My eyes read my eyelids when I dream
the long straight ache of miles below.
It’s exhausting, the great chain of being

alive, bed to the floor, floor to the planet.
The heart beats its pillow like a path.
Some nights I walk forever that way,

unsure of what it is I walk, if what
they say is true, that the world as we know it
stands on the back of an elephant

who stands on a turtle, and under him
another, and so on down the endless stairs.
What is it that speaks before it speaks.

That thing you cannot find the words for,
it falls away the moment that you find them.
Some days you hear it singing as it falls.

What does it explain if I believe
language is the mother of its language.
Every voice a child, a little stranger,

born of flesh and the hole inside it.
If you holler in this well, you hear
it reply in the form of a question.

The limits of my language are the beginnings
of my world. Wait and see, says the world.
And see, and see, the tunnel of the eye.

- Bruce Bond

Beside you,
lying down at dark,
my waking fits your sleep.
Your turning
flares the slow-banked fire
between our mingled feet,
and there,
curved close and warm
against the nape of love,
held there,
who holds your dreaming
shape, I match my breathing
to your breath;
and sightless, keep my hand
on your heart’s breast, keep
nightwatch
on your sleep to prove
there is no dark, nor death.

- Philip Booth

Dear residents of the world known as Planet Earth!
I am required to inform you
that the warranty on your world has come to an end
the insured license will not be extended
in connection with your not fulfilling the Conditions of Contract

From our perspective we have fulfilled our obligations
see the attached table:
Prevention of catastrophes of natural origin - 84%
Prevention of catastrophes connected with private transport - 79% 
Prevention of catastrophes connected with public transport - 87%
Prevention of unfortunate accidents connected with tools - 91%
Prevention of unfortunate accidents connected with negligent use of flammable and chemical agents - 89%
Prevention of murders with malice aforethought - 81%
Prevention of murders without malice aforethought - 92%
Prevention of awkward happenings - 99% (precisely because they are considered awkward)
Prevention of potential torturers, tyrants, dictators and serial maniacs in adolescence / childhood - 89% 

(We remind you that 100% coverage is forfeit in connection with the need of avoiding a pandemic catastrophe) 

For your part in return
we want to receive from you an utter trifle -
a mere 6 billion glances skyward each day
it’s not nothing, but if you distribute it among the inhabitants of the planet
it’s next to nothing 
You have not managed this
even when meteorites and bird droppings
airplane and icicles
fell on your heads
even then you stubbornly peered at the ground under your feet
what did you plan to see there?
Were you afraid to let go?
Were you afraid the percentage of your earthly coverage would plummet?
Always like little children
as if we were not next to you this whole time 

and so that’s it, in short
now everything will change

we advise you to be cautious
to be maximally careful
to be fruitful and multiply
to follow the rules of the road
to carefully read all instructions
to always look both ways
to avoid talking to strangers
to protect yourselves
to keep your children safe
and to hope that they will not become tyrants and serial maniacs
as someone else’s children will
do not raise your hand against your neighbor
love the ones close to you
pray, and yes, let your faith be unbendable
hold your hands
hold your hands harder
still harder

and here’s another thing-

look to the heavens more often
do it
without hope of reward. 

- Anna Russ

“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 investiture 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 our 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

loveyourcrookedneighbor:

different, after losing my virginity.
better, after the medicine i took.
mosquitoes on my skin, before they’ve bitten me.
profoundly changed, after i read that book.

the call of the wild. the glow of pregnancy.
guilty, after sleeping with someone’s wife.
high as a kite, high even as a tree.
the peace that passeth understanding. safe.

god’s presence in the world, and that of the boy
who thought i was his mother at the mall.
how long had he walked beside me without my noticing?
how long had i inadvertently hidden my face?

(Source: contempoems.livejournal.com)

In the chest
in the heart
was a vessel

was the pulse
was the art
was the love

was the clot
small and slow
and the scar
that could not know

the rest of you
was very nearly perfect.

- John Stone

for Stanley Kunitz

Sometimes between one of Stanley’s Wells
and whatever he says next,
there’s ample space to take a nap –
it’s late afternoon, and the porch is warm
and quiet—I can drift knowing
the front contour of his next word
will retrieve me when I’m needed,
and he will not have lost the thread
of my question. I don’t fret that I’m neglecting
my work when this happens—I suspect that half-
unconscious I can better communicate
with my employer. He’s been contemplating 
a passage marked “Continuity Beyond
the Body” for twenty minutes in silence
when he surfaces: We know the conditions
for survival will pass, he begins. Eventually
this planet earth will become uninhabitable.
When the sun grows cold, as it will,
the conditions for life will be irrevocable.
What are we going to do? he asks me.
Maybe I’ve been thinking too small,
calling around this morning trying
to find him a ride back to New York
in September. More mischief
sparking his voice this time, What
are we going to do about this? he presses.
I say, We’ll have to find another life
form to inhabit. I say All we can do
is live fully until the sun cools,
and I remind him a lot will have happened
in the meantime, and there are other suns,
other stars. They’re a long way off, he scoffs,
scattergaze not fixed on any one thing.
And then through the screen, a sharp shift
of light—a wolf spider quivers its web,
and though I’m never certain
what he’s hearing or seeing, I know
it is this glint that has called him back
five-and-a-half billion years when he says, Look.

- From the Fishouse