Robert Louis Stevenson
"Foreign Lands"
Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.
I saw the next-door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.
I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sun's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people trampling into town.
If I could find a higher tree,
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sun among the ships.
To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy-land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.
"Foreign Lands"
Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.
I saw the next-door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.
I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sun's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people trampling into town.
If I could find a higher tree,
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sun among the ships.
To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy-land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.
- Mood:
tired
Hey, I'm looking for a poem - it was a translation and one line in particular, stood out for me: "Poetry, you put storms to good use". Other than that, the poem has completely slipped my memory. I'd appreciate any help I can get.
After Battle
Karen Lepri
As after battle, we examine each other’s skin, trace the surface
From shoulder to shoulder and then down the spine, to the calf
And returning to the chest, its cavity & beat:
You are here
Amazingly whole. What you lost, undetectable. We have
Already forgotten the epithets of insult blazoned
On our brows. The high points have turned dull in the eaves
Of purpose, memory: ears tune forward. Somehow, injured
We become most familiar, sub-species unto sub
Species, and then peculiar. What ordinary causes of war
We weave into tales of centaurs, imps, & other
Animals. What makes us human is not enough to explain
The anger love breeds. The narrow stretches that pump to
And fro the heart. Entering & leaving, the blood warms. The heat,
Both plot & message: o the sweat I wipe away, the sweat
You wipe away.
After Battle
Karen Lepri
As after battle, we examine each other’s skin, trace the surface
From shoulder to shoulder and then down the spine, to the calf
And returning to the chest, its cavity & beat:
You are here
Amazingly whole. What you lost, undetectable. We have
Already forgotten the epithets of insult blazoned
On our brows. The high points have turned dull in the eaves
Of purpose, memory: ears tune forward. Somehow, injured
We become most familiar, sub-species unto sub
Species, and then peculiar. What ordinary causes of war
We weave into tales of centaurs, imps, & other
Animals. What makes us human is not enough to explain
The anger love breeds. The narrow stretches that pump to
And fro the heart. Entering & leaving, the blood warms. The heat,
Both plot & message: o the sweat I wipe away, the sweat
You wipe away.
Truth is:
I was always that kind of girl.
Truth is:
they don't make dresses any whiter than
mine.
Truth is:
I am not Demeter's daughter.
I am Heisenberg's ripe tomato
I am Niels Bohr's piece on the side.
In the winter I am a particle.
In the summer I am a wave.
And I didn't get to be queen of hell
by letting folks off easy.
I was always that kind of girl.
Truth is:
they don't make dresses any whiter than
mine.
Truth is:
I am not Demeter's daughter.
I am Heisenberg's ripe tomato
I am Niels Bohr's piece on the side.
In the winter I am a particle.
In the summer I am a wave.
And I didn't get to be queen of hell
by letting folks off easy.
Everyday I rewrite her name across my ribcage
so that those who wish to break my heart
will know who to answer to later
She has no idea that I’ve taught my tongue to make pennies,
and every time our mouths are to meet
I will slip coins to the back of her throat and make wishes
I wish
that someday
my head on her belly might be like home
like doubt to doubt resuscitation
because time is supposed to mean more than skin
She doesn’t know that I have taught my arms to close around her clocks
so they can withstand the fallout from her Autumn
She is so explosive,
volcanoes watch her and learn
terrorists want to strap her to their chests
because she is a cause worth dying for
Maybe someday
time will teach me to pick up her pieces
put her back together
and remind her to click her heels
but she doesn’t need a wizard to tell her that I was here all along
Lady
let us catch the next tornado home
let us plant cantaloupe trees in our backyard
then maybe together we will realize that we don’t like cantaloupe
and they don’t grow on trees
we can laugh about it
then we can plant things we’ve never heard of
I’ve never heard of a woman
who can make flawed look so beautiful
the way you do
The word smitten is to how I feel about you
what a kiss is to romance
so maybe my lips to yours could be the penance to this confession
because I am the only one preaching your defunct religion
sitting alone at your altar, praising you out of faith
I cannot do this hard-knock life alone
You are all the softness a rock dreams of being
the mistakes the rain makes at picnics
when Mother Nature bears witness in much better places
So yes
I will gladly take on your ocean
just to swim beneath you
so I can kiss the bends of your knees
in appreciation for the work they do
keeping your head above water
so that those who wish to break my heart
will know who to answer to later
She has no idea that I’ve taught my tongue to make pennies,
and every time our mouths are to meet
I will slip coins to the back of her throat and make wishes
I wish
that someday
my head on her belly might be like home
like doubt to doubt resuscitation
because time is supposed to mean more than skin
She doesn’t know that I have taught my arms to close around her clocks
so they can withstand the fallout from her Autumn
She is so explosive,
volcanoes watch her and learn
terrorists want to strap her to their chests
because she is a cause worth dying for
Maybe someday
time will teach me to pick up her pieces
put her back together
and remind her to click her heels
but she doesn’t need a wizard to tell her that I was here all along
Lady
let us catch the next tornado home
let us plant cantaloupe trees in our backyard
then maybe together we will realize that we don’t like cantaloupe
and they don’t grow on trees
we can laugh about it
then we can plant things we’ve never heard of
I’ve never heard of a woman
who can make flawed look so beautiful
the way you do
The word smitten is to how I feel about you
what a kiss is to romance
so maybe my lips to yours could be the penance to this confession
because I am the only one preaching your defunct religion
sitting alone at your altar, praising you out of faith
I cannot do this hard-knock life alone
You are all the softness a rock dreams of being
the mistakes the rain makes at picnics
when Mother Nature bears witness in much better places
So yes
I will gladly take on your ocean
just to swim beneath you
so I can kiss the bends of your knees
in appreciation for the work they do
keeping your head above water
Catherine Pierce, “Because I’ll Never Swim in Every Ocean”
Want is ten thousand blue feathers falling
all around me, and me unable to stomach
that I might catch five but never ten thousand.
So I drop my hands to my sides and wait
to be buried. I open a book and the words
spring and taunt. Flashes—motel, lapidary,
piranha—of every story, every poem I’ll never
know well enough to conjure in sleep.
What’s the point of words if I can’t
own them all? I toss book after book
into my imaginary trashcan fire.
Or I think I’ll learn piano. At the first lesson,
we’re clapping whole and half notes
and this is childish, I’m better than this.
I’d like to leave playing Ravel. I’d like
to give a concerto on Saturday. So I quit.
I have standards. Then on Saturday,
I have a beer, watch a telethon. Or
we watch a documentary on Antarctica.
The interviewees are from Belarus, Lima, Berlin.
Everyone speaks English. Everyone names
a philosopher, an ethos. One man carries a raft
on his back at all times. I went to Nebraska once
and swore it was a great adventure. It was.
I think of how I’ll never go to Antarctica,
mainly because I don’t much want to. But
I should want to. I should be the girl
with a raft on her back. When I think
of all the mountains and monuments
and skyscapes I haven’t seen, all the trains
I should take, all the camels and mopeds
and ferries I should ride, all the scorching
hikes I should nearly die on, I press
my body down, down into the vast green
couch. If I step out the door, the infinity
of what I’ve missed will zorro me across
the face with a big L for Lazy. Sometimes
I watch finches at the feeder, their wings small
suns, and have to grab the sill to steady myself.
Metaphorically, of course. I’m no loon.
Look—even my awestruck is half-assed.
But I’m so tired of the small steps—
the pentatonic scale, the frequent flyer
hoarding, the one exquisite sentence
in a forest of exquisite sentences.
There is a globe welling up inside of me.
Mountain ranges ridging my skin,
oceans filling my mouth. If I stay still
long enough, I could become my own world.
Want is ten thousand blue feathers falling
all around me, and me unable to stomach
that I might catch five but never ten thousand.
So I drop my hands to my sides and wait
to be buried. I open a book and the words
spring and taunt. Flashes—motel, lapidary,
piranha—of every story, every poem I’ll never
know well enough to conjure in sleep.
What’s the point of words if I can’t
own them all? I toss book after book
into my imaginary trashcan fire.
Or I think I’ll learn piano. At the first lesson,
we’re clapping whole and half notes
and this is childish, I’m better than this.
I’d like to leave playing Ravel. I’d like
to give a concerto on Saturday. So I quit.
I have standards. Then on Saturday,
I have a beer, watch a telethon. Or
we watch a documentary on Antarctica.
The interviewees are from Belarus, Lima, Berlin.
Everyone speaks English. Everyone names
a philosopher, an ethos. One man carries a raft
on his back at all times. I went to Nebraska once
and swore it was a great adventure. It was.
I think of how I’ll never go to Antarctica,
mainly because I don’t much want to. But
I should want to. I should be the girl
with a raft on her back. When I think
of all the mountains and monuments
and skyscapes I haven’t seen, all the trains
I should take, all the camels and mopeds
and ferries I should ride, all the scorching
hikes I should nearly die on, I press
my body down, down into the vast green
couch. If I step out the door, the infinity
of what I’ve missed will zorro me across
the face with a big L for Lazy. Sometimes
I watch finches at the feeder, their wings small
suns, and have to grab the sill to steady myself.
Metaphorically, of course. I’m no loon.
Look—even my awestruck is half-assed.
But I’m so tired of the small steps—
the pentatonic scale, the frequent flyer
hoarding, the one exquisite sentence
in a forest of exquisite sentences.
There is a globe welling up inside of me.
Mountain ranges ridging my skin,
oceans filling my mouth. If I stay still
long enough, I could become my own world.
"Happiness"
I have been taught never to brag but now
I cannot help it: I keep
a beautiful garden, all abundance,
indiscriminate, pulling itself
from the stubborn earth: does it offend you
to watch me working in it,
touching my hands to the greening tips or
tearing the yellow stalk back, so wild
the living and the dead both
snap off in my hands?
The neighbor with his stuttering
fingers, the neighbor with his broken
love: each comes up my drive
to receive his pitying,
accustomed consolations, watches me
work in silence awhile, rises in anger,
walks back. Does it offend them to watch me
not mourning with them but working
fitfully, fruitlessly, working
the way the bees work, which is to say
by instinct alone, which looks like pleasure?
I can stand for hours among the sweet
narcissus, silent as a point of bone.
I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer
than your grief. It is such a small thing
to be proud of, a garden. Today
there were scrub jays, quail,
a woodpecker knocking at the white-
and-black shapes of trees, and someone's lost rabbit
scratching under the barberry: is it
( indiscriminate? Should it shrink back, wither, )
I have been taught never to brag but now
I cannot help it: I keep
a beautiful garden, all abundance,
indiscriminate, pulling itself
from the stubborn earth: does it offend you
to watch me working in it,
touching my hands to the greening tips or
tearing the yellow stalk back, so wild
the living and the dead both
snap off in my hands?
The neighbor with his stuttering
fingers, the neighbor with his broken
love: each comes up my drive
to receive his pitying,
accustomed consolations, watches me
work in silence awhile, rises in anger,
walks back. Does it offend them to watch me
not mourning with them but working
fitfully, fruitlessly, working
the way the bees work, which is to say
by instinct alone, which looks like pleasure?
I can stand for hours among the sweet
narcissus, silent as a point of bone.
I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer
than your grief. It is such a small thing
to be proud of, a garden. Today
there were scrub jays, quail,
a woodpecker knocking at the white-
and-black shapes of trees, and someone's lost rabbit
scratching under the barberry: is it
( indiscriminate? Should it shrink back, wither, )
"60"
The forced forsythia wet on the counter
because the first vase she chose was broken
The stirring in the tight buds when winter's
seal on the storehouse of daylight is broken
The meal without you I eat with my fingers
The slick give when the shrimp shells are broken
I carry this watch because the face tells
the time although the hands are broken
The emperor's men who thought the rebellion
would stop if the children's arms were broken
For the emperor's windows hurled stones made
from the stone houses the emperor left broken
The emperor's squads of heroic women
who touch the stripped men and deliver them broken
In my pockets bits of unused tickets
Smelling of smoke Borrowed Blue Broken
How she scrabbled on the floor to assemble
the pieces of what my sons had broken
Forgive me my stranger Whose eyes I can't meet
For what's beyond healing now What's broken
Shall I stop with the dumb leaper in my chest
On and on Keeping bad time Faithful Broken
--Suzanne Gardinier, from Today: 101 Ghazals
The forced forsythia wet on the counter
because the first vase she chose was broken
The stirring in the tight buds when winter's
seal on the storehouse of daylight is broken
The meal without you I eat with my fingers
The slick give when the shrimp shells are broken
I carry this watch because the face tells
the time although the hands are broken
The emperor's men who thought the rebellion
would stop if the children's arms were broken
For the emperor's windows hurled stones made
from the stone houses the emperor left broken
The emperor's squads of heroic women
who touch the stripped men and deliver them broken
In my pockets bits of unused tickets
Smelling of smoke Borrowed Blue Broken
How she scrabbled on the floor to assemble
the pieces of what my sons had broken
Forgive me my stranger Whose eyes I can't meet
For what's beyond healing now What's broken
Shall I stop with the dumb leaper in my chest
On and on Keeping bad time Faithful Broken
--Suzanne Gardinier, from Today: 101 Ghazals
I have been participating in a group working on goal-setting and would like to give them a parting gift. I'm looking for poems about goals: setting them, reaching them, reframing them, etc. Positive, natch, but also about the work spent to reach a goal.
Please, thank you, and here:
Searching for Moons
--Carol Ann Duffy
There is something to be said but I, for one,
forget. That star went out more years ago
than we can count. Its ghosts see dinosaurs.
The brain says No to the Universe, Prove it,
but the heart is susceptible, pining for a look,
a kind word. Some are brought to their knees,
pleading in dead language at a deaf ear. Spaceships
float in nothing in the dark, searching for moons
to worship with their fish eyes. It must be love.
Please, thank you, and here:
Searching for Moons
--Carol Ann Duffy
There is something to be said but I, for one,
forget. That star went out more years ago
than we can count. Its ghosts see dinosaurs.
The brain says No to the Universe, Prove it,
but the heart is susceptible, pining for a look,
a kind word. Some are brought to their knees,
pleading in dead language at a deaf ear. Spaceships
float in nothing in the dark, searching for moons
to worship with their fish eyes. It must be love.
Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place,
As men and women with our race.
Father in heaven who lovest all,
O help Thy children when they call;
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.
Teach us to rule ourselves alway,
Controlled and cleanly night and day;
That we may bring, if need arise,
No maimed or worthless sacrifice.
Teach us the strength that cannot seek,
By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;
That, under Thee, we may possess
Man's Strength to comfort man's distress.
Teach us delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And Love to all men 'neath the sun!
Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,
For whose dear sake our fathers died;
O Motherland, we pledge to thee
Head, heart and hand through the years to be.
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place,
As men and women with our race.
Father in heaven who lovest all,
O help Thy children when they call;
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.
Teach us to rule ourselves alway,
Controlled and cleanly night and day;
That we may bring, if need arise,
No maimed or worthless sacrifice.
Teach us the strength that cannot seek,
By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;
That, under Thee, we may possess
Man's Strength to comfort man's distress.
Teach us delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And Love to all men 'neath the sun!
Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,
For whose dear sake our fathers died;
O Motherland, we pledge to thee
Head, heart and hand through the years to be.
Hello! I have a friend's birthday coming up, and I'm looking for a poem to give to her. I'm looking for short-ish poems about celebration of life, being independent, etc.
In exchange, a lovely Frank O'Hara poem:
Now That I am in Madrid I Can Think
Frank O'Hara
I think of you
and the continents brilliant and arid
and the slender heart you are sharing my share of with the American air
as the lungs I have felt sonorously subside slowly greet each morning
and your brown lashes flutter revealing two perfect dawns colored by New York
see a vast bridge stretching to the humbled outskirts with only you
Standing on the edge of the purple like an only tree
and in Toledo the olive groves' soft blue look at the hills with silver
like glasses like and old ladies hair
It's well known that God and I don't get along together
It's just a view of the brass works for me, I don't care about the Moors
seen through you the great works of death, you are greater
you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone together.
In exchange, a lovely Frank O'Hara poem:
Now That I am in Madrid I Can Think
Frank O'Hara
I think of you
and the continents brilliant and arid
and the slender heart you are sharing my share of with the American air
as the lungs I have felt sonorously subside slowly greet each morning
and your brown lashes flutter revealing two perfect dawns colored by New York
see a vast bridge stretching to the humbled outskirts with only you
Standing on the edge of the purple like an only tree
and in Toledo the olive groves' soft blue look at the hills with silver
like glasses like and old ladies hair
It's well known that God and I don't get along together
It's just a view of the brass works for me, I don't care about the Moors
seen through you the great works of death, you are greater
you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone together.
The Cat and the Moon
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
by W.B. Yeats
Suppose all we know of love
is a tiny greenhouse
falling slowly to bits
between a crab apple tree
and the railway's nettled bank;
a frail rickety eden
where little spiders weave
little dewy webs
on a scrunched-up Silk Cut packet
mouldering in a corner
under the tomatoes.
And suppose all we know of the world
is how the greenhouse creaks and sighs
in the cool dawn rain
and crab apple leaves brush against
the stone-cracked glass
while love grows red and ripe and soft
and summers pass like trains.
is a tiny greenhouse
falling slowly to bits
between a crab apple tree
and the railway's nettled bank;
a frail rickety eden
where little spiders weave
little dewy webs
on a scrunched-up Silk Cut packet
mouldering in a corner
under the tomatoes.
And suppose all we know of the world
is how the greenhouse creaks and sighs
in the cool dawn rain
and crab apple leaves brush against
the stone-cracked glass
while love grows red and ripe and soft
and summers pass like trains.
Once they started invading us.
Taking our houses and trees, drawing lines,
pushing us into tiny places.
It wasn't a bargain or deal or even a real war.
To this day they pretend it was.
But it was something else.
We were sorry what happened to them but
we had nothing to do with it.
You don't think what a little plot of land means
till someone takes it and you can't go back.
Your feet still want to walk there.
Now you are drifting worse
than homeless dust, very lost feeling.
I cried even to think of our hallway,
cool stone passage inside the door.
Nothing would fit for years.
They came with guns, uniforms, declarations.
LIFE magazine said,
"It was surprising to find some Arabs still in their houses."
Surprising? Where else would we be?
Up in the hillsides?
Conversing with mint and sheep, digging in dirt?
Why was someone else's need for a home
greater than our own need for our own homes
we were already living in? No one has ever been able
to explain this sufficiently. But they find
a lot of other things to talk about.
Hi guys, I'm on a bit on an Animorphs kick at the moment and I'm looking for poems about hawks, especially red-tails. Thank you! In return, an unrelated poem:
Wolf - Alessandra Lynch
My owl was
a deadened petal. My moon
a leadweight hat.
Sinewy and sidelong, I
slowly circled, tail
bruised yellow,
a mouthful of splinters,
and skittery gunshy eyes
that met the skulking bullet
one spring and couldn't
fix again, didn't want to feed—
my brittle haunch arched thin, made
space for rattlesnake to rise.
My shifty flank-bones,
driftwood in tired water.
( Under the familiar )
--
Wolf - Alessandra Lynch
My owl was
a deadened petal. My moon
a leadweight hat.
Sinewy and sidelong, I
slowly circled, tail
bruised yellow,
a mouthful of splinters,
and skittery gunshy eyes
that met the skulking bullet
one spring and couldn't
fix again, didn't want to feed—
my brittle haunch arched thin, made
space for rattlesnake to rise.
My shifty flank-bones,
driftwood in tired water.
( Under the familiar )
--
Request!: My Google-fu is not cut out right now. I'm looking for a specific poem. Anyone recognize it? It's a love poem. There's an archaeological dig or something, and the speaker is observing someone pick up a piece of ceramic which then crumbles. The speaker thinks that the ceramic piece, being held by the love interest, thought it was a flower and wanted to bloom for her.
--
It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together by Elizabeth Bishop
It is marvellous to wake up together
At the same minute; marvellous to hear
The rain begin suddenly all over the roof,
To feel the air suddenly clear
As if electricity had passed through it
From a black mesh of wires in the sky.
All over the roof the rain hisses,
And below, the light falling of kisses.
An electrical storm is coming or moving away;
It is the prickling air that wakes us up.
If lightning struck the house now, it would run
From the four blue china balls on top
Down the roof and down the rods all around us,
And we imagine dreamily
How the whole house caught in a bird-cage of lightning
Would be quite delightful rather than frightening;
And from the same simplified point of view
Of night and lying flat on one’s back
All things might change equally easily,
Since always to warn us there must be these black
Electrical wires dangling. Without surprise
The world might change to something quite different,
As the air changes or the lightning comes without our blinking,
Change as the kisses are changing without our thinking.
--
It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together by Elizabeth Bishop
It is marvellous to wake up together
At the same minute; marvellous to hear
The rain begin suddenly all over the roof,
To feel the air suddenly clear
As if electricity had passed through it
From a black mesh of wires in the sky.
All over the roof the rain hisses,
And below, the light falling of kisses.
An electrical storm is coming or moving away;
It is the prickling air that wakes us up.
If lightning struck the house now, it would run
From the four blue china balls on top
Down the roof and down the rods all around us,
And we imagine dreamily
How the whole house caught in a bird-cage of lightning
Would be quite delightful rather than frightening;
And from the same simplified point of view
Of night and lying flat on one’s back
All things might change equally easily,
Since always to warn us there must be these black
Electrical wires dangling. Without surprise
The world might change to something quite different,
As the air changes or the lightning comes without our blinking,
Change as the kisses are changing without our thinking.
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
JUST CHRIST - by UNKNOWN
The world, I thought, belonged to me
Goods, gold and people, land and sea;
Where'er I walked beneath God's sky
In those old days my world was "I".
Years passed, there flashed my pathway near
The fragment of a vision dear;
My former word no more sufficed;
And what I said was "I and Christ".
But, on, the more I looked on Him
His glory grew, while mine grew dim.
I shrank so small, He towered so high
All I dared say was "Christ and I".
years more the vision held it's place
And looked me steadily in the face.
I speak today in humbler tone,
and what I say is "Christ Alone".
The world, I thought, belonged to me
Goods, gold and people, land and sea;
Where'er I walked beneath God's sky
In those old days my world was "I".
Years passed, there flashed my pathway near
The fragment of a vision dear;
My former word no more sufficed;
And what I said was "I and Christ".
But, on, the more I looked on Him
His glory grew, while mine grew dim.
I shrank so small, He towered so high
All I dared say was "Christ and I".
years more the vision held it's place
And looked me steadily in the face.
I speak today in humbler tone,
and what I say is "Christ Alone".
It dies. And a gazillion years in the future
the sight of its dying reaches Earth.
-- Computed in dinosaur years, that's three days
from the brain's death to its being recognized as dead
in the far frontiers of the tail.
Night. A party. "Come out here for a minute."
Dina told me: she'd miscarried. But
her body hadn't registered that yet, it kept
preparing for a birth. And so we sat on the porch
in silence for a while, in the light of that star.
the sight of its dying reaches Earth.
-- Computed in dinosaur years, that's three days
from the brain's death to its being recognized as dead
in the far frontiers of the tail.
Night. A party. "Come out here for a minute."
Dina told me: she'd miscarried. But
her body hadn't registered that yet, it kept
preparing for a birth. And so we sat on the porch
in silence for a while, in the light of that star.
The Eclipse of the Sun, 1820
High on her speculative tower
Stood Science waiting for the hour
When Sol was destined to endure
That darkening of his radiant face
Which Superstition strove to chase,
Erewhile, with rites impure.
- William Wordsworth
Hello, I'm looking for poems about being intrigued by someone/something (but mostly being intrigued by a person). I tried to look; but all I got were intriguing poems. Help please. :) Thanks!
In the meantime...
Do Not Make Things Too Easy
In the meantime...
Do Not Make Things Too Easy
By Martha Baird
Do not make things too easy.
There are rocks and abysses in the mind
As well as meadows.
There are things knotty and hard: intractable.
Do not talk to me of love and understanding.
I am sick of blandishments.
I want the rock to be met by a rock.
If I am vile, and behave hideously,
Do not tell me it was just a misunderstanding.
“[In Colorado, In Oregon, upon]” by Joshua Beckman
In Colorado, In Oregon, upon
each beloved fork, a birthday is celebrated.
I miss each and every one of my friends.
I believe in getting something for nothing.
Push the chair, and what I can tell you
with almost complete certainty
is that the chair won’t mind.
And beyond hope,
I expect it is like this everywhere.
Music soothing people.
Change rolling under tables.
The immaculate cutoff so that we may continue.
A particular pair of trees waking up against the window.
This partnership of mind, and always now
in want of forgiveness. That forgiveness be
the domain of the individual,
like music or personal investment.
Great forward-thinking people brought us
the newspaper, and look what we have done.
It is time for forgiveness. Dear ones,
unmistakable quality will soon be upon us.
Don’t wait for anything else
Joshua Beckman
Source
In Colorado, In Oregon, upon
each beloved fork, a birthday is celebrated.
I miss each and every one of my friends.
I believe in getting something for nothing.
Push the chair, and what I can tell you
with almost complete certainty
is that the chair won’t mind.
And beyond hope,
I expect it is like this everywhere.
Music soothing people.
Change rolling under tables.
The immaculate cutoff so that we may continue.
A particular pair of trees waking up against the window.
This partnership of mind, and always now
in want of forgiveness. That forgiveness be
the domain of the individual,
like music or personal investment.
Great forward-thinking people brought us
the newspaper, and look what we have done.
It is time for forgiveness. Dear ones,
unmistakable quality will soon be upon us.
Don’t wait for anything else
Joshua Beckman
Source
- Mood:
elated
non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
Amores, III, xiv
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.
I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
Amores, III, xiv
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.
I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.
I. "From the marble rose to the iron rose" (1919-1930)
The huge white marble rose was alone on the empty square
where shadows extended to infinity. And the marble rose,
alone under the sun and the stars, was queen of solitude.
And the odorless marble rose on her rigid stem at the top
of a granite pedestal streamed with all the floods from
the sky. The moon lingered pensive in her glacial heart
and the goddesses of gardens the marble goddesses came
to try their cold breasts on her petals.
The glass rose rang with all the sounds of the seacoast.
No sob from a broken wave failed to make her tremble.
Around her fragile stem and transparent heart rainbows
revolved with the stars. The rain glided in delicate circles
down her leaves the wind sometimes set moaning in fear
of streams and glowworms.
The coal rose was a black phoenix changed by face powder
into a fiery one. But flowing endlessly from dark corridors
where miners picked her respectfully to carry her to
daylight in her anthracite vein the coal rose kept watch
at the doors to the desert.
The blotting-paper rose sometimes bled in the twilight when
evening came to kneel at her feet. The blotting-paper rose
guardian of all secrets and a bad counselor bled blood thicker
than sea foam and which was not her own.
The cloud rose appeared over doomed cities at the time of volcanic
eruptions at the time of fires at the time of riots over Paris
when the Commune mixed iridescent veins of gas and the smell
of powder she was beautiful on the 21st of January beautiful
in the month of October in the cold wind of the steppes beautiful
in 1905 at the time of miracles at the time of love.
The wooden rose presided at the gallows. It blossomed at the top
of the guillotine then slept in the moss in the giant shadow
of mushrooms.
The iron rose had been hammered for centuries by blacksmiths
of lightning.
Each of her leaves was large as an unknown sky. At the slightest
shock she gave off a sound of thunder. But how kind she was
the iron rose
to despairing women in love.
The marble rose the glass rose the coal rose the blotting-paper rose
the cloud rose the wooden rose the iron rose will go on flowering
forever though today they lie on your rug leafless
And who are you? you who crush beneath your bare feet the scattered
remains of the marble rose the glass rose the coal rose the blotting-
paper rose the cloud rose the wooden rose the iron rose.
Les ténèbres
*
II. "The Voice" (1942-1944)
A voice, a voice from so far away
It no longer makes the ears tingle.
A voice like a muffled drum
Still reaches us clearly.
Though it seems to come from the grave
It speaks only of summer and spring.
It floods the body with joy.
It lights the lips with a smile.
I listen. It is simply a human voice
Which passes over the noise of life and its battles
The crash of thunder and the murmur of gossip.
And you? Don't you hear it?
It says "The pain will soon be over"
It says "The happy season is near."
Don't you hear it?
~ Robert Desnos
Translated by William Kulik
* sorry for any spelling mistakes made in typing this one out ;_;
The huge white marble rose was alone on the empty square
where shadows extended to infinity. And the marble rose,
alone under the sun and the stars, was queen of solitude.
And the odorless marble rose on her rigid stem at the top
of a granite pedestal streamed with all the floods from
the sky. The moon lingered pensive in her glacial heart
and the goddesses of gardens the marble goddesses came
to try their cold breasts on her petals.
The glass rose rang with all the sounds of the seacoast.
No sob from a broken wave failed to make her tremble.
Around her fragile stem and transparent heart rainbows
revolved with the stars. The rain glided in delicate circles
down her leaves the wind sometimes set moaning in fear
of streams and glowworms.
The coal rose was a black phoenix changed by face powder
into a fiery one. But flowing endlessly from dark corridors
where miners picked her respectfully to carry her to
daylight in her anthracite vein the coal rose kept watch
at the doors to the desert.
The blotting-paper rose sometimes bled in the twilight when
evening came to kneel at her feet. The blotting-paper rose
guardian of all secrets and a bad counselor bled blood thicker
than sea foam and which was not her own.
The cloud rose appeared over doomed cities at the time of volcanic
eruptions at the time of fires at the time of riots over Paris
when the Commune mixed iridescent veins of gas and the smell
of powder she was beautiful on the 21st of January beautiful
in the month of October in the cold wind of the steppes beautiful
in 1905 at the time of miracles at the time of love.
The wooden rose presided at the gallows. It blossomed at the top
of the guillotine then slept in the moss in the giant shadow
of mushrooms.
The iron rose had been hammered for centuries by blacksmiths
of lightning.
Each of her leaves was large as an unknown sky. At the slightest
shock she gave off a sound of thunder. But how kind she was
the iron rose
to despairing women in love.
The marble rose the glass rose the coal rose the blotting-paper rose
the cloud rose the wooden rose the iron rose will go on flowering
forever though today they lie on your rug leafless
And who are you? you who crush beneath your bare feet the scattered
remains of the marble rose the glass rose the coal rose the blotting-
paper rose the cloud rose the wooden rose the iron rose.
Les ténèbres
*
II. "The Voice" (1942-1944)
A voice, a voice from so far away
It no longer makes the ears tingle.
A voice like a muffled drum
Still reaches us clearly.
Though it seems to come from the grave
It speaks only of summer and spring.
It floods the body with joy.
It lights the lips with a smile.
I listen. It is simply a human voice
Which passes over the noise of life and its battles
The crash of thunder and the murmur of gossip.
And you? Don't you hear it?
It says "The pain will soon be over"
It says "The happy season is near."
Don't you hear it?
~ Robert Desnos
Translated by William Kulik
* sorry for any spelling mistakes made in typing this one out ;_;
'I think I should have loved you presently'
Edna St Vincent Millay
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.
Edna St Vincent Millay
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.
In Arcata, California
north on the fog-and-clapboard coast
the bronze statue of McKinley
stands, empty-handed, in the village square.
His green corroded arms outstretched
it is not clear whether the former President
embraces the Pacific or weeps
that there are no more distances
a man can thrust a railroad through.
Here in Buffalo the body of his assassin lies,
humus dreaming of life after death
and the green republic. Ring-necked
pheasants peck about his grave
in the old pastoral cemetery.
Their dark eyes gleam
as light, dying,
refracts in the polluted air.
north on the fog-and-clapboard coast
the bronze statue of McKinley
stands, empty-handed, in the village square.
His green corroded arms outstretched
it is not clear whether the former President
embraces the Pacific or weeps
that there are no more distances
a man can thrust a railroad through.
Here in Buffalo the body of his assassin lies,
humus dreaming of life after death
and the green republic. Ring-necked
pheasants peck about his grave
in the old pastoral cemetery.
Their dark eyes gleam
as light, dying,
refracts in the polluted air.
Dusty old helmet, rusty old gun,
They sit in the corner and wait --
Two souvenirs of the Second World War
That have withstood the time and the hate.
Many times I've wanted to ask them --
and now that we're here all alone,
Relics all three of a long ago war --
Where has freedom gone?
Mute witness to a time of much trouble,
Where kill or be killed was the law --
Were these implements used with high honor?
What was the glory they saw?
Freedom flies in your heart like an eagle.
Let it soar with the winds high above
Among the spirits of soldiers now sleeping,
Guard it with care and with love.
I salute my old friends in the corner.
I agree with all they have said --
I agree if the moment of truth comes tomorrow,
I'll be free, or By God, I'll be dead!
They sit in the corner and wait --
Two souvenirs of the Second World War
That have withstood the time and the hate.
Many times I've wanted to ask them --
and now that we're here all alone,
Relics all three of a long ago war --
Where has freedom gone?
Mute witness to a time of much trouble,
Where kill or be killed was the law --
Were these implements used with high honor?
What was the glory they saw?
Freedom flies in your heart like an eagle.
Let it soar with the winds high above
Among the spirits of soldiers now sleeping,
Guard it with care and with love.
I salute my old friends in the corner.
I agree with all they have said --
I agree if the moment of truth comes tomorrow,
I'll be free, or By God, I'll be dead!
Audie Murphy
- Mood:determined
- Music:What Love Really Means - JJ Heller
There are no stars tonight
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.
There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother’s mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.
Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.
And I ask myself:
“Are your fingers long enough to play
Old keys that are but echoes:
Is the silence strong enough
To carry back the music to its source
And back to you again
As though to her?”
Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand;
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.
There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother’s mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.
Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.
And I ask myself:
“Are your fingers long enough to play
Old keys that are but echoes:
Is the silence strong enough
To carry back the music to its source
And back to you again
As though to her?”
Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand;
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.
What traces have I left
on all the bodies I have held?
Do they remember my mouth?
Let them forget.
Some come like cats howling
in the night for sex withheld.
Some have gone from my mind.
Their scent has drifted off.
Some I remember with anger
but that too runs down the drain.
Maybe the sink is still dirty.
Maybe the water is clean.
I dream of none of them.
I dream of my mother and cats.
I dream of danger and hunger.
I dream my dying.
What prints do we leave
on old lovers? Do they wash
off or wear down? Sometimes
they turn up expecting
that I will still be the girl
they bedded, maybe they still
see her smooth and willing.
They find only me
like a old oak rooted deep,
like a cat who has learned
where to find her food
and where she will only starve.
on all the bodies I have held?
Do they remember my mouth?
Let them forget.
Some come like cats howling
in the night for sex withheld.
Some have gone from my mind.
Their scent has drifted off.
Some I remember with anger
but that too runs down the drain.
Maybe the sink is still dirty.
Maybe the water is clean.
I dream of none of them.
I dream of my mother and cats.
I dream of danger and hunger.
I dream my dying.
What prints do we leave
on old lovers? Do they wash
off or wear down? Sometimes
they turn up expecting
that I will still be the girl
they bedded, maybe they still
see her smooth and willing.
They find only me
like a old oak rooted deep,
like a cat who has learned
where to find her food
and where she will only starve.
Leaves
The prisoners of infinite choice
Have built their house
In a field below the wood
And are at peace.
It is autumn, and dead leaves
On their way to the river
Scratch like birds at the windows
Or tick on the road.
Somewhere there is an afterlife
Of dead leaves,
A stadium filled with an infinite
Rustling and sighing.
Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have lived
Have found their own fulfilment.
Derek Mahon, Selected Poems
The prisoners of infinite choice
Have built their house
In a field below the wood
And are at peace.
It is autumn, and dead leaves
On their way to the river
Scratch like birds at the windows
Or tick on the road.
Somewhere there is an afterlife
Of dead leaves,
A stadium filled with an infinite
Rustling and sighing.
Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have lived
Have found their own fulfilment.
Derek Mahon, Selected Poems
The Return
What do you say when you've forgotten
how the grass smells,
married to the dark
soil crumbling in your hands?
When the sun makes a bed for you to lie in?
When a voice you've never heard
has missed you,
singing down your bones--
it's taken so long to get here.
Now I'm breathing in the mountains
as if I'd never left.
And when I go inside
I'm surprised to see a lime green worm
has landed on my shorts,
inching his way across a strange white country.
He stops and rises,
leaning out of himself--
a tiny periscope
peering from the glow of the underdream
where there are no symbols for death.
He looks around.
I place my index finger
at the tip of what I guess to be his head,
though I don't see an eye or an ear,
or the infinitesimal feet
as he crawls across my palm--
a warmer planet.
Lately I've wondered
what hand guides my way when I am lost.
I can't feel him
though I see him rise again,
survey the future, flat
and broken into five dead ends.
I curl my fingers to make a cup
and carry him like a blessing to the garden--
What will happen next is a mystery--
to be so light in the world, to leave no tracks
~by Frances Richey
I think of New York City lost in stars
forgotten as a bluehaired pet of childhood love —
Tonight the night is full;
the stealthy Mayor in his fine discipline
moves in proportion like a large jewel with furry feet;
he taps his long straight nose through the years of his term,
a ghost with worry-thoughts of city —
Beneath the Washington Square arc he feigns to forget
the new denunciations of the day.
This has never been the Mayor of my city,
occasionally stopping in a barren area
with magnificent foundations in his eyes.
( more )
forgotten as a bluehaired pet of childhood love —
Tonight the night is full;
the stealthy Mayor in his fine discipline
moves in proportion like a large jewel with furry feet;
he taps his long straight nose through the years of his term,
a ghost with worry-thoughts of city —
Beneath the Washington Square arc he feigns to forget
the new denunciations of the day.
This has never been the Mayor of my city,
occasionally stopping in a barren area
with magnificent foundations in his eyes.
( more )
This is a variation; there are many.
*
From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands by the naked man
In the Book of Moons, defend ye,
That of your five sound senses
Ye never be forsaken,
Nor wander from yourselves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.
While I do sing, any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink, or clothing?
Come, dame or maid, be not afraid:
Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Of thirty barren years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,
And a wholesome hunger plenty.
( Read more... )
*
From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands by the naked man
In the Book of Moons, defend ye,
That of your five sound senses
Ye never be forsaken,
Nor wander from yourselves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.
While I do sing, any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink, or clothing?
Come, dame or maid, be not afraid:
Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Of thirty barren years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,
And a wholesome hunger plenty.
( Read more... )
Hello, poetry lovers. A couple of years ago I bookmarked a Mary Oliver poem in hopes that one day I would read it again and say, "Yes. That is it. That's it, exactly." That time has come but the page I bookmarked is gone. I have searched and scoured and searched some more. Alas, I cannot find it. Which isn't surprising since the only things I can remember about it are (1) the way I thought it would feel when I could feel it, which isn't helpful to you so I won't bother describing it, and (2) a tiny portion of the last lines:
I was throwing open ...
I was ...
I know. It's not much to go on. I'm hoping one of you is a Mary Oliver scholar and knows some of her less popular works, because I can tell you this much:
The poem I am looking for is not Wild Geese or The Journey.
Also, yes, I've googled it.
And now, another poem by Mary Oliver (I'm surprised no one has posted it yet!) for you, as an expression of my gratitude:
The Old Poets of China
Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
I was throwing open ...
I was ...
I know. It's not much to go on. I'm hoping one of you is a Mary Oliver scholar and knows some of her less popular works, because I can tell you this much:
The poem I am looking for is not Wild Geese or The Journey.
Also, yes, I've googled it.
And now, another poem by Mary Oliver (I'm surprised no one has posted it yet!) for you, as an expression of my gratitude:
The Old Poets of China
Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
And, after all, it is to them we return.
Their triumph is to rise and be our hosts:
lords of unquiet or of quiet sojourn,
those muddy-hued and midge-tormented ghosts.
On blustery lilac-bush and terrace-urn
bedaubed with bloom Linnaean pentecosts
put their pronged light; the chilly fountains burn.
Religion of the heart, with trysts and quests
and pangs of consolation, its hawk’s hood
twitched off for sweet carnality, again
rejoices in old hymns of servitude,
haunting the sacred well, the hidden shrine.
It is the ravage of the heron wood;
it is the rood blazing upon the green.
Their triumph is to rise and be our hosts:
lords of unquiet or of quiet sojourn,
those muddy-hued and midge-tormented ghosts.
On blustery lilac-bush and terrace-urn
bedaubed with bloom Linnaean pentecosts
put their pronged light; the chilly fountains burn.
Religion of the heart, with trysts and quests
and pangs of consolation, its hawk’s hood
twitched off for sweet carnality, again
rejoices in old hymns of servitude,
haunting the sacred well, the hidden shrine.
It is the ravage of the heron wood;
it is the rood blazing upon the green.
Pitched high above the shallows of the sea
lone bells in gritty belfries do not ring
but coil a far and inward echoing
out of the air that thrums. Enduringly,
fuchsia-hedges fend between cliff and sky;
brown stumps of headstones tamp into the ling
the ruined and the ruinously strong.
Platonic England grasps its tenantry
where wild-eyed poppies raddle tawny farms
and wild swans root in lily-clouded lakes.
Vulnerable to each other the twin forms
of sleep and waking touch the man who wakes
to sudden light, who thinks that this becalms
even the phantoms of untold mistakes.
lone bells in gritty belfries do not ring
but coil a far and inward echoing
out of the air that thrums. Enduringly,
fuchsia-hedges fend between cliff and sky;
brown stumps of headstones tamp into the ling
the ruined and the ruinously strong.
Platonic England grasps its tenantry
where wild-eyed poppies raddle tawny farms
and wild swans root in lily-clouded lakes.
Vulnerable to each other the twin forms
of sleep and waking touch the man who wakes
to sudden light, who thinks that this becalms
even the phantoms of untold mistakes.
The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion
Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.
But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear—
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion
Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.
But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear—
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
To imitate the sun
To imitate the sun
is to let the light become
dream-architect, image-maker
working in the dark to shape
maps tracing the spirit's journey
forward to its beginnings
of infinite simplicity.
Brendan Kennelly
To imitate the sun
is to let the light become
dream-architect, image-maker
working in the dark to shape
maps tracing the spirit's journey
forward to its beginnings
of infinite simplicity.
Brendan Kennelly
The Bee In Church
The nestling church at Ovingdean
Was fragrant as a hive in May;
And there was nobody within
To preach, or praise, or pray.
The sunlight slanted through the door,
And through the panes of painted glass,
When I stole in, alone once more
To feel the ages pass.
Then, through the dim grey hush there droned
An echoing plain-song on the air,
As if some ghostly priest intoned
An old Gregorian there.
Saint Chrysostom could never lend
More honey to the heavenly Spring
Than seemed to murmur and ascend
On that invisible wing.
So small he was, I scarce could see
My girdled brown hierophant;
But only a Franciscan bee
In such a bass could chant.
His golden Latin rolled and boomed.
It swayed the alter-flowers anew,
Till all that hive of worship bloomed
With dreams of sun and dew.
Ah, sweet Franciscan of the May,
Dear chaplain of the fairy queen,
You sent a singing heart away
That day, from Ovingdean.
~by Alfred Noyes
A butterfly floats on the breeze of a sun lit day
As I feel this reality gently fade away
Riding on a thought to see where it's from
Gliding through a memory of a time yet to come
Smoke paints the air swirling images through my mind
Like a whirlpool spin beginning to unwind
And I stand at the edge cautiously awaiting as time slips by
Carefully navigating by the stars in the sky
And I sit and I think to myself...
And on the horizon the sun light begins to climb
And it seems like it's been so long since he shined
But I'm sure it was only yesterday
Namaste
A cold chill of fear cut through me
I felt my heart contract
To my mind I brought the image of light
And I expanded out of it
My fear was just a shadow
And then a voice spoke in my head
And she said dark is not the opposite of light
It's the absence of light
And I thought to myself
She knows what she's talking about
And for a moment I knew
What it was all about.
+++++++
rip MCA adam yauch
1964 - 2012
As I feel this reality gently fade away
Riding on a thought to see where it's from
Gliding through a memory of a time yet to come
Smoke paints the air swirling images through my mind
Like a whirlpool spin beginning to unwind
And I stand at the edge cautiously awaiting as time slips by
Carefully navigating by the stars in the sky
And I sit and I think to myself...
And on the horizon the sun light begins to climb
And it seems like it's been so long since he shined
But I'm sure it was only yesterday
Namaste
A cold chill of fear cut through me
I felt my heart contract
To my mind I brought the image of light
And I expanded out of it
My fear was just a shadow
And then a voice spoke in my head
And she said dark is not the opposite of light
It's the absence of light
And I thought to myself
She knows what she's talking about
And for a moment I knew
What it was all about.
+++++++
rip MCA adam yauch
1964 - 2012
I'll speak you mine, you speak me yours
since all's in the telling, content, form
to mangle the Master's eavesdropping
on subalterns' whispers, going Chinese
subversive, maybe just incomprehensible
or incomprehensibly blunt. My Farsi
the fierce Real or the sad Other of the Master-
signifiers, Sylvester to their Tweety or
a Roadrunner, mercurial, radical
to thwart the tyrant's order of things? I'll say
something to you, you say something
to me, and bar me from understanding
this or that - who'd ever want me
in control, so damn crazy to accumulate
secrets, gossip, sedition, gesticulation
even if I am, say, sentient, so what
s in it for you? Forge a discourse
to chain your/my tongue/s. You'll write me
yours, I'll write you mine, and we'll relish
the mystery of the written sign, the tricky
similitude between things, incoherent
thorn in the monoglot Master's eye.
since all's in the telling, content, form
to mangle the Master's eavesdropping
on subalterns' whispers, going Chinese
subversive, maybe just incomprehensible
or incomprehensibly blunt. My Farsi
the fierce Real or the sad Other of the Master-
signifiers, Sylvester to their Tweety or
a Roadrunner, mercurial, radical
to thwart the tyrant's order of things? I'll say
something to you, you say something
to me, and bar me from understanding
this or that - who'd ever want me
in control, so damn crazy to accumulate
secrets, gossip, sedition, gesticulation
even if I am, say, sentient, so what
s in it for you? Forge a discourse
to chain your/my tongue/s. You'll write me
yours, I'll write you mine, and we'll relish
the mystery of the written sign, the tricky
similitude between things, incoherent
thorn in the monoglot Master's eye.
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2)
greatpoets- I Eat Poetry
- Community Archive
Page Summary
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2)
rose0mary : Foreign Lands [+0] - kairia : After Battle by Karen Lepri + Request [+2]
- seasight : "A Silver Splendour, A Flame" by Catherynne M. Valente [+2]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/user_ontd.gif?v=92.2)
everyforever : "Everyday" by Mike McGee [+6] - pergyleneism : Catherine Pierce, “Because I’ll Never Swim in Every Ocean” [+10]
- two_grey_rooms : (no subject) [+1]
- two_grey_rooms : (no subject) [+0]
- delia_deville : Searching for Moons and Request: goals [+4]
- rose0mary : Land of our Birth [+0]
- care_says : Frank O'Hara + 1 Request [+9]
- elenbarathi : The Cat and the Moon, by W.B. Yeats [+2]
- with_rainfall : Suppose | Chris Powici [+5]
- iatrogenicmyth : Everything in Our World Did Not Seem to Fit // Naomi Shihab Nye [+3]
- with_rainfall : Wolf | Alessandra Lynch (+ request) [+5]
- ointment500 : It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together by Elizabeth Bishop [+4]
- clairehawthorn : THE BRIGHT FIELD by R S Thomas [+9]
- rose0mary : (no subject) [+0]
- switchercat : "Astronomy," Albert Goldbarth [+2]
- elenbarathi : The Eclipse of the Sun, 1820, by William Wordsworth [+2]
- moldybetamax : Do Not Make Things Too Easy By Martha Baird | Request [+9]
- punkinelf : “[In Colorado, In Oregon, upon]” by Joshua Beckman [+0]
- clairehawthorn : OVID IN THE THIRD REICH by Geoffrey Hill [+4]
- lonely_hour : From the marble rose to the iron rose & The Voice [+0]
- onestringed : 'I think I should have loved you presently' | Edna St Vincent Millay [+3]
- huckaburgers : Assassin, Robert Hass [+0]
- rose0mary : Sunday 13 May [+2]
- clairehawthorn : MY GRANDMOTHER'S LOVE LETTERS by Hart Crane [+2]
- iatrogenicmyth : What do they expect? // Marge Piercy [+2]
- punkinelf : Leaves by Derek Mahon [+2]
- elenbarathi : The Return, by Frances Richey [+1]
- huckaburgers : Away One Year, Gregory Corso [+1]
- switchercat : "Tom O'Bedlam," Anonymous [+1]
- everetteseven : Looking for a Mary Oliver poem [+11]
- clairehawthorn : QUAINT MAZES by Geoffrey Hill [+9]
- clairehawthorn : LOSS AND GAIN by Geoffrey Hill [+0]
- switchercat : "The Jaguar," Ted Hughes [+0]
- punkinelf : To imitate the sun by Brendan Kennelly [+0]
- elenbarathi : The Bee In Church, by Alfred Noyes [+1]
- catmybunny : Namaste | MCA adam yauch [+0]
- with_rainfall : Language(s) | Ali Alizadeh [+1]
Syndicate
