Dear me
The bird nest fell from the tree egg shells broken life released without a sound
Dec 28, 2009 at 23:36 o\clock
Dec 26, 2009 at 02:38 o\clock
You Smiled
You smiled , you spoke and I believed
by every word and smile-deceived
Another man would hope no more;
no hope I - what hoped before.
But not let this last wish be in vain;
deceive deceive me once again!
Nov 3, 2009 at 05:53 o\clock
in my craft of sullen art Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
In My Craft or Sullen Art
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
Copyright Dylan Thomas. Used by
Permission of David Higham
Associates.
Oct 28, 2009 at 03:35 o\clock
ENCOUNTER WITH WILLIAM BLAKE © 2005, Juan Diego Tamayo
|
ENCOUNTER WITH WILLIAM BLAKE
I will see William Blake
like a storm in his paradises of fire He will tell me that the apple is wiser than words but that these transform the apple into the sun illumining the green fields There where you will go to get lost in the crevice of the cricket’s song eternal reprobate to sing the green in the green just as we sing the first throb of the universe I will see William Blake shining his shield of poppies In search of his lips he will tell me that God initiated the song when feeling the need for silence The Angels were musical notes in the landscape opening the score like a bird discovering the dawn Since then the liquid breath of the earth has perfumed the flower that now unites us in the visions |
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© 2005, Juan Diego Tamayo From: Los elementos perdidos Publisher: Ediciones Fábula, Medellín, 2005 |
© Translation: 2009, Nicolás Suescún |
Oct 3, 2009 at 00:58 o\clock
Morning
A morning
like any other.
The cool light
impassive, but without
the old brusqueness.
The day has shed
its thorns, since the night
was gentle and dark,
since a gesture
defeated the words
and warmth could flow unhampered, in long
waves of release, since
peace - for years a fugitive -
allowed itself to be found at last
blindfold.
like any other.
The cool light
impassive, but without
the old brusqueness.
The day has shed
its thorns, since the night
was gentle and dark,
since a gesture
defeated the words
and warmth could flow unhampered, in long
waves of release, since
peace - for years a fugitive -
allowed itself to be found at last
blindfold.
Sep 24, 2009 at 03:49 o\clock
Mapping the Interior Eugene O'Conner
MAPPING THE INTERIOR
Imagine that you had a dishcloth
Bigger than the one mothers put on the bread
To slow its cooling, that you could spread
Over the whole kitchen floor to bring up its face
As clearly as the features on the cake.
You'd have a print you could lift up
To the light and examine for individual traces
Of people who came to swap yarns, and sit on
Sugan chairs that bit into the bare floor, leaving
Unique signatures on concrete that creased
Over time into a map you could look at and
Imagine what those amateur cartographers
Were thinking when their eyes fell, in the silence
Between the stories, that was broken only by
The sound of the fire and whatever it was that
Was calling in the night outside.
© 2003, Eugene O'Connell
Imagine that you had a dishcloth
Bigger than the one mothers put on the bread
To slow its cooling, that you could spread
Over the whole kitchen floor to bring up its face
As clearly as the features on the cake.
You'd have a print you could lift up
To the light and examine for individual traces
Of people who came to swap yarns, and sit on
Sugan chairs that bit into the bare floor, leaving
Unique signatures on concrete that creased
Over time into a map you could look at and
Imagine what those amateur cartographers
Were thinking when their eyes fell, in the silence
Between the stories, that was broken only by
The sound of the fire and whatever it was that
Was calling in the night outside.
© 2003, Eugene O'Connell
Sep 21, 2009 at 08:34 o\clock
The Full Indian Rope Trick by Colette .Bryce
The Full Indian Rope Trick
Colette Bryce
There was no secret
murmured down through a long line
of elect; no dark fakir, no flutter
of notes from a pipe,
no proof, no footage of it -
but I did it,
Guildhall Square, noon,
in front of everyone.
There were walls, bells, passers-by;
then a rope, thrown, caught by the sky
and me, young, up and away,
goodbye.
Goodbye, goodbye.
Thin air. First try.
A crowd hushed, squinting eyes
at a full sun. There
on the stones
the slack weight of a rope
coiled in a crate, a braid
eighteen summers long,
and me
I'm long gone,
my one-off trick
unique, unequalled since.
And what would I tell them
given the chance?
It was painful; it took years.
I'm my own witness,
guardian of the fact
that I'm still here.
Sep 11, 2009 at 05:10 o\clock
Nearby
Nearby the past whispers
/the ages wring the tolling bell/
Big bad crow flies the arc/
flash figures ache in /
smell bedded earth/
now faces etched /
cobweb clock/
church compass faith/
drip drip /
the long wobbly vanishing line
Sep 9, 2009 at 00:30 o\clock
I never meant
I never meant
For you to go. The thing you heard
I never meant
for you to hear. The night you went
away I knew our whole absurd
sweet world had fallen with a word
I never meant.
Aug 26, 2009 at 13:23 o\clock
Upon a Spider Catching a Fly by Edward Taylor
Upon a Spider Catching a Fly
by Edward Taylor
by Edward Taylor
Thou sorrow, venom Elfe:
Is this thy play,
To spin a web out of thyselfe
To Catch a Fly?
For Why?
I saw a pettish wasp
Fall foule therein:
Whom yet thy Whorle pins did not clasp
Lest he should fling
His sting.
But as affraid, remote
Didst stand hereat,
And with thy little fingers stroke
And gently tap
His back.
Thus gently him didst treate
Lest he should pet,
And in a froppish, aspish heate
Should greatly fret
Thy net.
Whereas the silly Fly,
Caught by its leg
Thou by the throate tookst hastily
And ‘hinde the head
Bite Dead.
This goes to pot, that not
Nature doth call.
Strive not above what strength hath got,
Lest in the brawle
Thou fall.
This Frey seems thus to us.
Hells Spider gets
His intrails spun to whip Cords thus
And wove to nets
And sets.
To tangle Adams race
In’s stratigems
To their Destructions, spoil’d, made base
By venom things,
Damn’d Sins.
But mighty, Gracious Lord
Communicate
Thy Grace to breake the Cord, afford
Us Glorys Gate
And State.
We’l Nightingaile sing like
When pearcht on high
In Glories Cage, thy glory, bright,
And thankfully,
For joy.
Aug 4, 2009 at 20:14 o\clock
a grave poem
Lutheran spire rising on the hill:
The dead tucked into the earth like poems
Or any other unread things.
Jul 27, 2009 at 13:33 o\clock
Jul 27, 2009 at 13:26 o\clock
Baby Sitters written by Sara Peters
Babysitters
Your mother was as nubile as a dressmaker's dummy;
your father polished his glasses and rubbed his crop.
When the Babysitter arrived, with her turquoise belt
and raw mouth, your father had never seen
such a fine wrist, such a way with an onion!
She pinned a plastic hummingbird
behind one pink ear; she sang Fever
over hardboiled eggs.
You, at nine,
had your curls sculpted with toothpaste. You hated
your friends: their Lego sets and down jackets.
But this Babysitter. She'd start with Goldilocks, then
veer. "Papa Bear said Someone has been eating my porridge!
And Goldilocks said My life is broken, my heart is over.
Snap my neck like a broccoli stalk."
Hear the Babysitter: brisk and newsy to the milkman.
You catch words like cream, coffee, cows; phrases like
my sister in Florida, 8 pounds 10 ounces,
a head of black down! But when she thinks herself
alone, you hear back seat of the car, then
with a trench knife, in the orchard. Secrets thud
like June bugs against screens,
and all you have to do is let them in.
The Threepenny Review
Summer 2009
May 26, 2009 at 00:50 o\clock
French Poetry
7
When
a rock
dies
it has
no need
to bury itself away.
53
Every object
that falls
blesses itself.
119
The hand
became
a nest
to catch
the bird.
144
The utensils being washed
held a conversation.
169
The flight
of birds
seized by fright
has the air
of swimming.
170
Winter is cold
only at the approach
of spring.
178
Leaves
in the bouquet
are
so many fingers
reaching
toward the flower.
181
Electricity
is hysterical
and neon
bloodless.
(Text of the poem in the original French)
Malcolm de Chazal
translated from the French by Karina Borowicz & Ben Admussen
Arts & Letters
Spring 2009
May 26, 2009 at 00:49 o\clock
Malcom de Chazal
7
When
a rock
dies
it has
no need
to bury itself away.
53
Every object
that falls
blesses itself.
119
The hand
became
a nest
to catch
the bird.
144
The utensils being washed
held a conversation.
169
The flight
of birds
seized by fright
has the air
of swimming.
170
Winter is cold
only at the approach
of spring.
178
Leaves
in the bouquet
are
so many fingers
reaching
toward the flower.
181
Electricity
is hysterical
and neon
bloodless.
(Text of the poem in the original French)
Malcolm de Chazal
translated from the French by Karina Borowicz & Ben Admussen
Arts & Letters
Spring 2009
May 26, 2009 at 00:48 o\clock
French Poetry
When
a rock
dies
it has
no need
to bury itself away.
Every object
that falls
blesses itself.
The hand
became
a nest
to catch
the bird.
The flight
of birds
seized by fright
has the air
of swimming.
Winter is cold
only at the approach
of spring.
May 6, 2009 at 03:22 o\clock
© 2006, Vera Pavlova Perhaps when our bodies throb and rub
Perhaps when our bodies throb and rub
against each other, they produce a sound
inaudible to us but heard up there, in the clouds and higher,
by those who can no longer hear common sounds . . .
Or, maybe, this is how He wants to check by ear: are we still intact?
No cracks in mortal vessels? And to this end He bangs
men against women?
against each other, they produce a sound
inaudible to us but heard up there, in the clouds and higher,
by those who can no longer hear common sounds . . .
Or, maybe, this is how He wants to check by ear: are we still intact?
No cracks in mortal vessels? And to this end He bangs
men against women?
© 2006, Vera Pavlova
From: Pis'ma v sosednyuyu komnatu: 1001 priznaniye v lyubvi (Letters to a room next door: 1001 confessions of love)
Publisher: AST Publishing House, Moscow, 2006
From: Pis'ma v sosednyuyu komnatu: 1001 priznaniye v lyubvi (Letters to a room next door: 1001 confessions of love)
Publisher: AST Publishing House, Moscow, 2006
Apr 19, 2009 at 09:15 o\clock
Vera Wynnings 91 years
Sorrow is my head
where the flames flame
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this hour
My mother died today
@Neil Furby
Apr 10, 2009 at 01:46 o\clock
1992 Protection of Badgers Act
A family of badgers have tunnelled into the graveyard to extend their sett from a neighbouring field, destroying graves in the process.
Widow Shirley Webb, 72, was horrified to find several graves collapsed, and the wooden casket containing her late husband Jesse exposed by the tunnelling creatures.
Unfortunately, there is nothing the family can do about it.
"It broke my heart," Mrs Webb told the newspaper. "If it were kids vandalising these graves they'd be sent to prison.
"We're told if we touch it, we may be arrested.
"I'd always wished to be buried with Jesse. Now I'm going to have my ashes scattered by a brook where he proposed to me. It's the only sacred place we have left."
As a result of the badgers' activity at St Lawrence Church, Gloucs, three graves have been damaged, and four more in danger of collapse have been cordoned off.
Under the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act it is an offence to disturb the badgers, with a maximum penalty of six months in jail or a £5,000 fine.
Rev David Eady, 64, said: "We sympathise with the families, but our hands are tied."
Apr 10, 2009 at 01:20 o\clock
Badger by John Clare
Badger
by John Clare (1793-1864)
When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes bye.
He comes and hears-they let the strongest loose.
The old fox hears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare half wounded buzzes by.
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all the day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.
He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where eer they go;
When badgers fight, then every one's a foe.
The dogs are clapt and urged to join the fray;
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for bones and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through-the drunkard swears and reels.
The frightened women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chace.
He turns agen and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd agen;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and crackles, groans, and dies.
