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If I Could Blame It On All The Mothers And Fathers Of The World, They Of The Lessons, The Pellets Of Power, They Of The Love Surrounding You Like Batter ... Blame It On God Perhaps? He Of The First Opening That Pushed Us All Into Our First Mistakes? No, I'll Blame It On Man For Man Is God And Man Is Eating The Earth Up Like A Candy Bar And Not One Of Them Can Be Left Alone With The Ocean For It Is Known He Will Gulp It All Down. The Stars (possibly) Are Safe. At Least For The Moment. The Stars Are Pears That No One Can Reach, Even For A Wedding. Perhaps For A Death.

-Anne Sexton

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If I Could Blame

Anne Sexton

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If I Could Blame It On All The Mothers And Fathers Of The World, They Of The Lessons, The Pellets Of Power, They Of The Love Surrounding You Like Batter ... Blame It On God Perhaps? He Of The First Opening That Pushed Us All Into Our First Mistakes? No, I'll Blame It On Man For Man Is God And Man Is Eating The Earth Up Like A Candy Bar And Not One Of Them Can Be Left Alone With The Ocean For It Is Known He Will Gulp It All Down. The Stars (possibly) Are Safe. At Least For The Moment. The Stars Are Pears That No One Can Reach, Even For A Wedding. Perhaps For A Death.

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I'm The Crazy One Who Thinks That Words Reach People.

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Sorrow Is Easier Than Guilt.

Rocks Crumble, Make New Forms, Oceans Move The Continents, Mountains Rise Up And Down Like Ghosts Yet All Is Natural, All Is Change.

Do You Like Me?” No Answer. Silence Bounced, Fell Off His Tongue And Sat Between Us And Clogged My Throat. It Slaughtered My Trust. It Tore Cigarettes Out Of My Mouth. We Exchanged Blind Words, And I Did Not Cry, I Did Not Beg, But Blackness Filled My Ears, Blackness Lunged In My Heart, And Something That Had Been Good, A Sort Of Kindly Oxygen, Turned Into A Gas Oven.

God Owns Heaven But He Craves The Earth.

Frog Has No Nerves. Frog Is As Old As A Cockroach. Frog Is My Father's Genitals. Frog Is A Malformed Doorknob. Frog Is A Soft Bag Of Green.

So I Won't Hang Around In My Hospital Shift, Repeating The Black Mass And All Of It. I Say Live, Live Because Of The Sun, The Dream, The Excitable Gift.

You Cutting The Lawn, Fixing The Machines, All This Leprous Day And Then More Vodka, More Soda And The Pond Forgiving Our Bodies, The Pond Sucking Out The Throb.

I Am In My Own Mind. I Am Locked In The Wrong House.

I'm An Empress. I Wear An Apron. My Typewriter Writes. It Didn't Break The Way It Warned. Even Crazy, I'm As Nice As A Chocolate Bar.

In A Letter (no Matter How Quickly It Is Written Or Honestly Or Freely Or Lovingly) It Is More Possible To Be Loving And Lovable, More Possible To Reach Out And To Take In ... I Feel I Have Somehow Deceived You Into Thinking This Is Really A Human Relationship. It Is A Letter Relationship Between Humans.

All I Wanted Was A Little Piece Of Life, To Be Married, To Have Children.... I Was Trying My Damnedest To Lead A Conventional Life, For That Was How I Was Brought Up, And It Was What My Husband Wanted Of Me. But One Can't Build Little White Picket Fences To Keep The Nightmares Out.

All I Am Is The Trick Of Words Writing Themselves.

Bless All Useful Objects, The Spoons Made Of Bone, The Mattress I Cook My Dreams Upon, The Typewriter That Is My Church With An Altar Of Keys Always Waiting.

And Thus Snow White Became The Prince's Bride. The Wicked Queen Was Invited To The Wedding Feast And When She Arrived There Were Red-hot Iron Shoes, In The Manner Of Red-hot Roller Skates, Clamped Upon Her Feet.

I Am Not Lazy. I Am On The Amphetamine Of The Soul. I Am, Each Day, Typing Out The God My Typewriter Believes In.

Earth, Earthriding Your Merry-go-roundtoward Extinction,right To The Rootsthickening The Oceans Like Gravy,festering In Your Caves,you Are Becoming A Latrine.

Now I Am Going Back And I Have Ripped My Hand From Your Hand As I Said I Would And I Have Made It This Far.

I've Grown Tired Of Love You Are The Trouble With Me I Watch You Walk Right By

Inside Many Of Us Is A Small Old Man Who Wants To Get Out.

Please God, We're All Right Here. Please Leave Us Alone. Don't Send Death In His Fat Red Suit And His Ho-ho Baritone.

I Have A Black Look I Do Not Like. It Is A Mask I Try On. I Migrate Toward It And Its Frog Sits On My Lips And Defecates.

Unless I Can Shake Myself Free Of My Dog, My Flag, Of My Desk, My Mind, I Find Life A Bit Of A Drag. Not Always, Mind You. Usually I'm Like My Frying Pan Useful, Graceful, Sturdy And With No Caper, No Plan.

Don’t Worry If They Say You’re Crazy. They Said That About Me And Yet I Was Saner Than All Of Them. I Knew. No Matter. You Know. Insane Or Sane, You Know. It’s A Good Thing To Know - No Matter What They Call It.

I Am Stuffing Your Mouth With Your Promises And Watching You Vomit Them Out Upon My Face.

Watch Out For Intellect, Because It Knows So Much It Knows Nothing And Leaves You Hanging Upside Down, Mouthing Knowledge As Your Heart Falls Out Of Your Mouth.

It Is June. I Am Tired Of Being Brave.

The Little Girl Skipped By Under The Wrinkled Oak Leaves And Held Fast To A Replica Of Herself.

Put Your Mouthful Of Words Away And Come With Me To Watch The Lilies Open In Such A Field, Growing There Like Yachts, Slowly Steering Their Petals Without Nurses Or Clocks.

Every Time I Get Happy The Nana-hex Comes Through. Birds Turn Into Plumber's Tools, A Sonnet Turns Into A Dirty Joke, A Wind Turns Into A Tracheotomy, A Boat Turns Into A Corpse.

This Is No Dream Just My Oily Life Where The People Are Alibis And The Street Is Unfindable For An Entire Lifetime.

I Tell You What You’ll Never Really Know: All The Medical Hypothesis That Explained My Brain Will Never Be As True As These Struck Leaves Letting Go.

To Tell The Truth Days Are All The Same Size And Words Aren't Much Company.

Telling The Truth

O Fallen Angel, The Companion Within Me, Whisper Something Holy Before You Pinch Me Into The Grave.

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I Am Younger Each Year At The First Snow.

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You Must Be A Poet, A Lady Of Evil Luck Desiring To Be What You Are Not, Longing To Be What You Can Only Visit.

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Not That It Was Beautiful, But That I Found Some Order There.

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Let God Be Some Tribal Female Who Is Known But Forbidden.

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I Am Torn In Two But I Will Conquer Myself.

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A Woman Who Writes Feels Too Much.

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The Body Is A Damn Hard Thing To Kill.

The Tongue, The Chinese Say, Is Like A Sharp Knife: It Kills Without Drawing Blood.

My Eyes, Those Sluts, Those Whores, Would Play No More.

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Let There Be A Heaven So That Man May Outlive His Grasses.

The Future Is A Fog That Is Still Hanging Out Over The Sea, A Boat That Floats Home Or Does Not.

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Though Rain Curses The Window Let The Poem Be Made.

I Was Only Sitting Here In My White Study With The Awful Black Words Pushing Me Around.

It Is A Dead Heart. It Is Inside Of Me. It Is A Stranger Yet Once It Was Agreeable, Opening And Closing Like A Clam.

... Man Is Eating The Earth Up Like A Candy Bar.

Our Children Tremble In Their Teen-age Cribs, Whirling Off On A Thumb Or A Motorcycle.

Craft Is A Trick You Make Up To Let You Write The Poem.

O Starry Night, This Is How I Want To Die

No Matter Whose Bed You Die In The Bed Will Be Yours For Your Voyage Onto The Surgical Andiron Of God.

Be Careful Of Words, / ... They Can Be Both Daisies And Bruises.

It's A Little Mad, But I Believe I Am Many People. When I Am Writing A Poem, I Feel I Am The Person Who Should Have Written It.

Take A Woman Talking, Purging Herself With Rhymes, Drumming Words Out Like A Typewriter, Planting Words In You Like Grass Seed. You'll Move Off.

I’ll Put It Out There: I Am Scarred By The Nostalgic Indicipherability Of My Own Desires; I An Engulfed By The Intimidating Unknown, Pushed Through Darkness And Dragged Down By The Irretrievable Past Sweetness Of My Memories.

Cinderella And The Prince Lived, They Say, Happily Ever After, Like Two Dolls In A Museum Case Never Bothered By Diapers Or Dust, Never Arguing Over The Timing Of An Egg, Never Telling The Same Story Twice.

I Want To Kiss God On His Nose And Watch Him Sneeze And So Do You. Not Out Of Disrespect. Out Of Pique. Out Of A Man-to-man Thing.

Blind With Love, My Daughter Has Cried Nightly For Horses, Those Long-necked Marchers And Churners That She Has Mastered, Any And All, Reigning Them In Like A Circus Hand.

Yes I Try To Kill Myself In Small Amounts, An Innocuous Occupation. Actually I'm Hung Up On It.

I Am Tearing The Feathers Out Of The Pillows, Waiting, Waiting For Daddy To Come Home And Stuff Me So Full Of Our Infected Child That I Turn Invisible, But Married, At Last.

Meanwhile In My Head, I’m Undergoing Open-heart Surgery.

We Talked Death With Burned-up Intensity, Both Of Us Drawn To It Like Moths To An Electric Light Bulb. Sucking On It!

Somebody Who Should Have Been Born Is Gone. Yes, Woman, Such Logic Will Lead To Loss Without Death. Or Say What You Meant, You Coward . . . This Baby That I Bleed.

Fear / A Motor, / Pumps Me Around And Around / Until I Fade Slowly.

The Marriage Twists, Holds Firm, A Sailor's Knot.

This Is What Poems Are: With Mercy For The Greedy, They Are The Tongue's Wrangle, The World's Pottage, The Rat's Star.

What A Lay Me Down This Is With Two Pink, Two Orange, Two Green, Two White Goodnights.

Fee-fi-fo-fum - Now I'm Borrowed. Now I'm Numb.

God Has A Brown Voice, As Soft And Full As Beer.

Oh Sharp Diamond, My Mother! I Could Not Count The Cost Of All Your Faces, Your Moods That Present That I Lost. Sweet Girl, My Deathbed, My Jewel-fingered Lady...

Poets Are Sitting In My Kitchen. Why Do These Poets Lie? Why Do Children Get Children And Did You Hear What It Said?

Women Tell Time By The Body. They Are Like Clocks. They Are Always Fastened To The Earth, Listening For Its Small Animal Noises.

Rejoice With The Day Lily For It Is Born For A Day To Live By The Mailbox And Glorify The Roadside

Look To Your Heart That Flutters In And Out Like A Moth. God Is Not Indifferent To Your Need. You Have A Thousand Prayers But God Has One.

I Would Sell My Life To Avoid The Pain That Begins In The Crib With Its Bars Or Perhaps With Your First Breath When The Planets Drill Your Future Into You.

I Am Not At Home In Myself. I Am My Own Stranger.

There Is Rust In My Mouth,the Stain Of An Old Kiss.

Then All This Became History. Your Hand Found Mine. Life Rushed To My Fingers Like A Blood Clot. Oh, My Carpenter, The Fingers Are Rebuilt. They Dance With Yours.

Psychiatry Is A Dirty Mirror.

Evil Is Maybe Lying To God. Or Better, Lying To Love.

Jewels! Today Each Twig Is Important, Each Ring, Each Infection, Each Form Is All That The Gods Must Have Meant.

I Would Like To Think That No One Would Die Anymore If We All Believed In Daisies But The Worms Know Better, Don't They? They Slide Into The Ear Of A Corpse And Listen To His Great Sigh.

But My Future Is A Secret. / It Is As Shy As A Mole.

I Like You; Your Eyes Are Full Of Language." [letter To Anne Clarke, July 3, 1964.]

I Think It Will Be A Miracle If I Don't Someday End Up Killing Myself.

Suicide Is, After All, The Opposite Of The Poem.

I See Myself As One Would See Another. I Have Been Cut In Two.

Even Without Wars, Life Is Dangerous.

Today Life Opened Inside Me Like An Egg.

Once I Was Beautiful. Now I Am Myself, Counting This Row And That Row Of Moccasins Waiting On The Silent Shelf.

I Wonder If The Artist Ever Lives His Life--he Is So Busy Recreating It.

The Silence Is Death. It Comes Each Day With Its Shock To Sit On My Shoulder, A White Bird, And Peck At The Black Eyes And The Vibrating Red Muscle Of My Mouth.

The Future Is A Fog That Is Still Hanging Out Over The Sea, A Boat That Floats Home Or Does Not. The Trade Winds Blow Me, And I Do Not Know Where The Land Is; The Waves Fold Over Each Other; They Are In Love With Themselves; Sleeping In Their Own Skin; And I Float Over Them And I Do Not Know About Tomorrow.

She Suffers According To The Digits Of My Hate. I Hear The Filaments Of Alabaster. I Would Lie Down With Them And Lift My Madness Off Like A Wig. I Would Lie Outside In A Room Of Wool And Let The Snow Cover Me. Paris White Or Flake White Or Argentine, All In The Washbasin Of My Mouth, Calling “oh.” I Am Empty. I Am Witless. Death Is Here. There Is No Other Settlement.

My Safe, Safe Psychosis Is Broken. It Was Hard. It Was Made Of Stone. It Covered My Face Like A Mask. But It Has Cracked.

All The Oxygen Of The World Was In Them. All The Feet Of The Babies Of The World Were In Them. All The Crotches Of The Angels Of The World Were In Them. All The Morning Kisses Of Philadelphia Were In Them.

I Must Always Forget How One Word Is Able To Pick Out Another, To Manner Another, Until I Have Got Something I Might Have Said... But Did Not.

In An Old Time There Was A King As Wise As A Dictionary.

My Faith Is A Great Weight Hung On A Small Wire, As Doth The Spider Hang Her Baby On A Thin Web.

Thief!- How Did You Crawl Into, Crawl Down Alone Into The Death I Wanted So Badly And For So Long.

The Snow Has Quietness In It; No Songs, No Smells, No Shouts Or Traffic. When I Speak My Own Voice Shocks Me.

In A Dream You Are Never Eighty.

One Of My Secret Instructions To Myself As A Poet Is "whatever You Do, Don't Be Boring."

All Day I've Built A Lifetime And Now The Sun Sinks To Undo It.

I Think Of Myself As Writing For One Person, That One Perfect Reader Who Understands And Loves.

We Do Not Explain My Husband's Insane Abuse And We Do Not Say Why Your Wild-haired Wife Has Fled Or That My Father Opened Like A Walnut And Then Was Dead. Your Palms Fold Over Me Like Knees. Love Is The Only Use.

The Town Is Silent. The Night Boils With Eleven Stars. Oh Starry Starry Night! This Is How I Want To Die.

Women Are Born Twice.

Stop The Darkness And Its Amputations And Find The Real Mccoy In The Private Holiness Of My Hands.

My Heart Is On A Budget. It Keeps Me On The Brink.

My Husband Sings Baa Baa Black Sheep And We Pretend That All's Certain And Good, That The Marriage Won't End.

The Place I Live In Is A Kind Of Maze And I Keep Seeking The Exit Or The Home.

My Mouth Blooms Like A Cut.

I'll Vacuum Up My Stale Hair, I'll Pay All My Neighbors' Bad Debts, I'll Write A Poem Called Yellow And Put My Lips Down To Drink It Up.

It's All A Matter Of History. Brandy Is No Solace. Librium Only Lies Me Down Like A Dead Snow Queen. Yes! I Am Still The Criminal.

I Will Be Steel! I Will Build A Steel Bridge Over My Need! I Will Build A Bomb Shelter Over My Heart! But My Future Is A Secret. It Is As Shy As A Mole.

I Can Only Sign Over Everything, The House, The Dog, The Ladders, The Jewels, The Soul, The Family Tree, The Mailbox. Then I Can Sleep. Maybe.

My Business Is Words. Words Are Like Labels, Or Coins, Or Better, Like Swarming Bees.

Home Is My Bethlehem, My Succoring Shelter, My Mental Hospital, My Wife, My Dam, My Husband, My Sir, My Womb, My Skull.

Need Is Not Quite Belief.

The Grass As Bristly And Stout As Chives And Me Wondering When The Ground Will Break And Me Wondering How Anything Fragile Survives

Think Of Innocent Icarus Who Is Doing Quite Well: Larger Than A Sail, Over The Fog And The Blast Of The Plushy Ocean, He Goes. Admire His Wings!

I Hoard Books. They Are People Who Do Not Leave.

Loving Me With My Shoes Off Means Loving My Long Brown Legs, Sweet Dears, As Good As Spoons; And My Feet, Those Two Children Let Out To Play Naked.

I Burn The Way Money Burns.

Of Course The New Testament Is Very Small. Its Mouth Opens Four Times As Out-of-date As A Prehistoric Monster, Yet Somehow Man-made.

Oh Thumb, I Want A Drink It Is Dark, Where Are The Big People, When Will I Get There...?

Someone Is Dead. Even The Trees Know It, Those Poor Old Dancers Who Come On Lewdly, All Pea-green Scarfs And Spine Pole.

Bike Downtown, Stick Out Tongues At The Catholics. Or Form A Piss Club Where We All Go In The Bushes And Peek At Each Other's Sex.

Blue Eyes Wash Off Sometimes.

Mood Can Be As Important As Sense.

I Cannot Walk An Inch / Without Trying To Walk To God.

The Windows, The Starving Windows That Drive The Trees Like Nails Into My Heart.

Thumbs Grow Into My Throat. I Wear Slaps Like A Spot Of Rouge.

As A Writer One Has To Take The Chance On Being A Fool.

Our Checks Are Pale. Our Wallets Are Invalids. Past Due, Past Due, Is What Our Bills Are Saying And Yet We Kiss In Every Corner, Scuffing The Dust And The Cat. Love Rises Like Bread As We Go Bust.

The Witch's Life" When I Was A Child There Was An Old Woman In Our Neighborhood Whom We Called The Witch. All Day She Peered From Her Second Story Window From Behind The Wrinkled Curtains And Sometimes She Would Open The Window And Yell: Get Out Of My Life! She Had Hair Like Kelp And A Voice Like A Boulder. I Think Of Her Sometimes Now And Wonder If I Am Becoming Her.

As For Me, I Am A Watercolor. I Wash Off.

Poems Aren't Postcards To Send Home.

Now, In My Middle Age, About Nineteen In The Head I'd Say, I Am Rowing, I Am Rowing.

I Would Like A Simple Life / Yet All Night I Am Laying / Poems Away In A Long Box.

I Brush My Hair, Waiting In The Pain Machine For My Bones To Get Hard, For The Soft, Soft Bones That Were Laid Apart And Were Screwed Together. They Will Knit. And The Other Corpse, The Fractured Heart, I Feed It Piecemeal, Little Chalice. I'm Good To It.

Watch Out For Love (unless It Is True, And Every Part Of You Says Yes Including The Toes), It Will Wrap You Up Like A Mummy, And Your Scream Won't Be Heard And None Of Your Running Will Run.

Despite My Asbestos Gloves, The Cough Is Filling Me With Black, And A Red Powder Seeps Through My Veins.

Nature Is Full Of Teeth That Come In One By One, Then Decay, Fall Out.

Then God Spoke To Me And Said: People Say Only Good Things About Christmas. If They Want To Say Something Bad, They Whisper.

God Went Out Of Me As If The Sea Dried Up Like Sandpaper, As If The Sun Became A Latrine. God Went Out Of My Fingers. They Became Stone. My Body Became A Side Of Mutton And Despair Roamed The Slaughterhouse.

Sometimes The Soul Takes Pictures Of Things It Has Wished For, But Never Seen.

I Remember The Stink Of The Liverwurst. How I Was Put On A Platter And Laid Between The Mayonnaise And The Bacon. The Rhythm Of The Refrigerator Had Been Disturbed.

Perhaps I Am No One. True, I Have A Body And I Cannot Escape From It. I Would Like To Fly Out Of My Head, But That Is Out Of The Question.

The Sky Breaks. It Sags And Breathes Upon My Face. In The Presence Of Mine Enemies, Mine Enemies The World Is Full Of Enemies. There Is No Safe Place.

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