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06-28-2012, 07:01 AM | #1 |
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St. Francis And The Sow
The bud stands for all things, even those things that don't flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing; as St. Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow began remembering all down her thick length, from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect loveliness of sow. ~ Galway Kinnell |
06-28-2012, 03:17 PM | #2 |
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Be Kind
we are always asked to understand the other person's viewpoint no matter how out-dated foolish or obnoxious. one is asked to view their total error their life-waste with kindliness, especially if they are aged. but age is the total of our doing. they have aged badly because they have lived out of focus, they have refused to see. not their fault? whose fault? mine? I am asked to hide my viewpoint from them for fear of their fear. age is no crime but the shame of a deliberately wasted life among so many deliberately wasted lives is. Charles Bukowski
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06-28-2012, 08:09 PM | #3 |
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Clover
by Tennessee Williams These are fragrant acres where Evening comes long hours late And the still unmoving air Cools the fevered hands of Fate. Meadows where the afternoon Hangs suspended in a flower And the moments of our doom Drift upon a weightless hour. And we who thought that surely night Would bring us triumph or defeat Only find the stars are white Clover at our naked feet. |
06-28-2012, 08:13 PM | #4 |
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When I Am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, "Stay awhile." The light flows from their branches. And they call again, "It's simple," they say, "and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine." |
07-11-2012, 04:25 AM | #5 |
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Death is nothing at all
I copied this from a book I just read. I thought it was pretty awesome.
" Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away to the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, That, we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect. Without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you. For an interval. Somewhere. Very Near. Just around the corner. All is well. "
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06-28-2012, 09:08 PM | #6 |
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For the Dead
by Adrienne Rich I dreamed I called you on the telephone to say: Be kinder to yourself but you were sick and would not answer The waste of my love goes on this way trying to save you from yourself I have always wondered about the left-over energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill long after the rains have stopped or the fire you want to go to bed from but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down the red coals more extreme, more curious in their flashing and dying than you wish they were sitting long after midnight
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06-28-2012, 09:19 PM | #7 |
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off to sleep with loveliness on ny mind... *s
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by Sara Teasdale Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.
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06-29-2012, 02:39 PM | #8 |
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The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts by Mary Oliver For a long time I was not even in this world, yet every summer every rose opened in perfect sweetness and lived in gracious repose, in its own exotic fragrance, in its huge willingness to give something, from its small self, to the entirety of the world. I think of them, thousands upon thousands, in many lands, whenever summer came to them, rising out of the patience of patience, to leaf and bud and look up into the blue sky or, with thanks, into the rain that would feed their thirsty roots latched into the earth— sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia, what did it matter, the answer was simply to rise in joyfulness, all their days. Have I found any better teaching? Not ever, not yet. Last week I saw my first Botticelli and almost fainted, and if I could I would paint like that but am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs about roses: teachers, also, of the ways toward thanks, and praise. |
07-02-2012, 09:38 PM | #9 |
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Her Kind
By Anne Sexton I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disaligned. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.
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07-15-2012, 06:22 AM | #10 |
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William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to marriage of true minds admit impediments Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. |
07-15-2012, 06:28 AM | #11 |
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The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. |
07-15-2012, 06:34 AM | #12 |
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Sonnets 04: Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended
by Edna St. Vincent Millay Only until this cigarette is ended, A little moment at the end of all, While on the floor the quiet ashes fall, And in the firelight to a lance extended, Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended, The broken shadow dances on the wall, I will permit my memory to recall The vision of you, by all my dreams attended. And then adieu,—farewell!—the dream is done. Yours is a face of which I can forget The color and the features, every one, The words not ever, and the smiles not yet; But in your day this moment is the sun Upon a hill, after the sun has set. |
07-15-2012, 06:43 AM | #13 |
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mantra
Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. |
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07-22-2012, 07:31 AM | #14 |
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Mary Oliver
Moon and Water
I wake and spend the last hours of darkness with no one but the moon. She listens to my complaints like the good companion she is and comforts me surely with her light. But she, like everyone, has her own life. So finally I understand that she has turned away, is no longer listening. She wants me to refold myself into my own life. And, bending close, as we all dream of doing, she rows with her white arms through the dark water which she adores. by Mary Oliver from her book "Evidence"
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07-22-2012, 10:08 AM | #15 |
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This is a pretty gut wrenching poem to me...The perspective is astounding...
Family Stories
by Dorianne Laux I had a boyfriend who told me stories about his family, how an argument once ended when his father seized a lit birthday cake in both hands and hurled it out a second-story window. That, I thought, was what a normal family was like: anger sent out across the sill, landing like a gift to decorate the sidewalk below. In mine it was fists and direct hits to the solar plexus, and nobody ever forgave anyone. But I believed the people in his stories really loved one another, even when they yelled and shoved their feet through cabinet doors, or held a chair like a bottle of cheap champagne, christening the wall, rungs exploding from their holes. I said it sounded harmless, the pomp and fury of the passionate. He said it was a curse being born Italian and Catholic and when he looked from that window what he saw was the moment rudely crushed. But all I could see was a gorgeous three-layer cake gliding like a battered ship down the sidewalk, the smoking candles broken, sunk deep in the icing, a few still burning. |
08-09-2012, 08:29 AM | #16 |
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For The Fallen - Laurence Binyon
For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres, There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night; As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain. I'd say this applies to all our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and friends in all the armed forces out there fighting for us.
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08-11-2012, 11:43 AM | #17 |
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True Love....
True Love
True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own? Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason, drawn randomly from millions but convinced it had to happen this way - in reward for what? For nothing. The light descends from nowhere. Why on these two and not on others? Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does. Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles, and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts. Look at the happy couple. Couldn't they at least try to hide it, fake a little depression for their friends' sake? Listen to them laughing - its an insult. The language they use - deceptively clear. And their little celebrations, rituals, the elaborate mutual routines - it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back! It's hard even to guess how far things might go if people start to follow their example. What could religion and poetry count on? What would be remembered? What renounced? Who'd want to stay within bounds? True love. Is it really necessary? Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence, like a scandal in Life's highest circles. Perfectly good children are born without its help. It couldn't populate the planet in a million years, it comes along so rarely. Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die. Wislawa Szymborska Katniss |
08-11-2012, 03:11 PM | #18 |
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The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently ~ Thomas Lux
THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY is not silent, it is a speaking- out-loud voice in your head; it is spoken, a voice is saying it as you read. It's the writer's words, of course, in a literary sense his or her "voice" but the sound of that voice is the sound of your voice. Not the sound your friends know or the sound of a tape played back but your voice caught in the dark cathedral of your skull, your voice heard by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts and what you know by feeling, having felt. It is your voice saying, for example, the word "barn" that the writer wrote but the "barn" you say is a barn you know or knew. The voice in your head, speaking as you read, never says anything neutrally- some people hated the barn they knew, some people love the barn they know so you hear the word loaded and a sensory constellation is lit: horse-gnawed stalls, hayloft, black heat tape wrapping a water pipe, a slippery spilled chirr of oats from a split sack, the bony, filthy haunches of cows... And "barn" is only a noun- no verb or subject has entered into the sentence yet! The voice you hear when you read to yourself is the clearest voice: you speak it speaking to you.
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08-13-2012, 07:35 AM | #19 |
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The Farm by Joyce Sutphen My father's farm is an apple blossomer. He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose and the jack-in-the-pulpits. His sleek cows ripple in the pastures. The dog and purple iris keep watch at the garden's end. His farm is rolling thunder, a lightning bolt on the horizon. His crops suck rain from the sky and swallow the smoldering sun. His fields are oceans of heat, where waves of gold beat the burning shore. A red fox pauses under the birch trees, a shadow is in the river's bend. When the hawk circles the land, my father's grainfields whirl beneath it. Owls gather together to sing in his woods, and the deer run his golden meadow. My father's farm is an icicle, a hillside of white powder. He parts the snowy sea, and smooths away the valleys. He cultivates his rows of starlight and drags the crescent moon through dark unfurrowed fields. |
08-14-2012, 09:09 PM | #20 |
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Thanks for all the great posts. Even though I don't really post much anymore, I still come to this thread regularly to enjoy all the wonderful verse.
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