Solving the Puzzle - Stephen Dunn

I couldn’t make all the pieces fit,

so I threw one away.

No expectation of success now,

none of that worry.

The remaining pieces seemed

to seek their companions.

A design appeared.

I could see the connection

between the overgrown path

and the dark castle on the hill.

Something in the middle, though,

was missing.

It would have been important once.

I wouldn’t have been able to sleep

without it.

FLIGHT - J.E. Foerster

As a child I tossed

all my imaginary friends

out the window of a fast moving train

because I wanted to feel my fist

break open as I freed them,

as each of their bodies

whipped against the siding,

their insides: snow

dispersing into wind,

their little heads rolling

across the yellow plains.

Because I believed they would return.

But none have since.

Not even the ones I didn’t love.

The Unfree Man - Friedrich Nietzsche

A. He stands and harks: what does he hear?

     What sound is ringing in his ear?

     What struck him down? What mortal fear?

B. Who once wore chains, will always think

     That he is followed by their clink.

1988 - Andrea Gibson

It was the year your mother

put her cigarette out on your arm.

The year you forgave her so hard

you stopped crying for good.

I was on the other side of the world

watching my father shine his knives.

I was trying to get the nerve to tell him

who to kill.

But he never figured out

there was someone to kill.

Collected knives like art

and hung them on our walls.

That autumn I made a person

by stuffing a pile of dead leaves

into an old pair of clothes.

Maybe you did too. Maybe

you found a pumpkin for a head

and dug it hollow with your hands.

Friend, if memories had been seeds

we could have chosen not to plant

do you think we would have ever found each other?

Do you believe in the magnet of scars? I believe

people who have been through hell

will build their love from the still burning coals.

Our friendship is a well-heated home

where we always agree on what is art

and what is something to sharpen

and hold in our ready hands.

VOLUNTARY - JR Walsh

My little sister said why a lot. Why this? Why that? Why everything.

My father said, Stop trying to answer every question every time.

So I said, She wants to know why so I’m telling her.

My father said, She doesn’t care. It’s involuntary.

She’s two years old and wants you to talk to her.

I’m tired of both of you. 

I didn’t ask why. 

My father left for work.

My sister wanted to know why.

So I said, To get away from you.

Then my mother said, Why’s your sister crying?

I didn’t answer why.

Maybe my father was right.

CONVERSATION WITH A STONE - Wisława Szymborska

I knock at the stone's front door.

“It's only me, let me come in.

I want to enter your insides,

have a look round,

breathe my fill of you.”

“Go away,” says the stone.       

“I'm shut tight.

Even if you break me to pieces,

we'll all still be closed.

You can grind us to sand,

we still won't let you in.”

I knock at the stone's front door.

“It's only me, let me come in.

I've come out of pure curiosity.

Only life can quench it.

I mean to stroll through your palace,

then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.

I don't have much time.

My mortality should touch you.”

“I'm made of stone,” says the stone,

“and must therefore keep a straight face.

Go away.

I don't have the muscles to laugh.”

I knock at the stone's front door.

“It's only me, let me come in.

I hear you have great empty halls inside you,

unseen, their beauty in vain,

soundless, not echoing anyone's steps.

Admit you don't know them well yourself.”

“Great and empty, true enough,” says the stone,

“but there isn't any room.

Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste

of your poor senses.

You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through.

My whole surface is turned toward you,

all my insides turned away.”

I knock at the stone's front door.

“It's only me, let me come in.

I don't seek refuge for eternity.

I'm not unhappy.

I'm not homeless.

My world is worth returning to.

I'll enter and exit empty-handed.

And my proof I was there

will be only words,

which no one will believe.”

“You shall not enter,” says the stone.

“You lack the sense of taking part.

No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part.

Even sight heightened to become all-seeing

will do you no good without a sense of taking part.

You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense

      should be,

only its seed, imagination.”

I knock at the stone's front door.

“It's only me, let me come in.

I haven't got two thousand centuries,

so let me come under your roof.”

“If you don't believe me,” says the stone,

“just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.

Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.

And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.

I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter,

although I don't know how to laugh.”

I knock at the stone's front door.

“It's only me, let me come in.”

“I don't have a door,” says the stone.