TRUE LOVE - Wisława Szymborska (Translation in Unknown Edition)

True love. Is it normal,
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

 

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions, but convinced
it had to happen this way— in reward for what?

    For nothing.

The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn’t this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn’t it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

 

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn’t they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends’ sake?
Listen to them laughing— it’s an insult.
The language they use— deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines—
it’s obviously a plot behind the human race’s back!

 

It’s hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who’d want to stay within bounds?

 

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life’s highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn’t populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

 

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there’s no such thing.

 

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

Popular Romance - Paul Guest

To hum in a smoke-dank alley a song by Elvis

was not the height of my love for you. To turn

my arm from its socket like a hateful thing

was not devotion only. To speak your name

like a spell to my imagined foes was not

peace, no, not ever. Rather, you were a stone

I licked and pretended to eat. You were

ever a dream of falling. An odor of smoke.

You were the design of my worst

crimes. What I stole for love added up.

It added up to nothing. To the air perfumed

by an absent woman. To a box

filled with crushed chalk. God save me

from the stars, once and for all—

I have had enough. Let me love anything

but that: let me go free and dream

of green oceans and the surf

that batters some other world to sleeplessness.

O. It is enough to whisper only

this. To speak to the flame in your breast

and hear nothing else. Once

I believed I could possess

what touched you: the worn sweater,

or the song on the radio

that meant nothing and all in that instant.

Against your door I pressed

my ear, and heard nothing, the whisper

of water, maybe, a breath of cool air—

the gossip of your absence—

and nothing in me could knock or wait,

and all around me the night

spread like water through a rag,

and I let my hands drop whatever they held.

At Last the Secret is Out - W. H. Auden

At last the secret is out,

as it always must come in the end,

the delicious story is ripe to tell

to tell to the intimate friend;

over the tea-cups and into the square

the tongue has its desire;

still waters run deep, my dear,

there’s never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir,

behind the ghost on the links,

behind the lady who dances

and the man who madly drinks,

under the look of fatigue

the attack of migraine and the sigh

there is always another story,

there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing,

high up in the convent wall,

the scent of the elder bushes,

the sporting prints in the hall,

the croquet matches in summer,

the handshake, the cough, the kiss,

there is always a wicked secret,

a private reason for this.

Brinkwomanship - Leontia Flynn

When they come for you no bigger than a piece of fruit,

weighing no more and no less than a water biscuit,

this will be my excuse:

that I hoped you were just testing yourself

as I might subtly and irresistibly

poke at a sensitive tooth. That is, not morbidly,

but out of a curiosity

to locate the exact, minute, sensory transition -- between

merely knowing the definition

of pain, and knowing the meaning.

"She's kind of druggie." - Henry Rollins

She's kind of druggie. On again off again. The times when she's on,

she's on. She's bumming on having to come down. When she's off,

she's talking about getting on. She's not an addict, it's an on again,

off again kind of thing. You know, like those “heroin weekends”

people go for, meth runs, etc. You know what I'm talking about. She

pulls an apple cart, the driver has a stick with an apple on a string,

he dangles it in front of her nose. She sees a syringe, the needle

shines. She likes the word “spike.” The needle is a lover, she likes

the words “doing a dime.” The needle is boss, the needle is her best

friend. If she says, “Tie me off, lover” one more time I'll scream.

"Living on hope is like being locked in a prison cell and the sun is shining so brightly through the window that your eyes become blind to the bars." - Henry Rollins

Living on hope is like being locked in a prison cell and the sun is

shining so brightly through the window that your eyes become blind

to the bars. As soon as you're blind and drunk on hope, they gotcha.

To the One Upstairs - Charles Simic

Boss of all bosses of the universe.

Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, wire-puller,

And whatever else you're good at.

Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonight.

Dip in ink the comets' tails.

Staple the night with starlight.

You'd be better off reading coffee dregs,

Thumbing the pages of the Farmer's Almanac.

But no! You love to put on airs,

And cultivate your famous serenity

While you sit behind your big desk

With zilch in your in-tray, zilch

In your out-tray,

And all of eternity spread around you.

Doesn't it give you the creeps

To hear them begging you on their knees,

Sputtering endearments,

As if you were an inflatable, life-size doll?

Tell them to button up and go to bed.

Stop pretending you're too busy to take notice.

Your hands are empty and so are your eyes.

There's nothing to put your signature to,

Even if you knew your own name,

Or believed the ones I keep inventing,

As I scribble this note to you in the dark.

I Feel Safe When You Lie - Derrick Brown

In somno securitas.

She slid into bed

easy as a knitting needle

into the spine of a hare.

I threw a bag of chalk into the air

across her body

while she slept.

Little rabbit.

I lit black lights into action

watched the frenzied prints emerge

from her breasts, neck, and thighs,

souvenirs of desire.

I breathed across her tight, sand-tanned stomach.

Chalk dust blew into her nose and she awoke.

I asked her

If the man made love to her with all his might?

Did it feel the same?

Did his beads of sweat fall upon the necklace I worked for?

Did he extend the milky antennae of her legs into the air?

Did you tune in God on the meat hook channel?

She said:

“My dear.

Slow, jealous detective,

Come sleep by me.

These prints are yours

And always yours.

They simply will not wash away.

You have had your head in other people’s hands for so long

you forget what your own touch looked like.”

The faders of twilight approached.

I curled into her with my arms,

dead across her ribs,

feeling the rate of her heartbeat increase

as she wonders if I can feel a lie through her nightgown.

It is a feeling I get

when ice-skating through the rising crackles of sunshine.

In sleep, there is safety.