Poetry Break (Reposted from the Trump years)

“When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgement.”

John F. Kennedy

After reading this quote by JFK, I remembered this poem I wrote in 2019, which seemed the perfect continuation of that thought. These poems and any of my writing from my posts on my website are reprintable with my permission.  Leave a comment or send me an email if you want to re-use any of my writing.  

Rising

The poem rises up
from a Congressman’s mouth
standing before the betrayers,
“’She’  is  worth it,” he pleads.

The poem rises up
from this fallen, toxic land,
with its chemistry of grief and fear,
piety of dishonesty.

The poem rises up
knowing that only
in those lines
will we ever fathom
anything as self-evident,
unsullied, indispensable

as truth.

Doann Houghton-Alico

 

The following poem has won a few accolades including a first prize for Prose Poem from the Columbine Poets Society, Colorado’s state poetry society, part of the national federation. I include it here in Memoriam to the latest school shooting victims. I’m bone-and-heart weary of the now threadbare, repetitive attempts to do something…anything about gun violence in this god-forsaken country. 

Closets of Witness

This is the closet of the boy

she had known all his short life, who was in a history class learning about Caesar, thinking about the next game. It happened so quickly, they told her he wouldn’t have had time for anything. She wondered. She stood, looking at the closed door, knowing what was inside. There would be a basketball in one corner, a wadded-up shirt lying still in another. How odd, she thought, for someone who had moved so much to now be always still. His clothes still hung expecting him to slam open the door any minute, the clock kept ticking, shadows fell like the stealth of death around her.

This day, the door stayed closed.

 

This is the closet of the woman

he had loved beyond what he had thought he could experience. He stood outside the closed door, afraid to open it, knowing he would see her dresses hanging limply as if to soften pain, jackets at attention remembering how she ironed them stiffly, creased jeans having supported slim legs, in the drawer her bras neatly cupped supporting nothing, lace panties in pastels lined up like days of the week, all waiting for her to come home from her day of teaching. He turned toward the window hoping for light, but clouds had closed that door too.

This closet remained closed.

 

This is the closet of the man

who can’t remember where he is. It’s filled with bathrobes, really only two, and he is in one, but he couldn’t remember which door led to the bathroom, so he is standing in the closet peeing in a shoe on the floor. He thinks he should be hearing the childrn now in their playground across the street, but he can’t hear anuthing and he can’t see how to get out

because the door is closed.

 

This is the closet of our history

overflowing and chaotic, yet years follow in order while major issues shout out to be remembered. We stand around deaf, perhaps we’ll question ourselves one day, but never answer, spend sleepless days and vigilant nights, wait for seasons to change, but ache when they do, shuffle through markets looking for we’ve forgotten what. Thoughts niggle at us, something about justice, checks and balances, other wraith-like clouds of ideas. Too many doors have been closed, we hide behind walls, walk corridors with eyes on lights flickering from something in our hands. No one wants to remember,

This door stays closed.

Doann Houghton-Alico

 

I include the following poem only because I really like it.

Dream

The rules were. . .

there were no rules,

except that we could not dream.

They scrutinized us at night with lights

to make sure there were no tattered bits of dream

escaping into black air thick with smoke

from small fires cooking nothing, heating less.

 

How could we carry a dream

in our hearts when we had lost everything,

even our heart at times:

ravaged by hunger,

shrouded in violence,

mutilated by loss,

raped by feeling.

 

Now, not even a country left.

No smell of soil, of sea, of ripened pears,

of lamb and onions cooking, of clean sheets.

So lost we could not remember our home, our country,

where we had come from,

not even

in a dream.

Doann Houghton-Alico

Some poets that I like that you may be interested in that aren’t as famous as Mary Oliver or W.S. Merwin (both of whose work I love) are Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, Veronica Patterson, and Joseph Hutchison. Also excellent poets that may possibly be overlooked by readers are Naomi Shihab Nye, Wendell Berry, Tony Hoagland, and Jane Hirschfield. All of these poets will take you on luminous journeys through human experience and our interconnectedness with each other and the natural world. They are an affirmation of who we are in truth. Take a break, read poetry!