By Ocean Vuong
If I should wake & the Ark
the Ark already
gone
If there was one shivering thing
at my side
If the snow in his hair
was all that was left
of the fire
If we ran through the orchard
with our mouths
wide open
& still too small
for amen
If I nationed myself
in the shadow
of a colossal wave
If only to hold on
by opening—
by kingdom come
give me this one
eighth day
let me enter
this nearly-gone yes
the way death enters
anything fully
without a trace
Taken from Emergence Magazine
On the day of your interview a full itinerary is prepared. Jokingly, you wonder
if you should have requested potty breaks. Never has your day been this structured.
About six or seven hours of back-to-back meetings. During lunch you meet the only
Black faculty member in English, who is leaving. You don’t think anything
of it except that the coincidence is more than ironic. You try to make small talk.
You want to gauge if there is any coded language from the “sista”
that says Get Out. Do not succumb to this Sunken Place. Instead,
you get an unexpected quiz during lunch from the Black faculty member.
“How will you as a Black man teach these privileged kids
how to read Black literature as universal?” Before you can respond, she cuts you off
So Day 4 of #GloPoWriMo and I’ve managed to read poetry and write some for the last four days. I’m pleased with that as it’s the most I’ve written all year!
I’m sharing this little surreal prose poem that came my way by Franz Kafka that really inspired me. The illustration is by Aimee Pong and you can find more illustrated poems by Kafka here too.
This is what I wrote jumping off The Sirens-
The sirens of waiting – a surreal prose poem
Waiting. Seductive voices floating through the dark night draw me in with the promise of beauty; laying down my load and being rescued.
Thick velvet air, their song like the Sirens overwhelm my senses leading me to think I’m safe and wanted and loved. Isn’t this how all men ( little boys in grown up clothes) draw their prey in?
The Black Madonna, another mother for all white people. With my eyes sharpened through carrots, I’m no longer waiting for someone to come and save me. There is no one. There is no such person. It was a construct fed on a reel since the day I took my first breath. A falsehood fed like life itself.
I’m the one I’ve been waiting for. Me in all my fucked up glory is the one who will save me. I see it now. I feel it now. I hear it now in my lament sung aloud. Listen. Doesn’t it sound so beautiful?
Day 3 of GloPoWriMo and I promise the last one from Lucile Clifton ( for now!).
And this poem, I just love the tone, the softness which for me mirrors the moving of the boats out with the tide into the deep waters.
The smooth cruise of wood on water is a the sight to behold. But there is love here and a turning away from fear and a floating off into the future with hope.
This is not about boats this is a blessing, a wish on how to live our lives. And I totally buy into it with an open heart.
To keep that innocence, to keep that hope within our hearts against the odds, against our day to day struggles is a gift. Is a blessing.
I’m sticking with Lucille Clifton today for day 2 of GloPoWriMo because I don’t think I read enough of her. I don’t think anyone can read enough of Lucille Clifton.
I came to her writing late and I’m not going to beat myself up to catch up. I’m going to savour every poem I read of Clifton’s as I don’t believe her poetry, her words should be rushed.
Clifton’s words have the ability to live in the bones of a person and that’s where I want them to lodge and not let go.
So today I share ‘cutting greens’ because of this poem’s ‘kissmaking’ – nature and humans as one.
April is Global Poetry Writing Month (GloPoWriMo). And I need it as things become apparent in the next couple of weeks as I share here.
I need to get writing but have been fighting a cold and bug for the last week so my energy levels are low.
But I’m moving through it grateful for each day I feel a bit better and manage to get out for a walk.
I am going to be writing poems this month but for me writing goes hand in hand with reading.
So this month of writing poems will see me sharing poems here. As a motivator as a means of getting out of a rut.
So today – Day 1, I share a favourite poem from Lucille Clifton.
The aim this month was to turn up here everyday and post something; words, images. Anything. Anything that would be used as evidence of my presence. Of my joy and my gratitude.
And now I look and see I’ve missed the last 7 days. And for now I don’t have the energy to go back over this week and pull out the good parts. Or maybe even the bad.
I just know that time is fleeting and speeding. Before we know it, we’ll be in 2024. And I’m not sure I want to waste any more time living in the past.
I’m wanting more and more to live in the present. This is what I’m grateful for; the time and means and ability to live in the present. Live/ love with each day as it comes.
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
After Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui
Learning to move from head to heart,
moving into greater vulnerability,
everyday feels like the first day.
There is the risk of doing or saying
the wrong thing. Hurting others
as I learn to express myself,
what I want, what I need
makes those close uncomfortable.
And yet,
as I step deeper into fugitivity,
linger in the edges, skin prickly
with expansion. I trust.
Take self-authority and do not hide
from this becoming, this vulnerability.
Offering myself and others grace
and compassion, I walk on, slow,
with heart in hand.
I’ve spent decades hating on my body.
Too big, too fat, too black for most spaces, places, people. So I thought or was lead to believe.
I’ve spent decades trying to get rid of my body.
Make it smaller, make it thinner, make it whiter. All the time knowing I was wasting my time, energy and money. But that didn’t stop me.
I was hard wired into chasing the perfect body, the ideal standard of beauty. Which just wasn’t me and my body.
Slowly, with care, self-love, mindset changes and practice, I’m learning to appreciate my body and all the spaces and places and people she takes me.
Through my body I get to experience this world and all its terrible beauty. And right now, as that’s all we can depend on/ should focus on/ breathe into, I’m loving on my body from the inside out.
I’m offering her grace and compassion as she continues to move me through this world. Allowing me to be here, {being} myself in all my fucked up glory.
And isn’t that fucking awesome!
Today my body walked me into the sea to remind me to feel again. To remind me I’m alive again. To remind me that we are only here for a short, brief time so shouldn’t we try to squeeze all the feels, sweet and not so sweet, out of it while we’re here?
My body supports me in this mission.
Every. Single. Moment.
Thank you x
Living Wild Studios 