Psyche's Candle

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

2011-04-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . . 

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . . 

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . . 

I am water rushing to the wellhead, 
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . . 

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . . 

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . . 

I am there in the basket of fruit 
presented to the widow. . . .

I am the musk rose opening 
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . . 

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

--Jane Kenyon

A poem about poetry to end our month-long celebration...

Somewhere or Other

2011-04-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Somewhere or other there must surely be
   The face not seen, the voice not heard,
The heart that not yet -- never yet -- ah me!
   Made answer to my word.

Somewhere or other, may be near or far;
   Past land and sea, clean out of sight;
Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star
   That tracks her night by night.

Somewhere or other, may be far or near;
   With just a wall, a hedge between;
With just the last leaves of the dying year
   Fallen on a turf grown green.

--Christina Rosetti

Heaney Two-fer

2011-04-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Diviner

Cut from the green hedge a forked hazel stick
That he held tight by the arms of the V:
Circling the terrain, hunting the pluck
Of Water, nervous, but professionally

Unfussed. The pluck came sharp as a sting.
The rod jerked with precise convulsions,
Spring water suddenly broadcasting
Through a green hazel its secret stations.

The bystanders would ask to have a try.
He handed them the rod without a word.
It lay dead in their grasp till nonchalantly
He gripped expectant wrists. The hazel stirred.

Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seems to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

If you are interested in poetry, and don't know Seamus Heaney, acquaint yourself. His use of language, both figurative and literal, is utterly incredible. You won't regret it.

Sonnet CXLI

2011-04-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that love what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards my pain.

--Shakespeare

I'm fairly sure that only Shakespeare could make, "You're not cute, but I love you anyway" sound this good...

Let us go then

2011-04-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

through the trip
wired minefield

hand in hand
eyes for nothing

but ourselves
alone

undaunted by
the traps and pits

of wasted land
until

you stop
and pluck

a stem
of eyebright

--Ciaran Carson

Abduction

2011-04-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

The fairy woman walked

into my poem.

She closed no door

She asked no by-your-leave.

Knowing my place

I did not tell her to go.

I played the woman-of-no-welcomes trick

and said:

"What's your hurry, here's your hat.

Pull up to the fire,

eat and drink what you get --

but if I were in your house

as you are in my house

I'd go home straight away

but anyway, stay."

She stayed. Got up and pottered

round the house. Dressed the beds,

washed the ware. Put the dirty clothes

in the washing machine.

When my husband came home for his tea

he didn't know what he had wasn't me.

For I am in the fairy field

in lasting darkness

and frozen with the cold there,

dressed only in white mist.

And if he wants me back

there is a solution --

get the sock of a plough

smear it with butter

and redden it with fire.

And then let him go to the bed

where lies the succubus

and press her with red iron.

"Push it into her face,

burn and brand her,

and as she fades before your eyes

I'll materialise,

and as she fades before your eyes

I'll materialise."

--Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, trans. by Michael Hartnett (Original poem written in Irish)

Celtic folk tales are rife with stories of faerie abduction, changelings, and situations like this: a faerie taking over your life. The solution usually was violent, and not always effective. You have to watch out for faeries; they're mischievous...

The Tree

2011-04-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

The fairy woman came
with a Black & Decker.
She cut down my tree.
I watched her like a fool
cut the branches one by one.

My husband came in in the evening.
He saw the tree.
He was furious -- no wonder.
He said: "Why didn't you stop her?
What's she up to?
What would she think
If we got a Black & Decker
went to her house
and cut down one of the trees
in her garden?"

She came back next morning.
I was still breakfasting.
She asked me what my man had said.
I told her
He said: "Why didn't you stop her?
What's she up to?
What would she think
If we got a Black & Decker
went to her house
and cut down one of the trees
in her garden?"

"Oh," she said, "that's very interesting."
With a stress on the 'very'
and a ring from the '--ing'
though she spoke very quietly.
Well, that was my day,
such as it was,
turned upside down.

The bottom fell out of my stomach
and as if I got a good kick
or a punch in the guts
a weakness came over me
that made me so feeble
I couldn't lift a finger
for three whole days.
Unlike the tree
which happily, healthily grew away.

--Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, trans. by Michael Hartnett (Original poem written in Irish)

Song Selection

2011-04-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah has posted the lyrics to one of the songs from the musical Spring Awakening on his blog. We, Jeremiah and I, saw Spring Awakening a few months ago, and it was one of the most powerful, amazing things I've ever seen. So, I'm poaching his idea:

Song of Purple Summer

And all shall fade
the flowers of spring
the world and all the sorrows
at the heart of everything

but still it stays
the butterfly sings
and opens purple summer
with a flutter of its wings

the earth will wave with corn
the grey-fly choir will mourn
and mares will neigh
with stallions that they mate
foals they've borne

and all shall know the wonder
of purple summer...

And yet, I wait
the swallow brings
a song to hard to follow
that no one else can sing

the fences sway
the porches swing
the clouds begins to thunder
crickets wander, murmuring

the earth will wave with corn
the grey-fly choir will mourn
and mares will neigh
with stallions that they mate
foals they've borne

and all shall know the wonder
I will sing the song of purple summer

and all shall know the wonder
I will sing the song of purple summer

all shall know the wonder
of purple summer...

You can also visit my regular blog (here) where I'm participating in a 30 day Song Challenge. Go listen to some good music!

Miracles

2011-04-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under the trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

--Walt Whitman

*Picture via Letters to Dead People

The Pasture

2011-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha'n't be gone long. --You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha'n't be gone long. --You come too.

--Robert Frost

This poem exemplifies on of the things I love most about poetry: it can elevate the mundane into art through the power and wonder and beauty of words. It's amazing.

Burning of the Three Fires

2011-04-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

i
I set the cookbook on fire
by holding it close to the
reading lamp

ii
I began the reading lamp fire
by holding it close
to romance

iii
I lit the romance by
holding it
close to the cookbook

--Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Because Sometimes we need Ridiculous

2011-04-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Eletelephony

Once there was an elephant,

Who tried to use the telephant--

No! No! I mean an elephone

Who tried to use the telephone--

(Dear me! I am not certain quite

That even now I've got it right.)

Howe'er it was, he got his trunk

Entangled in the telephunk'

The more he tried to get it free,

The louder buzzed the telephee--

(I fear I'd better drop the song

Of elephop and telephong!)

--Laura Elizabeth Richards

Refusal

2011-04-18T10:05:00.001-07:00

Beloved,

In what other lives or lands

Have I known your lips

Your Hands

Your Laughter brave

Irreverent.

Those sweet excesses that

I do adore.

What surety is there

That we will meet again,

On other worlds some

Future time undated.

I defy my body's haste.

Without the promise

Of one more sweet encounter

I will not deign to die.

--Maya Angelou

9.

2011-04-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.
(So, when kiss spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

--ee cummings

It's Spring! Kiss someone!

Making a Fist

2011-04-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

--Naomi Shihab Nye

The Straightener

2011-04-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Even as a boy I was a straightener.
On a long table near my window
I kept a lantern, a spyglass, and my tomahawk.

Never tomahawk, lantern, and spyglass.
Always lantern, spyglass, tomahawk.

You could never tell when you would need them,
but that was the order you would need them in.

On my desk: pencils at attention in a cup,
foreign coins stacked by size,

a photograph of my parents,
and under the heavy green blotter,
a note from a girl I was fond of.

These days I like to stack in pyramids
the cans of soup in the pantry
and I keep the white candles in rows like logs of wax.

And if I can avoid doing my taxes
or phoning my talkative aunt
on her eighty-something birthday,

I will use a ruler to measure the space
between the comb and brush on the dresser,
the distance between shakers of salt and pepper.

Today, for example, I will devote my time
to lining up my shoes in the closet,
pair by pair in chronological order

and lining up my shirts on the rack by color
to put off having to tell you, dear,
what I really think and what I now am bound to do.

--Billy Collins

This is from Collins' recently published 9th collection called "Horoscopes for the Dead"

In Honor of Spring (Finally!)

2011-04-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's Poem in Your Pocket day, and this is the one that I'll be handing out:

Afternoon On A Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
     Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
     And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
     With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
     And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show
     Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
     And then start down!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

El Dorado

2011-04-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Gaily bedight,
   A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
   Had journeyed long,
   Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

   But he grew old,
   This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
   Fell as he found
   No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

   And, as his strength
   Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
   "Shadow," said he,
   "Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

   "Over the mountains
   Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
   Ride, boldly ride,"
   The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

--Edgar Allen Poe

This is the first poem I ever memorized. My dad also has this one memorized,

and is one of his favorites.

Sonnet IV

2011-04-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Barter

2011-04-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give you have been, or could be.

--Sara Teasdale

Window

2011-04-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.

--Carl Sandburg

On today's episode of Shameless Self Promotion:

2011-04-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Love or Otherwise

You are the smell of rain,
the spiced breeze,
the apple-tang fog,
the strange, familiar scratch of wool,
the bitter note of wood-fire smoke,
the sound of leaves,
the red-gold pallet.

You are the autumn damp through my window.

You are all these things,
whether I am in love or
otherwise.

--by Me

I know it isn't Autumn (although the weather says differently), but I like this poem (even if saying so toots my own horn). I fell in love, once, in Autumn...

#254

2011-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

"Hope" is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul--
And sings the tune without the words--
And never stops -- at all --

And sweetest -- in the Gale -- is heard--
And sore must be the storm--
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm--

I've heard it in the chillest land--
And on the strangest Sea--
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb -- of Me.

--Emily Dickinson

This was the first Emily Dickinson poem I heard, and remains one of my favorites. I have always valued hope, and have been able to find some, even if -- and perhaps, especially when -- faith was harder.

Little Lion Face

2011-04-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

Little lion face
I stopped to pick
among the mass of thick
succulent blooms, the twice

streaked flanges of your silk
sunwheel relaxed in wide
dilation, I brought inside,
placed in a vase.  Milk

of your shaggy stem
sticky on my fingers, and
your barbs hooked to my hand,
sudden stings from them 

were sweet.  Now I'm bold
to touch your swollen neck,
put careful lips to slick
petals, snuff up gold

pollen in your navel cup.
Still fresh before night
I leave you, dawn's appetite
to renew our glide and suck.

An hour ahead of sun
I come to find you.  You're
twisted shut as a burr,
neck drooped unconscious,

an inert, limp bundle,
a furled cocoon, your
sun-streaked aureole
eclipsed and dun.

Strange feral flower asleep
with flame-ruff wilted,
all magic halted,
a drink I pour, steep

in the glass for your
undulant stem to suck.
Oh, lift your young neck,
open and expand to your

lover, hot light.
Gold corona, widen to sky.
I hold you lion in my eye
sunup until night.

--May Swenson

This is a delightful homage to the homely dandylion, by a Utah native:

May Swenson was born in Logan, received a Bachelor's from Utah State in 1934, and spoke English

as a second language. Her parents were Swedish immigrants.

Love Sonnet XI

2011-04-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness.

--Pablo Neruda

A little tip, folks: if you need some help wooing your love, turn to Neruda. It'll work; I promise...

This Is Just To Say

2011-04-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

And, an accompanying picture, courtesy of Married to the Sea.com:

Casey at the Bat

2011-04-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that--
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped--
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville--mighty Casey has struck out.

--Ernest Lawrence Thayer

They Flee From Me

2011-04-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that this was written for Anne Boleyn after she became involved with Henry VIII; she was, perhaps, Wyatt's lover prior to that.

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them, gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be Fortune it hath been otherwise,
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewith all sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream, I lay broad waking.
But all is turned, thorough my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go, of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindely am served,
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

--Thomas Wyatt

The Rose Family

2011-04-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose --
But were always a rose.

--Robert Frost

Eating Poetry

2011-04-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. 
There is no happiness like mine. 
I have been eating poetry. 

The librarian does not believe what she sees. 
Her eyes are sad 
and she walks with her hands in her dress. 

The poems are gone. 
The light is dim. 
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up. 

Their eyeballs roll, 
their blond legs burn like brush. 
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
 
She does not understand. 
When I get on my knees and lick her hand, 
she screams. 

I am a new man. 
I snarl at her and bark. 
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

--Mark Strand

National Poetry Month 2011

2011-04-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

National Poetry Month, my favorite month-long celebration, begins today! Hooray! Check back for daily (ish) poetry updates, and enjoy!

Because there is a poem for every occasion...

2010-07-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, Jeremiah and I were having a conversation in which he mentioned that during his interwebs perusal yesterday, he "found a picture of a swan raping a woman." (Please don't ask how we arrived at this conversational juncture; we just did.) His face, when I did not immediately recoil in horror, but instead agreed that such a thing was legit, was priceless. I told him the myth of Leda and the Swan, from which union Helen of Troy was born. He seemed less horrified after I explained it, and I decided to share this poem (again) from Yeats:

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Sonnet 15

2010-04-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

National Poetry month officially ends today. In honor of that, here is one of my favorite poems:

Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu -- farewell! -- the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The color and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon the hill, after the sun has set.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Click this link to watch a video of Tyne Daly reciting this poem. It is fantastically beautiful.

I'd love to get some comments on this post telling me your favorite poems. I'll post them, and we can all enjoy.

Just so you know:

2010-04-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

While I have not posted a poem here every day, I have been reading poetry every day. It's been magic. I'm sorry I haven't shared it. Sometimes, there is too much to say...

Song Selection

2010-04-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

If you're not in the know about Rachael Yamagata, get there; you won't regret it.

Words cannot express how much I love this song, and how amazing I think the imagery is. It's haunting, but it is powerful and beautiful and smart. I find it oddly hopeful and utterly lovely. You can listen to it and watch the video here.

Elephants

If the elephants have past lives
Yet are destined to always remember
It’s no wonder how they scream
Like you and I they must have some temper
And I am dreaming of them in the plains
Dirtying up their beds
Watching for some sign of rain
To cool their hot heads
And how dare that you send me that card
When I’m doing all that I can do
You are forcing me to remember
When all I want is to just forget you

If the tiger shall protect her young
Then tell me how did you slip by?
Oh my instincts have failed me for once
I must have somehow slept the whole night
And I am dreaming of them with their kill
Tearing it all apart
Blood dripping from their lips
Teeth sinking into heart
And how dare that you say you will call
When you know I need some piece of mind
If you had to take sides with the animals
Won’t you do it with one who is kind

If the hawks in the trees need the dead
If you’re living you don’t stand a chance
For a time though you share the same bed
There are only two ends to this dance
You can flee with your wounds just in time
Or lie there as he feeds
Watching yourself ripped to shreds
Laughing as you bleed
So for those of you falling in love
Keep in kind keep it good keep it right
Throw yourself in the midst of danger
But keep one eye open at night

Yep, Still Behind...

2010-04-20T13:54:00.001-07:00

I'm just going to go on from here; making up is hard to do.

The Love-Hat Relationship

I have been thinking about the love-hat relationship.
It is the relationship based on love of one another's hats.
The problem with the love-hat relationship is that it is superficial.
You don't necessarily even know the other person.
Also it is too dependent on whether the other person
is even wearing the favored hat. We all enjoy hats,
but they're not something to build an entire relationship on.
My advice to young people is to like hats but not love them.
Try having like-hat relationships with one another.
See if you can find something interesting about
the personality of the person whose hat you like.

--By Aaron Belz

The Wednesday/Thursday Mythology Two-fer

2010-04-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

--W.B. Yeats

The next poem references a Welsh myth, telling of a woman made of flowers called Blodewedd. This poem was originally written in Irish by Nuala ni Dhomnaill, and has been translated here by John Montague.

Blodewedd

At the least touch of your fingertips
I break into blossom,
my whole chemical composition
transformed.
I sprawl like a grassy meadow
fragrant in the sun;
at the brush of your palm, all my herbs
and spices spill open

frond by frond, lured to unfold
and exhale in the heat;
wild strawberries rife, and pimpernels
fragrant and scarlet, blushing
down their stems.
To mow that rushy bottom;
sweet scything.

All winter I waited silently
for your appeal.
I withered within, dead to all,
curled away, and deaf as clay,
all my life forces ebbing slowly
till now I come to, at your touch,
revived as from a death swoon.

Your sun lightens my sky
and a wind lifts, like God's angel,
to move the waters,
every inch of me quivers
before your presence,
goose-pimples I get as you glide
over me, and every hair
stands on end.

Hours later I linger
in the ladies toilet,
a sweet scent wafting
from all my pores,
proof positive, if a sign
was needed, that at the least
touch of your fingertips
I break into blossom.

The Monday/Tuesday Silly Two-fer

2010-04-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

My Beard

My beard grows down to my toes,
I never wears no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.

--Shel Silverstein

Spelling

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness' sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

-- Anonymous

Make Up Poems: Weekend Edition

2010-04-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit behind folks, but life happens. I'm gonna try and play catch up here....

I have two lovely friends, both of whom are very fond of Mary Oliver, so a poem for each of them:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

He also has pretty pictures...

2010-04-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

I don't feel well today, so I'm lazy. My friend Jeremiah has been posting song lyrics (which I think count as poems) on his blog in honor of National Poetry Month, so I'm going to refer you there.

These two are my favorites; enjoy.

Bright Star

2010-04-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

Today's poem comes from John Keats. Today's poem is also the title of a Jane Campion movie released last year, starring Ben Whishaw as Keats, and Abbie Cornish as his love interest, Fanny Brawne. It is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen; I cannot recommend it enough.

The movie makes the assumption that this poem was written for Fanny, and although it very well could have been, no one knows for sure. The romantic in me is going to assume that it was.

Bright Star

Bright star! would I were steadfast 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 steadfast, 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.

Whitman for Wednesday

2010-04-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

I really love this poem. I love the language of it. I love the juxtposition of the earth-bound astronomy professor, tied to his proofs and figures and diagrams and lecture room and audience, and the quiet of the stars, offering the more perfect education.

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. --Walt Whitman

National Poetry Month 2010

2010-04-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of my favorite time of year, I'm going to try again with this blog. For more information on National Poetry Month, visit this site. And now, a poem:

Hydrangea

From the bottom of the garden, enthroned in his earthenware pot,
the hydrangea god surveys his minions—
lavender agapanthuses bowing starburst heads,
red bignonia calyxes trumpeting his fame,
oleander leaves whispering of his misdeeds.
The central path leads straight to him. Behind,
a stained mirror and mossy wall back up his power.
Thousands of crinkled, tiny, white ideas occur to him
with frilled and overlapping edges. No one else
deploys such Byzantine metaphysics. No one
can read his mind. Only he remembers
the children's secret fort by the cypress tree
among fraught weeds, rusted buckets, and dumped ash,
and how lost the grown-ups sounded, calling, as night came.

--By Rosanna Warren

Halloween Poems

2009-10-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

In case you were planning to have a dramatic reading at your Halloween party this year, here are some poems for the occasion!

For the record, I love "Goblin Market"...

Autumn

2009-09-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells."
--John Keats, To Autumn

Ooh, Pretty!

2009-09-21T09:41:00.001-07:00

Here's something else for you to check out: http://www.heyoscarwilde.com/

It's a collection of work from various artists, depicting their favorite author or literary character. There are some great pictures.

I particularly enjoyed these:

Shel Silverstein by Katie Cook

Lady Macbeth by Steve Pugh

Juliet by Kei Acedera

Enjoy!

Check This Out

2009-09-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

An article from Slate Magazine, written by Robert Pinsky, former US Poet Laureate, on a George Herbert poem: http://www.slate.com/id/2226655/?from=rss

Enjoy!

"I shall have some peace..."

2009-08-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

In May, my family had the opportunity to travel to Grass Valley in Northern California for a family reunion. Grass Valley is a beautiful little gem of a town, retaining much of its mining town charm, nestled among the towering Redwoods and dramatic scenery of Northern California. Our cousin's home sits on 5 acres of that scenery and is a stunning combination of cultivated and wild landscaping. It was remarkably beautiful. During our first night there, I sat on small bench in front of a huge honeysuckle bush (it smelled heavenly!). I was sort of unconsciously aware of a low humming coming from behind me, but it wasn't until there was a lull in the conversation that I realized I was hearing bees. Honeybees looking for pollen in the honeysuckle behind me. I immediately thought of Yeats' poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and understood what he meant by a "bee-loud glade". I sat with the words of this poem running through my head, listening to the bees, and watching twilight fall. I was more contented than I had been in a long time.

Life is difficult, especially when things are hustle-bustle and the pace becomes frantic. I believe we all need a place to escape to, even if only for a few moments, and even if only in our minds. Yeats went to Innisfree, and now I can go to that honeysuckle bush, limned in twilight, and listen to the bees.

"Lake Isle of Innisfree"

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

--W.B. Yeats (1893)

Brilliant Books

2009-07-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

I just finished re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. It's been a good ten years since I last read it, which is a shame, because it's amazing. On it's face, it's a simple story about a small town, but at it's core, it's an anthem to equality, love and the beauty of life. If you haven't read it, or haven't read it for a while, I challenge you to do so. Soon. You won't regret it.

Millay

2009-06-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

I love Edna St. Vincent Millay; she speaks to me, and I feel like we can relate. I particularly adore her sonnets -- the language is stunning. Sometimes, I just feel like I can't get enough of her. This is one of those times; maybe because of the place I'm in, maybe because I need her purity of thought, maybe I want to be fed by her language, by the words she chose, by the rhythm and music of her verse. Or maybe it's because she's familiar, comfortable, easy. Whatever the reason, I hope you enjoy.

Sonnet 115

Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,

When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,

Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;

And that I knew, though not the day and hour.

Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,

To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:

Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,

I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."

I only hoped, with the mild hope of all

Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,

A fairer summer and a later fall

Than in these parts a man is apt to see,

And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:

I tell you this across the blackened vine.

Sonnet 116

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;

In my own way, and with my full consent.

Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely

Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.

Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping

I will confess; but that's permitted me;

Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping

Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.

If I had loved you less or played you slyly

I might have held you for a summer more,

But at the cost of words I value highly,

And no such summer as the one before.

Should I outlive this anguish --and men do--

I shall have only good to say of you.

Emily Dickinson

2009-06-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share this poem, as it seemed appropriate given the weather we've been having around here lately...

Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!

Were I with thee

Wild Nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile -- the Winds --

To a Heart in port --

Done with the Compass --

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden --

Ah, the Sea!

Might I but moor -- Tonight --

In Thee!

I found this poem in a collection, and I also really loved what the editor, Robert Aldin Rubin, had to say about this poem: "Within the safe Edenic harbor of passionate love, wind and thunder become oddly comforting."

"In The Delicate Arch"

2009-06-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have been woefully negligent in checking the email address associated with this blog; I apologize. I happened upon this submission (from April!). Thank you, David!

In the Delicate Arch
from southward sun
a beam did cross
your face while in
architecture I could
never engineer
and a fascination
with the insides
outsides, crosssides
of an inhospitable land
in your boyish way
you did fix a fear
mostly mine.
-David Yancey

"Separation"

2009-06-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this gem on a friend's blog, and I say stumbled because it brought me up short and left me breathless with the simple beauty of it:

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

--W.S. Merwin

Because Poetry Can Be FUN!

2009-04-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

Crayon Pirate

There was a single blue line of

crayon drawn across every wall

in the house. What does it

mean? I said. A pirate needs

the sight of the sea, he said and then

he pulled his eye patch down and

turned and sailed away.

--Brian Andreas

Pablo Neruda

2009-04-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Song Selection 2

2009-04-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

I don't think it's a secret that I'm a fairly maudlin girl; I tend to thrive on a bit of melancholy -- I don't like to wallow in it, because that's tiresome, but I need a little bit (I think it helps me remember the good things; see here).

For that reason, I'm inordinately fond of Damien Rice. He is dreamy and melancholy and sad and makes you feel good about it. (Seriously, you should check him out.) This is my favorite D.R. song, and it is haunting. I took the lyrics directly from his website, so please forgive the "grammar"

"Accidental Babies"

i held you like a lover
happy hands
and your elbow in the appropriate place
and we ignored our others' happy plans
for that delicate look upon your face
our bodies moved and hardened
hurting parts of your garden
with no room for a pardon
in a place where no one knows what we have done

do you come
together ever with him?
is he dark enough
enough to see your light?
do you brush your teeth before you kiss?
do you miss my smell?
is he bold enough to take you on?
do you feel like you belong?
does he drive you wild?
or just mildly free?
what about me?

you held me like a lover
sweaty hands
and my foot in the appropriate place
we used cushions to cover happy glands
and the mild issue of our disgrace
our minds pressed and guarded
while our flesh disregarded
the lack of space for the light-hearted
in the boom that beats our drum

and i know i make you cry
i know sometimes you wanna die
but do you really feel alive without me?
if so be free
if not leave him for me
before one of us has
accidental babies
for we are ...

Frost-y Poem

2009-04-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure that no National Poetry Month would be complete without a poem from Robert Frost, so here you go:

The Road Not Taken

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 marked 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.

Labysheedy

2009-04-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

This poem was written by a woman named Nuala ní Dhomhnaill (NOO-la na GHON-all), and was originally written in Irish. Nuala ní Dhomhnaill is a contemporary poet who writes and publishes in Irish as a quasi-political statement; kind of a reclaiming of both her language and heritage. Generally, she simply writes the poetry, and others translate it. This is one of the rare exceptions: she translated the following poem, and it truly beautiful.

Labysheedy

(The Silken Bed)

I'd make a bed for you

in Labysheedy

in the tall grass

under the wrestling trees

where your skin

would be silk upon silk

in the darkness

when the moths are coming down.

Skin which glistens

shining over your limbs

like milk being poured

from jugs at dinnertime;

your hair is a herd of goats

moving over rolling hills,

hills that have cliffs

and two ravines.

And your damp lips

would be as sweet as sugar

at evening and we walking

by the riverside

with honeyed breezes

blowing over the Shannon

and the fuchsias bowing down to you

one by one.

The fuchsias bending low

their solemn heads in obeisance to the beauty

in front of them.

I would pick a pair of flowers

as pendant earrings

to adorn you

like a bride in shining clothes.

O, I'd make a bed for you

in Labysheedy,

in the twilight hour

with evening falling slow

and what a pleasure it would be

to have our limbs entwine

wrestling

while the moths are coming down.

Sonnet CXXX

2009-04-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

When I read "Litany" by Billy Collins, I always think of this sonnet by Shakespeare. They have the same idea, I think; specifically, loving someone in kind of a "warts and all" way.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Litany

2009-04-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite poems (even if Jeremiah does think it is a crap Twinkie...). It is a beautiful tribute by Billy Collin.

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,

The crystal goblet and the wine.

--Jacques Crickillion

You are the bread and the knife,

the crystal goblet and the wine.

You are the dew on the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun.

You are the white apron of the baker,

and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,

the plums on the counter,

or the house of cards.

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.

There is just no way you are the pine scented air.

It is possible that you are fish under the bridge,

maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,

but you are not even close

to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show

that you are neither the boots in the corner

nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,

speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,

that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,

the evening paper blowing down an alley

and the basket of chesnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees

and the blind woman's tea cup.

But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.

You will always be the bread and the knife,

not to mention the crystal goblet -- and somehow -- the wine.

Blogging Fail

2009-04-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

So, I'm officially 9 poems behind in my Poem-a-Day homage... I meant to remedy this a couple of days ago, but I was wracked with self-pity, convinced no one reads this, and feeling it was a useless enterprise. I'm not going to lie: I still feel like that, but I also feel I have to finish what I started, so here we go...

Spring...

2009-04-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

It has snowed here... all day. I am aching for Spring, and longing for warmer days and less rain. So, perhaps you will forgive me for posting another poem by e.e. cummings, but it's been snowing...

Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully

out of Nowhere)arranging

a window, into which people look(while

people stare

arranging and changing placing

carefully there a strange

thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

"...this quiet is only quiet..."

2009-04-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

I signed up to receive a daily poem via email from Poets.org (the fine people who bring us National Poetry Month), and this one came through the other day. It is lovely:

Yellow Bowl

If light pours like water
into the kitchen where I sway
with my tired children,

if the rug beneath us
is woven with tough flowers,
and the yellow bowl on the table

rests with the sweet heft
of fruit, the sun-warmed plums,
if my body curves over the babies,

and if I am singing,
then loneliness has lost its shape,
and this quiet is only quiet.

--Rachel Contreni Flynn

A Haiku

2009-04-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Speaking of my dear friend Jeremiah (who found "Permanently" for me), he wrote this little gem, which I think is brilliant. In fact, I go to Jeremiah for all my Haiku needs. Enjoy!

Does Tide make a spray
that removes pain and regret
and possibly gin?

Because I Can...

2009-04-13T18:13:00.001-07:00

Some Yeats, because I love him, and I adore this poem:

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with a love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Shakespeare, Anyone?

2009-04-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

I really love this sonnet:

Sonnet CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fix'ed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

"Permanently"

2009-04-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

This one also talks about the power of language. Thanks to my dear friend, Jeremiah, for sending it to me!

In an essay called "On Reading Poetry," the late Kenneth Koch wrote: "Suppose you want to get an experience into words so that it is permanently there, as it would be in a painting—so that every time you read what you wrote, you reexperienced it. Suppose you want to say something so that it is right and beautiful—even though you may not understand exactly why. Or suppose words excite you—the way stone excites a sculptor—and inspire you to use them in a new way. And that for these or other reasons you like writing because of the way it makes you think or because of what it helps you to understand. These are some of the reasons poets write poetry."

Permanently

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing—for example, "Although it was a dark rainy
day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the pure and sweet
expression on her face until the day I perish from the green, effective earth."
Or, "Will you please close the window, Andrew?"
Or, for example, "Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window sill
has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat from the
boiler factory which exists nearby."

In the springtime the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, "And! But!"
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the Adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat—
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language.

--Kenneth Koch

Words are Fun

2009-04-13T17:52:00.001-07:00

So, by my reckoning, I owe you 5 poems...sorry about that (computer issues; you know how it is). Thus: Poem #1, offered for fun, and to illustrate the wonder of language...

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

--Lewis Carroll

I actually dislike Lewis Carroll quite a lot, but "mimsy" is fun to say, and "Callooh! Callay!" sometimes just hits the spot.

And Now: Some Self-Indulgence

2009-04-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

As if this blog isn't already pure self-indulgence, but I'm feeling sort of sassy, so you get something I wrote...

Song Selection

2009-04-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

Music has always spoken to the human condition because it is poetry to a tune. I like this song because it is simple and heartbreaking. It also tells a vivid story -- one you have no trouble "seeing" when you hear it:

Sometime Around Midnight

And it starts, sometime around midnight.
Or at least that’s when you lose yourself
for a minute or two --
As you stand under the bar lights,
And the band plays some song
about forgetting yourself for a while.
And the piano’s this melancholy soundtrack to her smile.
And that white dress she’s wearing
you haven’t seen her for a while.

But you know that she’s watching:
She’s laughing, she’s turning,
She’s holding her tonic like a cross.
The room’s suddenly spinning,
She walks up and asks how you are.
So you can smell her perfume.
You can see her lying naked in your arms.

So there’s a change in your emotions.
And all these memories come rushing
like feral waves to your mind,
Of the curl of your bodies,
like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless and homeless
and lost in the haze of the wine.

Then she leaves with someone you don’t know.
But she makes sure you saw her --
She looks right at you and bolts.
As she walks out the door,
your blood boiling
your stomach in ropes.
Oh and when your friends say,
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Then you walk under the streetlights.
And you’re too drunk to notice
that everyone is staring at you.
You just don’t care what you look like,
the world is falling around you.

You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You know that she’ll break you in two.

--The Airborne Toxic Event

ee cummings

2009-04-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

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)

For more information about ee cummings (and more of his poems),
visit his page on poets.org here.

Weekend Poetry

2009-04-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

Today is another two-fer because I missed yesterday. So, two of a similar theme from Sara Teasdale:

After Love

There is no magic anymore,

We meet as other people do,

You work no miracle for me

Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea --

There is no splendor anymore,

I have grown listless as the pool

Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm

And from the tide has found surcease,

It grows more bitter than the sea

For all its peace.

After Parting

Oh, I have sown my love so wide

That he will find it everywhere;

It will awake him in the night,

It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight

And I have winged it with desire,

That it may be a cloud by day,

And in the night a shaft of fire.

I actually really like both of these poems, because they are deceptively simple. There is a lot going on. I like the first one because the line lengths -- and the way they read -- make this poem sound as listless to me as the "pool" Teasdale describes. And the second poem sounds like a terribly elegant homage to stalking, really. It's sort of like reminding the erstwhile lover that he can run but cannot hide... If not for the title, it would be a really touching love poem.

Sara Teasdale was born in 1884 in St. Louis, MO. She was a sickly child, and by all accounts, unhappy in her life. Whether due to illness or unhappiness, she committed suicide in 1933. Sara Teasdale won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1918.

"The Primer"

2009-04-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

I don't know anything about this author, but the poem is poignant and lovely....

The Primer

She said, I love you.

He said, Nothing.

(As if there were just one
of each word and the one
who used it, used it up).

In the history of language
the first obscenity was silence.

--Christina Davis

Edna St. Vincent Millay

2009-04-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today's poem is actually a two-fer from Ms. Millay:

Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

and rise and sink and rise and sink again;

Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It may well be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,

Or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It well may be. I do not think I would.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born February 22, 1892 in Maine. Encouraged by her mother, Millay began writing poetry at a very young age, and much of her early poetry was published in St. Nicholas, a popular children's magazine. However, she won immediate acclaim and attention with her poem, "Renascence," published in the anthology The Lyric Year, in 1912 when Millay was 20. It became the title poem for her first collection, published in 1917 (the same year she graduated from Vassar College), Renascence and Other Poems. This collection immediately established her as a force on the New York literary scene. Her further collections, along with her prose works, plays, short stories and essays, made her one of America's most celebrated poets.

Between 1917, when her first collection was published, and 1920, when her second was published, Edna St. Vincent Millay published 77 poems, 39 of which were sonnets (2 of those appear above). She also wrote and directed a play, published 8 prose pieces under a pseudonym, and wrote her second book. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for A Few Figs from Thistles and for 8 sonnets and "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver." Millay's volume of work alone is noteworthy; however, the work she was producing was stunning. Her command of the sonnet is something which has been commented on by several other, award-winning, poets: "She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century. She knew that this form was durable. She put into it her own immaculate perfections" (emphasis added -- Richard Eberhart). Her verse "stings the page".

"Undine"

2009-04-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

The professor of a poetry writing class that I took said that great poetry should have "geography and furniture. If you fix your poem in a place, and give readers something solid to look to, you can successfully write about even the most abstract subjects." For my money, I think he was right.

The master of "geography and furniture" (in my opinion) is Seamus Heaney, an Irish contemporary poet and winner of the Noble Prize for Literature in 1995. His mastery of language is such that he can write a poem using a skunk as a simile for his wife, and having it turn out to be a love poem (a really sweet one, too).

I offer the following poem, though, as a great example of an "abstract" subject being made quite solid. An undine (UN-deen) is a water-sprite who cannot get soul unless they can get a human man to marry them...

Undine

He slashed the briars, shoveled up grey silt

To give me right of way in my own drains

And I ran quick for him, cleaned out my rust.

He halted, saw me finally disrobed,

Running clear, with apparent unconcern.

Then he walked by me. I rippled and I churned

Where ditches intersected near the river

Until he dug a spade deep in my flank

And took me to him. I swallowed his trench

Gratefully, dispersing myself for love

Down in his roots, climbing his brassy grain ---

But once he know my welcome, I alone

Could give him subtle increase and reflection.

He explored me so completely, each limb

Lost its cold freedom. Human, warmed to him.

There are so many things that could be said about this poem! Heaney takes the myth of the undine (something relatively abstract), and plunks it right down into the description of a farmer clearing out his ditch, offering both geography and furniture. Besides that, the words he uses are everyday -- common; yet, with skillful manipulation of metaphor, Heaney gives us the myth, gives us the personality of the water-sprite living in the ditch, gives us the outcome, and never uses a word that anyone would have to look up to understand! This is an entirely different point, but I LOVE that Heaney will stop one sentence and begin another within a single line of poetry. Few poets do that, and it is difficult to do it well; Heaney does it brilliantly. Each new sentence offers yet another metaphor and kind of moves the plot along, if you will, which is amazing. Seamus Heaney is kind of my poetic hero (in case you weren't getting that), and entirely worth looking into and reading.

National Poetry Month

2009-04-01T17:49:00.001-07:00

I absolutely LOVE National Poetry Month, and couldn't wait to celebrate it here, on my blog dedicated to word nerdery. National Poetry Month was started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, and has been celebrated every April since. Activities have included poetry readings, open mic events, the "Favorite Poem Project", the "Poem in Your Pocket" Day, and bloggers sharing their favorites. The goals of National Poetry Month, as stated by the Academy can be seen here (along with further information about NPM): poets.org.

I will be posting daily poems here, and hope you will enjoy!

"Daffodils"

2009-03-02T19:19:00.001-08:00

I'm ready for Spring, and I'm fairly sure it is just around the corner. In honor of that, an oldie, but goodie, if you will:

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,--

A host, of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In a such a jocund company!

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

--William Wordsworth

I never really thought much of this poem until a few years ago. I was living in England, and it had been a long, very cold, very wet, extremely gray winter. By March, I was afraid I was going to rust, and I prayed everyday for Spring. One day in late March, as I walking, I came upon a park, and it was COVERED in daffodils; they had bloomed more or less overnight (I didn't know how suddenly Spring came on in England). I have never in my life been more happy to see a flower! The bright color after months of grey really lifted my spirits and I immediately thought of this poem; I realized perhaps what Wordsworth felt when he wrote this. This is why I love language so much: it can express the things we feel in our hearts, and allow other people a glimpse in. This poem really does evoke beautiful images, and every time I read it, I see, with my "inward eye", that park in England...

"Introduction to Poetry"

2009-02-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

I felt it appropriate to start with this poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins:

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

Illumination

2009-02-20T19:52:00.000-08:00

A friend recently suggested that I start a blog of literature reviews. Since that same idea had been kicking around in my head for awhile, I decided to give it a shot, with a minor alteration. I wanted to start a poetry blog, just to showcase poets, poems, and the magic of language. So, I'm going to attempt to do both. I realize this is pure self-indulgence, but who knows? It might be fun. I welcome comments, suggestions, and submissions from readers, and wish for this blog to be a place for dialogue and word-nerdery at its best. I hope you enjoy!