The Iron Wombat

I like stuff

Posts tagged poetry

106 notes

The body is the first writer of the poem. The mind is the caretaker who moves in to make order. Sometimes what the mind does to the poem is good. Sometimes, it’s too much. “I am an enemy of the mind,” writes Berryman, while Ginsberg insists that “mind is shapely.” With whatever trust or mistrust we have of it, the mind works the poem in a different way. But let’s be clear: intellects don’t write poems. While they’re wonderful to have, they are no substitute for the body’s senses of the world. Because the body is irrational, and the irrational is where discovery happens.
D.A. Powell (via poetryeater)

Filed under writing poetry

2 notes

Happy Birthday, Maya Angelou

Momma Welfare Roll, by Maya Angelou

Her arms semaphore fat triangles, 
Pudgy hands bunched on layered hips 
Where bones idle under years of fatback 
And lima beans. 
Her jowls shiver in accusation 
Of crimes clichéd by 
Repetition. Her children, strangers 
To childhood’s toys, play 
Best the games of darkened doorways, 
Rooftop tag, and know the slick feel of 
Other people’s property. 

Too fat to whore, 
Too mad to work, 
Searches her dreams for the 
Lucky sign and walks bare-handed 
Into a den of bureaucrats for 
Her portion. 
‘They don’t give me welfare. 
I take it.’ 

Filed under poetry maya angelou poem poet birthday momma welfare roll

1 note

Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.
Boris Pasternak

Filed under poetry boris pasternak russia

3 notes

London at 3:54 a.m.

 

Awake and staring

out the window, into the neighbor’s dead kitchen.

In 3 hours and 6 minutes, the boy will eat a bowl of cheerios shirtless—

his belly will sit on his lap like a house cat.

 

In 2 hours and 21 minutes, the sun will knock softly on my window—

19 minutes later, it will rush in uninvited.

My father will do the same at 6:52.

I will not hear him ask if I want coffee,

but I will decide that his ears

look more like gravy boats than dinner plates.

 

I’ll stare into the neighbor’s kitchen until noon—

mornings are full of hours

that I don’t know what to do with.

Filed under poetry london insomnia morning