Being in Love - Marvin Bell

with someone who is not in love with

you, you understand my predicament.

Being in love with you, who are not

in love with me, you understand my dilemma.

Being in love with your being in love

with me, which you are not, you understand

the difficulty. Being in love with your

being, you can well imagine how hard it is.

Being in love with your being you,

no matter you are not your being being in

love with me, you can appreciate and pity

being in love with you. Being in love

with someone who is not in love, you know

all about being in love when being in love

is being in love with someone who is not

in love being with you, which is

being in love, which you know only too well,

Love, being in love with being in love.

What I Learned from My Mother - Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

"For some there is no music" - Henry Rollins

For some there is no music

No lights

No fire

No untamed madness that breathes life

There is work

Anguish

Frustration

Rage

Despair

A dullness that rings like wooden thunder

Icarus in Love. - Unknown

I loved you as

Icarus loved

The sun –

Too close,

Too much.

On An Unsociable Family - Elizabeth Hands

O what a strange parcel of creatures are we,

Scarce ever to quarrel, or even agree;

We all are alone, though at home altogether,

Except to the fire constrained by the weather;

Then one says, ‘’Tis cold’, which we all of us know,

And with unanimity answer, ‘’Tis so’:

With shrugs and with shivers all look at the fire,

And shuffle ourselves and our chairs a bit nigher;

Then quickly, preceded by silence profound,

A yawn epidemical catches around:

Like social companions we never fall out,

Nor ever care what one another’s about;

To comfort each other is never our plan,

For to please ourselves, truly, is more than we can.

"They don't lie a lot" - Henry Rollins

They don't lie a lot

They just don't tell the truth very often

Truth does not mean much to them

You can lie to them, or tell the truth

Makes no difference to them

Walk on them if you want

Eat with their forks

Destroy them for the hell of it