64
" Hey you, dragging the halo-
how about a holiday in the islands of grief?
Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.
Your eyes are so blue they leak.
Your legs are longer than a prisoner's
last night on death row.
I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub
and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.
You're a dirty little windshield.
I'm standing behind you on the subway,
hard as calculus. My breath
be sticking to your neck like graffiti.
I'm sitting opposite you in the bar,
waiting for you to uncross your boundaries.
I want to rip off your logic
and make passionate sense to you.
I want to ride in the swing of your hips.
My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks,
blazing your limbs into parts of speech.
But with me for a lover, you won't need
catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place
will ultimately make me resent you.
I'll start telling you lies,
and my lies will sparkle,
become the bad stars you chart your life by.
I'll stare at other women so blatantly
you'll hear my eyes peeling,
because sex with you is like Great Britain:
cold, groggy, and a little uptight.
Your bed is a big, soft calculator
where my problems multiply.
Your brain is a garage
I park my bullshit in, for free.
You're not really my new girlfriend,
just another flop sequel of the first one,
who was based on the true story of my mother.
You're so ugly I forgot how to spell.
I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test,
break your heart just for the sound it makes.
You're the 'this' we need to put an end to.
The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.
So how about it? "
― Jeffrey McDaniel
65
" there anybody there?' said the Traveller,Knocking on the moonlit door;And his horse in the silence champed the grassesOf the forest's ferny floor.And a bird flew up out of the turret,Above the Traveller's head:And he smote upon the door again a second time;'Is there anybody there?' he said.But no one descended to the Traveller;No head from the leaf-fringed sillLeaned over and looked into his grey eyes,Where he stood perplexed and still.But only a host of phantom listenersThat dwelt in the lone house thenStood listening in the quiet of the moonlightTo that voice from the world of men:Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,That goes down to the empty hall,Hearkening in an air stirred and shakenBy the lonely Traveller's call.And he felt in his heart their strangeness,Their stillness answering his cry,While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,'Neath the starred and leafy sky;For he suddenly smote on the door, evenLouder, and lifted his head:--'Tell them I came, and no one answered,That I kept my word,' he said.Never the least stir made the listeners,Though every word he spakeFell echoing through the shadowiness of the still houseFrom the one man left awake:Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,And the sound of iron on stone,And how the silence surged softly backward,When the plunging hoofs were gone. "