The Untrustworthy Speaker - Louise Glück

Don't listen to me; my heart's been broken.

I don't see anything objectively.

I know myself; I've learned to hear like a psychiatrist.

When I speak passionately,

that's when I'm least to be trusted.

It's very sad, really: all my life I've been praised

for my intelligence, my powers of language, of insight.

In the end, they're wasted--

I never see myself,

standing on the front steps, holding my sister's hand.

That's why I can't account

for the bruises on her arm, where the sleeve ends.

In my own mind, I'm invisible: that's why I'm dangerous.

People like me, who seem selfless,

we're the cripples, the liars;

we're the ones who should be factored out

in the interest of truth.

When I'm quiet, that's when the truth emerges.

A clear sky, the clouds like white fibers.

Underneath, a little gray house, the azaleas

red and bright pink.

If you want the truth, you have to close yourself

to the older daughter, block her out:

when a living thing is hurt like that,

in its deepest workings,

all function is altered.

That's why I'm not to be trusted.

Because a wound to the heart

is also a wound to the mind.

I Am Not Yours - Sara Teasdale

I am not yours, not lost in you,

Not lost, although I long to be

Lost as a candle lit at noon,

Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still

A spirit beautiful and bright,

Yet I am I, who long to be

Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out

My senses, leave me deaf and blind,

Swept by the tempest of your love,

A taper in a rushing wind.

When You've Got - Helen Dunmore

When you’ve got the plan of your life

matched to the time it will take

but you just want to press SHIFT / BREAK

and print over and over

this is not what I was after

this is not what I was after.

When you’ve finally stripped out the house

with its iron-cold fireplace,

its mouldings, its mortgage,

its single-skin walls

but you want to write in the plaster

“This is not what I was after,”

when you’ve got the rainbow-clad baby

in his state-of-the-art pushchair

but he arches his back at you

and pulps his Activity Centre

and you just want to whisper

“This is not what I was after,”

when the vacuum seethes and whines in the lounge

and the waste-disposal unit blows,

when tenners settle in your account

like snow hitting a stove,

when you get a chat from your spouse

about marriage and personal growth,

when a wino comes to sleep in your porch

on your Citizen’s Charter

and you know a hostel’s opening soon

but your headache’s closer

and you really just want to torch

the bundle of rags and newspaper

and you’ll say to the newspaper

"This is not what we were after,

this is not what we were after.”

Father's Old Blue Cardigan - Anne Carson

Now it hangs on the back of the kitchen chair

where I always sit, as it did

on the back of the kitchen chair where he always sat.

I put it on whenever I come in,

as he did, stamping

the snow from his boots.

I put it on and sit in the dark.

He would not have done this.

Coldness comes paring down from the moonbone in the sky.

His laws were a secret.

But I remember the moment at which I knew

he was going mad inside his laws.

He was standing at the turn of the driveway when I arrived.

He had on the blue cardigan with the buttons done up all the way to the top.

Not only because it was a hot July afternoon

but the look on his face --

as a small child who has been dressed by some aunt early in the morning

for a long trip

on cold trains and windy platforms

will sit very straight at the edge of his seat

while the shadows like long fingers

over the haystacks that sweep past

keep shocking him

because he is riding backwards.

SONGS FOR AN ENDING - Theodore Spencer

                      1

Goodbye, goodbye my darling,

Goodbye to all our past.

Love that hovered trembling

Has sprung away at last.

But Oh before that shudder,

Before that final spring,

The towering of his glory,

The splendor of his wing!

                     2

The quiet and usual word

We took for granted,

The word we wanted

And always heard,

Two vowels, two consonants,

The female and male word

Monosyllabically one

That was our union --

The word 'Love' has fallen

Most suddenly apart,

And my hampered tongue

Lacking the vowels it wants,

Stricken to consonants,

Speaks everything wrong,

Has no speech at all,

Has lost its calling,

The sweet vowels gone.

                     3

Now, my darling,

Oh now good-bye:

Love's wings are furling

In our present sky.

And we walk apart

Away from the other's

Abandoned heart,

While difficultly

The mind smothers

Grief for We

Become You and I.

Oh we walk slowly,

But forever, away

From the once half holy

Place of our day,

Knowing our love

Is done, is done.

Yet though we starve,

Braver alone.

                     4

"The longest love is this:

     To love and not to have.

To thrust love overboard,

     Makes love most safe."

I'd heard such things before;

     Foolish (I thought)

To save by loss.  But now

     I know it's not.

Oh lovers, learn that love

     Does more than drown

When thrust overboard; it forever

     Anchors you for its own. 

The Journey - Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life you could save.