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The Tree of Song -- Sara Teasdale

(Poem #230)The Tree of Song
 I sang my songs for the rest,
 For you I am still;
 The tree of my song is bare
 On its shining hill.

 For you came like a lordly wind,
 And the leaves were whirled
 Far as forgotten things
 Past the rim of the world.

 The tree of my song stands bare
 Against the blue --
 I gave my songs to the rest,
 Myself to you.
-- Sara Teasdale

The Light Above Cities -- Jay Leeming

(Poem #229)The Light Above Cities
 Sitting in darkness,
 I see how the light of the city
 fills the clouds, rosewater light
 poured into the sky
 like the single body we are. It is the sum
 of a million lives; a man drinking beer
 beneath a light bulb, a dancer spinning
 in a fluorescent room, a girl reading a book
 beneath a lamp.
 
 Yet there are others — astronomers,
 thieves, lovers — whose work is only done
 in darkness. Sometimes
 I don't want to show these poems
 to anyone, sometimes
 I want to remain hidden, deep in the coals
 with the one who pulls the stars
 through a telescope's glass, the one who listens
 for the click of the lock, the one
 who kisses softly a woman's eyes.
-- Jay Leeming

where we are -- Gerald Locklin

(Poem #228)where we are
 i envy those
 who live in two places:
 new york, say, and london;
 wales and spain;
 l.a. and paris;
 hawaii and switzerland.

 there is always the anticipation
 of the change, the chance that what is wrong
 is the result of where you are. i have 
 always loved both the freshness of
 arriving and the relief of leaving. with 
 two homes every move would be a homecoming.
 i am not even considering the weather, hot
 or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.
-- Gerald Locklin

Unclaimed -- Vikram Seth

(Poem #227)Unclaimed
 To make love with a stranger is the best.
 There is no riddle and there is no test. --

 To lie and love, not aching to make sense
 Of this night in the mesh of reference.

 To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
 And understand, as only strangers may.

 To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
 Preferring neither to prolong nor part.

 To rest within the unknown arms and know
 That this is all there is; that this is so.
-- Vikram Seth

Sex Without Love -- Sharon Olds

(Poem #226)Sex Without Love
 How do they do it, the ones who make love
 without love? Beautiful as dancers,
 Gliding over each other like ice-skaters
 over the ice, fingers hooked
 inside each other's bodies, faces
 red as steak, wine, wet as the
 children at birth, whose mothers are going to
 give them away. How do they come to the
 come to the come to the God come to the
 still waters, and not love
 the one who came there with them, light
 rising slowly as steam off their joined
 skin? These are the true religious,
 the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
 accept a false Messiah, love the
 priest instead of the God. They do not
 mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
 they are like great runners: they know they are alone
 with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
 the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
 vascular health--just factors, like the partner
 in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
 single body alone in the universe
 against its own best time.
-- Sharon Olds

The Story We Know -- Martha Collins

(Poem #225)The Story We Know
 The way to begin is always the same. Hello,
 Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, Just fine,
 And Good-bye at the end. That's every story we know,

 And why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No?
 Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine?
 The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello,

 And then it's Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow
 Day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine
 And Good-bye. In the end, this is a story we know

 So well we don't turn the page, or look below
 The picture, or follow the words to the next line:
 The way to begin is always the same Hello.

 But one night, through the latticed window, snow
 Begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine.
 Good-bye is the end of every story we know

 That night, and when we close the curtains, oh,
 We hold each other against that cold white sign
 Of the way we all begin and end. Hello,
 Good-bye is the only story. We know, we know.
-- Martha Collins

Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man -- Ogden Nash

(Poem #224)Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man
 It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
 That all sin is divided into two parts.
 One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
 And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,
 And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission
         and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from
         Billy Sunday to Buddha,
 And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.
 I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as long as,
         in a way, against each other we are pitting them,
 And that is, don't bother your head about the sins of commission because
         however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn't be
         committing them.
 It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
 That lays eggs under your skin.
 The way you really get painfully bitten
 Is by the insurance you haven't taken out and the checks you haven't added up
         the stubs of and the appointments you haven't kept and the bills you
         haven't paid and the letters you haven't written.
 Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
 Namely, it isn't as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
         time you neglected to do your duty;
 You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
 Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
 You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
 Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round
         of unwritten letters is on me.
 No, you never get any fun
 Out of things you haven't done,
 But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
 Because the suitable things you didn't do give you a lot more trouble than the
         unsuitable things you did.
 The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if some kind of
         sin you must be pursuing,
 Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.
-- Ogden Nash