8th February 12
My name is Wendy.
I’m at college.
I want to write.
That’s all I want to do
My Dad loves that I’m a great shot with a gun
He also loves that I write
He loves that I’m at college
He wants me to be a writer
My sister is a lawyer
She went to college
She was Cadet Commander
of the ROTC
My Dad loves that
He loves that she’s a lawyer
Someday
We’re both going to have babies
My sister and I
And we’ll love them like our father loves us
And our Daddy will love that
But she won’t stop being a lawyer
And I won’t stop being a writer
And my Daddy will love that too
See, my Daddy didn’t come from money
He’s a small business owner
He was told growing up
That he’d never succeed
But he didn’t listen
He went to college
He joined the army
Both my parents did
He got his MBA
He’s a small business owner now
He makes a great living now
He’s in the top 1%
He works hard
He always has
But you know what?
When he and my mother
had their first baby
My mom worked
And my Dad stayed home
And he cared for my sister
He loved that
It was those years
With their first baby
That mom worked
And Dad stayed home
And went to school
And because of those years
My Dad could start his business
And he and my Mom did all that
So I could go to college and write
So my sister could go to college
And work the courts
Because they wanted us to live the lives we want
Because they wanted me to be a writer
And her to be a lawyer
What about you, Senator?
Are your daughters going to college?
Do you like that?
Are you happy about that?
Will you be proud?
How will you react
If one becomes
Cadet Commander of the ROTC?
Or becomes a writer?
Or a lawyer?
Or a Doctor?
Or a physicist?
Or a Senator?
And what if they have babies
And still want to work?
Will you like that?
What if one of them doesn’t have babies?
How will you feel?
So are they going to college?
What do you want them to do after?
Do you want them to live the lives they want?
Or are you too afraid of what that will mean?
Because some of them
Might turn out to be radicals
And kiss their babies good-bye
So they can go out
And work
So that their babies can live the lives they want
That’s what I’m going to do
Otherwise, what’s the point
Of being an American
Or of being a parent?
If you can’t go out
And work so your baby
Can live the life they want
8th June 11
Radical feminism did not push me out of the kitchen.
I never left the kitchen,
except for school, and work, and love.
But I remain in the kitchen,
twirling on the tile in my socks,
tasting home-baked cookies straight out of the oven.
I choose to be in the kitchen,
and you can’t lock me in.
It was not radical feminism that led me into the world;
rather, it was having a mind.
It was standing tall in a town of hunched backs
under the pressure of oppressive “morals,”
the same morals you claim would dissolve
if ever a couple of boys could hold hands without fear.
You would exult in my return to the domicile,
in my evacuation of the public sphere,
in the tightening of my legs and the loosening of my hairbands.
But I will loosen the apron strings instead.
You will tell young women my age
that ever leaving home after having a child
(the child you forced upon us)
is tantamount to abuse, to neglect,
while at the same time you would praise Palin
for being a strong role model.
Real women, you’d say,
bake.
Real women, you’d say,
have children.
Real women, you’d say,
pour over the advertisements for vacuum cleaners.
Real women, you’d never realize,
are no different from real men.
-http://divinityphotography.tumblr.com/
26th May 11
From Politico:
Rick Santorum will formally launch his presidential campaign on June 6 in Pennsylvania, POLITICO has learned.
Poems for Santorum will continue to accept and post poetry throughout his campaign. As before, poems can be sent to us either via the “Submit” option on Tumblr or they can be e-mailed to poemsforsantorum at gmail dot com. They will be posted to the blog starting June 6th.
11th May 11
Seems Like Conservatives in General Just Don't Like Poetry
Sarah Palin and Fox News have based their latest quarrel with the Obamas on the most absurd of topics—Michelle Obama’s White House “Poetry Night.” The First Lady’s decision to invite rapper Common to the semi-annual event really irritated Sarah Palin and her merry band of conservative followers, who displayed their knack for clever wordplay by calling him a “common thug.” Yesterday Fox News threw out the word “vile,” and last night Sean Hannity chimed in on the blindly narrow-minded debate.
“This is not the guy that you invite to the White House for a poetry reading. This is not the guy we want our kids to listen to,” Hannity said during the two segments he devoted to the “issue,” adding that President Obama, “goes back to his radical roots again and again and again: Ayers, Wright, Pflager.”
The basis of this attack against the Chicago emcee—a noted poet, humanitarian, and “conscious” rapper, if you will—was falsely interpreting a 2007 rhyme into a literal threat to “burn” President Bush and kill the police. With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?/Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button/Killing over oil and grease/no weapons of destruction/How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one.”
A quick scan of the line, in context, pretty much sums up the silliness of the attack on Common, who’s easily one of the most peaceful and forward-thinking rappers around. No mention was made of his progressive lyrics on tracks like “The People” or of his recent, successful poetry series for HBO.
10th May 11
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!
-Langston Hughes
10th May 11
I read Atlas Shrugged the same year I had sex with a girl for the first time.
I never apologized to her for the awful oral sex I’m sure I gave,
for how I disappeared after she told me again and again and again
that she liked boys, too. I never thanked her for being the reason
my high school boyfriend broke up with me, for being the one to marry him
almost ten years later instead. But that is not what this poem is about, Rick.
This poem is for you, oh Senator of my youth, you who replaced
the eyes in my head made dumb with 1,200 pages
of train tracks and radio speeches.
If all magic is witchcraft to you, dear Rick, then I think you must be a witch.
It is only through magic that you could have known where my thoughts lay,
where my fingers drifted, what my tongue would taste,
how I would love the soft yield of another girl’s mouth beneath mine.
Oh Rick, how should I thank you for all the light you let into my head,
for offering up your tearful daughters, for running everywhere
backward, full-tilt? I know you never meant to help me, to snatch
me away from any precipice, but isn’t that
what truly makes a hero in the end?
I know that everyone wants to talk about your Google problem,
where your daughters went to school. Not I, Rick. I promise we will only speak
of love. You and I can clutch our dog-eared copies of The Virtue of Selfishness,
mine unread for twelve years, smelling of my parents’ basement because you,
Rick, have taught me all I need know of these things. You wrote upon my eyelids
the definitions of words I never wanted to know and when I kissed that girl,
it was not for that virtue, when I clutched her hips to mine,
when I finally learned the secrets
of the alphabet, of language.
-Margaret Bashaar
10th May 11
I am not a poet and this does not rhyme.
He is a fucking idiot.
-Roger Downing
10th May 11
Gays are not evil
Some have been wondrous people
Just like da Vinci.
- Josh Breece
10th May 11
RICK SANTORUM, FORMER US SENATOR, REVIEWS A REISSUE OF LEAVES OF GRASS BY WALT WHITMAN
First, I didn’t understand it
but one of my kids
who made the mistake of going
to one of these fancy liberal colleges
said there’s gay stuff in here
and I believe him
and that’s just wrong—
the gay stuff, I mean.
I mean, I knew poetry was for fags
but I didn’t know you had to be a fag
to write it, too.
Or maybe I did.
You want to read a good book?
Try The Bible.
That’s a good book,
and it says somewhere in there—
I don’t know where exactly—
that faggotry—and that’s my word,
I invented it right now—
faggotry is wrong.
I’m on record as saying two men
having sex isn’t any different
than a man porking a dog
and I stick by that.
My kid sent me this other review
from like a hundred or so years ago
and this guy said that this Whitman fellow
must have been “possessed of the soul
of a sentimental donkey that
had died of a disappointed love.”
I don’t understand that, exactly, either,
but I think it supports what I said before:
this book is by a homo, and two homos
having sex is no different than a man
boffing a dog and / or
kissing your brother on the fanny-hole.
As far as I’m concerned
Walt Whitman and his big gay soul
should have been imprisoned for treason.
Amen.
Now I’m going to run for something again real soon.
Mark my word.
Vote for me.
This reviewing books don’t pay shit.
If I keep it up
I might learn something
or catch me a real bad case
of the gay.
10th May 11
Correspondence with the Reverend
Question:
I have a problem with a friend, sir.
He loves men that way, you see,
and I suspect you don’t like ‘em like that.
You might think he would be better
like you and me—loving women,
squeezing them and whatnot.
But would he lose that confidence,
that ability to make us laugh until
we pee—excuse the image—
that colossal heart that shines
through the lens of a camera?
He took the best picture of me
anyone has ever taken, sir.
He could take your portrait
and show you who you really are.
Anyway, this seems like the sort of thing
you’re accustomed to dealing with.
Please let me know if I should send him
copies of Playboy, heavy metal MP3s,
DVDs of war movies, or anything else
that might sway him your way. Thanks.
Answer:
My Semite son, I know of this friend of yours.
I must turn to lost pages of the Scriptures
for my response to your relevant musings.
As you probably recall, the Lord rested
on the seventh day. But holy men like me
know that the Lord never completely rests.
On that seventh day, He pondered the future,
creating a few extra rays of sun on a whim.
Those rays held unconventional light
that the Lord didn’t know how to use.
He left it up to humans to figure that out.
Unpopular ideas grew underneath it.
Your friend was a slice of brilliance
yet to be discovered. He existed in nature,
finally born thousands of years later.
He changed, all right, when he assumed
human form. Changing him again
would provoke the wrath of God.
I tell you this truthful story so you can rest.
It is not for all, though. Destroy this letter
and erase it from memory. God bless you.
-Daniel M. Shapiro