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Speak in Poetry
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. |
Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow, Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . How did it go? How did it go? |
needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck My lips away till I had drawn All venom out. ----------- All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire |
And he himself, as he lay there, relieved, with the sweetness
of the gentle world you had made for him dissolving beneath his drowsy eyelids, into the foretaste of sleep-: he seemed protected . . . But inside: who could ward off, who could divert, the floods of origin inside him? Ah, there was no trace of caution in that sleeper; sleeping, yes but dreaming, but flushed with what fevers: how he threw himself in. All at once new, trembling, how he was caught up and entangled in the spreading tendrils of inner event already twined into patterns, into strangling undergrowth, prowling bestial shapes. How he submitted-. Loved. |
Then dark with dripping blood it gave a howl
and cried again: 'Our damaged branches ache! Your pillage maims me! Can't you feel at all? We who were men are now this barren brake. You'd grant us your respect and stay your hand were we a thicket not of souls but snakes.' As wood still green starts burning at one end and from its unlit end the burning stick drips sap, and hisses with escaping wind, so from the broken stump there oozed a mix of words and blood: a frothy babbling gore. I dropped the branch. My fear had made me sick. 'Poor wounded soul, could he have grasped before,' my sage replied, 'what now he sees is true, and blindly trusted in poetic lore, then he need not have so insulted you. But as there was no other way to learn I urged him to a test that grieved me too. Tell us who you were, that he, in turn, can set your honor freshly back in style among those he will teach when he returns.' The trunk: 'Your speech, by raising hope that I'll regain repute, makes words arise in me. I mean to talk, if you will stay a while: I was the one entrusted with the keys to Federigo's mind, and it was sweet to share his thought and guard his strategy for noble ventures secret in my keep — so faithfully I filled this glorious post, I gladly sacrificed my health and sleep...' Dante Alighieri |
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. |
"The rain came down.
Hard, and soft. It hit the grass. Green, and wet. Wet. So wet. It reminded me of you. You always smelled like the rain." |
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself ... If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades,-- Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household? |
Love, can you hear me?
I call to thee incessantly, yet you turn a deaf ear to all my wretched pleas, and send only women who would put me on my knees, for shame, oh fate, to pay me so foully, what have I done to deserve this from thee? Have I not been faithful, and placed upon your pyre my heart as solemn sacrifice? And yet you seek to torment me, By sending one wench after another, to break what is unbreakable, try as you might, I will love as I will, heart broken I may be, But my spirit will never bow down to your defeat. |
O the transformation
of feeling into what? Into audible landscape. Music: you stranger. Passion which has outgrown us. Our inner most being, transcending, driven out of us, holiest of departures: inner worlds now the most practiced of distances, as the other side of thin air: pure, immense no longer habitable... . |
this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing strong silent greens serenely lingering, absolute lights like baths of golden snow. This is the garden pursed lips do blow upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing (of harps celestial to the quivering string) invisible faces hauntingly and slow... |
I am a feather on the bright skyThe blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. I am the evening light, the lustre of meadowsI know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know. I am the long track of the moon in a lakeI do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. I am the whole dream of these thingsWhen the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles. You see, I am alive, I am alive(Mashup of The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee by N. Scott Momaday and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens) |
You will carry this suture
into the future the past never passes it simply amasses |
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again. For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. |
You, who are all
the gardens I've ever looked upon, full of promise. An open window in a country house, and you almost stepped towards me, thoughtfully. Sidestreets I happened upon, you had just passed through them, and sometimes, in the small shops of sellers, the mirrors were still dizzy with you and gave back, frightened, my too sudden form. Who is to say if the same bird did not resound through us both yesterday, separate, in the evening? |
tenderly
"The evening breeze caressed the trees tenderly The trembling trees embraced the breeze tenderly Then you and I came wandering by And lost in a sigh were we The shore was kissed by sea and mist tenderly I can't forget how two hearts met breathlessly Your arms opened wide and closed me inside You took my lips, you took my love so tenderly" :rose: |
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground. All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground. I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. |
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths, In my stiff, correct brocade. The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, Each one. I stood upright too, Held rigid to the pattern By the stiffness of my gown. Up and down I walked, Up and down. :) |
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow I with these did play... |
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. |
You fit into me
like a hook into an eye a fish hook an open eye |
Pablo Neruda | Leaning into the afternoons
One of my favorites by Neruda :blueheels: |
I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you. I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, ... None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all, From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd light, But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color'd light, From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever. O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life |
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution. The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency, Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself, Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted, Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way. |
I stood before the mirror
Like an open-ended cavern Like a breath held inhaled, holding, And I barely knew my name I barely knew my name my friend I barely knew my name It makes me think of this my friend Where do I live in me? O it's a planet of resistance It's a whirling flame of choice Are you my comrades in persistence I swear they'll know us by our voice Though we lay down in dusty corners We are ragged as a scar And when we rest our eyes stay open We are always off to war We're always off to war my friend We're always off to war And it makes my think of this my friend Where can the quiet be? O is it up the misty mountain Where wild flowers bind the ground Is it down by the rushing river Where force wears those boulders down Is it underneath my covers Is it trapped inside my brain Is it up above the misty mountain Is it up above the rushing river Is it up above the bed of longing Where the eagle takes the wind? |
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow's form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. |
Drink from the presence of saints,
not from those other jars. Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight. Be a conoisseur, and taste with caution. Any wine will get you high. Judge like a king, and choose the purest, the ones unadulterated with fear, or some urgency about "what's needed." Drink the wine that moves you as a camel moves when it's been untied, and is just ambling about. |
Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken
Only we can convert the infidel tonight. Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities multiply me at once under your spell tonight. He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven. He’s left open—for God—the doors of Hell tonight. In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day— I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight. Executioners near the woman at the window. Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight. |
Each flower sent is bound in my hair in circles...
bound and wound, 'round and 'round. Till I am surrounded by the flowers You sent, surrounding me. Stubborn weeds need water, too, And flowers 'round profounded me. Most willingly, I bend to Thee, And let Your posies take me. But then the game is gambled, laid. And I am left to make me. Wake up and smell the roses grown. Wake up and smell the coffee. Wake up and write the dream You live. Wake up and live, but softly. |
The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies. They take off shoes. They turn off the light. The glimmering creatures are full of lies. They are eating each other. They are overfed. At night, alone, I marry the bed. |
With evening's coming the flower folds her petals And sleeps, embracing her longing. At morning's approach she opens her lips to meet The sun's kiss. The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment. A tear and a smile. |
When I love
I become liquid light invisible to the eye and the poems in my notebooks become fields of mimosa and poppy. When I love the water gushes from my fingers grass grows on my tongue when I love I become time outside all time. |
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The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come
Together and are a cloud. And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys Until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping To the fields and joins with brooks and rivers to Return to the sea, its home. The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting. A tear and a smile... |
Shall I dare to eat a peach?
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. Oh your voice, slow and sad! Dark riverbeds where the eternal thirst flows You look like a world lying in surrender My rough, peasant's body digs in you Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you I will persist in your grace |
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone... |
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. |
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. |
Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced and suddenly leaped across the hurdles of our wishes--do you recall? And we did make so many! For there were countless numbers of stars: each time we looked above we were astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, while in our hearts we felt safe and secure watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate, knowing somehow we had survived their fall. |
"Beauty is that which attracts your soul,
and that which loves to give and not to receive. When you meet Beauty, you feel that the hands deep within your inner self are stretched forth to bring her into the domain of your heart. It is the magnificence combined of sorrow and joy; it is the Unseen which you see, and the Vague which you understand, and the Mute which you hear it is the Holy of Holies that begins in yourself and ends vastly beyond your earthly imagination." |
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