booksquared

[booksquared]

[booksquared]

[booksquared]

Once I'm Dead by Wendy Cope

[booksquared]

Do Not ask your children to strive by William Martin

[booksquared]

They stare at their bedroom wall,

At night,

And inhale, inhale, And they live

tomorrow, Spend the day like usual,

Until the sky shifted back to dark;

They stare at their bedroom wall again,

And inhale, in hell.

-Aliff Alias, "Men Don't Weep"

[booksquared]

Mieko Shiomi, Mirror, 1963

[booksquared]

Death

In Japan we mark death:  after 7 days,  every 7 days until the 49th day,  at 100 days,  1 year,  3 years, 7 years,  13 years,  17 years,  33 years, 49 years, and 99 years after death. 

[booksquared]

Untitled

About this time I began to suspect I was never named; people called

me Mary because it was convenient, or because they had heard

others call me Mary, I was in the beginning named after someone

else who was named Mary but I was neither this person nor the one

they called Mary after her, I was nameless, and in this state I perpetually

wandered among fruit and flowers and foliage, among vines

and overhanging rock and untamed animals, none of whom I could

name, none of whom knew my name, nor, if they did, could they

speak it. I read once that the Amazon was called the Green Hell, and

if that is a name, I take it, if only as a substitute for my unknown

name, which not even my parents knew when they named me Mary,

after a woman who scrubbed her kitchen floor on her hands and

knees, once a week, with a stiff brush. She was kind to me and I loved

her, and since her death I have dreamt of her many times, either

searching for her or speaking to her, but never once in my dreams

have I called her Mary, which, I suspect, is not her name, or if it once

was, is no longer.

- Mary Ruefle

[booksquared]

COLD COFFEE

In a long room that voices sundered,

With black coffee in a chipped cup

-My fingers curled, my eyes dumb-

I sat in wait for you who did not know

I waited, and who did not come.

Then someone jostled me, my coffee swirled,

And terror dinned my heart. I wondered

Where you waited in the wide world.

Poet unknown (to me at least)

[booksquared]

I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log.

As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain.

If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

~ Havelock Vetinari

Unseen Academicals  by Terry Pratchett

[booksquared]

April 7, 1969

I feel so bad today

that I want to write a poem.

I don't care: any poem, this

poem.

Richard Brautigan

[booksquared]

Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?

And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by.

And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is - we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

Kurt Vonnegut

[booksquared]

Kenneth Tynan said We seek the teeth to match our wounds?'

[booksquared]

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

[booksquared]

Good Bones

Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful

[booksquared]

Separation

BY W. S. MERWIN

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

[booksquared]

The Lovers

BY TIMOTHY LIU

I was always afraid

of the next card the psychic would turn

over for us— for not knowing

how we were

every card in the deck