Escapist's Song - Theodore Spencer

The first woman I loved, he said--

Her skin was satin and gold.

The next woman I loved, he said--

Her skin was satin and gold.

The third woman I loved, he said--

Was made in a different mold.

She was deeper than me, and said so;

She was stronger than me, and said so;

She was wiser than me, and proved it;

I shivered, and grew cold.

The fourth woman I loved, he said--

Her skin was satin and gold.

Those Winter Sundays - Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Telemachus' Guilt - Louise Glück

Patience of the sort my mother

practiced on my father

(which in his self-

absorption he mistook

for tribute though it was in fact

a species of rage--didn't he

ever wonder why he was

so blocked in expressing

his native abandon?): it infected

my childhood. Patiently

she fed me; patiently

she supervised the kindly

slaves who attended me, regardless

of my behavior, an assumption

I tested with increasing

violence. It seemed clear to me

that from her perspective

I didn't exist, since

my actions had

no power to disturb her: I was

the envy of my playmates.

In the decades that followed

I was proud of my father

for staying away

even if he stayed away for

the wrong reasons;

I used to smile

when my mother wept.

I hope now she could

forgive that cruelty; I hope

she understood how like

her own coldness it was,

a means of remaining

separate from what

one loves deeply.

What I Should Have Said - MARTY MCCONNELL & EMILY KAGAN TRENCHARD

when you said that a wedding sounded

like something you could live with

so long as it was small

and local and not actually a ceremony

at all but a gathering

of some people we love but not

too many and not requiring

too much planning

I should have left you. should

have swallowed the velvet cushions

you leaned against, the ones salvaged

from the first couch my folks ever owned,

should have shredded the silk blanket

into rags, cracked my teeth

on the wood bed-frame, anything

but stay. love, you are the best

of my failures. how educated I've become

in the ways of silence. the woman

who follows me from room

to room in this new house has so

many hands there are not enough days

to fill them. when you did not

say no to the possibility

of a child I should never

have taken that for yes.

should have gathered

my ovaries like a fistful

of amaranth and run

all the way to Chicago.

who did I think we were.

who did I think

I could make you.

this is the oldest mistake,

to confuse wanting

with magic. silence is the undoing

of every spell, and we are experts

in the unsaid. even now, I forget

to put us in past tense. as if

the air in this city were the same.

as if love is anything like its speaking.

Certain Choices - Richard Shelton

My friend, who was a heroin addict,

is dead and buried beneath trash

and broken bottles in a prison field.

He died, of course, because of the way

he lived. It wasn’t a very good way,

but it kept him alive. When it couldn’t

keep him alive any longer, it killed him.

Thoroughly and with great suffering.

After he had made certain choices,

there were no others available. That’s

the way it is with certain choices,

and we are faced with them so young.

I have few friends, and none of them

are replaceable. That’s the way it is

with friends. We make certain choices.

The Conundrum of the Workshops - Rudyard Kipling

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,

Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,

Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art ?"

Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew -

The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;

And he left his lore to the use of his sons -- and that was a glorious gain

When the Devil chuckled "Is it Art ?" in the ear of the branded Cain.

They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked and

they fought in the West,

Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest -

Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,

And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art ?"

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,

Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art ?"

The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,

While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.

The tale is as old as the Eden Tree - and new as the new-cut tooth -

For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;

And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,

The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art ?"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,

We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,

We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;

But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art ?"

When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room's green and gold,

The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould -

They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,

For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art ?"

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,

And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,

And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,

By the favour of God we might know as much - as our father Adam knew!