...~* Poetry from my heart of hearts *~...

[Kätzchen]

It's been a long while since I've written anything - prose or poetry - but I've been experiencing a lot of change in my life this past year. I am not sure how others deal with change in their lives, but since I have been through so many threshold experiences, I think the poetic side of my brain is broken (for the moment).

Well, maybe in time, things will change, yes?


Anyway, recently I was at Powell's Book store and I picked a book off the stand to browse through and it was a book of Anne Sexton's poetry. I found this poem and it spoke to my heart...



Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound

by Anne Sexton




I am surprised to see
that the ocean is still going on.
Now I am going back
and I have ripped my hand
from your hand as I said I would
and I have made it this far
as I said I would
and I am on the top deck now
holding my wallet, my cigarettes
and my car keys
at 2 o’clock on a Tuesday
in August of 1960.

Dearest,
although everything has happened,
nothing has happened.
The sea is very old.
The sea is the face of Mary,
without miracles or rage
or unusual hope,
grown rough and wrinkled
with incurable age.

Still,
I have eyes.
These are my eyes:
the orange letters that spell
ORIENT on the life preserver
that hangs by my knees;
the cement lifeboat that wears
its dirty canvas coat;
the faded sign that sits on its shelf
saying KEEP OFF.
Oh, all right, I say,
I’ll save myself.

Over my right shoulder
I see four nuns
who sit like a bridge club,
their faces poked out
from under their habits,
as good as good babies who
have sunk into their carriages.
Without discrimination
the wind pulls the skirts
of their arms.
Almost undressed,
I see what remains:
that holy wrist,
that ankle,
that chain.

Oh God,
although I am very sad,
could you please
let these four nuns
loosen from their leather boots
and their wooden chairs
to rise out
over this greasy deck,
out over this iron rail,
nodding their pink heads to one side,
flying four abreast
in the old-fashioned side stroke;
each mouth open and round,
breathing together
as fish do,
singing without sound.

Dearest,
see how my dark girls sally forth,
over the passing lighthouse of Plum Gut,
its shell as rusty
as a camp dish,
as fragile as a pagoda
on a stone;
out over the little lighthouse
that warns me of drowning winds
that rub over its blind bottom
and its blue cover;
winds that will take the toes
and the ears of the rider
or the lover.

There go my dark girls,
their dresses puff
in the leeward air.
Oh, they are lighter than flying dogs
or the breath of dolphins;
each mouth opens gratefully,
wider than a milk cup.
My dark girls sing for this.
They are going up.
See them rise
on black wings, drinking
the sky, without smiles
or hands
or shoes.
They call back to us
from the gauzy edge of paradise,
good news, good news.





Anne Sexton, “Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound” from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981). Copyright © 1981 by Linda Gray Sexton and Loring Conant, Jr. Reprinted with the permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

Source: The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1981)

[Kätzchen]

(The poem below is one of many that I like very much by Czeslaw Milosz)


Bells in Winter

~C. Milosz

Riding out of Transylvanian mountains,
Through primeval forest and Carpathian ridge,
At nightfall, once, halting at the edge
Of a fording place (my companions
Had sent me to find the way), I dismounted,
And setting my horse to graze, unstrapped
The Holy Scriptures and read, rapt
By the Letters of Paul—at once I was granted
Such a gift from the rushing stream
And light of the setting sun's fire,
That the sight of evening's first star
Lulled me into a powerful dream.
A young man in ornate Greek attire
Touched my hand and said—“Time
For mortals runs like water. I've probed
Its depth to the very bottom.
In Corinth Paul rebuked me, for I robbed
My father of his wife; he barred me from
The common table of my brethren.
Since then I've been exiled from the horde
Of Saints, all these years my love of sin
Led me, poor plaything, floored
By temptation—to satisfy demands
Of eternal Damnation. But from the slime
My Lord and God, unknown that time,
Tore me with a lightning flash.
Your truths amount to nothing in his hands;
His mercy saves all living flesh.”

Awakened under the great starry skies,
Surprised by this help unexpected,
My former cares now trifles rejected,
I wiped with a kerchief my moist eyes.

I've never journeyed to Transylvania.
I didn't bring back messages to my church.
But I could have.
This is an exercise in stylistics.
The pluperfect tense
Of imperfective countries.

Instead I will tell you something that hasn't been fabricated.
The tiny street almost opposite the university
Is really called Literary Lane.
On the corner, a bookstore but no books, just drafts and sheets
Heaped to the ceiling. Unbound, tied with string,
Printed and handwritten—Latin, Cyrillic,
Hebrew letters. More than a hundred, three hundred years.
They must have been worth a fortune.
From this bookshop another could be seen,
Similar, almost facing it,
Identical proprietors: faded bears,
Long gabardine caftans, reddened eyelids.
Unchanged since the year Napoleon passed through.
Nothing has changed here. The privilege of stones?
They are that way and like it. Beyond the second shop
The lane curves along a wall, passes a house
In which a poet, famous in our city,
Wrote a tale about a Princess named Grazyna.
Right by a wooden gate with studs
Huge as fists. Under the vault, on the right,
Stairs smelling of paint, where I live.
Not that I would have picked Literary Lane,
It just happened, there was a room for rent,
With a low ceiling and a bay window, a wide oak bed,
And a stove that heated the raw winter,
Consuming logs brought from the hall
By the old servant, Alzbieta.

There doesn't seem to be any reason—
For I soon went farther way than any road
Through woods or mountains could reach—
To think about that room over here.

Yet I am one of those who believe in Apokatastasis,
A word that promises returning movement,
Not what is fixed in Katastasis,
And appears in Acts 3,21.

It means: Restoration. This was believed by Gregory of Nyssa,
Johannes Scotus Erigena, Ruysbroeck, and William Blake.

Thus each thing, for me, has a dual existence,
Both in time and when time shall no longer be.

And so one morning, in biting frost
And cold drizzle, in a dreamlike gray mist,
The air suffused with crimson light
Turning snow banks rosy, and streets made slick by runners,
Smoke and puffy steam, sledges clanging, jingling,
Horses coated with hoarfrost, each hair distance.
Then bells—from Saint John's,
The Berardines', Saint Casimir's,
The Cathedral's, The Missionaries',
Saint George's, The Dominicans',
Saint Nicholas', Saint Jacob's.
So many bells. As if all hands pulling ropes
Were erecting a solemn edifice above the city.

So Alzbieta, wrapped in her kerchief, would go to morning mass.
For a long time I've thought about the life of Alzbieta,
I could count the years but I prefer not to.
What are years, if I see the snow and her tiny shoes,
Funny, pointed, fastened on the side.
And I'm the same, though the conceit of the body
Begins and ends.

Once again chubby angels blast heir golden trumpets.
And the stoop-shouldered priest in his chasuble,
Today I'd compare him to a scarab
From the Egyptian wing of the Louvre.

Or sister Alzbieta communing with the Saints—
Witches dunked and broken on the wheel,
Under the image of the could-kissing Trinity,
Until they confessed that at night they transformed to magpies,
Serving girls taken for their masters' amusement,
Wives delivered divorce decrees,
Mothers with a package below the wall,
Leads with grimy fingernails along the letters,
When the choirmaster, a sacrificer, a Levite,
Climbing the steps, sings: Introibo ad altare Dei.
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.

Prie Dievo kurs linksmina mano jaunyste.

Mano jaunyste.
My youth.
As long as in the ritual
Of my own words
I swing the censer and the smoke rises.

As long as I raise my voice to implore:
Momento etiam, Domine, famulorum, famularumque, tuarum
Qui nos praecesserunt.

Kurie prima masu nuejo.

What kind of year this day? Easy to remember.
A year when the Eucalyptus forests froze in our hills,
Free wood for every fireplace, enough to stock
For the rainy season and storms from the sea.
In the morning we cut logs with a chainsaw,
A strong, predatory dwarf, bursting in the roar and stench of burning.
And the bay, low, beneath us, the reveling sun,
And the towers of San Francisco, beyond the rust-colored fog.

Behind me, the same consciousness unwilling to forgive.

Perhaps only wonder will save me.

If not for that, I wouldn't dare to pronounce the prophets' words:

“Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated; Forms cannot;
The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife,
But their Forms Eternal Exist forever. Amen. Hallelujah!”

“For God himself enters Death's Door and always with those that enter
and lies down in the Grave with them, in Visions of Eternity
till they awake and see Jesus in the Linen Clothes lying
that the females had woven form them and Gates of their Father's House.”

And if the city below was consumed by fire,
As well as the cities of all continents,
I would not say with my mouth of ashes it was unjust.

Judgment, which began in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-seven,
Though not for certain, perhaps in some other year.
It might come to pass in the sixth millennium or next Tuesday.
Suddenly the demiurge's workshop will silence in unimaginable stillness.
And the form of every single grain will return in glory.
I was judged in my despair, for I couldn't comprehend this.

[Kätzchen]

I crave…

Your melody: crashing against the still waters of my being;

Your crescendo: placing your fingers on the keys of my instrument, gracefully blurring every sound my keys will make.

Your delicately placed strokes on me: until my soul bursts aflame in the fire of your all-consuming hunger;

Your need to pull my hips toward your being: your provocative skill, plying me gently as I plead for release.

Your hand exploring my chasms: causing my soul to weep with the Lilies of the Valley;

Your mouth: partaking of my milk and honey; drinking every morsel, my body willingly delivers to you.

Your tongue: lapping, tasting, savoring, probing and willing my pearl to bare its luster.

Your mind: enveloping my mind; unwrapping all the gifts stored within.

Your desire to make me yours: your all-consuming kiss that pierces through me, body and soul.

Your appetite: for what I have will feed you; the depths of my being and my untouched reserves have yet to be tapped.

What is my desire?
You …


© LDS

[Kätzchen]

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky

And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.


~ Shahram Shiva


>>> LINK <<<

[Kätzchen]

Blue Bird Theory in Three Tings

*Ting, Ting, Ting*

From waterfalls to paddling to night-swimming in a pool
To ‘funny you should ask:’

That night, while sitting on a bar stool
Your blue eyes sparkled with mystery, and
Your beautiful pearly smile carried me across
The skies of a desert, rippling with white-hot sand

Well – ‘little did you know’ – back when we first met
I took a sip of your whiskey and I made a simple bet.

*Ting, Ting*

‘Knock, Knock,’ you came a calling
Whispering these beautiful words:

I’ll fall asleep tonight
See where they take me
Fly with the maple seeds
See if she wakes me

Counting down – 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – in light years
Buzzing like a bee, you were, in my ears!

*Ting*

“Thy words have I hidden in my heart
That I might not sin against thee:”

I may not know where I’m going (baby)
I said, I may not know what I need
One thing, one thing’s for certain (baby)
I know what I want . . . I want you

And, thirteen moons later like the heavens in a storybook night
I rehearse your words that cause the strings of my heart to take flight.

[Kätzchen]

I'm Dancing in the Wind

All these years,
spent looking for you,
nothing could stop me
not even time anew.

For even now, in this very moment,
not much seems to be different,
even if it's left unspoken.
Unspoken or not,
sent screaming to the heavens
or downward below the seas,
the one thing that mattered
was the deftness of your reverie:
the magical presence of your wit,
the boding essence of your anger,
the reverent way your smile dented my heart,
I thought for sure, we'd never be apart.

But all those years spent looking for you,
didn't tear down any wall or uproot any painful premise,
for all the times you dared me to go on without you,
I stood here:

Dancing in the wind,
Dancing in the wind,
Dancing in the wind,
yes, my darling,
I'm dancing in the wind.

-LDS-
(c) June 30th, 2012

[Kätzchen]

Today is Sunday September 16th of 2012 and I spent the day in reflection. Recounting events of my life's journey and how I felt during times where I felt like I lost a piece of my heart or a piece of my identity; somehow thinking, during past space of time, the possibility of how I would recover parts of me that felt like I would never get them back, periods of time in which I experienced deep grief, the type of grief that shuts you down, making it near impossible to function or even rationally think about what you do to survive on a daily basis.

During those periods of my life, I was in college. College was a good place for me to heal, one could say. Not only did I have tremendous obligation to my studies but even with the formidable schedule of study, handling day to day life which was spent working too and little slices of social time, here and there, I found myself drawn to the works of Czeslaw Milosz.

I found him, in author form, one day, in the stacks of literature at my college campus library. I was wandering in the literature section and came across his name and thought to myself, "What a name this person has! They are not from the western hemisphere, I must find out what they write about, what they think upon and maybe there, in their works of literature, I may discover something about me."

Well, I did. I found out about the deep suffering Milosz endured in his home country - on the outskirts of Russia, having lived in Poland and Lithuania and during tumultuous eras of political and social strife, his family sought safety near the Carpathian Mountains - which lasted for not too long. Eventually, during the years of exile that he and his family endured, Milosz wrote about life in terms of his own worldview that was shaped by the years of exile and post-exile safety of having taught literature and linguistic studies at University of California - Berkeley.

Miloszian philosophy acts like a healing balm to me and I go through periods even today where I have to have my fill of writings authored by Milosz. I've featured two of his poems here before: How It Was & Bells In Winter. In other poetry forum threads, I've left one or two other poems of his, but cannot recall them tonight. Tonight, I leave the poem below as an offering to anyone who might find a strand of thought or glimmer of light as the read this particular Mioszian strand of thought.





Esse

I looked at that face, dumbfounded.

The lights of metro stations flew by; I didn't notice them.

What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the void of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified from the drawing of an animal or bird?

A slightly snub nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed back hair, the line of the chin - but why isn't the power of sight absolute? - and, in whiteness tinged with pink two sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous lava.

To absorb that face but to have it simultaneously against the background of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its weepinng, its laughter, moving back fifteen years, or ahead thirty.

To have. It is not even a desire. Like a butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more mysterious.

And so it befell me that after so many attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat, harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowal beyond which no power can attain: I am, she is. Shout, blow the trumpets, make thousands strong marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

She got out at Raspail. I left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself, a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

Czeslaw Milosz (1954): The Collected Poems 1931 - 1987

Translated by: Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Pinsky
Copyright (c) Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Pinsky (1988).

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

I crave…

Your melody: crashing against the still waters of my being;

Your crescendo: placing your fingers on the keys of my instrument, gracefully blurring every sound my keys will make.

Your delicately placed strokes on me: until my soul bursts aflame in the fire of your all-consuming hunger;

Your need to pull my hips toward your being: your provocative skill, plying me gently as I plead for release.

Your hand exploring my chasms: causing my soul to weep with the Lilies of the Valley;

Your mouth: partaking of my milk and honey; drinking every morsel, my body willingly delivers to you.

Your tongue: lapping, tasting, savoring, probing and willing my pearl to bare its luster.

Your mind: enveloping my mind; unwrapping all the gifts stored within.

Your desire to make me yours: your all-consuming kiss that pierces through me, body and soul.

Your appetite: for what I have will feed you; the depths of my being and my untouched reserves have yet to be tapped.

What is my desire?
You …


© LDS

So many truly lovely lines: "willing my pearl to bare its luster"

Nice!

[Kätzchen]

I wanted to share another poem tonight by a poet I came across recently. It's called Blue Flower by Mihai Eminescu (translated by Corneliu M. Popescu). A Romanian poet too, like Nichita Stãnescu, Eminescu was heavily influenced by German philospher, Arthur Schopenhauer.
,

BLUE FLOWER

"You ride the clouds and range the sky
Your net about the stars cast;
But do remember dear at last
My soul can never soar so high.

You build tall palaces in Spain
Of fancy's fragile masonry;
You search in vain the sullen sea
And roam Assyria's plains in vain.

The pyramids their summits press
Against the clouded heavens high,
Dear heart, it is not wise to fly
Too far afield for happiness!"

T'was thus she spoke in whispers low,
Her hand laid softly on my head,
But l just laughed and nothing said,
Yet what she told was truth, l know.

"Come where cool crystal brooks complain
Their fleeting fate midst forest greens,
And where the hanging cliff out leans
As though to thunder on the plain.

And somewhere, up some little glade,
To gather raspberries we will climb,
Or sit and watch the sky sublime
From near the rushes' tasselled shade.

While many a story you will tell,
And many a lie you'll whisper too;
But l will read on petals true
You love me not, you love me well.

As rosy as an apple's rind
Will be my cheeks burnt by the sun,
And my long golden hair undone
Around your neck in coils you'll wind.

While if your lips on mine should burn
No one in all the world will know,
My hat is broad...and even so,
T'were only your and my concern.

And whet moon comes shining through
The gap where tangled branches part,
You'll hold me very close, dear heart,
And l will clasp my arms round you.

And when we walk the twilight gloom
Of forest paths that homeward run,
We'll gather many a kiss, each one
As fragrant as the violets' bloom.

And long amid the starlight glow
We'll stand to talk outside my gate,
For no one comes that way so late,
And who should care l love you so?"

Another kiss and she was gone;
Like post l stood in the moan's stream!
O beautiful beyond a dream,
O small blue flower all my own!

Alas our love that grew so fair
Has flown and faded from that hour,
O my blue flower, my blue flower!
The world is sorrow everywhere.

[Kätzchen]

AThousand Fathoms Deep

In a world where seeking the best in life
Is sometimes confused with being a saintly wife,
I thought it would be wise to strip myself bare
So I could hear the unspoken and see what’s not there.

What I found out, as I removed parts of my self,
Was that I saw great confliction and how it affects my health.
As I removed each mask with deliberate stealth,
I came to see clearly, my lack in terms of wealth.

Just like a clever, well-written haiku,
I could see how my very existence ached for you.
But the reason I am even remotely aware
Is because it’s no coincidence that I can feel how you care.

How do I know this, you might begin to ask,
I know without a doubt that life is no easy task.
Living with less amplified my need to the core,
Living with less has also proved what my soul needs more.

“It is only when you are empty
That a soul is ready for life anew…”
I swear I read that, somewhere before,
As I spent hours, upon hours, longing for you.

So, one day a few weeks ago, naturally by intuition,
I decided to improve my naked ambition.
I undressed from my life of cluttered desire,
And simplified my excess baggage and made a roaring fire.

Now as my life bursts aflame and is seen upon this altar,
I hope it gives you strength, in case your faith should falter;
Living a life that is worth more is not a price that is too steep;
It’s a selfless act of love and devotion: AThousand Fathoms Deep.

L. D. S.
© February 11, 2013

[nycfem]

Who wrote this? I love it (the most recent poem you posted).