Poem Begins With P

By America Christian

Drawing inspiration from Sappho, Mary Oliver, Greek myths and European fairy tales, Poem Begins With P, traces America’s relationship with her Beloved through the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. The poems follow a roller coaster of fear, heartbreak, anger, and grief, but through it all, America’s love remains strong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: America Christian
• Release date: Apr 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005792466

Book preview

I Have Lost Track

I have lost track of the days

Somehow it is Monday

And I killed a bug by bashing it to bits with my hairbrush

We fill our glasses half full

Say a prayer

Then another

3.30.2020

Bold Tongued And Vast Of Heart

I strike the metal breastplate

Just to hear it ring

Bold tongued I speak

And vast of heart I love

I am my own hero

4.20.2020

Romeo

Romeo

Do you smell the roses?

Romeo will you sing for me?

Romeo I miss your face

5.13.2020

Morning

It seems to rain each night

I wonder if these raindrops are the tears of God

Or angels

Heaven have mercy

This is terrible time

With so many souls

And so many bodies

Left unburied

We mourn the nameless and the named

And still the clock ticks

And money percolates like a broken coffee maker

One

Single

Drop

At a

Time

Oh to be rich is to be free!

5.17.20

New York Times Sunday May 24th 2020 Early Edition

this is what they do when there’s a war

I think?

way back in the time of wwi

back when we couldn’t imagine any worse

or any other wars

they used to print up names like this

and the families would press their noses up to the newsprint

and pray one of their boys wasn’t on the list

that was a hundred and something

years ago

front page of the new york times

it’s still around

and the names are every kind of person

I can’t imagine one hundred thousand in general

or that many funerals specifically

(not that those left behind were allowed

to take small comfort in the usual

mourning rituals)

but look

how one/one hundredth is what fits on the page

we’ll write about this in the history books

if we’re still around

5.23.2020

God Weeps

I imagine it must be hard to be God

Who gave us beauty

And hope

And light

And joy

And laughter

And friendship

And love

It must be hard

To know the lives and deaths of all of us

The fates of every living creature

Jesus wept is the shortest sentence of the Bible

It is just two words but

I know he was ashamed of us

I know he was hurting because of us

Maybe the saying should go:

Man makes plans

God weeps

Agony agony

And yet we still make God suffer

How dare we?

6.2.2020

For The Lost, Who Happens To Share My Birthday

Oh millennium child

I picture you as an infant

Bright eyed and smiling

In your mother’s arms

Your sister is calling out your name

Oh brother where art thou?

I pray you will be found

Living and breathing

I pray and I pray and I pray

Too many sons and daughters and children

Leave only a photograph behind

Oh God

Oh Mother Mary

Do not let another family feel what it feels to lose a son

6.2.2020

(This young Black man, who disappeared after a Black Lives Matter demonstration was violently disrupted by police, was found safe and sound a few days after his family filed the missing persons report. He had been taken in by strangers.)

The Geese: A Reflection

There were