La poetry As a tool of manifestation or condemnation, it can be a very fine spearhead, while at the same time functioning as a warm balm to understand and heal emotions.
This is a selection of five poems of a different nature, inspired by the Poetry Foundation to address the uncertainty and anxiety of this age with verses.
"This room and everything in it" - Li-young Lee
Lay still now
As I prepare for my future
certain difficult days ahead,
When I need what I know so clearly right now
I am using
the only thing that I learned
of all the things my father tried to teach me:
The art of the memory.
I'm leaving this room
and everything in it
defend my ideas about love
and its difficulties.
I will stop your love cries
those spacious notes
from a moment ago,
represents distance.
Your smell
that smell
of spice and a wound,
I'll let the mystery be.
Your sunken belly
is the daily cup
of milk that I drank
like a child before morning prayer.
The sun in the face
of the wall
it's god, the face
I can't see my soul
and so on, each thing
representing a separate idea,
and those ideas that make up the constellation
of my biggest idea.
And one day when I need it
tell me something smart
about love,
I will close my eyes
and remember this room and everything in it:
My body is an estrangement.
This desire, perfection.
Your eyes closed my extinction.
Now I have forgotten my
idea. The book
on the windowsill, shaken by the wind. . .
the even pages are
the past, the stranger
numbered pages, the future.
The sun is
God, your body is milk. . .
useless, useless. . .
Your cries are songs, my body is not me. . .
not good . . . my idea
it has evaporated. . . Your hair is time, your thighs are song. . .
had something to do
with death. . . had something
to do with love.
"In this short Life that only lasts one hour (1292)" - Emily Dickinson
In this short life that only lasts an hour
How much more, how much less, is within our reach
"Long, too long America" - Walt Whitman
Long too long America
Traveling by roads all uniform and peaceful, you learned only of joys and prosperity,
But now ah! now, to learn from the crisis of anguish, moving forward, dealing with the most terrible fate and without retreating,
And now to conceive and show the world what your children really are en masse,
(Because who, except me, has yet conceived what her children really are en masse?)
What kind of times are these? - Adrienne Rich
There is a place between two groups of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks into shadows
near a meeting house abandoned by the persecuted
that disappeared in those shadows.
I walked there picking mushrooms on the brink of terror, but don't be fooled
this is not a russian poem, this is not elsewhere but here,
our country approaching its own truth and dread,
their own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the forest
finding the unmarked strip of light
ghost-ridden crossroads, mold heaven:
I know who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why am I telling you?
anything? Because you keep listening, because in times like these
for you to listen to me, it is necessary
talk about trees.
"Let me" - Chungmi Kim
If I should worry about how
I will live in my old age
no wealth
I would be without health now
and how can I live to be
old?
If I should worry about how
I will live in my old age
Loveless
I'd be dreamless now
and how am I going to continue living
another day?
Let me sit in the sun
and listen to the sky.
I will love you gently.
Let me stay in my room
and weave my rainbows.
I will really love you.
Like a colt in the meadow
Unlimited
Will allow me
wander
until I hear the fall
stealthily
walking by my door.
I'll be waiting
be with you
so.