Tag: Pocket Poems

Poem-A-Day April 29: Grocery List Poems

Hello Friends,
Today’s poem by Rhiannon McGavin appears in her 2021 collection Grocery List Poems. McGavin uses slant rhymes in this sonnet, like “loves” and “carves” or “driver’s” and “stranger’s.”
Enjoy.
Ællen

Manifesto in an unknown language

No, I couldn’t sleep, I’m building my loves
from the smell of rain and the bus driver’s
soft wave when I’m broke, from a sea that carves
cracked bottles into gems, and a stranger’s
laugh runs a vein of silver through the night,
a love cut from the dark when a kissing
scene fades on a film screen. Say the last time
someone touches me with a tender feeling
and I’ll eat the clock. Name the next time, win
all the lucky pennies I’ve thrown away
waiting for that love like a nasturtium,
the petals with their birthday candle flame,
hot and sweet. The kind of love in my steps
where empty rooms are only rooms you’ve left.

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Poem-A-Day April 28: Thank You

Thank You

If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.

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Today’s poem by Ross Gay appears in his 2006 collection Against Which.

Poem-A-Day April 10: Enough Music

Enough Music

Sometimes, when we’re on a long drive,
and we’ve talked enough and listened
to enough music and stopped twice,
once to eat, once to see the view,
we fall into this rhythm of silence.
It swings back and forth between us
like a rope over a lake.
Maybe it’s what we don’t say
that saves us.

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“Enough Music” appears in poet Dorianne Laux’s 1994 collection What We Carry.

Poem-A-Day April 23: A Blank White Page

A Blank White Page

is a meadow
after a snowfall
that a poem
hopes to cross

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Hello Friends,

Today’s poem appears in poet Francisco X. Alarcón’s 2001 collection Iguanas in the Snow and Other Winter Poems. For other blank page poems, see “The Thought-Fox” by Ted Hughes and “How the mind works still to be sure” by Jennifer Denrow.

I hope you’re enjoying poetry month!

— Ællen

Poem-A-Day April 9: Robyn Hood

Hello Friends,
This poem came to my attention when a woman on Instagram posted it graffitied on a bathroom stall. There are few compliments higher than having your poem graffitied, so I figured it was one worth sharing with you.
Enjoy.
Ællen



Robyn Hood

Imagine if we took back our diets,
our grand delusions, the time spent
thinking about the curve of our form.
Imagine if we took back every time we
called attention to one or the other: her
body, our body, the bad shape of things.

Imagine the minutes that would stretch
into hours. Day after day stolen back like
a thief.

Imagine the power of loose arms and
assurance. The years welcomed home
in a soft, cotton dress.

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“Robyn Hood” appears in poet Kate Baer’s 2020 collection What Kind of Woman.