anthem.

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars
they will be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.
Ring the bells
that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.


- Leonard Cohen

him & others.

him and others

Thoughts. Silly. I'd rather
sink my teeth in your neck,
seriously, knock you down
on the floor - all for love.
You'll forget my lousy
poems but if I could just
mar you or something. Nothing
nice ever sticks but boy
a scar - If I could ever
really bruise you with
my feelings, them, so infinitely
forgettable & gone.


- Eileen Myles

just some things.

An Entomologist's Last Love Letter, by Jared Singer

so i have a new plan
i’m gonna leave you now
i’m gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injustices
i hope you do the same
i will jay walk at every opportunity
i will steal things i could easily afford
i will be rude to strangers
i hope you do the same
i hope reincarnation is real
i hope our petty crimes are enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures
i hope we are reborn as flies
so that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.


***

"I think we ought to read only the kinds of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
- Franz Kafka

an offering.

I am the woman at the water’s edge,
offering you oranges for the peeling,
knife glistening in the sun.
This is the scent and taste
of my skin: citron and sweet.
Touch me and your life will unfold
before you, easily as this skirt
billows then sinks,
lapping against my legs, my toes
filtering through the river's silt.
Following the current out to sea,
I am the kind of woman
who will come back to haunt
your dreams, move through your
humid nights the way honey
swirls through a cup of hot tea.

Shara McCallum - An Offering

ciudad sin sueño (sleepless city).

No duerme nadie por el cielo. Nadie, nadie.
No duerme nadie.
Las criaturas de la luna huelen y rondan sus cabañas.
Vendrán las iguanas vivas a morder a los hombres que no sueñan
y el que huye con el corazón roto encontrará por las esquinas
al increíble cocodrilo quieto bajo la tierna protesta de los astros.

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.


--federico garcia lorca