Showing posts with label Strangers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strangers. Show all posts

3/26/20

Traveling - Stephen Dunn

If you travel alone, hitchhiking,
sleeping in woods,
make a cathedral of the moonlight
that reaches you, and lie down in it.
Shake a box of nails
at the night sounds
for there is comfort in your own noise.
And say out loud:
somebody at sunrise be distraught
for love of me,
somebody at sunset call my name.
There will soon be company.
But if the moon clouds over
you have to live with disapproval.
You are a traveler,
you know the open, hostile smiles
of those stuck in their lives.
Make a fire.
If the Devil sits down, offer companionship,
tell her you’ve always admired
her magnificent, false moves.
Then recite the list
of what you’ve learned to do without.
It is stronger than prayer.

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