Nothing by Design Read Online Free PDF

algae, a few dead frogs and bugs,
    however things stood last August.
    Eons ago. Before I knew.
    Another creaky door now, to the gazebo.
    An icicle crashes from the roof
    as I lower myself
    into a plastic Adirondack chair.
    Our view: three mountains, shy and local,
    that spoke a little of yearning; of gratitude.
    Mosquitoes got in through these screens.
    And wasps would hover
    near nests stuck to the beams and rafters
    like harmless mischief; like wads of chewing gum.
    There was laughter up here, iced tea, beer.
    Paper-plate family meals, tête-à-têtes,
    and silent reading alone, and sunsets
    one shouldn’t see alone. And a husband
    who’d walk up and knock, a little joke,
    before he’d let himself in.
    I see him smiling. He asks how I am.
    He’s wrapped in a towel; he’s been in the pool,
    he’s dripping on the floor, we chat,
    we’re the luckiest couple you’ve ever met.
    But it’s December. And the dripping now
    is the sound of melting icicles
    sharpening into knives.

DRINKING SONG
    He lay with me upon a time,
    sweet it was and lemon-lime.
    Wedding ring and ringing bell,
    Champagne was it never hell.
    Coffee tea and morning toast,
    none loved more and love was most.
    Up we dressed for dinner out,
    Prozac and Prosecco, doubt.
    Peace in time and time to seethe.
    Open wine and let it breathe.
    Mix up our imperfect match:
    dry martini, olive branch.
    Jesus, who agreed the whore
    he shall have with him always more?
    Econo Lodge and Scottish Inn,
    vodka, orange, scotch, and gin.
    Years and years they met by day,
    nights and nights forgot away
    till the thing had not occurred.
    Whiskey, whisper not a word.
    What knows who was laced with truth,
    shaken cocktail? Twist of ruth?
    Panic and alarm creep back,
    Ativan and Armagnac.
    In my mind the slipping gears.
    In our come-cries down the years
    sometimes was love not sublime?
    Another round, and hold the crime.

COMPLAINT FOR ABSOLUTE DIVORCE
    A little something to endorse:
    Download attachment, print and sign
    Complaint for Absolute Divorce ,
    the lawyer wrote with casual force.
    Yet why complain? The suit was mine.
    A little something to endorse
    “Complaint”: sheer poetry, of course,
    more lofty than Lament or Whine.
    Complaint for Absolute Divorce:
    so well-phrased, who could feel remorse?
    That “Absolute” was rather fine.
    A little something to endorse
    the universe as is: for worse,
    for better. Nothing by design.
    Complaint for Absolute Divorce,
    let me salute you, sole recourse!
    I put my birth name on the line—
    a little something—and endorse
    the final word, then, in “Divorce.”

BED OF LETTERS
    Propped like a capital
    letter at the head
    of what was once our bed,
    or like a letterhead—
    as if your old address
    were printed on my face—
    I’m writing you this note
    folded in sheets you lay
    on then, but sleeplessly
    night after night, a man
    whose life became about
    the fear of being found out.
    Rarely a cross word
    between us, although today
    I see the printer’s tray
    of your brain, the dormant type
    sorted in little rooms
    to furnish anagrams,
    fresh headlines, infinite
    new stories in nice fonts.
    Give her what she wants ,
    you must have thought, and brought
    home seedlings to transplant
    in flower beds, unmeant
    to bloom into such tall
    tales—which even you
    can’t unsay or undo.
    And yet it’s true that long
    ago, two lovers dozed
    naked and enclosed
    one history between covers.
    We woke and, shy and proud,
    read our new poems aloud.

VI
 
    THE SEAFARER
a version from the Anglo-Saxon

THE SEAFARER
    I can sing my own true story
    of journeys through this world,
    how often I was tried
    by troubles. Bitterly scared,
    I would be sick with sorrow
    on my night watch as I saw
    so many times from the prow
    terrible, tall waves
    pitching close to cliffs.
    My feet were frozen stiff,
    seized and locked by frost,
    although my heart was hot
    from a host of worries.
    A hunger from within
    tore at my mind, sea-weary.
    But men on solid ground
    know