The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 4/30/06)

[RetroLounge]

Wanting To Die

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the most unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue! --
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year and year,
to so delicately undo an old would,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of a book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

Anne Sexton

********************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[miss_american_pie]

1. I was just reading this the other day

"And the love, whatever it was, an infection"

:hi:

[djeseru]

2. Oh so very true.

"Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile."

The sweetest drug I ever had. I remember the shock of first reading this poem and hearing thoughts I've had come from someone else...


- Edit...my apologies...hitting the wrong reply button again apparently...

[threehensandacow]

3. it's scary

how some people know exactly what to say, know how to get under our skin until we can feel them breathing inside of us.
well done, anne, well done. . .

[RetroLounge]

4. Good morning

and welcome back to the poetry threads...

:hug:

RL