of a pale street lamp, A girl goes by attractive and charming Under the shadow of her father's terrible collar And as she finds you incredibly naïve, While clicking her little boots, She turns abruptly and in a lively way... —Then cavatinas die on your lips... IV You are in love. Occupied until the month of August. You are in love. —Your sonnets make Her laugh. All your friends go off, you are ridiculous. —Then one evening the girl you worship deigned to write to you...! —That evening, ... —you return to the bright cafés, You ask for beer or lemonade ... —We're not serious when we are seventeen And when we have green linden trees in the park.

"novel", by arthur rimbaud
(translated by wallace fowlie)

For the young who want to by Marge Piercy Talent is what they say you have after the novel is published and favorably reviewed. Beforehand what you have is a tedious delusion, a hobby like knitting. Work is what you have done after the play is produced and the audience claps. Before that friends keep asking when you are planning to go out and get a job. Genius is what they know you had after the third volume of remarkable poems. Earlier they accuse you of withdrawing, ask why you don’t have a baby, call you a bum. The reason people want M.F.A.’s, take workshops with fancy names when all you can really learn is a few techniques, typing instructions and some- body else’s mannerisms is that every artist lacks a license to hang on the wall like your optician, your vet proving you may be a clumsy sadist whose fillings fall into the stew but you’re certified a dentist. The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

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work is its own cure. you have to
like it better than being loved.

"for the young who want to", by marge piercy
#poetry #poetrysky

The Early Bird by Ted Kooser Still dark, and raining hard on a cold May morning and yet the early bird is out there chirping, chirping its sweet sour wooden-pulley notes, pleased, it would seem, to be given work, hauling the heavy bucket of dawn up from the darkness, note over note, and letting us drink.

"the early bird", by ted kooser

#poetry #poetrysky

it’s “awaking in new york” btw not awakening

sorry for the typo 🤍

Awaking in New York By Maya Angelou Curtains forcing their will against the wind, children sleep, exchanging dreams with seraphim. The city drags itself awake on subway straps; and I, an alarm, awake as a rumor of war, lie stretching into dawn, unasked and unheeded.

"awakening in new york", by maya angelou

#poetry #poetrysky

What Belongs to Us by Marie Howe Not the memorized phone numbers. The carefully rehearsed short cuts home. Not the summer shimmering like pavement, when Lucia pushed Billy off the rabbit house and broke his arm or our tiny footprints in the black files. Not the list of kings from Charlemagne to Henry not the boxes under our beds or Tommy's wedding day when it was so hot and Mark played the flute and we waved at him waving from the small round window in the loft the great gangs of people stepping one by one into the cold water. I have, of course, a photograph you and I getting up from a couch. Full height, I stand almost two inches taller than you but the photograph doesn't show that just the two of us in motion not looking at each other, smiling. Not even the way we said things, leaning against the kitchen counter. Not the cabin where I burned my arm and you said, oh, you're the type that even if it hurt, you wouldn't say. Not even the blisters. Look.

“what belongs to us”, by marie howe

#poetry #poetrysky

Happiness by Raymond Carver So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy they aren't saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take each other's arm. It's early in the morning, and they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly. The sky is taking on light, though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute death and ambition, even love, doesn't enter into this. Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

“happiness”, by raymond carver

#poetry

song of myself by walt whitman 19 This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair, This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again. Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has. Do you take it I would astonish? Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods? Do I astonish more than they? This hour I tell things in confidence, I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

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“song of myself”, section 19, by walt whitman

What kind of times are these by Adrienne Rich There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light— ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear. And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary to talk about trees.

"what kind of times are these", by adrienne rich

#poetrysky

A White City by James Schuyler My thoughts turn south a white city we will wake in one another's arms. I wake and hear the steam pipe knock like a metal heart and find it has snowed.

"a white city", by james schuyler

#poetrysky

If you fall into it it will catch you, the way it caught everything you lost as a child. Silver thread of cloud. Gold earring, bright & worldly things with their polymer onwardness, a willingness not to decay. Tell me, I said, about what has survived. Tell it with only two threads & your hands swimming over & under & over again, until the fabric speaks & the textile is a text – warp: what reminds us of love is worth keeping weft: all your failed experiments might yet be of use Even a rug of dust & earth is fit for prayer. The land holds as lovingly as any mother. The land holds, it’s true, & it’s not too late to call that holy, even now; to touch your brow to the ground knowing this.

“until the fabric speaks & the textile is a text”, by victoria adukwei bulley

#poetrysky

Amor Fati, by Sandra Lim Inside every world there is another world trying to get out, and there is something in you that would like to discount this world. The stars could rise in darkness over heartbreaking coasts, and you would not know if you were ruining your life or beginning a real one. You could claim professional fondness for the world around you; the pictures would dissolve under the paint coming alive, and you would only feel a phantom skip of the heart, absorbed so in the colors. Your disbelief is a later novel emerging in the long, long shadow of an earlier one— is this the great world, which is whatever is the case? The sustained helplessness you feel in the long emptiness of days is matched by the new suspiciousness and wrath you wake to each morning. Isn’t this a relationship with your death, too, to fall in love with your inscrutable life? Your teeth fill with cavities. There is always unearned happiness for some, and the criminal feeling of solitude. Always, everyone lies about his life.

“amor fati”, by sandra lim

#poetrysky

it was a dream by lucille clifton it was a dream in which my greater self rose up before me accusing me of my life with her extra finger whirling in a gyre of rage at what my days had come to. what, i pleaded with her, could i do, oh what could i have done? and she twisted her wild hair and sparked her wild eyes and screamed as long as i could hear her. This. This. This.

“it was a dream”, by lucille clifton

#poetrysky