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What I Read in the Waiting Room of Hell

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From the Tongues of Angels

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April 09, 2005

Comments

Amanda Marcotte

I'm in a playful poetry mood today. That's why I put up a sexy O'Hara poem on Pandagon. But I couldn't resist putting up "The Day Lady Died"--which means that now I am obligated to listen to Billie Holiday. Everything, with me, goes back to music.

ae

I'm with Amanda on being in a music mood, and one of the songs from last night always just kicks my ass when I hear it. I love the lyric:

When they call your name
Will you walk right up?
With a smile on your face?
Or will you cower in fear
In your favorite sweater
With an old love letter?

I wish you would
I wish you would

Come pick me up
Take me out
Fuck me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends
They’re all full of shit
With a smile on your face
And then do it again

I wish you would

Puts me on the floor every time.

Kate S.

I'd like to dedicate this poem by Margaret Atwood to the new bride and groom:

You Fit Into Me

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

bitchphd

this one.

The Heretik

this one above is this one by billy collins

The Best Cigarette

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

periangel

CHOICES by Nikki Giovanni

if i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

it's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

if i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

when i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry

Idyllopus

By Odysseus Elytis

THE ORANGE GIRL

She became so intoxicated by the sun's juice
That she bowed her head and consented
Slowly slowly to become: the small Orange Girl!

And so while the seven skies glittered with blue
And so while the crystals touched a fire
And so while swallow tails flashed
Angels above were bewildered and girls below
Storks above were bewildered and peacocks below
And all gathered together and all saw her together
And all together called her: the Orange Girl!

Vineshoots and scorpions reel drunkenly the whole world is drunk
But the sting of day will not leave pain alone
What is the dwarf heron saying amid the worms
What does the plop of water say amid golden moments
And what does the dew say to the lips of the good North Wind.

Get up O small small small Orange Girl!
No one knows you as the kiss knows you
Nor does the laughing god know you
Who with his hand open to the flaming gare of the sun
Exposes you naked before the thirty-two winds!

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