4/8/17

At the Restaurant - Stephen Dunn

Six people are too many people
and a public place the wrong place
for what you're thinking--

stop this now.

Who do you think you are?
The duck à l'orange is spectacular,
the flan the best in town.

But there among your friends
is the unspoken, as ever,
chatter and gaiety its familiar song.

And there's your chronic emptiness
spiraling upward in search of words
you'll dare not say

without irony.
You should have stayed at home.
It's part of the social contract

to seem to be where your body is,
and you've been elsewhere like this,
for Christ's sake, countless times;

behave, feign.

Certainly you believe a part of decency
is to overlook, to let pass?
Praise the Caesar salad. Praise Susan's

black dress, Paul's promotion and raise.
Inexcusable, the slaughter in this world.
Insufficient, the merely decent man.

4/2/17

Untitled - Chris Mc Geown


Mental illnesses
Are constellations
Of the mind–
Most people won’t
See them
Unless you point
Them out.

1/1/17

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE - Richard Shelton

                                                      For Michael Hogan

on December nights
when the rain we needed months ago
is still far off and the wind
gropes through the desert
in search of any tree to hold it

those who live here all year round
listen to the irresistible
voice of loneliness
and want only to be left alone

local knowledge is to live in a place
and know the place
however barren

some kinds of damage
provide their own defense
and we who stay in the ruins
are secure against enemies and friends

if you should see one of us
in the distance as your caravan passes
and if he is ragged and gesturing
do not be mistaken

he is not gesturing for rescue
he is shouting go away

12/15/16

when the one you thought, finally, wouldn't, does, - Marty McConnell

where do you go? the hole in your hands
keeps getting bigger. first a pencil falls through.
then your teacup, then entire bodies

like light, like you’re made of nothing stronger
than tissue, than sugar heated and spread
to look like glass. not the real thing. not you.
your atoms sit so far apart, your lovers

walk right through. one might say, over
the top of you. but no need for that, when you
can bend around their many departures, the most
porous door. she came back. they always

come back. why not. you are not a creature
of consequences. one way to survive a fall
is to believe very strongly that you
do not have bones. another

is to watch the hole in your body grow
until you are nothing but hole, and who
doesn’t love a hole. you’re the great circle
they can write their lives inside, a flat

unused womb they can crawl into. in this
way, you are useful. this way, you can sleep
in the house that raised you.

12/5/16

AND THE SCARS WILL BE COVERED - Richard Shelton

responsibility fell at my feet
like a dead bird
and I left it for the collectors of feathers

now I am leaving these words on sand
for the water
and when everything is gone
a voice will say
that’s home
where two paths cross without speaking
where a lost shoe full of darkness
is curled up
under the roots of the snow

then I will point myself in the right direction
alone I hope
I was never much for company
and start off down an empty road
toward winter and a silence
which no one will ever repair

12/2/16

Straw House, Straw Dog - Richard Siken

               1

I watched TV.         I had a Coke at the bar.       I had four dreams in a row
where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.
               I watched TV.          I had a Coke at the bar. I had four Cokes,
four dreams in a row.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding the straw dog. Here you are
               in the wrong house, feeding the wrong dog. I had a Coke with ice.
I had four dreams on TV.          You have a cold cold smile.
               You were burned, you were about to burn, you’re still on fire.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted
               an adventure, so I said          Have an adventure.
The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV,
               saying Watch me, just watch me.

               2

Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row,
               fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew
you wouldn’t catch me because you’re dead.          I swallowed crushed ice
pretending it was glass and you’re dead. Ashes to ashes.

You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure
               so I ran          and I knew you wouldn’t catch me.
You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening
               at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

               3

I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything,
               couldn’t do it anyway,
just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made
               any sense, anything.

And I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still or fix things and I wake up and I
wake up and you’re still dead, you’re under the table, you’re still feeding
               the damn dog, you’re cutting the room in half.
Whatever.           Feed him whatever.           Burn the straw house down.

               4

I don’t really blame you for being dead but you can’t have your sweater back.
               So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?
There’s a black dog and there’s a white dog, depends on which you feed,
               depends on which damn dog you live with.

               5

Here we are
               in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it’s cold, I have clothes
all over my body, and it’s raining, it wasn’t supposed to. And there’s snow
               on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

But thanks, thanks for calling it          the blue sky
               You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.
I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.
               You weren’t supposed to.