Animals - Louise Glück

My sister and I reached

the same conclusion:

the best way

to love us was to not

spend time with us.

It seemed that

we appealed

chiefly to strangers.

We had good clothes, good

manners in public.

In private, we were

always fighting. Usually

the big one finished

sitting on her little one

and pinching her.

The little one

bit: in forty years

she never learned

the advantage in not

leaving a mark.

The parents

had a credo: they didn't

believe in anger.

The truth was, for different reasons,

they couldn't bring themselves

to inflict pain. You should only hurt

something you can give

your whole heart to. They preferred

tribunals: the child

most in the wrong could choose

her own punishment.

My sister and I

never became allies,

never turned on our parents.

We had

other obsessions: for example,

we both felt there were

too many of us

to survive.

We were like animals

trying to share a dry pasture.

Between us, one tree, barely

strong enough to sustain

a single life.

We never moved

our eyes from each other

nor did either touch

one thing that could

feed her sister.

"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.

"If I should cast off this tattered coat," - Stephen Crane

If I should cast off this tattered coat,

And go free into the mighty sky;

If I should find nothing there

But a vast blue,

Echoless, ignorant,—

What then?

Intrusion - Denise Levertov

After I had cut off my hands

and grown new ones

something my former hands had longed for

came and asked to be rocked.

After my plucked out eyes

had withered, and new ones grown

something my former eyes had wept for

came asking to be pitied.

PARABLE OF FAITH - Louise Glück

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps

the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not

duplicitous; he has tried to be

true to the moment; is there another way of being

true to the self?

The lady

hides her face, somewhat

assisted by the shadows. She weeps

for her past; when one has a secret life,

one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear

the grief of his lady: his

is the generous heart,

in pain as in joy.

Do you know

what forgiveness means? It means

the world has sinned, the world

must be pardoned—

"A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;" - Stephen Crane

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;

He climbed for it,

And eventually he achieved it—

It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:

When the man went to the earth

And looked again,

Lo, there was the ball of gold.

Now this is the strange part:

It was a ball of gold.

Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.