Why Are Your Poems So Dark? by Linda Pastan
"When God demanded light, / he didn't banish darkness." – Linda Pastan
He Said Turn Here by Dean Young
"where he had thrown some of his sadness last summer / and it had dissolved like powder" – Dean Young
The Obligation to Be Happy by Linda Pastan
"Happiness. I try to hoist it / on my narrow shoulders again—" – Linda Pastan
Clenched Soul by Pablo Neruda
"Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly / when I am sad and feel you are far away?" – Pablo Neruda
Melancholia by Charles Bukowski
"I have gotten so used to melancholia / that / I greet it like an old / friend" — Charles Bukowski
Lessons from a Revolution by Ramón C. Sunico
“All pain / blinds. / All pain / is intimate.” — Ramón C. Sunico