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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

TODAY MY ALARM WENT OFF AT 12:30PM - Mira Gonzalez

I stayed in bed for over an hour
looked at things on my phone
I felt slightly anxious about nothing particular
I walked downstairs and poured coffee into a jar
I asked a person on the internet if I should take drugs
I took drugs before the person had time to respond

I feel alienated by people who express concern about me without
defining their concern in terms of a specific solution or goal
I dont feel comforted by the idea of an afterlife
I dont want to continue experiencing things after I die
I want someone to pull my hair because I like the idea of someone
controlling my head without touching my head

what is the difference between being an independent person
and being a person who is accepting of loneliness

Untitled - Franz Wright

Will I always be eleven,

lonely in this house,

reading books

that are too hard for me,

in the long fatherless hours.

The terrible hours of the window,

the rain-light

on the page,

awaiting the letter,

the phone call,

still your strange elderly child.

Poem To Be Read at 3 a.m. - Donald Justice

Excepting the diner

On the outskirts

The town of Ladora

At 3 a.m.

Was dark but

For my headlights

And up in

One second-story room

A single light

Where someone

Was sick or

Perhaps reading

As I drove past

At seventy

Not thinking

This poem

Is for whoever

Had the light on