Walking, Blues by Jane Mead
"The voice / said walk or die, I / walked,—the train // and the voice all / blurry." — Jane Mead
Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
"I was much too far out all my life / And not waving but drowning." — Stevie Smith
I Say I Say I Say by Simon Armitage
"Come clean, come good, / repeat with me the punch line 'Just like blood'" — Simon Armitage
Autumn by Charles Baudelaire
"It was summer yesterday; now it's autumn. / Echoes of departure keep resounding in the air." — Charles Baudelaire
Wanting to Die by Anne Sexton
"To thrust all that life under your tongue!— / that, all by itself, becomes a passion." — Anne Sexton
The Holes by Stephen Berg
"Where does everything go when it comes in? / What should I do with the pure speech of cells / where we find ourselves?" — Stephen Berg
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden
"Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, / Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;" — W. H. Auden