The Poem Grace Interrupted - Mikko Harvey

Artemis

how we both knew

how we knew is this:

time waits for no one yet
       we waited for years

years became lifetimes
       each year another story we
       told ourselves to pass the 

time

doesn't really wait for us and
       the infernal clock of big bangs
       does not stop or slow or atomically
       disintegrate

it doesn't turn into component
       parts

it also doesn't let us part.

Parts. Pieces. The stories
        we tell ourselves
        when we slip into minds
        again

The stories to say
        I wonder what he | she
        looks like now, I wonder
        what he ate. If he sings aloud

Or dances alone, or rants to himself
        in the dead of night.

I declared and it was (true) and somehow
        A few of us knew 3am
        is the new witching hour

And in this lifetime they won't burn us
        at least not the way they used to.

How we both knew

scuba diving was
an eternal thing,
a gaze into the dark brown grey green
nothing
of the middle 
of the ocean

where light doesn't save you anymore

and the only thing you have
as you 

   p
                a        
 n        i   c

is a deep deep voice an ex-marine named JT

a deep voice saying i got you & 
please don't give up i got you &
listen to yourself breathe

someone who was a good daddy
    a long time ago

who offered me his arm as we went
down 
down
forty feet into the abyss
who smiled silently
when i pointed at the yellow
puffer fish.

Diving

The picture I saved
of a blood-red moon
doesn’t quite match
the flooded-heart feeling
when, out of a balcony window,
I tried to catch myself
reeling, a wretch,
an open-faced moonfish
drawn to the bait.

It seems I am still trapped there--
the glow casting a web around me, 
the dark edge where I rest
where my wishes fall free
into craters, having nowhere else
to flee.

blood red

**sorry i couldn't get that Lobster font on soundcloud**

i’m writing this in a font called lobster, which makes no sense-
it’s what a seafood place in Maine would use for their store sign

sometimes you do things like write in a font called Lobster
to remind yourself that you can do something silly

make it pretty, make it funny, make it make you think of something else
make a whole stand-up routine ‘cause it’s good for your health

make yourself laugh cause there’s not too many people
trying to make you laugh nowadays
they’re  more worried about weddings, church steeples, holidays

there was a lady at the Kroger trying to buy a turkey the day before Thanksgiving
and the whole thing was a tragedy because (oh no) all the turkeys were sold out!
then you remember that only Americans are trying to buy all the turkeys
and across a border or an ocean there’s nobody giving a damn, they can eat lobsters! Trout!

My Chinese mother refuses to eat turkey, I suggested it-let’s just get a small one ma.
she says she’s not gonna pretend, because we’re Chinese--
this woman who’s lived here for 27 years she’s still got that white-person stigma,
and she can still call those people that don’t look like us white devils,
and if I tried to explain why a black man got on his knees
all she’d understand is she liked Obama, and Trump seems
a little crazy.

she was a teenage girl once,
and this politician who seemed a little crazy
told her to leave her family and go farm for a few,
for her, getting on her knees was bending into a wet rice paddy

and i often can’t look her in the eye--
i don’t, i can’t be grateful for this turkey-free plate
On Thanksgiving
not the way she’s grateful.

she doesn’t watch the news, she keeps her head down and cooks 
and worries about her only daughter, her little dog, the looks
from the neighbors

and she doesn’t quite understand what’s happening in Hong Kong
because the government used to just disappear people like that

she keeps her head down and i don’t talk politics with her,
and i keep my head down
there’s a Chinese expression that you have to eat what’s bitter--
it’s a metaphor for life.

so we sit across from each other and choke down
every thought, every idea i can’t explain to her
in my half-American chinese, and the tears aren’t so much bitter
as salty, like lobsters.

Thoughts about my mother on Thanksgiving

no such thing

i once had a conversation with a red-eyed pigeon
as i sat on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg--
they have a fixation with the old French queens--
and the pigeon said you’re not from around here
and i agreed as he hopped up onto the bench
to get a better look at something shiny,

and he asked me,
why the fuck are you talking to birds,
why did you fly this far in fear,
did you really think you were a bird,
did you think that if you fled the places you don’t belong
that you’d belong here,
did you think that you could shed your whole self,
leave your face on the ground, screaming for help,
did you hope a human would notice your pain,
did you hope you would never go home again?

i didn’t have a reply for my pigeon friend, but
i did think i was a bird, then. 

and as all magic comes to an end,
the birds don’t talk to me anymore.

go home again

barely above freezing

if you asked, i would

I recite poetry here, by other poets with credit or written by me. Thanks for the listen.

Athena Poetry

Popular tracks