"sexton" poems
I cried at the breakfast table this morning
my father carefully explained,
"wives must be submissive to their husbands"
"housecleaning is the domain of the woman"
"God created woman because man asked for a partner"
This past semester I wrote two papers
One, a fire and brimstone sermon
I quoted Anais Nin
sending the creators of sexist commercials to eternal suffering
**** them!" I said. "May they burn in hell."
For the women they portrayed were doormats
Misconceptions
Monsters
The other, the role of women in the 1920s,
No longer confined to the kitchen
they dropped ballots with their new freedom
they wore short dresses and short tresses
fingers wrapped around cigs
they quoted Wilde instead of Alcott
they danced until their feet hurt
I read of Anais Nin's "new woman,"
her partnership, not submission to man,
I craved a room of my own, neigh demanded it
For sheep stayed in the kitchen,
The Woolf had a study.
I read poetry
Sexton,
Plath,
I wept for their starved, depressed selves
caged, suffocating inside the clasped hands of a man.
Loved like rib-cage jails.
Adrienne Rich made me angry,
her daughter-in-law
forever trying to fit into a box
she was always too big for, spilling
at the edges, her shaved
legs like "white mammoth tusks"
I was finally
happy with my womanhood.
****** ****** ***** ********
they are mine.
******* free to move unrestrained,
jiggling under my shirt.
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,
they are mine.
mine.
I am not ashamed of what I am
because there is no shame.
I am woman,
I am girl,
I am lady.
I am a creature
with a voice
a mind.
a creature who endured much abuse,
continue to endure.
I am woman
and I don't have to be wife or mother
unless I want to be.
I was not created for man;
I was created for the same reason he was,
to serve the same great purpose on this tiny blue dot.
I am not rib.
I am ****** ****** ***** ********
******* free, unrestrained,
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,
I am a per.
I am a wo.
I am a hu.
Man and son need to back down,
collaborate not dominate,
speak not command,
for when less are forced into silence,
the maddening scream
hidden inside skin and bones and muscle-meat
becomes song.
this world of car horns and tire screeches
crying and wailing from raw throats
angry protests of indignation
could use a little music.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 6:59 PM UTC
~
June 2023
HP Poet: Patty Mager
Country: USA
Question 1: Welcome to the HP Spotlight, Patty. Please tell us about your background?
Patty M: "I was born an only child in a 3 generation household. I loved books, and playing imaginary games, and chasing my mom with really long nightcrawlers, my Grandpa raised in a washtub. I was a banker, and a financial banker for many years. I quit to do hospice for my Dad when he was to go into hospice. My husband had heart problems and my little Mom eventually got Cancer. So I nursed and loved them all. My Dad for a year, the others over an 8-year period. I saw the transition of each and the way each handled their ending, and I was there for them all. I consider that a special blessing."
Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?
Patty M: "I always wrote, but I found a poetry site 20 years ago, and began to write seriously. I've been published in many anthologies both in the US and abroad. I was nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize twice and I once had a three-page spread in our local newspaper. I came to HP in 2014 and I love this special place with amazingly wonderful poets who have become really great friends."
Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).
Patty M: "Sometimes poems seem to write themselves, almost like automatic writing."
Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?
Patty M: "Poetry is spiritual, and a lifesaving rope that carries me through both good and the horrible times of my life."
Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?
Patty M: "My favorite Poets are: Sylvia Plath, Neruda, Billy Collins, Maya Angelou, Poe, Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, and Longfellow."
Question 6: What other interests do you have?
Patty M: "I love to cook, do crossword puzzles, read, and play card games like canasta, and spider solitaire. Being with family is my heaven."
Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you, dear Patty! I learned a great deal about you!”
Patty M: "Thank again Carlo. Thanks so much for all your help and kindness."
Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Patty a little bit better. I indeed did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez (aka Mr. Timetable)
We will post Spotlight #5 in July!
~
Jun 1, 2023
Jun 1, 2023 at 5:56 PM UTC
Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother’s voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.
5.6k
324
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church—
I keep it, staying at Home—
With a Bobolink for a Chorister—
And an Orchard, for a Dome—
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice—
I just wear my Wings—
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton—sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman—
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last—
I’m going, all along.
4.3k
I read a poem once
titled "the ballad of the lonely masturbator"
and I laughed because her name was Anne.....
Sexton.....
then I found my self cleaning floors....
by myself....
restocking toilet paper....
and suddenly nothing was funny...
anymore...
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 2:08 PM UTC
(I hate poets.
They annoy me deeply.)
I.
There are the balladeers,
Working in service of their inner Service,
(Though, despite the seeming impossibility,
Their hackneyed verse is even worse)
Creating tortuous rhyme
Which slows down labyrinthine narratives
Ending up in some deus ex machine
So implausible that it would make Euripides blush
(Most often courtesy of some unforeseen projectile
Or sudden viral contagion;
Would that their creators meet such a fate!)
II.
I come not to praise the so-called sonneteers,
But to bury them.
They are an earnest lot,
(Lord knows that they are earnest)
And they will make their fourteen lines rhyme
(Though sometimes the rhyme scheme screams for mercy)
And hang the cost.
Though their narratives are head-scratching things,
And their iambs proceed with the steadiness
Of a nonagenarian church pianist
Doing her damndest to fight the wedding march to a draw,
They are content, nay, proud of their work
Because babble rhymes with Scrabble
(Though they are not particularly proficient with the latter,
They have the former down to an art.)
III.
Let us not forget the Buk-zombies,
Those apostles of aphorism,
Most of whom speak of their departed deity
As if he were an old drinking buddy
(Never mind that most of them were two or three
Or perhaps not even a bad idea
In the back seat of some mom’s Buick
When he exited this mortal plane, stage left, even.)
One’s mind is boggled whilst considering
The expanse of the bar required to accommodate
Everyone who would like to
(Or worse, have claimed to)
Buy old Charlie a beer, not that he’d stand for a round.
They are a sullen horde, this lot,
Best dealt with by aiming for the base of the skull.
IV.
Ah, the confessionals, Lord have mercy upon their souls
(For they shall have none upon ours.)
They feel so many things so deeply
As such things have never been felt before
(They have not read their Sexton, their Snodgrass,
Their Lowell, their Pl--well, no,
They have all read their Plath.)
It is, from the moment they arise in the morning
Until such time they set aside their fears and let sleep take them,
All too much for them,
And they bravely face the days
Until such time they care bear to take action
And fling themselves from some convenient precipice.
We should, as a service to them and ourselves,
Ensure the soles of their shoes
Are sufficiently worn and slippery.
(I hate poets.
They annoy me deeply.)
Jan 12, 2017
Jan 12, 2017 at 11:22 AM UTC
The vane on Hughley steeple
Veers bright, a far-known sign,
And there lie Hughley people,
And there lie friends of mine.
Tall in their midst the tower
Divides the shade and sun,
And the clock strikes the hour
And tells the time to none.
To south the headstones cluster,
The sunny mounds lie thick;
The dead are more in muster
At Hughley than the quick.
North, for a soon-told number,
Chill graves the sexton delves,
And steeple-shadowed slumber
The slayers of themselves.
To north, to south, lie parted,
With Hughley tower above,
The kind, the single-hearted,
The lads I used to love.
And, south or north, 'tis only
A choice of friends one knows,
And I shall ne'er be lonely
Asleep with these or those.
2.7k
Contents of the lockers lay in a pile
A flask, a Marlboro box, a thousand
textbooks, pills in an orange see-through bottle
One item, unique to the others,
is a notebook
Full of confessions and Sexton and Plath
Sad yearnings and accounts of complete moments
This notebook
Surrounded by the cigarettes and concealed ***** and mathematical equations
Shows the other world
within this world
That spins in time with this world
But gives and takes
for lovelier sakes
-cj
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 1:45 AM UTC
I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
Within the silent ground,
'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain turf should break.
A cell within the frozen mould,
A coffin borne through sleet,
And icy clods above it rolled,
While fierce the tempests beat--
Away!--I will not think of these--
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,
Earth green beneath the feet,
And be the damp mould gently pressed
Into my narrow place of rest.
There through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife bee and humming-bird.
And what if cheerful shouts at noon
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.
I know, I know I should not see
The season's glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me,
Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
These to their softened hearts should bear
The thought of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part, in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
Is--that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.
2.2k
640
I cannot live with You—
It would be Life—
And Life is over there—
Behind the Shelf
The Sexton keeps the Key to—
Putting up
Our Life—His Porcelain—
Like a Cup—
Discarded of the Housewife—
Quaint—or Broke—
A newer Sevres pleases—
Old Ones crack—
I could not die—with You—
For One must wait
To shut the Other’s Gaze down—
You—could not—
And I—Could I stand by
And see You—freeze—
Without my Right of Frost—
Death’s privilege?
Nor could I rise—with You—
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus’—
That New Grace
Glow plain—and foreign
On my homesick Eye—
Except that You than He
Shone closer by—
They’d judge Us—How—
For You—served Heaven—You know,
Or sought to—
I could not—
Because You saturated Sight—
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
And were You lost, I would be—
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame—
And were You—saved—
And I—condemned to be
Where You were not—
That self—were Hell to Me—
So We must meet apart—
You there—I—here—
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are—and Prayer—
And that White Sustenance—
Despair—
2.2k
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent:
All are needed by each one,
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me;
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid
As 'mid the ****** train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white quire;
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,—
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, "I covet Truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,—
I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Above me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;—
Beauty through my senses stole,
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
2.2k
You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;
You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
The very breath of it is ripe with cheer.
You're awful cold and ***** and a-cursin' of your lot;
You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot;
It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot:
God bless the man that first discovered Tea!
Since I came out to fight in France, which ain't the other day,
I think I've drunk enough to float a barge;
All kinds of fancy foreign dope, from caffy and doo lay,
To *** they serves you out before a charge.
In back rooms of estaminays I've gurgled pints of cham;
I've swilled down mugs of cider till I've felt a bloomin' dam;
But 'struth! they all ain't in it with the vintage of Assam:
God bless the man that first invented Tea!
I think them lazy lumps o' gods wot kips on asphodel
Swigs nectar that's a flavour of Oolong;
I only wish them sons o' guns a-grillin' down in 'ell
Could 'ave their daily ration of Suchong.
Hurrah! I'm off to battle, which is 'ell and 'eaven too;
And if I don't give some poor bloke a sexton's job to do,
To-night, by Fritz's campfire, won't I 'ave a gorgeous brew
(For fightin' mustn't interfere with Tea).
To-night we'll all be tellin' of the Boches that we slew,
As we drink the giddy victory in Tea.
2.2k
I would not recommend Madness
distrust runs riot
dissecting myself with wings clipped deemed a flight risk
and I'm naked lay face down on the bed
and I trace tramlines
of forgiveness
because my mauled body pays
penance and I am my own
whipping boy who sees me as
a war zone of self-destruction
an addict to my own sickness
bat **** crazy
like those female poets
and their creative madness
Sexton, Plath, Bishop, Woolf
and Merini and Kane
and I prayed: Lord
forgive me for my sins
I would not recommend
Madness
© Sia Jane
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 6:43 PM UTC
-- Wish You Were Here -- standard postcard greeting
-- Poems aren't postcards to send home -- Anne Sexton
Dear friends, dear friends at home, resent
No pagan rite nor chance event
We've failed to photograph for you
With technicolor flair in the true
Late Tourist Style. Be satisfied
You're there, not here in Circe's herd
Or dodging stones some Giant's hurled
Or fending Triton's tempest blasts
Or lashed, like me, to a shattered mast
As tempting taunts roll down the tide.
When night winds grind the wheel of sleep
Consider Cyclops, counting sheep;
When home-fires cool, just think of us
Attending smokes more perilous!
Home-bound friends, be notified:
This holiday's a Trojan Horse.
The wine's gone bad. The weather's worse.
So mark our fates by this palsied hand:
*Have sacrificed most every man.
Now homeward-bound. Still terrified.*
Sep 10, 2011
Sep 10, 2011 at 5:47 PM UTC
the setting moon
slips close to its watery grave
and she finally appears
walking slow carrying her broken shoes
she says that the night jumped her
and she had gotten lost in the
vast differences between what she hoped
and what the world always left her longing with
tears spread from her still young innocent eyes
i held her to reassure
but as i wait for our fears to subside
i see the lights approach
of thouse who would claim lordship over her wallet
and over her soul
bankers of the material world
doubling as demons from hells coldest corner
no fleeing the version where you need to change batteries
they are dead as the souls who manufacture them
she slips a pair of double a's from her
pocket rocket personal massage device
and plugs her mind back into the need to get on with her day
the moon has reached its last gasp
and she has romanced her way out of her dress
and you out of your noble intents
we all reach this impasse
with our pen and page
having sold off our forward momentum
for a desperado gamble at claiming that elusive perfect written word
we flounder at waters edge
unable to pull ourselfs back
unable to manufacture method to crawl further
we make mad dashes round and round the
proverbial gallows pole
hanging on a single idea or ideal
trying to express it clearly
it need not more clear than it is
in mind's eye
but her face lingers in your soul
urging you you recapitulate your dire love
to craft a better master plan for tearing yourself down
the moon has reached its invisible zenith
on the worlds opposite side
and you have yet to reconcile
your good natured laugh
to her dark predictions
she slips away again to seek
her rightful place in her world view
and you are the captain of your sinking rowboat
once more
sexton in hand
plot your thoughts
and row king james home
the moon will rise soon
and you need to be home
when she comes in need of a hugs
and a shoulder to weep on
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 1:25 PM UTC
Death only uses violence,
**An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
― Mahatma Gandhi**
Standing naked in front of a mirror of truth
Did you gasp for a moment?
Or did you grasp the robe tightly by the string?
Our mirror the body shaming objects
Our brain Positive or negative to the truth:
As we stand in the front of the mirror of truth:
Our eyes become terrible liars
Fat stigma is spreading around the world: everyone is our mirrors
body shaming us into believing that skinnier is healthier:
The three rolls at the side of your body a reminder that those
Thanksgiving mini apple pies was a **** lie too,
Everything in Moderation is only sweet poetic words
**Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.”
― Anne Sexton**
Dec 11, 2017
Dec 11, 2017 at 8:05 AM UTC
And I write.
I write about everything I did and regret,
I write about everything I lost and missed,
I write about a darkness that's lurking in my head.
And I write.
I write about stars, space and bliss,
I write about the nights I spent sleepless,
I write about the internal extraterrestrial intelligence.
And I write.
I write about stolen kisses and awkward hugs,
I write about sharing a bed and drugs,
I write about drunken *** and whisky jugs.
And I write.
I write about literature and poetry,
I write about Sexton making out with Bukowski,
I write about Akhmatova painting Dostoevesky.
And I write.
I write about music and lovely symphonies,
I write about Tchaikovsky waltzing with Vivaldi,
I write about a world where we dance as we please.
And I write.
I write about childhood lost not forgotten,
I write about battered women and abused children,
I write about you and them. I write me every now and then.
And I write.
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
I knew I was in the burning building with her –
and it was like Limburg, maggoty
but obliged its fortress of a rowboat life.
Without its ice, I am in pine-high, to dull selves
which will later stiff upon these floors.
He was hell. He did this to us.
Not even a masked ****** shown needles
for his dog expression, and I am prodded
rather with teeth than a nose drill.
But she did dissolve before I could have,
must have had thin bones,
of maturity, an osteoporosis ache.
It saved her, perhaps, although she passed:
a kidney stone philosophy book,
these death-doctors will read numb.
I do wonder if it were their hips in fire,
why could they not sit in a mausoleum place.
Just how we did so many instances –
practicing a routine in the bathtub, like knowing.
Had the correct arrangement, too,
I pretended I was in a womb with you.
And mother’s was like that claw-tub so
we, fetus, sensed like castle buffs, carrying
the rings of gold and lockets of princess blood.
Then, she became papier-mâché statues
before a meadow of hell’s dust: I had to kiss
each curve because one ash was not enough.
I knew I was in the burning building with her
when I could not recognize her stumps.
She was an emblem of past upon fair carpet,
or the haze I inhale to shadow –
knowing that he sees our wallpaths and
catches the hum of infernos taking bodies,
then say that he is a monster even more than I.
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 5:30 PM UTC
I stood beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and asked
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory tasked
Through the thick deaths of half a century;
And thus he answered—”Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
He died before my day of sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave.”
And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip
The veil of Immortality? and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon, and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton’s thought,
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers;—as he caught
As ’twere the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he,—”I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour,—and myself whate’er
Your honour pleases,”—then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket’s avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as ’twere
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently:—Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I—for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a softened eye,
On that Old Sexton’s natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame,—
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.
1.2k
From the hodge porridge
of their country lust,
their local life in Illinois,
where all their acres look
like a sprouting broom factory,
they name just ten years now
that she has been his habit;
as again tonight he'll say
honey bunch let's go
and she will not say how there
must be more to living
than this brief bright bridge
of the raucous bed or even
the slow braille touch of him
like a heavy god grown light,
that old pantomime of love
that she wants although
it leaves her still alone,
built back again at last,
mind's apart from him, living
her own self in her own words
and hating the sweat of the house
they keep when they finally lie
each in separate dreams
and then how she watches him,
still strong in the blowzy bag
of his usual sleep while
her young years bungle past
their same marriage bed
and she wishes him ******* or poet,
or even lonely, or sometimes,
better, my lover, dead.
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 5:32 PM UTC
Isn't it strange living in another person's head?
It's like Being John Malkovich,
or Anne Sexton
as I rode along with her
wild rides into sand at the beach,
lost in Boston again,
inside a mind
that was different but still mine
because I saw
that very street lamp she did,
and in her advice to me,
that yet unborn memory
that would never be,
I heard her words in soft puffs
of nicotine-scented tickles
in my ear, warm air
before young lungs
had ever breathed in,
and I cried
because she was speaking to me,
though she never knew it
when the words clattered
from that old Remington
like a machine gun-
I was just an idea
she never really had,
a wish in soft feathery hair
on the chest of man
she shared lust with as he slept,
not knowing he would father
a specter delivered from a womb
that had closed for business.
Our walks
along an asylum lawn,
returning waves
to suspicious grass,
green oceans to get lost in
after sewing leather wallets
from our own hardened skins
as if projects could ever fix
the worlds of sin we lived in,
pandering doctors offering
officious pretense of cure
against the sweet furies
of sunrises, sunsets,
earth worms and *****
So, can I cry
having crossed a divide
into another,
for moments residing
in the soul and belly of a mother
who was never mine,
though I feel her pain
as if we own it together?
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 6:59 PM UTC
Look closely at your dots and periods.
You'll see this...
. Bob Dylan .
. William Shakespeare .
. Maya Angelou . Emily Dickinson .
. Ralph Waldo Emerson . Robert Frost . Ai .
. Max Eastman . Thomas Hardy . William Blake .
. Edgar Allan Poe . Pablo Neruda . James Joyce . Ovid .
. Carl Sandberg . Anne Sexton . Taigu Ryokan . Sappho .
. Ogden Nash . Dorothy Parker . JD Salinger . Rumi .
. Dame Edith Sitwell . Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly .
. Anna Swir . Sara Teasdale . JRR Tolkien .
. Alfred Lord Tennyson . John Skelton .
. Dante Gabriel Rossetti .
. Dylan Thomas .
Soul Survivor
2014
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 7:45 AM UTC
Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.
Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church
Our little sexton sings.
God preaches,--a noted clergyman,--
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I'm going all along!
Feb 9, 2016
Feb 9, 2016 at 9:59 AM UTC