In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;   
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,   
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!   
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.   
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,   
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,   
And in broad day the midnight come again!   
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,   
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.   
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,   
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.   
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,   
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

Alone Looking at the Mountain by Li Po / Li Bai

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.

Drinking Alone in the Moonlight by Li Po / Li Bai

Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine,
No friends at hand, so I poured alone;
I raised my cup to invite the moon,
Turned to my shadow, and we became three.
Now the moon had never learned about drinking,
And my shadow had merely followed my form,
But I quickly made friends with the moon and my shadow;
To find pleasure in life, make the most of the spring.

Whenever I sang, the moon swayed with me;
Whenever I danced, my shadow went wild.
Drinking, we shared our enjoyment together;
Drunk, then each went off on his own.
But forever agreed on dispassionate revels,
We promised to meet in the far Milky Way.

The Solitude of Night by Li Po / Li Bai

It was at a wine party—
I lay in a drowse, knowing it not.
The blown flowers fell and filled my lap.
When I arose, still drunken,
The birds had all gone to their nests,
And there remained but few of my comrades.
I went along the river—alone in the moonlight.

I Believe by Jim Harrison

I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across the lake
in 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,
the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,
used tires, taverns, saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,
abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,
gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girls
who haven’t quite gone totally wild, river eddies,
leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,
turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages lost in the woods,
the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousands
of birds I’ve talked to all of my life, the dogs
that talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that follow
me on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,
the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly see
from the left corner of my blind eye, struggling
to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.

Barking by Jim Harrison

The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn’t die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain.

Alone by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been 
As others were—I have not seen 
As others saw—I could not bring 
My passions from a common spring— 
From the same source I have not taken 
My sorrow—I could not awaken 
My heart to joy at the same tone— 
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— 
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn 
Of a most stormy life—was drawn 
From ev’ry depth of good and ill 
The mystery which binds me still— 
From the torrent, or the fountain— 
From the red cliff of the mountain— 
From the sun that ’round me roll’d 
In its autumn tint of gold— 
From the lightning in the sky 
As it pass’d me flying by— 
From the thunder, and the storm— 
And the cloud that took the form 
(When the rest of Heaven was blue) 
Of a demon in my view—

Your eyes go sad by Fernando Pessoa

Your eyes go sad. You're not
Listening to what I say.
They doze, dream, fade out.
Not listening. I talk away.

I tell what I've told, out of listless
Sadness, so often before ...
I think you never listened,
So you're away you are.

All of a sudden, an absent
Stare, you look at me, still
Immeasurably distant,
You begin a smile.

I go on talking. You
Go on listening - your own
Thoughts you listen to,
The smile as good as gone,

Until, through the loafing
Afternoon's waste of while,
The silence self-unleafing
Of your useless smile.

Salutation by Ezra Pound

O generation of the thoroughly smug
  and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
  and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
  and do not even own clothing.

Eleven Poems taken from the Archangelical by Georges Bataille

My madness and my fear 
have wide dead eyes
and the steady gaze of fever

what looks in these eyes 
is the nothingness of the universe
my eyes are blind skies

in my impenetrable night
the impossible cries out
everything crumbles

Almanac of inky lye
immortality of hairy poet
poetry cemetery of obesity

farewell lewd washerwomen
farewell sweet dead dressed up like naked women

farewell lies farewell sleep

infinite itching if ants
sorting papers moustaches in dust
wagonloads of fever

columns of mad rain
clapping the soiled shrouds
funereal immodesty of human bones

there's a crowd piling up cans of maybe
a genderme in a shirt on top of a roof
waves a scythe the Demon

I lose you in the wind
I count you among the dead
a vital cord 
between heart and wind

I have nothing to do in this world 
except burn
I love you unto death

Your restlessness
a mad wind whistles in your head
you are sick from laughing
you flee me for a bitter void
tearing your heart apart

tear me apart if you like
my fever-burned eyes
find you in the night

I am cold in the heart I tremble
from the depths of my pain I call to you
with inhuman cry
as if I were giving birth

you strangle my like death
I know this miserably
I only find you in the throes of death
you are as beautiful as death

all words strangle me

star pierce the sky
scream like death 
strangle

I don't want life
It is sweet to be strangled
the rising star
is as cold as a dead woman

blindfold my eyes
I love the night
my heart is black

push me into the night
all is false 
I suffer

the world smells like death
birds fly blindly
you are as dark as a black sky

a feast will commence
 in mud and fear

stars will fall 
when death comes near

you are the horror of night
my love for you is like a cry of death
you are weak like death

my love for  you is like delerium
you know my head dies
you are the immensity the fear

you are beautiful like murder
my heart expands enormously I choke
your belly is naked like the night

You lead me straight to the end
the throes of death have begun
I nothing more to tell you
I speak to you from the dead
and the dead are silent.

RIP

The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud

The Saturday Afternoon Blues by Wanda Coleman

can kill you
can fade your life away
friends are all out shopping
ain’t nobody home
suicide hotline is busy
and here i am on my own
with a pill and a bottle for company
and heart full of been done wrong
i’m a candidate for the coroner, a lyric for a song

saturday afternoons are killers
when the air is brisk and warm
ol’ sun he steady whispers
soon the life you know will be done
suicide line i can’t get you
best friend out of town
alone with a pill and a bottle
i drink my troubles down

the man i love is a killer
the man i love is a thief
the man i love is a junky
the man i love is grief

some call saturday the sabbath
it’s the bottom of the line some say
whether last or first, my heart’s gonna burst
and there ain’t no help my way
here with a pill and a bottle
and a life full of been done wrong
i’m a candidate for the coroner, a lyric
for a song 

American Sonnet 51 by Wanda Coleman

in my last incarnation i inoculated myself
with oodles of dago red and stumbled into fame
without falling. i worshipped in the temple of Lady Day
and took Coltrane as my wizard. i always wore my mink coat
to the Laundromat and drank pale champagne with my

soft-boiled eggs. i believed King Kong got a raw deal.
i believe great and prolonged sex cured cancer. i believed
in the afterdeath. i was liberator of cough-and-gaggers
from the cages of their spew. i scavenged rusted auto parts,
built a niggah machine, loaded it with atomic amour and

wiped out all purveyors of poverty. . . swapped my pink
pearl for a black sapphire. and then one quincentennial
i rose from the magnificent effluvium of my jazz
to discover my children did not know me

RIP

In the Desert by Stephen Crane

In the desert 
I saw a creature, naked, bestial, 
Who, squatting upon the ground, 
Held his heart in his hands, 
And ate of it. 
I said, “Is it good, friend?” 
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered; 

“But I like it 
“Because it is bitter, 
“And because it is my heart.”