#what the living do

[orpheuslament]

The Cold Outside, Marie Howe

#marie howe #poetry #words #what the living do #nr

[asoftepiloguemylove]

i don't invent, i don't yearn. i manage, i cope.

@jovialtorchlight / Margaret Atwood Half-Hanged Mary / unknown / unknown / Marie Howe What the Living Do / @/sweatermuppet3.0 (on instagram) / Tony Kushner Angels in America / Fernando Pessoa English Song; A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems

#feeling subhuman tonight #on loneliness #on sadness #on emotion #poetry #words #web weave #web weaving #quote #text #writing #margaret atwood #half hanged mary #marie howe #what the living do #tony kushner #angels in america #fernando pessoa #english song #a little larger than the entire universe #spilled thoughts #spilled poetry #dark academia poetry #dark academia quote #dark academia #spilled ink #poem

[derangedrhythms]

Marie Howe, What the Living Do; from 'Buying the Baby'

#marie howe #what the living do #buying the baby #poetry #excerpts #the holiness and horror of divine things

[woundgallery]

Marie Howe from What The Living Do 

#elegy #death #marie howe #poetry #grief #what the living do #luther #text

[petaltexturedskies]

Early summer evenings, (...) everything blooming, that darkening in the trees before the sky goes dark: the sweetness of the lilacs and the grass smell…

Marie Howe, from Rochester, New York, July 1989 in "What The Living Do: Poems"

#poetry #marie howe #what the living do #txt #summer

[leehallfae]

“i want to write a love poem for the girls i kissed in seventh grade, / a song for what we did on the floor in the basement

of somebody’s parents’ house, a hymn for what we didn’t say but thought: / that feels good or i like that, when we learned how to open each other’s mouths

how to move our tongues to make somebody moan. we called it practicing, and / one was the boy, and we paired off—maybe six or eight girls—and turned out

the lights and kissed and kissed until we were stoned on kisses, and lifted our / nightgowns or let the straps drop, and, now you be the boy […] / we kissed each other’s throats.

we sucked each other’s breasts, and we left marks, and never spoke of it upstairs / outdoors, in daylight, not once.”

— marie howe, “practicing,” what the living do

#my reading #marie howe #words #poetry #poem #what the living do #wlw #lesbian

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those / wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, // I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. / Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

#closed polls #polls #poetry #poems #poetry polls #poets and writing #tumblr poetry #have you read this #what the living do #marie howe #lgbt #lgbt poetry

[twoheadedfather]

"God is as close as the ceiling.

Though no one can ever know, I don't think he has a face. He had a face when I was six and a half. Now he is large, covering up the sky like a great resting jellyfish."

For Eleanor Boylan Talking with God, Anne Sexton

"Sometimes I prayed so hard for God to materialize at the foot of my bed it would start to happen;

then I’d beg it to stop, and it would."

What the Living Do, Marie Howe

#for eleanor boylan talking with god #anne sexton #what the living do #marie howe #poetry #childhood trauma #trauma #childhood abuse

[loveisfounddeepbelow]

Orange

#my brain can only produce very simple heartfelt snapshots of life recently #🥲 #poetry #writing #my writing #original poem #my poem #poem #my poetry #original poetry #what the living do

[embraceyouropacities]

“What the Living Do” — Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless: I am living. I remember you.

#identity #self love #getting through #what the living do #marie howe #bless me anyway #winter #hope

[anouri]

Marie Howe, from What the Living Do: Poems (1999)

#the very act of my wanting it was an assurance that i would not get it #violent feelings are good so i have heard for your health #words #things left unsaid #marie howe #what the living do #is to cherish to destroy? #mine

[orpheuslament]

The Promise, Marie Howe

#marie howe #what the living do #words #poetry #nr

[iwritewhatilike]

“that first summer I lay on the grass above it as if it were / a narrow bed, just my size, and—/ lying on the ground above my brother’s body like a log/ floating on lake water above its own shadow.”

“The Grave”, Marie Howe

#marie howe #poetry #reading #what the living do

[derangedrhythms]

Marie Howe, What the Living Do; from 'Prayer'

#marie howe #what the living do #prayer #poetry #excerpts #name #o

[woundgallery]

Marie Howe from What the Living Do

#marie howe #anything i've ever tried to keep by force i've lost #like a beast with his horn i have torn everyone who reached out to me #poetry #text #what the living do

[faerie-aurora]

"But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless: I am living. I remember you."

-Marie Howe, from What the Living Do

#quote #literature #poem #poetry #marie howe #what the living do #self love #healing