You are okay. Still
okay. Stay that way.
Category: Poetry
Words are all we have
Real poem
Woke up. First big downpour making
a new light – said that
before. Can’t write – get ready
said that. Get up:
food, oxygen. Seen rain before.
Not this
my god all the days we have lived thru
saying
not this
one, not this,
not now,
not yet, this week
doesn’t count, was lost, this month
was shit, what a year, it sucked,
it flew, that decade was for
what?
we forget what
we remember:
each of us
the fevered few
days we used
to fall in love.
(After Olena Kalytiak Davis)
Real poem II
We’re all fucked up because in English
the phrase ‘to make someone happy’
suggests that’s possible.
Fragmentary
poem after
poem after
something after someone
why do you just want more, more, more
more, more, more, more, more
the person in the poem’s loud silence
waiting for the band to come back on
I Dream
I dream I am living
I dream we have got to know each other again
(quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, as if that were
possible)
I dream that we love each other
I dream that we still love each other
I dream you meet another man
I dream you love him but tell him
you still want to love me too
I dream he says he understands
and we can go on loving each other
(as if that were possible)
I dream he says he finds it difficult
(not quite suddenly, and not quite unexpectedly)
I dream you say you will try
to turn our love into mere friendship
but that you still want to have me in your heart
I dream he says he understands
(as if that were possible)
I dream I have come to terms with this
I dream life goes on and work
I dream you speak to him about everything and are calmer
the way you wanted
I dream he puts up with our friendship
and that if we are not all lost
today we still go on living happily ever after
(as if that were possible)
The Shatter of Madness
There will be something, later,
that fills with you
and lifts itself
to a mouth
I stand
up from the shatter of madness
and watch my hand
trace the one
single
circle
– Paul Celan
memoryhouse 