November 2011
4 posts
Crashingly Beautiful: Another Poem of the Gifts →
crashinglybeautiful:
I want to give thanks to the divine Labyrinth of causes and effects For the diversity of beings That form this singular universe, For Reason, that will never give up its dream Of a map of the labyrinth, For Helen’s face and the perseverance of Ulysses, For love, which lets us see others As God…
4 tags
Looking For Wisdom: A Goodbye →
lookingforwisdom:
I went to visit Charles in the hospital we had once known each other well I’d heard he was dying he knew he was I didn’t tell him that I did too it was too difficult he switched off the game he was watching and looked at my face he said, “you know, don’t you”? I told him that I did we had some…
4 tags
2 tags
March 2009
1 post
XUÂN Swan. Juan. Zoon/Zan/Zun. June. Shoo-in. Exxon. These are all the ways her name is not pronounced. • “Ah,” says the teacher, with a philanthropic nod, “small world! I once met a man who lost his right foot in jungle combat. And I have a cousin named Sue Ann.” • Once upon a time, she imagined a best friend named Xavier. They would start a club, taking advantage of all the coolness of X...
January 2009
1 post
sycamore:
No more knuckling under, groaning, moaning: one gets used to pain. This hurts. Not being perfect hurts. Having to bother about work in order to eat & have a house hurts. So what. It’s about time. This is the month which ends a quarter of a century for me, lived under the shadow of fear: fear that I would fall short of some abstract perfection: I have often fought, fought & won,...
December 2008
13 posts
powerless
isntlifejuicy:
Another poem I compiled a couple years ago: Would you rewrite the streets? retrace reform rewind Snaking and suspending Dipping and descending Intersecting at even the most infinite expanse Would you cast out the rain? pulsing pacing pausing Spilling out and sobbing Thawing out and throbbing Where clouds of damp matter lick the road’s vast domain
Would you enable time? flying...
To Dorothy, Marvin Bell
poetry365:
You are not beautiful, exactly. You are beautiful, inexactly. You let a weed grow by the mulberry And a mulberry grow by the house. So close, in the personal quiet Of a windy night, it brushes the wall And sweeps away the day till we sleep.
A child said it, and it seemed true: “Things that are lost are all equal.” But it isn’t true. If I lost you, The air wouldn’t move, nor...
The Art of Poetry
If, as the sound says, A city ambulance rips open the night, Then in its wake, The brother and sister buckeyes Slap eachother in an aftershower. On the way down, Happy to be flying for a moment, The fire under their skin Looking for a companion fire Under the skin of the earth. And they thud on the pavement.
If, as the sound says, Then I learned to listen to the call Of your wild skin late in...
I Knew a Woman
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek). How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, She taught me Turn, and...
“I like too many things … running from one falling star to another till I drop....”
– j. kerouac (via capricious) (via havent-got-a-prayer) (via sleepanddream)
“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is...”
– Leonard Cohen (via rainier) (via outlaws)
I should be doing other things
lieslieslies:
It was so late but we couldn’t fall asleep. My head was too full, too electric to turn off. I saw a funeral procession on the freeway. The hearse was white and stuck behind a semi-truck. The off ramp was full of mourners; I wonder if the traffic made them feel less alone. We were throwing things off the roof and somehow that made us feel better. And we still get nervous every time...
Adrienne Rich
rach:
I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming. Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other, you’ve been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed: our friend the poet comes into my room where I’ve been writing for days, drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere, and I want to show her one poem which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate, and wake. You’ve kissed...
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to...”
– Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Robert Frost. (via applewagon)
Perfection Wasted, John Updike
poetry365:
And another regrettable thing about death is the ceasing of your own brand of magic, which took a whole life to develop and market— the quips, the witticisms, the slant adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanches in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears, their tears confused with their diamond earrings, their warm...
In dreams the origami of the brain
Opens like a fist, a pomegranate,
an expensive geometry.
-Sandra Cisneros, “Night Madness Poem” from the book Loose Woman