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Dave Bonta
war though it be
I have myself an if
an owl is not fit
to see green
or we to see which
tomorrow we conceive
The day on which I was born,
The day on which I will die,
The people whom raised me,
The places where I reside,
The schools where I was a student,
The classes which I attended,
The extracurricular activities I took part in,
The degrees that I earned,
Where I was employed,
For whom I worked,
How long my stay was,
My ultimate career path,
The jokes to which I laugh,
The music that I enjoy,
The trips that I took,
It was all predestined,
Every second I spend
debating about a choice
is a second less to live
with the consequences,
if I chose wrong
'choose.' i said, 'me or her.'
but it wasn't that simple
not for you
it wasn't coke or pepsi
cats or dogs
sun or rain
it was the difference between 'i love you' and 'i need you'
soft goodnight kisses or rough morning sex
big smiles and tenderness and a girl that just made you so happy
or late nights and alcohol and a girl that made you feel alive
so when i said, 'choose.'
when i said, 'me or her.'
you looked at me like i was asking you the most unfair question in the world
you said, 'i love you,'
and my heart fell on cracked pavement
broke right down the middle
It wasn't her fault.
None of it was.
The grades gone wrong.
And he blamed 'that boy'.
'Its not him'
She said through the tears.
'You have a choice' he bellowed.
'Fine I choose him'.
Those words now haunt him.
Taunt him.
Day and night.
His little girl grew up.
In one day.
'Why?' He asked
'Oh the choices I gave'.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
She drags her rusty kneeler as way opens
amid plants knee high, wetting her blue
trousers in dew, as clouds decide
to open or not, as the morning star
recedes and hides itself, with a sliver
of new moon, in day. Poppies
have not yet awakened, nor daisies.
She kneels and kneels again, eyeing
potato vines, chard, kale, spinach, beets
to see are they hiding pretenders beneath
their skirts: thistle, geranium, nipplewort,
even nascent blackberries, ash trees, an oak.
Most of all, she seeks out bindweed, a long
vine snaking from place to place, climbing,
smothering fruitful things. She knows
she's prejudiced, but her rationale is:
The mountain green at my right :
The sunlight yellow at my left :
The laughing winds pass between,
The river white at my left :
The flowers red at my right :
The laughing girls go between.
The clouds sail away at my right ;
The birds flap down at my left :
The laughing moon appears between.
I turned left to the dale of poem ;
I turned right to the forest of Love :
But I hurry Home by the road between.
They offer you many things,
I a few.
Moonlight on the play of fountains at night
With water sparkling a drowsy monotone,
Bare-shouldered, smiling women and talk
And a cross-play of loves and adulteries
And a fear of death
and a remembering of regrets
All this they offer you.
I come with:
salt and bread
a terrible job of work
and tireless war;
Come and have now:
hunger.
danger
The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.
Choose :
For we meet by one or the other.
The world's light shines, shine as it will,
The world will love its darkness still.
I doubt though when the world's in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well.
The first Day that I was a Life
I recollect it -- How still --
That last Day that I was a Life
I recollect it -- as well --
'Twas stiller -- though the first
Was still --
"Twas empty -- but the first
Was full --
This -- was my finallest Occasion --
But then
My tenderer Experiment
Toward Men --
"Which choose I"?
That -- I cannot say --
"Which choose They"?
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