Not This
OLENA KALYTIAK DAVIS
 
my god all the days we have lived thru
saying
 
not this
one, not this,
not now,
not yet, this week
doesn’t count, was lost, this month
was shit, what a year, it sucked,
it flew, that decade was for
what? i raised my kids, they
grew i lost two pasts–i am
not made of them and they
are through.
 
we forget what
we remember:
 
each of the five
the fevered few
 
days we used to
fall in love.

A Toast
ILYA KAMINSKY
 
To your voice, a mysterious virtue,
to the 53 bones of one foot, the four dimensions of breathing, 
 
to pine, redwood, sworn-fern, peppermint, 
to hyacinth and bluebell lily, 
 
to the train conductor’s donkey on a rope,
to smells of lemons, a boy pissing splendidly against the trees. 
 
Bless each thing on earth until it sickens, 
until each ungovernable heart admits: “I confused myself  
 
and yet I loved—and what I loved 
I forgot, what I forgot brought glory to my travels, 
 
to you I traveled as close as I dared, Lord.”

SOURCE: Poets.org 

When Giving Is All We Have
ALBERTO RÍOS
                                              One river gives
                                              Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it--

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

​Source: Poets.org

This Danish concept (pronounced hoo-gah) is adopted worldwide, I think especially in climates that presuppose the need for frequent warming and cozying! Louisa Thomsen Brits, the author of The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection, calls it “a practical way of creating sanctuary in the middle of very real life.”  This New Yorker article claims winter as the most Hygge time of year: "Hygge can be found in a bakery and in the dry heat of a sauna in winter, surrounded by your naked neighbors. It’s wholesome and nourishing, like porridge; Danish doctors recommend tea and hygge as a cure for the common cold. It’s possible to hygge alone, wrapped in a flannel blanket with a cup of tea, but the true expression of hygge is joining with loved ones in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. ​" 

​And THAT'S how today's first poetry writing prompts originated.  Check out the mentor poem before writing to the prompts.

Neighbours: The Night The Lights Went Out
ANGI HOLDEN

She took a small canvas bag
from the cupboard under the sink,
filled it with an assortment of nightlights –
vanilla, blueberry, winter spice –
added a couple of dumpy glass holders,
a box of matches, a bar of chocolate.
The house on the corner was in darkness,
the knock on the door answered
with a tentative ‘Who’s there?’
Years later, they laughed about the tea,
the water boiled in a pan on the gas ring;
the shortbread eaten straight from a tin
intended as a Christmas gift;
the chocolate eaten square by square;
the shimmering candle flames
shining light into the darkest corners.
​
SOURCE: Poets' Corner

The Death of Santa Claus
CHARLES HARPER WEBB

He's had the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,
 
he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap
 
open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he loves goes black,

and he drops on his jelly belly
in the snow and Mrs. Claus
tears out of the toy factory
 
wailing, and the elves wring
their little hands, and Rudolph's
nose blinks like a sad ambulance
 
light, and in a tract house
in Houston, Texas, I'm 8,
telling my mom that stupid
 
kids at school say Santa's a big
fake, and she sits with me
on our purple-flowered couch,
 
and takes my hand, tears
in her throat, the terrible
news rising in her eyes.​

SOURCE: Library of Congress

How many Hygge points?

A Wicker Basket
ROBERT CREELEY

Comes the time when it’s later
and onto your table the headwaiter   
puts the bill, and very soon after
rings out the sound of lively laughter--

Picking up change, hands like a walrus,   
and a face like a barndoor’s,
and a head without any apparent size,   
nothing but two eyes--

So that’s you, man,
or me. I make it as I can,   
I pick up, I go
faster than they know--

Out the door, the street like a night,   
any night, and no one in sight,   
but then, well, there she is,
old friend Liz--

And she opens the door of her cadillac,   
I step in back,
and we’re gone.
She turns me on--

There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,
and from somewhere very far off someone hands me a slice of apple pie,
with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,   
and I eat it--

Slowly. And while certainly
they are laughing at me, and all around me is racket   
of these cats not making it, I make it

in my wicker basket.
​

Howl
EILEEN MYLES                        

​a refrigerator
makes a lot
of sound
so does a bird
people are
always talking
full of love
& pain
we started
a fund
and the dogs 
are needing
some money &
I don’t know
how to do
it & I’ll
learn from
one of them
Tom’s blue
shirt & glasses
are perfect.
My teeshirt
is good
my pen
works
I breathe.

Copyright © 2020 by Eileen Myles. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 3, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

This lovely, quiet, nuanced reading of Lerman's poem is a real treat.  I recommend using earbuds to pick up the soft voice of the young reader.  Click the image or the link above.  PoetryBones has also worked with this poem last year! Check out the session materials here, including a meditative video on real starfish in the channel and Lerman's own reading of the poem in the middle of an interview.
​

Starfish
ELEANOR LERMAN                        

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to 
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a 
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have 
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman 
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night, 
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological 
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old 
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it 
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the 
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you 
were born at a good time. Because you were able 
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And 
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland, 
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel, 
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.
 
From Our Post Soviet History Unfolds by Eleanor Lerman, published by Sarabande Books. Copyright © 2005 by Eleanor Lerman. 
Source: https://poets.org/poem/starfish

Life lets you have a sandwich, and pie
What does life allow you to do. . . .
Settle for lucky
Because you are lucky. Not smart or brave
Are you old enough to appreciate it? Too     
     old?
You listened, stopped and started again
The far and boundless sea; smiles on their
​     starry faces

That love, unconditional who
     waited for you
pie for the dog
there might be nothing at all going
     on
Who waited for you w/o condition
There are starfish in the channel
Is this a message?
Born at a good time

Early Night
ALAN SOLDOFSKY

In early December
           singing under the hedge
of verbena beside the porch.

What lies the sun tells
          of a few leaves stripped of their color,
parenthesis of rust on the hinges of the car door.

High wisps of clouds
          lit up by something
that has fallen.

The edge of a storm front
          faintly coming, a change in the smell
of the air, a quiver in the wind.

The incipient darkness, smooth as licorice.
          The only light in the house
the one in the closet that’s been left on.

The house quiet except for
          the gnawing in the attic.
The sound of a sound

that can barely hold the weight
          of being heard, a remnant
that ripples down the hallway

into the room where
          you slept. Your books still
dozing on the shelves waiting for you

to open them, or whatever
          it is you will do
when you get back to what you left.

Source: Rattle (Rattle #31, Summer 2009)

​