the devil take care
of his own in their lives God
makes people suffer for him
art music poetry
He's An Escapist, a haiku by Janet Kuypers
he’s an escapist
from his wife, kids, the business
and fled by drinking
Saddest Poem by Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Dead at Midnight (poem by Andy Derryberry)
A cold day drizzling rain
I stir my coffee
And listen for what isn’t there
Something missing
What could it be?
The love that was you and me
Scratching the walls
Tearing up the furniture
Knocking over lamps
Running hot and loud
Howling at the moon
Screaming in the wind
Out until daybreak
Reeling in the flow
Exhausted in a heap
That love was you and me
I look around the house
Where did it go?
Wasn’t it here just yesterday?
Then I see a trace
A tattered piece under the sofa
Dusty and moldy with spider webs
I pull it out quickly
But it seems lifeless
A shell of what it was
911 arrives right away
The EMTs working fast and hard
But that look they give me
“No hope friend
But we’ll keep it alive
For the emergency room”
Crash carts flying
Gurnery’s sliding
Just like TV
The hectic pace goes
Far into the night
But as the hands are straight up
“It’s time”
Looking at the clock
“Dead at midnight”
***
Waiting for the Someday Bus Poem by Dandelion de la Rue.
Waiting for the Someday Bus
by Dandelion de la Rue.
Maybe that bus
is coming someday
while we just wait
lazy on the
grass and curb and
turned-over newspaper box
listening to the clean lady
with the new bus schedule
and new blue shoes
saying Bus is Coming
Bus is coming
Bus is surely
coming now.
We talk, slow.
One Tooth Boy
shows us his
spider bite
and the old
man hums and nods
and smiles and
there’s a blues beat
somewhere
that bus is
surely coming
someday
we all say
and we’ll all
get on and go
somewhere
sometime soon.
***
poem from a packaged wife by Terry Angelo
to my dear husband,
i have unscrewed my breasts
and placed them in a velvet-lined box
next to your easy chair
so you can easily reach them
when you need to keep your hands busy
don’t smoke your pipe at the same time!
my vagina is in a zip-lock freezer bag
next to the chicken legs
don’t let it stay on the counter too long
to defrost
or it might turn bad and get you very sick
and remember not to overcook it
you know how you hate dried up meat!
my buttocks are on the dining room table
they look so nice sitting on the gold leaf platter
your mother gave us for a wedding gift
my blood is in the matching gravy boat
don’t use too much salt!
you have never been concerned
about my mind or my heart
so we don’t need to bother ourselves
with those pesky things just now
when you’re finished, make sure everything
is back in its proper place
and please take out the trash
you know how i hate a messy house!
love, terry
***