ALL RESPONSES |
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Consolation found Anguish on Doubt's doorstep.
Anguish in helpless tears, her cheeks a courseway,
sorrow-stained from love's receding tide.
Oh, my dove, has Doubt cast you off again?
said Consolation. Worry not: you and Doubt are made
each for the other. Even when you were
Ecstasy's toy, Doubt's torch burned for
you alone; He wouldn't admit it, of course.
What's that? No, don't start. Yes, I remember.
I remember how Ecstasy was to
you. I remember his touch as well. Forget
Ecstasy. Less constant that Doubt he is.
He'd pimp you out to Captive, and in chains
you'd walk forever, no. Wait. Doubt's better. |
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eagles are too large,
love birds too nervous
it is enough to know
they are brown sparrows
+
if we had a world map
covering our walls
we could see every place
we've ever, never flown
+
we watch the sparrows
visit the thistle feeder;
as they fill, no explanation
is needed for their doubting
+
yet, we still gather all the songs
in our hearts and sing
+
any after life is unnecessary |
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Anguish
I can relate to the tight-lipped grimace.
It comes before B as in Breakdown
and ends in ME as in emotional maturity
(listing backwards) where you don’t
cry in public. Much.
This guy in the drawing you’re showing
has hundreds of deaths to mourn;
I currently have only one, my husband’s.
It is, as they say on Humbug Avenue,
a big black and white issue,
people flock out of their apartments
to buy sympathy cards, gravestones,
phone cards. But you can sometimes
reach a minor god or co-ordinate,
S/He who can fix things with the weather
so you never have to come out of your room.
Brave you when the gods fail.
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I never wrote a poem for a person I didn’t love
but for you I will make an exception.
That seems unfair, let me try again.
large fearless embers rise from the house
and are carried up and away
like the fluttering of eyes behind drawn lids
who trace a quiet arc over the winter trees
that pretend to see nothing, nothing at all.
The firemen extinguish the rotating lights on their trucks,
roll up their flat and tired hoses and joke
amongst themselves about how they
should’ve brought marshmallows.
The yawning open mouth of a front door
screams in agony at those standing around
warming themselves by the friction.
Is it that they cannot hear or just don’t listen? |
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To drink like a Capuchin is to drink poorly
To drink like a Benedictine is to drink deeply
To drink like a Dominican is to drink pot after pot
To drink like a Franciscan is to drink the cellars dry
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I go back into memory because that’s where the veins
the lodes of anguish and ecstacy have been worked,
part of the 7,000 languages that have been air exposed
and drifted into the ether but some nuggets remain.
Each seam ends in a blossom, plain as a pepper tree bloom
and I am the monarch that hangs from it, wings closed
doing nothing but sucking consolation.
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Meet the outline of a tight-lipped man.
See through him to Germanic graphics,
compound phrases which may augur
disruption or danger. Or which might
only be the title of a movie, maybe
landmarks in the town of Hessen. Without
a glance of light, it's hard to see what makes
one face, one city different from another.
The places we have lived get in our veins.
Always pumping under us. We notice rarely,
but other people see it. One mouth shouting,
one mouth shut. One yells, the other won't
speak to you. Both are the same mouth.
Search as we might, there has never been
a third way. Gentle curves run and fall
down from the hardness of the features. |
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I just came in from shoveling snow
with a chihuahua and a dachshund
wearing a bikini, which is funny
because I am a guy, and it's cold
and the bikini was a little tight
on the dachshund, and the chihuahua
slept through it all in my pants.
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| I didn’t find you as the doctor stabbed the needle to block the pain. I didn’t feel you when my womb had to be sewn up. But when they stole her away from my arms so soon after I gave birth, when they finally secreted her from that room and I only had my own hands to grasp, I sucked in the air as if I had nothing left and moaned. |
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He walked out the door
anxiety ridden,
I can feel it under his skin
when I touch him.
Want to teach him my calm
but I don’t know how.
Until he leaves I'm frozen,
wrapped in his moods,
it shouldn’t be this way.
Turn on my music,
holding myself I lean against
the window frame.
The sky is white grey,
no sign of the sun.
The northern wind blows
icy cold these days.
A scarlet leaf sails across the
pale gray pavement of my driveway.
And I think,
“ how symbolic.”
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Ten years left.
No, scrub that.
Closer to twenty.
Count what remains.
File away what was.
Look at the past
with observer eyes.
Record.
Then count again.
“Ninety-nine,” she
said to her children.
“Count on me till ninety-nine.
It’s in the genes.
Count yourself too
in double nines.”
She reaches a point
where counting fades,
of years, at least.
Moments now, she keeps on counting those,
the bright numbers
of meter
of verse
of rhyme
of what resides,
what hides
between the lines.
Count and smile.
Then she counts again
when she has a moment.
She takes her time.
After all,
She has twenty years.
Lord knows what
she'll count after that. |
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you are breath,
open mouth
inhale sky
we share
birds’ flight
*
garden feeders
show more
doves
this year
sometimes,
death blinks |
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Years ago, they set a trap for you.
Your legs, still locked in jaws,
bleed freely on the snow.
Endless sleepless nights, days spent
in chains, lead to stress that rips
your soul to shreds.
Anxiety wounds the heart,
and you know it's in your mind,
where the serpent slowly eats
its tail, circling to destruction
in a pit of doubt.
Within it sings the voice of your fear.
Stop now, and step outside yourself,
unless you enjoy the struggle
more than life itself.
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ain’t all
it’s cracked
up to be
*
not even
a near miss
*
miles to go
before i sleep
*
let me
help
*
some things
need to be
natural
*
this is
one of
them
*
look out
the window
even love
birds do it
in snow |
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Re: Doubt face drawing
It isn’t that Melody doubts
a small percentage
of Canadians have tails
It’s that she doubts
the average person
wouldn’t adorn their behind
rather than keep it hidden.
But then again Melody has seldom left
a blank space at the bottom of a page,
staying ahead of the game. If you have
any reservation about that just look left
then right in front
behind
and without a doubt
you will see what I am talking about.
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perhaps I will run to the wind,
let the kisses of your mouth dissolve
in river water. sink to my knees
in mud and moss. cover my hands
with coolness, flutter of dragonflies
and twigs
perhaps I will curl up by a fire,
pull off the clothes of loving you
to wrap myself in starshine and
whiskey. perhaps I will be calm
in the center, let the storm swirl
slow-eyed away
perhaps I will rock a child or daughter
myself to Demeter, chew an apple
or swallow a seed, cut tatooes into
my skin and watch them bleed,
perhaps I will lie in a hammock
and sing lullabyes to my grief
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consolation
brilliant sundogs yesterday, late afternoon--
a hint of aurora borealis
on the way to writers' group last eve
laughter--
at a "groaner" email--
a play on words based on an awful joke
and the names of artists
inordinate satisfaction after the cheeky remark
of an ordinarily meek and quiet writer in our group
who commented on our leader's firmly stated rule--
"we write for 10 minutes on an agreed subject
then quit and share"
the "meek" one says, "put your pens down
and no one will get hurt"
all present laugh
we hike our chairs up
base our next 10 minute writing on his statement
at coffee following
a friend at another table
instead of coming over to say hello
throws paper wads
one of which lands next to my soup bowl--
when I meet his eye, he turns quickly
looking in exaggerated fashion for the culprit
somewhere behind him
sundogs are good--
friends who pay attention even better
to right the inner gyroscope
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Most
can do
a passable
imitation of
a skilled actor
if only for a moment
contorting their faces
to suit the emotion
they wish to project.
I prefer to ignore faces.
To see what lurks
behind their eyes
is sufficient. |
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note the necessity
of small hands
the wrists which hold
impossible cruelties
the arms just inside
the heartbreak
we rest our tears
like dragonflies’
on each others'
shoulders
we understand no more
than the pale lick of skin
beneath bone, the sighs
of lilacs outside
the cloakroom |
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For Consolation
I should have seen it coming.
All summer long birds were trying to get in
to my room through the window
closed due to air conditioning,
mistaking the pane for opportunity—
a hallmark decision of error—
bodies flung at naked glass,
the heavy thud of surprise,
wings crashing against the immovable.
Did I draw them to me?
Perhaps it was the light glowing from the computer screen
or fingers tapping the keyboard
or the way a phantom light captures sheen on my hair.
It’s clear it was all about how the appearance of things
can make seem right what’s amiss.
I blame the sun-- nipple of light streaking the pane,
a cruel dream of golden luminescence.
As usual, the birds were unfazed by it all,
flying off stunned, a bit woozy
into a crooked flight
that soon journeyed into straight.
In the early fall birds made the same blunder.
I see now, it was after one of those moments
a sparrow, perhaps, sought wrong flight,
smashing into the upper windowpane
open at the bottom, when Indian summer
blew a hair into my eyelash
and I stroked my belly full of secret,
body like sail unfurling in wind,
while a miniature heart within me
fluttered to beat for the last time.
This winter, I miss the birds.
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