Speak in Poetry

[Nat]

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.

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.

[Enchantress]

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?

[Nat]

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

[Semantics]

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.

[TickledPink]

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

[Nat]

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.

[Enchantress]

"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."

[Nat]

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?

[Miami]

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.

[Enchantress]

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...

.

[Enchantress]

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...

[Nat]

I am a feather on the bright sky

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am the farthest star

I 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 lake
I am the hunger of a young wolf

I 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 things
You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful

When 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)

[Nat]

You will carry this suture
into the future
the past never passes
it simply amasses

[Enchantress]

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.

[Enchantress]

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?

[Passionaria]

"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:

[Soon]

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.

[Nat]

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.

:)

[Enchantress]

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...

[Nat]

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.

[Soon]

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

[Kätzchen]

YWl4_SQ5t7g

One of my favorites by Neruda

:blueheels:

[Nat]

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

[Soon]

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.

[Nat]

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?

[TickledPink]

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.

[Enchantress]

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.

[Nat]

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.

[Diva]

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.

[Nat]

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.

[Enchantress]

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.

[Enchantress]

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.

[Kätzchen]

s63xXe6ly3g

[Enchantress]

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...

[Nat]

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

[Enchantress]

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...

[Enchantress]

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.

[Nat]

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.

[Enchantress]

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.

[Enchantress]

"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."

[JakeTulane]

"Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. "
— Pablo Neruda

[JakeTulane]

"But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me."
— Pablo Neruda

[Random]

"Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. "
— Pablo Neruda

This is my favorite Neruda poem...

Thank you... it always makes my soul stutter when I read it...

[Fancy]

My beautiful, bowlegged, jade-eyed tabby
was lounging on the patio
when a sparrow, swooping
down from the blue,

thumped against the screen door. And there
it thrashed, its claws
caught in the mesh.
How swiftly all of this happened

from where I sat on the living room couch
reading about the war—
the cat darted, leapt, his outstretched body
rising and rising

until the sparrow fluttered
in his jaws. No time to think—
the newspaper skated
across the wooden floor,

the door screeched along its track,
my hands clamped around the cat's throat
and squeezed, blood shuttling
quicker through my veins.

Drop it, I commanded,
and he obeyed. And I let go. And the sparrow
scuttled on the concrete
before ruffling a line in the lawn,

then sailed over the trellis
mobbed with lavender flowers,
over a rooftop, the black arrow
of its shadow sliding across the shingles.

The world slowed then, the blood cooled.
Far off, wind jostled wind chimes—
the sound of a broom
endlessly sweeping broken glass.

~David Hernandez

[JakeTulane]

Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain,
and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion.
Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal:
it has no interest in a disloyal companion.
The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God:
that root must be cherished with all one's might.
A weak covenant is a rotten root, without grace or fruit.
Though the boughs and leaves of the date palm are green,
greenness brings no benefit if the root is corrupt.
If a branch is without green leaves, yet has a good root,
a hundred leaves will put forth their hands in the end.

- Rumi

[Mitmo01]

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Pablo Neruda

[Mitmo01]

Love, we're going home now,
Where the vines clamber over the trellis:
Even before you, the summer will arrive,
On its honeysuckle feet, in your bedroom.

Our nomadic kisses wandered over all the world:
Armenia, dollop of disinterred honey:
Ceylon, green dove: and the YangTse with its old
Old patience, dividing the day from the night.

And now, dearest, we return, across the crackling sea
Like two blind birds to their wall,
To their nest in a distant spring:

Because love cannot always fly without resting,
Our lives return to the wall, to the rocks of the sea:
Our kisses head back home where they belong.

Pablo Neruda

[chefhmboyrd]

there was an old man from nantucket
who had a hole in his bucket
it's no good he found
to carry things round
so he just decided to fuck it

[Nat]

THE SEA said “Come” to the Brook,
The Brook said “Let me grow!”
The Sea said “Then you will be a Sea—
I want a brook, Come now!”

(Emily Dickinson)

[Kätzchen]

http://www.links2love.com/love/romance/pictures/forest_waterfall2.jpg

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty -- the unhidden heart --
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks --
Which glistens then, and trembles --
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies --
The heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.

[JakeTulane]

The days of the future stand in front of us
Like a line of candles all alight----
Golden and warm and lively little candles.
The days that are past are left behind,
A mournful row of candles that are out;
The nearer ones are still smoking,
Candles cold, and melted, candles bent.,
I don’t want to see them; their shapes hurt me,
It hurts me to remember the light of them at first.
I look before me at my lighted candles,
I don’t want to turn around and see with horror
How quickly the dark line is lengthening,
How quickly the candles multiply that have been put out.

Constantine P Cavafy

[adorable]

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

~Robert Frost

[JakeTulane]

"Tell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain,
Unravelled from the tumbling main..."
~Thomas Lovell Beddoes

[JakeTulane]

By Candlelight

This is winter, this is night, small love ---
A sort of black horsehair,
A rough, dumb country stuff
Steeled with the sheen
Of what green stars can make it to our gate.
I hold you in my arm.
It is very late.
The dull bells tongue the hour.
The mirror floats us at one candle power.

This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey radiance that seems to breathe
And lets our shadows wither
Only to blow
Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.
One match scratch makes you real.
At first the candle will not bloom at all ---
It snuffs its bud to almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.

I hold my breath until you creak to life,
Balled hedgehog,
Small and cross. The yellow knife
Grows tall. You clutch your bars.
My singing makes you roar.
I rock you like a boat
Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor,
While the brass man
Kneels, back bent as best he can

Hefting his white pillar with the light
That keeps the sky at bay,
The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!
He is all yours, the little brassy Atlas ---
Poor heirloom, all you have
At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,
No child, no wife. Five balls! Five bright brass balls!
To juggle with, my love when the sky falls.

- Sylvia Plath

[JakeTulane]

I Carry your Heart With Me.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it( anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- e.e. cummings

[JakeTulane]

Love, one of a kind, something for you and I to share between us
Made of heaven sent by Venus; Love, moving through me, seeking
a place with in my heart I'm sure of everyone is in and out of....

Love, older than sky, like every cloud that has a silver lining, Love is new and
ever shining, Love falls just like rain, Love is the only thing I know that lasts
through time and even after...that is LOVE.

Love, laughing and high, feeding the magic that I find within me, quicker than the
eye yet simply love warmer than rain, quiet as night but it's stormy in its passion
ancient never out of fashion.

Love, always commands, it never obeys the heart that's bleeding badly, aching
tears of breaking sadly, Love, one of a kind, love is the only thing I know
that lasts through time and even after than forever.

Love, reach out for love, not to be treated for a moment's pleasure, real love is the
lasting treasure , Love, for certain, sure, Love is the only thing I know that lasts
through time and even after than forever.

[JakeTulane]

The light that rises from your feet to your hair,
the strength enfolding your delicate form,
are not mother of pearl, not chilly silver:
you are made of bread, a bread the fire adores.

The grain grew high in its harvest of you,
in good time the flour swelled;
as the dough rose, doubling your breasts,
my love was the coal waiting ready in the earth.

Oh, bread your forehead, your legs, your mouth,
bread I devour, born with the morning light,
my love, beacon-flag of the bakeries:

fire taugh you a lesson of the blood;
you learned your holiness from flour,
from bread your language and aroma.

-Pablo Neruda

[Kätzchen]

Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn't you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?

~ Nichita Stãnescu

[JakeTulane]

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smoothness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

- e.e. cummings

[Kätzchen]

The world has a thousand creeds, and never a one have I;
Not a church of my own, though a million spires are pointing the way on high.
But I float on the bosom of faith, that bears me along like a river;
And the lamp of my soul is alight with love for life, and the world, and the Giver.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1850-1919: American poet and writer)

http://www.pacificcreststock.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/tm519.jpg

[wolfbittenpoet]

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

[jey_z76]

No woman in this world is feelin me right now
But I know why.
Because every woman here can smell you on my breath
And the reality of the truth is,
We haven't even met yet.
But we will.
And when we do,
I want you to think back to every night you were lonely
Back to every woman you were with
And when you feel my lips massaging your body
I want you to take a deep breath ~
For every woman who has ever made you cry.
And when you feel my breath against your neck
I want you to take my hand
I want you to squeeze it like you're trying to keep a grenade from exploding.
And when you feel my lips against your soul
And your muscles relax while letting the fluid tension flow
I want you to moan.

I want you to moan me a song
For every back stabbin best friend
And twist and turn.... and moan.
I want you to moan for every time you have played dumb
To a woman so that she would feel less of one.
I want you to moan for every time you lied about how much you make
So that others would feel intimidated
I want you to moan for every time you thought another woman
Could keep your mind 100% stimulated
See I want you to just let go and moan.
For all the times you were so depressed
For the times you looked in the mirror
Because you thought you would lose that figure
Moan because.... I mean, it's perfect.

I mean, whenever you want, whenever you're here.... it's perfect.
If you want to squeeze your thighs til your thighs close my eyes... it's perfect.
And if you want to roll your eyes to the back of your soul and scream so loud.... that's perfect.
And if you want to grab the back of my head and pull me closer to swim in you like you were the river,
I promise I will taste you like I praise you.
Cuz it's perfect.
I just want you to moan and want you to scream
I just want you to let go and and know that this universe here,
Wasn't made for you to suffer.... alone.

~J~

[Mitmo01]

Naked, you are simple as a hand,
smooth, earthy, small...transparent, round.
You have moon lines and apple paths;
Naked, you are slender as the wheat.

Naked, Cuban blue midnight is your color,
Naked, I trace the stars and vines in your hair;
Naked, you are spacious and yellow
As a summer's wholeness in a golden church.

Naked, you are tiny as your fingernail;
Subtle and curved in the rose-colored dawn
And you withdraw to the underground world

As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again.

Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973)

[Mitmo01]

There is love, and it is a deep thing
but there are deeper things than love.
�
First and last, man is alone.
He is born alone, and alone he dies
and alone he is while he lives, in his deepest self.
�
Love, like the flowers, is life, growing.
But underneath are the deep rocks, the living rock that lives
alone
and deeper still the unknown fire, unknown and heavy, heavy
and alone.
�
Love is a thing of twoness.
But underneath any twoness, man is alone.
�
And underneath the great turbulent emotions of love, the
violent herbage,
lies the living rock of a single creature's pride,
the dark, naif pride.
And deeper even than the bedrock of pride
lies the ponderous fire of naked life
with its strange primordial consciousness of justice
and its primordial consciousness of connection,
connection with still deeper, still more terrible life-fire
and the old, old final life-truth.
�
Love is of twoness, and is lovely
like the living life on the earth
but below all roots of love lies the bedrock of naked pride,
subterranean,
and deeper than the bedrock of pride is the primordial fire of
the middle
which rests in connection with the further forever unknowable
fire of all things
and which rocks with a sense of connection, religion
and trembles with a sense of truth, primordial consciousness
and is silent with a sense of justice, the fiery primordial
imperative.
�
All this is deeper than love
deeper than love.
--DH Lawrence

[Mitmo01]

IN A BOAT

SEE the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars.

Star-shadows shine, love,
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul,
Only mine, love, mine?

When I move the oars, love,
See how the stars are tossed,
Distorted, the brightest lost.
--So that bright one of yours, love.

The poor waters spill
The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
--The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
Its stars stand still.

There, did you see
That spark fly up at us; even
Stars are not safe in heaven.
--What of yours, then, love, yours?

What then, love, if soon
Your light be tossed over a wave?
Will you count the darkness a grave,
And swoon, love, swoon?

--DH Lawrence

[Mitmo01]

DRUNK

Too far away, oh love, I know,
To save me from this haunted road,
Whose lofty roses break and blow
On a night-sky bent with a load

Of lights: each solitary rose,
Each arc-lamp golden does expose
Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows
Night blenched with a thousand snows.

Of hawthorn and of lilac trees,
White lilac; shows discoloured night
Dripping with all the golden lees
Laburnum gives back to light

And shows the red of hawthorn set
On high to the purple heaven of night,
Like flags in blenched blood newly wet,
Blood shed in the noiseless fight.

Of life for love and love for life,
Of hunger for a little food,
Of kissing, lost for want of a wife
Long ago, long ago wooed.
. . . . . .
Too far away you are, my love,
To steady my brain in this phantom show
That passes the nightly road above
And returns again below.

The enormous cliff of horse-chestnut trees
Has poised on each of its ledges
An erect small girl looking down at me;
White-night-gowned little chits I see,
And they peep at me over the edges
Of the leaves as though they would leap, should
I call
Them down to my arms;
"But, child, you're too small for me, too small
Your little charms."

White little sheaves of night-gowned maids,
Some other will thresh you out!
And I see leaning from the shades
A lilac like a lady there, who braids
Her white mantilla about
Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight
Of a man's face,
Gracefully sighing through the white
Flowery mantilla of lace.

And another lilac in purple veiled
Discreetly, all recklessly calls
In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed
Her forth from the night: my strength has failed
In her voice, my weak heart falls:
Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering
Her draperies down,
As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering
White, stand naked of gown.

[Mitmo01]

FLAPPER

LOVE has crept out of her sealéd heart
As a field-bee, black and amber,
Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber
Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start.

Mischief has come in her dawning eyes,
And a glint of coloured iris brings
Such as lies along the folded wings
Of the bee before he flies.

Who, with a ruffling, careful breath,
Has opened the wings of the wild young sprite?
Has fluttered her spirit to stumbling flight
In her eyes, as a young bee stumbleth?

Love makes the burden of her voice.
The hum of his heavy, staggering wings
Sets quivering with wisdom the common
things
That she says, and her words rejoice.
--DH Lawrence

[Mitmo01]

Auguries of Innocence
by William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipped and armed for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer wandering here and there
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misused breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men.
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of Envy's foot.
The poison of the honey-bee
Is the artist's jealousy.
The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands,
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright
And returned to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes Revenge! in realms of death.
The beggar's rags fluttering in air
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.
When gold and gems adorn the plough
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
A riddle or the cricket's cry
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

[Mitmo01]

1794 - Songs of Experience
Songs of Experience Introduction
by William Blake

Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll
The starry pole:
And fallen fallen light renew!

O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.

Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away
The starry floor
The watry shore
Is giv'n thee till the break of day.

[Mitmo01]

Come not, when I am dead
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime
I care no longer, being all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,
And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie:
Go by, go by.

[Mitmo01]

Bright Star--John Keats


Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

[Mitmo01]

When on my bed the moonlight falls,

I know that in thy place of rest
By that broad water of the west,
There comes a glory on the walls:
Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o'er the number of thy years.
The mystic glory swims away;
From off my bed the moonlight dies;
And closing eaves of wearied eyes
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray:

And then I know the mist is drawn
A lucid veil from coast to coast,
And in the dark church like a ghost
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.
--Alfred Lord Tennyson

[Mitmo01]

The Charge of The Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade ?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Alfred Lord Tennyson

[Mitmo01]

The Doubt of Future Foes

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,
Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.
The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,
And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.
The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
Shall be unsealed by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.
The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow
Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.
My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ
To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.

Queen Elizabeth I

[Kätzchen]

Don't matter if the road is long
Don't matter if it's steep
Don't matter if the moon is gone
And the darkness is complete
Don't matter if we lose our way
It's written that we'll meet
At least, that's what I heard you say
A thousand kisses deep...

[JakeTulane]

Absence

When you go in me, crystalline,
Or trembling,
Or uneasy, wounded by me
Or overwhelmed with love, as
when your eyes
Close upon the gift of life
That without cease I give you.

My love,
We have found each other
Thirsty and we have
Drunk up all the water and the
Blood,
We found each other
Hungry
And we bit each other
As fire bites,
Leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
Keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
A rose.

- Pablo Neruda

[Mitmo01]

And because love battles


not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.

What more can they tell you?
I am neither good nor bad but a man,
and they will then associate the danger
of my life, which you know
and which with your passion you shared.

And good, this danger
is danger of love, of complete love
for all life,
for all lives,
and if this love brings us
the death and the prisons,
I am sure that your big eyes,
as when I kiss them,
will then close with pride,
into double pride, love,
with your pride and my pride.

But to my ears they will come before
to wear down the tour
of the sweet and hard love which binds us,
and they will say: “The one
you love,
is not a woman for you,
Why do you love her? I think
you could find one more beautiful,
more serious, more deep,
more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,
and what a head she has,
and look at how she dresses,
and etcetera and etcetera”.

And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up
and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved.

To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where
it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.

You came to my life
with what you were bringing,
made
of light and bread and shadow I expected you,
and Like this I need you,
Like this I love you,
and to those who want to hear tomorrow
that which I will not tell them, let them read it here,
and let them back off today because it is early
for these arguments.

Tomorrow we will only give them
a leaf of the tree of our love, a leaf
which will fall on the earth
like if it had been made by our lips
like a kiss which falls
from our invincible heights
to show the fire and the tenderness
of a true love.

Pablo Neruda

[PinkieLee]

I'll sing to you of silver swans,
of kingdoms and carillons.
I'll sing of bodies intertwined
underneath an innocent sky.

[JakeTulane]

In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

- Pablo Neruda

[Nat]

Abeja blanca zumbas --ebria de miel-- en mi alma
y te tuerces en lentas espirales de humo.

White bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey,
and your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke.

Soy el desesperado, la palabra sin ecos,
el que lo perdió todo, y el que todo lo tuvo.

I am the one without hope, the word without echoes,
he who lost everything and he who had everything.

Ultima amarra, cruje en ti mi ansiedad última.
En mi tierra desierta eres la última rosa.

Last hawser, in you creaks my last longing.
In my barren land you are the final rose.

Ah silenciosa!

Ah you who are silent!

Cierra tus ojos profundos. Allí aletea la noche.
Ah desnuda tu cuerpo de estatua temerosa.

Let your deep eyes close. There the night flutters.
Ah your body, a frightened statue, naked.

Tienes ojos profundos donde la noche alea.
Frescos brazos de flor y regazo de rosa.

You have deep eyes in which the night flails.
Cool arms of flowers and a lap of rose.

Se parecen tus senos a los caracoles blancos.
Ha venido a dormirse en tu vientre una mariposa de sombra.

Your breasts seem like white snails.
A butterfly of shadow has come to sleep on your belly.

Ah silenciosa!

Ah you who are silent!

He aquí la soledad de donde estás ausente.
Llueve. El viento del mar caza errantes gaviotas.

Here is the solitude from which you are absent.
It is raining. The sea wind is hunting stray gulls.

El agua anda descalza por las calles mojadas.
De aquel árbol se quejan, como enfermos, las hojas.

The water walks barefoot in the wet streets.
From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick.

Abeja blanca, ausente, aún zumbas en mi alma.
Revives en el tiempo, delgada y silenciosa.

White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul
You live again in time, slender and silent.

Ah silenciosa!

Ah you who are silent!

[MysticOceansFL]

I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold—too cold for me—
There passed, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

aka Edgar Allan Poe

[Mitmo01]

She Walks In Beauty like the night

a poem by Lord Byron


She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

[Mitmo01]

How neatly a cat sleeps,


sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

Pablo Neruda

[Mitmo01]

The Fickle One

My eyes went away from me
Following a dark girl who went by.

She was made of black motherofpearl
Made of darkpurple grapes,
And she lashed my blood
With her tail of fire.

After them all I go.

A pale blonde went by
Like a golden plant
Swaying her gifts.
And my mouth went
Like a wave
Discharging on her breast
Lightningbolts of blood.

After them all I go.

But to you, without my moving,
Without seeing you, distant you,
Go my blood and my kisses,
My dark one and my fair one,
My broad one and my slender one,
My ugly one, my beauty,
Made of all the gold
And of all the silver,
Made of all the wheat
And of all the earth,
Made of all the water
Of sea waves,
Made for my arms
Made for my kisses,
Made for my soul.

Pablo Neruda

[Ms. Meander]

[asking]
by Barbara Jane Reyes

there is a ghazal swimming inside of her, wanting to be born. on the matter of foretelling, of small miracles, cactus flowers in bloom on this city fire escape, where inside your tongue touches every inch of her skin, where you lay your hand on her belly and sleep. here, she fingers the ornate remains of ancient mosques. here, some mythic angel will rise from the dust of ancestors’ bones. this is where you shall worship, at the intersections of distilled deities and memory’s sharp edges. the country is quite a poetic place; water and rock contain verse and metaphor, even wild grasses reply in rhyme. you are not broken. she knows this having captured a moment of lucidity; summer lightning bugs, sun’s rays in a jelly jar.

this is not a love poem, but a cove to escape the flux, however momentary. she is still a child, confabulating the fantastic; please do not erode her wonder for the liquid that is your language. there is thunderstorm in her chest, wanting to burst through her skin. this is neither love poem nor plea. this is not river, nor stone.

[JakeTulane]

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

-Pablo Neruda

[JakeTulane]

Forse perché della fatal quïete
Tu sei l'imago a me sì cara vieni
O sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
Le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,

E quando dal nevoso aere inquïete
Tenebre e lunghe all'universo meni
Sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
Vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.

Vagar mi fai co' miei pensier su l'orme
che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge
questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme

Delle cure onde meco egli si strugge;
e mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme
Quello spirto guerrier ch'entro mi rugge.


Translation:



To Evening. Sonnet by Ugo Foscolo

Perhaps because you are the image of that fatal quiet
so dear to me, you have come,
O Evening! And when happy summer clouds
and the gentle west wind are your escort,
and when from snowy restless heights
you send shadows and darkness into the world,
you descend summoned always, and gently hold
the secret ways of my heart.
You make my thoughts wander forms
that vanish into eternal nothing; meanwhile
this cursed time flees, and with it, the throng
of cares with which it me destroys;
and while I gaze on your peace, that warlike spirit
sleeps, that yet within me roars.

[storyofmylife]

as the stars above;
bestowed their tears for me

to cleanse the darkness,
now I see .......

an endless game
from you to me. :candle:

[JakeTulane]

Sonetto

A LA stagion che il mondo folgia e fiora
accresce gioia a tutt’ i fin’ amanti:
vanno insierne a li giardini allora
che gli augelletti fanno dolci canti:
la franca gente tutta s’ innamora,
ed in servir ciascun traggesi innanti,
ed ogni damigella in gioi’ dimora,
a me m’ abbondan marrimenti e pianti.
Chè lo mio padre m’ ha messa in errore,
e tenemi sovente in forte doglia:
donar mi vole, a mia forza signore:
ed io di ciò non ho disio nè voglia,
e ’n gran tormento vivo a tutte l’ ore:
però non mi rallegra fior nè foglia.

Translation:

In the time when the world leafs and flowers

In the time when the world leafs and flowers,
gentle lovers' walks are long
and joyous through the fields, to woods and bowers
where little birds delight them with their song.
Every man does service courteously:
They fall in love, of their own free will,
and every maiden spends this time in joy.
But I have wept and I am weeping still
since father goads me till I can't contain
my feelings of bewilderment and grief:
He wants me to accept, by force, a lord
not of my liking or of my accord.
So every hour I cry and live in pain —
And take no joy in any flower or leaf.

[Mitmo01]

An Old Russian Prayer

Hear our prayer Lord, for all animals,
May they be well-fed and well-trained and happy;
Protect them from hunger and fear and suffering;
And, we pray, protect specially, dear Lord,
The little cat who is the companion of our home,
Keep her safe as she goes abroad,
And bring her back to comfort us.

Anonymous

[Mitmo01]

The Cat and the Moon
The cat went here and there
and the moon spun round like a top,
and the nearest kin of the moon,
the creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
for, wander and wail as he would,
the pure cold light in the sky
troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass
lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
what better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
tired of that courtly fashion,
a new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
from moonlit place to place,
the sacred moon overhead
has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
will pass from change to change,
and that from round to crescent,
from crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
alone, important and wise,
and lifts to the changing moon
his changing eyes.

William Butler Yeats

[violaine]

. . . i dreamed the night
a heavy dream.
in my Garden grew
a rosemary tree. . .

--
heimataerde - Ich habe die nacht getraumet

[JakeTulane]

Wind & Window Flower
Robert Frost

Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her though the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he signed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchange he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelight looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.

[gotoseagrl]

Variation On The Word Sleep
Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

[JakeTulane]

Tanto gentil e tanto onesta pare
la donna mia quand'ella altrui saluta,
ch'ogne lingua deven tremando muta,
e li occhi no l'ardiscon di guardare.

Ella si va, sentendosi laudare,
benignamente d'umilta' vestuta;
e par che sia una cosa venuta
da cielo in terra a miracol mostrare.

Mostrasi si' piacente a chi la mira,
che da' per li occhi una dolcezza al core,
che 'ntender non la puo' chi no la prova;

e par che de la sua labbia si mova
uno spirito soave pien d'amore,
che va dicendo a l'anima: Sospira.

Translation:

So gentle and so pure appears
my lady when she greets others,
that every tongue trembles and is mute,
and their eyes do not dare gaze at her.
She goes by, aware of their praise,
benignly dressed in humility:
and seems as if she were a thing come
from Heaven to Earth to show a miracle.

She shows herself so pleasing to those who gaze,
through the eyes she sends a sweetness to the heart,
that no one can understand who does not know it:
and from her lips there comes
a sweet spirit full of love,
that goes saying to the soul: ‘Sigh.’

:moonstars:

[JakeTulane]

Hor che'l ciel, e la terra, e'l vento tace,
E le fere, e gli augelli sonno affrena,
Notte il carro stellato in giro mena,
E nel suo letto il mar senz'onda giace;
Veglio, penso, ardo, piango; e chi mi sface,
Sempre m' innanzi per mia dolce pena:
Guerra il mio stato, d'ira e di duol piena;
E sol di lei pensando ho qualche pace:

Cosoe sol d'una chiara fonte viva Move il dolce,
e l'amaro, ond'io mi pasco: Una man sola mi risana,
e punge; E perch il mio martir non giunga a riva,
Mille volte il doe moro, e mille nasco;
Tanto dalla salute mia son lunge.

Translation:

Now, while the heavens, and the earth, and the winds are still, And beasts and birds are locked in sleep,
Night's starry chariot makes its circles, and in its bed the ocean lies waveless;
I watch, I think, I burn, I weep, and she who caused my anguish is ever present, and remains, to my sweet pain:
Warfare is my state, full of anger and pain, and only thoughts of her bring any peace.

Thus from one pure and living fount flows the sweetness and the suffering on which I feed;
a single hand restores me and wounds;
and, since my anguish knows no end, a thousand times a day I die,
and a thousand times I am born,
so great is the distance from my salvation.

[JakeTulane]

mi son giovinetta, e volentieri
m' allegro e canto en la stagion novella,
merzè d' amore e de' dolci pensieri.

Io vo pe' verdi prati riguardando
I bianchi fiori e' gialli et i vermigli,
le rose in su le spini e i bianchi gigli ;
e tutti quanti gli vo somigliando
al viso di colui, che me, amando,
ha presa e terrà sempre, come quella
eh' altro non ha in disio che' e' suoi piaceri.

De' quai quando io ne truovo alcun che sia,
al mio parer, ben simile di lui,
il colgo e bacio e parlomi con lui,
e com' io so, così 1' anima mia
tututta gli apro, e ciò che '1 cor disia :
quindi con altri il metto in ghirlandella
legato co' miei crin biondi e leggieri.

E quel piacer, che di natura il fiore
agli occhi porge, quel simil me '1 dona
che s' io vedessi la propia persona
che m' ha accesa del suo dolce amore ;
quel che mi faccia più il suo odore,
esprimer no '1 potrei con la favella ;
ma i sospiri ne son testimon veri.

Li quai non escon già mai del mio petto,
come dell' altre donne, aspri né gravi,
ma se ne vengon fuor caldi e soavi,
et al mio amor sen vanno nel cospetto ;
il quai, come gli sente, a dar diletto
di sé a me si muove, e viene in quella
eh' i' son per dir : " Deh vien, eh' i' non disperi ! "



Translation:


I am young and fain to sing
In this happy tide of spring
Of love and many a gentle thing.

I wander through green meadows gazing
With blossoms gold and red and white ;
Rose by the thorn and lily fair,
Both one and all I do compare
With him who, worshipping my charms,
For aye would fold me in his arms
As one unto his service sworn.

Then, when I find a flower that seems
Like to the object of my dreams,
I gather it and kiss it there,
I flatter it in accents fair,
My heart outpour, my soul stoop down,
Then weave it in a fragrant crown
Among my flaxen locks to wear.

The rapture nature's floweret gay
Awakes in me doth last alway.
As if I tarried face to face
With him whose true love is my grace ;
Thoughts which its fragrancy inspires
I cannot frame to my desires,
My sighs their pilgrimage do trace.

My sighs are neither harsh nor sad
As other women's are, but glad
And tender ; in so fond a wise
They seek my love that he replies
By coming hither, and so gives
Delight to her who in him lives
Yet almost wept : " Come, for hope dies.'

[JakeTulane]

With A Flower

I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
you, unsuspecting, wear me too --
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
you, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

- Emily Dickinson

[JakeTulane]

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

- ee cummings

[JakeTulane]

Dreams in the dusk,
Only dreams closing the day
And with the day's close going back
To the gray things, the dark things,
The far, deep things of dreamland.

Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,
Only the old remembered pictures
Of lost days when the day's loss
Wrote in tears the heart's loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams
May find your heart at dusk.

[JakeTulane]

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

[JakeTulane]

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

[JakeTulane]

Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
slope of my cheek. On the
occasion, you press
above me, glowing, spouting
readiness, mystery rapes
my reason

When you have withdrawn
your self and the magic, when
only the smell of your
love lingers between
my breasts, then, only
then, can I greedily consume
your presence.

[JakeTulane]

Loving me with my shoes off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. Intricate nubs,
my toes. No longer bound.
And what's more, see toenails and
all ten stages, root by root.
All spirited and wild, this little
piggy went to market and this little piggy
stayed. Long brown legs and long brown toes.
Further up, my darling, the woman
is calling her secrets, little houses,
little tongues that tell you.

There is no one else but us
in this house on the land spit.
The sea wears a bell in its navel.
And I'm your barefoot wench for a
whole week. Do you care for salami?
No. You'd rather not have a scotch?
No. You don't really drink. You do
drink me. The gulls kill fish,
crying out like three-year-olds.
The surf's a narcotic, calling out,
I am, I am, I am
all night long. Barefoot,
I drum up and down your back.
In the morning I run from door to door
of the cabin playing chase me.
Now you grab me by the ankles.
Now you work your way up the legs
and come to pierce me at my hunger mark

[JakeTulane]

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew always;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not--too far in his footsteps stray--
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

[JakeTulane]

I did not deem it half so sweet
To feel thy gentle hand,
As in a dream thy soul to greet
Across wide leagues of land.


Untouched more near to draw to you
Where, amid radiant skies,
Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue,
My Bird of Paradise.


Let me dream only with my heart,
Love first, and after see:
Know thy diviner counterpart
Before I kneel to thee.


So in thy motions all expressed
Thy angel I may view:
I shall not on thy beauty rest,
But beauty’s self in you.

[JakeTulane]

Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody, knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be,
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life
Some burning noon go dry!

[JakeTulane]

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

[*Anya*]

by: Sappho

THRONED in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!
Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee
Slay me not in this distress and anguish,
Lady of beauty.
<<disallowed word>>
Hither come as once before thou camest,
When from afar thou heard'st my voice lamenting,
Heard'st and camest, leaving thy glorious father's Palace golden,
<<disallowed word>>
Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;
Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,
Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven
Down through the ether.
<<disallowed word>>
Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,
All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,
Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,
Why now I called thee;
<<disallowed word>>
What for my maddened heart I most was longing.
"Whom," thou criest, "dost wish that sweet Persuasion
Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?
Who is it wrongs thee?
<<disallowed word>>
Come then now, dear goddess, and release me
From my anguish. All my heart's desiring
Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,
Be thou my ally.

[JakeTulane]

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.

[gotoseagrl]

Looking at Each Other
Muriel Rukeyser 1978


Yes, we were looking at each other
Yes, we knew each other very well
Yes, we had made love with each other many times
Yes, we had heard music together
Yes, we had gone to the sea together
Yes, we had cooked and eaten together
Yes, we had laughed often day and night
Yes, we fought violence and knew violence
Yes, we hated the inner and outer oppression
Yes, that day we were looking at each other
Yes, we saw the sunlight pouring down
Yes, the corner of the table was between us
Yes, our eyes saw each other's eyes
Yes, our mouths saw each other's mouths
Yes, our breasts saw each other's breasts
Yes, our bodies entire saw each other
Yes, it was beginning in each
Yes, it threw waves across our lives
Yes, the pulses were becoming very strong
Yes, the beating became very delicate
Yes, the calling the arousal
Yes, the arriving the coming
Yes, there it was for both entire
Yes, we were looking at each other

[JakeTulane]

i will speak
and speak out
speak out loud
if need be
trying to reach you
attempting to
get through to you

don't let the liars
cheaters and despisers
bring you down
to their level
tell you how to feel
they are the losers
the total opposite
of you

your love
and compassion
makes you rise high
above the rest
afterall, we
are survivors
you and i knowing
full well
our faith will
see us through

[JakeTulane]

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

[JakeTulane]

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
This was my dream and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
you shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not--to far in his footsteps stray-
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.'

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

[JakeTulane]

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'

[JakeTulane]

I heard you call my name, I saw your smiling face.
When I turned around I couldn't find you.
Where did you go? Why did you leave?
For I do so miss all our bliss.

We were as one, with promises to never leave.
Standing tall and proud, we're now crumbling down.

You smiled down at me, letting me know
You're still around. Watching over me,
Sometimes with a frown.

Sometimes I still hear the whisper of your voice.
Or was it the wind, just whistling my name.
I turned around to see, the shadow of your frame.
Or was that just the tree we planted for you and me.

I knew you're still here guiding me.
No matter how far I travel, wherever I roam.
You'll always be beside me to love and guide me.
Till I find my way back home.