Gee, You’re So Beautiful that it’s Starting to Rain
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:
Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A
Computer Magic
A
Writing Letters to Those You Love
A
Finding out about Fish
A
Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty
A+!
- Richard Brautigan, For Tom, Submitted by: Heather White
“when the last tree has withered, the last fish has been caught, and the last river’s been poisoned, will man realize we cannot eat money?”
Below Freezing
We are at a party that doesn’t love us. Finally the party lets the mask fall and
shows what it is: a shunting station for freight cars. In the fog cold giants
stand on their tracks. A scribble of chalk on the car doors.
One can’t say it aloud, but there is a lot of repressed violence here.
That is why the furnishings seem so heavy. And why it is so difficult to see
the other thing present: a spot of sun that moves over the house walls and
slips over the unaware forest of flickering faces, a biblical saying never set
down: “Come unto me, for I am as full of contradictions as you.”
I work the next morning in a different town. I drive there in a hum
through the dawning hour that resembles a dark blue cylinder. Orion hangs
over the frost. Children stand in a silent clump, waiting for the school bus,
the children no one prays for. The light grows gradually as our hair
-Tomas Tranströmer, For Tess, Submitted by: Heather White
