Pierce, Catherine—The Mother Warns the Tornado

 

Scene: a bathtub, dry. The noise outside inaudible
behind the baby’s wails.

I know I’ve already had more than I deserve.
These lungs that rise and fall without effort,
the husband who sets free house lizards,
this red-doored ranch, my mother on the phone,
the fact that I can eat anything—gouda, popcorn,
massaman curry—without worry. Sometimes
I feel like I’ve been overlooked. Checks
and balances, and I wait for the tally to be evened.
But I am a greedy son of a bitch, and there
I know we are kin. Tornado, this is my child.
Tornado, I won’t say I built him, but I am
his shelter. For months I buoyed him
in the ocean, on the highway; on crowded streets
I learned to walk with my elbows out.
And now he is here, and he is new, and he
is a small moon, an open face, a heart.
Tornado, I want more. Nothing is enough.
Nothing ever is. I will heed the warning
protocol, I will cover him with my body, I will
wait with mattress and flashlight,
but know this: If you come down here—
if you splinter your way through our pines,
if you suck the roof off this red-doored ranch,
if you reach out a smoky arm for my child—
I will turn hacksaw. I will turn grenade.
I will invent for you a throat and choke you.
I will find your stupid wicked whirling
head and cut it off. Do not test me.
If you come down here, I will teach you about
greed and hunger. I will slice you into palm-
sized gusts. Then I will feed you to yourself.
 
Catherine Pierce

Wunderlich, Mark – White Fur

 
 
In the town of my childhood, little of note ever happened
so when the albino deer was found drowned in the slough

having been driven onto the punky ice by dogs,
the game warden brought the dead beast to the school.

I might have been seven or maybe six years old.
I suppose we were made to line up—

since that is how we were moved from place to place—
and were directed out the industrial doors

to admire the animal sprawled in the back of a truck.
We gathered around it, its whiteness a world

bled of distinction, its eyes pink and drying
in the prairie air. We were told we could touch it

and these many years since that March day, I can still
see my hand, pink and small, buried into the white fur

of the buck’s neck, crackling with static
and coming to life with the electric surge

that animates all things. Later, the buck
would be mounted and placed in a glass case in the bank,

which is where the town kept things that were precious.
Behind it, the art teacher rendered the bluffs in oils

with the fussy hand of a miniaturist, and the buck
remains there today, in perpetual imitation of itself.

Mark Wunderlich

Reposted from Motionspoems

Thomas, Dylan – Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas, 1914 – 1953
Read by Sir Anthony Hopkins

Noor – Search Your eyes

I treaded in search of your eyes
Behind the bars of life
Whilst sorrow weeps in my chest
A wilderness, lost, with no ending
The nights storms melt away my feelings
Leaving me imprisoned in your lips
And the earth chokes the sounds of my feet
So that beneath the sands, it’s wounds scream
Behind the nights waves
Clashing dreams crawl
Seas that wrestle with mountains
And longingess, a pearl, that embraces the silence of my days
light falls behind the shadows
your eyes are the sea of luminous light
The insanity of imagination
The return of an absentee
And the repentance of a worshiper…
Standing alone
Fighting the dark shadows…

I still search in your eyes

For answers my heart asks

Written and read by Noor  – SoundCloud

Rumi – Poem of the Atoms

 

O day, arise! The atoms are dancing
Thanks to Him the universe is dancing
The souls are dancing, overcome with ecstasy
I’ll whisper in your ear where their dance is taking them
All the atoms in the air and in the desert know well, they seem insane
Every single atom, happy or miserable
Becomes enamoured of the sun, of which nothing can be said

Rumi (1207 –  1273)

Reposted from YouTube – Hanadi Hobis