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Welcome to OpenLinkNight folks! This is your opportunity to link 1 poem of your choice as this is no prompt-day. For those who missed the Mr Linky deadline the past week or this Tuesday’s poetics about “Life Lessons”, this is also your opportunity to share your poem. Also, our Haibun Monday about “Complexity of Freedom” is also open the whole week.
Let me share with you a poem by Martin Espada, the 2018 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation. The link to his poems in Poetry Foundation is here.
His website: http://www.martinespada.net/
for Brandon
We have a problem with Brandon,
the assistant warden said.
He’s a poet.
At the juvenile detention center
demonic poetry fired Brandon’s fist
into the forehead of another inmate.
Metaphor, that cackling spirit, drove him to flip
another boy’s cafeteria tray onto the floor.
The staccato chorus rhyming in his head
told him to spit and curse
at enemies bigger by a hundred pounds.
The gnawing in his rib cage was a craving for discipline.
Repeatedly two guards shuffled him
to the cell called the box, solitary confinement,
masonry of silence fingered by hallucinating drifters,
rebels awaiting execution, monks in prayer.
Then we figured it out, the assistant warden said.
He started fights so we’d throw him
in solitary, where he could write.
The box: There poetry was a grasshopper in the bowl of his hands,
pencil chiseling letters across his notebook
like the script of a pharaoh’s deeds on pyramid walls;
metaphor spilled from the light he trapped
in his eyelids, lamps of incandescent words;
rhyme harmonized through the voices
of great-grandmothers and sharecropper bluesmen
whenever sleep began to whistle in his breath.
So the cold was a blanket to him.
We fixed Brandon, the assistant warden said.
We stopped punishing him. He knows
that every violation means he stays here longer.
Tonight there are poets
who versify vacations in Tuscany,
the villa on a hill, the light of morning;
poets who stare at computer screens
and imagine cockroach powder
dissolved into the coffee
of the committee that said no to tenure;
poets who drain whiskey bottles
and urinate on the shoes of their disciples;
poets who cannot sleep as they contemplate
the extinction of iambic pentameter;
poets who watch the sky, waiting for a poem
to plunge in a white streak through blackness.
Brandon dreams of punishment,
stealing the keys from a sleepy jailer
to lock himself into the box, where he can hear
the scratching of his pencil
like fingernails on dungeon stone.
Here’s how to join us for Thursday’s OpenLinkNight, which happens every other week:
See you at the poetry trail. ~Grace~
Grace said:
Happy OLN and Thursday everyone!!! Hope you are having a good day or night!
sanaarizvi said:
Happy OLN! 🙂 Thanks for hosting us, Grace ❤️
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Good to see you Sanaa…
sanaarizvi said:
Good to see you too Bjorn! 😀
scotthastiepoet said:
Greetings Grace & All once again,
Good to be back at dVerse. A new poem has only just been put on my site tonight, together with some artwork too. Looking forward to a good old read up… and catching up with everyone else’s work tonight.
Have a good one!
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Nice to see you at the bar Scott.. 🙂
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Small disasters here… I had to drive a friend to the hospital… hope all is well, she fell on her bicycle.
Grace said:
Hope its not too bad ~ Good for you to help her Bjorn ~
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Well I feel a bit to blame,… she was bicycling from us after borrowing us her car…
lillian said:
Happy OLN and I’m back “in the dVerse saddle again!” Travel completed for quite some time….and company gone. So enjoyed reading and writing again early this morning. My post harkens back to Bjorn’s Negative prompt — which I missed.
Thanks for hosting, Grace!
Shall read some now, later and then in AM again.
Feels good to be active again 🙂
Grace said:
Good to have you back from your travels Lillian ~ See you at the poetry trail ~
kim881 said:
Greetings dVerse poets and thanks for hosting Grace! I’m afraid I’m still marking – only halfway through my first week – so I will try to read and comment a few posts this evening and then come back i the morning, After hours of reading teenagers’ writing on a screen, my eyes are extremely sore. The poetry should soothe them and ease my aching mind. 🙂
Grace said:
Rest your eyes Kim, too much reading on the screen is not good ~ Have a good night and see you at the poetry trail ~
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
I read the poem you had… and I really like it, especially about the rest of us, the poet who write… (poets like me) and those who live in their poems. Thank you for sharing
Grace said:
He is an extraordinary poet. I am glad you like the poem.
Frank Hubeny said:
Happy OLN! Thanks for hosting, Grace.
Grace said:
Happy OLN Frank ~ Thanks for being here ~
sarahsouthwest said:
I’m doing Jilly’s 28 days of Unreason this month – so I’ve linked a poem from that. If you follow the links on there you’ll find some good stuff.
Grace said:
Hi Sarah ~ All good stuff on the poetry links ~
Charmed Chaos said:
Hi Grace- thanks for hosting tonight!
Grace said:
Thanks for joining us ~
V.J. Knutson said:
Hello all! I have paced outside the pub for months, daring myself to join in. Tonight, I have dared to enter. Quite the community you have here.
Ali Grimshaw said:
Congratulate yourself for jumping into the poetry pond. Life is short and this is a great group. Enjoy.
V.J. Knutson said:
Thanks Ali!
Grace said:
Welcome to dVerse ~
V.J. Knutson said:
Thanks, Grace.
merrildsmith said:
A bit late and a busy weekend. I’ll come back when I can to read. Happy weekend, Everyone!
Grace said:
Thanks for joining us ~ Happy weekend ~
merrildsmith said:
And to you! 🙂
Ali Grimshaw said:
Thank you for the continued opportunity to share and read other’s poetry. I am never on time but I won’t let that stop me. Have a marvelous weekend all.
Grace said:
It is fine Ali ~ I take my time reading the poems linked, up to the weekend.
Enjoy your weekend ~
Frank J. Tassone said:
Afternoon, Poets! Thanks, Grace! Yesterday was a whirlwind! Today, I have the day off! It’s afternoon in New York, so bring on the burgundy! 😉
See you on the trail!
Grace said:
Cheers Frank ~ Enjoy the summer weekend ~
lifelessons said:
What an amazing poem Martin Espada has written. Wow.
Grace said:
He is an outstanding poet ~ Glad you enjoyed his poem ~
Charley said:
Hi, Grace! Thought I’d stop by and do some reading. Dropped off an offering as well. No drinks… not at this time of the morning. I’ve got my coffee!