Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Artifice

The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
- Marge Piercy

Saturday, May 6, 2017

No One Knows

why am i the last to hear?
why am i the last to see?
everyone knows more then me
and its me they know about
why do they talk then lie?
i dont even know them
it hurts to know they use me for intertainment [sic]
im just something to look at
why cant they just let me be me?
thats all i want i mean who know life was this hard?
if i had i would have ended it a long time ago
- anna sprague, "Who Know?"