Delay - Elizabeth Jennings

The radiance of the star that leans on me

Was shining years ago. The light that now

Glitters up there my eyes may never see,

And so the time lag teases me with how

Love that loves now may not reach me until

Its first desire is spent. The star's impulse

Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful

And love arrived may find us somewhere else.

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.

Habits - Nikki Giovanni

i haven’t written a poem in so long

i may have forgotten how

unless writing a poem

is like riding a bike

or swimming upstream

or loving you

it may be a habit that once acquired

is never lost

but you say i’m foolish

of course you love me

but being loved of course

is not the same as being loved because

or being loved despite

or being loved

if you love me why

do i feel so lonely

and why do i always wake up alone

and why am i practicing

not having you to love

i never loved you that way

remains - Charles Bukowski

things are good as I am not dead yet

and the rats move in the beercans,

the papersacks shuffle like small dogs,

and her photographs are stuck onto a painting

by a dead German and she too is dead

and it took 14 years to know her

and if they give me another 14

I will know her yet . . .

her photos stuck over the glass

neither move nor speak,

but I even have her voice on tape,

and she speaks some evenings,

her again

so real she laughs

says the thousand things,

the one thing I always ignored;

this will never leave me:

that I had love

and love died;

a photo and a piece of tape

is not much, I have learned late,

but give me 14 days or 14 years,

I will kill any man

who would touch or take

whatever's left.

Poem To Be Read at 3 a.m. - Donald Justice

Excepting the diner

On the outskirts

The town of Ladora

At 3 a.m.

Was dark but

For my headlights

And up in

One second-story room

A single light

Where someone

Was sick or

Perhaps reading

As I drove past

At seventy

Not thinking

This poem

Is for whoever

Had the light on