Yes, we know there are only 31 days in August, but we just had to continue posting poems through the end of this week!

Night-Music

by Muriel Rukeyser

When those who can never again forgive themselves
Finish their dinners, rear up from the chair,
Turning to movies are caught in demonstrations
Sweeping the avenues — Meet them there.

Watching how their faces change like traffic-light —
Bold blood gone green as horses pound the street,
As the plates of sweated muscle push
Them squarely back into retreat.

Notice their tremulous late overthrow,
Caught irresponsible; as he first rank presses
Up at the brown animal breast of law,
Defying government by horses.

And after the quick night-flurry, the few jailed,
The march stampeded, the meeting stopped, go down
Night-streets to unique rooms where horror ends,
Strike-songs are sung, and the old songs remain.

Vaguely Ilonka draws her violin
Along to Bach, greatest of trees, whereunder
Earth is again familiar, grandmother,
And very god-music branches overhead.

Changeable spirit! Build a newer music
Rich enough to feed starvation on.
Course down the night, past scenes of horror, among
Children awake, lands ruined, begging men.

Rebel against torment —
Boats gone, night-battles, the sleepers up and shaking,
Fear in the streets,
Cruelty on awaking.

Make music out of night with change the night.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.

Yes, we know there are only 31 days in August, but we just had to continue posting poems through the end of this week!

American Hero

by Essex Hemphill

I have nothing to lose tonight.
All my men surround me, panting,
as I spin the ball above our heads
on my middle finger.
It’s a shimmering club light
and I’m dancing, slick in my sweat.
Squinting, I aim at the hole
fifty feet away. I let the tension go.
Shoot for the net. Choke it.
I never hear the ball
slap the backboard. I slam it
through the net. The crowd goes wild
for our win. I scored
thirty-two points this game
and they love me for it.
Everyone hollering
is a friend tonight.
But there are towns,
certain neighborhoods
where I’d be hard pressed
to hear them cheer
if I move on the block.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.

Musculature

by Carl Phillips

The last dog I owned, or — more humanely put, so
I’m told — that I used to live with, she’d follow me
everywhere. She died eventually. I put her down’s
more the truth. It is the truth. And now
this dog — that
I mostly call Sovereignty, both for how sovereignty,
like fascination, can be overrated, and for how long it’s
taken me, just to half-understand that. Pretty much my
whole life. Mortality seemed an ignorable wilderness
like any other; the past seemed what, occasionally, it
still does, a version of luck when luck, as if inevitably,
gets stripped away: what hope, otherwise, for suffering?
When did honesty become so hard to step into and stay
inside of, I’m not saying
forever, I could last a fair time
on a small while. Sovereignty sleeps hard beside me. I
pass my hands down the full length of him, like a loose
command through a summer garden. Let those plants
that can do so lean away on their stems, toward the sun.

Source: Poetry (June 2015)

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.