A POSTMORTEM GUIDE - Stephen Dunn

                                        For my eulogist, in advance

Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.

Can't you see I've turned away

from the large excitements,

and have accepted all the troubles?

Go down to the old cemetery; you'll see

there's nothing definitive to be said.

The dead once were all kinds—

boundary breakers and scalawags,

martyrs of the flesh, and so many

dumb bunnies of duty, unbearably nice.

I've been a little of each.

And, please, resist the temptation

of speaking about virtue.

The seldom-tempted are too fond

of that word, the small-

spirited, the unburdened.

Know that I've admired in others

only the fraught straining

to be good.

Adam's my man and Eve's not to blame.

He bit in; it made no sense to stop.

Still, for accuracy's sake you might say

I often stopped,

that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.

And since you know my hardships,

understand they're mere bump and setback

against history's horror.

Remind those seated, perhaps weeping,

how obscene it is

for some of us to complain.

Tell them I had second chances.

I knew joy.

I was burned by books early

and kept sidling up to the flame.

Tell them that at the end I had no need

for God, who'd become just a story

I once loved, one of many

with concealments and late-night rescues,

high sentence and pomp. The truth is

I learned to live without hope

as well as I could, almost happily,

in the despoiled and radiant now.

You who are one of them, say that I loved

my companions most of all.

In all sincerity, say that they provided

a better way to be alone.

The Great Gulf - Richard Shelton

Between us and you there is a

great gulf fixed: so that they

which would pass from hence to you

cannot; neither can they pass to us,

that would come from thence.

                                     Luke 16:26

 

       1

 

At night when each dark shape in the desert

glows in the light of its own penumbra

I take the road by one white hand

and lead it to a deep arroyo, a dry wash

in which the river lives when it is home.

Stones remain where the water dropped them

and beneath them aged scorpions sleep

in small hotels with no view at all.

The sand is cool. I wonder if the river

will be here when I need to drown.

 

       2

 

We choose from what is available and fall

in love: anchorites with spiders, sailors

with each other; the bleeding foot

returns to embrace the shattered glass;

the overdose goes in search of an addict;

and those who are too much afraid

fall in love with their fear.

 

       3

 

I was broken by love but I was

so well repaired I can pass for anybody,

standing here where a river used to be.

In one hand my prayers, in the other the answers,

with a great gulf fixed between them.

 

To get here I dragged my shadow

over sharp stones and felt its cuts

and bruises. But the river was dry.

 

Oh Jesus Christ

and all my fingers losing their rings!

What will become of me when I offer

my soul to the Devil and he doesn’t

want it? What will I do

when there is no one left to betray?

THE PARTY TO WHICH YOU ARE NOT INVITED - Stephen Dunn

You walk in, your clothes dark
and strangely appropriate, an arrogance
about you as if you had a ramrod
for a spine. You feel posture-perfect.

When you speak, women move away.
You smile, and men see tombstones.
They think they know who you are,
that they could throw you out

as they could one man. But today you are
every man who has been omitted
from any list: how quickly they see
they would have no chance.

You pour yourself a drink,
as if ready to become one of them.
Under your skin, nerve endings, loose
wires, almost perceivable. Something

somewhere is burning. You tell them
you’ve dreamed of moments like this,
to be in their lovely house,
to have everyone’s attention. You ask

of the children, are they napping?
You extend your hand to the host,
who won’t take it, reminds you
you were not invited, never will be.

You have things in your pockets
for everybody. House gifts.
Soon you’ll give them out.
If only they could understand

how you could be ruined
by kindness, how much
you could love them
if they knew how to stop you.

Lost - Charles Bukowski

they say that hell is crowded, yet,
when you’re in hell,
you always seem to be alone.
& you can’t tell anyone when you’re in hell
or they’ll think you’re crazy
& being crazy is being in hell
& being sane is hellish too.

those who escape hell, however,
never talk about it
& nothing much bothers them after that.
I mean, things like missing a meal,
going to jail, wrecking your car,
or even the idea of death itself.

when you ask them,
“how are things?”
they’ll always answer, “fine, just fine…”

once you’ve been to hell and back,
that’s enough
it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man.

once you’ve been to hell and back,
you don’t look behind you when the floor creaks
and the sun is always up at midnight
and things like the eyes of mice
or an abandoned tire in a vacant lot
can make you smile
once you’ve been to hell and back.

Traveling - Stephen Dunn

If you travel alone, hitchhiking,

sleeping in woods,

make a cathedral of the moonlight

that reaches you, and lie down in it.

Shake a box of nails

at the night sounds

for there is comfort in your own noise.

And say out loud:

somebody at sunrise be distraught

for love of me,

somebody at sunset call my name.

There will soon be company.

But if the moon clouds over

you have to live with disapproval.

You are a traveler,

you know the open, hostile smiles

of those stuck in their lives.

Make a fire.

If the Devil sits down, offer companionship,

tell her you’ve always admired

her magnificent, false moves.

Then recite the list

of what you’ve learned to do without.

It is stronger than prayer.

EXAGGERATION - Scarriet Editors

You must know I’m not usually excitable,

But how long must I be calm and pleasantly glad?

I have read about love. It was sad.

The man paced outside the window. The woman

Covered her arms in folds of crimson and myrtle.

The tradition arrived every night this year.

Every woman attended. This is no exaggeration;

They crowded, they pushed ahead—even the dearest woman.

I affected learning. I thought this decision up in my own mind.

The poetry readings, seminars; failures in oak,

Scratches, graffiti, partly undressed tables, inside and outside the mind.

I affected poetry. It did no good. I was too calm;

I went on in hushed tones about my childhood;

Stood near her by the window, even laughed.

It wouldn’t do to repeat it now, even if I could.

There is a need to exaggerate, even without drama or poems,

To not flag, to make oneself happy; to pretend a woman’s figure

Will make one happy, and this is all a man needs.

Life is dull. We exaggerate. And so it proceeds.

To Myself - Franz Wright

You are riding the bus again

burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,

the sole passenger

with an overhead light on.

And I am with you.

I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,

the little lights off in the distance

(in one of those rooms we are

living) and I am the rain

and the others all

around you, and the loneliness you love,

and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,

and the catastrophic dawn,

the nicotine crawling on your skin—

and when you begin

to cough I won’t cover my face,

and if you vomit this time I will hold you:

everything’s going to be fine

I will whisper.

It won’t always be like this.

I am going to buy you a sandwich.

MELANCHOLIA - Michael Faudet

I am alone,

love passes by,

 

crying tears,

I wonder why—

 

I cannot find

what others found.

SONG FOR NOBODY - Thomas Merton

A yellow flower

(Light and spirit)

Sings by itself

For nobody.

A golden spirit

(Light and emptiness)

Sings without a word

By itself.

Let no one touch this gentle sun

In whose dark eye

Someone is awake.

(No light, no gold, no name, no color

And no thought:

O, wide awake!)

A golden heaven

Sings by itself

A song to nobody.

NOT GETTING CLOSER - Jack Gilbert

Walking in the dark streets of Seoul

under the almost full moon.

Lost for the last two hours.

Finishing a loaf of bread

and worried about the curfew.

I have not spoken for three days

and I am thinking, “Why not just

settle for love? Why not just

settle for love instead?”

Lines for Winter - Mark Strand

                                                                            for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

you find yourself—

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back

and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are.

Entry in an Unknown Hand - Franz Wright

And still nothing happens. I am not arrested.  

By some inexplicable oversight

nobody jeers when I walk down the street.

I have been allowed to go on living in this  

room. I am not asked to explain my presence  

anywhere.

What posthypnotic suggestions were made; and  

are any left unexecuted?

Why am I so distressed at the thought of taking  

certain jobs?

They are absolutely shameless at the bank—

You’d think my name meant nothing to them. Non-

chalantly they hand me the sum I’ve requested,

but I know them. It’s like this everywhere—

they think they are going to surprise me: I,  

who do nothing but wait.

Once I answered the phone, and the caller hung up—

very clever.

They think that they can scare me.  

I am always scared.

And how much courage it requires to get up in the  

morning and dress yourself. Nobody congratulates  

you!

At no point in the day may I fall to my knees and  

refuse to go on, it’s not done.

I go on

dodging cars that jump the curb to crush my hip,

accompanied by abrupt bursts of black-and-white

laughter and applause,

past a million unlighted windows, peered out at  

by the retired and their aged attack-dogs—

toward my place,

the one at the end of the counter,  

the scalpel on the napkin.

The Weeping - Franz Wright

He has considered weeping, only

he can’t even bring himself to

 

take a stab at it. He just can’t cry–

it is terrible to cry

 

when you’re by yourself, because

what then?

 

Nothing is solved,

nobody comes;

even solitary children understand. This

apparent respite, apparent quenching

 

of the need to be befriended

might (much like love in later years) leave you

 

lonelier than when you were merely alone?

Camino Real - Richard Shelton

each makes his path

his small path

quickly overgrown

but leading him slowly

to where he is going

which is not

where he is planning to go

and when the last vine

or bamboo is cut

he emerges into a clearing

each into a different

clearing

where some are met

by cannibals some by lovers

some by friends

and some by nothing

except a clearing

a sky with stars at night

and by day an unexpected

view of the next hill

which is reason enough

for the long journey

more than reason enough

The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?

say no.

When they invite you to the party

remember what parties are like

before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice

they once wrote a poem.

Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.

Then reply.

If they say We should get together

say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.

You're trying to remember something

too important to forget.

Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.

Tell them you have a new project.

It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store

nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years

appears at the door,

don't start singing him all your new songs.

You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

After Years - Ted Kooser

Today, from a distance, I saw you

walking away, and without a sound

the glittering face of a glacier

slid into the sea. An ancient oak

fell in the Cumberlands, holding only

a handful of leaves, and an old woman

scattering corn to her chickens looked up

for an instant. At the other side

of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times

the size of our own sun exploded

and vanished, leaving a small green spot

on the astronomer's retina

as he stood in the great open dome

of my heart with no one to tell.

DAUGHTER - Lisel Mueller

My next poem will be happy,

I promise myself. Then you come

with your deep eyes, your tall jeans,

your narrow hands, your wit,

your uncanny knowledge, and

your loneliness. All the flowers

your father planted, all

the green beans that have made it,

all the world’s recorded pianos

and this exhilarating day

cannot change that.

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.

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.

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