This is what we hope for all of us who have been through the pain of loss—that one day we'll be able to look at our lives with the contentment of the grandmother in her garden, that we'll be able to ask ourselves, “How did this happen?” and answer, “Well that's who I wanted to be.”
Sadie's Poem
Eenie, meenie, minie, moe,
There's a fire in my toe.
Grab your butt and don't let go!
SADIE LISK HIGHSMITH
To a Poor Old Woman
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
Filling Station
Oh, but it is dirty!
—this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color—
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO—SO—SO—SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
JAMES WRIGHT
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
The Pope's Penis
It hangs deep in his
robes, a delicate clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish
in a halo of silver seaweed, the hair swaying in
the dark and the heat—and at night,
while his eyes sleep, it stands up in praise of God.
SHARON OLDS
Immigrant Picnic
It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.
And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped
like the state of Pennsylvania.
I ask my father what's his pleasure
and he says, “Hot dog, medium rare,”
and then, “Hamburger, sure,
what's the big difference,”
as if he's really asking.
I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins
are fluttering away like lost messages.
“You're running around,” my mother says,
“like a chicken with its head loose.”
“Ma,” I say, “you mean cut off,
loose and cut off being as far apart
as, say, son and daughter.”
She gives me a quizzical look as though
I've been caught in some impropriety.
“I love you and your sister just the same,” she says.
“Sure,” my grandmother pipes in,
“you're both our children, so why worry?”
That's not the point I begin telling them,
and I'm comparing words to fish now,
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.
“Sonia,” my father says to my mother,
“what the hell is he talking about?”
“He's on a ball,” my mother says.
“That's roll!” I say, throwing up my hands,
“as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll.…”
“And what about roll out the barrels?” my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, “Why sure,” he says,
“let's have some fun,” and launches
into a polka, twirling my mother
around and around like the happiest top,
and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
“You could grow nuts listening to us,”
and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,
wordless, confusing,
crowding out everything else.
GREGORY DJANIKIAN
We Take Our Children to Ireland
What will they remember best? The barbed wire
still looped around the Belfast airport,
but those were fleeting, car window sights,
more likely the turf fires lit each night,
the cups of te
a their father brought
and the buttered soda farls, the sea wall
where they leaped shrieking into the Irish Sea
and emerged, purpling, to applause;
perhaps the green castle at Carrickfergus,
but more likely the candy store
with its alien crisps—vinegar? they ask,
prawn cocktail? Worcestershire leek?
More certainly still the sleekly syllabled
odd new words, gleet and shite,
and grand responses to everyday events:
How was your breakfast? Brilliant.
How's your crust? Gorgeous.
Everything after that was gorgeous,
brilliant. How's your gleeted shite?
And the polite indictment from parents
everywhere, the nicely dressed matrons
pushing prams, brushing away their older kids
with a Fuck off, will ye? Which stopped
our children cold. Is the water cold,
they asked Damian, before they dared it.
No, he said, it's not cold, it's
fooking cold, ye idjits.
And the mundane hyperbole of rebuke—
you little puke, I'll tear your arm off
and beat you with it, I'll row you out to sea
and drop you, I'll bury you in sand
and top you off with rocks—
to which the toddler would contentedly nod
and continue to drill his shovel
into the sill. All this will play on
long past the fisherman's cottage and farmer's
slurry, the tall hedgerows lining the narrow
drive up the coast, the most beautiful
of Irish landscapes indelibly fixed
in the smeared face of two-year-old Jack—
Would you look at that, his father said
to Ben and Zach, shite everywhere, brilliant.
Gorgeous, they replied. And meant it.
LYNNE MCMOHAN
Emily Dickinson and
Elivis Presely in Heaven
They call each other E. Elvis picks
wildflowers near the river and brings
them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.
In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports
Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.
Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers
and T-shirts, a letterman's jacket from Tupelo High.
They take long walks and often hold hands.
She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.
Emily's poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,
Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard
Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.
Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon
he will play guitar and sing “I Taste a Liquor
Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.”
Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone
in their cabins later, they'll listen to the river
and nap. They will not think of Amherst
or Las Vegas. They know why God made them
roommates. It's because America
was their hometown. It's because
God is a thing
without feathers. It's because
God wears blue suede shoes.
HANS OSTROM
Sister Lou
Honey
When de man
Calls out de las’ train
You're gonna ride,
Tell him howdy.
Gather up yo’ basket
An’ yo’ knittin’ an’ yo’ things,
An’ go on up an’ visit
Wid frien’ Jesus fo’ a spell.
Show Marfa
How to make yo’ greengrape jellies,
An’ give po’ Lazarus
Scald some meal
Fo’ some rightdown good spoonbread
Fo’ li'l box-plunkin’ David.
An’ sit aroun’
An’ tell them Hebrew Chillen
All yo’ stories.…
Honey
Don't be feared of them pearly gates,
Don't go ‘round to de back,
No mo’ dataway
Not evah no mo’.
Let Michael tote yo’ burden
An’ yo’ pocketbook an’ evah thing
‘Cept yo’ Bible,
While Gabriel blows somp'n
Solemn but loudsome
On dat horn of his'n.
Honey
Go Straight on to de Big House,
An’ speak to yo’ God
Widout no fear an’ tremblin’.
Then sit down
An’ pass de time of day awhile.
Give a good talkin’ to
To yo’ favorite ‘postle Peter,
An’ rub the po’ head
Of mixed-up Judas,
An’ joke awhile wid Jonah.
Then, when you gits de chance,
Always rememberin’ yo’ raisin’,
Let ‘em know youse tired
Jest a mite tired.
Jesus will find yo’ bed fo’ you
Won't no servant evah bother wid yo’ room.
Jesus will lead you
To a room wid windows
Openin’ on cherry trees an’ plum trees
Bloomin’ everlastin’.
An’ dat will be yours
Fo’ keeps.
Den take yo’ time.…
Honey, take yo’ blessed time.
STERLING A BROWN
Here
Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face
how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be
at last a woman
in the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt grandchild sliding
on off my lap a pleasant
summer perspiration
that's my old man across the yard
he's talking to the meter reader
he's telling him the world's sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa ask him
to sit beside me for a minute I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips
GRACE PALEY
Afterword
So you've figured out to kiss off the “everything everything everything” that kept you from being your true self. Now you're kissing the sky and the ground and the entire beautiful world because you've found your mojo again, you've learned to be happy. Still, don't be shocked if the old you, Ms. I'm All Alone and Hating It rears her miserable head. Like on a glorious fall day, when you're driving through the park with the radio on and the sun roof open—and suddenly a gargantuan SUV bears down on your tail and you feel that familiar surge of righteous rage. How dare this soccer mom with her car full of snot-nosed yuppie kids try to run you off the road? You have a right to be here too, even if it is just you and your Saturn on the way to get your hair highlighted. Why do you have to get out of her way, Ms. I've Got Everything You. Ever Wanted and Then Some? But you do, and as she speeds past, you flip her off, feel like a jerk, and find yourself back in a funk.
If it comes to that, then pick up this book. Find a poem to match that moment of fury and frustration, like Ethridge Knight's “Feeling Fucked Up.” Go ahead and think, “Fuck music and clouds drifting in the sky…fuck/the whole mothafucking thing.” And then remember to take a look at Stephen Crane's poem “The Heart.” If you keep flipping off poor harried moms and their kids, it really will just be you and your highlights alone in your Saturn eating your bitter heart out. You know that's not who you want to be. You want to be the fulfilled grandmother with her �
�nicely mapped face,” laughing in her garden in Grace Paley's poem “Here.”
Obviously, just because you've found yourself and a sense of happiness again doesn't mean that you won't still experience moments and days of Hurting. No one can find an absolutely perfect way to live in this world—heartache and loss can always sneak up on us. And the stages that we describe in Kiss Off aren't absolutely perfect either. If you read all of these poems straight through, you won't necessarily be healed for life. Just because you've made it to Believing doesn't mean you won't find yourself Reeling again someday.
But this time around you'll have the Kiss Off poems to keep you company, offer empathy, and cheer you on. Let “Sadie's Poem” get you fired up; laugh your way to a fresh perspective with “The Pope's Penis” remember the glorious brilliance of grand responses to everyday events described in “We Take Our Children to Ireland.”
We hope you take these poems to heart and use them as a source of strength and inspiration. They'll help you recognize what you're feeling and remind you of who you want to be—a true believer in herself, in life, and in love.
Biographies of
Contributors
ANNA AKHMATOVA (1889–1966): Russian lyric poet whose work includes Evening, Rosary, and White Flock. She achieved great popular success in Russia for her work.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER (1962– ): Her collections of poems include Antebellum Dream Book and Body of Life. She has taught in many universities in the United States.
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880–1918): He settled in Paris in 1898 where he worked as a journalist, playwright, and poet.
ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911–1979): Highly regarded American poet who won every major poetry award in the United States including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, she served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1966 until 1979.
STERLING A. BROWN (1901–1989): An influential American poet, he taught at Howard University. His first collection was Southern Road.
LUCILLE CLIFTON (1936– ): Mentored by Sterling Brown at Howard University, she worked as an actor while writing poetry. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1980 and won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2001 for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988–2000.
JOHNNY COLEY (1950– ): He was born in Alexander City, Alabama, and has published three chapbooks of poetry, Good Luck, No, and Peasant Attitudes towards Art.
BILLY COLLINS (1941– ): According to the New York Times, Collins is currently the “most popular poet in America.” He is currently the Poet Laureate of the United States.