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Discussion: Share a work by an author/poet you admire!
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Let America be America again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed –
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek –
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean –
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today – O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home –
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay –
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again –
The land that never has been yet –
And yet must be – the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine – the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME –
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose –
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath –
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain –
All, all the stretch of these great green states –
And make America again!
-Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed –
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek –
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean –
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today – O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home –
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay –
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again –
The land that never has been yet –
And yet must be – the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine – the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME –
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose –
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath –
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain –
All, all the stretch of these great green states –
And make America again!
-Langston Hughes
Conditions XIV
You left me begging for things
most men thought they had below their belts.
I was reaching higher.
I could throw my legs up like satellites
but I knew I was fucking fallen angels.
I made them feel like demigods.
I believed my mission
to be a war zone duty:
don't create casualties,
heal them.
But I was the wounded
almost dead.
Helping the uninjured.
Men whose lusty hearts
weakened in the middle of the night
and brought them to tears, to their knees
for their former lovers.
They could look at me and tell
they did not want to endure
what beauty love scars give me.
So touch me now --
Hannibal, Toussaint.
I am a revolution without bloodshed.
I change the order of things
to suit my desperations.
You can raise your legs,
almost touch heaven.
I can be an angel,
falling.
-Essex Hemphill
You left me begging for things
most men thought they had below their belts.
I was reaching higher.
I could throw my legs up like satellites
but I knew I was fucking fallen angels.
I made them feel like demigods.
I believed my mission
to be a war zone duty:
don't create casualties,
heal them.
But I was the wounded
almost dead.
Helping the uninjured.
Men whose lusty hearts
weakened in the middle of the night
and brought them to tears, to their knees
for their former lovers.
They could look at me and tell
they did not want to endure
what beauty love scars give me.
So touch me now --
Hannibal, Toussaint.
I am a revolution without bloodshed.
I change the order of things
to suit my desperations.
You can raise your legs,
almost touch heaven.
I can be an angel,
falling.
-Essex Hemphill
vurtomatic
Bluelight Crew
Originally posted by Oopsz:
tread softly because you tread on my dreams
-william butler yeats, if memory serves
read this quote ages ago in a charles de lint book and never found out where its from, forgotten all about it, thanx!
The Yeats poem is entitled "Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven".
Yeats was a visionary of Blakean proportions, if you've only read a sprinkling of his verse, I suggest you investigate further... well worth the effort. A Vision is a prose work, stating his poetic intents, views on history, the paranormal, human nature, etc. It is a pamphlet for the poetic mind. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Anyhow, here's my pick:-
Call Me - by Frank O'Hara
The eager note on my door said "Call me,"
call when you get in!" so I quickly threw
a few tangerines into my overnight bag,
straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and
headed straight for the door. It was autumn
by the time I got around the corner, oh all
unwilling to be either pertinent or bemused, but
the leaves were brighter than grass on the sidewalk!
Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this late
and the hall door open; still up at this hour, a
champion jai-alai player like himself? Oh fie!
for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was
there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that
ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few
hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest
only casually invited, and that several months ago.
[ 07 January 2003: Message edited by: WordyOne ]
Yeats was a visionary of Blakean proportions, if you've only read a sprinkling of his verse, I suggest you investigate further... well worth the effort. A Vision is a prose work, stating his poetic intents, views on history, the paranormal, human nature, etc. It is a pamphlet for the poetic mind. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Anyhow, here's my pick:-
Call Me - by Frank O'Hara
The eager note on my door said "Call me,"
call when you get in!" so I quickly threw
a few tangerines into my overnight bag,
straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and
headed straight for the door. It was autumn
by the time I got around the corner, oh all
unwilling to be either pertinent or bemused, but
the leaves were brighter than grass on the sidewalk!
Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this late
and the hall door open; still up at this hour, a
champion jai-alai player like himself? Oh fie!
for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was
there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that
ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few
hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest
only casually invited, and that several months ago.
[ 07 January 2003: Message edited by: WordyOne ]
smileyfish
Ex-Bluelighter
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
thoguh i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility; whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
e.e. cummings
(and his unique take on grammar)
I have immensely enjoyed reading some of the great works in here - brilliant thread!
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
thoguh i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility; whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
e.e. cummings
(and his unique take on grammar)
I have immensely enjoyed reading some of the great works in here - brilliant thread!
Smileyfish I have that poem hanging right beside my desk at work and read it once a day.
Here is another favorite of mine by e.e. cummings
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)
Snowfrog
[ 10 January 2003: Message edited by: SnowFrog ]
Here is another favorite of mine by e.e. cummings
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)
Snowfrog
[ 10 January 2003: Message edited by: SnowFrog ]
Coal
I
is the total black, being spoken
from the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking.
Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
in a perforated book - buy and sign and tear apart -
and come whatever will all chances
the stub remains
an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me
Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
-Audre Lorde
I
is the total black, being spoken
from the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking.
Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
in a perforated book - buy and sign and tear apart -
and come whatever will all chances
the stub remains
an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me
Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
-Audre Lorde
Bluebird
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
To let anybody see
You.
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I pour whiskey on him and inhale
Cigarette smoke
And the whores and the bartenders
And the grocery clerks
Never know that
He’s
in there.
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I'm too tough for him,
I say,
Stay down, do you want to mess
Me up?
You want to screw up the
Works?
You want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I'm too clever, I only let him out
At night sometimes
When everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
So don't be
Sad.
Then I put him back,
But he's singing a little
In there, I haven't quite let him
Die
And we sleep together like
That
With our
Secret pact
And it's nice enough to
Make a man
Weep, but I don't
Weep, do
You?
-Charles Bukowski
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
To let anybody see
You.
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I pour whiskey on him and inhale
Cigarette smoke
And the whores and the bartenders
And the grocery clerks
Never know that
He’s
in there.
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I'm too tough for him,
I say,
Stay down, do you want to mess
Me up?
You want to screw up the
Works?
You want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
There’s a bluebird in my heart that
Wants to get out
But I'm too clever, I only let him out
At night sometimes
When everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
So don't be
Sad.
Then I put him back,
But he's singing a little
In there, I haven't quite let him
Die
And we sleep together like
That
With our
Secret pact
And it's nice enough to
Make a man
Weep, but I don't
Weep, do
You?
-Charles Bukowski
vurtomatic
Bluelight Crew
Here is two poems by Carl Sandburg.
THE RIGHT TO GRIEF
To Certain Poets About to Die
TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
scratch off
And get cashed.
Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.
I shall cry over the dead child of a stockyards hunky.
His job is sweeping blood off the floor.
He gets a dollar seventy cents a day when he works
And it's many tubs of blood he shoves out with a broom
day by day.
Now his three year old daughter
Is in a white coffin that cost him a week's wages.
Every Saturday night he will pay the undertaker fifty
cents till the debt is wiped out.
The hunky and his wife and the kids
Cry over the pinched face almost at peace in the white box.
They remember it was scrawny and ran up high doctor bills.
They are glad it is gone for the rest of the family now
will have more to eat and wear.
Yet before the majesty of Death they cry around the coffin
And wipe their eyes with red bandanas and sob when
the priest says, "God have mercy on us all."
I have a right to feel my throat choke about this.
You take your grief and I mine--see?
To-morrow there is no funeral and the hunky goes back
to his job sweeping blood off the floor at a dollar
seventy cents a day.
All he does all day long is keep on shoving hog blood
ahead of him with a broom
MAG
I WISH to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.
I wish we never bought a license and a white dress
For you to get married in the day we ran off to a minister
And told him we would love each other and take care of
each other
Always and always long as the sun and the rain lasts anywhere.
Yes, I'm wishing now you lived somewhere away from here
And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand miles away
dead broke.
I wish the kids had never come
And rent and coal and clothes to pay for
And a grocery man calling for cash,
Every day cash for beans and prunes.
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish to God the kids had never come.
THE RIGHT TO GRIEF
To Certain Poets About to Die
TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
scratch off
And get cashed.
Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.
I shall cry over the dead child of a stockyards hunky.
His job is sweeping blood off the floor.
He gets a dollar seventy cents a day when he works
And it's many tubs of blood he shoves out with a broom
day by day.
Now his three year old daughter
Is in a white coffin that cost him a week's wages.
Every Saturday night he will pay the undertaker fifty
cents till the debt is wiped out.
The hunky and his wife and the kids
Cry over the pinched face almost at peace in the white box.
They remember it was scrawny and ran up high doctor bills.
They are glad it is gone for the rest of the family now
will have more to eat and wear.
Yet before the majesty of Death they cry around the coffin
And wipe their eyes with red bandanas and sob when
the priest says, "God have mercy on us all."
I have a right to feel my throat choke about this.
You take your grief and I mine--see?
To-morrow there is no funeral and the hunky goes back
to his job sweeping blood off the floor at a dollar
seventy cents a day.
All he does all day long is keep on shoving hog blood
ahead of him with a broom
MAG
I WISH to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.
I wish we never bought a license and a white dress
For you to get married in the day we ran off to a minister
And told him we would love each other and take care of
each other
Always and always long as the sun and the rain lasts anywhere.
Yes, I'm wishing now you lived somewhere away from here
And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand miles away
dead broke.
I wish the kids had never come
And rent and coal and clothes to pay for
And a grocery man calling for cash,
Every day cash for beans and prunes.
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish to God the kids had never come.
silverwheel
Bluelighter
"At Night on the High Seas"
At night, when the sea cradles me
And the pale star gleam
Lies down on its broad waves,
Then I free myself wholly
From all activity and all the love
And stand silent and breathe purely,
Alone, alone cradled by the sea
That lies there, cold and silent,
with a thousand lights.
Then I have to think of my friends
And my gaze sinks into their gazes
And I ask each one, silent, alone:
"Are you still mine?
I my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?
Do you feel from my love, my grief,
Just a breath, just an echo?"
And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent,
And smiles: no.
And no greeting and no answer comes from anywhere.
-Herman Hesse- (translation by James Wright)
At night, when the sea cradles me
And the pale star gleam
Lies down on its broad waves,
Then I free myself wholly
From all activity and all the love
And stand silent and breathe purely,
Alone, alone cradled by the sea
That lies there, cold and silent,
with a thousand lights.
Then I have to think of my friends
And my gaze sinks into their gazes
And I ask each one, silent, alone:
"Are you still mine?
I my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?
Do you feel from my love, my grief,
Just a breath, just an echo?"
And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent,
And smiles: no.
And no greeting and no answer comes from anywhere.
-Herman Hesse- (translation by James Wright)
Love Songs In Age
She kept her songs, they kept so little space,
The covers pleased her:
One bleached from lying in a sunny place,
One marked in circles by a vase of water,
One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,
And coloured, by her daughter –
So they had waited, till, in widowhood
She found them, looking for something else, and stood
Relearning how each frank submissive chord
Had ushered in
Word after sprawling hyphenated word,
And the unfailing sense of being young
Spread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein
That hidden freshness sung,
That certainty of time laid up in store
As when she played them first. But, even more,
The glare of that much-mentionned brilliance, love,
Broke out, to show
Its bright incipience sailing above,
Still promising to solve, and satisfy,
And set unchangeably in order. So
To pile them back, to cry,
Was hard, without lamely admitting how
It had not done so then, and could not now.
-Philip Larkin
She kept her songs, they kept so little space,
The covers pleased her:
One bleached from lying in a sunny place,
One marked in circles by a vase of water,
One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,
And coloured, by her daughter –
So they had waited, till, in widowhood
She found them, looking for something else, and stood
Relearning how each frank submissive chord
Had ushered in
Word after sprawling hyphenated word,
And the unfailing sense of being young
Spread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein
That hidden freshness sung,
That certainty of time laid up in store
As when she played them first. But, even more,
The glare of that much-mentionned brilliance, love,
Broke out, to show
Its bright incipience sailing above,
Still promising to solve, and satisfy,
And set unchangeably in order. So
To pile them back, to cry,
Was hard, without lamely admitting how
It had not done so then, and could not now.
-Philip Larkin
Excerpt
From She by: Saul Willaims
i presented
my feminine side
with flowers
she cut the stems
and placed them gently
down my throat
and these tu lips
might soon eclipse
your brightest hopes
***
she had nothing
but time on her hands:
silver rings, turquoise stones
and purple nails
i rubbed my thumb
across her palm:
a featherbed
where slept a psalm
yea, though i walk
i used to fly
and now we dance
i watched
my toenails blacken
and walked a deadened trance
until she woke me
with the knife edge
of her glance
i have the scars to prove
the clock strikes
with her hands
***
i have seen the truth
many times
but for the first time
she saw me
i wore suspenders
for the judgment
in my pants
***
i laced my shoes with sorrow
and walked a weary road
dead end streets
don't come undone
with double knots
wing tipped shoes
that walk on air
through vacant lots
***
she kept her deck
beneath her pillow
and had promised
me a reading
she stuck a bookmark
in my heart
and walked away
it was autumn then
the leaves
suddenly flames
the sidewalk
burning cinders
i walked the streets
as if the sun
had called me boy
mad at the world
on aging feet
shuffling
her cards
shuffling
my feet
head
to the sky
blue
the clouds
her cards
the clouds:
her cards
shuffling
the skies
a storm passes
new clouds appear:
the chariot
the priestess
the moon
in broad daylight:
an omen
***
love is an unbridled horse
with one wing out-stretched
the other tucked and folded
on the right side
the horse galloping
towards a cliff
knowingly
panting just enough
for you to think
he's laughing
he?
love is male?
love is a dumb horse
with silver streaks
and a sometimes penis
a sometimes penis?
on thursdays
the rest of the week
she grazes
and paints her hooves
with red mud
making tracks
through the fields
which disappear
soon after they appear
because nature has a way
of changing
the same way
it remains
From She by: Saul Willaims
i presented
my feminine side
with flowers
she cut the stems
and placed them gently
down my throat
and these tu lips
might soon eclipse
your brightest hopes
***
she had nothing
but time on her hands:
silver rings, turquoise stones
and purple nails
i rubbed my thumb
across her palm:
a featherbed
where slept a psalm
yea, though i walk
i used to fly
and now we dance
i watched
my toenails blacken
and walked a deadened trance
until she woke me
with the knife edge
of her glance
i have the scars to prove
the clock strikes
with her hands
***
i have seen the truth
many times
but for the first time
she saw me
i wore suspenders
for the judgment
in my pants
***
i laced my shoes with sorrow
and walked a weary road
dead end streets
don't come undone
with double knots
wing tipped shoes
that walk on air
through vacant lots
***
she kept her deck
beneath her pillow
and had promised
me a reading
she stuck a bookmark
in my heart
and walked away
it was autumn then
the leaves
suddenly flames
the sidewalk
burning cinders
i walked the streets
as if the sun
had called me boy
mad at the world
on aging feet
shuffling
her cards
shuffling
my feet
head
to the sky
blue
the clouds
her cards
the clouds:
her cards
shuffling
the skies
a storm passes
new clouds appear:
the chariot
the priestess
the moon
in broad daylight:
an omen
***
love is an unbridled horse
with one wing out-stretched
the other tucked and folded
on the right side
the horse galloping
towards a cliff
knowingly
panting just enough
for you to think
he's laughing
he?
love is male?
love is a dumb horse
with silver streaks
and a sometimes penis
a sometimes penis?
on thursdays
the rest of the week
she grazes
and paints her hooves
with red mud
making tracks
through the fields
which disappear
soon after they appear
because nature has a way
of changing
the same way
it remains
silverwheel
Bluelighter
i thank you God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the
birthday of life and of love and wings: and of the
gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
berathing any (lifted from the no
of all nothing) human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my ears are opened)
- e.e. cummings
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the
birthday of life and of love and wings: and of the
gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
berathing any (lifted from the no
of all nothing) human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my ears are opened)
- e.e. cummings
Emily Dickenson:
J. 435
Much madness is divinest Sense--
To a discerning Eye---
Much Sense--the starkest Madness---
'Tis the Majority---
In this, as All, prevail---
Assent--and you are sane---
Demur--you're straightway dangerous---
And handled with a Chain--
J. 435
Much madness is divinest Sense--
To a discerning Eye---
Much Sense--the starkest Madness---
'Tis the Majority---
In this, as All, prevail---
Assent--and you are sane---
Demur--you're straightway dangerous---
And handled with a Chain--
bisKi
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2002
- Messages
- 992
First heard of this poem a while back while watching the movie Four Weddings & A Funeral - . So since then I've associated this with the end of something.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the piano and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crêpe bows around the white necks of the public doves,
Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now, put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
~ W.H. Auden
[ 18 February 2003: Message edited by: bisKi_b ]
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the piano and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crêpe bows around the white necks of the public doves,
Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now, put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
~ W.H. Auden
[ 18 February 2003: Message edited by: bisKi_b ]