Best Poem - Angst

Best Poems – ANGST & SORROW

As I Lift Myself Along – Patty Martino Alspaugh
(Written in my 20’s)

“As I lift myself along,
I wonder where I do belong.

Others seem to find their place;
I feel as though I’ve lost the race.

Learning and growing keep me going,
Without which life would be quite boring.

What would I do without my hope;
I’m glad I don’t know my future scope.

For it might be filled with more despair,
And this I really could not bear.”

My Sister’s Scream – Patty Martino Alspaugh

“My Sister’s scream
pierced my shame,
brought it to the surface.
The months-old bloody

tampon, newly-extracted
by my Mother’s
hand in my
Sister’s bed.

Palpable relief that something,
anything but cancer,
had caused the odor
and the lump

I’d felt feeling around
down there. Urged on
by the desire to locate
the noxious source

that no eau de toilette
could mask. Fear
of the Big C
had emboldened me

to tell my Mother,
to spread my legs.
My Sister didn’t know
that one tampon

after another had
buried the forgotten one.
Month after month
it lie, silent, but deadly.

Toxic Shock Syndrome
not in my stars,
nor in my vocabulary,
in 1971.

My Sister,
holding her nose,
wanted to know:
‘Why MY room?‘”

Original Sin – Sandra Cisneros

“Before Mexicana flight #729
en route to Mexico City departs
from San Antonio International Airport
I buy a 69ȼ disposable razor at
the gift shop because I forgot
in Mexico they don’t like hair
under your arms only on
your legs and plan to

shave before landing but
the stewardess handing out declaration
forms has given me the wrong
one assuming I’m Mexican but I am!
and I have to run up the aisle and ask
for a U.S. citizen form instead because
I’m well how do I explain?

except before you know it we’re
already crossing the volcanoes and
descending into the valley of Mexico City
and I have to rush to the back
while the plane drops too quickly as
if the pilot’s in a hurry to get home

and into the little airplane bathroom where
lots of couples want to coitus fantisizus but
I only want to get rid of my underarm hair
quick before the plane touches down in
the land of los nopales disregarding
lights blinking kindly return to your
seat and fasten your seatbelt all
in Spanish of course just in time

for flight #729 to deposit me finally
into the arms of awaiting Mexican kin
on my father’s side of the family where
I open my arms wide armpits clean
as a newborn’s soul without original
sin and embrace them like the good
girl my father would have
them believe I am.”

Aftermath – Nikki Grimes

“They kept us together
for two years,
serving us up
to strangers,
a merry-go-round of
unfamiliar places,
unknown faces of people
with names my tears
washed away.
Don’t ask me
how many homes,
or where.
Those days are lost.
I held on to nothing except
my sister’s hand.”

This Lonely Longing – Tom C. Hunley

“The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge / their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.” Robinson Jeffers “Shine, Republic”

“Today I went to see my doctor;
yes, I went looking for a cure.
He said he had no treatment for
this lonely longing after more.

My neighbor bought a sporty car,
so now he scores at pick-up bars.
I’m cruising in a putt-putt Ford
through this lonely longing after more.

My creditors, I hear them hiss
with every payment that I miss.
One thing I know I can’t afford
is this lonely longing after more.

At night I take it to the clubs,
This crazy cry for sure-pure love.
I’ve learned what starless nights are for:
this lonely longing after more

love, more laughs, more stuff, more fun,
more props, and most of all, more money.
I fear that I have lost my war
with this lonely longing after more.”

Mexican Loneliness – Jack Kerouac

“And I am an unhappy stranger
grooking in the streets of Mexico—
My friends have died on me, my
lovers disappeared, my whores banned,
my bed rocked and heaved by
earthquake—and no holy weed
to get high by candlelight
and dream—only fumes of buses,
dust storms, and maids peeking at me
thru a hole in the door
secretly drilled to watch
masturbators fuck pillows—
I am the Gargoyle
of Our Lady
dreaming in space
gray mist dreams—
My face is pointed towards Napoleon
—I have no form—
My address book is full of RIP’s
I have no value in the void,
at home without honor, —
My only friend is an old fag
without a typewriter
Who, if he’s my friend,
I’ll be buggered.
I have some mayonnaise left,
a whole unwanted bottle of oil,
peasants washing my sky light,
a nut clearing his throat
in the bathroom next to mine
a hundred times a day
sharing my common ceiling—
If I get drunk I get thirsty
—if I walk my foot breaks down
—if I smile my mask’s a farce
—if I cry I’m just a child—
—if I remember I’m a liar
—if I write the writing’s done—
—if I die the dying’s over—
—if I live the dying’s just begun—
—if I wait the waiting’s longer
—if I go the going’s gone
—if I sleep the bliss is heavy
the bliss is heavy on my lids
—if I go to cheap movies
the bedbugs get me—
Expensive movies I can’t afford
—if I do nothing
nothing does”

Mama’s Promise – Marilyn Nelson

“I have no answer to the blank inequity

of a four-year-old dying of cancer.

I saw her on TV and wept

with my mouth full of meatloaf.

I constantly flash on disasters now;

red lights shout Warning. Danger.

everywhere I look.

I buckle him in, but what if a car

with a grille like a sharkbite

roared up out of the road?

I feed him square meals

but what if the fist of his heart

should simply fall open?

I carried him safely

as long as I could,

but now he’s a runaway

on the dangerous highway.

Warning. Danger.

I’ve started to pray.

But the dangerous highway

curves through blue evenings

when I hold his yielding hand

and snip his miniscule nails

with my vicious-looking scissors.

I carry him around

like an egg in a spoon,

and I remember a porcelain fawn,

a best friend’s trust,

my broken faith in myself.

It’s not my grace that keeps me erect

as the sidewalk clatters downhill

under my rollerskate wheels.

Sometimes I lie awake

troubled by this thought:

It’s not so simple to give a child birth;

you also have to give it death,

the jealous fairy’s christening gift.

I’ve always pictured my own death

as a closed door,

a black room,

a breathless leap from the mountaintop

with time to throw out my arms, lift my head,

and see, in the instant my heart stops,

a whole galaxy of blue.

I imagined I’d forget,

in the cessation of feeling,

while the guilt of my lifetime floated away

like a nylon nightgown,

and that I’d fall into clean, fresh forgiveness.

Ah, but the death I’ve given away

is more mine than the one I’ve kept:

from my hands the poisoned apple,

from my bow the mistletoe dart.

Then I think of Mama,

her bountiful breasts.

When I was a child, I really swear,

Mama’s kisses could heal.

I remember her promise,

and whisper it over my sweet son’s sleep:

When you float to the bottom, child,

like a mote down a sunbeam,

you’ll see me from a trillion miles away:

my eyes looking up to you,

my arms outstretched for you like night.”

April Inventory – W. D. Snodgrass

“The green catalpa tree has turned

All white; the cherry blooms once more.

In one whole year I haven’t learned

A blessed thing they pay you for.

The blossoms snow down in my hair;

The trees and I will soon be bare.

The trees have more than I to spare.

The sleek, expensive girls I teach,

Younger and pinker every year,

Bloom gradually out of reach.

The pear tree lets its petals drop

Like dandruff on a tabletop.

The girls have grown so young by now

I have to nudge myself to stare.

This year they smile and mind me how

My teeth are falling with my hair.

In thirty years I may not get

Younger, shrewder, or out of debt.

The tenth time, just a year ago,

I made myself a little list

Of all the things I’d ought to know,

Then told my parents, analyst,

And everyone who’s trusted me

I’d be substantial, presently.

I haven’t read one book about

A book or memorized one plot.

Or found a mind I did not doubt.

I learned one date. And then forgot.

And one by one the solid scholars

Get the degrees, the jobs, the dollars.

And smile above their starchy collars.

I taught my classes Whitehead’s notions;

One lovely girl, a song of Mahler’s.

Lacking a source-book or promotions,

I showed one child the colors of

A luna moth and how to love.

I taught myself to name my name,

To bark back, loosen love and crying;

To ease my woman so she came,

To ease an old man who was dying.

I have not learned how often I

Can win, can love, but choose to die.

I have not learned there is a lie

Love shall be blonder, slimmer, younger;

That my equivocating eye

Loves only by my body’s hunger;

That I have forces, true to feel,

Or that the lovely world is real.

While scholars speak authority

And wear their ulcers on their sleeves,

My eyes in spectacles shall see

These trees procure and spend their leaves.

There is a value underneath

The gold and silver in my teeth.

Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives,

We shall afford our costly seasons;

There is a gentleness survives

That will outspeak and has its reasons.

There is a loveliness exists,

Preserves us, not for specialists.”

If You Don’t – Diane Thiel

(after a line from a Russian song)

“If you don’t have a dog
your neighbor will not poison it

and if you don’t have a home
you will not have to run from it

when your father’s anger shakes the walls
that don’t exist because you don’t have a home

to grow up in—nowhere to learn
that the husband you won’t have

will not leave you for another woman
will not walk out your door one morning—

because you won’t have a door
for anyone to leave or enter through

and you won’t have a window
for anyone to see you

. . .

and if you don’t make plans
they will not need to be changed

like the diapers you won’t change
since you won’t have a child

who will never change your life
whose tiny fingers you will never hold

because of how hard you never wished
and planned her away so many times

and she will not grow up to hate you
for everything you never did

as if you didn’t have a child—and she won’t learn
that if you don’t have a memory

the past will not devour you
when you stop moving for a brief

moment. Long enough to let the sorrow
catch the joy you never feel because you

. . .

don’t want to feel the sorrow
its companion. And if you don’t feel—

there will be nothing left to heal.”

Smell! – William Carlos Williams

“Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?”

Nothing – Lois Wyse

“I suppose it was something you said
That caused me to tighten
And pull away.
And when you asked,
‘What is it?’
I, of course, said,
‘Nothing.’

Whenever I say, ‘Nothing,’

You may be very certain there is something.
The something is a cold, hard lump of
Nothing.”

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