Showing posts with label cruelty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cruelty. Show all posts

10/3/18

VOLUNTARY - JR Walsh

My little sister said why a lot. Why this? Why that? Why everything.
My father said, Stop trying to answer every question every time.
So I said, She wants to know why so I’m telling her.

My father said, She doesn’t care. It’s involuntary.
She’s two years old and wants you to talk to her.
I’m tired of both of you. 

I didn’t ask why. 

My father left for work.
My sister wanted to know why.
So I said, To get away from you.

Then my mother said, Why’s your sister crying?
I didn’t answer why.
Maybe my father was right.

2/14/16

for one I knew - Charles Bukowski

Of all the iron beds in paradise
yours was the most cruel
and I was smoke in your mirror
and you sluiced your hair with jade,
but you were a woman and I was a
boy, but boy enough for an iron bed
and man enough for wine
and you.

now I am a man,
man enough for all,
and you are, you
are
        old

not now so cruel,

now your iron bed
is empty.

12/16/15

You Must Accept - Kate Light

You must accept that’s who he really is.
You must accept you cannot be his
unless he is yours. No compromise.
He is a canvas on which paint never dries;
a clay that never sets, steel that bends
in a breeze, a melody that when it ends
no one can whistle. He is not who
you thought. He’s not. He is a shoe
that walks away: “I will not go where you
want to go.” “Why, then, are you a shoe?”
“I’m not. I have the sole of a lover
but don’t know what love is.” “Discover
it, then.” “Will I have to go where you go?”
“Sometimes.” “Be patient with you?” “Yes.” “Then, no.”
You have to hear what he is telling you
and see what he is; how it is killing you.

1/1/15

The Uses of Sorrow - Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.