Other people take coffee breaks
Jun. 2nd, 2022 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormRESCUED (Horace Odes 1:5)
Which under-muscled, over-perfumed boy
is groping you on roses in your love-nest,
Pyrrha? Who's inspired you to wash and cut
your honey-colored hair like this?
God knows how many times he'll curse
the bad luck that made him love you,
and be flabbergasted by the force tens
blackening your little sea.
The idiot. He drinks your sunshine down
and thinks the wind will never change.
Those miserable men. You dazzle them
but no one ever ties up in your harbor.
As for me, you can read my story
on the temple wall: just another rescued
sailor who has offered up his sodden boots
to the great god of the sea.
Mark Haddon
Misgivings
"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investitude of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,
but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods. And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab,
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may augur we're on your owns
for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door; "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-
in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.
William Matthews
He Attempts to Love His Neighbours
My neighbours do not wish to be loved.
They have made it clear that they prefer to go peacefully
about their business and want me to do the same.
This ought not to surprise me as it does;
I ought to know by now that most people have a hundred things
they would rather do than have me love them.
There is a television, for instance; the truth
is that almost everybody,
given the choice between being loved and watching TV,
would choose the latter. Love interrupts dinner,
interferes with mowing the lawn, washing the car,
or walking the dog. Love is a telephone ringing or a doorbell
waking you moments after you've finally
succeeded in getting to sleep.
So we must be careful, those of us who were born with
the wrong number of fingers or the gift
of loving; we must do our best to behave
like normal members of society and not make nuisances
of ourselves; otherwise it could go hard with us.
It is better to bite back your tears,
swallow your laughter,
and learn to fake the mildly self-deprecating titter
favored by the bourgeoisie
than to be left entirely alone, as you will be,
if your disconformity embarrasses
your neighbours; I wish I didn't keep forgetting.
Alden Nowlan
"Selected Poems"
Which under-muscled, over-perfumed boy
is groping you on roses in your love-nest,
Pyrrha? Who's inspired you to wash and cut
your honey-colored hair like this?
God knows how many times he'll curse
the bad luck that made him love you,
and be flabbergasted by the force tens
blackening your little sea.
The idiot. He drinks your sunshine down
and thinks the wind will never change.
Those miserable men. You dazzle them
but no one ever ties up in your harbor.
As for me, you can read my story
on the temple wall: just another rescued
sailor who has offered up his sodden boots
to the great god of the sea.
Mark Haddon
Misgivings
"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investitude of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,
but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods. And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab,
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may augur we're on your owns
for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door; "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-
in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.
William Matthews
He Attempts to Love His Neighbours
My neighbours do not wish to be loved.
They have made it clear that they prefer to go peacefully
about their business and want me to do the same.
This ought not to surprise me as it does;
I ought to know by now that most people have a hundred things
they would rather do than have me love them.
There is a television, for instance; the truth
is that almost everybody,
given the choice between being loved and watching TV,
would choose the latter. Love interrupts dinner,
interferes with mowing the lawn, washing the car,
or walking the dog. Love is a telephone ringing or a doorbell
waking you moments after you've finally
succeeded in getting to sleep.
So we must be careful, those of us who were born with
the wrong number of fingers or the gift
of loving; we must do our best to behave
like normal members of society and not make nuisances
of ourselves; otherwise it could go hard with us.
It is better to bite back your tears,
swallow your laughter,
and learn to fake the mildly self-deprecating titter
favored by the bourgeoisie
than to be left entirely alone, as you will be,
if your disconformity embarrasses
your neighbours; I wish I didn't keep forgetting.
Alden Nowlan
"Selected Poems"
