The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "Day After Day" by The Pretenders

To observe National Poetry Month, I have been featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry and this is our last installation for 2024.

Singer-songwriter Chrissie Hynde is the soul of her group The Pretenders. She worked at Vivienne Westwood's boutique in Chelsea and knew The Sex Pistols before starting her own band in 1978. She has written some truly stellar songs that rightly live in the rock n' roll canon. But this song from the group's sophomore album, "Pretenders II" has always touched me. The world weary sense is palpable as our narrator circumnavigates the globe in a state of perpetual night, while the wistful closing, looking forward to the end of a war, is even more wearying. Feels like a bit like 2024.

"Day After Day"
by The Pretenders

Way up in the sky
Over the city, over Tokyo
Silver light, summer moon
You'll be over somebody's winter this afternoon
While the dolphins swim in the sea
You're going grey, my baby
Still the war is waging endlessly
Day after day, day after day

Way up in the sky
Over the city and Lake Erie
You remember the flats, you were there
Out every night Mr. Moonlight

Round and round and round we go
Just like yesterday

Way up in the sky
Over the city where you sleep tonight
The light outside your window blinks
Hotel, hotel, hotel
Open the blind and dream in a moonbeam

When the war's finally over
We'll meet again
And pick up where we left off

https://thepretenders.com/

Poem In Your Pocket Day 2024: "The End and the Beginning" by Wisława Szymborska

For today's Poem In Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month, I am sharing this sober slice of poetica vérité by the wonderful Polish writer Wisława Szymborska, born 1923 and died in 2012. She was probably thinking of another war when she wrote this, but here we are in 2024, wars, wars, everywhere...the one thing our planet has never had a shortage of.

The End and the Beginning
by Wisława Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

"Three"

In honor of National Poetry Month, I have posted work by myself each Friday. This is a new piece about my family when I was young.

Three

“Three is a magic number,” they sang on Saturday morning TV,
Multiplication Rock crooned “A man and a woman had a little baby,
They had three in the family…that’s a magic number.”
The past and the present and the future.
Faith and hope and charity.
The Heart and the Brain and the Body
give you three, but it was only ever us,
just the three of us, moving
town to city, house to house,
only ever us. Saturday night, hamburgers and
strawberry shortcake, my mom and dad and me
in the living room watching Carol Burnett,
sharing laughter just among ourselves,
isolated. Never guests, no visitors, only my
mom and dad and me at my birthday party,
the outside world remained that way.
Just us three, it’s a magic number.

I am an adult now, lying in darkness, listing and
arranging tomorrow’s tasks as I fall asleep.
I will shave in the morning for my meeting
I think, and for no reason recall my first time shaving,
in our two-bedroom apartment in Miami,
number 313 on the top floor of a three-story building,
fuzz had eventually turned to whiskers and
my dad agreed to let me use his electric shaver.
My mom wanted to take a picture with our Kodak Instamatic but
I was embarrassed and ran, slamming the bathroom door,
shutting her out when she only wanted to mark a moment
her boy took another step to being a man.
Why didn’t I let her take the picture? She wanted it,
just let her have it, I say to me at thirteen
going on fourteen. My family wants things,
that is, if only we’d survived.
My mother is electric, my father is a ghost.
Their blood lives in my chest, the three of us, still alone.
I am my mother now, I am my father, I say it out loud,

we are a magic number.

©JEF 2024

"At The River Clarion" by Mary Oliver

In honor of National Poetry Month, I have shared exquisite poems by talented poets each Wednesday. For our last poem this month, I present a beautiful poem from the incredible Mary Oliver. She died in 2019 leaving behind a stunning catalog of work and this poem, "At The River Clarion" is a gorgeous, lyrical meditation on ephemerality and infinity, the concept of matter and The Void.

At The River Clarion
by Mary Oliver

1.
I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.

I’d been to the river before, a few times.
Don’t blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don’t hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don’t hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.
And it’s difficult to hear anything anyway, through all the traffic, the ambition.

2.
If God exists he isn’t just butter and good luck.
He’s also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

Imagine how the lily (who may also be a part of God) would sing to you if it could sing,
if you would pause to hear it.
And how are you so certain anyway that it doesn’t sing?

If God exists he isn’t just churches and mathematics.
He’s the forest, He’s the desert.
He’s the ice caps, that are dying.
He’s the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.

He’s van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert Motherwell.
He’s the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing their weapons.
He’s every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politician, the poet.
And if this is true, isn’t it something very important?

Yes, it could be that I am a tiny piece of God, and each of you too, or at least
of his intention and his hope.
Which is a delight beyond measure.
I don’t know how you get to suspect such an idea.
I only know that the river kept singing.
It wasn’t a persuasion, it was all the river’s own constant joy
which was better by far than a lecture, which was comfortable, exciting, unforgettable.

3.
Of course for each of us, there is the daily life.
Let us live it, gesture by gesture.
When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks?
And should we not thank the knife also?
We do not live in a simple world.

4.
There was someone I loved who grew old and ill
One by one I watched the fires go out.
There was nothing I could do

except to remember
that we receive
then we give back.

5.
My dog Luke lies in a grave in the forest, she is given back.
But the river Clarion still flows from wherever it comes from
to where it has been told to go.
I pray for the desperate earth.
I pray for the desperate world.
I do the little each person can do, it isn’t much.
Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

6.
Along its shores were, may I say, very intense cardinal flowers.
And trees, and birds that have wings to uphold them, for heaven’s sakes–
the lucky ones: they have such deep natures,
they are so happily obedient.
While I sit here in a house filled with books,
ideas, doubts, hesitations.

7.
And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river
keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its
long journey, its pale, infallible voice
singing.

https://maryoliver.com/

Seed Moon

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "Zoo Station"

To observe National Poetry Month, I have been featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry.

I am a fan of U2 for many reasons and one of them is their deft ability with lyrics. In his book SURRENDER, Bono says, "The greatest songwriting is never conclusive, but the search for conclusion," (Italics mine). In other words, it is the process that is important and not the result, it is the journey not the destination, it is life in its uncertainty and messiness and emotion that conveys meaning and not a neatly wrapped up ending. Bono has excelled at this approach for decades now, and this incredible song, "Zoo Station" which opens the phenomenal "Achtung Baby" album demonstrates a willingness to meet the world head on, whatever it is, even when it hurts: high and low, control and surrender, pain and ecstasy...often at the same time.

Zoo Station
by U2, lyrics by Bono

I'm ready
I'm ready for the laughing gas
I'm ready
I'm ready for what's next

I'm ready to duck
I'm ready to dive
I'm ready to say
I'm glad to be alive
I'm ready
I'm ready for the push, uh huh

In the cool of the night
In the warmth of the breeze
I'll be crawling 'round
On my hands and knees
Just down the line
Zoo Station
Got to make it on time, oh Zoo Station

I'm ready
I'm ready for the gridlock
I'm ready
To take it to the street, uh huh

I'm ready for the shuffle
Ready for the deal
Ready to let go of the steering wheel
I'm ready
Ready for the crush, uh huh
Zoo Station

Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
Hey baby, hey baby, hey baby, hey baby
It's alright, it's alright

Time is a train
Makes the future the past
Leaves you standing in the station
Your face pressed up against the glass

I'm just down the line from your love (Zoo Station)
Under the sign of your love (Zoo Station)
I'm gonna make it on time, make it on time (Zoo Station)
Just a stop down the line (Zoo Station)
Just a stop down the line

U2, Achtung Baby era by Anton Corbijn

https://www.u2.com/

"The Meek"

In honor of National Poetry Month, I am posting work by myself each Friday.

A common quote lifted from the Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth....or depending on which interpretation you prefer, the meek are those who are "humble" or "gentle" or "kind-hearted" or "self-controlled." Even though I am not a Christian--or maybe because of it--it seems the meek have a lot of power...

The Meek

We,
neither the drowned nor
the engineers,

we who wake and sleep in equal
measure,

who will see a limited number of
sunrises and sunsets,

we who ask no questions because we
already know the answers,

not pleading, not demanding,

who can do nothing more than walk
where we are walking and

exist where we are,

we are the ones
not counted,

yet we will remain,
we fill like a balloon in wind,
we welcome you after a long journey,
we inspire and expire,
we fly with glee and hang like silk,
we are excavated and split open,
we water the ground like rain,
we climb and entwine,
we conduct electricity,
generating static and shocks,
we celebrate the movement of the planets.
We have the right code,
the right word,
it will get us in.

©JEF 2024

"Head, Heart" by Lydia Davis

In honor of National Poetry Month, I am sharing exquisite poems by talented poets each Wednesday. I present "Head, Heart" by Lydia Davis, short story writer, novelist, and translator. She captures a profound state of human existence using what could be Muppets. This short, mind-bogglingly concise poem encapsulates the push and the pull of it all...and you know what I mean.

Head, Heart
by Lydia Davis

Heart weeps.
Head tries to help heart.
Head tells heart how it is, again:
You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday.
Heart feels better, then.
But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart.
Heart is so new to this.
I want them back, says heart.
Head is all heart has.
Help, head. Help heart.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Davis

R.I.P. Ushio Amagatsu

The news was just released today of the March 25th, 2024 death of Ushio Amagatsu, legendary choreographer and founder of the Butoh dance troupe Sankai Juku. Butoh is the singular Japanese dance form developed after the horrors of World War II characterized by extremely expressive and often frightening or grotesque gestures (like the "Silent Scream"), white full-body paint, and very slow movements.

Amagatsu founded Sankai Juku in 1975 and introduced Butoh to the Western world, using highly otherworldly costumes, sets, and original music. Since 1982 all of Sankai Juku's works were premiered at and co-produced by Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. Over the years, I had the honor of seeing two, incredible, haunting full productions in which they performed, among other pieces, Kagemi, Hibiki, and Yuragi. I was utterly mesmerized and shaken for many days after.

R.I.P. Ushio Amagatsu. Thank you for manifesting such a profound and ferocious physical expression into this world.

https://www.sankaijuku.com/?lang=en

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "Europa and the Pirate Twins"

To observe National Poetry Month, once a week I am featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry.

If you were alive in the early 80s, I am sure you could not have missed hearing synthesizer whiz Thomas Dolby's near-novelty song "She Blinded Me With Science," taken from his debut release "The Golden Age of Wireless," an album steeped in a retro WWII feeling in both narrative (look at the title alone!) and imagery. However, the opening track on the US release far outshines "She Blinded Me With Science." This song, "Europa and the Pirate Twins" is an entire lifetime of a story condensed down to three verses and a chorus. It is the moving story of two young people in love and how they are tragically torn apart. Dolby has described the song to the now-defunct webzine Drowned In Sound, along with the tone of the album, as reflecting "a sense of relationship that's going on as being overwhelmed by something on a grander level", adding "there's a very strong wartime atmosphere to it."

Europa and the Pirate Twins
by Thomas Dolby

I was fourteen, she was twelve
Father travelled, hers as well, Europa...
Down the beaches, hand in hand
Twelfth of never on the sand
Then war took her away
We swore a vow that day

We'll be the Pirate Twins again, Europa
Oh my country
Europa
I'll walk beside you in the rain
Europa
Ta république
Europa

Nine years after, who'd I see
On the cover of a magazine? Europa...
Buy her singles and see all her films
Paste her pictures on my windowsill
But that's not quite the same - it isn't, is it?
Europa, my old friend

We'll be the Pirate Twins again, Europa
Oh my country
My country, Europa!
I'll walk beside you in the rain
Europa
Ta république
Europa

Blew in from the hoverport
She was back in London
Pushed past the papermen
Calling her name
She smiled for the cameras
As the bodyguard grabbed me
Her eyes were gone forever
As they drove her away

We'll be the Pirate Twins again, Europa
Oh my country
Europa
I'll walk beside you in the rain
Europa
Ta république
Europa

https://www.thomasdolby.com/

Day of (NO) Silence 2024

From GLSEN's site:

Day of (No) Silence 2024: Rise Up. Take Action.

History of Day of Silence: Started in the mid 90’s by two college students, Day of Silence has expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of students each year. Every April, students would go through the school day without speaking, ending the day with Breaking the Silence rallies to bring attention to ways their schools and communities can become more inclusive.

2024 Day of (No) Silence: With more than 800 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced last year, we must Rise Up and Take Action. GLSEN’s Day of NO Silence is a nationally-recognized student-led demonstration where LGBTQ+ students and allies all around the country—and the world— protest the harmful effects of harassment and discrimination of LGBTQ+ people in schools.

I am not sure how many high school or middle school students stop by "Oh, By The Way," but if you are a student, please consider joining the Day of (NO) Silence today. And if you are an adult who knows a teen, especially a gay teen, who might benefit from this, please pass it along. The event is also observed on college campuses. We are under attack and can use all the voices we can get.

https://www.glsen.org/dayofnosilence

"I'm Ready"

To honor National Poetry Month, I am sharing some of my work each Friday. This piece speaks to an aspect of life that none of us like to think about...an aspect that cannot be controlled, of accidents and pain, an aspect that makes us live through things, against our will, things we think we cannot endure. But we must, and we do. These things are "life" as much as any other aspect.

I'm Ready

I need to talk about
the sick feeling
when the child
comes in contact
with the front of my
car
making a dull thud
like a ripe melon,
his face turned toward me
and full of horror,
looking through the glass,
his eyes pleading,
“Why
are you doing this
to me?”,
his pitiful body
thrown from the
small bicycle
like a rag doll,
as though it were a thing of no
consequence.
In that moment
when these two
things collide,
the air gives up
a shudder
like a thunderclap
and, like a train
de-railing,
the course of life,
even the orbit of
the planet is
irreversibly
altered
forever.
Like a glass
tottering, rocking
at the edge,
then free falling,
hovering for one
brilliant second
to sparkle,
to mock
your distance,
your inability to save,
he was too far away.
The fabric unravels.
The tracks are far behind.
I need to tell you,
I couldn’t stop it.
Now I understand:
if I have to
back into a corner
crying, blindly pulling
finger after finger--
if I have to
lie on a gurney
gulping solid air
while doctors search
for ways to
let me breathe--
if I have to be
sutured without
anesthetic--
then do it.
If I must hit
seven year old boys
with my car--
if this is the way
things must be, then
I’m ready.
I’ll grip the wheel harder.
I’ll bite down on my tongue.
Go ahead and do it.
And I will
tell about it.

©JEF 1992

"Book of Statues" by Richie Hofmann

In honor of National Poetry Month, I am sharing exquisite poems by talented poets each Wednesday. This poem of awakening but also loss of innocence touches me deeply. I recall all too well when Matthew Shepard was tortured and murdered...I was 34. As this poem references, Shepard's death became a symbol for gay men everywhere that the world continues to be a dangerous place for us.

Hofmann says:
"I was eleven years old when Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998; he died on the twelfth of October. Around the same time, I was working on a school project on Italian Renaissance sculptures, so many of which depict male nudes. These two events are linked in my mind, as I think it was the first time I began to glimpse the costs of being a body that desires."

Book of Statues
by Richie Hofmann

Because I am a boy, the untouchability of beauty
is my subject already, the book of statues
open in my lap, the middle of October, leaves
foiling the wet ground
in soft copper. "A statue
must be beautiful
from all sides," Cellini wrote in 1558.
When I close the book,
the bodies touch. In the west,
they are tying a boy to a fence and leaving him to die,
his face unrecognizable behind a mask
of blood. His body, icon
of loss, growing meaningful
against his will.

Richie Hofmann - Photo by Marcus Jackson

https://www.richiehofmann.com/

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "Socrates The Python"

To observe National Poetry Month, once a week I am featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry.

For our second installment of The Poetry of Rock n' Roll, let's examine the lyrics to a song by Peter Murphy, Godfather of Goth, singer-songwriter, and former frontman for legendary group Bauhaus. "Socrates The Python" is not about a snake, but about the issues of our age stemming from a disconnect with the spirit. But not an abstract spirit...a spirit that asks us to be involved, a spirit that offers knowledge and not blind belief as a way to enlightenment. It's a profound idea...one where he name checks the mystic and philosopher Gurdjieff along with one of Gurdjieff's disciples J.G. Bennett in a sort of incantation, pitting the idea of self-discovery and self exploration against the head-in-the-sand perspective of much of organized religions.

Socrates The Python

by Peter Murphy

Today
Your problems are not
Of blind belief
That is or means
Belief ain't enough, belief ain't enough
The oracle of your age
Point towards the word
Psychological

You may freeze
You may fear
You may wince
And not hear
You can sick at the heart
When I say
"God is one"
Does God the word
Make you reel
And I mean, real

But it isn't God the father son or holy one,
But the key to your age
Get it together, and listen
With all the books
On the shelf
All the wisdom
With all the books
On the shelf
All the wisdom

Socrates, Pythagoras
Yin and bloody Yang
Hatha Yoga, Omm
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Old Testament and New
Libraries full of keys
Libraries full of keys
Where's your lock?

Socrates Pythagoras
Yin and bloody Yang
Hatha Yoga, Omm
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Old Testament and New
Libraries full of keys
Libraries full of keys

Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus

https://www.petermurphy.info/

"A Map Is A Lie"

In honor of National Poetry Month, I will be posting work by myself each Friday. This is a new piece about the idea that, despite what we may think and perceive, there are no clear dividing lines, no real boundaries in this world.

A Map Is A Lie

The simple blue crease like a vein on the skin of the ground
scribes the course of water, stark against the white of the paper,
but my foot sinks to the ankle in a slurry of mud and green slime.
Water covers the bottom third of soggy tree trunks,
pools of algae swirled into larger pools of decay clinging to bark.
The map can’t show how the winter storms exhaled oceans of water to recarve and swell
the path, and the map can’t describe the spot where the armored crayfish
wandered from its world into ours, the world of the map, where it stood on the road
(shown as a black scratch labelled “Fire Access”), frozen in valiant battle pose,
holding claws aloft against me, to repel and frighten the unfathomable giant,
but is now a crunched red stain on asphalt, smeared by unfathomable tires.
The map can’t show it was foolish or driven or careless or simply too adventurous
for its kind, just an unlucky explorer. The map can only incise
a sharp line between elements, blue water-white ground-black road,
the cartographer’s need to paralyze a living breathing shifting mantle,
a fixed idea pinned in shape and place, a lie.
It can’t show the mutable spongey zone of neither earth nor water,
the permeable membranes, everything flowing between states,
the crayfish, me, you, from one side to the other.

©JEF 2024

"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith and "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye

For National Poetry Month, I will be sharing exquisite poems by talented poets each Wednesday. And I am going to start us with two stunning poems: first up is "Good Bones" by poet Maggie Smith (not the actress), a touching, thoughtful poem that speaks to the instinct to protect but also to the power of the possibilities of life itself.

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Maggie Smith | Photo by Devon Albeit

https://maggiesmithpoet.com/

Here is a poem that takes this idea of the possibility of making this place beautiful, and gives a roadmap to it. The journey is not easy but it is the only journey worth taking. Here is "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Kindness
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

https://www.instagram.com/naomishihabnye

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "The Letter" by Kristin Hersh

To observe National Poetry Month, every Monday I will be featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry.

For our first installment of The Poetry of Rock n' Roll, I want to share a very underrated artist. Singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh has always been very upfront about her bouts with mental illness and this incredibly visceral poem-song is clearly a record of struggling through a traumatic episode. "The Letter" is from her 1994 debut solo release "Hips and Makers." I don't embed videos of songs for this series because I want the focus to be on the words. But do yourself a favor with this one: go find the music for this and listen to how Hersh musically manifests this event...the remarkable tension and anxiety living within the rhythm and the cyclical guitar leave you breathless. It's extraordinary.

The Letter
by Kristin Hersh

September 29, 1984
Dear so and so
Gather me up because I'm lost
Or I'm back where I started from
I'm crawling on the floor rolling on the ground
I might cry
I won't go home
So here's the story
I am turning up in circles
And I'm spinning on my knuckles
Don't forget that there are circles left undone very close to me
Forgive me comfort me
I'm crawling on the floor rolling on the ground
There's a blanket wrapped around my head
I'm moving in a line that's shaped like this
I'm holding in my breath
I have a room
Can you tell if I am lying
Don't forget that I'm living inside the space where walls and floor meet
A box inside my chest
An animal stuffed with my frustration
Can you hear me?
Don't forget that I'm alone when you're away
You make me act like other people do forgive me
Comfort me

You comfort me

You make me die
I'm gonna cry

I won't go home
Don't kill the god of sadness
Just don't let her get you down
See the man inside a book I read can't handle his own head
So what the hell am I supposed to do?
I'd like to know how he died
My hands are shaking don't you love me anymore
I only need a person keep my shoulders
Stand around lie down move your hand above the floor
Gather me up because I'm lost
Or I'm back where I started from
Crawling on the floor rolling on the ground
I'm gonna cry you look for me
Love Kristin
P.S. keep them coming

https://www.kristinhersh.com/

Happy National Poetry Month 2024!

April is National Poetry Month, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets since 1996. And this year marks the celebration's 28th anniversary! Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.

How to celebrate?
- Read your favorite poet again.
- Read some new poetry.
- Find a new favorite poet.
- Write some poetry.
- Leave poems for people to find in public places.
- Read poetry out loud to family and friends.
- Dream a poem.

Throughout April, I'll be posting poems, some by me, some by others, as well as a series of lyrics to popular songs that double as exquisite poetry.

And this year, Poem in Your Pocket Day is April 27th! Every April, on Poem in Your Pocket Day, people celebrate by selecting a poem, carrying it with them, and sharing it with others throughout the day at schools, bookstores, libraries, parks, workplaces, and on social media using the hashtag #pocketpoem.

Poem in Your Pocket Day was originally initiated in 2002 by the Office of the Mayor, in partnership with the New York City Departments of Cultural Affairs and Education, as part of the city’s National Poetry Month celebration. In 2008, the Academy of American Poets took the initiative to all fifty United States, encouraging individuals around the country to join in and channel their inner bard. In 2016, the League of Canadian Poets extended Poem in Your Pocket Day to Canada.

Happy National Poetry Month!

To kick off the month, here is an incredibly inspiring quote from Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.

"When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life."

Amen to that.

https://poets.org/