3 Haiku for you

Haiku #1

Night plum tree bough,

Crow looking down.

No stars, only you.

Haiku #2

Leaving the islands

Rain like tears falling down

Ripples run round

Haiku # 3

Flower scent lingers.

Shower curtain, orchid seed.

Locks on my sweater.

A poem from me. Finger Snaps I should call this one.

For the Gardenias

Leave my heart alone

These thoughts of her,

Innocent and cunning

At once, like a blade of wheat,

To catch and cut the skin

Her sunshine days are in vaulted light

And beneath indigo pinpoint night

Where I saw her face among the stars,

And I know now why ships are launched to wars.

Watch your face like cherub’s cloud

Wrapped ‘round your shoulders silky

Remember:

Your cheeks of bone, and jaw,

As they work out your forehead’s flesh.

Perhaps to know the softness of your lips

And the gentle passions which they press

The smell of gardenias when they are fresh

American Life in Poetry: Column 536

American Life in Poetry: Column 536
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

I love short poems, and Wendy Videlock is very good at writing them. This is from her book Slingshots and Love Plums, from Able Muse Press. She lives in Colorado.

A Relevance
One
teeny tiny
worm
making the earth
turn.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of NebraskaLincoln.
Poem copyright ©2015 by Wendy Videlock, “A Relevance,” from her book of poems, Slingshots and Love
Plums, (Able Muse Press, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Wendy Videlock and the publisher.
Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as
United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 20042006.
We do not
accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry: Column 537

American Life in Poetry: Column 537
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
One of the first uses of language must surely have been to tell others what happened beyond the firelight, out
in the forest. And poems that do just that seem wonderfully natural and human to me. Here’s Anya Krugovoy
Silver telling us something that happened far from home. She lives and teaches in Georgia.
Doing Laundry In Budapest
The dryer, uniform and squat as a biscuit tin,
came to life and turned on me its insect eye.
My tshirts
and underwear crackled and leapt.
I was a tourist there; I didn’t speak the language.
My shoulders covered themselves up in churches,
my tongue soothed its burn with slices of pickle.
More I don’t remember: only, weekends now
when I stand in the kitchen, sorting sweat pants
and pairing socks, I remember the afternoon
I did my laundry in Budapest, where the sidewalks
bloomed with embroidered linen, where money
wasn’t permitted to leave the country.
When I close my eyes, I recall that spinning,
then a woman, with nothing else to sell,
pressing wilted flowers in my hands.
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department
7/6/2015 Gmail American
Life in Poetry 537
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=79b965383d&view=pt&search=inbox&th=14e63e49b5998b9e&siml=14e63e49b5998b9e 2/2
of English at the University of NebraskaLincoln.
Poem copyright ©2014 by Anya Krugovoy Silver, “Doing
Laundry in Budapest,” from I Watched You Disappear: Poems, (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2014). Poem
reprinted by permission of Anya Krugovoy Silver and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 20042006.