Some Quotes/Poems/Whatever.

Je voulais vivre intensement et sucer la moelle de la vie.
Et ne pas, quand je viendrai à mourir, découvrir que
je n'aurai pas vécu.

To Know

When should I begin,
with the first monsoon preceding my birth?
How could I show you
all of this one soul, and not?
Inside the first moment of your touch,
I am changed.
Life's rhythm is softly and forever disturbed.
Should I not give all of myself for more,
but comfort myself instead with less?
Should I be afraid, then,
to hold you? That which is everything.
To know is not to see these lines
as having crass designs, but to feel them,
like desert seeds, quenched at last
by the long awaited rain.
They yearn for your light to grow and
color the meadows with flowers white and gold,
to lead us home.

Pumpkin Eater

I'm no trouble.
Honest to God I'm not.
I'm not
the kind of woman
who telephones in the middle of the night,
--who told you that?--
splitting the night like machete.
Before and after. After. Before.
No, no, not me.
I'm not
the she who slings words bigger than rocks,
sharper than Houdini knives,
verbal Molotovs.
The one who did that--yo no fui--
that wasn't me.

I'm no hysteric,
terrorist,
emotional anarchist.

I keep inside a pumpkin shell.
There I do very well.
Shut a blind eye to where
my pumpkin eater romas.

I keep like fruitcake.
Subsist on air.
Not a worry nor care.
Please.
I'm as free for the taking
as the yes of Saint Lucy.
No trouble at all.

I swear, I swear, I swear.

Waiting for a lover

And what if you don't arrive?
And what if you do?
I'm so afraid
I cross my fingers,
make a wish,
spit.

You're new.
You can't hurt me yet.
I light the candles.
Say my prayers.
Scent myself with mangoes.

I like the possibility of anything,
the little fear I feel
when you enter a room.
I haven't a clue of the who of you.

And what if you do like me?
And what if you do?
I can't think.
Dress myself in slinky black,
my 14-karat hoops and my velvet spikes.
Smoke two cigars.
I'm doing loopity loops.

Listen--cars roar by. All night.
I'm waiting for the one that stops.
All my life. Listen--
Hear that?
Yikes.

A Man Like Cracker Crumbs in My Bed

I've stripped the bed.
Shaken the sheets and slumped
those fat pillows like tired tongues
out the window for air and sun
to get to. I've let

the mattress lounge in
its blue-striped dressing gown.
I've punched and fluffed.
All morning. I've billowed and snapped.
Said my prayers to la Virgen de la Soledad
and now I can sit down
to my typewriter and cup
because she's answered me.

Coffee's good.
Dust motes somersault and spin.
House clean.
I'm alone again.
Amen.

from Loose Woman

I'm an aim-well,
shoot-sharp,
sharp-tongued,
sharp-thinking,
fast-speaking,
foot-loose,
loose-tongued,
let-loose,
woman-on-the-loose
loose woman.
Beware, honey.

from The Awakening

There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why-- when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead, when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

To his Coy Mistress.

Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side.
Should'st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster then Empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast.
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Deserts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My echoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my Lust.
The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Through the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Go, Lovely Rose

Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retir'd:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desir'd,
And not blush so to be admir'd.

Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

a poem to your compliment

i have compared your compliment to the others,
those of my girlfriends' boyfriends
those of the magazine ads
pretty hard to beat

i have found no precedent for its candid charm
spontaneity, smile,
beguiling disinterestedness

i am grateful all over
for your tall dark handsome attention
and above all
the praise

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time,
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me then tender'd
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

a calculus student wrote this in place of an answer for one of his homework problems:

When a traveler is lost,
Out in the wilds; He
Wanders for hours, for many
Miles. He sits down, hopeless, the
Light he will
Never see. And dies

...Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been."

You see, the thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here...

I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me.

I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring.

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,
and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

Einmal ist Keinmal.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here ?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where-," said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter much which way you go," said the Cat.

And missing thee, I walk unseen,
On the dry-smooth shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one who had been led astray,
Through the heaven's wide pathless way.

"Why are they pursuing you ?" Garet asked.

"Because I'm the center of the universe. At least, that's what I've inferred from their actions."

look
I'm standing naked before you
don't you want more than my sex
I can scream as loud as your last one
but I can't claim
innocence

when weary is your world,
go and spin another.
when weary is your world,
there's heaven to discover...

The disappointed one speaks.
I searched for great human beings;
I always found only the apes of their ideals.

The value of insipid opponents.
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because
its opponents do not cease to be insipid.

Then, waking completely, his mouth full of already bitter saliva, he would lick the gun barrel, sticking his tongue into it and sucking out an impossible happiness.

Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

If I were to touch you
Would you disappear? melt into a gentle breeze?
Or turn to stone?
Enigmatic little elf.
If I were to run my fingers
Through those soft locks
Would they turn to sunlight?
And dance away
Beyond my grasp?
Unattainable?
If I were to press my cheek against yours
so warm and vigorous
when I open my eyes would you be gone
like a whisper? like a dream?
So real, yet merely a vision
If my hand were to brush against yours
For one electric moment
Would you fly away
And soar through the clouds above us?
Out of my imagined reach?
Or if I were to touch you
Would you stay?
Could you?
I wish to melt into that same breeze
And dance with you in those golden rays
And live the same vision
Little elf, I wish to fly next to you.
Will you let me?

You left me on my birthday;
I laid on the bed looking at the city upside down
As the night fell and the paper white moon
Sunk higher in the still blue and froze there-
A huge white cut-out from the glass sky.
The warmth of the room could not coax me in-
My soul a thinner, colder glass
Measuring the distance in seconds.

Sugar sparkles on the sidewalk
Confectionery clusters around the street lamps glow
Your eyes kiss me across your frosty hat rim
Hot cocoa soul drips from my smile

You wave at me over your shoulder
As you meander to your truck
Kisses falling everywhere around you
Like snow.

There are ghosts in these streets
That pass my bedroom window in the night
And I hear them as if they were in bed with me
But they melt under my sight
As I peer stealthily through blinds--
striped emptiness under the lamp post--
Eery green street, sucking everything in--
Even the emptiness.
And I crawl back into bed
The voices echoing and
my bed becomes the street
No solice for me
No comfort. No rest.
Just green voices.

“Triptych”

Standing at the top of wreckage
Looking down, down.
Ruins inspire me to consider my own depth.

How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?
No, not love, this time.
Mourning,

Death comes all around me,
And all I see is myself.
Wondering, who I am
Mourning.

So many frazzled ends I can’t pull together--
Busy bleeding life and love into the open wounds of others--
Into already dead relationships.

Dead ends.
I see myself
Wondering who I am,
Mourning
Myself.

shannon@sleckey.com