Join us every Monday evening for drinks at the Daily Kos community political poetry club. Drop by and speak your mind in rhyme or blank verse. Poetry is always welcome in the comments. Let’s use language to scream our passion to the world. Bongos, berets and turtle neck sweaters are optional. The keypad is mightier than the sword.
Epic. We do indeed live in interesting times.
We Can’t Go Home (August 2011)
Because things have changed... This poem was written as a ballad filled with repeating patterns. I began writing it in July for my HEAT diary in early August (see IK archives), but it wasn’t finished in time.
We Can’t Go Home
Water towers steaming up on summer rooftops
chemicals drifting, too caustic to breathe
it would take just one tropical storm with the nerve
to render the gates of the Narrows obsolete
the deluge in tunnels and the flooded subways
inundated islands underneath the concrete
Starlings sing about feasting on sour grapes
from the rusted salt breeze of the fire escape
critical contingencies wrapped up in red tape
I’ve been out-priced from my own hometown
since my whole life became second-hand
if I could I would go home
but the sun has other plans
New Mexico will always tug at my heart
I’ve lived there twice upon a time
between the cliffs and the foolish lawns betraying
that delicately balanced dry paradise
fires burn through the portals of ancient caves
cracking soil like pottery beneath the orange pines
The southwestern desert howls a coyote song
and the crows fly away from where they belong
watch the wind collect dust in a way that is wrong
This old water table is losing its legs
there beneath the drying cottonwood stands
if we could we would go home
but the drought has other plans
From the palm-lined boulevards of art deco beaches
to the storm-ravaged shores of the Gulf Coast
hurricanes named through to the alpha betas
salt water slaying the fresh water ghosts
swamps on fire from insufficient rainfall
while too many pretend to be comatose
The soothing lapping of pure azure waves
gives way to a rust-colored oil-soaked malaise
waiting perched on the horizon in the distant haze
Dear friends are in their element here
bare feet basking in sweet southern sands
if they could they would go home
but the storms have other plans
Tundra thawing in the far northwest
villages fading with the permafrost
while a rising ocean floods the Bangladeshi delta
where fertile farmland is beginning to be lost
and the dehydrated Horn of Africa
deep hunger comes with such a terrible cost
The worst kind of silence tolls a bell
these early disasters have their way to foretell
unlimited rides on this scary carousel
A flood of desiccation suffocating populations
disintegration triggering this unsteady avalanche
if they could they would go home
but the heat has other plans
Situated at the edge of a precipice
our fortunes unfolding in the oceanic gyre
how did we get to this place in time
with the cycles we know about to expire
ten millennium or so of our ancestors’ weather
peculiar ash upon an ominous pyre
the swans of antiquity are now singing
while the chorus of warning bells is ringing
they only hint at what the future is bringing
it’s almost too late to mitigate
for this planet on which we are crammed
if we could we would go home
but the climate has other plans
©2011, Alexandria Levin
—
The Birthday Party (Fall 1987)
I wrote this for my 30th birthday. It is a poem about discovering one’s past, my father’s untimely death, being in one’s twenties during the Reagan years, and ultimately, it is about survival.
The Birthday Party
Light a candle
the one inside the pumpkin
and set the room ablaze
among the earliest memories
pulled out from the ashes
of the following morning
the crib was charred
like hamburger meat
the toys had all melted
Out of love
and in protection
they never told us anything
until recently
a history in hiding
the portrait of the new world
in black and white and gray
mostly smiling faces
posed among the ammunition
Other pictures, pencil scratches
Polish words and Hebrew letters
looking so much like home
yet so foreign
like another horror story
that happened to someone else
the fires of their own countrymen
who torched the apartment building
of Grandma’s family
In August we found her papers
steerage to America
right before the gates slammed shut
a sigh on the Lower East Side
bathtub in the kitchen
toilet down the hall
the orphanage
the Depression
this is nothing
A cantor in the New Mexico sun
singing coyote songs
over seven years ago
the hole in the desert floor
we shovel little bits of dirt
and nearly fall in
Mom’s face frozen staring
as she rips at the clothing
that she will never wear again
We thought the world would end
not too long after that
other countries, expatriation
when they reinstated registration
and spoke of women
and the draft
turn the clocks all backwards
while we hurtle towards bad fiction
on file as the future
The tightrope breaks at one end
and drops into a crowd
of carnivorous marketeers
mass events and trends
mob psychology
and the poisoned well
intentionally misrepresented
as they watch the millions crawl
to the sound of a rhythmic ticking
Incinerate the notion of forever
this planet is dying
This fragility
is nearly breaking me
and the struggle
can be so thoroughly exhausting
go down screaming bloody anger
then collapsing in retreat
and spit up something sticky
white and gauzy
the ninth veil of the netherworld
A butterfly pinned
to a sheet of wax paper
rips its skin
and tears away from its body
to set itself free
Sometimes I step outside myself
disconnecting time and place
last week I dreamed I died again
but I survive like crazy
from the days when the caterpillars
were swinging from the trees
and the fireflies sent searchlights
tiny beacons from inside bottles
up to this solitary night
I will always scream and fight
with love and with my anger
in support of strangers
and for my friends
I run slow around the circle
hands cupped to touch each face
my mother, father and my brother
and all the families
and all the loved ones
we are here once again
flowering like the century plant
to this we dance
at the birthday party
©1987, Alexandria Levin
—
Flood (September 2011)
Written in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.
Flood
Sixty-six major disasters
so far this year
says the man on channel ten
acrid smoke still billowing
from that marsh fire
down in East New Orleans
Sixty-six soldiers dead
in Afghanistan
just this month alone
towering cranes in whipping winds
down at the southern end of Manhattan
unhappy tenth anniversary
There is no ground high enough
when water pours like liquid caramel
cold and opaque
this muddy infusion
this restless angry soup
rivers swallowing bridges whole
spitting up splinters
drowning small towns
overflowing babbling brooks
screaming for all they’re worth
in such a rush to get someplace else
knowing this deluge doesn’t belong here
not like this
Water is life
water is death
If I possessed some kind of
benevolent omnipresence
I would scoop up all this wild water
and gently pour it into the headwaters
of struggling southwestern rivers
dampen the brush fires
wherever they burn
quench the thirst of dessicated ground
and dehydrated souls
©2011, Alexandria Levin