January 19: Favorite Poem, Sherman Alexie, "Sonnet, with Pride"

I know I haven't been doing a second post for the last week or so.  I'm sorry about that.  I've been busy, tired, [insert other lame excuse here].  Long story short, it's been a nutty seven to ten days.

This week, I've decided to share some of my favorite poems from The Best American Poetry 2014.  I have a great poem for you guys tonight.  It's one of my favorites in the collection.  A prose poem.  A political poem.  A small, lyric essay, in a way.

This one takes Saint Marty's breath away.

Sonnet, with Pride

by:  Sherman Alexie

Inspired by Pride of Baghdad
by Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon

1.  In 2003, during the Iraq War, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid.  2.  Confused, injured, unexpectedly free, the lions roamed the streets searching for food and safety.  3.  For just a moment, imagine yourself as an Iraqi living in Baghdad.  You are running for cover as the U. S. bombers, like metal pterodactyls, roar overhead.  You are running for cover as some of your fellow citizens, armed and angry, fire rifles, rocket launchers, and mortars into the sky.  You are running for cover as people are dying all around you.  It's war, war, war.  And then you turn a corner and see a pride of freaking lions advancing on you.  4.  Now, imagine yourself as a lion that has never been on a hunt.  That has never walked outside of a cage.  That has been coddled and fed all of its life.  And now your world is exploding all around you.  It's war, war, war.  And then you turn a corner and see a pride of freaking tanks advancing on you.  5.  It's okay to laugh.  It's always okay to laugh at tragedy.  If lions are capable of laughter, then I'm positive those Baghdad lions were laughing at their predicament.  As they watched the city burn and collapse, I'm sure a lioness turned to a lion and said, "So do you still think you're the King of the Jungle?"  6.  I don't know if the lions killed anybody as they roamed through the streets.  7.  But I'd guess they were too afraid.  I'm sure they could only see humans as zookeepers, not food.  8.  In any case, the starving lions were eventually shot and killed by U. S. soldiers on patrol.  9.  It's a sad and terrible story, yes, but that is war.  And war is everywhere.  And everywhere, there are prides of starving lions wandering the streets.  There are prides of starving lions wandering inside your hearts.  10.  You might also think that I'm using starving lions as a metaphor for homeless folks, but I'm not.  Homeless folks have been used far too often as targets for metaphors.  I'm using those starving lions as a simple metaphor for hunger.  All of our hunger.  11.  Food-hunger.  Love-hunger.  Faith-hunger.  Soul-hunger.  12.  Who among us has not been hungry?  Who among us has not been vulnerable?  Who among us has not been a starving lion?  Who among us has not been a prey animal?  Who among us has not been a predator?  13.  They say God created humans in God's image.  But what if God also created lions in God's image?  What if God created hunger in God's image?  What if God is hunger?  Tell me, how do you pray to hunger?  How do you ask for hunger's blessing?  How will hunger teach you to forgive?  How will hunger teach you how to love?  14.  Look out the window.  It's all hunger and war.  Hunger and war.  Hunger and war.  And the endless pride of lions.

Hunger, war, and lions

 

February 22: Prose Poem, "A Story About the Body," Robert Hass

One of my favorite poetic forms in the prose poem, which is sort of a hybrid of the short story and poetry.  I took a whole class one summer in the subject.  I'm not sure I've ever written a really successful prose poem, but Robert Hass has.

Saint Marty loves this poem:

A Story About the Body

by: Robert Hass

The young composer, working that summer at an artist's colony, had watched her for a week.  She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her.  He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she made amused and considered answers to his questions.  One night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, "I think you would like to have me.  I would like that too, but I must tell you that I have had a double mastectomy," and when he didn't understand, "I've lost both my breasts."  The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity--like music--withered very quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, "I'm sorry.  I don't think I could."  He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door.  It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals where on top; the rest of the bowl--she must have swept them from the corners of her studio--was full of dead bees.

Don't mess with this lady...

September 13: Zombie Jesus, New Poem, Mythology

I don't have a lot of time this afternoon, but I did promise to post the poem I wasn't very sure about last night.  I read it to my poet friend, and she really loved it.  It does verge on blasphemous, I think.  However, it is a dramatic monologue/prose poem.  Think of it as a character speaking in a movie or play.  This poem is my Shakespearean soliloquy.  I think.

I'm still getting ready to teach my mythology class this afternoon.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to approach today's material.  It's a lot more of the historical background of Greek myth.  I'm not sure how to interest my students interested for an hour and a half in it.  I need to tie it closely to something they do care about.  I'm not sure what that something is, but that's what I need to do.

Anyhow, it's date night.  My wife and I can't really afford to do anything expensive.  I told her yesterday that ice cream may be our one purchase this evening.  She's fine with that, though.

Well, I have to get some kind of lesson figured out now.

Saint Marty hopes you take this poem in the spirit in which it was written.  You can figure out for yourself what that spirit was.

Jesus' Number One Fan

My favorite is the one about the son and the prostitutes, how the son ate pig slop because he was so hungry.  That kills me.  It really does.  I mean, his dad gives him all this gold and silver, and the dumb shit ends up eating pig food.  Jesus, that's a good one.  I've read all those Bible stories, even the boring ones about all that begatting.  Who cares?  I mean, really.  No offense.  But that crucifixion.  That's what I'm talking about.  You need to stick to shit like that.  Crosses and thorns and spikes and spears.  That's great, man.  You know what my favorite part is?  When You look down at everybody and say, "Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do."  That got them in their balls, Jesus.  Yeah.  Brought them right to their fucking knees.  I bet they all went home and thought, "Jesus, I am so fucked."  Then, three days later, You come back as this Holy Zombie, all full of holes and shit.  And You didn't go and eat the high priest's brains or anything.  You went around saying "I forgive you" and telling people where to go fishing.  If I'd been You, man, I'd have gone all Night of the Living Dead on them.  Blood and intestines.  Just so that, when they saw me coming, they'd have said, "Holy fucking Christ."  That's what I'm talking about.  Pigs. Prostitutes.  Nails.  Zombies.  Holy fucking Christ.  Amen, man.  Amen.

The Sacred Heart of Zombie Jesus