Permission Granted

by David Allen Sullivan

You do not have to choose the bruised peach
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don’t have to bury
your grandmother’s keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.

You don’t need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine’s wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.

You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.

You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world’s pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes …

See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.
________________________________

Particularly lovely, hm?

So much so that I might tape it to my forehead. Or at least keep it in the white Dooney & Bourke (Thank you, Puzzler) that I just switched to for Spring.

Just so I might remember to say: Yes …

Mr. Sullivan’s books at Amazon.

Never Offer Your Heart to Someone Who Eats Hearts

Alice Walker

Never offer your heart
to someone who eats hearts
who finds heartmeat
delicious
but not rare
who sucks the juices
drop by drop
and bloody-chinned
grins
like a God.

Never offer your heart
to a heart gravy lover.
Your stewed, overseasoned
heart consumed
he will sop up your grief
with bread
and send it shuttling
from side to side
in his mouth
like bubblegum.

If you find yourself
in love
with a person
who eats hearts
these things
you must do.

Freeze your heart
immediately.
Let him—next time
he examines your chest—
find your heart cold
flinty and unappetizing.

Refrain from kissing
lest he in revenge
dampen the spark
in your soul.

Now,
sail away to Africa
where holy women
await you
on the shore—
long having practiced the art
of replacing hearts
with God and Song.

Peace
by Ted Berrigan

What to do
when the days’ heavy heart
having risen, late
is the already darkening East
& prepared at any moment, to sink
into the West
surprises suddenly,
& settles, for a time,
at a lovely place
where mellow light spreads
evenly
from face to face?
The days’ usual aggressive
contrary beat
now softly dropped
into a regular pace
the head riding gently its personal place
where pistons feel like legs
on feelings met like lace.
Why,
take a walk, then,
across this town. It’s a pleasure
to meet one certain person you’ve been counting on
to take your measure
who will smile, & love you, sweetly, at your leisure.
And if
she turns your head around
like any other man,
go home
and make yourself a sandwich
of toasted bread, & ham
with butter
lots of it
& have a diet cola,
& sit down
& write this,
because you can.

______________________________

Thank you Mr. J. (my beautiful lover and writer of poetry) for sending me this beautiful poem.   It is all that I would wish for in my perfect day from dawn to dusk.

And thank you, Mr. Berrigan.

I  Am Waiting
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

______________________________

I’m in love with this  man and will expect books of his poetry littering my doorstep.   Everything you want to know about Lawrence Ferlinghetti can be found here.

ISM-ISM

Tom C. Hunley

You’re not sure whether or not to divorce your spouse,
so you go for a walk to think-think-think, because
you’re a thinker. A pair of bluebirds fly in unison, sing
in unison. They shoot straight up in unison and then,
as if in a wordless, songless agreement to disagree, one
arcs sharp right, the other veers left at a mirror angle,
and because you’re a Romanticist at heart, you decide
you have to break your marriage in half.
But you’re part Postmodernist, too, so you think
maybe the birds are being ironic, and you think
staying and leaving are really just two ways
of doing the same thing. And since you’re also
part Modernist, you pray, a throwback to your latent
Victorianism. You ask God what you should do, and
before He has a chance not to answer, you tell Him
you don’t believe in Him anymore, though at moments
like this, you wish to God you still did.

Tom C. Hunley

___________________

Three things.

First, I absolutely love this poem. It arrived in my email seconds ago and — already! — here I am posting it for you.  It is, after all, poetry month.

If you are someone who just doesn’t quite get the poetry thing, maybe this will help you wrap your pretty little head around it.  I mean, married or not married or previously married or not previously married … well it doesn’t really matter, does it now?

And is it really *just* a commentary on marriage?

You still get it, don’t you? You get it, you GROK! I know you do!  Because this says everything about the human adventure: our redundant foibles, our silly sweetness, our ironic dichotomies. And I would argue that this lovely poem also speaks to the markings of what I call “God’s Fingerprints” on even the most intellectual and scientific of us, whether we know it or not.  And yes … I do see these Fingerprints often.  And on whom you’d  least expect, or, in some cases, suspect. 🙂

Secondly: Yes! I’m adding Romantic Savant (who turned me on to Mr. Hunley and his beautiful poetry) to my Phone Sex Savant collection. It’s been a very long time since Zen Fetish has had a new Savant,  and to make room for him I needed to get into that damn display case to dust off and rearrange my tried and true most loyal Savants.  I’ve been a neglectful collector.  The dust was so thick in that display case, all of my Savants got a blow job and they didn’t even know it.

And he will be knighted sometime soon, when you will learn more about him. I expect the rest of you Phone Sex Savants to move over, make room and play nice.

And last but certainly not-in-the-least least … more about Mr. Hunley. His books are available here, and I’m particularly desiring this one. Who’s going to buy it for me (paperback, please)?

He is the Director of Steel Toe Books and also teaches poetry classes (*swoon*) at Western Kentucky University.

Life is good. So deliciously and delightfully good good good. And I am a happy happy happy girl.

xo, Angela