78 Loneliness poems

I am weary of the working, Weary of the long day’s heat; To thy comfortable bosom, Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet? Weary of the long, blind struggle For a pathway bright and high,— Weary of the dimly dying Hopes that never quite all die. Weary searching a bad cipher For a good that must be meant; Discontent with being weary,— Weary with my discontent. I am weary of the trusting Where my trusts but torments prove; Wilt thou keep faith with me? wilt thou Be my true and tender love? I am weary drifting, driving Like a helmless bark at sea; Kindly, comfortable spirit, Wilt thou give thyself to me? Give thy birds to sing me sonnets? Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss? And thy mossy rocks to stand for The memorials of our bliss? I in reverence will hold thee, Never vexed with jealous ills, Though thy wild and wimpling waters Wind about a thousand hills.

One day, chasing my tail here and there, I stopped to catch my breath On some corner in New York, While people hurried past me, All determined to get somewhere, Save a few adrift like lost children. What ever became of my youth? I wanted to stop a stranger and ask. "It went into hiding," said an old woman Who'd read my mind. "Swimming with sharks," a drunk concurred, Fixing me with one bloody eye. It was summer, and then as quietly as  a bird lands, The sidewalks were dusted with snow And I was shivering without a coat. I had hopes we'd meet again, I told myself, Have a drink and recall the nights When we used to paint this town red. I thought you'd be in a straightjacket by now, You'd say to me, Making funny faces at doctors and nurses. Instead, here you are full of fleas, Dodging cars and buses To follow a pair of good-looking legs home. "And you, Judas," I summed the strength to shout, "Will you be coming to my funeral?" But he was gone already. It had gotten late in the day, Very late—and since there was nothing That could be done about it— I thought I'd better toddle along myself.

When I know what people think of me I am plunged into my loneliness.  The grey hat bought earlier sickens. I have no purpose no longer distinguishable. A feeling like being choked enters my throat.

The statue, that cast Of my solitude Has found its niche In this kitchen Where I do not eat Where the bathtub stands Upon cat feet— I did not advance I cannot retreat

I sit in my sorrow a-weary, alone; I have nothing sweet to hope or remember, For the spring o’ th’ year and of life has flown; ’Tis the wildest night o’ the wild December, And dark in my spirit and dark in my chamber. I sit and list to the steps in the street, Going and coming, and coming and going, And the winds at my shutter they blow and beat; ’Tis the middle of night and the clouds are snowing; And the winds are bitterly beating and blowing. I list to the steps as they come and go, And list to the winds that are beating and blowing, And my heart sinks down so low, so low; No step is stayed from me by the snowing, Nor stayed by the wind so bitterly blowing. I think of the ships that are out at sea, Of the wheels in th’ cold, black waters turning; Not one of the ships beareth news to me, And my head is sick, and my heart is yearning, As I think of the wheels in the black waters turning. Of the mother I think, by her sick baby’s bed, Away in her cabin as lonesome and dreary, And little and low as the flax-breaker’s shed; Of her patience so sweet, and her silence so weary, With cries of the hungry wolf hid in the prairie. I think of all things in the world that are sad; Of children in homesick and comfortless places; Of prisons, of dungeons, of men that are mad; Of wicked, unwomanly light in the faces Of women that fortune has wronged with disgraces. I think of a dear little sun-lighted head, That came where no hand of us all could deliver; And crazed with the cruelest pain went to bed Where the sheets were the foam-fretted waves of the river; Poor darling! may God in his mercy forgive her. The footsteps grow faint and more faint in the snow; I put back the curtain in very despairing; The masts creak and groan as th’ winds come and go; And the light in the light-house all weirdly is flaring; But what glory is this, in the gloom of despairing! I see at the window just over the street, A maid in the lamplight her love-letter reading. Her red mouth is smiling, her news is so sweet; And the heart in my bosom is cured of its bleeding, As I look on the maiden her love-letter reading. She has finished the letter, and folding it, kisses, And hides it — a secret too sacred to know; And now in the hearth-light she softly undresses: A vision of grace in the roseate glow, I see her unbinding the braids of her tresses. And now as she stoops to the ribbon that fastens Her slipper, they tumble o’er shoulder and face; And now, as she patters in bare feet, she hastens To gather them up in a fillet of lace; And now she is gone, but in fancy I trace The lavendered linen updrawn, the round arm Half sunk in the counterpane’s broidered roses, Revealing the exquisite outline of form; A willowy wonder of grace that reposes Beneath the white counterpane, fleecy with roses. I see the small hand lying over the heart, Where the passionate dreams are so sweet in their sally; The fair little fingers they tremble and part, As part to th’ warm waves the leaves of the lily, And they play with her hand like the waves with the lily. In white fleecy flowers, the queen o’ the flowers! What to her is the world with its bad, bitter weather? Wide she opens her arms — ah, her world is not ours! And now she has closed them and clasped them together — What to her is our world, with its clouds and rough weather? Hark! midnight! the winds and the snows blow and beat; I drop down the curtain and say to my sorrow, Thank God for the window just over the street; Thank God there is always a light whence to borrow When darkness is darkest, and sorrow most sorrow.

I would like to decorate this silence, but my house grows only cleaner and more plain. The glass chimes I hung over the register ring a little when the heat goes on. I waited too long to drink my tea. It was not hot. It was only warm.

Women who lie alone at midnight because there is no one else to lie to Women who lie alone at midnight at noon in the laundromat destroying their own socks Women who lie alone at midnight: Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates Women who lie alone at midnight as the first furl of starlight pearls the moon with nacre Women who lie alone at midnight sending a postcard bearing the face of a bawling infant who cries “I am for the new” Women who lie alone at midnight reciting the names of shoes Women who lie alone at midnight spurting unjustified tears, the kind that run sideways never reaching the mouth, the kind you cannot swallow Women who lie alone at midnight singing breast away the burden of my tender and afterwards burp Women who lie alone at midnight obeying the laws of physics Women who let their dreams curl at the end Women in a monastery of flamingos Women who die alone at midnight contributing to the end, to lost time, to the rain and flies, seeing the bird they saw trapped in the airport surviving by the water fountain What’s more, try it sometime It works

The fingers lie in the lap, separate, lonely, as in the field the separate blades of grass shrivel or grow tall.

it’s the being alone, i think, the emails but not voices. dominicans be funny, the way we love to touch — every greeting a cheek kiss, a shoulder clap, a loud. it gots to be my period, the bloating, the insurance commercial where the husband comes home after being deployed, the last of the gouda gone, the rejection letter, the acceptance letter, the empty inbox. a dream, these days. to work at home is a privilege, i remind myself. spend the whole fucking day flirting with screens. window, tv, computer, phone: eyes & eyes & eyes. the keys clicking, the ding of the 
microwave, the broadway soundtrack i share wine with in the evenings. these are the answers, you feel me? & the impetus. the why. of when the manicurist holds my hand, making my nails a lilliputian abstract, i close my fingers around hers, disrupting the polish, too tight i know then, too tight to hold a stranger, but she squeezes back & doesn’t let go & so finally i can.

Amid the glare of light and song And talk that knows not when to cease, The sullen voices of the throng, My weary soul cries out for peace, Peace and the quietness of death; The wash of waters deep and cool, The wind too faint for any breath To stir oblivion’s silent pool, When all who swim against the stream, And they that laugh, and they that weep, Shall change like flowers in a dream That wither on the brows of sleep. For silence is the song sublime, And every voice at last must cease, And all the world at evening time Floats downwards through the gates of peace, Beyond the gloom of shadowy caves Where water washes on the stones, And breaks with quiet foamless waves The night’s persistent monotones; The stars are what the flowers seem, And where the sea of thought is deep, The moonlight glitters like a dream, On weary waters gone to sleep.