#3 Poetry compilation — June 2022
Poetry I adored from last month. Emotions I was basking in as I read and reread this poetry — new love/the end of love/…
Poetry I adored from last month. Emotions I was basking in as I read and reread this poetry — new love/the end of love/ desire/anxiety/loss of control/ glee/ pain/ exhaustion/ friendship/ more love. Bold highlights are my own.
Indulge away :)
It Ends or It Doesn’t by Caitlyn Siehl
It ends or it doesn’t.
That’s what you say. That’s
how you get through it.
The tunnel, the night,
the pain, the love.
It ends or it doesn’t.
If the sun never comes up,
you find a way to live
without it.
If they don’t come back,
you sleep in the middle of the bed,
learn how to make enough coffee
for yourself alone.
Adapt. Adjust.
It ends or it doesn’t.
It ends or it doesn’t.
We do not perish.
2. That’s not how this works by Trista Mateer
In a universe parallel to this one, you and I stay up some nights, holding hands in bed, worrying about all the versions of ourselves that don’t end up together. Parallel You says, “Somewhere we never even kiss.” Parallel Me says, “Somewhere we never even touch.” Parallel You supposes that the universe in which we never cross paths must be a kinder one than the universe where we make the effort to love each other and fail at it so miserably that we part ways and never speak again. Parallel Me says, “That universe doesn’t exist.” Parallel You says, “That’s not how this works.”
3. Lillian Gish goes to Hell by Richard Siken
I am no stranger
to love and I am not waiting for you, because
I believe we will be reborn, because I believe
everything, and I believe that we will meet
again and suffer together again. The future
belongs to China and yet I want to learn
French. This, too, is another kind of suffering.
Once, at a truck stop, I ate an entire banana
cream pie and half a pound of bacon, which
is a kind of suffering for some, but I felt
fucking great. You know this, you must know
this. We are lovely and full of desire, we die
so many times and come back here, to cross
paths. I didn’t fall off the roof, I was pushed.
I want neither revenge nor relief. I crave no
rescue. What I want, Lillian, is to be gigantic
and perfectly lit, to be with you again, carnal
in our reincarnation. The future will find us
handsome taikonauts in a small ship spinning
out of control, flawed by love and plunging
realistically toward the heart of a hellish sun.
In the future we will suffer together in outer
space and eat crème brûlée out of a silver tube.
The novelty never wears off, Lil. It never does.
4. Marg-e Soz-e Muhabbat / The death of the fires of love by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Original (urdu/ hindustani?): It’s best read at Rekhta, which i have hyperlinked, because you can also look up the meanings of compound words.
aao ki marg-e-soz-e-mohabbat manā.eñ ham
aao ki husn-e-māh se dil ko jalā.eñ ham
ḳhush huuñ firāq-e-qāmat-o-ruḳhsār-e-yār se
sarv-o-gul-o-saman se nazar ko satā.eñ ham
vīrānī-e-hayāt ko vīrān-tar kareñ
le nāseh aaj terā kahā maan jaa.eñ ham
phir oT le ke dāman-e-abr-e-bahār kī
dil ko manā.eñ ham kabhī aañsū bahā.eñ ham
suljhā.eñ be-dilī se ye uljhe hue savāl
vaañ jaa.eñ yā na jaa.eñ na jaa.eñ ki jaa.eñ ham (Uno reads as “Waha jaye ya na jaye ki jaye hum?”)
phir dil ko pās-e-zabt kī talqīn kar chukeñ
aur imtihān-e-zabt se phir jī churā.īñ ham
aao ki aaj ḳhatm huī dāstān-e-ishq
ab ḳhatm-e-āshiqī ke fasāne sunā.eñ ham
English translation:
Come, let’s celebrate the passing of the passion of love
Come, let’s burn our hearts with the cold beauty
of the moon
Let’s rejoice in the pangs of separation from the
beloved’s frame and figure
Let’s punish our sight with the sight of the cypress
and the rose and the jasmine
Make the desolate life even more desolate
Let me heed your advice for once, dear counsellor
Sheltered again under the hem of spring’s rain
Soothe and placate the heart at times, shed tears at times
Untie listlessly the tangled knots of such questions:
Should I go there, or not go; not go at all or go for real?
Preach to the heart yet again the doctrine of restraint
And again avoid testing the resolve to be patient
Come, for the story of passion has concluded today
Let us now narrate the tales of love’s ceasing to be
5. Dil tadap tadap ke keh raha hai sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh
Dil tadap tadap ke keh raha hai aa bhi ja,
tu humse aankh na chura,
tujhe kasam hai aa bhi ja
Dil dhadak dhadak ke keh raha hai yeh sada,
tumhari ho chuki hoon main,
tumhare paas hoon sada
6. Tasting the moon by Caitlyn Siehl
I am thinking about
the crescent scar on the
roof of his mouth that he
got when he fell with
a straw between his teeth
and how it felt to run my tongue
over it.
How it felt to taste the moon.
If love is anything tangible, it
is his mouth,
his mouth,
his holy goddamned mouth.
He says my name
and the whole sky is talking.
7. Burning by Caitlyn Siehl (yes i inhaled her poetry)
Love, you said, was a fire
outside the door of a place
you don’t want to be anymore.
An ambulance waiting
around the corner.
I pictured the cathedral of you
going up in flames, then,
the holy dresser melting your
holy clothes.
Every inch of the blessed bed orange and
angry.
I swear I’ll survive every fire
after this one.
I’ll walk out of every house
I ever missed you in
and let the smoke eat the doorways.
I’ll write on the walls:
You are sacred because
I have made you sacred.
There is no burning that I did not create.
8. Wash by Caitlyn Siehl
Love ended and there
was no music.
Not even
a violin.
All that was left was the
driveway where it happened
and the sock that they dropped
on their way not-home,
not-here, not-anymore.
It happens like that.
No one makes a plaque for the death
of a small love.
No one makes a statue for forgetting.
They just wander over the dirt
until the grass grows back.
So you wash the sock
and place it in your drawer
where it will find its way
into the pile of unmatched
ones and you’ll wear it
one day without even
realizing.
You remember
but it doesn’t
hurt
anymore.
9. Loveless by Caitlyn Siehl
In the dream that matters
I have nowhere to be.
I have four dogs who sleep
in the bed with me, and I can
drink coffee again
without getting
sick.
I always talk about love
but I’ve seen a life
where I can live without it,
where I can eat with my hands,
make the whole bed,
and leave the light on
for myself.
10. Instructions for the journey by Pat Schneider (via The Alipore Post)
The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don’t grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.
It’s easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.
And if all that fails,
wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.
11. There Comes the Strangest Moment by Kate Light (via The Nook)
There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free —
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.
Skin’s gone pale, your brain is shedding cells;
you question every tenet you set down;
obedient thoughts have turned to infidels
and every verb desires to be a noun.
I want — my want. I love — my love. I’ll stay
with you. I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what’s here to never go away.
I’ll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast…
Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You’d have sworn no one knew you more than you.
How many people thought you’d never change?
But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange.
12. In the Company of Women by January Gill O’Neil (via The Alipore Post)
Make me laugh over coffee,
make it a double, make it frothy
so it seethes in our delight.
Make my cup overflow
with your small happiness.
I want to hoot and snort and cackle and chuckle.
Let your laughter fill me like a bell.
Let me listen to your ringing and singing
as Billie Holiday croons above our heads.
Sorry, the blues are nowhere to be found.
Not tonight. Not here.
No makeup. No tears.
Only contours. Only curves.
Each sip takes back a pound,
each dry-roasted swirl takes our soul.
Can I have a refill, just one more?
Let the bitterness sink to the bottom of our lives.
Let us take this joy to go.