Day 4 of #APoemADayInMay is full of worries.
Image description: on a white background, a poem by Jane Symonds called “don’t worry about it” reads:
“Anxiety tears the No Trespassing sign off my dreams.
Ushers in yesterday and screams: he’s got a knife.
After, in the morning, what’s left of me
runs desperate hands over conversation fossils.
But what was the dinosaur thinking?
There is no forecast for the North Sea days.
No warning and no alternate crossing.
No land in sight but all of it on fire.
Anxiety is the minder who murmurs in my ear: don’t
look now but Doom is coming. An haute-couture Hum.
A funeral procession on call, a coroner standing by.
Just here to help.”
A piece of trivia for day 2 of #APoemADayInMay: at midday on the first Wednesday (or the next day, in case of a public holiday) of every month, in every city in France, the emergency warning siren howls its test howl. And I dutifully envision disaster.
Image description: over an image of the sky above a domed building in Paris, a poem by Jane Symonds reads:
“once a month they still test the air raid sirens:
an antique hammer to the city’s knee.
a draft catastrophe.
a call to prayer?
a model citizen, I am never
not alarmed. worry it is not a warning
but a summons: the complacent peace
between a collie howling
and the wolves replying.”
We’re kicking off #APoemADayInMay 2024 with a love letter to the people who hold us, just as we are.
Thank you for being here. I love this funny little annual ritual and I’m so excited to do it all again.
Image description: over an image of a path through a park, a short poem by Jane Symonds called “safe hands” reads:
“we need to be fearlessly happy, you say. no more
self-sabotage. the river rushes green
in the direction you came from and the phoenix cathedral
pairs new with old for spring. while you’re here
I only ever breathe out.
it is so easy to tell you what scares me because there is nothing
I could hand to you that you would not
hold gently.”
Today I needed a poem at the end of my workday because we’re all exhausted and sad and dysregulated and doing our fragile, terrible best. My hairdresser accidentally stabbed me in the face and it made a beautiful kind of sense.
—
Image description: a poem in white text on a gold background is surrounded by white Christmas lights. It reads:
It is December. We are all running
with scissors. Quick to cut, quicker to bleed.
Skin rubbed raw against the ruin of days,
the clutter of months. We have forgotten
how to howl with. Instead we snarl at.
Pitch and claw. Mistake fingers for hooks
to hang pain. Fresh fault burning in our palms:
hold this. hold this. hold
on for the break. For the stall door to close
behind you. For wind down and wrap up
and reindeer flying. Remember it’s bad luck to shatter
anything that looks like you.
This is neither a poem nor a revelation. It is the most basic and obvious of lessons that I think I might finally be learning. So here is a reminder for me, and maybe for you too.