Some of the Questions to Consider

 

Is it better to offer your heart to the wolf or wait for the wolf to tear it out of you? It's hard to know which is worse, the nightmare of approaching tornadoes or waking from the dream your parents were alive in. Enter the ominous music announcing the shark. It is best to disappear into one's work. Best to be ceaselessly drunk, Baudelaire suggested, mentioning other things besides wine but most people ignored that part, because who wants to be drunk on virtue? Misreadings are best. Misunderstandings are also best but to be misunderstood is not the goal. I don't need drugs, I am drugs, Dali famously said, and drew his wife's face exploding into spheres. What do all these wildflowers mean? Just look, said a famous American painter who, drunk, drove his convertible off the road into the trees and flew headfirst into an oak. We're all afloat in the same solution. Would you like to trade some molecules with me? Better to sketch a few atoms than fire neutrons at them to create a chain reaction. The adult human body contains 7 octillion atoms and one picnic table. Is it time to go? Not yet, not yet. Let's meet for an aperitivo. Let's build a pineapple from all this fresh snow.   --Kim Addonizio

Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free (Montreux 1976)

Small Axe (1992) - Bob Marley & The Wailers

Gene Wilder - Final Monologue (Rhinoceros - 1974) (Berenger/Stanley)

Leonard Cohen - Anthem (Live in London)

How to Apologize

Cook a large fish—choose one with many bones, a skeleton
you will need skill to expose, maybe the flying
silver carp that's invaded the Great Lakes, tumbling
the others into oblivion. If you don't live
near a lake, you'll have to travel.
Walking is best and shows you mean it,
but you could take a train and let yourself
be soothed by the rocking
on the rails. It's permitted
to receive solace for whatever you did
or didn't do, pitiful, beautiful
human. When my mother was in the hospital,
my daughter and I had to clear out the home
she wouldn't return to. Then she recovered
and asked, incredulous,
How could you have thrown out all my shoes?
So you'll need a boat. You could rent or buy,
but, for the sake of repairing the world,
build your own. Thin strips
of Western red cedar are perfect,
but don't cut a tree. There'll be
a demolished barn or downed trunk
if you venture further.
And someone will have a mill.
And someone will loan you tools.
The perfume of sawdust and the curls
that fall from your plane
will sweeten the hours. Each night
we dream thirty-six billion dreams. In one night
we could dream back everything lost.
So grill the pale flesh.
Unharness yourself from your weary stories.
Then carry the oily, succulent fish to the one you hurt.
There is much to fear as a creature
caught in time, but this
is safe. You need no defense. This
is just another way to know
you are alive.

--Ellen Bass

 

Berlin, 1932