Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it has once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray. It must have got tired of the soul's constant nagging and whining and the anxiety-driven intellectual web-spinning of the mind, distracting it whenever it was getting its teeth into something juicy or its fingers into something good. It had dumped the other two back there somewhere, leaving them stranded in some damp sanctuary or stuffy lecture hall while it made a beeline for the topless bars, and it had dumped culture along with them: music and painting and poetry and plays. Sublimation, all of it; nothing but sublimation, according to the body. Why not cut to the chase?

But the body had its own cultural forms. It had its own art. Executions were its tragedies, pornography was its romance.

...

How could I have been so stupid?

No, not stupid. He can't describe himself, the way he's been. Not unmarked - events had marked him, he'd had his own scars, his dark emotions. Ignorant, perhaps. Unformed, inchoate.

There had been something willed about it though, his ignorance. Or nor willed, exactly: structured. He'd grown up in walled spaces, and then he had become one. He had shut things out.

~ Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

Dieu a tout fait de rien. Mais le rien perce.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

~ Paul Valéry

"Final Notations" Adrienne Rich

it will not be simple, it will not be long
it will take little time, it will take all your thought
it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
it will be short, it will not be simple

it will touch through your ribs, it will take all your heart
it will not be long, it will occupy your thought
as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied
it will take all your flesh, it will not be simple

You are coming into us who cannot withstand you
you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you
you are taking parts of us into places never planned
you are going far away with pieces of our lives

it will be short, it will take all your breath
it will not be simple, it will become your will

~ Adrienne Rich, "Final Notations"

"Things Shouldn't Be So Hard," Kay Ryan

A life should keep deep tracks: ruts where she went out and back to get the mail or move the hose around the yard; where she used to stand before the sink, a worn-out place. Beneath her hand, the china knobs rubbed down to white pastilles. The switch she used to feel for in the dark almost erased.

Her things should keep her marks. The passage of a life should show; it should abrade. And when life stops, a certain space, however small, should be left scarred by the grand and damaging parade. Things shouldn't be so hard.

~ Kay Ryan, "Things Shouldn't Be So Hard"

"Traveling" Stephen Dunn

If you travel alone, hitchhiking,
sleeping in woods,
make a cathedral of the moonlight
that reaches you, and lie down in it.
Shake a box of nails
at the night sounds
for there is comfort in your own noise.
And say out loud:
somebody at sunrise be distraught
for love of me,
somebody at sunset call my name.
There will soon be company.
But if the moon clouds over
you have to live with disapproval.
You are a traveler,
you know the open, hostile smiles
of those stuck in their lives.
Make a fire.
If the Devil sits down, offer companionship,
tell her you've always admired
her magnificent, false moves.
Then recite the list
of what you've learned to do without.
It is stronger than prayer.


~ Stephen Dunn, "Traveling"

"Trapped" Adelaide Crapsey

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

~ Adelaide Crapsey, "Trapped"

"Insomnia" Alicia Ostriker

But it's really fear you want to talk about
and cannot find the words
so you jeer at yourself


you call yourself a coward
you wake at 2 a.m. thinking failure,
fool, unable to sleep, unable to sleep


buzzing away on your mattress with two pillows
and a quilt, they call them comforters,
which implies that comfort can be bought

and paid for, to help with the fear, the failure
your two walnut chests of drawers snicker, the bookshelves mourn
the art on the walls pities you, the man himself beside you


asleep smelling like mushrooms and moss is a comfort
but never enough, never, the ceiling fixture lightless
velvet drapes hiding the window


traffic noise like a vicious animal
on the loose somewhere out there—
you brag to friends you won't mind death only dying


what a liar you are—
all the other fears, of rejection, of physical pain,
of losing your mind, of losing your eyes,


they are all part of this!
Pawprints of this! Hair snarls in your comb
this glowing clock the single light in the room


~ Alicia Ostriker, "Insomnia"