April 15, 2024: Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation, Natalie Diaz
Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation
Natalie Diaz
Angels don’t come to the reservation.
Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.
Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—
death. And death
eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel
fly through this valley ever.
Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though—
he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical
Indian. Sure he had wings,
jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops,
kids grow like gourds from women’s bellies.
Like I said, no Indian I’ve ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.
Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something—
Nazarene church holds one every December,
organized by Pastor John’s wife. It’s no wonder
Pastor John’s son is the angel—everyone knows angels are white.
Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.
Remember what happened last time
some white god came floating across the ocean?
Truth is, there may be angels, but if there are angels
up there, living on clouds or sitting on thrones across the sea wearing
velvet robes and golden rings, drinking whiskey from silver cups,
we’re better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and
’xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens.
You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to
Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.
--
Another abecedarian!
Also:
+ The Terrible Beauty of the Reserve, Billy-Ray Belcourt
+ Anchorage, Joy Harjo
+ At the Trial of Hamlet, Chicago, 1994, Sherman Alexie
Today in:
2023: Dutch Elm Disease, Valencia Robin
2022: More Bang for Your Buck Running Scared, Brennan Bestwick
2021: Rain, Peter Everwine
2020: Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale, Dan Albergotti
2019: Prayer, Galway Kinnell
2018: Egg, C.G. Hanzlicek
2017: Well Water, Randall Jarrell
2016: For Desire, Kim Addonizio
2015: The Coming of Light, Mark Strand
2014: Flying Low, Stephen Dunn
2013: The Envoy, Jane Hirshfield
2012: Red Wand, Sandra Simonds
2011: Trying to Raise the Dead, Dorianne Laux
2010: Asking for Directions, Linda Gregg
2009: A Blessing, James Wright
2008: New York, New York, David Berman
2007: Waste Land Limericks, Wendy Cope
2006: There Are Two Worlds, Larry Levis
2005: America, Allen Ginsberg
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— Natalie Diaz, Manhattan Is a Lenape Word
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natalie diaz’s brother died unexpectedly & she wrote on instagram “grief is a strange work. a hard light. and looks so much like love, too much even.”
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Natalie Diaz, from Postcolonial Love Poem
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A Brother Named Gethsemane, Natalie Diaz // Antigone in front of the Dead Polynices, Nikiforos Lytras
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It's world poetry day so here are some of my favorite poems:
Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert
What the Living Do by Marie Howe
Night Walk by Franz Wright
Crossword by Lloyd Schwartz
The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert
Love Train by Tomás Q. Morín
Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts by Mark Halliday
Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo
in another string of the multiverse, perhaps by Michaella Batten
acknowledgments by Danez Smith
Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker
San Francisco by Richard Brautigan
How to Watch Your Brother Die by Michael Lassell
You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life by Rebecca Hazelton
On Political(ized) Life by Kanika Lawton
All the Dead Boys Look Like Me by Christopher Soto
It Was the Animals by Natalie Diaz
In Time by W.S. Merwin
It Is Maybe Time to Admit That Michael Jordan Definitely Pushed Off by Hanif Abdurraqib
Dear Life by Maya C. Popa
I Could Touch It by Ellen Bass
To The Young Who Want To Die by Gwendolyn Brooks
Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds by Ada Limón
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I wanna be roadkill
Find me a mile up ahead
Lying there on the roadside
Say, don’t worry now, it’s already dead
series 1: roadkill/longing
roadkill, searows // cyanotypes, emilio hernandez martin // hard times, ethel cain // child wearing a red scarf, eduoard vuillard // empty stomach, rachel sabini // thirstiness is not equal division, kaveh akbar // salvage, hedgie choi // ‘deer at night’, george shiras III // kinder than man, athea davis // best barbarian, roger reeves // ‘johannes land, suite no.2’, simon bang // my photograph // postcolonial love poem, natalie diaz // the dislocated room, richard siken // the moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings, donika kelly // abstract (psychopomp), hozier // miniatures, cassandra de alba // from collected poems; between aging and old, jack gilbert // the favourite (2018), dir. yorgos lanthimos // unidad (oneness), pablo neruda // least of all, natalie wee
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favourite poems of december
a.r. ammons collected poems: 1951-1971: "dunes"
jennifer robertson shrill shirts will always balloon
n. scott momaday in the presence of the sun: stories and poems, 1961-1991: "the delight song of tsoai-talee"
ted berrigan the collected poems of ted berrigan: "bean spasms"
natalie diaz when my brother was an aztec: "abecedarian requiring further examination of anglikan seraphym subjugation of a wild indian rezervation"
greg miller watch: "river"
joanna klink excerpts from a secret prophecy: "terrebonne bay"
dorothy dudley pine river bay
brenda shaughnessy our andromeda: "our andromeda"
frank lima incidents of travel in poetry: "orfeo"
lehua m. taitano one kind of hunger
no'u revilla kino
linda hogan when the body
paul verlaine one hundred and one poems by paul verlaine: a biligual edition: "moonlight" (tr. norman r. shapiro)
mahmoud darwish the butterfly's burden: "the cypress broke" (tr. fady joudah)
mahmoud darwish the butterfly's burden: "your night is of lilac"
amir rabiyah prayers for my 17th chromosome: "our dangerous sweetness"
sara nicholson the living method: "the end of television"
charles shields proposal for a exhibition
ginger murchison a scrap of linen, a bone: "river"
tsering wangmo dhompa virtual
anne carson the beauty of the husband: "v. here is my propaganda one one one one oneing on your forehead like droplets of luminous sin"
muriel rukeyser the collected poems of muriel rukeyser: "the book of the dead"
anne stevenson stone milk: "the enigma"
david tomas martinez love song
robert fitzgerald charles river nocturne
thomas mcgrath the movie at the end of the world: collected poems: "many in the darkness"
linda rodriguez heart's migration: "the amazon river dolphin"
donald revell the glens of cithaeron
sumita chakraborty dear, beloved
angela jackson and all these roads be luminous: "miz rosa rides the bus"
kofi
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Manhattan is a Lenape Word, Natalie Diaz | Winter Without You, Sarah Kay
[ Text ID: It is December and we must be brave. / It is December and nobody asked if I was ready. ]
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