She rummaged around in my soul,
as though looking for a pen in a handbag,
and i was left wondering
how words had such a power over my being.

Left drained and fulfilled
Life's intentions bloomed inside me
and at once i felt at home in a darkened room.

Do not panic,
please breathe deep,
I beg you to hold your tongue,
I too have words to speak,
   no one to listen,
       and little faith in Prophecy.

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
  This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
  Sick of the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
  Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
  Of the big surf that breaks all day.

Always before about my dooryard,
  Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
  Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;

Always I climbed the wave at morning,
  Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
  Stricken with noise, confused with light.

If I could hear the green piles groaning
  Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
  And the black sticks that fence the weirs,

If I could see the weedy mussels
  Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
  Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,

Feel once again the shanty straining
  Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
  Dread the bell in the fog outside,—

I should be happy,—that was happy
  All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
  Shells and anchors and ships again!

I should be happy, that am happy
  Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
  I have a need of water near.

I have put a Worry Eater
on your bookshelf, right
beside your favorite books.
It may look like a simple
wooden box, but don’t be
fooled: it is a Worry Eater
and the disguise is just
so random visitors will
not know what it is and
try to take it from you,
because Worry Eaters
are very rare and coveted
things.

I would think the name
should be self-explanatory,
but you must feed it daily
in order to keep your
Worry Eater happy and full.
Feeding it is simple:
open the lid and whisper
your worries in, or write them
on little scraps of paper —
lined college-ruled will do,
but the margins of old poems
make a special treat if you
want to do something nice
for your Worry Eater.
(I’ve heard that diner napkins
and the backs of grocery-store
receipts add a nice flavor, too.)

Some people may tell you,
“Don’t worry, everything will
be alright,” but these people
do not have a hungry
Worry Eater waiting at home,
so you can just smile coyly
at them and say, “Yes,
you’re right,” and then go home
and whisper your secret worries
to your secret Worry Eater.

Dear Ambidextrous Man,

I hear you write words with both of your hands
How does it feel? How does it feel to fight with your hands?
One scrawls your joy, while the other your pain
Together they paint a dull world of gray

Luxurious, lovely, lustful letters
Flirting together on fragile lines
Thick contradictions dancing around
Weaving in... and weaving out...

Potent words piercing the pages
Eloquent chains that tactfully twist
Clashing together in colloquial cacophony
A civil war complete with friendly fire

Black... White... Black... White.... Gray

Dear Ambidextrous Man,
How does it feel to fight with your hands?

Awfully good...
Awfully good...
Awfully good?

--Christian J. Clark

"good luck," they think it means.
brides, grooms, hell, even the kids in the club.
and the notion that the phrase comes with the
shattering of glass under a custom print napkin--
just wrong.
it's important to be mindful of what mazel tov means in
that moment, sure, but it's also
important to be mindful of what mazel tov
means in the everyday. the ritual.
see, mazel tov means "what good fortune."
and I know, I know, sounds pretty
**** close to "good luck."
but think about the glass.
all these tiny pieces to pick up
and you say, "good luck."
have fun picking up the shards.
don't cut your finger.
saying "good luck" in that moment
makes you an ***, but "what good fortune"
sounds like you got something up your sleeve.
and you should. in this life, always. always
a few tricks. you know when I was little,
my mother asked me what I wanted to be
when I grew up and I told her, I said,
"I want to be a magician."
her response, "you can't do both."
she's right. that's no profession for an adult,
but you can be an adult and a
magician on the side, as a hobby,
that's alright.

wait.

what was I talking about?
magicians, magicians, oh. tricks.
how else are you going to get by?
mazel tov is a mind trick.
see, we say "what good fortune"
when the glass breaks to reframe the
situation. what's your reaction
to that sound? your ears perk up--
if ears can actually do that, I don't know--
the hairs on your neck stand up.
I guess they can't really stand in the conventional
sense, but, well, you feel the space of a room.
and after that beautiful sound, and I mean beautiful,
you are forced to take everything else into account.
you don't want anything else to break. what matters most,
you know? that's why we say "what good fortune."
I'm delighted to know something as worthless
as glass has broken. because now I'm more
careful with what's valuable to me. right?
you spill soda on a cloth seat in your new car.
mazel tov.
now you don't have to be paranoid
every time your nephew climbs in with an Icee.
it's material crap. just crap. you're alive.
you've got a car. be thankful for what you have.
reframe, you know?
your girlfriend, your wife leaves you for a
former high school quarterback turned
owner of a lawn service company.
another casualty of the sweaty, lemonade-fueled fantasy.
once again, mazel tov.
you are so lucky you didn't spend the rest
of your life with her. the glass shattered.
it's a beautiful sound.

When did the world get colour?
did it happen overnight?
In all the older photographs
The sky is black and white
The trees are grey, the leaves aren't green
All the cars are grey as well
when did the world get colour?
Is there someone who can tell?

black and white in photos
black and white in all we did
One kept to another
Even when one was a kid
Don't mix them, it's immoral
It's a secret we keep hid
When did the world get colour?
Did God just lift the lid?

It's funny how with colour
all the photos that we like
Are the ones that show we're happy
The one's in black and white
We were posing looking silly
But were content in who we were
When did the world get colour?
Can you answer me please, sir?

Colour brings together
Lots of things, it shows our heart
Black and White,it is divisive
It's always driving things apart
There is an issue with one's colour
A racist gene beneath the skin
why can't the world be full of colour?
The way it's always been

black and white in photos
black and white in all we did
One kept to another
Even when one was a kid
Don't mix them, it's immoral
It's a secret we keep hid
When did the world get colour?
Did God just lift the lid?