To a Favorite Granddaughter

Never love a simple lad;
Guard against the wise;
Shun a timid youth, and sad;
Hide from haunted eyes.

Never hold your heart in pain
For an evil-doer;
Never flip it down the lane
To a gifted wooer.

Never love a loving son;
Nor a sheep astray;
Gather up your skirts and run
From a wistful way.

Never give away a tear;
Never toss and pine…
Should you heed my words, my dear,
You’re no blood of mine!

Healed

Oh, when I threw my heart away
The year was at its fall.
I saw my dear, the other day,
Beside a flowering wall.
And this was all I had to say:
“I thought that he was tall!”

Superfluous Advice

Should they whisper false of you,
Never trouble to deny;
Should the words they speak be true,
Weep and storm and swear they lie.

Afternoon

When I am old and comforted
And done with this desire,
With Memory to share my bed,
And Peace to share my fire.

I’ll fold my hair in scalloped bands
Beneath my laundered cap;
And watch my cool and fragile hands
Lie light upon my lap.

And I will wear a spriggéd gown
With lace to kiss my throat.
I’ll draw my curtains to the town, A
nd him a purring note.

And I’ll forget the way of tears,
And rock, and stir my tea.
But oh, I wish those blesséd years
Were further than they be!

Swan Song

First you are hot,
Then you are cold;
And the best you have got
Is the fact you’re old.
Labor and hoard,
Worry and wed;
And the biggest reward
Is to die in bed.
A long time to sweat,
A little while to shiver
Is all you will get—
Where’s the nearest river?

Dorothy Parker

People cannot
Learn in schools
The truth about
The traffic rules,

Or gauge the temper
Of a cop
And when to steal
A light, or stop,

Or swiftly shift
From gear to gear
To save collision
In the rear.

My chassis was
Designed for speed,
My engine does
Its stuff at need,

My brakes are new
And working fine,
I could skid close
To the danger line,

But with safe margins
I’m content—
I hate to get
My mudguard bent!

Angela Cypher

I sleep, thou sleepest
It sleeps—
A dream that nobody
Keeps.

We wake, you wake
They wake;
A desperate
Mistake.

A dream is pure
And mural,
While living life
Is plural,

And three or four—
Dimensional,
With number and tense
Declensional.

So then I try
To live
In the
Infinitive,

To love, to learn
To die.
No heroine
Am I,

But the subjunctive
Mood
Still offers something
Good—

So, might I, if I,
Should I
By chance, perhaps,
And could I,

Dispense with “if”
And “maybe”—
I’d have a black-eyed
Baby.

Angela Cypher

Reminiscent

When I consider how my life is spent,
I hardly ever repent.

On Ice-Breaking

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

Veracious

Purity
Is obscurity.

Helpful

A good way to forget today’s sorrows
Is by thinking hard about tomorrow’s.

Ogden Nash

I always thought
they were small—
my breasts.

But they filled
my baby’s mouth.
& my lover’s tongue
loves them,
& my memory is
filled with all
the pleasure they gave
over the years,

while my mother’s
100-year-old breasts
still hang
waiting.

For what?
For the tongue
of God?
For the spinning Fates
to release them
into the clouds
so she can remember
how to paint
again?

The sky awaits,
& earth itself.

She used to say,
we all
go back to earth
& become
beautiful tomatoes,
peas, carrots.

She was an
ecologist
before the term
was invented.

O Mother
I love you
despite everything.

Peas, carrots,
cauliflower.
Even cabbage.

Erica Jong

when i was too young,
you saved me from the chaos
of see-through water

i sat on the grass
where you watched me kiss the girl
didn’t i look young?

on the red kayak,
i paddle into the bay
endlessly seasick

i taste the inside
of our big swollen city
learning how to walk

looking for my joy
i swallowed a gold penny
found in your shallows

broke a beer bottle
danced on the sweet amber glass
flew past my curfew

i try to find you
ask geese if you are lonely
they wink and say yes.

Leila Mottley

Nắng đi
để lại chiều tà
Người đi
để lại xót xa một đời
Đêm đi
để lại sương rơi
Tình đi
để lại giọt vài khoé mi…

Thương Anh

I was
You were
He, she, it was

Wait a minute

Why shouldn’t you
also be followed by was?

If I were you
I’d say “was”

But I wasn’t you
I never was
nor will I ever be

In class we chuckled
when we recited “He, she-it is”

and the masculine came first
except when going through a door

Then the word she
went through a door

and into a new world

You wasn’t there

You were “he”
and it kept being “it”

but don’t blame “it”

“It” doesn’t even know it’s there

Ron Padgett

The spelling of 40. We have four and fourteen, and then, for no reason I know of, the u is dropped and we’re left with forty, not to mention the schizophrenic forty-four. Most annoying, as Sei Shōnagon would say.

Ron Padgett

for my husband, twenty-one years my senior

There are so many times
I could have killed you.

After twenty-eight years of marriage—
the only contact sport I’ve ever stuck wit—

I found myself

crying this morning,
after a trip outside,
singing Happy Birthday

three times through,

just to be sure,

scrubbing despite
the sting of my split skin

as I’ve loved you through
even the rub
of the raw years.

I held my hands steady
in the water’s reassuring scald,

trying and trying
to save you.

Francesca Bell