frompoemsthativeread

[frompoemsthativeread]

Hi. This blog will no longer be maintained. I have made a cohost page for poetry and perhaps other literary things, but I haven't posted anything yet. If I post anywhere else, I will put it here. Enjoy poetry and love the queer people around you.

[frompoemsthativeread]

Grief is a nation of everyone, a country without borders.

-- Eric Gamalinda, from DMZ. Amigo Warfare (2007).

[frompoemsthativeread]

Amen Amen Amen. I call out God's good name in the midst of the first miracle--the black body. Look at him, at us. Were the mountains not named after some dark brotha's shoulderes? Didn't the wind learn its ways from watching two boys run the spine of a field? Bless the birch-colored body, always threatening to grow or burn. Bless the body that strikes fear in pale police. & wets the mouths of church girls & choir boys with want. Am I allowed to say I praised my pastor most without the robe?

-- Danez Smith, On Grace. From Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color (2018).

[frompoemsthativeread]

Today, the average high school student has the same anxiety levels as the average 1950s psychiatric patient. We know the Pythagorean theorem by heart, but short-circuit when anyone asks us, How are you? We don’t know. We don’t know. That wasn’t on the study guide.

We usually know the answer, but rarely know ourselves.

-- Blythe Baird, High School. From If My Body Could Speak (2019).

[frompoemsthativeread]

They say if you want to live, “most of your life will be waiting." At the door, like a dog.

-- Hua Xi, from Waiting. In The Margins.

[frompoemsthativeread]

For a poet who has a line of poetry engraved on his body, how strong must the wind be in order to purge it?

-Chen Can (陈灿), 多大一阵风才能刮走这一行诗 (How Strong Must the Wind Be to Purge this Line). From 21st Century Chinese Poetry. Tr. Meifu Wang and Guy Hibbert

[frompoemsthativeread]

I want this winter

inside my lungs. Inside my brain & dream.

- Chen Chen, Song of the Anti-Sisyphus. From When I Grow up I Want to Be a Further List of Possibilities (2017).

[frompoemsthativeread]

That’s the way the world works.

We forget each other.

Not all at once. But in

Short stretches. Fits and starts.

- Chris Blexrud, Trippin’. From Impostor: Geography. Vol. 2(2), July 2022.

[frompoemsthativeread]

I use my body to find love. I eat all the

wrong foods. I believe what I see

with my own two eyes. Fear

eats me. I have to look

for a job. I can sprint

faster than sound.

I burn forever,

I have no

end.

- Eric Gamalinda, abell2218. From amigo warfare: poems.

[frompoemsthativeread]

My favorite part

of drinking tea is forgetting

I ever made it.

- Chen Chen, Quintessence: the Quotidian. From wildness #30 (August 2022).

[frompoemsthativeread]

You keep your scissors in the knife drawer.

I keep mine with the string and tape.

- Sarah Kay, Scissors. From No Matter the Wreckage (2014).

[frompoemsthativeread]

It’s not that I didn’t love you before

it is just – there are some things which cannot be said

and some feelings which, if articulated too early

and forced towards the surface go blind

& it’s better to hold them off, or wait them out

& never say their name aloud until the pressure of what is unspoken

becomes impossible to hold back

and articulates itself within the body

like mice, running wild through a field of burning grass.

- Hera Lindsay Bird, I Knew I Loved You When You Showed Me Your Minecraft World.

[frompoemsthativeread]

It’s not that I didn’t love you before

it is just – there are some things which cannot be said

and some feelings which, if articulated too early

and forced towards the surface go blind

& it’s better to hold them off, or wait them out

& never say their name aloud until the pressure of what is unspoken

becomes impossible to hold back

and articulates itself within the body

like mice, running wild through a field of burning grass.

- Hera Lindsay Bird, I Knew I Loved You When You Showed Me Your Minecraft World.

[frompoemsthativeread]

And there’s nothing to do but see

The sun go down into the ground

That cradles us as any coffin can.

- Jericho Brown, Another Elegy.

[frompoemsthativeread]

Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign

or are you foreign to everything you love?

We’re all animals and the body wants what

it wants, trust me, I know.

- Warsan Shire, Midnight in the Foreign food Aisle. From Bless the Daughter Raised by the Voices in Her Head (2022).

[frompoemsthativeread]

I know

the heart loves him too, can’t

turn away, can’t

break the spell.

- Mary Oliver, Members of the Tribe. From Dream Work (1986).

[frompoemsthativeread]

There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages,

I’m bleeding, I’m not just making conversation.

- Richard Siken, Wishbone. From Crush (2005).