there is a body eroding inside of me, rotting
out my mouth
but i do not think, no matter how many times
my internal dwelling collapses
that death ever leaves, nor do i ever
leave it
(how could i, with our bodies entwined
and our voices combined to create one voice;
when i speak, or love with this heart of our hearts
does death love through me? or in me? or of me?
what is love but a thousand chips of bone;
a collection on our mantle, trophies of solitude
and eternal winters kept tightly confined)
a season is churning inside of me
i am choking up snow
i know i am a vessel, a harbinger, a black lung
sick with the love of decay.
4 comments:
No worst, there is none
"NO worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing --
Then lull then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief".
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep."
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
Thou art indeed just, Lord
JUSTUS quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum properatur?
"Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
"Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
"Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
"Them; birds build--but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain."
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
My own heart let me have more have pity on; let
"MY own heart let me have more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get 5
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst ’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
"Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile 10
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
’s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Betweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile."
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
"I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say 5
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
"I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; 10
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse."
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
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