ali.

:: BOOKMARKS :: main: blackcoffeebitch.tumblr.com

[rivetingrosie4]

"Oranges" - Gary Soto, June 1983

one of my very favorite poems. that last line slays me. it has stayed with me for years and years.

[mildlydiscouraging]

[ID: The aforementioned poem in its entirety, which reads:

"The first time I walked / With a girl, I was twelve, / Cold, and weighted down / With two oranges in my jacket. / December. Frost cracking / Beneath my steps, my breath / Before me, then gone, / As I walked toward / Her house, the one whose / Porchlight burned yellow / Night and day, in any weather. / A dog barked at me, until / She came out pulling / At her gloves, face bright / With rouge. I smiled, / Touched her shoulder, and led / Her down the street, across / A used car lot and a line / Of newly planted trees, / Until we were breathing / Before a drug store. We / Entered, the tiny bell / Bringing a saleslady / Down a narrow aisle of goods. / I turned to the candies / Tiered like bleachers, / And asked what she wanted— / Light in her eyes, a smile / Starting at the corners / Of her mouth. I fingered / A nickel in my pocket, / And when she lifted a chocolate / That cost a dime, / I didn't say anything. / I took the nickel from / My pocket, then an orange, / And set them quietly on / The counter. When I looked up, / The lady's eyes met mine, / And held them, knowing / Very well what it was all / About.

"Outside, / A few cars hissing past, / Fog hanging like old / Coats between the trees. / I took my girl's hand / In mine for two blocks, / Then released it to let / Her unwrap the chocolate. / I peeled my orange / That was so bright against / The gray of December / That, from some distance, / Someone might have thought / I was making a fire in my hands."

End of description.]

[rivetingrosie4]

"Oranges" - Gary Soto, June 1983

one of my very favorite poems. that last line slays me. it has stayed with me for years and years.

[mildlydiscouraging]

[ID: The aforementioned poem in its entirety, which reads:

"The first time I walked / With a girl, I was twelve, / Cold, and weighted down / With two oranges in my jacket. / December. Frost cracking / Beneath my steps, my breath / Before me, then gone, / As I walked toward / Her house, the one whose / Porchlight burned yellow / Night and day, in any weather. / A dog barked at me, until / She came out pulling / At her gloves, face bright / With rouge. I smiled, / Touched her shoulder, and led / Her down the street, across / A used car lot and a line / Of newly planted trees, / Until we were breathing / Before a drug store. We / Entered, the tiny bell / Bringing a saleslady / Down a narrow aisle of goods. / I turned to the candies / Tiered like bleachers, / And asked what she wanted— / Light in her eyes, a smile / Starting at the corners / Of her mouth. I fingered / A nickel in my pocket, / And when she lifted a chocolate / That cost a dime, / I didn't say anything. / I took the nickel from / My pocket, then an orange, / And set them quietly on / The counter. When I looked up, / The lady's eyes met mine, / And held them, knowing / Very well what it was all / About.

"Outside, / A few cars hissing past, / Fog hanging like old / Coats between the trees. / I took my girl's hand / In mine for two blocks, / Then released it to let / Her unwrap the chocolate. / I peeled my orange / That was so bright against / The gray of December / That, from some distance, / Someone might have thought / I was making a fire in my hands."

End of description.]

[potatoesandsunshine]

everything u need to know about me can actually be explained by the fact that i read that poem about the serving girl wearing the pearls so they're warm for her mistress when i was like 11 and it rewrote my brain chemistry forever

like this Changed Me

[geryone]

Red Ocher, Jessica Poli

[letsbelonelytogetherr]

“You're asking me what I want for breakfast and I'm telling you about how when the worst thing happened, I didn't even cry. You're handing me a receipt from the laundromat down the street and I'm passing you a bundle of letters that I wrote to God when I was fourteen and scared. You're passing me the milk after you drip it into your coffee and I'm half laughing about the psychiatrist's office and how there's actually a couch and it's made of blue tweed. You're trying to do the normal things and I am throwing up dull pieces of truth onto our kitchen table. I can't lie anymore. These are the things I've done and they're mostly sad. These are the places I've been and they're mostly awful. This life has woven itself into the notches of my spine and I hear it creak every time I stand.”

— Fortesa Latifi; Dull Pieces Of Truth

[ophanic]

[cidyy]

[Text ID: Bible Study

BY TONY HOAGLAND

Who would have imagined that I would have to go a million miles away from the place where I was born to find people who would love me?

And that I would go that distance and that I would find those people?

In the dream JoAnne was showing me how much arm to amputate

if your hand gets trapped in the gears of the machine;

if you acted fast, she said, you could save everything above the wrist.

You want to keep a really sharp blade close by, she said.

Now I raise that hand to scratch one of those nasty little

scabs on the back of my head, and we sit outside and watch

the sun go down, inflamed as an appendicitis

over western Illinois - which then subsides and cools into a smooth gray sea.

Who knows, this might be the last good night of summer. My broken nose is forming an idea of what's for supper. Hard to believe that death is just around the corner. What kind of idiot would think he even had a destiny?

I was on the road for so long by myself,

I took to reading motel Bibles just for company.

Lying on the chintz bedspread before going to sleep,

still feeling the motion of the car inside my body,

I thought some wrongness in my self had made me that alone.

And God said, You are worth more to me

than one hundred sparrows.

And when I read that, I wept.

And God said, Whom have I blessed more than I have blessed you?

And I looked at the mini bar

and the bad abstract hotel art on the wall

and the dark TV set watching like a deacon.

And God said, Survive. And carry my perfume among the perishing.

End ID.]

[feral-ballad]

June Gehringer, “I get so jealous of euthanized dogs”

[Text ID: “the worst thing about love is / i remember it. / i walk around all day / thinking: i’m going to die / in the universe / you loved me in.”]

[ezrapoundinthetardis-blog]

Diane di Prima

[nightlament]

ursula k. le guin, the lathe of heaven

[kafk-a]

Ada Limón

[kvothes]

marie howe, in an interview with krista tippett of on being

[cadmiumluna]

[Ms. Tippett: What do you mean? What is the assignment? 10 observations of their actual world?

Ms. Howe: Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.

Ms. Tippett: It does.]

[beguines]

Amy Hempel, "Cloudland", Sing to It

[feral-ballad]

Aria Aber, from Hard Damage; “Rilke and I”

[Text ID: “Whether you want it or not, in you sleeps a woman of war,”]

[wingful]

a mary oliver quote that peeled me like a fruit

[remains-of-theday]

[girlfictions]

jenny zhang, in an interview with thora siemsen

[heartshop]

Renee Engeln, Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women

[luthienne]

Anne Carson, from Plainwater: Essays and Poetry; "The Anthropology of Water"

[Text ID: Every line of his body is an iron hoop through me. Who can take on the diabolical in another human? Can you? Could you have comforted him?]