THE BOTTOM LINE - Richard Shelton

                                                       For William Stafford

You and I think about it: who pays

the price for the way we live?

Some people live so still

they incur no expenses. Others,

so wild there's the Devil to pay.

Some don't even know they're in debt

and others go slow to avoid it.

People like you pay as you go

and people like me live in debt,

but we know who we owe. I owe

a woman, a good woman, and I

will never be able to pay.

People like you are beautiful

and free of all debt. The best

that can be said for people like me

is that we know who we owe.

Lightness - Meg Bateman (translated from the Gaelic)

It was your lightness that drew me,

the lightness of your talk and your laughter,

the lightness of your cheek in my hands,

your sweet gentle modest lightness;

and it is the lightness of your kiss

that is starving my mouth,

and the lightness of your embrace

that will let me go adrift.

New World - Louise Glück

As I saw it,

all my mother's life, my father

held her down, like

lead strapped to her ankles.

She was

buoyant by nature;

she wanted to travel,

go to theater, go to museums.

What he wanted

was to lie on the couch

with the Times

over his face,

so that death, when it came,

wouldn't seem a significant change.

In couples like this,

where the agreement

is to do things together,

it's always the active one

who concedes, who gives.

You can't go to museums

with someone who won't

open his eyes.

I thought my father's death

would free my mother.

In a sense, it has:

she takes trips, looks at

great art. But she's floating.

Like some child's balloon

that gets lost the minute

it isn't held.

Or like an astronaut

who somehow loses the ship

and has to drift in space

knowing, however long it lasts,

this is what's left of being alive: she's free

in that sense.

Without relation to earth.

"A youth in apparel that glittered" - Stephen Crane

A youth in apparel that glittered

Went to walk in a grim forest.

There he met an assassin

Attired all in garb of old days;

He, scowling through the thickets,

And dagger poised quivering,

Rushed upon the youth.

"Sir," said this latter,

"I am enchanted, believe me,

To die, thus,

In this medieval fashion,

According to the best legends;

Ah, what joy!"

Then took he the wound, smiling,

And died, content.

Action - Gösta Ågren

Every victory concludes

itself.  What remains is the way,

the same way again.  It is

possible to learn

knowledge, to conceal that

wild, nameless bird

beneath a name.  It is easy

to realise one's dreams

if one sacrifices them. And

the years, the years go by.  Yet

you must act now.

More profound than all that you do

is all that you are.  The most profound

is all that you must do

in order to be able to remain

who you are.

Grab Ass - C.L. Bledsoe

I wonder if you're dead and buried in a short

coffin, beef-jerky muscles wasted on meth

and misanthropy, daddy's money long spent.

Was the aroma of Ben Gay and rot in the air

while all the ex-footballers cum used car

salesmen wept quietly in their hand-

kerchiefs thinking about the glory days? I wonder

if your cheerleader wife stayed when you lost

your hair. When you got inside her, was there

anything there? Did you even win your blond

medal? What a waste you were. Timmy,

you hated me because I saw through you

to the void where your soul should've been,

and I knew, no matter how fast you ran,

you'd never outpace it. But all I had to do was wait

to get past you. Timmy, I hated you because you ruled

the world from the inside, because you always won

even when you needed to learn how to lose.