Poem by Dorothea Grossman (and request)

[moldybetamax.livejournal.com]

Hello :) I'm looking for poems about being single, alone, unattached, unloved, free... and all the other words you can think off that can be related to being single. It doesn't matter if it's a happy or a bitter one. I'm looking around for poems I  can relate to in terms of my relationship status. Your replies are very much appreciated :)

Meanwhile, a short Grossman poem offering:

The Two Times I Loved You the Most In a Car

By Dorothea Grossman

It was your idea

to park and watch the elephants

swaying among the trees

like royalty

at that make-believe safari

near Laguna.

I didn’t know anything that big

could be so quiet.

And once, you stopped

on a dark desert road

to show me the stars

climbing over each other

riotously

like insects

like an orchestra

thrashing its way

through time itself

I never saw light that way

again.

Comments

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

A poem in a video:

[ghostsandlovers.livejournal.com]

Actually, the post above reminded me of one of my favourite spoken poems:

Love Poem, Mary Fons.

this poem is for the pillow clutchers/for those looking into the imaginary eyes of the person who fills their mind with sugarplum smiles/for those who have a cannon of dreams ready and waiting to blossom/for the men and the women who want to be understood in that way that only someone who kisses you can understand you/this poem is for you.

this poem is not for the desperate/the pathetic/the lame/the loser/not for the one who hasn’t gotten laid in awhile/not for the one who says they’re “choosing not to date” for awhile/there is no such thing/this poem is for the people who cannot bring themselves to admit that they would give their right leg for any length of time with the person on their mind.

forgive me/I am not a brave woman/I do not know what lurks in the hearts of humans and I don’t really want to know/if what’s there mirrors memories I show in my face on bad days it holds kisses that are long gone/people who have disappeared/and passions that have faded into the ether of the past/nothing lasts/that is the one lesson this coward can say she is able to teach.

this poem is for all those who wish to say “I’m sorry”/I’m sorry I couldn’t love you/you deserve love/I’m sorry I couldn’t give something to you/you deserve to be given to/I’m sorry that for every person that loves somebody/another person just doesn’t want to/and sometimes we’re the lucky ones/right/we get to feel sweet truth in the night/the bodies we reach out to are miraculously there/but I know the despair that comes when they are not/I know the long nights and the doubt and the fear and that crawling back to a womb that just isn’t there/I know intensity’s address and the letdown that rents there/I’m sorry for it/it takes years off your life and it cannot be avoided.

and some times these little words are crutches for the crush that we feel/so this poem is a pathetic vehicle for me to tell you/each one of you/that I love you/in so many ways/in the same ways that stay up nights and days/dreaming up the perfect way to be there for someone/meals you would cook for them/poems you would write for them and the things you plan to say when they say no/well I love you/and you will never know how in the slight of a magician’s hand we could’ve been lovers and grandly in love/could’ve changed the whole game/written words on the horizon/changed the compromise/but you will know something else instead/bitter as bitter ever gets/more bitter than a rotten peach pit/more bitter than a child’s most terrifying nightmare at night/you will know that I don’t reflect what I see in your eyes/will will share some banal recognition/some cordial understanding but have I mentioned that I love you for not lying/so many people lying all the time/I hate them/so I love you/and you will still go home alone/and that is very hard to do.

for all the humans with love for those who aren’t their lovers/I love you.

and so the poem ends because we know that it will/but before it slips away like everything else/I will attempt the only words I can think of that are a fraction as good as a kiss: when you reach out at night and find not someone/but the cold grey light of day that wakes you up like a slap/like a curse/like an insult/I love you/when you stay at home thinking of those who are long gone or those who are getting kisses from someone that is not you/I love you/for those who want what they probably need and whose bodies are starving not for food/for me and for you and for all the people who never knew or understood what you would do for them/I love you/I love you/I love you.

I'd really recommend watching her perform it, though, as it's so much more powerful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj1YdcfBgaU

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

One of my all-time favorites. I keep it taped up by my bed.

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

Oh Yes
Charles Bukowski

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.



What’s Broken
By Dorianne Laux

The slate black sky. The middle step
of the back porch. And long ago

my mother’s necklace, the beads
rolling north and south. Broken

the rose stem, water into drops, glass
knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s

pot of parsley and mint, white roots
shooting like streamers through the cracks.

Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,
the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken

little finger on my right hand at birth—
I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t

been rent, divided, split? Broken
the days into nights, the night sky

into stars, the stars into patterns
I make up as I trace them

with a broken-off blade
of grass. Possible, unthinkable,

the cricket’s tiny back as I lie
on the lawn in the dark, my heart

a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.

[everyforever.livejournal.com]

i LOVE that poem.

[thelichen.livejournal.com]

god, that dorianne laux poem is gorgeous.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

Love Poem
by Richard Brautigan

It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don't love them
any more.




Survival poem #17
by Marty McConnell

because this is what you do. get up.
blame the liquor for the heaviness. call in late
to work. go to the couch because the bed
is too empty. watch people scream about love
on Jerry Springer. count the ways
it could be worse. it could be last week
when the missing got so big
you wrote him a letter
and sent it. it could be yesterday, no work
to go to, whole day looming.
it could be last month
or the month before, when you still
thought maybe. still carried plans
around with you like talismans.
you could have kissed him last night.
could have gone home with him, given in,
cried after, softly, face to the wall, his heavy arm
around you, hand on your stomach, rubbing.
shower. remember your body. water
hotter than you can stand. sit
on the shower floor. the word
devastated ringing the tub. buildings
collapsed into themselves. ribs
caving toward the spine. recite
the strongest poem you know. a spell
against the lonely that gets you
in crowds and on three hours’ sleep.
wonder where the gods are now.
get up. because death is not
an alternative. because this is what you do.
air like soup, move. door, hallway, room.
pants, socks, shoes. sweater. coat. cold.
wish you were a bird. remember you
are not you, now. you are you
a year from now. how does that
woman walk? she is not sick or sad.
doesn’t even remember today.
has been to Europe. what song
is she humming? now. right now.
that’s it.

[everyforever.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

(David Whyte, House of Belonging)

[moireach.livejournal.com]

Try here: http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3378795.html#comments

And: http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3379111.html

[poppyromanov.livejournal.com]

How to Miss A Man
(Kerrin Mccadden)

Breathing is just a rhythm. Tell yourself this so that the breathing
becomes a song. Sing this song all day while you shop in the hardware
store for things you do not need. Sing it again while you cook supper

for yourself. Cook supper for yourself, even if you don’t want to.
Go for a walk, even if you don’t want to. Put your shoes on
and get the leash and even bring the dog. She will be so pleased

you might start to forget. Also, breathe. It is a rhythm. Walk
around the block, and even farther, if you have a mind to.
You might. Your feet will take you. They can. If you listen,

they are a rhythm also. Like drums. Hand drums. Swing your hands
while you walk. Tell yourself they are kind of like wings,
that the bird’s wing has a hand inside it. It does.

Come home and make tea. Every time you dip the teabag,
hold your breath like you are underwater. Hold. Breathe.
Hold. Breathe. Like that, like you are swimming across

Lake Pleiades, under water like a fish, above water like a bird
until you are stitching lake and sky. You are a needle just then,
darning holes in things, a weave of stitches across and down, like a graph.

You need to be a graph. A grid. Numbers are perfect. You can draw
two lines on a graph that can never touch. This is what you are building.

[moldybetamax.livejournal.com]

thank you! i love all the poems posted here :)