literature

i catch sight of the now

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I Catch the Sight of the Now

–Jorie Graham

unforgettable though then hardly noticed green

tiled ledge
just up to my right in the glistening shower stall, slightly above my open
eyes, square window in it, & slender citrine
lip onto which I place, gently, this first handful of hair—always I see it—the window-
pane up there letting anything in and out that
wishes to pass
thru—so freely—drops from the steam of the shower
on it, the slipping of forever & for-
ever all down the
pane, where, beyond the still-wet clump, all seems to shine and
murmur it’s just day, just this day, another day, filled with the only
of this minute, this split minute, in which if I
reach now I can feel
the years, the fissure in them,
these fractions here inside the
instant—oh mine—how mine—moving now so
differently, as if entering a room with frozen fingers and they say
no you cannot warm them here
at the fire,
there is no fire, there is no
room, actually there is nothing, though you can
start carving the nothing, you can test your strength
against the nothing, the subject is
loss, the dark is inside your
open mouth not knowing what else there is again to
say, a kind of howling without
sorrow, no amazement, no
wisdom, just the roomlessness of this your suddenly—
suddenly everything, suddenly there is no more of what there
was, suddenly you do not die of fear you just fear, suddenly
there is no such thing as right or wrong yr hand is
a claw full of hair there is no
purification anywhere as the shower keeps streaming looking for
hollows, more hollows, this thread of the only
water cycle dragged down
into here to
run all over you, to rake yr
skinny neck & down inside of you where you
look up, open yr
mouth—to scream to sing to say the one
right word—as now the next
soft handful
comes, it is such a surprise, as you raise up yr
hand, high, full, to the ledge, to pile it on there—& what
will you do
now, shooting your gaze into those filaments, your years of having & not
knowing, still wet, in clumps, through which the daylight now is pouring itself,
though it is not pouring anything at all or into
anything at all because it’s just the planet
turning again and again into and out of the
dark which is not itself actually dark
at all.

all this and more

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All This and More
–Mary Karr

The Devil’s tour of hell did not include
a factory line where molten lead
spilled into mouths held wide,
no electric drill spiraling screws
into hands and feet, nor giant pliers
to lower you into simmering vats.
Instead, a circle of light
opened on your stuffed armchair,
whose chintz orchids did not boil and change,
and the Devil adjusted
your new spiked antennae
almost delicately, with claws curled
and lacquered black, before he spread
his leather wings to leap
into the acid-green sky.
So your head became a tv hull,
a gargoyle mirror. Your doppelganger
sloppy at the mouth
and swollen at the joints
enacted your days in sinuous
slow motion, your lines delivered
with a mocking sneer. Sometimes
the frame froze, reversed, began
again: the red eyes of a friend
you cursed, your girl child cowered
behind the drapes, parents alive again
and puzzled by this new form. That’s why
you clawed your way back to this life.
Photo by Adele Cave on Unsplash

doubled mirrors

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Doubled Mirrors
–Kenneth Rexroth

It is the dark of the moon.
Late at night, the end of summer,
The autumn constellations
Glow in the arid heaven.
The air smells of cattle, hay,
And dust. In the old orchard
The pears are ripe. The trees
Have sprouted from old rootstocks
And the fruit is inedible.
As I pass them I hear something
Rustling and grunting and turn
My light into the branches.
Two raccoons with acrid pear
Juice and saliva drooling
From their mouths stare back at me,
Their eyes deep sponges of light.
They know me and do not run
Away. Coming up the road
Through the black oak shadows, I
See ahead of me, glinting
Everywhere from the dusty
Gravel, tiny points of cold
Blue light, like the sparkle of
Iron snow. I suspect what it is,
And kneel to see. Under each
Pebble and oak leaf is a
Spider, her eyes shining at
Me with my reflected light
Across immeasurable distance.
Photo by Pete Nuij on Unsplash

condemned

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The Condemned
–P.K. Page

cottonmouth country

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Cottonmouth Country
–Louise Glück

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras. And there were other signs That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us By land: among the pines An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss Reared in the polluted air. Birth, not death, is the hard loss. I know. I also left a skin there.

Photo by Meg Jerrard on Unsplash

field of flowers

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Field of Flowers
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Translation

Campo de Flores

Photo by Darlene Lu on Unsplash

a study of forgiveness as a piñata

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A Study of Forgiveness as a Piñata
–Sierra DeMulder
It is definitely an animal, but nobody can tell
which kind. Half donkey, half rodeo clown.

Part cow, part hummingbird. People

only care what’s inside, and how eventually
it will be violent(ly) drawn out — the wild

staggers of the blindfolded, how the body

acts as a volume knob: the closer the swing,
the louder the shrieks. That satisfying thud,

aluminum against papier-mâché, dull

and electric. In these years after you, I too
have thrashed in the dark, have swung madly

at sounds, have prayed for impact, or at least

purpose. I confess I have noosed your memory,
waved my bat like a shameful finger, waited

beneath it, ready to collect my lump of closure.

Thump. I forgive you. Thump. I forgive you.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Nothing ever falls out.

argument to love as a person

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Argument to Love as a Person
–Alan Dugan

The cut rhododendron branches
flowered in our sunless flat.
Don’t complain to me, dear,
that I waste your life in poverty:
you and the cuttings prove: Those
that have it in them to be beautiful
flower wherever they are!, although
they are, like everything else, ephemeral.
Freedom is as mortal as tyranny.

death is too easy

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Death is Too Easy
–Robert M. Drake

Death is too easy
and too simple.

We all know
how it goes,
but believe me,

the hardest thing
in the world is to live

and to live for something.

Something that burns

the soul,

something hard

to forget.

Photo by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash

i will have to begin

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I Will Have to Begin
–Yehuda Amichai

I will have to begin to remember you
When someone else begins to discover you, the inside
Of your soft thighs above the stockings and when you laugh,
Developing the first pictures for his future dreams.

And I will have to forget you.
When someone else begins to remember you
When some other elses begin to discover you.

And my life is empty like a flower when they plucked
All its petals: yes, no, yes, no, yes.

And to be alone is to be in a place
Where we were never together, and to be alone is
To forget you are like this: to want to pay for two
In a bus and travel alone.

Now I shall cover the mirror like your pictures
And lie down to sleep. The birds of the sky will eat
The flesh of my sleep. The dogs will lick
My blood inside. You won’t see a thing outside.