Writing with friends last night we began by tearing out a piece from Poem In Your Pocket: 200 Poems To Read And Carry, which was published in conjuction with The Academy of American Poets. When we do this we release a page from the book and select, take, steal, borrow a line from whatever we’ve torn out. My blind tear is Six Apologies, Lord by Olena Kalytiak Davis. The first three lines belong to her, after that it came from my mind, to my hand, to the page; and so it goes:

I Have Loved My Horrible Self, Lord.

I Rose, Lord, And I Rose, Lord And I

Dropt.

And Dropt what popped a balloon of

me on a needle of some weak judgment

Lord and I adopt a Southern accent each time

I say that word, give that title to any

you know who who passes by, Lord

my Lord, and I dropt that title onto

some invisible thing when I lay myself down

so close to a hurried death

but didn’t know the word and Lord you

were just a general, “Hey, you!” That exclamation point

etched deep, speaking loud in my soul

My Lord I rose into language and

loved and hated my horrible self

my extreme extra-ordinary, familiar

stranger, self who was dropt on me in

my close but no cigar life

ending time, dropt on me as a

kid, this self–my self–and dropt

on me as I dropt and popped out

became a round-headed baby, my Lord

I rose and always questioned that

Gertrude Stein a rose is a rose is a rose

is, where’s the daisy lady? I have loved

and hated my horrible self

Lord in hell and climbing to heaven

on a stack of lawn chairs, emotions

are their frames and they fold fast

and cheap, or hang onto some last

string of, what in your Lordy mind kind

of plastic is that? My Lord my self

I am my own Lord of the land of my

body, my mind, my itty bitty well

cleaned brain

and as it was sucked clean–dusted directly I rose,

Lord, and I dropt into your house.