78 Loneliness poems

Toward what island-home am I moving, not wanting to marry, not wanting too much of that emptiness at evening, as when I walked through a field at dusk and felt wide in the night. And it was again the evening that drew me back to the field where I was most alone, compassed by stems and ruts, no light of the fixed stars, no flashing in the eyes, only heather pared by dry air, shedding a small feathered radiance when I looked away, an expanse whose deep sleep seemed an unending warren I had been given, to carry out such tasks— that I might find nothing dead. And it was again the evening that drew me back to the field where I could sense no boundary— the smell of dry earth, cool arch of my neck, the darkness entirely within myself. And when I shut my eyes there was no one. Only weeds in drifts of stillness, only stalks and gliding sky. Come, black anchor, let us not be harmed. The deer leafing in the dark. The old man at the table, unable to remember. The children whose hunger is just hunger, and never desire.

Well and If day on day Follows, and weary year On year. . and ever days and years. . Well?

Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know. But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour— Oh! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain— Oh might our marges meet again! Who order'd, that their longing's fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd? Who renders vain their deep desire?— A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

You are riding the bus again burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80, the sole passenger with an overhead light on. And I am with you. I’m the interminable fields you can’t see, the little lights off in the distance (in one of those rooms we are living) and I am the rain and the others all around you, and the loneliness you love, and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe, and the catastrophic dawn, the nicotine crawling on your skin— and when you begin to cough I won’t cover my face, and if you vomit this time I will hold you: everything’s going to be fine I will whisper. It won’t always be like this. I am going to buy you a sandwich.

I have seen the proudest stars That wander on through space, Even the sun and moon, But not your face. I have heard the violin, The winds and waves rejoice in endless minstrelsy, Yet not your voice. I have touched the trillium, Pale flower of the land, Coral, anemone, And not your hand. I have kissed the shining feet Of Twilight lover-wise, Opened the gates of Dawn— Oh not your eyes! I have dreamed unwonted things, Visions that witches brew, Spoken with images, Never with you.

Moved all the way here to watch television alone, swallowed by the grim news grinning. Fuck a five year plan, first one passes through Tiananmen the gate of heavenly peace, emptied public square finery in summer, purple cupping red azaleas Happy birth upon a time, Nation! Reveling in my love for him coquettish worried, approaching paranoia for the home country removed that June The cropped photo best dilated in our pockets black and white It was a long hard road continuously reading analysis metrics, my father knew a guy worked in sales, was there and saw them roll in like nothing else Black pillars to the effective dispersal I felt nothing pulling from the airport’s narrowing gate In the photo we still get perfectly centered Longview the idiot’s consumption guide, naturally then my love for was only

I will not wash my face; I will not brush my hair; I "pig" around the place — There's nobody to care. Nothing but rock and tree; Nothing but wood and stone; Oh God, it's hell to be Alone, alone, alone. Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws Corral me in a ring. I feel as if I was The only living thing On all this blighted earth; And so I frowst and shrink, And crouching by my hearth, I hear the thoughts I think. I think of all I miss — The boys I used to know; The girls I used to kiss; The coin I used to blow: The bars I used to haunt; The racket and the row; The beers I didn't want (I wish I had 'em now). Day after day the same, Only a little worse; No one to grouch or blame — Oh, for a loving curse! Oh, in the night I fear, Haunted by nameless things, Just for a voice to cheer, Just for a hand that clings! Faintly as from a star Voices come o'er the line; Voices of ghosts afar, Not in this world of mine. Lives in whose loom I grope; Words in whose weft I hear Eager the thrill of hope, Awful the chill of fear. I'm thinking out aloud; I reckon that is bad; (The snow is like a shroud) — Maybe I'm going mad. Say! wouldn't that be tough? This awful hush that hugs And chokes one is enough To make a man go "bugs". There's not a thing to do; I cannot sleep at night; No wonder I'm so blue; Oh, for a friendly fight! The din and rush of strife; A music-hall aglow; A crowd, a city, life — Dear God, I miss it so! Here, you have moped enough! Brace up and play the game! But say, it's awful tough — Day after day the same (I've said that twice, I bet). Well, there's not much to say. I wish I had a pet, Or something I could play. Cheer up! don't get so glum And sick of everything; The worst is yet to come; God help you till the Spring. God shield you from the Fear; Teach you to laugh, not moan. Ha! ha! it sounds so queer — Alone, alone, alone.

Through the window screen I can see an angle of grey roof and the silence that spreads in the branches of the pecan tree as the sun goes down. I am waiting for a lover. I am alone in a solitude that vibrates like the cicada in hot midmorning, that waits like the lobed sassafras leaf just before its dark green turns into red, that waits like the honeybee in the mouth of the purple lobelia. While I wait, I can hear the random clink of one fork against a plate. The woman next door is eating supper alone. She is sixty, perhaps, and for many years has eaten by herself the tomatoes, the corn and okra that she grows in her backyard garden. Her small metallic sound persists, as quiet almost as the windless silence, persists like the steady random click of a redbird cracking a few more seeds before the sun gets too low. She does not hurry, she does not linger. Her younger neighbors think that she is lonely. But I know what sufficiency she may possess. I know what can be gathered from year to year, gathered from what is near to hand, as I do elderberries that bend in damp thickets by the road, gathered and preserved, jars and jars shining in rows of claret red, made at times with help, a friend or a lover, but consumed long after, long after they are gone and I sit alone at the kitchen table. And when I sit in the last heat of Sunday, afternoons on the porch steps in the acid breath of the boxwoods, I also know desolation. The week is over, the coming night will not lift. I am exhausted from making each day. My family, my children live in other states, the women I love in other towns. I would rather be here than with them in the old ways, but when all that’s left of the sunset is the red reflection underneath the clouds, when I get up and come in to fix supper, in the darkened kitchen I am often lonely for them. In the morning and the evening we are by ourselves, the woman next door and I. Still, we persist. I open the drawer to get out the silverware. She goes to her garden to pull weeds and pick the crookneck squash that turn yellow with late summer. I walk down to the pond in the morning to watch and wait for the blue heron who comes at first light to feed on minnows that swim through her shadow in the water. She stays until the day grows so bright that she cannot endure it and leaves with her hunger unsatisfied. She bows her wings and slowly lifts into flight, grey and slate blue against a paler sky. I know she will come back. I see the light create a russet curve of land on the farther bank, where the wild rice bends heavy and ripe under the first blackbirds. I know she will come back. I see the light curve in the fall and rise of her wing.

It was a singles cruise but it wasn’t a singles cruise: each participant simulated detachment but none was actually single. Some, like the recently widowed, were attached to ghosts. Others were legally attached to a living person they once but no longer loved. A surprising number loved their partners profoundly while fearing said partners inhabited the category of those who loved them no longer. These participants, whose fears may or may not have been founded, attempted to self-protect by labeling themselves single. Soon a pattern emerged: those who feared abandonment developed around them a planetary-like orbit of potential new partners to whom they could not attach because they were already attached. Such orbits lasted, sometimes, for years. The orbiters went to self-help groups and/or analysts and/or wrote letters to advice columnists. Because they could not detach from their objects of unrequited affection, they became the predominant clientele for future singles cruises, unilaterally sustaining the singles cruise business.

The easiest sadness is a boy Watching another boy Walk with a barefooted girl, clean Perfect feet, that kind of nose, Eyes like those he’s dreamed In the dream that comes back. A boy watching another boy lucky Gets an ache That is a small motor. In me there is an animal, And in that animal There is a hunger. I remember the boy Watching a boy. It was me. Watching, I was a little bit The boy walking. I was both of us. That’s how it felt. What I could not have, That’s what I was Inside, an ache Coming as I stood Too many places.