Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. Be the first to learn about new releases!
Start by following Diane Seuss.
Showing 1-15 of 15
“When asked the inevitable question, whether I’d wear eyeliner if I was the last person on earth, no, hell no. Eyeliner is war. When I’m alone, I lay my weapons down.”
― frank: sonnets
― frank: sonnets
“My mind was empty as a ballroom and I was not compelled to dance.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
― Modern Poetry: Poems
“I saw a little movie of a person stroking a small bird with two Q-tips, one held between
the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It tipped back its head to receive the minor
tenderness, which to the bird must have felt like being touched by a god. For a moment
I knew what it would be to feel at the mercy of love, small-scale, the kind shown but not
spoken of.”
― frank: sonnets
the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It tipped back its head to receive the minor
tenderness, which to the bird must have felt like being touched by a god. For a moment
I knew what it would be to feel at the mercy of love, small-scale, the kind shown but not
spoken of.”
― frank: sonnets
“Ballad"
Oh dream, why do you do me this way?
Again, with the digging, again with the digging up.
Once more with the shovels.
Once more, the shovels full of dirt.
The vault lid. The prying. The damp boards.
Mother beside me.
Like she’s an old hat at this.
Like all she’s got left is curiosity.
Like curiosity didn’t kill the red cat.
Such a sweet, gentle cat it was.
Here we go again, dream.
Mother, wearing her take-out-the-garbage coat.
I haven’t seen that coat in years.
The coat she wore to pick me up from school early.
She appeared at the back of the classroom, early.
Go with your mother, teacher said.
Diane, you are excused.
I was a little girl. Already a famous actress.
I looked at the other kids. I acted lucky.
Though everyone knows what an early pick-up means.
An early pick-up, dream.
What’s wrong, I asked my mother. It is early spring.
Bright sunlight. The usual birds.
Air, teetering between bearable and unbearable.
Cold, but not cold enough to shiver.
Still, dream, I shiver.
You know, my mother said.
Her long garbage coat flying.
There was a wind, that day.
A wind like a scurrying grandmother, dusting.
Look inside yourself, my mother said.
You know why I have come for you.
And still I acted lucky. Lucky to be out.
Lucky to be out in the cold world with my mother.
I’m innocent, I wanted to say.
A little white girl, trying out her innocence.
A white lamb, born into a cold field.
Frozen almost solid. Brought into the house.
Warmed all night with hair dryers.
Death? I said. Smiling. Lucky.
We’re barely to the parking lot.
Barely to the car ride home.
But the classroom already feels like the distant past.
Long ago, my classmates pitying me.
Arriving at this car full of uncles.
Were they wearing suits? Death such a formal occasion.
My sister, angry-crying next to me.
Me, encountering a fragment of evil in myself.
Evilly wanting my mother to say it.
What? I asked, smiling. My lamb on full display at the fair.
He’s dead! my sister said. Hit me in the gut with her flute.
Her flute case. Her rental flute. He’s dead!
Our father.
Our father, who we were not supposed to know had been dying.
He’s dead! The flute gleaming in its red case.
Here, my mother said at home.
She’d poured us each a small glass of Pepsi
We normally couldn’t afford Pepsi.
Lucky, I acted.
He’s no longer suffering, my mother said.
Here, she said. Drink this.
The little bubbles flew. They bit my tongue.
My evil persisted. What is death? I asked.
And now, dream, once more you bring me my answer.
Dig, my mother says. Pry, she says.
I don’t want to see, dream.
The lid so damp it crumbles under my hands.
The casket just a drawerful of bones.
A drawerful. Just bones and teeth.
That one tooth he had. Crooked like mine.”
―
Oh dream, why do you do me this way?
Again, with the digging, again with the digging up.
Once more with the shovels.
Once more, the shovels full of dirt.
The vault lid. The prying. The damp boards.
Mother beside me.
Like she’s an old hat at this.
Like all she’s got left is curiosity.
Like curiosity didn’t kill the red cat.
Such a sweet, gentle cat it was.
Here we go again, dream.
Mother, wearing her take-out-the-garbage coat.
I haven’t seen that coat in years.
The coat she wore to pick me up from school early.
She appeared at the back of the classroom, early.
Go with your mother, teacher said.
Diane, you are excused.
I was a little girl. Already a famous actress.
I looked at the other kids. I acted lucky.
Though everyone knows what an early pick-up means.
An early pick-up, dream.
What’s wrong, I asked my mother. It is early spring.
Bright sunlight. The usual birds.
Air, teetering between bearable and unbearable.
Cold, but not cold enough to shiver.
Still, dream, I shiver.
You know, my mother said.
Her long garbage coat flying.
There was a wind, that day.
A wind like a scurrying grandmother, dusting.
Look inside yourself, my mother said.
You know why I have come for you.
And still I acted lucky. Lucky to be out.
Lucky to be out in the cold world with my mother.
I’m innocent, I wanted to say.
A little white girl, trying out her innocence.
A white lamb, born into a cold field.
Frozen almost solid. Brought into the house.
Warmed all night with hair dryers.
Death? I said. Smiling. Lucky.
We’re barely to the parking lot.
Barely to the car ride home.
But the classroom already feels like the distant past.
Long ago, my classmates pitying me.
Arriving at this car full of uncles.
Were they wearing suits? Death such a formal occasion.
My sister, angry-crying next to me.
Me, encountering a fragment of evil in myself.
Evilly wanting my mother to say it.
What? I asked, smiling. My lamb on full display at the fair.
He’s dead! my sister said. Hit me in the gut with her flute.
Her flute case. Her rental flute. He’s dead!
Our father.
Our father, who we were not supposed to know had been dying.
He’s dead! The flute gleaming in its red case.
Here, my mother said at home.
She’d poured us each a small glass of Pepsi
We normally couldn’t afford Pepsi.
Lucky, I acted.
He’s no longer suffering, my mother said.
Here, she said. Drink this.
The little bubbles flew. They bit my tongue.
My evil persisted. What is death? I asked.
And now, dream, once more you bring me my answer.
Dig, my mother says. Pry, she says.
I don’t want to see, dream.
The lid so damp it crumbles under my hands.
The casket just a drawerful of bones.
A drawerful. Just bones and teeth.
That one tooth he had. Crooked like mine.”
―
“There are many things in my life
of which I am ashamed--more than not.”
―
of which I am ashamed--more than not.”
―
“Some say it is hell, and some say just another, bolder paradise, and some say a dark wilderness, and some say an unswept museum or library floor, and some say a long-lost love waits there wearing bloody riding clothes, returned from war, and some say freedom, which is a word that tastes strange, like a green plum.”
― Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl
― Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl
“The grief, when I finally contacted it decades later, was black, tarry, hot, like the yarrow-edged side roads we walked barefoot in the summer.”
― Four-Legged Girl: Poems
― Four-Legged Girl: Poems
“What can memory be in these terrible times?
Only instruction. Not a dwelling.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
Only instruction. Not a dwelling.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
“Ants know earth. Dragonflies know air. A cobbled mind is not fatal. You have to be willing to self-educate at a moment’s notice, and to be caught in your ignorance by people who will use it against you. You will mispronounce words in front of a crowd. It cannot be avoided. But your poems, with all of their deficiencies, products of lifelong observation and asymmetric knowledge, will be your own. Built on the edge of tradition, they will rarely be anthologized.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
― Modern Poetry: Poems
“If a lifetime is North America then I have reached Kansas.”
― It Blows You Hollow
― It Blows You Hollow
“There is a poetry of rage and a poetry of hope.
Each fuels the other, looks in the mirror and sees
the other. Or wields the other. Isn’t it funny
to imagine hope, not much more than a toddler,
wielding rage in its fist like a cudgel?”
―
Each fuels the other, looks in the mirror and sees
the other. Or wields the other. Isn’t it funny
to imagine hope, not much more than a toddler,
wielding rage in its fist like a cudgel?”
―
“Whatever the north was, I miss it.
My life since has grown thick without it.”
―
My life since has grown thick without it.”
―
“A cobbled mind is not fatal. You have to be willing to self-educate at a moment’s notice, and to be caught in your ignorance by people who will use it against you. You will mispronounce words in front of a crowd. It cannot be avoided. But your poems, with all of their deficiencies, will be your own.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
― Modern Poetry: Poems
“Your dreams are just dreams, and all dreams go up in smoke.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
― Modern Poetry: Poems
“My stylist, gravity. Memory a tree so loaded with fruit and birds the tips of the branches rake the ground. By lithe I do not mean in body, do I? Do I mean in soul? To be one of those green-eyed ones others refer to as aquamarine. Empty of ancestors. Face clean of lipstick smears and other gestures of artifice.”
― Modern Poetry: Poems
― Modern Poetry: Poems
