Anxiety

I'm having a real day of it.
                                           There was
something I had to do. But what?
There are no alternatives, just
the one something.
                                I have a drink,
it doesn't help - far from it!
                                           I
feel worse. I can't remember how
I felt, so perhaps I feel better.
No, Just a little darker.
                                     If I could
get really dark, richly dark, like
being drunk, that's the best that's
open as a field. Not the best,

but the best except for the impossible
pure light, to be as if above a vast
prairie, rushing and pausing over
the tiny golden heads in deep grass.


Frank O'Hara

interruption #2

Hindsight

I never imagined
as a little girl
that a kiss on the mouth
would be the defining factor
between a relationship
and a friend.


I thought it was fucking.


a. tocchi

Genius Child

This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can --
Lest the song get out of hand.

Nobody loves a genius child.

Can you love an eagle,
Tame or wild?

Wild or tame,
Can you love a monster
Of frightening name?

Nobody loves a genius child.

Kill him -- and let his soul run wild.


Langston Hughes

Song For Baby-O, Unborn

Sweetheart
when you break thru
you'll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.


I won't promise
you'll never go hungry
or that you won't be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe


but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heart
forever


Diane DiPrima

What Do Women Want?

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.


Kim Addonizio