Three plus One
Mar. 12th, 2010 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormMaybe they're all about love after all.
RESCUED (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
The Jerk
Hey you, dragging the halo-
how about a holiday in the islands of grief?
Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.
Your eyes are so blue they leak.
Your legs are longer than a prisoner's
last night on death row.
I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub
and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.
You're a dirty little windshield.
I'm standing behind you on the subway,
hard as calculus. My breath
be sticking to your neck like graffiti.
I'm sitting opposite you in the bar, waiting
for you to uncross your boundaries.
I want to rip off your logic
and make passionate sense to you.
I want to ride in the swing of your hips.
My fingers will be digging up in you like quotation marks,
blazing your limbs into parts of speech.
But with me for a lover, you won't need
catastrophes. Because the same things that
attracted me in the first place,
will ultimately make me resent you.
I'll start telling you lies, and my lies will sparkle,
become the bad stars you chart your life by.
I'll stare at other women so blatantly,
you'll hear my eyes peeling.
Because sex with you is like Great Britain:
cold, groggy, and a little uptight.
Your bed is a big, soft calculator
where my problems multiply.
Your brain is a garage
I park my bullshit in, for free.
And you're not really my new girlfriend,
just another flop sequel of the first one,
who was based on the true story of my mother.
You're so ugly I forgot how to spell!
I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test.
And break your heart just for the sound it makes.
You're the this we need to put an end to.
The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.
So, how about it? You, me, and a bucket of cafe ole?
Jeffrey McDaniel
Lift Your Right Arm
Lift your right arm, she said.
I lifted my right arm.
Lift your left arm, she said.
I lifted my left arm. Both of my arms were up.
Put down your right arm, she said.
I put it down.
Put down your left arm, she said.
I did.
Lift your right arm, she said.
I obeyed.
Put down your right arm.
I did.
Lift your left arm.
I lifted it.
Put down your left arm.
I did.
Silence. I stood there, both arms down, waiting for her next
command. After a while I got impatient and said, what next.
Now it's your turn to give the orders, she said.
All right, I said. Tell me to lift my right arm.
Peter Cherches
Failing and Flying
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
by Jack Gilbert
RESCUED (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
The Jerk
Hey you, dragging the halo-
how about a holiday in the islands of grief?
Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.
Your eyes are so blue they leak.
Your legs are longer than a prisoner's
last night on death row.
I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub
and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.
You're a dirty little windshield.
I'm standing behind you on the subway,
hard as calculus. My breath
be sticking to your neck like graffiti.
I'm sitting opposite you in the bar, waiting
for you to uncross your boundaries.
I want to rip off your logic
and make passionate sense to you.
I want to ride in the swing of your hips.
My fingers will be digging up in you like quotation marks,
blazing your limbs into parts of speech.
But with me for a lover, you won't need
catastrophes. Because the same things that
attracted me in the first place,
will ultimately make me resent you.
I'll start telling you lies, and my lies will sparkle,
become the bad stars you chart your life by.
I'll stare at other women so blatantly,
you'll hear my eyes peeling.
Because sex with you is like Great Britain:
cold, groggy, and a little uptight.
Your bed is a big, soft calculator
where my problems multiply.
Your brain is a garage
I park my bullshit in, for free.
And you're not really my new girlfriend,
just another flop sequel of the first one,
who was based on the true story of my mother.
You're so ugly I forgot how to spell!
I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test.
And break your heart just for the sound it makes.
You're the this we need to put an end to.
The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.
So, how about it? You, me, and a bucket of cafe ole?
Jeffrey McDaniel
Lift Your Right Arm
Lift your right arm, she said.
I lifted my right arm.
Lift your left arm, she said.
I lifted my left arm. Both of my arms were up.
Put down your right arm, she said.
I put it down.
Put down your left arm, she said.
I did.
Lift your right arm, she said.
I obeyed.
Put down your right arm.
I did.
Lift your left arm.
I lifted it.
Put down your left arm.
I did.
Silence. I stood there, both arms down, waiting for her next
command. After a while I got impatient and said, what next.
Now it's your turn to give the orders, she said.
All right, I said. Tell me to lift my right arm.
Peter Cherches
Failing and Flying
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
by Jack Gilbert
