tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34747414369231487472024-03-08T20:33:49.677-05:00Poetic FuckAlexandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11221339372355176368noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-39022415525127538062015-01-01T22:25:00.002-05:002015-01-01T22:26:35.003-05:00Desiderata<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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As far as possible without surrender<br />
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humble;<br />
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.<br />
Exercise caution in your business affairs;<br />
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gracefully surrendering the things of youth.<br />
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.<br />
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<span style="color: #555555; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore be at peace with God,<br />
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in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #555555; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: .5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Max Ehrmann</i></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-62603046532725411402014-01-23T06:09:00.002-05:002014-01-23T06:11:36.443-05:00i carry your heart with me<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">i carry your heart with me(i carry it in</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my heart)i am never without it(anywhere</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by only me is your doing,my darling)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> i fear</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and whatever a sun will always sing is you</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px;" /></span>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">here is the deepest secret nobody knows</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px;" /></span>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">e. e. cummings</span></i></div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-45599252113400916552013-11-18T19:59:00.000-05:002013-11-18T20:03:18.967-05:00The InvitationIt doesn’t interest me<br />
what you do for a living.<br />
I want to know<br />
what you ache for<br />
and if you dare to dream<br />
of meeting your heart’s longing.<br />
<br />
It doesn’t interest me<br />
how old you are.<br />
I want to know <br />
if you will risk <br />
looking like a fool<br />
for love<br />
for your dream<br />
for the adventure of being alive.<br />
<br />
It doesn’t interest me<br />
what planets are <br />
squaring your moon...<br />
I want to know<br />
if you have touched<br />
the centre of your own sorrow<br />
if you have been opened<br />
by life’s betrayals<br />
or have become shrivelled and closed<br />
from fear of further pain.<br />
<br />
I want to know<br />
if you can sit with pain<br />
mine or your own<br />
without moving to hide it<br />
or fade it<br />
or fix it.<br />
<br />
I want to know<br />
if you can be with joy<br />
mine or your own<br />
if you can dance with wildness<br />
and let the ecstasy fill you <br />
to the tips of your fingers and toes<br />
without cautioning us<br />
to be careful<br />
to be realistic<br />
to remember the limitations<br />
of being human.<br />
<br />
It doesn’t interest me<br />
if the story you are telling me<br />
is true.<br />
I want to know if you can<br />
disappoint another<br />
to be true to yourself.<br />
If you can bear<br />
the accusation of betrayal<br />
and not betray your own soul.<br />
If you can be faithless<br />
and therefore trustworthy.<br />
<br />
I want to know if you can see Beauty<br />
even when it is not pretty<br />
every day.<br />
And if you can source your own life<br />
from its presence.<br />
<br />
I want to know<br />
if you can live with failure<br />
yours and mine<br />
and still stand at the edge of the lake<br />
and shout to the silver of the full moon,<br />
“Yes.”<br />
<br />
It doesn’t interest me<br />
to know where you live<br />
or how much money you have.<br />
I want to know if you can get up<br />
after the night of grief and despair<br />
weary and bruised to the bone<br />
and do what needs to be done<br />
to feed the children.<br />
<br />
It doesn’t interest me<br />
who you know<br />
or how you came to be here.<br />
I want to know if you will stand<br />
in the centre of the fire<br />
with me<br />
and not shrink back.<br />
<br />
It doesn’t interest me<br />
where or what or with whom<br />
you have studied.<br />
I want to know <br />
what sustains you<br />
from the inside<br />
when all else falls away.<br />
<br />
I want to know<br />
if you can be alone <br />
with yourself<br />
and if you truly like<br />
the company you keep<br />
in the empty moments.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Oriah</i> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-26494697557685695582013-07-07T00:39:00.002-04:002014-01-23T06:12:27.843-05:00Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
5 </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
The smallest muscle in the human body is in the ear. </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
It is also the only muscle that does not have blood vessels; </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
It has fluid instead. The reason for this is clear: </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
The ear is so sensitive that the body, if it heard its own pulse, </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Would be devastated by the amplification of its own sound. </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
In this knowledge I sense a great metaphor, </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
But I do not want to be hasty in trying to capture or describe it. </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Words are our weakest hold on the world.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<i>Alberto Ríos </i></div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-10890662901570856412013-07-07T00:38:00.000-04:002013-11-18T20:00:53.680-05:00Some Extensions on the Soveriegnty of Science<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
4 </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
The reason you can’t lose weight later on in life is simple enough. </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
It’s because of how so many people you know have died, </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
And that you carry a little of each of them with you.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<i>Alberto Ríos</i></div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-18327417486608504022013-07-07T00:35:00.000-04:002013-07-07T00:35:56.113-04:00Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
2 </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
The hardest work of the last quarter of the twentieth century is to find </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
An edge in the middle. When something explodes, for example, </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Nobody is confused about what to do—you look toward it. </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Loud is a magnet. But the laws of magnetism are more complex. </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
One might just as well try this: When something explodes, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Turn exactly opposite from it and see what there is to see. </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
The loud will take care of itself, and everyone will be able to say </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
What happened in that direction. But who is looking </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
The other way? Nature, that magician and author of loud sounds, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Zookeeper and cook, electrician and provocateur— </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Maybe these events are Nature’s sleight of hand, and the real </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Thing that’s happening is in the other hand, </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Or behind or above or below or inside us. </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<i> Alberto Ríos</i></div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-57476237426340804082013-02-21T09:09:00.000-05:002013-02-21T09:09:26.969-05:00Funeral BluesStop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,<br />
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,<br />
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum<br />
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.<br /><br />
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead<br />
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.<br />
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,<br />
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.<br /><br />
He was my North, my South, my East and West,<br />
My working week and my Sunday rest,<br />
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;<br />
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.<br /><br />
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,<br />
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,<br />
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;<br />
For nothing now can ever come to any good.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>W. H. Auden</i> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-43803023932791798622013-02-01T09:37:00.000-05:002013-02-01T09:38:10.427-05:00UntitledIt hurts<br />
when love dies.<br />
When love is deep,<br />
it hurts deeply--<br />
more deeply maybe than you thought<br />
anything would ever hurt<br />
again.<br />
<br />
But with time,<br />
the spaces between the moments when it hurts<br />
get longer,<br />
the moments themselves become<br />
less devastating,<br />
till eventually you come to associate them<br />
with a sad sweetness<br />
that has as much in common<br />
with love<br />
as it does with grief.<br />
<br />
I wish you long<br />
spaces in between,<br />
and may you carry into them<br />
all of that sweetness,<br />
and only enough sadness to attest<br />
the risk that's being taken<br />
by everyone who loves you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Jack McCarthy</i> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-53630950443085948922012-09-06T12:18:00.003-04:002012-09-06T12:18:47.043-04:00PoemSometimes<br />
everything<br />
seems<br />
so<br />
oh, I don't know.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Joe Brainard</i> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-68140015905900090532012-08-30T02:30:00.000-04:002013-07-08T00:09:24.606-04:00PlayNothing’s going to become of anyone<br />
except death:<br />
therefore: it’s okay<br />
to yearn<br />
too high:<br />
the grave accommodates<br />
swell rambunctiousness &<br />
ruin’s not<br />
compromised by magnificence:<br />
the cut-off point<br />
liberates us to the<br />
common disaster: so<br />
pick a perch –<br />
apple bough for example in bloom –<br />
tune up<br />
and if you like<br />
drill imagination right through necessity:<br />
it’s all right:<br />
it’s been taken care of:<br />
is allowed, considering<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>A.R. Ammons </i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-62669884317647087812012-08-14T06:15:00.001-04:002012-08-14T06:16:03.412-04:00Summer Nights and DaysSo far the nights feel lonelier than the days.<br />
In light, the living keep me company,<br />
and memories of voices through the years.<br />
Each summer threads a green familiar maze.<br />
Emerging sun-struck, you can barely spy<br />
the slow kaleidoscope of clouds and hours.<br />
Those flannel nightshirts chilly sleepers wear<br />
as summer wanes: I’m giving them away.<br />
Pass it on: you keep at the same time.<br />
A bough has broken from the Duchess tree.<br />
Rain swelled the apples. Too much lightness weighs<br />
heavy: the heft of the idea of home<br />
tempered with the detachment of a dream,<br />
or tidal pulls, like ocean, like moonrise.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Rachel Hadas</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-21227553562505919412012-05-12T06:30:00.000-04:002012-05-12T02:54:01.245-04:00FaithWhen you walk to the edge of all the light you have<br />and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,<br />you must believe that one of two things will happen:<br /><br />There will be something solid for you to stand upon,<br />or, you will be taught how to fly.<br /><br /><br /><i>Patrick Overton</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-63340730083831966362012-05-11T12:04:00.000-04:002012-05-11T12:12:51.721-04:00GatherSome springs, apples bloom too soon. <br>
The trees have grown here for a hundred years, and are still quick <br>
to trust that the frost has finished. Some springs, <br>
pink petals turn black. Those summers, the orchards are empty <br>
and quiet. No reason for the bees to come. <br>
<br>
Other summers, red apples beat hearty in the trees, golden apples <br>
glow in sheer skin. Their weight breaks branches, <br>
the ground rolls with apples, and you fall in fruit. <br>
<br>
You could say, <i>I have been foolish</i>. You could say, <i>I have been fooled</i>. <br>
You could say, <i>Some years, there are apples</i>. <br>
<br>
<br>
<i>Rose McLarney</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-80429993475194005822012-03-26T11:24:00.001-04:002012-03-26T11:25:38.473-04:00Song After SadnessDespair is still servant<br />to the violet and wild ongoings<br />of bone. You, remember, are<br />that which must be made<br />servant only to salt, only<br />to the watery acre that is the body<br />of the beloved, only to the child<br />leaning forward into<br />the exhibit of birches<br />the forest has made of bronze light<br />and snow. Even as the day kneels<br />forward, the oceans and strung garnets, too,<br />kneel, they are all kneeling,<br />the city, the goat, the lime tree<br />and mother, the fearful doctor,<br />kneeling. Don't say it's the beautiful<br />I praise. I praise the human,<br />gutted and rising. <br /><br /><br /><i>Katie Ford</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-60619507159958654532012-02-11T11:32:00.001-05:002012-02-11T11:32:48.593-05:00SuperstitionI have painted a picture of a ghost<br />Upon my kite,<br />And hung it on a tree.<br />Later, when I loose the string<br />And let it fly,<br />The people will cower<br />And hide their heads,<br />For fear of the God<br />Swimming in the clouds.<br /><br /><br /><i>Amy Lowell</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-18304306726615341002012-02-01T08:16:00.000-05:002012-02-01T08:17:23.240-05:00TravellingThis is the spot:—how mildly does the sun<br />Shine in between the fading leaves! the air<br />In the habitual silence of this wood<br />Is more than silent: and this bed of heath,<br />Where shall we find so sweet a resting-place?<br />Come!—let me see thee sink into a dream<br />Of quiet thoughts,—protracted till thine eye<br />Be calm as water when the winds are gone<br />And no one can tell whither.—my sweet friend!<br />We two have had such happy hours together<br />That my heart melts in me to think of it.<br /><br /><br /><I>William Wordsworth</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-71285932575520835362011-11-11T11:23:00.000-05:002011-11-11T11:24:35.005-05:00RondoThe noun one keeps batting away<br />refuses declension.<br /><br />He says, <i>I don’t want to be<br />twenty-four again.</i><br />Twenty-four was a handful:<br /><br />the flawless<br />meatflesh, best self, miraculous<br />leap/thump on the hardwood,<br />the twist and splash.<br /><br />The exuberance<br />in the present tense,<br /><br />the timebound blood pump<br />two throbbing lungs butt<br />in their bone cage<br /><br />surges to bursting.<br />He does not perdure<br /><br />in this internal defection:<br /><i>so rare, and so heroic.</i><br /><br /><br /><i>Janet Holmes</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-90408993720792810342011-09-16T11:26:00.000-04:002011-09-16T11:27:01.309-04:00I'd Like a Little Flashlightand I'd like to get naked and into bed and be hot radiating heat from the inside these sweaters and fleeceys do nothing to keep out the out or keep my vitals in—some drafty body I've got leaking in and out in all directions I'd like to get naked into bed but hot on this early winter afternoon already dusky grim and not think of all the ways I've gone about the world and shown myself a fool, shame poking holes in my thinned carapace practically lacy and woefully feminine I'd like to get naked into bed and feel if not hot then weightless as I once was in the sensory deprivation tank in Madison, Wisconsin circa 1992 I paid money for that perfectly body-temperatured silent pitch dark tank to do what? play dead and not die? that was before email before children before I knew anything more than the deaths of a few loved ones which were poisoned nuts of swallowed grief but nothing of life of life giving which cuts open the self bursting busted unsolvable I'd like to get naked! into the bed of my life but hot hot my little flicker-self trumped up somehow blind and deaf to all the dampening misery of my friends' woe-oh-ohs and I'd like a little flashlight to write poems with this lousy day not this poem I'm writing under the mostly flat blaze of bulb but a poem written with the light itself a tiny fleeting love poem to life hot hot hot a poem that would say "oh look here a bright spot of life, oh look another!"<br /><br /><br /><i>Rachel Zucker</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-24340629407381868012011-08-29T00:45:00.001-04:002011-08-29T00:56:28.860-04:00To The HarbormasterI wanted to be sure to reach you;
<br />though my ship was on the way it got caught
<br />in some moorings. I am always tying up
<br />and then deciding to depart. In storms and
<br />at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide
<br />around my fathomless arms, I am unable
<br />to understand the forms of my vanity
<br />or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder
<br />in my hand and the sun sinking. To
<br />you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage
<br />of my will. The terrible channels where
<br />the wind drives me against the brown lips
<br />of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet
<br />I trust the sanity of my vessel; and
<br />if it sinks, it may well be in answer
<br />to the reasoning of the eternal voices,
<br />the waves which have kept me from reaching you.
<br />
<br />
<br /><i>Frank O'Hara</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-85371494993833244372011-08-16T19:27:00.001-04:002011-08-16T19:28:38.639-04:00The Descent of ManMy failure to evolve has been causing me a lot of grief lately.
<br />I can't walk on my knuckles through the acres of shattered glass in the streets.
<br />I get lost in the arcades. My feet stink at the soirees.
<br />The hills have been bulldozed from whence cameth my help.
<br />The halfway houses where I met my kind dreaming of flickering lights in the woods
<br />are shuttered I don't know why.
<br />"Try," say the good people who bring me my food,
<br />"to make your secret anguish your secret weapon.
<br />Otherwise, your immortality will be
<br />an exhibit in a vitrine at the local museum, a picture in a book."
<br />But I can't get the hang of it. The heavy instructions fall from my hands.
<br />It takes so long for the human to become a human!
<br />He affrights civilizations with his cry. At his approach,
<br />the mountains retreat. A great wind crashes the garden party.
<br />Manipulate singly neither his consummation nor his despair
<br />but the two together like curettes
<br />and peel back the pitch-black integuments
<br />to discover the penciled-in figure on the painted-over mural of time,
<br />sitting on the sketch of a boulder below
<br />his aching sunrise, his moody, disappointed sunset.
<br />
<br />
<br /><i>Vijay Seshadri</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-72980404166883547372011-05-03T08:16:00.001-04:002011-05-03T08:16:47.688-04:00Waiting for My LifeI waited for my life to start<br />for years, standing at bus stops<br />looking into the curved distance<br />thinking each bus was the wrong bus;<br />or lost in books where I would travel<br />without luggage from one page<br />to another; where the only breeze<br />was the rustle of pages turning,<br />and lives rose and set<br />in the violent colors of suns.<br /><br />Sometimes my life coughed and coughed:<br />a stalled car about to catch,<br />and I would hold someone in my arms,<br />though it was always someone else I wanted.<br />Or I would board any bus, jostled<br />by thighs and elbows that knew<br />where they were going; collecting scraps<br />of talk, setting them down like birdsong<br />in my notebook, where someday I would go<br />prospecting for my life.<br /><br /><br /><i>Linda Pastan</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-16237393700535148572011-04-04T00:43:00.003-04:002011-04-04T00:53:03.900-04:00Nothing TwiceNothing can ever happen twice.<br />In consequence, the sorry fact is<br />that we arrive here improvised<br />and leave without the chance to practice.<br /><br />Even if there is no one dumber,<br />if you're the planet's biggest dunce,<br />you can't repeat the class in summer:<br />this course is only offered once.<br /><br />No day copies yesterday,<br />no two nights will teach what bliss is<br />in precisely the same way,<br />with exactly the same kisses.<br /><br />One day, perhaps, some idle tongue<br />mentions your name by accident:<br />I feel as if a rose were flung<br />into the room, all hue and scent.<br /><br />The next day, though you're here with me,<br />I can't help looking at the clock:<br />A rose? A rose? What could that be?<br />Is it a flower or a rock?<br /><br />Why do we treat the fleeting day<br />with so much needless fear and sorrow?<br />It's in its nature not to stay:<br />Today is always gone tomorrow.<br /><br />With smiles and kisses, we prefer<br />to seek accord beneath our star,<br />although we're different (we concur)<br />just as two drops of water are.<br /><br /><br /><i>Wisława Szymborska</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-30733066012545882022011-02-15T14:08:00.001-05:002011-02-15T14:10:17.790-05:00How to Be AloneIf you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.<br /><br />We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.<br /><br />There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).<br /><br />And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.<br /><br />And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.<br /><br />Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.<br /><br />The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.<br /><br />Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.<br /><br />When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.<br /><br />Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.<br />And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.<br /><br />Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.<br />Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself<br /><br />Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.<br /><br />You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.<br /><br />Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.<br /><br />It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.<br /><br />And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that communitie's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.<br /><br />you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it<br />If your heart is bleeding make the best of it<br />There is heat in freezing, be a testament.<br /><br /><br /><i>Tonya Davis</i><br />(Watch it on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs">YouTube</a>!)Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-76644959931668441102011-02-07T05:28:00.000-05:002011-02-07T05:29:17.490-05:00ProposalLet's fall in love -<br />In our mid-thirties<br />It's not only<br />Where the hurt is.<br /><br />I won't get smashed up<br />Should you go<br />Away for weekends -<br />We both know<br /><br />No two people<br />Can be completely<br />All-sufficient.<br />But twice weekly<br /><br />We'll dine together<br />Split the bill,<br />Admire each other's<br />Wit. We will<br /><br />Be splendid lovers,<br />Slow, well-trained,<br />Tactful, gracefully<br />Unrestrained.<br /><br />You'll keep your flat<br />And I'll keep mine -<br />Our bank accounts<br />Shall not entwine.<br /><br />We'll make the whole thing<br />Hard and bright.<br />We'll call it love -<br />We may be right.<br /><br /><br /><i>Tom Vaughan</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474741436923148747.post-44143434857665461262011-02-04T03:29:00.001-05:002011-02-04T03:30:57.165-05:00SeparationYour absence has gone through me<br />Like thread through a needle.<br />Everything I do is stitched with its color.<br /><br /><br /><i>W.S. Merwin</i>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15505999309086779480noreply@blogger.com1