First, from Tony Hoagland's "Two Trains":
What grief it is to love some people like your own
blood, and then to see them simply disappear;
to feel time bearing us away
And sometimes, sitting in my chair
I can feel the absence stretching out in all directions--
and also the last line of Steve Almond's "My Life in Heavy Metal":
It is in these moments of tender and ridiculous nostalgia that I know something inside me is still broken.
Yes.
Is the Hoagland line from Donkey or Narcisissm?
ReplyDeleteThat line from Heavy Metal gets me too. That book is one of a select few short story collections that just kill me every time I read it. Thanks for the last couple of posts, X. They've been wonderful.
Viva olive burgers,
D
Narcissism ... toward the end.
ReplyDeleteViva olive burgers ... on pumpernickel buns.
Tell me a sad story. This "cry" I need isn't coming out.
ReplyDeleteI'm cry constipated.
Ah but I think we're all missing the most important Hoagland poem of all:
ReplyDeleteReasons to Survive November
I know there are some people out there
who think I am supposed to end up
in a room by myself
with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
a locked door and my slack mouth open
like a disconnected phone.
But I hate those people back
from the core of my donkey soul
and the hatred makes me strong
and my survival is their failure,
and my happiness would kill them
so I shove joy like a knife
into my own heart over and over
and I force myself toward pleasure
and I love this November life
where I run like a train
deeper and deeper
into the land of my enemies.
That one's printed out and hanging above my bathroom mirror.
ReplyDelete