“New Year’s Eve, 1959″ by Maxine Kumin

New Year’s Eve 1959

 

remembering Anne Sexton and Jack Geiger

 

 

This was the way we used to party:

lamps unplugged, shoved in the closet

rugs rolled up, furniture pushed back

Glenn Miller singles on the spindle.

 

There was the poet kicking off her shoes

to jitterbug with the Physician

for Social Responsibility

the only time they ever met

 

and he pecking his head to the beat

swinging her out on the stalk of his arm

setting all eight gores of her skirt

twirling, then hauling her in for a Fred

 

Astaire session of deep dips

and both of them cutting out to strut

humming along with the riffs

that punctuated “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

 

This was after Seoul and before Saigon.

Coke was sitll a carbonated drink

we added rum to.  There was French wine

but someone had mispalced the curlicue

 

and a not-yet famous novelist

magicked the cork out on the hinge

of the back door to “Sunrise Serenade”

and dance was the dark enabler.

 

Lights off a long minute at midnight

(squeals and false moans) madcap Anne

long dead now and Jack snowily

balding who led the drive to halt the bomb

 

and I alone am saved to tell you

how they could jive.

 

              Maxine Kumin

Poem by de Moraes, translation below

Poema de Natal/ Christmas Poem

Para isso fomos feitos:
Para lembrar e ser lembrados,
Para chorar e fazer chorar,
Para enterrar os ossos mortos–
Por isso temos bracos longos para os adeuses,
Maos para colher o que foi dado,
Dedos para cavar a terra.

Assim sera nossa vida;
Uma tarde sempre a esquecer,
Uma estrela a se apargar na treva,
Um caminoho entre dois tumulos–
Por isso precisamos velar,
Falar baixo, pisar leve, ver
A noite dormir em silencio.

Nao ha muito que dizer:
Uma cancao sobre um berco,
Um verso, talvez, de amor,
Uma prece por quem se vai–
Mas que essa hora nao esquecaE
E que por ela os nosses coracoes
Se deixem, graves e simples.

Pois para isso fomos feitos:
Para a esperanca no milagare,
Para a participacao de poesia,
Para ver a face da morte–
De repente, nunca mais esperaremos…
Hoje a noitre e jovem; da morte apenas
Nascemos, imensamente.

Vinicius de Moraes, born in Brazil 1913

Christmas Poem

For this we were created:
To recall and to be recalled
To weep and to cause to weep
To bury our dead–
Therefore our long arms for farewells
Hands to gather what was given
Fingers to dig in the earth.

So this will be our life;
Always an afternoon to forget,
A star ending in darkenss
A roadway between two tombs–
Therefore we need to watch,
To speak low, to tread softly, to see
Night sleeping in slience.

There is not much to say:
A song about a cradle
A verse, perhaps of love
A prayer for one going away–
But do not forget this hour
And by it may our hearts
Be left, sober and innocent.

Then for this we were created:
For hope in the miracle
For sharing in poetry
For seeing the face of death–
Suddenly no more shall we wait…
Today the night is young; from death
We are born, immensely.

Translated from the Portuguese by Ashley Brown

“The Cities Inside Us” by Alberto Rios

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15231

“Bedtime Story”

Bedtime Story

 

The moon lies on the river

like a drop of oil.

The children come to the banks to be healed

of their wounds and bruises.

The fathers who gave them their wounds and bruises

come to be healed of their rage.

The mothers grow lovely; their faces soften,

the birds in their throats awake.

They all stand hand in hand

and the trees around them,

forever on the verge

of becoming one of them,

stop shuddering and speak their first word.

 

But that is not the beginning.

It is the end of the story,

and before we come to the end,

the mothers and fathers and children

must find their way to the river,

separately, with no one to guide them.

That is the long, pitiless part,

and it will scare you.

 

                 Lisel Mueller

“My Friend Carla”

http://www.rickstan.com

“Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/txt/59.txt

“A Myth of Devotion” by Louise Gluck

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19144

“Eating Poetry”by Mark Strand

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20448

“Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15830

“Affirmation” by Donald Hall

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16269