Pimping my friends

You know how sometimes when you're sad, you want to listen to sad music? Tonight when my Sunday blues hit but good, I decided to read some sad poems instead. And wow, were they ever sad. I'm excerpting below in case anyone else out there is in need of some cathartic crying. These sad, sad poems are from the elegiac Rising by Farrah Field and City of Moths by Sampson Starkweather, both of which I picked up at AWP (the books, not the authors). I highly recommend both in full (the books, and the authors).

Murder, An Ancient Mystery
[by Farrah Field]

What did you do today
and my self said my sister died.

A fist is a fist and blood spurts out the mouth
when the face is hit. I asked myself:

why does everything have to be about this.
Sonny said he'd rub my back. Sonny said

he thought it best not to say her name.
Grave markers don't come automatically.

There's a placard until the ordered stone
arrives with its ridiculous border

and raised words. Then it sinks enough
for a groundskeeper to mow it over without stopping.





from City of Moths
[by Sampson Starkweather]

The Queen's relationship with the King varies depending on the source of the story. In some, she loved him dearly. In others, she was portrayed as his unwilling prisoner in the Qua, or as a cruel, selfish woman who brought disaster to everyone around her. What we do know, is in the summer they met, they were constantly surrounded by water, a blessing, a gift, but of course it couldn't protect them from everything, unless, you think that it really could protect them from everything?