Tag: blogging

Original Poem: Last Night I Dreamed of Snakes

Last Night I Dreamed of Snakes by Fred Slusher

Some people believe the only way you can

know God is to prove to him that you’re not

afraid to die.

They were writhing, 

wriggling their way through 

darkened halls & hidden 

crevices. I am a small world 

made large every night.

And the guns, they don’t work. 

My great-grandfather held snakes 

in church, offered them up to God. 

My, how they danced together. 

Strange language, dancing to the beat 

of impending eternity, to a sound only 

they could hear. Holding death that close 

just has to be holy—a desecrated lullaby. 

Some people believe the only way you can 

know God is to prove to him that you’re not 

afraid to die. In the dream, I’m going under

once again. Silence is an art of the most 

hallowed & hollow solemnity. Oh faithless

love, oh desert, oh fracture, oh quake, please  

caress the fear from my windows where 

layers of shadows ensconce me in 

false protections, mirages & mists & secret 

songs taught only in the dark. There is this fear, 

this shroud covering me. There is this sway, 

this truth. There is this serpent slivering its

way out of reach. There is this enormity. 

There is this heresy. There is this 

sorrow. There is this cataclysm 

raining on the living. There is this 

violence that lives in the soul & chokes it 

just so. There is this madness flickering 

like a lit match in a dry barn. There is this 

burning. There is this roof that’s corpsing 

itself into a glorious & effervescent ruin. 

There is this scream that imbibes blood like 

water.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

© 2021 Fred Slusher. All rights reserved.

Poem for the Day: August 24th, 2021

Make Out Sonnet by F. Douglas Brown 

The first time I saw two men kissing, I was six,
Living in 1970s L.A. My mom took care 
Of an elderly woman who found herself in a fix 
And moved into a complex of all men, bare
Chested men, with cutoff jeans and tinted glasses. 
My mother’s friend gave me chocolates that matched 
Her skin—this must be heaven. These sons’ asses 
Peeked out beneath their shorts, but watched 
Over her better than mom. Took donations for heat, 
A sofa and a new wig—all changed her mood. 
They even did her laundry. They did sweet 
Better than honey. Did family better than blood. 
And between duties, two men always off alone 
So desire, like the dishes, could also get done.

Poem for the Day: August 23rd, 2021

To The Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks 

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale. 
The gun will wait. The lake will wait. 
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April. 
You do not have to die this certain day. 
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement. 
I assure you death will wait. Death has 
a lot of time. Death can 
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is 
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor; 
can meet you any moment. 

You need not die today. 
Stay here—through pout or pain or peskyness. 
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow. 

Graves grow no green that you can use. 
Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.

I have a deep and abiding love for Gwendolyn Brooks and her poetry. So much of her work reads like prayer, and nowhere is this more evident than in the line You need not die today. Sometimes, I feel like life kicks us so squarely in the face that it would be easier to lie down and die. And it would be. Death is patient and eager to those who would embrace its precepts. But life…life has so much to offer us. And so we go back to Brooks: You need not die today. You need not die today. You need not die today. You need not die today. You need not die today. You need not die today. You need not die today.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: August 22nd, 2021

When I chose Strayed for my name, I wasn’t looking at the word’s negative connotations. I was aware at that time in my life that I’d really lost my way, that I’d gone off the path. But the other definitions of that word ‘strayed’ are very powerful too, you know? A stray is somebody who makes, or has to make, his or her own way in the world. A stray is someone who lives without the essential mother and the essential father, which is how I lived. So I was embracing that word, that name, for all of its darkness and all of its light, and I hoped I would keep growing and living into the name, sort of embodying it in my life, you know…It’s like my heritage. I feel it is my real name.

Cheryl Strayed

Poem for the Day: August 21st, 2021

Portland, 1968 by Louise Glück 

You stand as rocks stand 
to which the sea reaches 
in transparent waves of longing; 
they are marred, finally; 
everything fixed is marred. 
And the sea triumphs, 
like all that is false, 
all that is fluent and womanly. 
From behind, a lens 
opens for your body. Why 
should you turn? It doesn’t matter 
who the witness is, 
for whom you are suffering, 
for whom you are standing still.
Louise Glück. Unknown Author. Public Domain.

Note: Louise Glück was the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her collection of poetry, The Wild Iris (1993), won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: August 21st, 2021

Stand in the center of your own grace.

Alexandra Billings, Actress and Trans Activist, via Instagram

My first encounter with the work of Alexandra Billings was through her role as Davina Rejennae on Amazon’s Transparent. Luminous is too dim a word to describe what she brings to her performances, because it is apparent that she is imbuing each character with the wisdom gleaned from her own lived experience as a trans woman of color.

Today’s quote is taken from a video post Billings made on Instagram a few years ago. Sadly, I didn’t bookmark the exact day but I did write down the quote for posterity because it was too good not to. What exactly, though, does it mean to stand in the center of your own grace? For me, it means that you accept everything that has brought you to the present moment, acknowledging that what you’ve been through has made you into the person you are. It also means that you absolve yourself of blame, and its fugly cousin shame, for what you’ve done to survive. It means that you are cognizant of the fact that you are here because of what you’ve been through, not despite what you’ve been through, and you do not owe the world an explanation or an apology for taking up space.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Original Poem: Arms of the Deep

Love is not a cat chasing shadows on the floor.

Fred Slusher, “Arms of the Deep” 
Lull me into oblivion. My attention span 
is limited. Infinity, space, time—
your voice in my ear, bottom lip on my lobe—
turning love into cherries into wine. 
Creamsicle daylight is wasting away 
while we wait for the song to finish playing. 
When you were mine life was always 
a game sweetly played, vollied to & fro like 
the king’s severed head; no throne. 
Fade to black. Next reel, please.
Pleas to be real with me remain ignored. 
Love is not a cat chasing shadows on the floor. 
I feel you watching me caressing my own crooks 
in the dark. Elbows, not thieves, though 
everything of value has been stolen at one time or 
another. Dear lover, take this rambling lullaby 
& pitch it into the sea where memory goes to 
sleep in the steadfast arms of the 
deep.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

© 2021 Fred Slusher. All rights reserved.