this week’s Thought (singular)
7x3 being 21 feels so right but 7x12 being 84 feels terribly wrong
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that their afternoon nap is the perfect length. thank you for joining us. may you wake up refreshed, but not so refreshed that you have trouble falling asleep at night.
hi
we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming soon, i promise. for today, i’m sharing some lovely poems i’ve stumbled upon recently.
(if you ever feel you’re missing my sage wisdom and obviously highly coherent thought process, feel free to use this masterpost of my favourite thodi editions, or check out the archives. for really cool reads on and off substack that i’ve come across in recent months, The Good Side of the Internet is a great place to start.)
Wail by Johnson Cheu (full poem here)
There are glaciers, imposing, yet shrinking. There is the iris, violet sky cradling shards of sun. The white Bengal tiger, snow and black ink. Infinite reasons I could give for gladness, though none may salve the wound from which your question arises, how to be glad to be alive? Stitch your heart’s fissure: recall family, friends, a slap, cigarette burn, the rod, something smashed down, or welled up in your darkened pupil.
I’m Sitting Doing Nothing by Jack Prelutsky
I’m sitting doing nothing, which I do extremely well. Exactly how I do it is impossible to tell. I scarcely move a muscle, but serenely stay in place, not even slightly changing the expression on my face. I’m fond of doing nothing, so I do it all day long. Wherever I do nothing, I don’t ever do it wrong. When I am doing nothing, there is nothing that I do, for if I started something, it would mean that I was through. When I am doing nothing, I’m immobile as a wall. When I am doing nothing I don’t do a thing at all. It’s easy doing nothing and I find it lots of fun, though when I’m finally finished I’m uncertain that I’m done.
The Bearing Edge by Ralph James Savarese (full poem here)
If Orpheus had a lyre, then he has a bearing edge. He will not drum without it: “I love you, Dad.” He moves forward by glancing back, and no one is ever lost. The sky sells cotton candy; the trees, shade. Love—it’s a kind of leash, invisible, expanding, and I’m his big, happy dog.
The New Speakers by Gloria E. Anzaldúa (full poem here)
Some of us are still hung- up on the art-for-art trip and feel that the poet is forever alone. Separate. More sensitive. An outcast. That suffering is a way of life, that suffering is a virture that suffering is the price we pay for seeing the future. Some of us are still hung up substituting words for relationships substituting writing for living. But what we want –what we presume to want– is to see our words engraved on the people’s faces, feel our words catalyze emotions in their lives. What we want is to become part of the common consumption like coffee with morning paper. We don’t want to be Stars but parts of constellations.
Poem by Ron Padgett
I’m in the house. It’s nice out: warm sun on cold snow. First day of spring or last of winter. My legs run down the stairs and out the door, my top half here typing
Theories About The Universe by Blythe Baird
I am trying to see things in perspective. My dog wants a bite of my peanut butter chocolate chip bagel. I know she cannot have this, because chocolate makes dogs very sick. My dog does not understand this. She pouts and wraps herself around my leg like a scarf and purrs and tries to convince me to give her just a tiny bit. When I do not give in, she eventually gives up and lays in the corner, under the piano, drooping and sad. I hope the universe has my best interest in mind like I have my dogs. When I want something with my whole being, and the universe withholds it from me, I hope the universe thinks to herself, “Silly girl. She thinks this is what she wants, but she does not understand how it will hurt.”
Love Like Salt, Lisel Mueller
It lies in our hands in crystals too intricate to decipher It goes into the skillet without being given a second thought It spills on the floor so fine we step all over it We carry a pinch behind each eyeball It breaks out on our foreheads We store it inside our bodies in secret wineskins At supper, we pass it around the table talking of holidays and the sea.
A Picture! Video!
The Good Side of the Internet
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this week’s Song
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3