[TEMPLATE] Poems by Others

Psalm for the Slightly Tilted

By Ilya Kaminsky

This is not

a good year.

But it has

witnesses.

When you see them protest the powerful,

since who else does,

they stand

like flagpoles outside the courthouse

after a northeaster.

They came with

the wrong shoes

for revolution.

Still,

they showed up.

Comfort, Lord,

their bodies—

each a question mark

doing time

as a coat rack,

hung with borrowed jackets.

They are your legion

of bent spoons.

They are the only ones

who showed up—

with their orthopedic flair.

I saw my people lean—

not toward hope but toward each other.

They chant off-rhythm

and mean it.

These are my kind of people:

no tears—just

steam from a kettle

that never quite boils.

In times like these, don’t forget us:

the lopsided

leaning on one another,

like sodden paperbacks

left out on the stoop—

Nobody opens them.

But they still insist

on carrying the plot.

Comfort us standing up—

half scarecrow

half saxophone

with a squawk.

While stiffness becomes state policy,

comfort us sitting—

in that collapse called calm.

In the year they come for us

watch my people

make protest signs

out of old pizza boxes.

Watch—

there are no boring people

which is unfortunate.

You’d think statistically

we’d get at least a few—

one-speed souls

with just meh stuff to do.

But none of them are dull.

Each—

a suitcase

held together

by duct tape.

These are your coffee-stained saints

who rise not with trumpets

but with Advil.

They stand

and wait

creased like maps

of a country

that doesn’t exist anymore.

Poems by others – TEMPLATE!

Poetry

• [TEMPLATE] Poems by Others
• A Dog Has Died – Pablo Neruda
• A Moment of Silence – Emmanuel Ortiz
• A Quiet Life – Baron Wormser
• A Reminder – found and slightly edited from the webpage of a Methodist Church
• A Wreath to the Fish – Nancy Willard
• Alone – Jack Gilbert 
• Another Planet – Dunya Mikhail
• Be Kind, Rewind – Neil Silberblatt
• Black Momma Math – Kimberly Jae
• Boplicity or Jimmy Throws a Houseparty for Huey Newton – Daniel B. Summerhill
• Capitol Air – Allen Ginsburg
• Combat Primer – Charles Bukowski
• Crow Blacker Than Ever – Ted Hughes 
• Dismiss Whatever Insults Your Own Soul – Walt Whitman
• Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads – Martha Rivera-Garrido
• Enriching the Earth – Wendell Berry
• Failing and Flying – Jack Gilbert
• Feel Mo – Michael Korson
• Footprints In Your Heart – Eleanor Roosvelt
• For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet – Joy Harjo
• Forgetfulness – Billy Collins
• God Says Yes To Me – Kaylin Haught
• Growing Old – Emma Rosenberg
• Half-light – Dāshaun Washington
• Homesick: A Plea for Our Planet – Andrea Gibson
• How She Heard It – Todd Davis
• How to Slay a Dragon – Rebecca Dupas
• I Talked to a Lady – Tanya Howden
• If You Knew – Ellen Bass
• Instructions before visiting Earth – James McCrae
• KINDNESS – Naomi Shihab Nye
• Love is Not All – Edna St. Vincent Millay
• Men – Maya Angelou
• Millennium Blessing – Stephen Levine
• my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
• Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges – Sam Sax
• Old Man Eating Alone – Billy Collins
• Relax – Ellen Bass
• Shoveling Snow With Buddha – Billy Collins
• Sleeping in the Forest – Mary Oliver
• Small Stack of Books – Blake Nelson
• Soliloquy of the Solipsist – Sylvia Plath
• spring – Safia Elhillo
• Squirrel – Lynn Ungar
• Tangled Up In Blue – Bob Dylan
• The Best Poem Ever – Brian Doyle
• The Caveman’s Lament – Brian Bilston
• The Four Noble Truths – Jake Onami Agnew
• The History of One Tough Motherfucker – Charles Bukowski
• The Layers – Stanley Kunitz
• The Long Boat – Stanley Kunitz
• The Moon is Full Tonight – Billy Collins
• The Shyness – Sharon Olds
• The War Works Hard – Dunya Mikhail 
• The World is Both Burning and Blooming – Karen Salmansohn
• To Diego with Love – Frida Kalko
• Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
• Two poems – Wendell Berry
• Two poems – Yehuda Amichai
• Two-bloods – Rolando Kattan
• Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
• War Primer – Bertholt Brecht 
• We are the Trees – J Raymond
• We will meet, don’t be in such a rush – Hala alShrouf
• What I Learned From Listening to a Stutterer – Ellen Zorin
• Who Says Words With My Mouth? – Jalal ad-Din Rumi