Tag: longing

“Ray Bradbury is Dead,” Lewis Mundt

This morning, Ray Bradbury is dead
and there is only soy milk at my coffee shop.
I do not know which to be more sad about,
that my body and I are suddenly uncomfortable
or that a man I have never met, far away,
has stopped breathing.

My heartbeat
will end one day.
It is a miracle it’s lasted this long,
not because I have wished it otherwise,
but because my car keeps overheating.

My car is huge
compared to my heart.

A writing prompt,
given to me on a bicycle ride last week:
“What is the most dangerous thing you’ve done lately,
and why?”

I climbed the Pillsbury building,
because I wanted to, because I could,
or because I was bored, or because I know how,
because I know that wearing dark blue at night
makes you look like a cloud.

Ray Bradbury’s heart is not beating anymore.

The Pillsbury building is so big
compared to his heart,

but this morning he is dead
and there is only soy milk at my coffee shop.

“[What lips my lips have kissed],” Edna St. Vincent Mallay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before.
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.