Easter

Easter
-Eileen Myles

for Joan

There was a bird
on my sill
this morning
stone sill
dark grey bird
and it bumped
against my window
then it flew in
it was freaked
turned round tried
to fly out; crashed
the bird's face was huge
vanished into my tiny apartment
where
no bird under the bed
no bird in the kitchen
wham!
bird flying out of
nowhere
bumped into the window
and dizzy zoomed
right
out
into the white day

We Real Cool

We Real Cool
-Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. We
Left School. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Moonshot

Moonshot
-Buffy Sainte-Marie
(Song)

off into outer space you go my friends
we wish you bon voyage
and when you get there we will welcome you again
and still you'll wonder at it all
see all the wonders that you leave behind
the wonders humble people own
I know a boy from a tribe so primitive
he can call me up without no telephone
see all the wonders that you leave behind
enshrined in some great hourglass
the noble tongues, the noble languages
entombed in some great english class
off into outer space you go my friends
we wish you bon voyage
and when you get there we will welcome you again
and still you'll wonder at it all

an anthropologist he wrote a book
he called it "myths of heaven"
he's disappeared, his wife is all distraught
an angel came and got him
his hair was light, his eyes were love, his words were true,
his eys were lapis lazuli
he spoke in a language oh so primitive
that he made sense to me
off into outer space you go my friends
we wish you bon voyage
and when you get there we will welcome you again
and still you'll wonder at it all

NyQuil

NyQuil
-Raymond Carver

Call it iron discipline. But for months
I never took my first drink
before eleven p.m. Not so bad,
considering. This was in the beginning
phase of things. I knew a man
whose drink of choice was Listerine.
He was coming down off Scotch.
He bought Listerine by the case,
and drank it by the case. The back seat
of his car was piled high with dead soldiers.
Those empty bottles of Listerine
gleaming in his scalding back seat!
The sight of it sent me home soul-searching.
I did that once or twice. Everybody does.
Go way down deep inside and look around.
I spent hours there, but
didn’t meet anyone, or see anything
of interest. I came back to the here and now,
and put on my slippers. Fixed
myself a nice glass of NyQuil.
Dragged a chair over to the window.
Where I watched a pale moon struggle to rise
over Cupertino, California.
I waited through hours of darkness with NyQuil.
And then, sweet Jesus! the first sliver
of light.

No words
this time.

Every Day

Every Day
-Ingeborg Bachmann

War is no longer declared,
merely perpetuated. The outrageous
has become commonplace. The hero
stays far from battle. The weakling
is transferred to the firing zone.
Patience is the uniform of the day,
the order of merit a wretched star
of hope stuck to the heart.

It will be awarded
when the action has ceased,
when the drumfire dies down,
when the enemy has receded from view
and the shadow of eternal armament
enshrouds the sky.

It will be awarded
for deserting the flags,
for bravery in the face of a friend,
for the betrayal of ignoble secrets
and the disregard
of every command.

What This Is

A lengthy monologue
by one of the world's most desperate souls,
many times reincarnated,
but again recently deceased
and now just phoning it in
from the Other Side.