1476: "Teach Us to Number Our Days" | Rita Dove
“'Teach Us to Number Our Days'”
Rita Dove
In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.
Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams
he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut.
And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans.
August. The mums nod past, each a prickly heart on a sleeve.
On this day in...
2011: "Celestial Music" by Louise Glück
2010: "And Sometimes I Sit" by Nikki Giovanni
2009: "Mourning" by Nora Alleyn
2008: Weekend, no poem
Dearest readers, are there any poets or poems you'd like to see on exceptindreams? I'm particularly interested in expanding the representation of poets of color, LGBTQ poets, non-native English speakers, international poets, poets with disabilities, poets with mental or physical illness, and poets of different or no faith traditions. It was brought to my attention that perhaps I should work some more on that, and so here I am, soliciting feedback from you. This is a community of poetry-lovers, not just a journal for poetry I find intriguing/beautiful/true/curious, and while I only will post poetry I find intriguing/beautiful/true/curious, I want that poetry to include poems by poets representative of the diversity of the exceptindreams community. So, please comment/e-mail/message me with suggestions of poets, poems, backgrounds, resources, or anything at all. Thank you all, again, for everything. You make exceptindreams a joy for me.
By then it was summer:/Blondie on the car radio, Fourth of/July, craving fireworks.
Rita Dove
In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.
Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams
he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut.
And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans.
August. The mums nod past, each a prickly heart on a sleeve.
On this day in...
2011: "Celestial Music" by Louise Glück
2010: "And Sometimes I Sit" by Nikki Giovanni
2009: "Mourning" by Nora Alleyn
2008: Weekend, no poem
Dearest readers, are there any poets or poems you'd like to see on exceptindreams? I'm particularly interested in expanding the representation of poets of color, LGBTQ poets, non-native English speakers, international poets, poets with disabilities, poets with mental or physical illness, and poets of different or no faith traditions. It was brought to my attention that perhaps I should work some more on that, and so here I am, soliciting feedback from you. This is a community of poetry-lovers, not just a journal for poetry I find intriguing/beautiful/true/curious, and while I only will post poetry I find intriguing/beautiful/true/curious, I want that poetry to include poems by poets representative of the diversity of the exceptindreams community. So, please comment/e-mail/message me with suggestions of poets, poems, backgrounds, resources, or anything at all. Thank you all, again, for everything. You make exceptindreams a joy for me.
By then it was summer:/Blondie on the car radio, Fourth of/July, craving fireworks.