"Rainy Night" by Dorothy Parker

[hateradebottler.livejournal.com]

Ghosts of all my lovely sins,
Who attend too well my pillow,
Gay the wanton rain begins;
Hide the limp and tearful willow.

Turn aside your eyes and ears,
Trail away your robes of sorrow,
You shall have my further years-
You shall walk with me tomorrow.

I am sister to the rain;
Fey and sudden and unholy,
Petulant at the windowpane,
Quickly lost, remembered slowly.

I have lived with shades, a shade;
I am hung with graveyard flowers.
Let me be tonight arrayed
In the silver of the showers.

Every fragile thing shall rust;
When another April passes
I may be a furry dust,
Sifting through the brittle grasses.

All sweet sins shall be forgot;
Who will live to tell their siring?
Hear me now, nor let me rot
Wistful still, and still aspiring.

Ghosts of dear temptations, heed;
I am frail, be you forgiving.
See you not that I have need
To be living with the living?

Sail, tonight, the Styx's breast;
Glide among the dim processions
Of the exquisite unblest,
Spirits of my shared transgressions,

Roam with young Persephone.
Plucking poppies for your slumber . . .
With the morrow, there shall be
One more wraith among your number.

(no subject)

[strangeidea.livejournal.com]

In August
by Babette Deutsch, born today in 1895

Heat urges secret odors from the grass.
Blunting the edge of silence, crickets shrill.
Wings veer: inane needles of light, and pass.
Laced pools: the warm wood-shadows ebb and fill.
The wind is casual, loitering to crush
The sun upon his palate, and to draw
Pungence from pine, frank fragrances from brush,
Sucked up through thin grey boughs as through a straw.

Moss-green, fern-green and leaf and meadow-green
Are broken by the bare, bone-colored roads,
Less moved by stirring air than by unseen
Soft-footed ants and meditative toads.
Summer is passing, taking what she brings:
Green scents and sounds, and quick ephemeral wings.

(no subject)

[demon151.livejournal.com]

Lilith

kicked myself out of paradise
left a hole in the morning
no note no goodbye
was patient and hairy

he cared for the animals
worked late at night
planting vegetables
under the moon

sometimes he'd hold me
our long hair tangled
he kept me from rolling
off the planet

it was
always safe there
but safety

wasn't enough. I kept nagging
pointing out flaws
in his logic

he carried a god
around in his pocket
consulted it like

a watch or an almanac

it always proved
I was wrong

two against one
isn't fair! I cried
and stormed out of Eden
into history:
the Middle Ages
were sort of fun
they called me a witch
I kept dropping
in and out
of people's sexual fantasies

now
I work in New Jersey
take art lessons
live with a cabdriver

he says; baby
what I like about you
is your sense of humor

sometimes
I cry in the bathroom
remembering Eden
and the man and the god


Enid Jacobs Dame.

(no subject)

[mizraim.livejournal.com]

Safe Subjects

How can love heal
The mouth shut this way?
Say something worth breath.
Let it surface, recapitulate
How fat leeches press down
Gently on a sex goddess’ eyelids.
Let truth have its way with us
Like a fishhook holds
To life, holds dearly to nothing
Worthy saying – pull it out,
Bringing with it hard facts,
Knowledge that the fine underbone
Of hope is also attached
To inner self, underneath it all.
Undress. No don’t be afraid
Even to get Satan mixed up in this
Acknowledgement of thorns;
Meaning there’s madness
In the sperm, in the egg,
Fear breathing in its blood sac,
True accounts not so easily
Written off the sad book.

Say something about pomegranates.
Say something about real love.
Yes, true love – more than
Parted lips, than parted legs
In sorrow’s darkroom of potash
& blues. Let the brain stumble
from its hidingplace, from its cell block,
to the edge of oblivion
to come to itself, sharp-tongued
as a boar’s grin in summer moss
where a vision rides the back
of God, at this masquerade.
Redemptive as a straight razor
Against a jugular vein –
Unacknowledged & unforgiven.
It’s truth we’re after here,
Hurting for, out in the streets
Where my brothers kill each other,
Each other’s daughters & guardian angels
In the opera of dead on arrival.

Say something that resuscitates
Us, behind the masks,
As we stumble off into neon nights
To loveless beds & a second skin
Of loneliness. Something political as dust
& earthworms at work in the temple
of greed & mildew, where bowed lamps
cast down shadows like blueprints of graves.
Say something for us who can’t believe
In the creed of nightshade.
Yes, say something to us dreamers
Who decode the message of dirt
Between ancient floorboards
As black widow spiders
Lay translucent eggs
In the skull of a dead mole
Under a dogwood in full bloom.

- Yusef Komunyakaa