we will taste the islands and the sea by Bukowski

I know that some night
in some bedroom
soon
my fingers will
rift
through
soft clean
hair

songs such as no radio
plays

all sadness, grinning
into flow.

No Explosions by Naomi Shihab Nye

To enjoy
fireworks
you would have
to have lived
a different kind
of life.

Nothing But Death by Pablo Neruda

There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.

Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.

But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.

Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.

True Love by Barry Gifford

Your sickness made me
a little sick, it's
true—I still
feel it
     Mayakovsky got down
          on his knees
     and declared
               his love
to his last 
          mistress
        a few hours after
           he'd met her
Remember me 
at the hotel
            in Paris,
         on my knees
            in the lift?
We're all the same
men of too much passion
and a little talent—
    some a little more
                  than others
    We fool ourselves
       into thinking
                  we're strong
           then complain
      the rest of our lives
          crippled by
            the consequences

Last Night's Dream by Barry Gifford

    In last night's dream I went back to see 
you
    I found you on a bad street in Mexico 
City
    working as a prostitute
    You didn't want me to look at you
    You'd lost your job, had no money
    Come with me, I said, I'll take care of you
    You wouldn't let me touch you
    No, you said, it won't be any use,
    and anyway, you know I'm dead
    I hung around out of sight and watched 
you
    solicit strangers on the street,
    men walking, men in cars
    You came around a corner and spotted 
me
    Leave me alone you said, it's too late
    You still looked good, your hair was 
clean
    and black but a couple of your teeth were 
missing
    and your clothes were soiled
    You walked quickly toward another 
street
    Don't follow me, you shouted
    I remembered that you had a photo
graph
     of me on a wall in your house,
     one I'd never seen before
     I asked you where it was from,
     who'd taken it, where you'd gotten it
     I made it, you said, out of photographs
     of other people, it was difficult
     and it took me a very long time

Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Simple by Raymond Carver

A break in the clouds. The blue
outline of the mountains.
Dark yellow of the fields.
Black river. What am I doing here,
lonely and filled with remorse?

I go on casually eating from the bowl
of raspberries. If I were dead,
I remind myself, I wouldn’t
be eating them. It’s not so simple.
It is that simple.

NO SUCH THING AS THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER by Andrea Gibson

Silence rides shotgun
wherever hate goes.

The Kitten by Mary Oliver

More amazed than anything 
I took the perfectly black 
stillborn kitten
with the one large eye
in the center of its small forehead 
from the house cat's bed
and buried it in a field 
behind the house.

I suppose I could have given it
to a museum,
I could have called the local 
newspaper.

But instead I took it out into the field 
and opened the earth
and put it back
saying, it was real,
saying, life is infinitely inventive,
saying, what other amazements
lie in the dark seed of the earth, yes,
I think I did right to go out alone
and give it back peacefully, and cover the place 
with the reckless blossoms of weeds.

every time i said i want to die  (excerpt) by Andrea Gibson

... 
who taught me that a difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one. Joy is just easier
to carry than sorrow. And you could lift a city

from how long you’ve spent holding
what’s been nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those who know

how to do that. Those who could find 
a tunnel that has no light at the end 
of it and hold it up like a telescope

to show that the darkness contains
many truths that can bring the light
to its knees. Grief astronomer,

adjust the lens, look close,
tell us what you see.

Widening Circles by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember 
what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, 
without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, 
even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious 
to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you 
may become vain or bitter, for always there will be 
greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. 
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; 
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the 
world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you 
to what virtue there is; many persons strive for 
high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. 
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of 
all aridity and disenchantment, 
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, 
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. 
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. 
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. 
You are a child of the universe no less than the 
trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt 
the universe is unfolding as it should. 
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you 
conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors 
and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, 
keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery 
and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. 
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

I Go My Way by Max Ehrmann

All round is haste, confusion, noise.
For power and wealth men stretch the day
From dawn till dusk. But quietly 
I go my way.

For glitter, show, to taunt the crowd,
Desire-tossed in wild dismay,
Men sell their souls. But quietly 
I go my way.

The green of all the fields is mine;
The stars, the night, the wind at play,
A peaceful heart, while quietly
I go my way.

Jerusalem by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
 
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
 
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
 
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

As Long as You’re Upright by Blaga Dimitrova

Don’t forget to rejoice! —
the wise trees whisper
as they crash on failing knees
under the ax.
Don’t forget to rejoice!
As long as you’re upright,
as long as you encounter the wind,
as long as you breathe the heights.
As long as the ax slumbers.

The Fury Of Sunsets by Anne Sexton

Something
cold is in the air,
an aura of ice
and phlegm.
All day I've built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
The horizon bleeds
and sucks its thumb.
The little red thumb
goes out of sight.
And I wonder about
this lifetime with myself,
this dream I'm living.
I could eat the sky
like an apple
but I'd rather
ask the first star:
why am I here?
why do I live in this house?
who's responsible?
eh?

Wanting to Die by Anne Sexton

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!--
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

The Stray by Charles Simic

One day, chasing my tail here and there,
I stopped to catch my breath
On some corner in New York,
While people hurried past me,
All determined to get somewhere,
Save a few adrift like lost children.

What ever became of my youth?
I wanted to stop a stranger and ask.
"It went into hiding," said an old woman
Who'd read my mind.
"Swimming with sharks," a drunk concurred,
Fixing me with one bloody eye.

It was summer, and then as quietly as  a bird lands,
The sidewalks were dusted with snow
And I was shivering without a coat.
I had hopes we'd meet again, I told myself,
Have a drink and recall the nights
When we used to paint this town red.

I thought you'd be in a straightjacket by now,
You'd say to me,
Making funny faces at doctors and nurses.
Instead, here you are full of fleas,
Dodging cars and buses
To follow a pair of good-looking legs home.

"And you, Judas," I summed the strength to shout,
"Will you be coming to my funeral?"
But he was gone already. It had gotten late in the day,
Very late—and since there was nothing
That could be done about it—
I thought I'd better toddle along myself.

Explorers by Charles Simic  

They arrive inside
The object at evening.
There’s no one to meet them.
 
The lamps they carry
Cast their shadows
Back into themselves.
 
They make notations:
The sky and the earth
Are of the same impenetrable color.
There’s no wind. If there are rivers,
They must be beneath the ground.
Of the marvels we sought, no trace.
Of the native girls, nothing.
There’s not even dust, so we must conclude
That someone passed recently
With a broom...
 
As they write, the tiny universe
Stitches its black thread into them.
 
Eventually nothing is left
Except a faint voice
Which might belong
Either to one of them
Or to someone who came before.
 
It says: I’m grateful
That you’ve finally come.
It was beginning to get lonely.
I recognize you. You are all
That has eluded me.
 
May this be my country.