The Miserable Pure

Back to normal

in the miserable pure:

forests and rainbows

love not the desperate.

The things that reach me

are havoc

and rocks.

(Source: Conscience Letter 331)

There and Nowhere Else

Thoughtless in August,

close to you

among ruins and paintings

with small loose pieces all around–

I tried

to stay embedded in you.

But you had no cause

to admire me.

I was one of many, the lowest.

I don’t know when I’ll be through that way again.

I am in no state to return.

(Source: Conscience Letter 143(?))

Received

The souvenirs of youth

are selfishness

and limits.

I am surreptitiously

thirteen

in my enthusiasm

for pilferage.

I have removed

and removed.

In understanding

that what I have done

has exceeded

“sorry”—

in that I am old.

(Source: Conscience Letter 302)

I was fine until I brought them into my home

The stone / the wood / the vase /

the daughter / the cat / the dog /

the broke / the dying / the killed

instantly / then / since

And We Were Falling Ill

Though we lived right,

we have run out of time.

Any decisions made

go sour.

We have read to the bookends

desperate to change the result.

We authorize

our own method of loss.

All ends

after all.

(Source: Conscience Letter 475)

Relief

The boy who broke me

belongs to you–

I give you my years

of final straws

and camels’ backs.

I won’t return.

But when you are convinced

that there is a

bad enough,

step back and

look for me.

(Source: Conscience Letter 497)

She Began to Wonder

Luck has not been with her:

Her husband died young,

and four children to raise.

Two grandchildren nearly died

twice. And she has never hit the lottery,

her numbers worthless.

Now elderly and unsure,

she is lifted by legend:

forty years of sorrow seem

attributable

to the return of plagues.

Suffering and hoping

are in-laws.

(Source: Conscience Letter 353)

Return to Air

Someday I may build a

monument to the impossible

out of pieces of spite and error,

wrong signs, hard attitude.

After a year of years

I would take you on a tour

and in my  monument school

I would teach you I would teach you

what was or wasn’t yours, what you took and spent

from the better time when you weren’t sorry.

(Source: Conscience Letter 099)

Tempted and Fell

My sorry back,

my neckless neck:

my millstone.

Forgive me.

Out of this

I would have made—

I was going to—

(Source: Conscience Letter 301)

Just as a reminder, all of my work for this month is found poetry from the super-cool book Bad Luck, Hot Rocks.

Sooner

No more, dear sir, would I be in charge

of a month ago,

that broken time away from everyone:

No. Dear sir, I am stealing

some little painted pieces of sun

that shine

from the beautiful future.

These belong to me.