Shut up

Go ahead, throw words 
and words and words 
over me until I am covered. 
A strong wind comes-
they blow away. 
Save me the trouble
of sneezing from the dust 
of your pointless particles, 
your endless verbage. 
Verbs are action words for a reason. 
Action speaks more to me 
than your cheap, cloying, meaningless cliches. 
I'm closing my ears 
and opening my eyes 
to SEE what you are really saying. 

jkc 2010

The Dream

Illustration: Where Have All Your Dreams Gone by Joel Robison

The Dream

LOVE, if I weep it will not matter,

And if you laugh I shall not care;

Foolish am I to think about it,

But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, --

White and awful the moonlight reached

Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,

There was a shutter loose, -- it screeched!

Swung in the wind, -- and no wind blowing! --

I was afraid, and turned to you,

Put out my hand to you for comfort, --

And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,

Under my hand the moonlight lay!

Love, if you laugh I shall not care,

But if I weep it will not matter, --

Ah, it is good to feel you there!

Ashes of Life

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;

Eat I must, and sleep I will, -- and would that night were here!

But ah! -- to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!

Would that it were day again! -- with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;

This or that or what you will is all the same to me;

But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, --

There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,

And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, --

And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow

There's this little street and this little house.




Edna St. Vincent Millay