Sonnet (from "50 Sonnets") - Eleanor Brown

Not if you crawled from there to here, you hear?

Not if you begged me, on your bleeding knees.

Not if you lay exhausted at my door,

and pleaded with me for a chance.

Not if you wept (am I making this clear?)

or found a thousand different words for 'Please',

ten thousand for 'I’m sorry'; I’d ignore

you so sublimely; every new advance

would meet with such complete indifference.

Not if you promised me fidelity.

Not if you meant it. What impertinence,

then, is this voice that murmurs, 'What if he

didn’t? That isn’t his line of attack.

What if he simply grinned, and said, I’m back?'

"Some people don't need much to live on" - Henry Rollins

Some people don't need much to live on

Hell some folks live on pennies a day

I was right about to wrap my arms around that girl

But at the last minute

I jumped back and wrapped them around myself

Remember How Sad That Was When - Paul Guest

I missed sadness because I no longer missed you,

how emotionally counterintuitive it was

as my citizenship in the nation I made of you

gradually lapsed. I woke some other

place with lakes and blue skies and rush hours

and strangers I worried about. But no you.

No ages of you. No your name three times

when I walked somewhere or lay down at night

to bargain with sleep. No you

falling from my mouth everywhere I went.

No you anywhere to be seen.

A secret to keep. And mostly I did,

even beside other women who asked

with the privilege of their bodies

if you had ever existed and what did you do

and did you have a name I’d share

and had you been good to me

but I never gave you up. I left the last of you

to be lost in the fog inside me.

Napping in bomb craters, haggling

over debts I couldn’t deny were mine,

memorizing every month’s horoscope.

It seemed then the days

you had left me stained in sadness

were like that. Good apples on back order from God

and the steaks full of blood

you taught me to love, rationed.

At least I told myself this,

thinking of all the never you were.

But there were limits and lengths

and limits again. There were

songs inside the fog inside the world.

how is your heart? - Charles Bukowski

during my worst times

on the park benches

in the jails

or living with

whores

I always had this certain

contentment--

I wouldn’t call it

happiness--

it was more of an inner

balance

that settled for

whatever was occurring

and it helped in the

factories

and when relationships

went wrong

with the

girls.

it helped

through the

wars and the

hangovers

the backalley fights

the

hospitals.

to awaken in a cheap room

in a strange city and

pull up the shade--

this was the craziest kind of

contentment

and to walk across the floor

to an old dresser with a

cracked mirror--

see myself, ugly,

grinning at it all.

what matters most is

how well you

walk through the

fire.

"I want to take a screwdriver" - Henry Rollins

I want to take a screwdriver

Mutilate my face

Find a beautiful woman

Make her love me for what I am

Then say I don't need it and walk away

Mutable Earth - Louise Glück

Are you healed or do you only think you're healed?

I told myself

from nothing

nothing could be taken away.

But can you love anyone yet?

When I feel safe, I can love.

But will you touch anyone?

I told myself

if I had nothing

the world couldn't touch me.

In the bathtub, I examine my body.

We're supposed to do that.

And your face too?

Your face in the mirror?

I was vigilant: when I touched myself

I didn't feel anything.

Were you safe then?

I was never safe, even when I was most hidden.

Even then I was waiting.

So you couldn't protect yourself?

The absolute

erodes; the boundary, the wall

around the self erodes.

If I was waiting I had been

invaded by time.

But do you think you're free?

I think I recognize the patterns of my nature.

But do you think you're free?

I had nothing

and I was still changed.

Like a costume, my numbness

was taken away. Then

hunger was added.