The Intellectual is Always Showing Off by Rumi

The intellectual is always showing off,

the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away.

afraid of drowning;

the whole business of love

is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;

lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone.

even surrounded by people;

like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble 

of giving advice to a lover

get nothing. He’s mocked by passion.

Love is like musk. It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

the conversation

turned to
“wavelengths”
and that
“…for things to work,
you must be on the same page…”
and I
told it
to countless
girls
after they
cry

Oh Yes by Charles Bukowski

There are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realise this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.

The Names by Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name —
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner —
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

—

This is a poem by poet laureate of the United States Billy Collins, read during a special joint session of Congress in New York Friday.

Remembering September 11. Ten years ago.

austerity

I

In my desire to smell like a man, I
shoved my head into your clothes

II

I find it impossible
to make fun of
things that never last

III

Sometimes when I eat bread in
the middle of the night, I
break it and leave
the other half for you

IV

I am not so hungry anymore.

V

The last time I wrote
about you
I fell asleep

Come and watch me

divide my bones
I will pick the biggest one for you
set it aside
for a better time
like a cross

help me with the smaller ones
help me carry the bags
help me carry it to the river

let’s whisper a line from a song
before throwing each piece
one by one

You may feel alone when you’re falling asleep
plop
…would you burn up before the water filled your lungs?
plop
Time runs through our veins.
plop

you hum a tune

plop

I hum a tune

She forgets

sometimes that she is not supposed to say that
her lover used to tell her how much
he loved her.

She forgets
sometimes that the wind on a different year
in a bench of a different park
is different.

She forgets
sometimes that when she tells her story to everyone
she meets and everyone she sees
she misses something.

She forgets.

Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

another one

I don’t like flowers
very much, only the thought
of it in your hands

does it hurt when I do this?

So the first petal
is my most favorite thing
to pluck “He loves me.”