in the end

we

as in you and me

were never

meant to be

Courtney Peppernell

. . . Forever And Ever, Amen  —George Miksch Sutton A very little time shall pass --- A white-crowned sparrow’s song or two, a rustle in the grass ---- Ere I shall die: ere that which now is grief and sense of loss And emptiness unbearable shall vanish As curved reflections vanish with the shattering of a glass. By the wind I shall be scattered Up and down the land, By strong waves strewn along the farthest shore; No part of the dear world shall I not reach and, reaching, understand, No thing that I have loved shall I not love the more. No leaf of sedge nor cattail blade shall push Up from the dark mud toward the open sky But I shall be there, in the tender tip, Experiencing the steady surge of growing. No drop of water shall move upward, cell by cell, No sunlight fall on any opening fern, No breeze send waves across the yellowing grain, But I shall be there, intimately learning All that all things know and, knowing all, discerning The full significance of suffering and pain. No bird of passage shall fly north or south Breasting the stiff wind or pushing through the fog But I shall be there, feeling the deep urge That drives it otherwhere at summer’s ending, And otherwhere once more with spring’s return; Ever so thoroughly I shall learn The signs a bird must travel by, The many ways in which a bird can die.

Knowing the fierce drive of hunger, Day after day, season after season, brown in summer, white in winter, With the slender weasel I shall hunt, and with the rabbit die --- I at the place where the sharp white teeth Pierce the skin and the tearing hurts, I, too, shivering while the hot blood spurts. No vainly croaking, vainly struggling frog shall feel The water snake’s inexorable jaws Moving over and round it, slowly engulfing it But I shall be there struggling too, and crying An anguished, futile protest against dying. With the snake too I shall die: Clutched by sharp talons, borne swiftly upward from the shallow creek, I shall look down bewildered and surprised By this new aspect of a familiar place, Writhing, twisting, striking at the claws which hold me fast I shall feel the hooked beak closing on my neck at last. With the hawk, too, I shall die: I shall feel the hot sting of shot, the loss of power, the sudden collapse, The falling downward through unsupporting space, The last swift rush of air past my face. No creature the world over shall experience love, Drying its wings impatiently while clinging to the old cocoon, Leaping the swollen waterfall, yapping to the desert moon, Looping the loop above some quaking bog, Pounding out drum-music from some rotting log, But I shall be there in each sound and move --- Now with the victor, now with the vanquished, Now in the parted mouth, now in the feet, Now in the lifted nose, now in the bloodstream, Now in the pounding heart’s accelerated beat --- Experiencing the tender, quiet joy of mating, And blinding ecstasy of procreating.

A thousand thousand times I shall suffer pain, And that will be a mere beginning. A thousand thousand times I shall die, Yet never finally, never irrevocably, Always with enough left of life to start again: to be born, To grow, give battle, win, lose, laugh, cry, sing, and mourn, To love, hate, admire, and despise, Never quite losing the feeling of surprise That it is good to live and die; Learning to forget the word “finally,” Learning to unlearn the word “ultimately,” Learning, the long stretch of eternity having just begun, That joy, gladness, grief, and suffering are one.

[from Audubon magazine (September, 1985, pp. 86-87). If the poem is quoted, it should be in its entirety with full credit to George Miksch Sutton.]

what's love without pain?

what's patience without gain?

hearts are severed,

and we are still tethered,

my love for you knows no bounds,

it blossoms, even from anguish, so I've found,

it leaves me with no time to mope,

for in my soul, there is still winged hope.

favorite thing ab chatgpt is that if it doesn’t know something it’ll just start fucking lying. like blatantly fucking lying.

my dad teaches english classes and he just got a final paper with this sentence: “In terms of style, both poets are known for their use of imagery, but O'Hara's tends to be more straightforward and concrete, while Stevens' is often more abstract and metaphorical — for example, in O'Hara's poem "The French / Window," he writes: "A cat walks along the garden wall / and the tree waves its branches / The French / windows are blah" (lines 1-4).”

the thing about “The French / Window” is that it is not a poem that exists. at all. like, it was literally just written by chatgpt then inexplicably named as a famous frank o’hara poem. and it’s so. fucking. funny. sooo basically heads up for finals season — those of you who use chatgpt, be warned, because you will quite literally be citing nonexistent texts and your professors will show it to their daughters and together they will laugh at you endlessly and you will deserve it

When I die can you rip my chest open and let flowers grow from there. I want to be as unnoticeable as a possum dead in a cornfield. Only the vultures know that I am dead. They give me a new name. Life giver, savior, I feed the vultures with my flesh and the flowers intertwine with my bones. I am home to the maggots they live where my eyes were and they will soon grow into adults then they will die also. I do not want to be put inside a pine box where I will benefit no one. I will be visited for two weeks and then forgot about. I do not want to be cremated and scattered about or work around someone's neck. Do not remember me when I'm gone. Forget about me and live because I am dead. When you read my most intimate words and you think about how little you knew about me. Do not feel bad I showed you the parts that I could control.

"Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway."

Edgar Allan Poe

Toad, Norman MacCaig

Published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Birlinn, 2011)

Blessed Be by Sol Rios, published in Ghost of my Ghosts

Paruyr Sevak, "To Go Mad" (translated by metamorphesque)

I love you, I’m glad I exist

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY ACE!!

Support me on ko-fi! ♥

"The language of flowers and silent things."

– Charles Baudelaire, from Elevation; Fleurs Du Mal (tr. by William Aggeler), 1857

poem: "accident report in the tall, tall weeds" by ada limón