THE SIZE AND SHAPE OF ALL THINGS ROLLING - Buddy Wakefield

By the time my fingernails had split
and cut their way back in 
toward the knuckle grit

I had already chewed these teeth
clear down to the dirty nubs
from chattering about how hard I hit bottom again

how far I had to climb up out of it
shovel myself off and start over
been doing that long as I can remember

as if it were my calling
as if my name were Helter Skelly
rising from falls I keep taking in vain

just for a reason to stand here, 
looking like another loose jawbone
hinged on a tilt-a-whirl. 

The question was, 

If god can do anything,
can he can make a rock so big
that even he can’t lift it? 

The answer is  

Yes, all he has to do
is commit
to defeating himself.

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.

I Am Afraid - Nizar Kabbani (translated by B.K. Frangieh & C.R. Brown)

I am afraid

To express my love to you

Wine loses its fragrance

When poured into a goblet.

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.

TO A STRANGER. - Walt Whitman

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I

look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking,

(it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affection-

ate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl

with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you— your body has

become not yours only, nor left my body mine

only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as

we pass— you take of my beard, breast, hands,

in return,
I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when

I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait— I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

The World Loved by Moonlight - Jane Hirshfield

You must try, 

the voice said, to become colder. 

I understood at once. 

It is like the bodies of gods: cast in bronze, 

braced in stone. Only something heartless

could bear the full weight.

The Clothes Pin - Jane Kenyon

How much better it is

to carry wood to the fire

than to moan about your life.

How much better

to throw the garbage

onto the compost, or to pin the clean

sheet on the line

with a gray-brown wooden clothes pin!

First Love - Wisława Szymborska (Translation By Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak)

They say

the first love's most important.

That's very romantic,

but not my experience.

 

Something was and wasn't there between us,

something went on and went away.

 

My hands never tremble

when I stumble on silly keepsakes

and a sheaf of letters tied with string

— not even ribbon.

 

Our only meeting after years:

two chairs chatting

at a chilly table.

 

Other loves

still breathe deep inside me.

This one's too short of breath even to sigh.

 

Yet just exactly as it is,

it does what the others still can't manage:

unremembered,

not even seen in dreams,

it introduces me to death.

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.

Look for Me - Ted Kooser

Look for me under the hood

of that old Chevrolet settled in weeds

at the end of the pasture.

I'm the radiator that spent its years

bolted in front of an engine

shoving me forward into the wind.

Whatever was in me in those days

has mostly leaked away,

but my cap's still screwed on tight

and I know the names of all these

tattered moths and broken grasshoppers

the rest of you've forgotten.

Amor Fati - Jane Hirshfield

Little soul,

you have wandered

lost a long time.

The woods all dark now,

birded and eyed.

Then a light, a cabin, a fire, a door standing open.

The fairy tales warn you:

Do not go in,

you who would eat will be eaten.

You go in. You quicken.

You want to have feet.

You want to have eyes.

You want to have fears.

HIS MUSIC - Stephen Dunn

It wasn’t that he liked being miserable.

He simply had grown used to wearing

a certain face, become comfortable

with his assortment of shrugs and sighs.

His friends said How are you?—

and prepared their sympathy cards.

Miserable was his style, his insurance

against life’s frightening, temporary joys.

And when the truly awful happened,

some rejection or loss,

how ready he was for its aftermath,

how appropriate his posture, his words.

Yet when she said she loved him

something silently wild and molecular

began its revolution; he would’ve smiled

if the news from the distant provinces

of his body had reached him in time.

He frowned. And did not allow the short sigh

which would have meant pleasure

but now, alone, was just old breath

escaping, the long ahhhh, that music

which soothed him, and was his song.

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.

The Wish - Louise Glück

Remember that time you made the wish?

           I make a lot of wishes.

The time I lied to you

about the butterfly. I always wondered

what you wished for.

           What do you think I wished?

I don’t know. That I’d come back,

that we’d somehow be together in the end.

           I wished for what I always wish for.

           I wished for another poem.

The Children Play at War - Gösta Ågren

The castle’s high walls

cannot shut out

the lack of enemies. Now

the knaves can no longer

manage to avoid

their soul, this vague sorrow,

and their idle

hands radiate like

useless pain.

Unprotected is the one

who lacks something

to protect himself against.

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?”

A BIRD IN THE HAND: TWO SOLOS - Richard Shelton

Wife:               there was nothing wrong with our dreams

                        they fit us like scales on a fish

                        our dreams of patience and goodness

                        were not beyond our abilities

                        and our dreams of sex were harmless

                        there was nothing

                        wrong with our dreams except

                        they were the wrong dreams for us

                        now we see we had little choice

                        and once we had chosen each other

                        even that was taken away

Husband:         when I reached out with my right hand

                        and touched you

                        I knew everything had been planned

                        even what I am saying now

                        had been prepared

                        for me to say

           

                        and if I had reached out

                        with my left hand

                        at a different time on a different day

                        you would have been there

                        and everything would be the same

Wife:               coming of age

                        I found myself in the desert

                        following the wrong leader

                        but how could I have abandoned you

                        when I knew you would perish without me

                        so I said let it ride

                        and I rode with it

                        through a godforsaken land without trees

                        or flowers or anything beautiful

                        while the wind played my ribs like a harp

                        I don’t enjoy being laughed at

                        but I have learned

                        to practice a certain amount of madness

                        most difficult of the arts

                        and the least rewarding

Husband:         before we realized what they were

                        they were over 

                        those days when we lived

                        in furnished rooms and could laugh

                        at their ugliness

                        later

                        well on our way

                        and established in our own shambles

                        drinking good wines and eating good salads

                        we gave up bread and butter

                        and those private days those brief

                        beautiful days

                        gladly

                        as if we had a choice

Wife:               I keep busy all day

                        but when the sun goes down

                        I seem to go with it

                        once I walked out the door and entered night

                        because it was there

                        and because it promised everything

                        but what because of the promises

                        we didn’t live up to

                        only the young are aware of life

                        burning at their shoulders

                        only they know his touch

                        later it is all speculation

                        and empty phone booths

                        waiting for violent acts of love

                        I keep telling myself I will

                        feel better tomorrow

                        but I don’t believe it

                        there is always tomorrow night

Husband:         I saw you sleeping

                        knees bent to the right a little apart

                        head turned to the left

                        right arm at your side and left arm

                        above your head with your hand

                        caught in the wildness of your hair

                        until I saw you like that

                        I never understood why

                        there were so many paintings of nudes

Wife:               we are separate people

                        each what he fears most each his own

                        trap his own bait his own victim

                        I am not responsible for your life

                        and you are not responsible for mine

                        I wanted to get married

                        and you thought that meant I loved you

                        now you are going deaf and I pity you

                        how hard it must be for a man

                        who has been blind all these years

Husband:         there are others

                        who had all the advantages I had

                        and kept them

                        but deafness grows

                        on my family tree like a vine

                        choosing one limb and avoiding another

                        now that my ears

                        have started to go blind

                        I find myself among the chosen

                        and someday I will hear the true sound

                        of darkness

                        I have learned to expose my eyes

                        to the lips of strangers

                        and understand what they cannot say

                        living as I do

                        with my secrets unheard

                        and listening always with my eyes

                        how can I blame you

                        if you turn your face away

Wife:               all afternoon

                        your shadow your only child

                        grew taller

                       

                        now he is leaving and you will be alone

                        in the darkness that has been

                        and the darkness that is coming

                        the same darkness

                        bright moons in the blood move on

                        as water moves in the bed of a river

                        sleeping at night and waking

                        somewhere else

                        once I turned quickly and saw you

                        looking only at me

                        even if I could explain I wouldn’t

                        even if I could explain to you

                        I would oh I would

                        how any love story is a sad story

                        and we kiss ourselves goodby

                        each time we kiss each other

Husband:         those who have no children

                        become the children they were

                        and those who have several children

                        extend themselves like fingers

                        stretching into deep grass

                        but we have only one child

                        and both of us must crowd into his body

                        elbowing each other for space

Wife:               I remember

                        when this photograph was taken

                        the aperture opened on my life

                        as it was as it appeared to be

                        with the eyes of a deer on the wall

                        and a tongue which could tell

                        the truth

                        but the other was easier

                        my life created for me

                        and I like a fool accepted it

                        with its hand over its mouth

                        to hide the bleeding

                        waiting on the steps

                        of the front porch for years saying

                        you are young you will find somebody

                        my life with a life of its own

                        daring me to leave it

                        saying I am all I have it isn’t enough

Husband:         waiting is hardest but we have to wait

                        for the good things to come to us

                        I always have this next thing to do

                        while I am waiting

                        something important that needs to be done

                        a dog to be fed a plant to be watered

                       

                        I had two friends

                        one is gone the other is dead

                        now our son is grown up and no longer

                        needs me and you say I am the cause

                        of all your unhappiness

                        these things are true

                        but there is always this next

                        thing to do something important

                        that needs to be done while I am waiting

Wife:               ambition

                        worm in my bowels

                        the more I starve you the more you grow

                        others have killed their thousands

                        but you have killed your tens of thousands

                        I tell you

                        the stars can see only into the past

                        they do not know what I am doing

                        and do not care and the moon

                        which knows everything

                        cares even less

                        but you answer me with the story

                        about water always running away from home

                        and returning purified

Husband:         years ago I took this woman

                        you took this man

                        and we kept each other

                        but each of us still wants to be a victim

                        as if love were an accident

                        caused by carelessness

                        and we could hold one another responsible

                        in order to get what we need from each other

                        what have we traded except parts of our lives

                        huge parts of our lives

                        and what have we gained

                        except huge parts of each other’s lives

                        love always gives

                        more than we bargain for

Wife:               I heard a bird cry a name

                        and when I looked I found you

                        in the trap of my hand

                        crying a name I could not understand

                        your own or the name of someone you lost

                        it was never mine

                        I tried to find someone to love me

                        before it was too late

                        but there was no one

Husband:         I heard a bird call my name

                        but when I found the bird

                        it was you

                        caught in the trap of my hand

                        and what I heard was your pain

                        it has always been

                       

                        I tried to find a place

                        where I could not hear that sound

                        but there was no place

Wife:               I heard a bird cry a name

Husband:                     I heard a bird call my name

                        and when I looked

                                    it was you

                        in the trap of my hand

                                    what I heard was your pain

                        crying a name I could not understand

                                    it has always been

                        your own or the name of someone you lost

                                    it was never mine

                        I tried to find

                                    a place

                        someone to love me

                                    but there is no other place

                        there is no other one