good bones…

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

— Maggie Smith —

song of myself…

I celebrate myself, and sing myself

And what I assume you shall assume,
For every belonging to me as good belongs to you…

 

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess
the origin of all poetry
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions of suns left)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

— Walt Whitman —

the rain is like you…

I don’t know: this gravity elastic feeling to let go and fall together with you is one thing, but it is better to live exactly where you are with as many permanent emotions in you as you can muster.
Talking to myself.

Your spirit is with me.

the rain is like you

Please kiss whatever part of you can reach for me.

— John Cage —

my life was the size of my life…

my life was the size of my life
Once, I grew moody and distant.
I told my life I would like some time,
I would like to try seeing others.
In a week, my empty suitcase and I returned.
I was hungry, then, and my life,
my life, too, was hungry, we could not keep
our hands off                our clothes on
our tongues from
          — Jane Hirshfield —