1. English Girl Eats Her First Mango by John Agard

1. English Girl Eats Her First Mango

Agard, John. "English Girl Eats Her First Mango." In Give the Ball to the Poet, edited by George Horrell, Aisha Spencer and Morag Styles, 42. London: Commonwealth Education Trust Books, 2014.

"If I did tell she

hold this gold 

of sundizzy

tonguelicking juicy

mouthwater flow

ripe with love

from the tropics

she woulda tell me

trust you to be

mellowdramatic

so I just say

taste this mango

and I watch she hold 

the smooth cheeks

of the mango

blushing yellow

and a glow

rush to she own cheeks

and she ask me

what do I do now

just bite into it?

and I was tempted

to tell she

why not be a devil

and eat of the skin

of original sin

but she woulda tell me

trust you to be

mysterious

so I just say

it’s up to you

if you want to peel it

and I watch she feel it

as something precious

then she smile and say

looks delicious

and I tell she

don’t waste sweet words

when sweetness

in your hand

just bite it man

peel it with the teeth

that God give you

or better yet

do like me mother

used to do

and squeeze

till the flesh

turn syrup

nibble a hole

then suck the gold

like bubby

in child mouth

squeeze and tease out

every drop of spice

sounds nice

me friend tell me

and I remind she

that this ain’t

apple core

so don’t forget

the seed

suck that too

the sweetest part

the juice does run

down to your heart

man if you see

the English rose

she face was bliss

down to the pink

of she toes

and when she finish

she smile

and turn to me

lend me your hanky

my fingers

are all sticky

with mango juice

and I had to tell she

what hanky

you talking bout

you don’t know

when you eat mango

you hanky

is your tongue

man just lick

you finger

you call that

culture

lick your finger

you call that

culture

unless you prefer

to call it

colonisation

in reverse"

"Passion for Solitude" BY CESARE PAVESE ~ TR. GEOFFREY BROCK

~
I’m eating a little supper by the bright window.
The room’s already dark, the sky’s starting to turn.
Outside my door, the quiet roads lead,
after a short walk, to open fields.
I’m eating, watching the sky—who knows
how many women are eating now. My body is calm:
labor dulls all the senses, and dulls women too. 

Outside, after supper, the stars will come out to touch
the wide plain of the earth. The stars are alive,
but not worth these cherries, which I’m eating alone.
I look at the sky, know that lights already are shining
among rust-red roofs, noises of people beneath them.
A gulp of my drink, and my body can taste the life
of plants and of rivers. It feels detached from things.
A small dose of silence suffices, and everything’s still,
in its true place, just like my body is still. 

All things become islands before my senses,
which accept them as a matter of course: a murmur of silence.
All things in this darkness—I can know all of them,
just as I know that blood flows in my veins.
The plain is a great flowing of water through plants,
a supper of all things. Each plant, and each stone,
lives motionlessly. I hear my food feeding my veins
with each living thing that this plain provides. 

The night doesn’t matter. The square patch of sky
whispers all the loud noises to me, and a small star
struggles in emptiness, far from all foods,
from all houses, alien. It isn’t enough for itself,
it needs too many companions. Here in the dark, alone,
my body is calm, it feels it’s in charge.

Abha by John Siddique in his collection Full Blood

“The Earth loves the first ray of light that

Falls

upon him each morning more than any other light.

She is the first ray, the only one.

Day has its beauty but nothing pleases the

Earth

more than the first moment when Abha

takes his hand

What a risk to take for love?

Five thousand miles and a failing marriage,

a cat’s cradle of ties holding her there.

Moving with the sunlight as it tracks his

face

he is the world under her; without each

other

there is only darkness and bare rock.

What did the Earth know before

the first ray of light of the morning?
That darkness was all and forever.

His hardness, the absence of life.

A cold dream of a star.

The meaning of being untouched.

What did the light know before

She reached out to take Earth’s hand?
Pure speed through endless darkness.

No reflection of herself in the mirror.

A cold dream of a distant Earth.

The meaning of not touching.

From Chandigarh to Manchester

for a man she only knows by heart

the imagined city of love.

Imagine a city without light,

or the light without a city.

How small the world of the heart?

The world has conurbated,

It’s a small world they say.

How large the world is

when travelled for love,

when we count the hours

and the miles lived without it.

          *****

Relax by Ellen Bass

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat–
the one you never really liked–will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up–drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice–one white, one black–scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

(C) Ellen Bass.

A Lesson In Drawing by Nizar Qabbani

My son places his paint box in front of me

and asks me to draw a bird for him.

Into the color gray I dip the brush

and draw a square with locks and bars.

Astonishment fills his eyes:

"... But this is a prison, Father,

Don't you know, how to draw a bird?"

And I tell him: "Son, forgive me.

I've forgotten the shapes of birds."

My son puts the drawing book in front of me

and asks me to draw a wheatstalk.

I hold the pen

and draw a gun.

My son mocks my ignorance,

demanding,

"Don't you know, Father, the difference between a

wheatstalk and a gun?"

I tell him, "Son,

once I used to know the shapes of wheatstalks

the shape of the loaf

the shape of the rose

But in this hardened time

the trees of the forest have joined

the militia men

and the rose wears dull fatigues

In this time of armed wheatstalks

armed birds

armed culture

and armed religion

you can't buy a loaf

without finding a gun inside

you can't pluck a rose in the field

without its raising its thorns in your face

you can't buy a book

that doesn't explode between your fingers."

My son sits at the edge of my bed

and asks me to recite a poem,

A tear falls from my eyes onto the pillow.

My son licks it up, astonished, saying:

"But this is a tear, father, not a poem!"

And I tell him:

"When you grow up, my son,

and read the diwan of Arabic poetry

you'll discover that the word and the tear are twins

and the Arabic poem

is no more than a tear wept by writing fingers."

My son lays down his pens, his crayon box in

front of me

and asks me to draw a homeland for him.

The brush trembles in my hands

and I sink, weeping.

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?" - —Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/007.html

After A While by Veronica A. Shoffstall

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn’t mean leaning
and company doesn’t always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren’t contracts
and presents aren’t promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman,
not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow’s ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn…

~1971, Veronica A. Shoffstall~