Habitation

Marriage is not a house or even a tent it is before that, and colder: the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert the unpainted stairs at the back where we squat

Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window

Sunday, I am eating a grapefruit, church is over at the Russian Orthadox to the west. she is dark of Eastern descent, large brown eyes look up from the Bible then down. a small red and black Bible, and as she reads

Alone

Sitting alone....... in my dark creepy room.......... and that abhorrent feeling is eating my soul................. It really hurts when you feel you are alone............... still waiting.. for some one to come and knock your door........... or even give you a call...............

Happiness (Reconsidered)

Happiness Is a clean bill of health from the doctor, And the kids shouldn't move back home for more than a year, And not being audited, overdrawn, in Wilkes-Barre, in a lawsuit or in traction. Happiness Is falling asleep without Valium, And having two breasts to put in my brassiere,

Morning In The Burned House

In the burned house I am eating breakfast. You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast, yet here I am. The spoon which was melted scrapes against the bowl which was melted also. No one else is around. Where have they gone to, brother and sister, mother and father? Off along the shore,

Charles Augustus Fortescue

The nicest child I ever knew Was Charles Augustus Fortescue. He never lost his cap, or tore His stockings or his pinafore: In eating Bread he made no Crumbs, He was extremely fond of sums, To which, however, he preferred The Parsing of a Latin Word-- He sought, when it was within his power,

Ode To A Poet

Ode To A Poet .................... Hey poet! You are a great, You think of mankind Universe, nature and God, Civilizations, cultures, societies Countries, nations and communities, These all are the very subjects of you, poet

Homework! Oh, Homework!

Homework! Oh, Homework! I hate you! You stink! I wish I could wash you away in the sink, if only a bomb would explode you to bits. Homework! Oh, homework! You're giving me fits. I'd rather take baths with a man-eating shark,

Oatmeal

I eat oatmeal for breakfast. I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it. I eat it alone. I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone. Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health if somebody eats it with you. That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with. Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.

Sipping Feelings, Spiritual Red

To imitate.. you have to learn how to wait, your fear is very clear with my heart I can hear, with my eyes auscultate, speed of light to a crawling can't be rate

Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched,

— Shall Become As —

You put this pen in my hand and you take the pen from my hand. the night before the full moon the moon seems full. what is missing is a dark hungry sickle, the sliver

Eating And Drinking Chapter Vi

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking." And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship, And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.

His Wife, The Painter

There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks, and outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev, says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane Austin, too. 'I am going to do her portrait on the 28th, while you are at work.' He is just this edge of fat and he walks constantly, he fritters; they have him; they are eating him hollow like a webbed fly, and his eyes are red-suckled with anger-fear. He feels hatred and discard of the world, sharper than

I Have Been Eating Poetry

Inspired by: ‘Ink runs from the corners of my mouth There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.' ~Mark Strand, 'Eating Poetry, ' Reasons for Moving,1968 The following piece is dedicated to Marilyn Lott O wonder of wonder

The Diary Of Anaïs Nin, Volume 1: 1931-1934

'Am I, at bottom, that fervent little Spanish Catholic child who chastised herself for loving toys, who forbade herself the enjoyment of sweet foods, who practiced silence, who humiliated her pride, who adored symbols, statues, burning candles, incense, the caress of nuns, organ music, for whom Communion was a great event? I was so exalted by the idea of eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood that I couldn't swallow the host well, and I dreaded harming the it. I visualized Christ descending into my heart so realistically (I was a realist then!) that I could see Him walking down the stairs and entering the room of my heart like a sacred Visitor. That state of this room was a subject of great preoccupation for me... At the ages of nine, ten, eleven, I believe I approximated sainthood. And then, at sixteen, resentful of controls, disillusioned with a God who had not granted my prayers (the return of my father) , who performed no miracles, who left me fatherless in a strange country, I rejected all Catholicism with exaggeration. Goodness, virtue, charity, submission, stifled me. I took up the words of Lawrence: 'They stress only pain, sacrifice, suffering and death. They do not dwell enough on the resurrection, on joy and life in the present.' Today I feel my past like an unbearable weight, I feel that it interferes with my present life, that it must be the cause for this withdrawal, this closing of doors... I am embalmed because a nun leaned over me, enveloped me in her veils, kissed me. The chill curse of Christianity. I do not confess any more, I have no remorse, yet am I doing penance for my enjoyments? Nobody knows what a magnificent prey I was for Christian legends, because of my compassion and my tenderness for human beings. Today it divides me from enjoyment in life.' p. 70-71 'As June walked towards me from the darkness of the garden into the light of the door, I saw for the first time the most beautiful woman on earth. A startling white face, burning dark eyes, a face so alive I felt it would consume itself before my eyes. Years ago I tried to imagine true beauty; I created in my mind an image of just such a woman. I had never seen her until last night. Yet I knew long ago the phosphorescent color of her skin, her huntress profile, the evenness of her teeth. She is bizarre, fantastic, nervous, like someone in a high fever. Her beauty drowned me. As I sat before her, I felt I would do anything she asked of me. Henry suddenly faded. She was color and brilliance and strangeness. By the end of the evening I had extricated myself from her power. She killed my admiration by her talk. Her talk. The enormous ego, false, weak, posturing. She lacks the courage of her personality, which is sensual, heavy with experience. Her role alone preoccupies her. She invents dramas in which she always stars. I am sure she creates genuine dramas, genuine chaos and whirlpools of feelings, but I feel that her share in it is a pose. That night, in spite of my response to her, she sought to be whatever she felt I wanted her to be. She is an actress every moment. I cannot grasp the core of June. Everything Henry has said about her is true.' I wanted to run out and kiss her fanatastic beauty and say: 'June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never know again who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me. You carry away with you a part of me reflected in you. When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existance. You are the woman I want to be. I see in you that part of me which is you. I feel compassion for your childlike pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses'

Are You Looking For Me?

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly --

The Ghosts Are Walking Again

. the ghosts are walking again walking and talking in the night again sorrow is eating my bones again . the fog is creeping again creeping and seeping through the cracks again fear is fracturing my bones again . the shadows are whispering again

The Honeymoon Is Over

The honeymoon is over And he has left for work Whistling something obvious from La Boheme And carrying a brown calfskin attache case I never dreamed he was capable of owning, Having started the day With ten pushups and a cold shower Followed by hearty breakfast. (What do we actually have in common?)

A Meeting In A Part

In a dream I meet my dead friend. He has, I know, gone long and far, and yet he is the same for the dead are changeless. They grow no older. It is I who have changed, grown strange to what I was. Yet I, the changed one, ask: "How you been?"