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
Category: Poetry
Words are all we have
Why I Will Not Get Up in the Afternoon
My muscles unravel
like spools of ribbon:
there is not a shadow
of pain. I will pose
like this for the rest
of the afternoon,
for the remainder
of all noons. The rain
is making a valley
of my dim features.
I am in Tinos,
I am by the Eye.
It is summer,
I smell the rain,
I see myself running
through wheatgrass.
I am honey,
I am several winds.
My nerves dissolve,
my limbs wither –
I love you.
I love you.
(After James Tate)
Pride’s Crossing
Where the railway meets the sea,
I recognise her hand.
Where the railway meets the sea,
her hair is as intricate as a thumbprint.
Where the railway meets the sea,
her name is the threshold of sleep.
Where the railway meets the sea,
it takes all night to get there.
Where the railway meets the sea,
you have stepped over the barrier.
Where the railway meets the sea,
you will understand afterwards.
Where the railway meets the sea,
where the railway meets the sea –
I know only that our paths laid together,
and you cannot endure if you remain alone.
Garden
Your envelope
with the two red stamps
I would have planted in a flower-pot
had you ever sent me word
I’d have watered it
daily
then your letters
would have grown for me
Letters
beautiful and sad
and letters
that smell of you
I wish
we had done it sooner
not wait
till so late in the year.
Ocean
Sometimes my heart beats a bit faster or irregularly as if
my body is fighting back, clinging to wakefulness. Mostly,
though, I enjoy the feeling of the sleeping pill taking
hold, pulling me toward quietude. It is like foreplay with a pre-
dictable outcome. So unusual: that kind of kept promise.
The Trap
Inside the old chair
I found another chair;
though smaller, I liked
sitting in it better.
Inside that chair
I found another chair;
though smaller, in
many ways I felt
good sitting in it.
Inside that chair
I found another chair;
it was smaller and
seemed to be made
just for me.
Inside that chair,
still another;
it was very small,
so small I could
hardly get out of it.
Inside that chair
I found yet another;
and in that, another,
and another, until
I was sitting in
a chair so small
it would be difficult
to say I was sitting
in a chair at all.
I could not rise
or fall, and no one
could catch me.
My Heart
I’m not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don’t prefer one “strain” to another.
I’d have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says “That’s
not like Frank!”, all to the good! I
don’t wear brown and gray suits all the time,
do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart –
you can’t plan on the heart, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.
– Frank O’Hara
memoryhouse 