I never knew but one -- and here he lies

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
and all the virtues of Man
without his Vices.

Epitaph to a Dog by John Hobhouse

I do not know, but I feel it happen and I am torn apart

the house next door makes me sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
By 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.

the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.

but I feel them drowning.
and I can't save them.
they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.

but the price is
terrible.

sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.

safe by Charles Bukowski

Now dreary dawns the eastern light, and fall of eve is drear

The half-moon westers low, my love,
  And the wind brings up the rain;
And wide apart lie we, my love,
  And seas between the twain.

I know not if it rains, my love,
  In the land where you do lie;
And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,
  You know no more than I.

The half-moon wester low, my love (XXVI from "Last Poems") by A.E. Housman

Mis tristezas

Watching Garrik – an actor from England -
the people would say applauding:
"You are the funniest one on earth
and the happiest one..."
And the comedian would laugh.

Victims of melancholy, the highest lords,
during their darkest and heaviest nights
would go see the king of actors
and change their melancholy into roars of laughter.

Once, before a famous doctor,
came a man with eyes so somber:
"I suffer", he said, "an illness so horrible
as this paleness of my face."

"Nothing holds any enchantment or attractiveness;
I don’t care about my name or my fate
I die living an eternal melancholy
and my only hope is that of death."

"Travel and distract yourself," says the doctor.
"I've traveled so much!"

"Search for readings"
"I've read so much!"

"Have a woman love you"
"But I am loved..."

"Get a title"
"I was born a noble."

"Might you be poor?"
"I have riches..."

"Do you like compliments?"
"I hear so many!"

"What do you have as a family?"
"My sadness."

"Do you go to the cemeteries?"
"Often, very often."

"Of your current life, do you have witnesses?"
"Yes, but I don’t let them impose their burdens;
I call the dead my friends;
I call the living my executioners."

"It leaves me," added the doctor, "perplexed.
Your illness and I must not scare you;
Take today this advice as a prescription:
only by watching Garrik can you be cured."

"Garrik?"
"Yes, Garrik... The most indolent
and austere society anxiously seeks him;
everyone who sees him dies of laughter;
he has an amazing artistic grace."

"And me? Will he make me laugh?"
"Ah, yes, I swear it;
he and no one but him; but... what disturbs you?"

"So," said the patient, "I won’t be cured;
I am Garrik!"


How many are there who, tired of life,
ill with pain, dead with tedium,
make others laugh as the suicidal actor,
without finding a remedy for their illness!

Ay! How often we laugh when we cry!
Nobody trust the merriment of laughter,
because in those beings devoured by pain,
the soul groans when the face laughs!

If faith dies, if calm flees,
if our feet only step on thistles,
the tempest of the soul hurls to the face,
a sad lighting: a smile.

The carnival of the world is such a trickster,
that life is but a short masquerade;
here we learn to laugh with tears
and also to cry with laughter.

A translation of Reír Llorando ("To Laugh While Crying") by Juan de Dios Peza

We all know how empty you are

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then-in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life-was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Alone by Edgar Allan Poe

If I had but three last things to say to someone, I would tell her I love her thrice

The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
It has been eaten by the bear.

Infant Innocence by A.E. Housman

Maybe sometimes we'd rather stay in the dark

He would say anything just to prove that he was sorry

I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Don Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,

Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din
Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout
Of the pump and the water pumped in.

'Sure isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.
Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced
Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.

Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung
Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains
Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung

Until I forgot them. But the fear came back
When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows
Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.

Still, living displaces false sentiments
And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown,
I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense:

'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town
Where they consider death unnatural
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.

The Early Purges by Seamus Heaney

It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yours

WHEN we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

When we Two parted by George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron

Who can say where they're blowing

all the gentle,
fragile ones,
who seem to
break apart
In the random
brutality of living,
I wish
I could find
a soft womb
for you,
where you could
grow again
and find
the strength
to endure
this utter hardness

All the gentle, fragile ones by J.L.Stanley

looking back down the long path I don't believe I would have done anything different.

citizens of the world
I renounce you.

I have
long ago.
but this is a formal
notice.
me against
you.
a restraining
order.

fuck off.
dry up.
vanish.

don't come to
my door
with pizza
pussy
or offers of
peace.

it's too late.

the music has
frozen in the
air
castrated by the
absence of your
presence.

notice by Charles Bukowski

I lay over her like a salvage boat wondering if this is really where we sank or if that place disappeared long ago

After the day you died
I went to a mountain lake
all warm and piney
and as I floated in the gentle water
transfixed between earth and sky
I thought of you dying
just the plain sorrow of it
and of how it would never end

And one day
I was older
than you'd ever be
you would never again
be older than me

Elegy for an Older Sister by J.L.Stanley

Lust of limb nor lust of food, mar the lovely solitude; yet there stirreth in my clay, memory of an older day.

His white lips move, whispering, My time is short,
I would be gone.
O Lord, Lord! now let thy servant depart!
I am left alone
an old man with thin hands and a dry heart
sitting in the sun.

I am grown sadder than the gust that shakes
dead leaves in May,
lonelier than the sea that breaks
her heart in spray;
now, O Lord, ere another morrow wakes,
I would away.

For the spring returning moves not as before
this dolorous clay,
love is forgotten, a bright cloak I wore
and cast away;
the stars are dumb, the heavens resound no more
in this dark day;
I am old, I am old: thine ancient peace restore,
O Lord, I pray!

The Old Man by A. R. D. Fairburn

Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum

My name is Fatso and I am eight.
I think I would be better if I lost weight.
The kids at school hate me,
And often make me cry.
I try to tell the teachers
But they say I just lie.

My name is Stupid and I am ten,
I sometimes feel angry and stab my arm with a pen.
I want to be loved
But I want him to go away.
I don’t understand the things he does
And the words I hear him say.

My name is Waste-Of-Space and I am thirteen.
The teachers say I’m naughty, disruptive and mean.
Each day at school I dread
Each night at home I fear
Praying for an exit,
I need way out of here.

My name is Anorexic and I am fifteen.
Their rules and threats, they are obscene.
I’m not ill; I just need to rid of a bit more fat,
Then I promise I’ll leave it at that.
I want to be small, fragile and pure
And food is certainly not the cure.

My name is Attention Seeker and I am eighteen
But my self Injury is not about being seen.
It’s my way of surviving in a world which I fear
It’s a way of crying without my eye shedding a tear
The punishment I deserve and need,
You can’t stop me. I must bleed.

My name is Rachael and I am twenty one.

My Name by Innocent Voices

My name is Rachael and I am twenty one.

he was 65, his wife was 66, had
Alzheimer's disease.

he had cancer of the
mouth.
there were
operations, radiation
treatments
which decayed the bones in his
jaw
which then had to be
wired.

daily he put his wife in
rubber diapers
like a
baby.

unable to drive in his
condition
he had to take a taxi to
the medical
center,
had difficulty speaking,
had to
write the directions
down.

on his last visit
they informed him
there would be another
operation: a bit more
left
cheek and a bit more
tounge.

when he returned
he changed his wife's
diapers
put on the tv
dinners, watched the
evening news
then went to the bedroom, got the
gun, put it to her
temple, fired.

she fell to the
left, he sat upon the
couch
put the gun into his
mouth, pulled the
trigger.

the shots didn't arouse
the neighbors.

later
the burning tv dinners
did.

somebody arrived, pushed
the door open, saw
it.

soon
the police arrived and
went through their
routine, found
some items:

a closed savings
account and
a checkbook with a
balance of
$1.14
suicide, they
deduced.

in three weeks
there were two
new tenants:
a computer engineer
named
Ross
and his wife
Anatana
who studied
ballet.

they looked like another
upwardly mobile
pair.

hell is a lonely place by Charles Bukowski

With artillery, you greet your only lasting memory. Am I the monster?

I dreamed that you had ceased to love me—
not that you had come from other beds
back to mine, or gone from mine to others,
just that something in your heart had stopped.

I willed myself awake to find you still
beside me. It was just a dream, I thought,
yet when I turned to kiss you, in your eyes
I saw that you had ceased to love me.

I willed myself awake a second time
to find myself alone, as I have been
these many months, but did not know if it
was terror or relief I felt, and whether

dreams unfold the past or make the future
plain. I dreamed that you had ceased to love me,
and know when I see nothing in your eyes
I can't dream myself awake a third time.

The Dream by David Solway

And the sand tells me there's no one here anymore and so I fall into the dug-out

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head
. . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

The Dug-Out by Siegfried Sassoon

It sounds pretty hollow

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon

She said that she didn't plan it exactly that way, so it goes

"Do you like skipping?" I asked. She nodded, I could see, as we walked side-by-side entering the grounds of my apartment complex.

"I do," she responded with a growing smile.

We both knew where this was headed.

"We have to hold hands, you know. There's no other way to skip," I explained, leading her to where we both wanted. I put out my left hand, hoping.

"I see," she said, as her smile finished growing now. She let out her right hand, placing it in the cusp of mine.

My heart jumped in synch with the first skip of my leg.

First Skip, It Won't Be Our Last by Calvin

So listen up homey

Sickness beware,
I will be there,
Weakness watch out,
I'll be her crutch,
Sadness, oh you,
Can back away,
'Cause I'll keep her from your rain,
Anger, calm down,
I will stay my ground,
Fear, fear me,
dare not come near me,
Forget about failure,
Lose all the lies,
All you demons beware,
For her,
I'll be there.

For Her by Tristan Claude