sudden fiction

again and again by rainer maria rilke

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky. 

this is just to say, by william carlos williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

a polish poem

I want to do what you ask of me;
in the way you ask,
for as long as you ask,
because you ask it.

music in the morning by dorianne laux

When I think of the years he drank, the scars
on his chin, his thinning hair, his eye that still weeps
decades after the blow, my knees weaken with gratitude
for whatever kept him safe, whatever stopped
the glass from cracking and shearing something vital,
the fist from lowering, exploding an artery, pressing
the clot of blood toward the back of his brain.
Now, he sits calmly on the couch, reading,
refusing to wear the glasses I bought him,
holding the open book at arm’s length from his chest.
Behind him the windows are smoky with mist
and the tile floor is pushing its night chill
up through the bare soles of his feet. I like to think
he survived in order to find me, in order
to arrive here, sober, tired from a long night
of tongues and hands and thighs, music
on the radio, coffee– so he could look up and see me,
standing in the kitchen in his torn t-shirt,
the hem of it brushing my knees, but I know
it’s only luck that brought him here, luck
and a love that had nothing to do with me,
except that this is what we sometimes get if we live
long enough, if we are patient with our lives.

nowhere

As lithe and frail as her body looked
she walked heavily
as though with a purpose—

(but if you asked her where
she was going,
she would indubitably answer,

“Nowhere. I am going

nowhere.”)

ordinary

she has freckles across her nose.

that’s the first thing he notices and that’s the first thing he loves.
(he doesn’t love all of her until years later;

he says as much when they are together.

he is not sure what she is thinking, but certainly not surprise.
her face is blank when she turns to him—

“i have always loved you.”)

heart shape

She is seized

suddenly

by an ache in her heart
(or somewhere in those whereabouts)

and it cuts and screams
to be filled.

the dead woman by pablo neruda

cosmiccarousel’s favorite poem:

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall live on.

For where a man has no voice,
there, my voice.

Where blacks are beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory comes,
even though I am mute I must speak;
I shall see it come even
though I am blind.

No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things
you wanted me indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.

losing ideals

What strikes me is (not the
bulge that protrudes
and sports a living being)

the way she speaks, bravely
with a tone that suggests
nonchalance

matter-of-fact
i-don’t-care,

but I think (silently,
in my head) that she didn’t
used to be this

that she didn’t have to be this;

that her occupation
forced her into this shell (as
she is a incubator shell for

the being in her stomach)

after all, though we all once were
young

not all of us had the privilege
of being a child.