As I mentioned in an earlier post, my friend Natalie is less than two weeks away from the Women of the World poetry slam. She has been spitting in venues all over the city in preparation and her stuff is just hot out the oven. A government monkey by day and the most current past president of Mother Tongue, from DC by way of Upstate NY, Natalie Illum:just cause...
I wish I could write you a poem
that removes the monkey from your back,
A poem that sends the ghosts in your spine
to heaven. But my words are tiny pebbles
in a much larger ocean of sound; they sink
rather than save the drowning.
The monkey wears a heart-shaped locket.
You cannot reach it to steal it back
into your own chest. Inside
the locket is a picture
of your lover, stolen
from a year you can no longer
touch. Such is the nature
of longing; it's always
behind you.
The ghosts are more proactive.
They haunt daylight from your eyelids,
so that every prism is in shadow.
They drink your tears like water, pull
at your scabs like a fresh stabbing
of pain. But your body is not a trench
for some dying calvary. Blink
Harness the sunshine
like Icarus, for a moment,
the ghosts will melt. Borrow
their sheets for wings. Bribe
the monkey with enough
fruit to sweeten its own hunger;
Breath in
your broken locket heart. Thread
muscle through the metal chain of her
leaving. Exchange suicide for more
oxygen.
Now run to every e-mail, letter, postcard,
hug, story of how your words
kept someone else's soul from limbo,
someone else's mind from shatter.
Your true heart is a tether, strong enough
to keep people from plummeting;
from scraping their fists on
mountains of broken ribs
has they reach for Orion.
This too is your legacy. Look up.
The sky is clear tonight.
The metal cage of your heart
is pumping something that sounds
like music; the ghosts have stopped
invading the marrow of you. The Lover
you carry within you. If the monkey
returns, fill your fist with pebbles.
Throw.
Believe that you will make an impact.
Write it down as a wish, like this poem
for you.
I wish I could write you a poem
that removes the monkey from your back,
A poem that sends the ghosts in your spine
to heaven. But my words are tiny pebbles
in a much larger ocean of sound; they sink
rather than save the drowning.
The monkey wears a heart-shaped locket.
You cannot reach it to steal it back
into your own chest. Inside
the locket is a picture
of your lover, stolen
from a year you can no longer
touch. Such is the nature
of longing; it's always
behind you.
The ghosts are more proactive.
They haunt daylight from your eyelids,
so that every prism is in shadow.
They drink your tears like water, pull
at your scabs like a fresh stabbing
of pain. But your body is not a trench
for some dying calvary. Blink
Harness the sunshine
like Icarus, for a moment,
the ghosts will melt. Borrow
their sheets for wings. Bribe
the monkey with enough
fruit to sweeten its own hunger;
Breath in
your broken locket heart. Thread
muscle through the metal chain of her
leaving. Exchange suicide for more
oxygen.
Now run to every e-mail, letter, postcard,
hug, story of how your words
kept someone else's soul from limbo,
someone else's mind from shatter.
Your true heart is a tether, strong enough
to keep people from plummeting;
from scraping their fists on
mountains of broken ribs
has they reach for Orion.
This too is your legacy. Look up.
The sky is clear tonight.
The metal cage of your heart
is pumping something that sounds
like music; the ghosts have stopped
invading the marrow of you. The Lover
you carry within you. If the monkey
returns, fill your fist with pebbles.
Throw.
Believe that you will make an impact.
Write it down as a wish, like this poem
for you.
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