Words That Burn

Dawning, by Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (1881-1958)

The sun gilds honey
on mauve and green fields
rock and vineyard, hills and plain.
Breezes make the blue flower
fresh and soft on livid stone walls.
There is no one now, or not yet,
in the enormous readied fields
which the lark decorates
with crystal wings
Here, there, open and deserted,
the red dazzling towns.

(trans. Willis Barnstone)

War II, by Angela Johnson (1961-)

My daddy had Vietnam dreams.

Nightmares that used

to rip him out of bed screaming

and running into the living room.

Helicopters machine-gunned

down on him, and he

used to yell that he couldn’t

get the blood off.

And near the end I didn’t even

wake up anymore.

I didn’t hear Mama saying,

“Baby, baby, baby.”

And I couldn’t hear him crying.

So at the end I was almost

deaf,

and the silence wrapped

me up warm.

And I didn’t know it,

but that war in the jungle

had followed my daddy all the way

to Shorter.

NOTE:

Shorter is the small town in Alabama where the narrator of the poem lives.

First Snowfall, by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,
The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-Father
Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered,
“The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her:
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.

The Prodigal Son’s Brother, by Steve Kowit (1938-)

who’d been steadfast as small change all his life
forgave the one who bounced back like a bad check
the moment his father told him he ought to.
After all, that’s what being good means.
In fact, it was he who hosted the party,
bought the crepes & champagne,
uncorked every bottle. With each drink
another toast to his brother: ex-swindler, hit-man
& rapist. By the end of the night
the entire village was blithering drunk
in an orgy of hugs & forgiveness,
while he himself,
whose one wish was to be loved as profusely,
slipped in & out of their houses,
stuffing into a satchel their brooches & rings
& bracelets & candelabra.
Then lit out at dawn with a light heart
for a port city he knew only by reputation:
ladies in lipstick hanging out of each window,
& every third door a saloon.

Onions, by William Matthews (1942-1997)

Song of the Stormtrooper, by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

From hunger I grew drowsy,
Dulled by my belly’s ache.
Then someone shouted in my ear,
Germany awake.

Then I saw many marching
Toward the Third Reich, they said.
Since I had naught to lose
I followed where they led.

And as I marched, there marched
Big Belly by my side.
When I shouted “Bread and jobs,”
“Bread and jobs” he cried.

The leader wore high boots,
I stumbled with wet feet
Yet all of us were marching
To the selfsame beat.

I wanted to march leftward,
Squads right, the order was.
I blindly followed orders
For better or for worse.

And toward some new Third Reich,
But scarcely knowing whither,
Pale and hungry men
And well-fed marched together.

They gave me a revolver
And said: now shoot our foe.
But as I fired on his ranks
I laid my brother low.

It was my brother, hunger
Made us one, I know,
And I am marching, marching
With my own and my brother’s foe.

So I have lost my brother,
I wove his winding sheet.
I know now by this victory
I wrought my own defeat.

(Trans.  H. R. Hays)

D. O. A.  by Tim Dlugos (1950-1990)

Sick Boy, by Anne Ridler (1912-2001)

Illness falls like a cloud upon
My little frisking son:
He lies like a plant under a blight
Dulling the bright leaf-skin.
Our culture falls away, the play
That apes, and grows, a man,
Falters, and like the wounded or
Sick animal, his kin,
He curls to shelter the flame of life
And lies close in his den.

Children in patient suffering
Are sadder to see than men
Because more humble and more bewildered:
What words can there explain
Why all pleasures have lost their savour,
Or promise health again?
Kindness speaks from a far mountain —
Cannot touch their pain.

What I Did, by Jim Daniels (1956-)

What are you going to do
when your girlfriend’s pregnant
neither of you have health
insurance or a decent job
and you’ve both been taking enough
drugs to kill a horse
or two?

What are you going to do
when she calls up from Wisconsin
three states away to tell you
she’s pregnant, that she slipped
away the night before

she’s telling you
and she’s crying and she’s telling you
she’s going to the clinic
in the morning?

You know.
You know what you’re going to do.
You’re going to drive
your Plymouth Satellite all night
your head jangling
like the coins you use to call her
from rest stops to make sure
she’ll wait
wait til you get there

drive all night to her sister’s
in Madison and sit with her in the morning
wringing your hands and going over it
all again, slowly, and again

and you can’t let yourself
think for more than a second
of the actual child
you might have together,
what you imagined while driving
when the cold air and darkness
when the lack of a radio
made all things possible

you kiss her and hold her
and wipe her nose
and wipe your nose
and you try to ignore
and not feel embarrassed by
the presence of her sister
silently circling the house.

What do you do? You drive her down
in the painful sun, the forced
squint, you pull out the wrinkled
wad of bills you conned
from friends half-gone in the bar,
you lick your fingers,
you count out your half.