Life and Existence

It is a true error to marry with poets or to be by them.

He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back. He thought they were old friends.

But never did Henry, as he thought he did, end anyone and hacks her body up and hide the pieces, where they may be found. He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing. Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. Nobody is ever missing.

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

I don’t see how Henry, pried open for all the world to see, survived.

Mountainous, woman not breaks and will bend: sways God nearby: anguish comes to an end. Blossomed Sarah, and I blossom. Is that thing alive? I hear a famisht howl.

One day beside some flowers near his nose He will be thinking, When will I look at it? And pain, still in the middle distance, will reply At what? and he will know it’s gone, O where! and begin to tremble and cry. He will begin to cry as a child cries Whose puppy is mangled under a screaming wheel.

The mind is a city like London, Smoky and populous: it is a capital Like Rome, ruined and eternal, Marked by the monument which no one Now remembers.

That inescapable animal walks with me. Has followed me since the black womb held, Moves where I move, distorting my gesture, A caricature, a swollen shadow, A stupid clown of the spirit’s motive, Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness, The secret life of belly and bone.

That inescapable animal walks with me. Has followed me since the black womb held, Moves where I move, distorting my gesture, A caricature, a swollen shadow, A stupid clown of the spirit’s motive, Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness, The secret life of belly and bone.

Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.

I take the word Europe Or the word death And tear them into tiny pieces; I scatter them at your feet.

I’d like to die like this… with the dark fingers of the water closing and unclosing over these sleepy lights and a sad bell somewhere murmuring good night.

Do I not deal with angels When her lips I touch.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

May the gentle mountains and the bells of the flocks Remind us of everything we have lost, For we have seen on our way and fallen in love With the world that will pass in a twinkling.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Life and the memory of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board.

Life and the memory of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board.

—And Friday, my dear Friday, died of measles seventeen years ago come March.

—And Friday, my dear Friday, died of measles seventeen years ago come March.

Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all?

Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.

I have had to learn the simplest things last. Which made for difficulties.