XIII - Stephen Crane

IF THERE IS A WITNESS TO MY LITTLE LIFE,

TO MY TINY THROES AND STRUGGLES,

HE SEES A FOOL ;

AND IT IS NOT FINE FOR GODS TO MENACE

       FOOLS.

"If I should cast off this tattered coat," - Stephen Crane

If I should cast off this tattered coat,

And go free into the mighty sky;

If I should find nothing there

But a vast blue,

Echoless, ignorant,—

What then?

To the One Upstairs - Charles Simic

Boss of all bosses of the universe.

Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, wire-puller,

And whatever else you're good at.

Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonight.

Dip in ink the comets' tails.

Staple the night with starlight.

You'd be better off reading coffee dregs,

Thumbing the pages of the Farmer's Almanac.

But no! You love to put on airs,

And cultivate your famous serenity

While you sit behind your big desk

With zilch in your in-tray, zilch

In your out-tray,

And all of eternity spread around you.

Doesn't it give you the creeps

To hear them begging you on their knees,

Sputtering endearments,

As if you were an inflatable, life-size doll?

Tell them to button up and go to bed.

Stop pretending you're too busy to take notice.

Your hands are empty and so are your eyes.

There's nothing to put your signature to,

Even if you knew your own name,

Or believed the ones I keep inventing,

As I scribble this note to you in the dark.

Homage to Isaac Newton - Janos Pilinszky

We commit what we do not commit,

and we do not commit what we commit.

Somewhere there is a terrible silence.

Towards that we gravitate.