http://lisbettmctague.tumblr.com/

The Mother Warns the Tornado

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:20:46 -0400

I know I’ve already had more than I deserve.
These lungs that rise and fall without effort,
the husband who sets free house lizards,
this red-doored ranch, my mother on the phone,
the fact that I can eat anything—gouda, popcorn,
massaman curry—without worry. Sometimes
I feel like I’ve been overlooked. Checks
and balances, and I wait for the tally to be evened.
But I am a greedy son of a bitch, and there
I know we are kin. Tornado, this is my child.
Tornado, I won’t say I built him, but I am
his shelter. For months I buoyed him
in the ocean, on the highway; on crowded streets
I learned to walk with my elbows out.
And now he is here, and he is new, and he
is a small moon, an open face, a heart.
Tornado, I want more. Nothing is enough.
Nothing ever is. I will heed the warning
protocol, I will cover him with my body, I will
wait with mattress and flashlight,
but know this: If you come down here—
if you splinter your way through our pines,
if you suck the roof off this red-doored ranch,
if you reach out a smoky arm for my child—
I will turn hacksaw. I will turn grenade.
I will invent for you a throat and choke you.
I will find your stupid wicked whirling
head and cut it off. Do not test me.
If you come down here, I will teach you about
greed and hunger. I will slice you into palm-
sized gusts. Then I will feed you to yourself.

-Catherine Pierce in The Kenyon Review.

"What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:30:43 -0400

“What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?”

- Mark Strand, from “No Words Can Describe It” (via awritersruminations)

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:53:56 -0400

THIS STATE

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:55:03 -0400

lunchboxpoems:

of motherhood is splintered, frenzied, but struggling to sound calm,
it’s soy beans on the door mat and raspberry jam on the baseboard,
it’s relinquishing utopian desires for quiet and cups of tea,
it’s never finishing a meal but eating scraps of your child’s food
after he has chewed it thoughtfully and you believed gratefully only
to disgorge it into your outstretched hand, his saliva your saliva,
it’s him reaching for your face in the dark and sinking back relieved,
it’s that first, longed-for kiss, slow and premeditated, laying aside
his things and walking up and kissing you full on the lips with his
tiny, soft, wet mouth, completely by surprise, total abandon,
it’s thinking that your mind will never have sharp edges or straight
lines again, it’s being beaten and kicked by a screaming, back-
bending, contortionist, hair-pulling dervish who later subsides into
swollen-eyed, red-faced, runny-nosed calm in your arms,
it’s the sink full of dishes, plastic cups, bibs, tea-leaves, peach-peel,
pasta shells and peas, it’s ketchup at every meal and wondering
how a body can survive on no meat or vegetables, ever,
it’s the way his body curves into yours and how your arms are
strong enough to lift all twenty-six pounds of him over and over
again at all the wrong angles, it’s shocking wide awake each time
he murmurs in his sleep next door, it’s the invisible rubber band
between you, the pain in your belly and chest when you’re apart,
it’s seeing your life upended, its contents strewn around as if by a
tornado, and picking your way through the wreckage with no time
to care because something like passion is driving you on.

CATHERINE JAGOE

LET ME EXPLAIN

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:13:37 -0400

lunchboxpoems:

Spring, and the tulips urged me
stick to schedule, flower furiously.
I asked for mountains but settled
for some flood-buckled linoleum.
Air was the only sure thing
and even she put up a fight.
I called my eyes near-sighted,
my hands near misses, my arms
close calls, my face old hat,
my head a bluff and raised
my body, a wishing machine.
Stars, thanked. Days, numbered.
I wore a coat because you can’t trust
weather and I looked like rain.

DORA MALECH

airwalker: “[You say the price we pay for love is loss. I say the price we pay for love is love.]...

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:15:02 -0400

airwalker:

“[You say the price we pay for love is loss. I say the price we pay for love is love.] You say sometimes you’ve nothing save your hand in the glove and the glove against wind and you’re jabbing at the sky now in the match of your life but the sky never fights back so you praise it.”

— Brynn Saito, from “Match” (via the-final-sentence)

"Inside a book I’ve been meaning to read forever, I come across you"

Fri, 03 May 2013 20:00:50 -0400

“Inside a book
I’ve been meaning to
read forever, I
come across you”

- David Yezzi, from “This Is My Proof” (via proustitute)

"Writing: a way of leaving no space for death, of pushing back forgetfulness, of never letting..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:52:32 -0400

“Writing: a way of leaving no space for death, of pushing back forgetfulness, of never letting oneself be surprised by the abyss. Of never becoming resigned, consoled; never turning over in bed to face the wall and drift asleep again as if nothing had happened; as if nothing could happen.”

- Hélène Cixous, “Coming to Writing and other Essays” (via awritersruminations)

BOO, FOREVER

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:11:00 -0400

lunchboxpoems:

Spinning like a ghost

on the bottom of a

top,

I’m haunted by all

the space that I

will live without

you.

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

"bees, my skin smells of sun, the insides of roses. I want to eat that light. Every thing that grows..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:20:25 -0400

“bees, my
skin smells
of sun, the
insides of
roses. I want

to eat that
light. Every
thing that
grows does.”

-Lyn Lifshin, “Honeysuckle””

- (via ahuntersheart)

Photo

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:30:14 -0400

Photo

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:35:32 -0400

"That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be..."

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:08:02 -0400

“That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.”

- Joan Didion, from Slouching Towards Betlehem (via growing-orbits)

beulahapolito: Hanna Russell | www.beulahanne.com

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:22:20 -0400

beulahapolito:

Hanna Russell | www.beulahanne.com

THE CONDITIONAL

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:20:38 -0400

lunchboxpoems:

Say tomorrow doesn’t come.
Say the moon becomes an icy pit.
Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.
Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire.
Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks.
Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain.
Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter.
Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse.
Say we never get to see it: bright
future, stuck like a bum star, never
coming close, never dazzling.
Say we never meet her. Never him.
Say we spend our last moments staring
at each other, hands knotted together,
clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.
Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.

ADA LIMÓN

MORE PRECISELY

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:52:06 -0400

lunchboxpoems:

What I meant was stars: lots of them.
What was in the bag: a hundred other bags,
each filled with a star. What came after the world:
silence, lots of it. Like being in a bag for a year,
a portable hole, losing the sensation of sound.
After only two nights stars appear
where there were none. So: I’m sorry. I’m here,
not the star of this poem, nor are you. Nor beauties
in bags draped down by the river in books about bodies
and necks stretching upwards to sky. What comes after beauty
is water, just water, nothing reflecting in it, not even the song
of water. Drink. Take this. It’s yours. There’s no one at work
in the world. No dogs rambling the park.
Nothing in darkness or pressure arising by depth.
What was in the works but ears, ears everywhere,
on the land like leaves, caught up in updrafts like silk,
like slick maps written on it and worn on a body.
You know it’s a beauty. Even seen from a mile,
at which point it’s only a dot, it stretches and grows.
Comes closer. She’s coming for you. She walks like a star.
Towards you. In her bag is a book. Each page
draped with stars. You’ll know her
when she arrives. You’ve seen her breathing before.

ANDER MONSON

"Uncomplicated Happiness" by Alex Dimitrov

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:48:35 -0400

airwalker:

Maybe I don’t want uncomplicated happiness.
In the morning one of us turns
to dress away from the other
although little has changed.
In a better world memory would
always lead back to affection.
Who is that person on the edge
of the bed, looking back?
Nothing is uncomplicated, traveler.
Maybe I wanted you to stay
for the wrong reasons.
Maybe it’s the wrong reasons I love.
I too am somewhere over an ocean—
writing you this as fast as I can.

From Begging for It by Alex Dimitrov (c) 2013

(muscovite via fourwaybooks)

joyinthecity:

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:38:57 -0400

joyinthecity:

Photo

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:50:53 -0400

growing-orbits: Annette Pehrsson and Mariam Sitchinava,...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:50:28 -0400

growing-orbits:

Annette Pehrsson and Mariam Sitchinava, Illusory