ALICIA OSTRIKER: POEMS FOR THE TIME (an anthology) Dear Dennis, When I can't stand political and journalistic rhetoric any longer, I turn to poems. I don't believe poetry is therapeutic, but I do think it is diagnostic. Poems clarify, whether we like it or not. Here are some I have gathered, from various sources. May they be useful to others. Yours truly, Alicia Ostriker (Alicia Ostriker wrote the introduction for the book, "Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets," which also features her poem, "the window, at the moment of flame." The book is published by Melville House Books, and is available here.) contents      God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children by Yehuda Amichai      To a Terrorist by Stephen Dunn      the window, at the moment of flame by Alicia Ostriker      What Are Years by Marianne Moore      Poem by Muriel Rukeyser      On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam by Hayden Carruth      The God Abandons Antony by C. P. Cavafy   GOD HAS PITY ON KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN God has pity on kindergarten children. He has less pity on school children And on grownups he has no pity at all, he leaves them alone, and sometimes they must crawl on all fours in the burning sand to reach the first–aid station covered with blood. But perhaps he will watch over true lovers and have mercy on them and shelter them like a tree over the old man sleeping on a public bench. Perhaps we too will give them the last rare coins of charity that Mother handed down to us so that their happiness may protect us now and on other days.                         Yehuda Amichai   TO A TERRORIST For the historical ache, the ache passed down which finds its circumstance and becomes the present ache, I offer this poem without hope, knowing there's nothing, not even revenge, which alleviates a life like yours. I offer it as one might offer his father's ashes to the wind, a gesture when there's nothing else to do. Still, I must say to you: I hate your good reasons. I hate the hatefullness that makes you fall in love with death, your own included. Perhaps you're hating me now, I who own my own house and live in a country so muscular, so smug, it thinks its terror is meant only to mean well, and to protect. Christ turned his singular cheek, one man's holiness another's absurdity. Like you, the rest of us obey the sting, the surge. I'm just speaking out loud to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse, doomed to become mere words. The first poet probably spoke to thunder and, for a while, believed thunder had an ear and a choice.                         Stephen Dunn   the window, at the moment of flame and all this while I have been playing with toys a toy superhighway a toy automobile a house of blocks and all this while far off in other lands thousands and thousands, millions and millions you know — you see the pictures women carrying bony infants men sobbing over graves buildings sculpted by explosion — earth wasted bare and rotten and all this while I have been shopping, I have been let us say free and do they hate me for it do they hate me                         alicia ostriker   WHAT ARE YEARS What is our innocence, what is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe. And whence is courage; the unanswered question, the resolute doubt — dumbly calling, deafly listening — that in misfortune, even death,           encourages others           and in its defeat, stirs the soul to be strong? He sees deep and is glad, who accedes to mortality and in his imprisonment rises upon himself as the sea in a chasm, struggling to be free and unable to be,           in its surrendering           finds its continuing. So he who strongly feels behaves. The very bird, grown taller as he sings, steels his form straight up. Though he is captive, his mighty singing says, satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy.           This is mortality,           this is eternity.                         Marianne Moore   POEM I lived in the first century of world wars. Most mornings I would be more or less insane. The news would pour out of various devices The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories, Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen. I would call my friends on other devices; They would be more or less mad for similar reasons. Slowly I would get to pen and paper, Make my poems for others unseen and unborn. In the day I would be reminded of those men and women, Brave, setting up signals across vast distances, considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values. As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened, We would try to imagine them, try to find each other, To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other, Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves, To let go the means, to wake. I lived in the first century of these wars.                         Muriel Rukeyser   On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam Well I have and in fact more than one and I'll tell you this too I wrote one against Algeria that nightmare and another against Korea and another against the one I was in and I don't remember how many against the three when I was a boy Abyssinia Spain and Harlan County and not one breath was restored to one shattered throat mans womans or childs not one not one but death went on and on never looking aside except now and then with a furtive half-smile to make sure I was noticing.                         Hayden Carruth   The God Abandons Antony           When suddenly, at midnight, you hear           an invisible procession going by           with exquisite music, voices,           don't mourn your luck that's failing now,           work gone wrong, your plans           all proving deceptive — don't mourn them uselessly.           As one long prepared, and graced with courage,           say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.           Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say           it was a dream, your ears deceived you:           don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.           As one long prepared, and graced with courage,           as is right for you who were given this kind of city,           go firmly to the window           And listen with deep emotion, but not           with whining, the pleas of a coward;           listen — your final delectation — to the voices,           to the exquisite music of that strange procession,           and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.                         C. P. Cavafy All rights for these poems reserved by their authors. Home

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