Liz’s Weekly Poetry Series: Adios 2012

December 31, 2012 in Montana

by lizard

We may not make any best-of lists here at 4&20 Blackbirds, but it’s still an immense pleasure for me to express my opinions and share poems with the readers who stop by. Thank you.

This has been a tough year on many levels. I hope the poems I feature offer a bit of balance to the consistently critical political posts I write, though admittedly much of the poetry I select isn’t necessarily about butterflies and sunshine.

In that vein, my final post of 2012 features a poem by Joy Harjo, from her book She Had Some Horses (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1983). Enjoy, and be safe.

*

The Friday Before The Long Weekend

You come in here
drunk child
pour your beer
down the drain,
“apple juice”,
bullshit.
I can see you,
I can see
you, what you
are doing to yourself
is something
I can’t sing about.
I can point
to the piss yellow
drops in the sink.
I can see the stagger
in your eyes
glasses askew
your voice loud
cawing
uncertain bravado
and you come in here
to be taught
to take writing
but hell,
what can I teach you
what can I do?
Something shaky and terrible
starts in my belly.
The sour reality rolls over
in my throat.
I can’t do anything
but talk to the wind,
to the moon
but cry out goddamn goddamn
to stones
and to other deathless voices
that I hope will carry
us all through.

—Joy Harjo