Be Drunk - Charles Baudelaire

 Always be drunk.

That's it!

The great imperative!

In order not to feel

Time's horrid fardel

bruise your shoulders,

grinding you into the earth,

Get drunk and stay that way.

On what?

On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.

But get drunk.

And if you sometimes happen to wake up

on the porches of a palace,

in the green grass of a ditch,

in the dismal loneliness of your own room,

your drunkenness gone or disappearing,

ask the wind,

the wave,

the star,

the bird,

the clock,

ask everything that flees,

everything that groans

or rolls

or sings,

everything that speaks,

ask what time it is;

and the wind,

the wave,

the star,

the bird,

the clock

will answer you:

"Time to get drunk!

Don't be martyred slaves of Time,

Get drunk!

Stay drunk!

On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!" 

I confess by Alison Luterman

 

I stalked her in the grocery store: her crown of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip, her erect bearing, radiating tenderness, watching the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her  basket, beaming peace like the North Star. I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find your serenity in, do you know how to be married for fifty years or how to live  alone, excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to  possess some knowledge that makes the earth turn and  burn on its axis—" But we don’t request such things from strangers nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair."

My lungs - John Roedel

 my brain and

heart divorce

a decade ago

over who was

to blame about

how big of a mess

I have become

eventually,

they couldn't be 

in the same room

with each other 

now my head and heart 

share custody of me

I stay with my brain 

during the week

and my heart 

gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another

    - instead, they give me

the same note to pass

to each other every week 

and their notes they

send to one another always 

says the same thing:

"This is all your fault"

on Sundays

my heart complains

about how my 

head has let me down

in the past

and on Wednesday

my head lists all

of the times my 

heart has screwed

things up for me 

in the future

they blame each

other for the 

state of my life

there's been a lot

of yelling - and crying

so,

    lately, I've been

spending a lot of 

time with my gut

who serves as my

unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the

window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine

and collapse on my 

gut's plush leather chair

that's always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit

until the sun comes up

last evening, 

my gut asked me

if I was having a hard

time being caught 

between my heart

and my head

I nodded

I said I didn't know

if I could live with 

either of them anymore

"my heart is always sad about

something that happened yesterday

while my head is always worried

about something that may happen tomorrow," 

I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

"I just can't live with

my mistakes of the past

or my anxiety about the future,"

I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

"in that case, 

you should 

go stay with your 

lungs for a while,"

I was confused

  - the look on my face gave it away

"if you are exhausted about

your heart's obsession with

the fixed past and your mind's focus

on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs

there is no tomorrow there eithe

there is only now

there is only inhale

there is only exhale

there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath

you can rest while your

heart and head work 

their relationship out."

this morning,

while my brain

was busy reading

tea leaves

and while my

heart was staring

at old photographs 

I packed a little

bag and walked

to the door of 

my lungs

before I could even knock

she opened the door

with a smile and as

a gust of air embraced me

she said

"what took you so long?"

Waiting By Leza Lowitz

You keep waiting for something to happen,

the thing that lifts you out of yourself,

 

catapults you into doing all the things you've put off

the great things you're meant to do in life,

 

but somehow never quite get to.

You keep waiting for the planets to shift

 

the new moon to bring news,

the universe to align, something to give.

 

Meanwhile, the piles of papers, the laundry, the dishes, the job---

it all stacks up while you keep hoping

 

for some miracle to blast down upon you,

scattering the piles to the winds.

 

Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.

Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.

 

But all the while, life goes on in its messy way.

And then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty...

 

and some part of you realizes you are not alone

and you find signs of this in the animal kingdom---

 

when a snake sheds its skin, its eyes glaze over,

it slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,

 

and when caterpillar turns to butterfly,

if the pupa is brushed, it will die---

 

and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg

it's because the thing is too small, too small,

 

and it needs to break out.

And midlife walks you into that wisdom

 

that this is what transformation looks like---

the mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,

 

the yearning and writhing and pushing,

until one day, one day

 

you emerge from the wreck

just as you are,

 

no, even better than that

because you know it now

 

both the immense dawn 

and the dusk of the body

 

and  it's all still there,

glistening and new.

Closer to Free by Julia Fehrenbacher

.

It does not matter if it is good, if you use the right words 

or the prettiest words, if you craft sentences complete

with commas and metaphors all in the right place.

.

It matters that it feels good, that you splash

around with joy, that you forget

the world for more than a while, that you make a merry mess,

feel the flap of wings against ribcage, that you mix

yellow and blue to make the just-right shade

of green, the green that reminds you of the field you rested in

.

when you were still considered young.

.

It does not matter if you win the contests,

collect the rewards, the credentials,

the most pats on the back, if all your As

are straight, if all your sentences come to a full stop.

.

It matters that you forget the push

of performance while you lean in close 

to opening crocus, that you let something

in you open too.

.

It matters that you drape words

off the page - miles off the page

even, that you write your way to true -

that you feel the shake of a voice finally found -

.

the flutter of a voice finally free.

.

Immortality - Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die. "