At the Restaurant - Stephen Dunn

Six people are too many people

and a public place the wrong place

for what you're thinking--

stop this now.

Who do you think you are?

The duck à l'orange is spectacular,

the flan the best in town.

But there among your friends

is the unspoken, as ever,

chatter and gaiety its familiar song.

And there's your chronic emptiness

spiraling upward in search of words

you'll dare not say

without irony.

You should have stayed at home.

It's part of the social contract

to seem to be where your body is,

and you've been elsewhere like this,

for Christ's sake, countless times;

behave, feign.

Certainly you believe a part of decency

is to overlook, to let pass?

Praise the Caesar salad. Praise Susan's

black dress, Paul's promotion and raise.

Inexcusable, the slaughter in this world.

Insufficient, the merely decent man.

Untitled - Chris Mc Geown

Mental illnesses

Are constellations

Of the mind–

Most people won’t

See them

Unless you point

Them out.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE - Richard Shelton

                                                      For Michael Hogan

on December nights

when the rain we needed months ago

is still far off and the wind

gropes through the desert

in search of any tree to hold it

those who live here all year round

listen to the irresistible

voice of loneliness

and want only to be left alone

local knowledge is to live in a place

and know the place

however barren

some kinds of damage

provide their own defense

and we who stay in the ruins

are secure against enemies and friends

if you should see one of us

in the distance as your caravan passes

and if he is ragged and gesturing

do not be mistaken

he is not gesturing for rescue

he is shouting go away

when the one you thought, finally, wouldn't, does, - Marty McConnell

where do you go? the hole in your hands

keeps getting bigger. first a pencil falls through.

then your teacup, then entire bodies

like light, like you’re made of nothing stronger

than tissue, than sugar heated and spread

to look like glass. not the real thing. not you.

your atoms sit so far apart, your lovers

walk right through. one might say, over

the top of you. but no need for that, when you

can bend around their many departures, the most

porous door. she came back. they always

come back. why not. you are not a creature

of consequences. one way to survive a fall

is to believe very strongly that you

do not have bones. another

is to watch the hole in your body grow

until you are nothing but hole, and who

doesn’t love a hole. you’re the great circle

they can write their lives inside, a flat

unused womb they can crawl into. in this

way, you are useful. this way, you can sleep

in the house that raised you.

AND THE SCARS WILL BE COVERED - Richard Shelton

responsibility fell at my feet

like a dead bird

and I left it for the collectors of feathers

now I am leaving these words on sand

for the water

and when everything is gone

a voice will say

that’s home

where two paths cross without speaking

where a lost shoe full of darkness

is curled up

under the roots of the snow

then I will point myself in the right direction

alone I hope

I was never much for company

and start off down an empty road

toward winter and a silence

which no one will ever repair

Straw House, Straw Dog - Richard Siken

               1

I watched TV.         I had a Coke at the bar.       I had four dreams in a row

where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.

               I watched TV.          I had a Coke at the bar. I had four Cokes,

four dreams in a row.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding the straw dog. Here you are

               in the wrong house, feeding the wrong dog. I had a Coke with ice.

I had four dreams on TV.          You have a cold cold smile.

               You were burned, you were about to burn, you’re still on fire.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted

               an adventure, so I said          Have an adventure.

The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV,

               saying Watch me, just watch me.

               2

Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row,

               fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew

you wouldn’t catch me because you’re dead.          I swallowed crushed ice

pretending it was glass and you’re dead. Ashes to ashes.

You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure

               so I ran          and I knew you wouldn’t catch me.

You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening

               at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

               3

I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything,

               couldn’t do it anyway,

just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made

               any sense, anything.

And I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still or fix things and I wake up and I

wake up and you’re still dead, you’re under the table, you’re still feeding

               the damn dog, you’re cutting the room in half.

Whatever.           Feed him whatever.           Burn the straw house down.

               4

I don’t really blame you for being dead but you can’t have your sweater back.

               So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?

There’s a black dog and there’s a white dog, depends on which you feed,

               depends on which damn dog you live with.

               5

Here we are

               in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it’s cold, I have clothes

all over my body, and it’s raining, it wasn’t supposed to. And there’s snow

               on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

But thanks, thanks for calling it          the blue sky

               You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.

I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.

               You weren’t supposed to.