drafts 4-6

no drafts

50 improvs

Improv of B. H. Fairchild - Madonna and Child, Perryton, Texas, 1967


The air begins to throb around us.
On the hill where Sancho's Market sat.
The wind gusted and trees blew leaves
down the street. I walked past homes and shops
to arrive at the market where I brought home 
bannanas, peaches and pears back home later
after sneaking a few bites of fresh bread that 
taunted my nose, at the turn of Sancho's wife's head.

Improv of Allen Ginsberg -  America

America stop pushing I know what I’m doing.
You demand a dream with not a means of
acquiring, yet I'm told to have faith in a
ruthless Uncle Sam and believe in the
lies that Lady Liberty has spewed out.
America where has our stregnth gone?
United we stood on separate ends of a
platform that had no foundation.
Witness to the acts of worldly aspiration
yet those in the outside world do not
find you.

 

Improv of Albert Goldbarth - 27,000 Miles

Like lavish origami animals 

They have returned to the weather that is warm.

Too many birds alike that come

for vacation or some sort of getaway

& we wonder from which way they may have came

through snow, sleet or rain to the hot beaches

and countries where the heat is maintained

They did not even flock together

yet each of a different feather knew

where to flock in the recent change in weather.

Over distances from where they are native

  Seamus Heaney - Digging

My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds. Snatching dead plants out of the ground  He dug up dandelions  and weeds that smelt of raw onions. He prepared each plot for a new flower Each stab into the ground created a new hole that varied in shape but mimicked the next. Roses were cliche. Orchads--expensive, But he knew Lillys were to return even after death and with a glow that formed a beautiful scent. He dug into the earth evenly positioning its place.

Anthony Hecht - The End of the Weekend

We rise together to the second floor.
Slowing to the thought of the end.
We came together over these couple of days,
after we'd met during a session
but became the closest acquaintances of
our mental status but a slave to our physical attraction.

The first day was bright
outside we merged onto paths unfamiliar to us.
We casually sought out museums and
took an interest in the intellect of
a predisposed mind. 

Stephen Graham Jones - Green Pants

“New pants,” he whispered. They hugged the outer silhouette of my body and each sway was carefully kept hidden in each pant legs. "Yes, they are," confidently speaking. They weren't green but  the color of jealously that turned the faces of those who couldn't pull off such a garment.

Yusef Komunyakaa - My Father’s Love Letters

He would beg,Promising to never beat her
but the lies in his letters
said he would but he could never forget her.
forget his fists that pushed into her face
day after day or forget her eyes, t
hat turned a braised blue, red
or purple. He'd never forgot.
Each word blissfully tearing the scab off of the wounds
that replayed her death in our minds.
She would never be normal, & these letters were signs of his love for her
and she believed him.

Philip Larkin - High Windows

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
where we pretend to smile and after
we remain unhappy still and pills only intensify
the  heartbeat inside my brain.
Even after we fucked I knew a child would remain.

Li-Young Lee - Eating Alone

 I see him bend that way--

Of where I once was, but it was inevitable.
I saw him that morning by the trees
the meaning I couldnt yet grasp
because I had no one throughout my life to speak on my behalf
But he showed up so convienently
I wasn't prepared for the back in forth of
a scorned child to the father whom was never around.

 We may have strolled in silence.

W. S. Merwin - The River Of Bees

In a dream I returned to the river  of bees Floating on top of honey, sticking to transparent wings of  insect that wouldn't think twice about stinging me. Yet I felt joy from the tickle of their fury bodies as they crawled over each other beneath me  to pile on top of each other's backs.

Rodney Jones - A Defense of Poetry

If abstract identity, philosophy’s silhouette, authorless, or quoted. A mends to the words that weren't created in vain but to spread far and wide in different languages alike. A marriage of syllables and sounds to bring out the best in the words we found.

Natasha Trethewey - Blond

When on Christmas day I woke to find

a blond wig, a pink sequined tutu,
that was left for me after I obsessed
frequently over Madonna in the like a virgin stage.
And itched over to the mirror with wig on head
in a custom created unsumble, tutu included
to dance and lip sing as the eccentric blond
I wanted to be.

Ilya Kaminsky - We Lived Happily During the War

When they bombed other people’s houses, we protested

but not enough, to ensure our safety or
make peace with our enemies.
But we still have breakfast in the morning
and dinner in the evening.
We kept the t.v. off and the house quiet.
To make time for each other,
and every day we didn't have to flee

Camille T. Dungy - The Preachers Eat Out

      

We don’t serve your kind, one among them laughed,

That’s okay. We’re not hungry for our kind.

We’ve come for food. 
Made by nonjudgmental hands, can you do that?
We won't carry on like brats but we want a couple of menus
to feels us starving rats in your lovely establishment.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly - The Dragon

The snake’s long body hanging down, its tail dragging

slithering away down the path
I use to see what I had to believe but there lie
a snake in my path that I couldn't dare to see

Aimee Nezhukumatathil - Canticle with Sea Worm

 Blessed be the eunicids,

the tiny sea worms mouthing on bits of sand

Heather McHugh - Language Lesson 1976

When Americans say a man

takes liberties, they mean

he’s gone too far.
They know less and more of the
language he's involved in
that vicariously show the
 expansion of his grade.

Kevin Young - Ode to Boudin

You are the chewing gum
of God. Ode to Boudin
the one i worship
in my own meaning of
retrieving meaning across
 the board of broad language.

LeRoi Jones (later changed name to Amiri Baraka) -

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Things have come to that.
Where I cant decide whether to cut my wrists
or sit in the garage, engine on, filling my lungs with carbon dioxide
But My path of choice is pills--
that seperate my mind from reality
and I choose to sing
Nobody sings anymore.
Even before crossing the border onto
heaven or earth, but I would
with clasped hands. Ignoring my path into death's end.

Toi Derricotte - In Knowledge of Young Boys

Blank as the sky of a mind,

a root, neither ground nor placental;

they are men in a childlike state

learning how to be tough, its fate

To learn the meaning  of man

and what their role is on top of that.

They were made in the image of God 

and learns 

Elizabeth Alexander - Haircut

I am a New York woman; I am a flygirl with a new hair cut in New York City in a mural that is dying every day. A haircut I hated but pretended to love. After all, to be me I had to fake it until I made it on top of someone's desk with power or in the parties powwow-ing with the rich & famous who say "hey, i love your haircut" why? because I do. I pretend so well everyone around automatically falls for me. I embrace the hastily choice to decide to keep 3 more inches of my hair or not.

John Ashbery - Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape  

 Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder,

The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched

as I imagined  him holding Olive chugging a can of

cooked vegetables that immediately made his muscles

expand. An adrenalin rush he endured to protect

the one he loves.

Eavan Boland - The Pomegranate

The only legend I have ever loved is

the story of a daughter lost in hell.

And found and rescued there.

Love and blackmail are the gist of it.

 Martín Espada - Niggerlips

Niggerlips was the high school name

for me. My full face with the large lips

 I was the outcast whose class pics 

were noticed a center piece of  my face

where to pieces of flesh sat on my head

where myself spilt out in words

and ny peers could could only define me by 1 trait

and I wasnt happy 

William Matthews -  Loyal

I wanted to live forever, too.
So grabbed onto life
without a doubt of who I could be
with ultimate immortality.

Lyn Hejinian - Elegy

I am writing now in preconceptions

Those of sex and ropes
That gave me words
and lines of hope
I brought out pages of my thoughts
and was applauded for  it.

Louise Bogan - A Tale

This youth too long has heard the break
I had it and I wasnt going away.
I walked up to the mirror
and gazed into a reflection that
pushed me out of its frame, telling me to
"go" i was too young for theses games.

Alison Joseph - Salt

There’s a kind of glory in it,
to give a sort of nuetral flavor
That we love in deserts and dinners
and made ourselves aware of its costs and killers

Pimone Triplett - Comings and Goings

           
 All day, from somewhere beyond the billboard

            of a woman amply
Coming and Going away to another life I had anyway
To catch the bus or the train, back and forth
I left promptly with no particular gain,
but to escape the house and go out and play

                                                                       

C. K. Williams - Neglect

I was upset.
I had left you abandpnned with not a 
guess of what you could do next 
I neglected the way  you were.

Philip Levine - Growth

 the fresh air of Detroit

in 1942, a year of growth.
factories and warehouses brought
business and showed

Audre Lorde - Power

The difference between poetry and rhetoric

is being

ready to kill

yourself

instead of your children.

Gwendolyn Brooks - The Rites for Cousin Vit

Larry Levis - The Poet at Seventeen

My youth? I hear it mostly in the long,

But me I can write songs, verses and poems

bring to you a fully written magic
and be published by the time

i needed signs of hope

Gary Soto - Mission Tire Factory, 1969

From his wallet, and say: “Buy some sandwiches.
You guys saved my life.”
I work and burn rubber, make tired
for used and new cars that  can take you higher in life

Robert Pinsky - Shirt

Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,

My favorite, the one I wear most often, that hangs
firmly in my closet. The button down
and flattered my chest and made all of my
outfits look the best.

Dylan Thomas - Fern Hill

I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
That were arranged on laws that allowed
a heap of funds to fertalize land
and make us a town.
Our own corner that supplies fruits, vegetables, and maze.

Ted Hughes - View of a Pig

The pig lay on a barrow dead.
It weighed, they said, as much as three men.
Swine that will taste great on top of a sandwhich
or plate. I knew by its frame that it's death would
be a change to my hunger these last few days.

Mark Strand - Man and Camel

 They stood before my porch,

staring up at me with beady eyes, and said:

“You ruined it. You ruined it forever.”
And I want man and camal to make a way
therefore i cannot have a ruined day
and I miss the day that I gave this meaning
a say. 

Thylias Moss - Tornados

Truth is, I envy them
They exist in the clouds and can appear
in the most beautiful occurrences of earth.
Clouds and wind midstful
 with a calm on the inner
It tears across skies
and touchdown on earth
with barely a touch but can devour
everything in its path

May Swenson - Strawberrying

“Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,”
Strawberrying life between teeth that
will be stained red for days.
Rinse with a hose or wiped by the back
of our shirt, we bite into its core just to get a taste.
I had green baskets and filled every one to the top
Strawberrying, while walking down half  of a mile  rows
filled with strawberry vines.

Derek Walcott - Blues

Still, it taught me something

about love. If it’s so tough,

forget it. Blues sung in my mind over it.
I erased the thought of it
and showed no emotion
for the song that replayed in my head.
I strum a guitar and sind with a soulful passion
and imagine jazz sets apart of my song.

Marie Howe - Sixth Grade

A gang of boys. Bullies they are.
dressed all in hoodies, jeans, and hats
and intimidating the entire class.
they chose me to be their lone shep
to talk about in front of everybody,
my middle school career was destroyed
in a simple glare at the Head Bully In Charge
 in the new ways to tease me

Tony Hoagland - America

“I was listening to the cries of the past,

When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.”
To prepare us for the next generation that is troubled
by the actions that are upon us.
We regret the  time we've spent here
prolonging the destined traits of our ignorance
and we hear it in the distance, wailing for us

Robert Hayden - Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

and put firewood int he fireplace
and it burned to wake a family tempted by
A warm scented cup of hot chocolate
boiled on the stove and poured into winter mugs
lined up on our countertop.
Only on a Sunday, could I expect to be comforted by
a home once cold and a morning hunger that was quenched
by the utter care of a family man waking up to receive his morning paper
to receive the news of the day while his family awakes.

Sherman Alexie - The Powwow at the End of the World

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall. In the event that I loose my grip on reality, I want the burdens of my past buried with my sanity to move past what I couldn't live to see. If the world ended suddenly who am I not to forgive a simple soul in order to save myself from damnation,

Alice Notley - I the People

I the people

to the things that are were &

      come to be.
I the people
a human being created imperfectly
       and made the product of a
I of many, who had the opportunity
to disgrace my kind by not
       showing the people why I would no longer answer to the people of mine .
        

Jack Gilbert - In Dispraise of Poetry

It appears the gift could not be refused. 

A craft where we all sat and told stories of 

words far from meaning or explanation. A

creative expansion of ourselves into shelves

that contain verses and quotes of unadulterated

reasoning. For all we know, we've made

a pathway into the mind that thoser

from outside can venture into.

Lydia Davis - A Mown Lawn

She hated a mown lawn. Short and even, made her cringe. The deceiving grass that stands like soldiers in an engorged path that created an earthly mat and it drove her crazy. She wanted character in her lawn, not a rectangle patch that had the shape of blades attached to an old mover that doesn't redistribute its waste evenly against the grains.

Robert Creeley - The Rain

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain.
Pour into my soul
rinsing my core with an
intimate glare. Take my love and
drip a tempting image of lust
to tame my infatuation for you.
Wet me with the outside of your heart

and bleed like raining love letters

to fill and cover my spirit.