Showing posts with label American poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American poetry. Show all posts

12/9/17

Strangers - Richard Shelton

we find ourselves at the exact place
where the light becomes darkness
and turn our faces toward one another

realizing we could be lovers we could
be anything we could even be friends
we could carry our scars
like banners we could pray to each other
and answer each other’s prayers
                 
this is the earth we can touch it
the mountains expose their nipples
to the last rays of the sun
and day lingers on the undersides of leaves

with so much need on the horizon
surely there is a heart around here somewhere
but we are characters from a book who have
come here on vacation
to listen to the pulse of the sea
which makes an affirmation beyond despair

those who have heard it
do not recommend it to anybody

we have heard the hypnotized telephone
ring itself into a trance of silence we have
seen the poor pass by on borrowed legs
we have been enameled by the sun

and as we are slowly going under water
where all light
is the light of a green stone broken open
we keep our distance it is all we have

10/1/16

For the Dead - Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the leftover
energy, water rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting there long after midnight