12/9/17

Strangers - Richard Shelton

we find ourselves at the exact place
where the light becomes darkness
and turn our faces toward one another

realizing we could be lovers we could
be anything we could even be friends
we could carry our scars
like banners we could pray to each other
and answer each other’s prayers
                 
this is the earth we can touch it
the mountains expose their nipples
to the last rays of the sun
and day lingers on the undersides of leaves

with so much need on the horizon
surely there is a heart around here somewhere
but we are characters from a book who have
come here on vacation
to listen to the pulse of the sea
which makes an affirmation beyond despair

those who have heard it
do not recommend it to anybody

we have heard the hypnotized telephone
ring itself into a trance of silence we have
seen the poor pass by on borrowed legs
we have been enameled by the sun

and as we are slowly going under water
where all light
is the light of a green stone broken open
we keep our distance it is all we have

12/2/17

Do the Dead Know What Time It Is? - Kenneth Patchen

The old guy put down his beer.
Son, he said,
        (and a girl came over to the table where we were: 
        asked us by Jack Christ to buy her a drink.)
Son, I am going to tell you something
The like of which nobody ever was told.
         (and the girl said, I've got nothing on tonight;
        how about you and me going to your place?)
I am going to tell you the story of my mother's
Meeting with God.
         (and I whispered to the girl: I don't have a room,
        but, maybe . . .)
She walked up to where the top of the world is
And He came right up to her and said
So at last you've come home.
         (but maybe what?
        I thought I'd like to stay here and talk to you.)
My mother started to cry and God
Put His arms around her.
         (about what?
        Oh, just talk . . . we'll find something.)
She said it was like a fog coming over her face
And light was everywhere and a soft voice saying
You can stop crying now.
         (what can we talk about that will take all night?
        and I said that I didn't know.)
You can stop crying now.

10/11/17

LONELY - Natalie Wee

I have taken to being in public places
by myself. My cleverest trick was

to hold intimacy against bone
without telling it my name. Like any

unloved thing, I don’t know if I’m real
when I’m not being touched.

Because who am I but who
I am to someone else?

I know now the ways of nameless
birds & the cost of a life built

from waiting. I go to any window
I please, bare-handed, hovering

a/part. Watching when devotion
becomes duty. When soft becomes

stranger. Look. I was soft once, &
then I was a stranger to

myself. No tender mouth is worth
a slow death. No heart is worth

the belly of a beast. The secret is:
tender attends the heels of bruises.

The secret is: be bigger
than your alone.

10/10/17

MAGIC - Shel Silverstein


Sandra’s seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins’ gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I’ve had to make myself.

10/8/17

Thank-You Note - Wisława Szymborska (Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

I owe a lot
to those I do not love.

Relief in accepting
others care for them more.

Joy that I am not
wolf to their sheep.

Peace be with them
for with them I am free
––love neither gives
nor knows how to take these things.

I don't wait for them
from window to door.
Almost as patient
as a sun dial,
I understand
what love never could.
I forgive
what love never would.

Between rendezvous and letter
no eternity passes,
only a few days or weeks.

Our trips always turn out well:
concerts are enjoyed,
cathedrals toured,
landscapes in focus.

And when seven rivers and mountains
come between us,
they are the rivers and mountains
found on any map.

The credit's theirs
if I live in three dimensions,
in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,
with a real, ever-shifting horizon.

They don't even know
how much they carry in their empty hands.

"I owe them nothing,"
love would have said
on this open topic.

The More Loving One - W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.