Poems for Your Life, v.04

Works by Nicole Sealey, Richard Brautigan, Bee Morris, Richard Scott, Joseph Hutchison, Todd Dillard, Leonard Cohen

Dearest,

What does it mean to feel wild in our own skin? How often do we ask ourselves not how we look, but how we love? What might you discover if you asked your body what makes it feral with happiness?

“There is no “supposed to be” in bodies. The question is not size of shape or years of age, or even having two of everything, for some do not. But the wild issue is, does this body feel, does it have right connection to pleasure, to heart, to soul, to the wild? Does it have happiness, joy?”

— Clarissa Pinkola Estés, from Women who Run with the Wolves, c. 1992

Untitled by Elspeth Diederix

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“Who should be happy this time? Who brings cake to whom?” — Nicole Sealey

Even the Gods by Nicole Sealey

This poem appeared in The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named by Nicole Sealey, published by Northwestern University Press, 2016.

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“I want to die / in your yellow hair” — Richard Brautigan

Color As Beginning by Richard Brautigan

This poem appeared in Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt by Richard Brautigan, published by Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1970.

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“…the sky is blue because. / The plants are watered green because. / That silver hair on your head, / so many impossible strands!” — Bee Morris

Lines Composed While Watching My Mother Buy Tomatoes by Bee Morris

This poem appeared in Issue 2 of DEAR Poetry Journal, 2021.

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“being in love with you is fucking awful / cause one day you'll stop breathing” — Richard Scott

Love Version Of by Richard Scott

This poem appeared in Soho by Richard Scott, published by Faber and Faber, 2018.

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“O heart weighed down by so many wings” — Joseph Hutchison

Artichoke by Joseph Hutchison

This poem appeared in The Undersides of Leaves by Joseph Hutchison, published by Wayland Press, 1985.

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“I love flight. I love cages / left wide open. I am not a window. / I could be a window. Open me,” — Todd Dillard

This poem is forthcoming in Ragnorak at the Father-Daughter Dance by Todd Dillard, to be published by Variant Lit.

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“do you think that I would remain in this room, / reciting poems to you, / and making outrageous dreams / with the smallest movements of your mouth?” — Leonard Cohen

These Heroics by Leonard Cohen

This poem appeared in Selected Poems, 1956-1968 by Leonard Cohen, published by Bantam Books, 1971.

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May these poems hold you.

Yours,
T.

— Poems for Your Life, v.04, recorded on 23 January 2025, from Manila.

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