Psalms of the Dining Room

Schmidt

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781498269902
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

"In Psalms of the Dining Room, Lauren Schmidt lays down riffs like a fierce blues guitarist, one who knows the power of each carefully chosen note. These poems explode with tough compassion. They sting a little bit--they make us flinch in recognition. Schmidt's sharply etched details tell the powerful stories of her characters' struggles to be seen, to be acknowledged as human. These poems remind us of how close we all are to each other, despite efforts at denial and distance, despite how violence can erode the human spirit. Her characters fight for dignity in the face of everything rigged to keep them down." - Jim Daniels author of In Line for the Exterminator

"The poetry of Lauren Schmidt does what poetry should do: make the invisible visible, indelibly, unforgettably. If ever a collection of poems embodied Whitman's dictum to speak for "the rights of them the others are down upon," this is it...The poems inspired by the experience of working with this community--in The Dining Room and beyond--humanize the dehumanized, compelling us to see what we do not see and hear what we do not hear, to gaze upon the "ugly" until it becomes beautiful, to re-imagine, re-invent and repair the world." - From the Foreword by Martin Espada

Part One

Ask Me

After William Stafford

When graffiti becomes gospel, ask me

if I’ve ever believed in anything.

When telephone poles carry saviors,

when they conduct the Word, ask me

if I’ve posted my inky prayers on them. Ask me

if any tabs with my number are missing,

or if I’ve gotten any calls.

When psalms lift from sewers, ask me

if I’ve let mine go up in a rising wind,

if I can hear them in the stillness of coming and going

and going again.

Some time, when traffic raises the dead, ask me

if I believe in Heaven, and I’ll show you the world

underneath my shoe where we must cover our mouths

from the manic stench of a man who lives there.

His hair clumps into horns at his forehead,

and the wolves of his eyes click corner to corner.

Some time, when pedestrians are the faithful, ask me

to hold out my hand for peace. Ask me if anyone

reaches to touch me. Some time, when transients

are the prophets, ask me if I ever read their signs.

When crosswalks are the stations, ask me

to lift my back into the oaken wind, ask me

to follow the bridge of skeletons to the safer side.

And when the stoplight changes green to red, ask me

if I can begin again, if I know to pause for a miracle, ask me,

as I’m almost run over, to follow the blinking light

of a man who seems to know the way. Ask me

if my feet need a bath when I get there.

What this city says, that is what I will say.

Gridlock

A teenage girl in too-high heels stamps past a line of cars.

Held by a stop sign, drivers wait for her

patent leather daggers to pass. Her stagger begins

to slow: she knows they cannot go until she’s gone.

She idles in the crosswalk, stages herself before the cars

in a half-deserted plea to be seen. She needs so...