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Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems QUOTES

Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems QUOTES

1 " You were a town with one pay phone and someone else was using it.
You were an ATM temporarily unable to dispense cash.
You were an outdated link and the server was down.
You were invisible to the naked eye.
You were the two insect parts per million allowed in peanut butter.
You were a car wash that me as dirty as when I pulled in.
You were twenty rotting bags of rice in the hold of a cargo plane sitting on the runway in a drought-riddled country.
You were one job opening for two hundred applicants and you paid minimum wage.
You were grateful for my submission but you just couldn't use it.
You weren't a Preferred Provider.
You weren't giving any refunds.
You weren't available for comment.
Your grave wasn't marked so I wandered the cementary for hours, part of the grass, part of the crumbling stones. "

― Kim Addonizio , Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems

2 " For You"

For you I undress down to the sheaths of my nerves.
I remove my jewelry and set it on the nightstand,
I unhook my ribs, spread my lungs flat on a chair.
I dissolve like a remedy in water, in wine.
I spill without staining, and leave without stirring the air.
I do it for love. For love, I disappear. "

― Kim Addonizio , Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems

3 " Here's my bright idea for life on earth:
better management. The CEO
has lost touch with the details. I'm worth
as much, but I care; I come down here, I show
my face, I'm a real regular. A toast:
To our boys and girls in the war, grinding
through sand, to everybody here, our host
who's mostly mist, like methane rising
from retreating ice shelves. Put me in command.
For every town, we'll have a marching band.
For each thoroughbred, a comfortable stable;
for each worker, a place beneath the table.
For every forward step a stumbling.
A shadow over every starlit thing. "

― Kim Addonizio , Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems

4 " The teeth sold to the fairies
are tombstones in the graveyard of the fireflies.

By their cold caught light
you can make out the big house submerged

in the backyard creek,
thought-minnows spinning in motes in the attic.

The lovely young parents, so long preserved,
are showing signs of rot,

the kitten named Princess, signs
of invisibilty. But look, the old dolls

are doing well; they smile and smile.
And the witch? Darling, the witch was real. "

― Kim Addonizio , Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems

5 " The gods were here first, and they’re bigger.
They always were, and always will be
living it up in their father’s mansion.
You only crawled from the drain
a few millenia ago,
after inventing legs for yourself
so you could stand, inventing fists
in order to raise them and curse the heavens.
Do the gods see us?
Will the waters be rising soon?
The waters will be rising soon.
Find someone or something to cling to.

— Kim Addonizio, from “Storm Catechism,” Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems. (W. W. Norton & Company; unknown edition January 31, 2011) "

― Kim Addonizio , Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems