For Three Poets
Denis Johnson
Saturday’s catastrophe hit the skids when the sunrise petered out
and joy crashed there like he said and ended
you bloodied, selfish man, we thank you
that supper of molded rubber
smells of cancer and discipline
but a voice sympathetic as a snare
eyes like reveille
feed
you never tasted better
we slunk for you
sterile and fearless
Frank O’Hara
I’d like to think he wasn’t drunk
but had had enough of fear
and impossible indemnity
a pale starfish on the cool sand
arms and legs adequate, undefended
against the eternal night everywhere
and as his joy rises and the black sand
accepts a faint glow, with the all he opens
and is certain:
life can run you over like an incalculable bastard
life neither cares nor doesn’t if you live
with that fear or if you don’t
Rachel Wetzsteon
Simple,
each morning is
a new breath, a small light
gently nudging my pretend death
awake.
I rise
so the day will
know I care, know I try
to meet its loveliness again.
I try
to let
it breathe for me,
to me, its respiring
is me and my air only its,
I know,
but it’s
rough, feels forced, this
remembering always,
never coming naturally
like light
or joy
in the morning
outside of me, where I
can’t quite believe in teacups and
rainstorms,
simple
things to hold dear.
I try to let them help
but there’s no end it seems to the
trying.