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Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone by Walt Whitman

Roots and leaves themselves alone are these, Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side, Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines, Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen, Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea, to you O sailors! Frost-mellow'd berries and Third-month twigs offer'd fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up, Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are, Buds to be unfolded on the old terms, If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume, to you, If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees.

— Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (26%)

For Him I Sing by Walt Whitman

For him I sing, I raise the present on the past, (As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,) With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws, To make himself by them the law unto himself.

— Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (5%)

The Gift by Mary Oliver

After the wind-bruised sea furrowed itself back into folds of blue, I found in the black wrack

a shell called the Neptune— tawny and white, spherical, with a tail

and a tower and a dark door, and all of it no larger

than my fist. It looked, you might say, very expensive. I thought of its travels

in the Atlantic’s wind-pounded bowl and wondered that it was still intact.

Ah yes, there was that door that held only the eventual, inevitable emptiness.

There’s that—there’s always that. Still, what a house to leave behind! I held it

like the wisest of books and imagined its travels toward my hand. And now, your hand.

— Devotions by Mary Oliver (24%)

City Without Sleep by Federico García Lorca (Nocturne of the Brooklyn Bridge)

No one sleeps in the sky. No one. No one sleeps. The creatures of the moon smell and circle their cabins. Live iguanas will come to bite the men who don't dream and he who flees with broken heart will find on the corners the still, incredible crocodile under the tender protest of the stars.

No one sleeps in the world. No one. No one sleeps. There is a dead man in the farthest cemetery who for three years complains of the dry landscape on his knee; and the boy they buried this morning wept so much they had to call the dogs to quiet him down.

Life is not a dream. Look! We fall down the stairs to eat damp earth or we ascend to the edge of snow with a chorus of dead dahlias. But there's no forgetting, no sleep: living flesh. Kisses bind the lips in a tangle of recent veins and those who suffer, suffer without rest and those who fear death will carry it on their shoulders.

One day horses will live in the taverns and furious ants will attack the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.

Some other day we'll see the resurrection of mounted butterflies and even as we wander through a landscape of gray sponges and mute ships we'll see our ring glow and roses pour forth from our tongue. Look! Those who still bear traces of claw and squall, that boy who cries because he knows nothing of the invention of the bridge or that dead man who has only his head and one shoe, they must be taken to the wall where iguanas and serpents are waiting, where the bear's teeth are waiting, where a child's mummified hand is waiting, and the hair of the camel bristles with a violent blue chill.

No one sleeps in the sky. No one. No one sleeps. But if someone closes his eyes, beat him, my children, beat him! Even if there's a panorama of open eyes and bitter incandescent sores. No one sleeps in the world. No one.

I've already said it. No one sleeps. But if at night someone has an excess of moss on his temples, then open the trap doors so the moon lets him see the false cups, the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

— Poet in New York by Federico García Lorca (Page 63)

Raccoon by Annette C. Boehm

The yolk on the tongue, hen-warm and mellow. As rich as memory milk. In a dream, a spilled yolk means things will be difficult. Raw eggs stand for success, for plans put into motion. Two yolks in one egg: a feast. Not a promise of plenty, a reality. Feel the shell against your paws, the surface neither smooth nor rough. For a moment, you create Schrödinger's henhouse. Then you make your choice.

— The Apidictor Tapes by Annette C. Boehm (Page 28)

I remember lightning.

I remember wild red poppies in Italy.

I remember selling blood every three months on Second Avenue.

I remember a boy I once made love with and after it was all over he asked me if I believed in God.

I remember when I thought that anything old was very valuable.

— I remember by Joe Brainard (Page 20)

Anaphora as Coping Mechanism by Ocean Vuong

Can't sleep so you put on his grey boots—nothing else—& step inside the rain. Even though he's gone, you think, I still want to be clean. If only the rain were gasoline, your tongue a lit match, & you can change without disappearing. If only he dies the second his name becomes a tooth in your mouth. But he doesn't. He dies when they wheel him away & the priest ushers you out of the room, your palms two puddles of rain. He dies as your heart beats faster, as another war coppers the sky. He dies each night you close your eyes & hear his slow exhale. Your fist choking the dark. Your fist through the bathroom mirror. He dies at the party where everyone laughs & all you want is to go into the kitchen & make seven omelets before burning down the house. All you want is to run into the woods & beg the wolf to fuck you up. He dies when you wake & it's November forever. A Hendrix record melted on a rusted needle. He dies the morning he kisses you for two minutes too long, when he says Wait followed by I have something to say & you quickly grab your favorite pink pillow & smother him as he cries into the soft & darkening fabric. You hold still until he's very quiet, until the walls dissolve & you're both standing in the crowded train again. Look how it rocks you back & forth like a slow dance seen from the distance of years. You're still a freshman. You're still terrified of having only two hands. & he doesn't know your name yet but he smiles anyway. His teeth reflected in the window reflecting your lips as you mouth Hello—your tongue a lit match.

— Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong (Page 40)

Instead of Depression by Andrea Gibson

try calling it hibernation. Imagine the darkness is a cave in which you will be nurtured by doing absolutely nothing. Hibernating animals don't even dream. It's okay if you can't imagine spring. Sleep through the alarm of the world. Name your hopelessness a quiet hollow, a place you go to heal, a den you dug, Sweetheart, instead of a grave.

— You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson (Page 32)

The Exchange by May Swenson

Now my body flat, the ground breathes, I'll be the grass.

Populous and mixed is mind. Earth take thought, my mouth be moss.

Field go walking, I a disk will look down with seeming eye,

I will be time and study to be evening. You world, be clock.

I will stand, a tree here, never to know another spot.

Wind be motion, birds be passion, water invite me to your bed.

— Queer Nature by Michael Walsh (Page 283)

You Took the Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston

you took the last bus home don't know how you got it through the door

you're always doing amazing stuff

like the time you caught that train

— You Took the Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston (Page 1)

The Rock by Henri Cole

It's nice to have a lake to love me, which can see under all my disguises— where there is only animal survival and the brutality of the unconscious— and still love me and give me focus and intensity, like a robin listening to dirt for worms (those birds have talents I don't: flying around with one eye closed and half their brain asleep). Alone, I like to swim (with no goggles, cap, or board) out where I can see, high up, the white cedars, and beyond that only the della Robbia blue. On the other shore, a white pelican sits on a rock, and, sometimes, feeding him— beside the sign that says: DO NOT FEED THE PELICAN— I think about all the dogmas and traditions that are like well-made beds, with fitted sheets and tucked-in hospital corners, to die in. On my rock, it's as if everything is lit from below or from within. There's no hierarchy with pelican, water, rock, cedar, sky, and me. A sense that all's right with the world prevails here— and some kind of rock language, with crude dents pressing my flesh, and little fishes kissing my submerged feet.

— Queer Nature by Michael Walsh (Page 76)

I Know My Soul by Claude McKay

I plucked my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body quivering in space, A spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored it to determine why This awful key to my infinity Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace. And if the sign may not be fully read, If I can comprehend but not control, I need not gloom my days with futile dread, Because I see a part and not the whole. Contemplating the strange, I'm comforted By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.

— Queer Nature by Michael Walsh (Page 192)

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

— Devotions by Mary Oliver (Page 347)

Drift by Ada Limón

Some blur of a bird makes a kid-like laugh out of sea air and we, heart-hardy, kick a crack-up back at it like the opposite of throwing stones. Like releasing tiny hot air balloons up, moon-bound and hell-bent on defying the usual gravity of this spin. Sky, here, we toss a bone into your open endlessness, the sound of crackle, a timbre of animal-warmth. Oh let us be a bird flying wholly for the sake of flying, to be that breath- machine that even the anchored earth-bound wavers want to root for, want to look up and say, Rally, rally, win.

— Bright dead things by Ada Limón (Page 71)