Poem of the Day
“This was the farewell …”
By Hannah Arendt
Many friends came with us
and whoever did not come was no longer a friend.
Many friends came with us
and whoever did not come was no longer a friend.
This is the year of the suicide.
The year the grass dies
and does not rise again. The year
OK, it’s sunny, otherworldly, skintight,
where we’re flabby and clouded over, pining away
under layers of jealousy, detachment, the compost heap
In the old days there were characters
and settings: if you wrote snow,
you could see wetness and whiteness
I am unable to say from what place, from which dream,
anything comes.
If you were to commit a crime . . .
Strange that he mentions the muses.
Demons, yes. God, of course.
But harlots? Perhaps
Somehow I know, I know these things,
such as when I will have a shepherd’s
bad luck, forever the same horrible creed
of a hunter, and my heart starts to bleed.
You are my flower, my lips, my heaven.
Embrace in your glance the seven grains.
I bear them, until I collapse.
Is the little bird torn apart
by a paw? Lights switch on, at least
one juxtaposition between
I post the sign
late in spring
drawn on sewn skins
These were your sighs,
your toss,
the listing yoke