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“One chance, One life. Make it or screw it up, it's your choice. Don't wait to long or your time will be up.”
―
―
“Color Theory"
How yellow the sky how little the understanding
Intangible the things we know for sure
Dusty silica clouds over Europe the very same day
We brought our baby home His second Too yellow
For comfort Too sleepy Just sleepy enough
For us to sleep ourselves That was last night
Today the clouds shift Outside shifts Rain and shadows
A mezzotint glow Then no glow Heart or soul
Exactly seven pounds of civilization
Hematochrome and skin and bilirubin
Yawns blinks and can’t make up his made-up mind
The atmosphere can’t keep its own eyes open
We can’t keep our own eyes closed”
―
How yellow the sky how little the understanding
Intangible the things we know for sure
Dusty silica clouds over Europe the very same day
We brought our baby home His second Too yellow
For comfort Too sleepy Just sleepy enough
For us to sleep ourselves That was last night
Today the clouds shift Outside shifts Rain and shadows
A mezzotint glow Then no glow Heart or soul
Exactly seven pounds of civilization
Hematochrome and skin and bilirubin
Yawns blinks and can’t make up his made-up mind
The atmosphere can’t keep its own eyes open
We can’t keep our own eyes closed”
―
“Stephen Burt is Professor of English at Harvard.
"Butterfly with Parachute"
Stephen Burt
A real one wouldn’t need one,
but the one Nathan draws surely does:
four oblongs the size and color of popsicles,
green apple, toasted coconut and grape,
flanked, two per side, by billowing valentine hearts,
in a frame of Scotch tape.
Alive, it could stay off the floor
for a few unaerodynamic minutes;
thrown as a paper airplane, for a few more.
Very sensibly, therefore,
our son gave it something, not to keep it apart
from the ground forever, but rather to make safe its descent.
When we ask that imagination discover the limits
of the real
world only slowly,
maybe this is what we meant.”
―
"Butterfly with Parachute"
Stephen Burt
A real one wouldn’t need one,
but the one Nathan draws surely does:
four oblongs the size and color of popsicles,
green apple, toasted coconut and grape,
flanked, two per side, by billowing valentine hearts,
in a frame of Scotch tape.
Alive, it could stay off the floor
for a few unaerodynamic minutes;
thrown as a paper airplane, for a few more.
Very sensibly, therefore,
our son gave it something, not to keep it apart
from the ground forever, but rather to make safe its descent.
When we ask that imagination discover the limits
of the real
world only slowly,
maybe this is what we meant.”
―
“FRANK BIDART Song of the Mortar and Pestle The desire to approach obliteration preexists each metaphysic justifying it. Watch him fucked want to get fucked hard. Christianity allowed the flagellants light, for even Jesus found release from flesh requires mortification of the flesh. From the ends of the earth the song is, Grind me into dust.”
― The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them
― The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them
“TO A POOR OLD WOMAN"
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her”
―
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her”
―
