poems.
This is what I do, you know. Read poetry and cry. My only catharsis.
The beauty is something I can never fully recover from. I carry these pieces of poems, these shards of light, these gorgeous bits of broken glass, all lodged inside of me. Sometimes I try to speak and can only choke, holding them, stuttering words I only half remember, lonely, melodramatic tears rolling slowly down my cheeks.
How do you know poetry? You feel it in your soul and it rings true, even if you have never felt it, never known it before that instant.
"Vex Me"
Barbara Hamby
Vex me, O Night, your stars stuttering like a stuck jukebox,
put a spell on me, my bones atremble at your tabernacle
of rhythm and blues. Call out your archers, chain me
to a wall, let the stone fortress of my body fall
like a rabid fox before an army of dogs. Rebuke me,
rip out my larynx like a lazy snake and feed it to the voiceless
throng. For I am midnight's girl, scouring unlit streets
like Persephone stalking her swarthy lord. Anoint me
with oil, make me greasy as a fast-food fry. Deliver me
like a pizza to the snapping crack-house hours between
one and four. Build me an ark, fill it with prairie moths,
split-winged fritillaries, blue-bottle flies. Stitch
me a gown of taffeta and quinine, starlight and nightsoil,
and when the clock tocks two, I'll be the belle of the malaria ball.
The imagery sticks, doesn't it? It's painful, grating, raw. It's real.
“An Ancient Gesture”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,-a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried.
There is something about this. Maybe knowing long distance helps.
"the lesson of the moth"
Don Marquis
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
archy
And that is an old favorite from my middle school days. I love it still.
The beauty is something I can never fully recover from. I carry these pieces of poems, these shards of light, these gorgeous bits of broken glass, all lodged inside of me. Sometimes I try to speak and can only choke, holding them, stuttering words I only half remember, lonely, melodramatic tears rolling slowly down my cheeks.
How do you know poetry? You feel it in your soul and it rings true, even if you have never felt it, never known it before that instant.
"Vex Me"
Barbara Hamby
Vex me, O Night, your stars stuttering like a stuck jukebox,
put a spell on me, my bones atremble at your tabernacle
of rhythm and blues. Call out your archers, chain me
to a wall, let the stone fortress of my body fall
like a rabid fox before an army of dogs. Rebuke me,
rip out my larynx like a lazy snake and feed it to the voiceless
throng. For I am midnight's girl, scouring unlit streets
like Persephone stalking her swarthy lord. Anoint me
with oil, make me greasy as a fast-food fry. Deliver me
like a pizza to the snapping crack-house hours between
one and four. Build me an ark, fill it with prairie moths,
split-winged fritillaries, blue-bottle flies. Stitch
me a gown of taffeta and quinine, starlight and nightsoil,
and when the clock tocks two, I'll be the belle of the malaria ball.
The imagery sticks, doesn't it? It's painful, grating, raw. It's real.
“An Ancient Gesture”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,-a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried.
There is something about this. Maybe knowing long distance helps.
"the lesson of the moth"
Don Marquis
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
archy
And that is an old favorite from my middle school days. I love it still.