Michael Simms: The Crows
We barely recognized ourselves
But the crows knew
Who we were and where we’d been
Why we returned
Michael Simms: Jubilate
Now I shall praise our dog Josie
the bodhisattva of our household
the perfect embodiment
of devotion, always present
in spontaneous awe
Nidia Hernández: Río Turbio translated by Rowena Hill
I stopped in front of
the silence of all that distance
of my country being erased
Michael Daley: Upbeat Hardwired Blameless
Let’s always come back to this room.
For what it’s worth, as the place where
windows open onto a world we think of
as our own
Tony Gloeggler: Fade Away
In 1964, my father and uncle
loaded the U HAUL and we left
Bed Stuy with all the other white
people and moved to Long Island.
Michael Simms: Sun Star
After churning all night
I wake to see the sun star
In the window, its perfect
Blossoms full of light
Dawn Potter: Arcadia, 1939
warmth of bread baking, a cardinal alight in a branching
oak, white bed, linens floating in air, a table
laid in an arbor’s shade—
Carol Frost: Now Soon
Father and mother time to rise up put away the dark
give back to him more than he can ever use give what is
not his to have what he never knew he knows and all he feels
Pauletta Hansel: The Road
There’s only past throwing
its shadow on the lane that sends you back
toward what is gone. Your eyes will soon adjust.
Warsan Shire: Home
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
Video: Warsan Shire — Young Poet Laureate for London 2013-14
In her personal London Story, the latest of her commissions as part of her role as Young Poet Laureate for London, Warsan Shire uses the city as the backdrop for an exploration of her feelings of falling in love.
