|
Flowers
There's another skin inside my skin that gathers to your touch, a lake to the light; that looses its memory, its lost language into your tongue, erasing me into newness. Just when the body thinks it knows the ways of knowing itself, this second skin continues to answer. In the street - café chairs abandoned on terraces; market stalls emptied of their solid light, though pavement still breathes summer grapes and peaches. Like the light of anything that grows from this newly-turned earth, every tip of me gathers under your touch, wind wrapping my dress around our legs, your shirt twisting to flowers in my fists. --Anne Michaels |
Love After Love
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. --Derek Walcott |
O Tell Me The Truth About Love
O Tell Me The Truth About Love (annotated)
Some say Love's a little boy, Some say it's a bird, Some say it makes the world go round, Some say that's absurd, And when I asked the man next-door Who looked as if he knew, His wife got very cross indeed, And said it wouldn't do. Does it look like a pair of pyjamas, Or a ham in a temperance hotel? Does it odour remind one of llamas, Or has it a comforting smell? Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is, Or soft as eiderdown fluff? Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges? O tell me the truth about Love. Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian, or boom like a military band? Could one give a first-rate imitation On a saw or a Steinway Grand? Is its singing at parties a riot? Does it only like Classical stuff? Will it stop when one wants to be quiet? O tell me the truth about Love. When it comes, will it come without warning Just as I'm picking my nose? Will it knock on my door in the morning, Or tread in the bus on my toes? Will it come like a change in the weather? Will its greeting be courteous or rough? Will it alter my life altogether? O tell me the truth about Love. (W H Auden) Auden is one of my favorite poets. I love his usage of language, esp. in rhythm. He can be very funny and profound at the same time. A shame he is not better known in the country. (He was an English poet.) Lady_Wu, gnarled tree (see Chuang-Tzu for explanation of THAT one. Or just PM me if curious. lol) |
Aubade by Philip Larkin
Aubade
Philip Larkin I work all day, and get half drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain edges will grow light. Till then I see what's really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible but how And where and when I shall myself die. Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse - The good not used, the love not given, time Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never: But at the total emptiness forever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says no rational being Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anaesthetic from which none come round. And so it stays just on the edge of vision, A small unfocused blur, a standing chill That slows each impulse down to indecision Most things may never happen: this one will, And realisation of it rages out In furnace fear when we are caught without People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no-one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, Have always known, know that we can't escape Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house. |
I read some poems by Gwendolyn Brooks in an african american literature class in college. This is one of my favorites...
A Sunset of the City Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love. My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls, Are gone from the house. My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite And night is night. It is a real chill out, The genuine thing. I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer Because sun stays and birds continue to sing. It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone. The sweet flowers indrying and dying down, The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown. It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes I am aware there is winter to heed. There is no warm house That is fitted with my need. I am cold in this cold house this house Whose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls. I am a woman, and dusty, standing among new affairs. I am a woman who hurries through her prayers. Tin intimations of a quiet core to be my Desert and my dear relief Come: there shall be such islanding from grief, And small communion with the master shore. Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin, Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry In humming pallor or to leap and die. Somebody muffed it?? Somebody wanted to joke. |
A NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them; Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold; Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul |
Song of the Barren Orange Tree
by Federico García Lorca Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of seeing myself without fruit. Why was I born among mirrors? The day walks in circles around me, and the night copies me in all its stars. I want to live without seeing myself. And I will dream that ants and thistleburrs are my leaves and my birds. Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of seeing myself without fruit. Translated by W. S. Merwin |
Most recent one...
I know it may not be the best time
To reveal my heart and cross that line But I am in love with you And see in your eyes, you feel it too. I can't tell you I'll never hurt you But can promise I never mean to. I can't guarantee forever and a day But I'll do everything I can to make it that way. No matter where you are or what your doing If you miss me, all you have to do is make the phone ring I'll answer your call and calm your fears And offer to hold you in my arms for the rest of our years. The more "you" you are, the more I become the true "me" As we spend time together and share that special energy. Any situation that arises, we can weather for all rules fade away once we just exist together. We have the freedom to love, plan, and dream Without worry of what it all might mean. I really do wish to know you forever As my friend, counterpart, and lover. I hope as you work on becoming the person you want to be You don't forget about the little things in your time with me. |
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you If you want a partner Take my hand Or if you want to strike me down in anger Here I stand I'm your man If you want a boxer I will step into the ring for you And if you want a doctor I'll examine every inch of you If you want a driver Climb inside Or if you want to take me for a ride You know you can I'm your man Ah, the moon's too bright The chain's too tight The beast won't go to sleep I've been running through these promises to you That I made and I could not keep Ah but a man never got a woman back Not by begging on his knees Or I'd crawl to you baby And I'd fall at your feet And I'd howl at your beauty Like a dog in heat And I'd claw at your heart And I'd tear at your sheet I'd say please, please I'm your man And if you've got to sleep A moment on the road I will steer for you And if you want to work the street alone I'll disappear for you If you want a father for your child Or only want to walk with me a while Across the sand I'm your man If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you *Cohen also set this to music. Very cool song! |
Enigmas, Pablo Neruda
You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet? I reply, the ocean knows this. You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell? What is it waiting for? I tell you it is waiting for time, like you. You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms? Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know. You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal, and I reply by describing how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies. You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers, which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides? Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on the crystal architecture of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now? You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines? The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks? The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out in the deep places like a thread in the water? I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel boxes is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure, and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the petal hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl. I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead of human eyes, dead in those darknesses, of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes on the timid globe of an orange. I walked around as you do, investigating the endless star, and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind |
one of many favourites ...
Pablo Neruda
Poema XV Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente, y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca. Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca. Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma, emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía. Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma, y te pareces a la palabra melancolía. Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante. Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo. Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza: Déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo. Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo. Eres como la noche, callada y constelada. Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo. Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente. Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto. Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan. Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto. Poem XV I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now, and you heard me from a distance, and my voice couldn't reach you. It's as if your eyes had flown away from you, and as if your mouth were closed because I leaned to kiss you. Just as all living things are filled with my soul. you emerge from all living things filled with the soul of me. It's as if, a butterfly in dreams, you were my soul, and as if you were the soul's word, melancholy. I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you'd gone away now, And you'd become the keening, the butterfly's insistence, And you heard me from a distance and my voice didn't reach you. It's then that what I want is to be quiet with your silence. It's then that what I want is to speak to you your silence in a speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring. You are quiet like the night, and like the night you're star-lit. Your silences are star-like, they're a distant and a simple thing. I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now. As if you were dead now, and sorrowful, and distant. A word then is sufficient, or a smile, to make me happy, Happy that it seems so certain that you're present. |
La Bodega Sold Dreams
dreamt i was a poet & writin' silver sailin' songs words strong & powerful crashing' thru walls of steel & concrete erected in minds weak & those asleep replacin' a hobby of paper candy wrappin', collectin' potent to pregnate sterile young thoughts i dreamt i was this poeta words glitterin' brite & bold strikin' a new rush for gold in las bodegas where our poets' words & songs are sung but sunlite stealin' thru venetian blinds eyes hatin', workin' of time clock sweatin' & swearin' & slavin' for the final dime runnin' a maze a token ride perspiration insultin' poets pride words stoppin' on red goin' on green poets' dreams endin' in a factoria as one in a million unseen buyin' bodega sold dreams . . . |
Lonely Love
The Lonely Lover
I came into your life without ever knowing that I would feel the way I do about you That w/o permission I wanted to save you from ever knowing any type of hurt that could stumble upon you. I don’t have the right to ask you, if you could ever love me I don’t have the right to ask you, if we could just spend one night together, You holding me, touching, whispering softly into my ear.., Me holding you, listening, touching, kissing, and all those others things I much to shy to say… I’ve been foolish to think that I could ever be enough You see I’ve been waiting to be your love I’ve been waiting for this lonely to go away So I guess I am but the lonely lover, Who dreams of you holding her in your arms, whose hands long for the warmth that your body holds, to feel the soft caress of your endless kisses, and the desire for you to quench my lustful thirst. Sometimes I wonder if you notice that my gaze of you is just a little longer than normal, But I just want you to know that in that moment I just want to be there lost in that gaze with you forever But yet I am that lonely lover, who doesn’t have permission to hold, kiss, or caresses you, only to steal moments passing by, just to edit them in my mind. |
Dorothy Parker
I love a good martini
Two at the very most Three I'm under the table. Four I'm under my host. Dorothy Parker Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. Dorothy Parker |
Ordinary Heartbreak, David Levine
She climbs easily on the box That seats her above the swivel chair At adult height, crosses her legs, left ankle over right, Smoothes the plastic apron over her lap While the beautician lifts her ponytail and laughs, "This is coarse as a horse's tail." And then as if that's all there is to say, The woman at once whacks off and tosses its foot and a half into the trash. And the little girl who didn't want her hair cut, But long ago learned successfully how not to say What it is she wants, Who, even at this minute cannot quite grasp her shock and grief, Is getting her hair cut. "For convenience," her mother put it. The long waves gone that had been evidence at night, When loosened from their clasp, She might secretly be a princess. Rather than cry out, she grips her own wrist And looks to her mother in the mirror. But her mother is too polite, or too reserved, So the girl herself takes up indifference, While pain follows a hidden channel to a deep place Almost unknown in her, Convinced as she is, that her own emotions are not the ones her life depends on, She shifts her gaze from her mother's face Back to the haircut now, So steadily as if this short-haired child were someone else. |
Vocation - by Sandra Beasley
For six months I dealt Baccarat in a casino.
For six months I played Brahms in a mall. For six months I arranged museum dioramas; my hands were too small for the Paleolithic and when they reassigned me to lichens, I quit. I type ninety-one words per minute, all of them Help. Yes, I speak Dewey Decimal. I speak Russian, Latin, a smattering of Tlingit. I can balance seven dinner plates on my arm. All I want to do is sit on a veranda while a hard rain falls around me. I'll file your 1099s. I'll make love to strangers of your choice. I'll do whatever you want, as long as I can do it on that veranda. If it calls you, it's your calling, right? Once I asked a broker what he loved about his job, and he said Making a killing. Once I asked a serial killer what made him get up in the morning, and he said The people. |
Birthplace - by Michael Cirelli
Deep in the Boogie Down—
the bassinet of the boom bap where the trinity is The Treacherous Three, English is the third language behind Bronx and Puerto Rican, and I was nervous because I only speak Catholic school and I'm a Red Sox fan. I'm just a student of KRS-1, not a son, on a train fourteen stops beyond my comfort zone hiding behind headphones coughing bass, and a backpack full of lyrics: Notorious B.I.G., Rakim, Perdomo, Run DMC, Brooks, wanting to be real cool, wanting to be their "dawg"— but feeling like a mailman, another Elvis to the students I will lead through a workshop in a language I itch to get my rusted cavities around. |
Quote:
what a great poem. i totally dig it. |
“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.”
|
Death is not the end Death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. ... The Soul is the Guide ... Our mind thinks of death. Our heart thinks of life Our soul thinks of Immortality. By: Sri Chinmoy |
| All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:42 PM. |
ButchFemmePlanet.com
All information copyright of BFP 2018