Family

F
Little Crow's Ear Nettled by the Slash-eyed Journey by Duane Niatum
Duane Niatum
I was born to a family wrapped
inside the wallpaper of two worlds,
drumming the other's disappearance.
My voice grew into an impulse of blood wars red and white.

Running between winter and spring
I awoke to a nightmare of spit and bile.
My grandfather said I must earn my tracks in the night.
The earth surged and oozed
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O Ye Tongues by Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
First Psalm

Let there be a God as large as a sunlamp to laugh his heat at you.

Let there be an earth with a form like a jigsaw and let it fit for all of ye.

Let there be the darkness of a darkroom out of the deep. A worm room.

Let there be a God who sees light at the end of a long thin pipe and lets it in.

Let God divide them in half.

Let God share his Hoodsie.

Let the waters divide so that God may wash his face in first light.
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And Now She Has Disappeared in Water by Diane Wakoski
Diane Wakoski
For Marilyn who died in January april 1
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190
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Staggerlee wonders by James Baldwin
James Baldwin
1

I always wonder
what they think the niggers are doing
while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists,
are containing
Russia
and defining and re-defining and re-aligning
China,
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The Fourth Hour of the Night by Frank Bidart
Frank Bidart
I

Out of scarcity,—
...being.

Because, when you were nine, your father

was murdered,
betrayed.

Because the traveler was betrayed by those with

whom he had the right to seek
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A Declaration, Not of Independence by Ralph Salisbury
Ralph Salisbury
for my mother and father Apparently I’m Mom’s immaculately-conceived
Irish-American son, because,
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147
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Our Family Tree by Joseph Cephas Holly
Joseph Cephas Holly
On the death of my sister Cecilia—the last of five members of the family, who died successively. Our family tree is in the sear
And yellow leaf of life;
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143
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from Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart
Christopher Smart
let elizur rejoice with the partridge Let Elizur rejoice with the Partridge, who is a prisoner of state and is proud of his keepers.
For I am not without authority in my jeopardy, which I derive inevitably from the glory of the name of the Lord.
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from By the Well of Living and Seeing, Part II, Section 1: “Leaving the beach on a Sunday in a streetcar” by Charles Reznikoff
Charles Reznikoff
Leaving the beach on a Sunday in a streetcar
a family of three—mother, son and daughter:
the mother, well on in the thirties, blond hair, worried face;
the son, twelve years of age or so, seated opposite,
and the daughter, about eight or nine, beside her.
The boy was blond, too; a good-looking little fellow
with dreamy eyes. The little girl was quite plain;
mouth pulled down at the corners,
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168
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Autumn by Grace Paley
Grace Paley
1

What is sometimes called a
tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning
is only the long
red and orange branch of
a green maple
in early Septemberreaching
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141
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The Indoors is Endless by Tomas Tranströmer
Tomas Tranströmer
It’s spring in 1827, Beethoven
hoists his death-mask and sails off.

The grindstones are turning in Europe’s windmills.
The wild geese are flying northwards.

Here is the north, here is Stockholm
swimming palaces and hovels.

The logs in the royal fireplace
collapse from Attention to At Ease.
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172
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Cold Calls (War Music, Continued) by Christopher Logue
Christopher Logue
Many believe in the stars.


Take Quinamid
The son of a Dardanian astrologer
Who disregarded what his father said
And came to Troy in a taxi.

Gone.



Odysseus to Greece:

“Hector has never fought this far from Troy.
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134
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Debridement by Michael S. Harper
Michael S. Harper
Debridement
Black men are oaks cut down.

Congressional Medal of Honor Society
United States of America chartered by
Congress, August 14, 1958; this certifies
that STAC John Henry Louis is a member
of this society.

“Don’t ask me anything about the
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153
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Fanny by Carolyn Kizer
Carolyn Kizer
Part Four of “Pro Femina” At Samoa, hardly unpacked, I commenced planting,
When I’d opened the chicken crates, built the Cochins a coop.
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Grandfather by Michael S. Harper
Michael S. Harper

In 1915 my grandfather’s
neighbors surrounded his house
near the dayline he ran
on the Hudson
in Catskill, NY
and thought they’d burn
his family out
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115
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Silence Wager Stories by Susan Howe
Susan Howe
When I come to view
about steadfastness
Espousal is as ever
Evil never unravels
Memory was and will be
yet mercy flows
Mercies to me and mine
Night rainy my family
in private and family
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138
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Song of Social Despair by Marvin Bell
Marvin Bell
Ethics without faith, excuse me,
is the butter and not the bread.
You can’t nourish them all, the dead
pile up at the hospital doors.
And even they are not so numerous
as the mothers come in maternity.

The Provider knows his faults—
love of architecture and repair—
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159
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From “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
canto iv

A hard thunder broke my sleep.
As if roused by a god,

I stood straight up;
my rested eyes moved about,

seeking acquaintance
with place.

I found myself
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134
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Blues for Hal Waters by Bob Kaufman
Bob Kaufman
My head, my secret cranial guitar, strung with myths plucked from
Yesterday's straits, it's buried in robes of echoes, my eyes breezeless bags, lacquered to present a glint . . .
My marble lips, entrance to that cave, where visions renounce renunciation,
Eternity has wet sidewalks, angels are busted for drunk flying.
I only want privacy to create an illusion of me blotted out.
His high hopes were placed in his coffin. Long paddles of esteem for his symbol canoe.
If I move to the stars, forward my mail c/o God, Heaven, Lower East Side.
Too late for skindiving and other modern philosophies, put my ego in storage.
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152
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For Tupac Amaru Shakur by Sonia Sanchez
Sonia Sanchez
who goes there? who is this young man born lonely?
who walks there? who goes toward death
whistling through the water
without his chorus? without his posse? without his song?

it is autumn now
in me autumn grieves
in this carved gold of shifting faces
my eyes confess to the fatigue of living.
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