10-13-2011, 08:05 AM | #201 |
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"...I want to catch a book, clear as a one-way ticket..."
Bookmobile
by Joyce Sutphen I spend part of my childhood waiting for the Sterns County Bookmobile. When it comes to town, it makes a U-turn in front of the grade school and glides into its place under the elms. It is a natural wonder of late afternoon. I try to imagine Dante, William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson traveling down a double lane highway together, country-western on the radio. Even when it arrives, I have to wait. The librarian is busy, getting out the inky pad and the lined cards. I pace back and forth in the line, hungry for the fresh bread of the page, because I need something that will tell me what I am; I want to catch a book, clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris, to London, to anywhere. |
10-16-2011, 08:47 AM | #202 |
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You shall above all things be glad...
You shall above all things be glad and young...
by E. E. Cummings you shall above all things be glad and young For if you're young, whatever life you wear It will become you;and if you are glad whatever's living will yourself become. Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need: i can entirely her only love whose any mystery makes every man's flesh put space on;and his mind take off time that you should ever think,may god forbid and (in his mercy) your true lover spare: for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave called progress,and negation's dead undoom. I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance |
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10-16-2011, 09:37 AM | #203 |
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Sonnet LXXXI: Rest with your dream inside my dream
Already, you are mine. Rest with your dream inside my dream. Love, grief, labour, must sleep now. Night revolves on invisible wheels and joined to me you are pure as sleeping amber. No one else will sleep with my dream, love. You will go we will go joined by the waters of time. No other one will travel the shadows with me, only you, eternal nature, eternal sun, eternal moon. Already your hands have opened their delicate fists and let fall, without direction, their gentle signs, you eyes enclosing themselves like two grey wings, while I follow the waters you bring that take me onwards: night, Earth, winds weave their fate, and already, not only am I not without you, I alone am your dream. -- Pablo Neruda |
10-16-2011, 09:41 AM | #204 |
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Where the Sidewalk Ends
by Shel Silverstein There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends. |
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10-16-2011, 09:45 AM | #205 |
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Sonnet 14 - If thou must love me, let it be for nought
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say 'I love her for her smile—her look—her way Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'— For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,— A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity. |
10-16-2011, 12:49 PM | #206 |
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Sylvia Plath
Black Pine Tree in an Orange Light
Tell me what you see in it: The pine tree like a Rorschach-blot black against the orange light: Plant an orange pumpkin patch which at twelve will quaintly hatch nine black mice with ebon coach, or walk into the orange and make a devil's cataract of black obscure god's eye with corkscrew fleck; put orange mistress half in sun, half in shade, until her skin tattoos black leaves on tangerine. Read black magic or holy book or lyric of love in the orange and black till dark is conquered by orange cock, but more pragmatic than all this, say how crafty the painter was to make orange and black ambiguous. |
10-18-2011, 11:56 PM | #207 |
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Ode To Enchanted Light Under the trees light has dropped from the top of the sky, light like a green latticework of branches, shining on every leaf, drifting down like clean white sand. A cicada sends its sawing song high into the empty air. The world is a glass overflowing with water. |
10-20-2011, 01:41 AM | #208 |
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Opal by Amy Lowell
Opal
You are ice and fire, The touch of you burns my hands like snow. You are cold and flame. You are the crimson of amaryllis, The silver of moon-touched magnolias. When I am with you, My heart is a frozen pond Gleaming with agitated torches. |
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10-23-2011, 02:13 PM | #209 |
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"Warming Her Pearls" by Carol Ann Duffy
for Judith Radstone Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress bids me wear them, warm them, until evening when I´ll brush her hair. At six, I place them round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her, resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope. She´s beautiful. I dream about her in my attic bed; picture her dancing with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent beneath her French perfume, her milky stones. I dust her shoulders with a rabbit´s foot, watch the soft blush seep through her skin like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass my red lips part as though I want to speak. Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see her every movement in my head.... Undressing, taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way she always does.... And I lie here awake, knowing the pearls are cooling even now in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night I feel their absence and I burn.
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You can’t change that system by just getting your own rights, tinkering with the engine and leaving. You have to take on the whole machine.
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10-23-2011, 03:02 PM | #210 |
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Miss Diva turned me on to this, Thank You Diva...
The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming, from the book The Invitation published by HarperONE, San Francisco, 1999 All rights reserved |
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10-24-2011, 08:16 AM | #211 |
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The Journey
by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save. |
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10-24-2011, 10:00 PM | #212 |
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A Cat's Life
by David R. Slavitt Her repertoire is limited but fulfilling, with two preoccupations, or three, perhaps, if you include the taking of many naps: otherwise she is snuggling or killing. |
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10-24-2011, 10:10 PM | #213 |
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Promises Like Pie-Crust
by Christina Georgina Rossetti Promise me no promises, So will I not promise you: Keep we both our liberties, Never false and never true: Let us hold the die uncast, Free to come as free to go: For I cannot know your past, And of mine what can you know? You, so warm, may once have been Warmer towards another one: I, so cold, may once have seen Sunlight, once have felt the sun: Who shall show us if it was Thus indeed in time of old? Fades the image from the glass, And the fortune is not told. If you promised, you might grieve For lost liberty again: If I promised, I believe I should fret to break the chain. Let us be the friends we were, Nothing more but nothing less: Many thrive on frugal fare Who would perish of excess. |
10-24-2011, 10:32 PM | #214 |
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Mirage
by Christina Georgina Rossetti The hope I dreamed of was a dream, Was but a dream; and now I wake, Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake. I hang my harp upon a tree, A weeping willow in a lake; I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped For a dream's sake. Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake. |
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10-24-2011, 10:52 PM | #215 |
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I love Daffodils
Daffodils
by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of the bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed - and gazed - but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. |
10-26-2011, 08:19 AM | #216 |
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All Hallows Night
by Lizette Woodworth Reese Two things I did on Hallows Night:— Made my house April-clear; Left open wide my door To the ghosts of the year. Then one came in. Across the room It stood up long and fair— The ghost that was myself— And gave me stare for stare. |
10-28-2011, 05:53 PM | #217 |
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"Double double toil and trouble"
Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I
by William Shakespeare (The three witches, casting a spell) Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights hast thirty one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. |
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10-28-2011, 05:59 PM | #218 |
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All Hallow's Eve On All Hallows' Eve the dead will arise to walk the earth amidst you and I, Barriers are breached 'tween their world and ours as lost souls flow forth and cause men to cower, The Lord of the Dead releases their bonds to roam the creation from dusk until dawn The Evil of the night is kept at bay by fashioned masks bearing unholy traits while candles are lit so the spirits may find the family and friends they left behind, Listen to the whispers in songs on the wind, They'll reveal your future if you welcome them in, The dearly departed are invited to feast, or tricks will be played if you deny them a treat, Forgotten are the tales the elders once weaved, but they come back to haunt on All Hallows' Eve. Jack E. Bilek |
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10-29-2011, 11:40 PM | #219 |
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From Out the Cave
by Joyce Sutphen When you have been at war with yourself for so many years that you have forgotten why, when you have been driving for hours and only gradually begin to realize that you have lost the way, when you have cut hastily into the fabric, when you have signed papers in distraction, when it has been centuries since you watched the sun set or the rain fall, and the clouds, drifting overhead, pass as flat as anything on a postcard; when, in the midst of these everyday nightmares, you understand that you could wake up, you could turn and go back to the last thing you remember doing with your whole heart: that passionate kiss, the brilliant drop of love rolling along the tongue of a green leaf, then you wake, you stumble from your cave, blinking in the sun, naming every shadow as it slips. |
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10-31-2011, 08:22 AM | #220 |
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Bats
by Paisley Rekdal unveil themselves in dark. They hang, each a jagged, silken sleeve, from moonlit rafters bright as polished knives. They swim the muddled air and keen like supersonic babies, the sound we imagine empty wombs might make in women who can’t fill them up. A clasp, a scratch, a sigh. They drink fruit dry. And wheel, against feverish light flung hard upon their faces, in circles that nauseate. Imagine one at breast or neck, Patterning a name in driblets of iodine that spatter your skin stars. They flutter, shake like mystics. They materialize. Revelatory as a stranger’s underthings found tossed upon the marital bed, you tremble even at the thought. Asleep, you tear your fingers and search the sheets all night. |
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