will you walk out of the air?

Nymph of the grot these sacred springs I keep And to the murmur of these waters sleep Ah spare my...

Mon, 21 May 2012 09:13:55 -0400

Nymph of the grot these sacred springs I keep
And to the murmur of these waters sleep
Ah spare my slumbers gently tread the cave
And drink in silence or in silence lave.

Alexander Pope

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in...

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:40:00 -0400

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 easily will unclose me
though 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 color 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, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

When the sun rises, I go to work. When the sun goes down, I take my rest. I dig the well from...

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:30:29 -0400

When the sun rises, I go to work.
When the sun goes down, I take my rest.
I dig the well from which I drink.
I farm the soil which yields my food.
I share creation. Kings can do no more.

Chinese Proverb

In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps one spark of the planet’s early fires trapped...

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:20:32 -0400

In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps
one spark of the planet’s early fires
trapped forever in its net of ice,
it’s not love’s later heat that poetry holds,
but the atom of the love that drew it forth
from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love
begins to smoulder, the poet hears his voice
suddenly forced, like a bar-room singer’s — boastful
with his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;
but if it yields a steadier light, he knows
the pure verse, when it finally comes, will sound
like a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the water
sings of nothing, not your name, not mine.

Don Paterson, Poetry

Lovely one, Just as on the cool stone Of the spring, the water Opens a wide flash of foam, So is the...

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:52:33 -0400

Lovely one,
Just as on the cool stone
Of the spring, the water
Opens a wide flash of foam,
So is the smile of your face,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
With delicate hands and slender feet
Like a silver pony,
Walking, flower of the world,
Thus I see you,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
With a nest of copper entangled
On your head, a nest
The colour of dark honey
Where my heart burns and rests,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
Your eyes are too big for your face,
Your eyes are too big for the earth.

There are countries, there are rivers,
In your eyes,
My country is your eyes,
I walk through them,
They light the world
Through which I walk,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
Your breasts are like two loaves made
Of grainy earth and golden moon,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
Your waist,
My arm shaped it like a river when
It flowed a thousand years through your sweet body,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
There is nothing like your hips,
Perhaps earth has
In some hidden place
The curve and the fragrance of your body,
Perhaps in some place,
Lovely one.

Lovely one, my lovely one,
Your voice, your skin, your nails,
Lovely one, my lovely one,
Your being, your light, your shadow,
Lovely one,
All that is mine, lovely one,
All that is mine, my dear,
When you walk or rest,
When you sing or sleep,
When you suffer or dream,
Always,
When you are near or far,
Always,
You are mine, my lovely one,
Always.

Pablo Neruda, Lovely One

Love is enough: though the world be a-waning, And the woods have no voice but the voice of...

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:28:26 -0400

Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter:
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

William Morris, Love is Enough

Escape me? Never—- Beloved! While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us...

Sun, 13 May 2012 18:54:06 -0400

Escape me?
Never—-
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,—-
So the chace takes up one’s life ’ that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me—-
Ever
Removed!

Robert Browning, Life in a Love

This is the laughing-eyed amongst them all: My lady’s month. A season of young things. She...

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:50:09 -0400

This is the laughing-eyed amongst them all:
My lady’s month. A season of young things.
She rules the light with harmony, and brings
The year’s first green upon the beeches tall.
How often, where long creepers wind and fall
Through the deep woods in noonday wanderings,
I’ve heard the month, when she to echo sings,
I’ve heard the month make merry madrigal.

How often, bosomed in the breathing strong
Of mosses and young flowerets, have I lain
And watched the clouds, and caught the sheltered song -
Which it were more than life to hear again -
Of those small birds that pipe it all day long
Not far from Marly by the memoried Seine.

Hilaire Belloc, [Month of] May

I turn around on the gravel and go back to the house for a book, something to read at the...

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:59:48 -0400

I turn around on the gravel and go back to the house for a book, something to read at the doctor’s office, and while I am inside, running the finger of inquisition along a shelf, another me that did not bother to go back to the house for a book heads out on his own, rolls down the driveway, and swings left toward town, a ghost in his ghost car, another knot in the string of time, a good three minutes ahead of me — a spacing that will now continue for the rest of my life.

Billy Collins, I Go Back To The House For A Book

All those treasures that lie in the little bolted box whose tiny space is Mightier than the room of...

Wed, 09 May 2012 12:01:25 -0400

All those treasures that lie in the little bolted box whose tiny space is
Mightier than the room of the stars, being secret and filled with dreams:
All those treasures—I hold them in my hand—are straining continually
Against the sides and the lid and the two ends of the little box in which I guard them;
Crying that there is no sun come among them this great while and that they weary of shining;
Calling me to fold back the lid of the little box and to give them sleep finally.

But the night I am hiding from them, dear friend, is far more desperate than their night!
And so I take pity on them and pretend to have lost the key to the little house of my treasures;
For they would die of weariness were I to open it, and not be merely faint and sleepy
As they are now.

William Carlos Williams, Slow Movement

Let the rain kiss you Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops Let the rain sing...

Tue, 08 May 2012 18:30:28 -0400

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes, April Rain Song

The tumult in the heart keeps asking questions. And then it stops and undertakes to answer in the...

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:08:34 -0400

The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions.
And then it stops and undertakes to answer
in the same tone of voice.
No one could tell the difference.

Uninnocent, these conversations start,
and then engage the senses,
only half-meaning to.
And then there is no choice,
and then there is no sense;

until a name
and all its connotation are the same.

Elizabeth Bishop, Conversation

If you had come away with me into another state we had been quiet together. But there the sun coming...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:30:00 -0400

If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond the lake was
too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing
against him,
too much of sumac buds, pink
in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen
limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the
raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.

William Carlos Williams, April

Hark to the shouting Wind! Hark to the flying Rain! And I care not though I never see A bright blue...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 07:22:35 -0400

Hark to the shouting Wind!
Hark to the flying Rain!
And I care not though I never see
A bright blue sky again.

There are thoughts in my breast to-day
That are not for human speech;
But I hear them in the driving storm,
And the roar upon the beach.

And oh, to be with that ship
That I watch through the blinding brine!
O Wind! for thy sweep of land and sea!
O Sea! for a voice like thine!

Shout on, thou pitiless Wind,
To the frightened and flying Rain!
I care not though I never see
A calm blue sky again.

Henry Timrod, Hark to the Shouting Wind

A flame is in my blood burning dry life, to the bone. I do not sing of stone, now, I sing of...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 07:20:01 -0400

A flame is in my blood
burning dry life, to the bone.
I do not sing of stone,
now, I sing of wood.

It is light and coarse:
made of a single spar,
the oak’s deep heart,
and the fisherman’s oar.

Drive them deep, the piles:
hammer them in tight,
around wooden Paradise,
where everything is light.

Osip Emilevich Mandelstam, A flame is in my blood

As long as you know you don’t know, not knowing’s not what hurts, it’s...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:54:00 -0400

As long as you
know you don’t know,
not knowing’s not
what hurts,

it’s what

you don’t know you
don’t know that
finally gets
to you, right
in the old
solar plexis.

Philip Booth, Ganglia

And then he would lift this finest of furniture to his big left shoulder and tuck it in and draw the...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:30:51 -0400

And then he would lift this finest
of furniture to his big left shoulder
and tuck it in and draw the bow
so carefully as to make the music

almost visible on the air. And play
and play until a whole roomful of the sad
relatives mourned. They knew this was
drawing of blood, threading and rethreading

the needle. They saw even in my father’s
face how well he understood the pain
he put them to—his raw, red cheek
pressed against the cheek of the wood…

Stanley Plumly, Out-of-the-Body Travel

The taste of rain —Why kneel? Jack Kerouac, Haiku

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:57:02 -0400

The taste
of rain
—Why kneel?

Jack Kerouac, Haiku

How often I went in for warmth and a doze The newspaper room whilst my world outside froze And I...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:46:57 -0400

How often I went in for warmth and a doze
The newspaper room whilst my world outside froze
And I took out my sardine sandwich feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
And the tramps and the madman and the chattering crone.
The smell of their farts could turn you to stone
But anywhere, anywhere was better than home.

The joy to escape from family and war.
But how can you have dreams?
you’ll end up on the floor.
Be like your brothers, what else is life for?

You’re lost and you’re drifting, settle down, get a job.
Meet a nice Jewish girl, work hard, earn a few bob.
Get married, have kids; a nice home on the never
and save up for the future and days of rough weather.

Come back down to earth, there is nothing more.
I listened and nodded, like I knew the score.
And early next morning l crept out the door.

Outside it was pouring
I was leaving forever.

I was finally, irrevocably done with this scene,
The trap of my world in Stepney Green.
With nowhere to go and nothing to dream

A loner in love with words, but so lost
and wandering the streets, not counting the cost.
I emerged out of childhood with nowhere to hide
when a door called my name
and pulled me inside.

And being so hungry I fell on the feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.

And my brain explodes when I suddenly find,
an orchard within for the heart and the mind.
The past was a mirage I’d left far behind

And I am a locust and I’m at a feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.

And Rosenberg also came to get out of the cold
To write poems of fire, but he never grew old.
And here I met Chekhov, Tolstoy, Meyerhold.
I read all their worlds, their dark visions of gold.

The reference library, where my thoughts were to rage.
I ate book after book, page after page.
I scoffed poetry for breakfast and novels for tea.
And plays for my supper. No more poverty.
Welcome young poet, in here you are free
to follow your star to where you should be.

That door of the library was the door into me

And Lorca and Shelley said “Come to the feast.”
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.

Bernard Kops, Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East

[Voltaire closed a famous argument by claiming that a ship of war and the grand opera were...

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:05:14 -0400

[Voltaire closed a famous argument by claiming that a ship of war
and the grand opera were proof’s enough of civilization’s and
France’s progress, in his day.]

A lesser proof than old Voltaire’s, yet greater,
Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse, America,
To my plain Northern hut, in outside clouds and snow,
Brought safely for a thousand miles o’er land and tide,
Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting,
Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding,
A bunch of orange buds by mail from Florida.

Walt Whitman, Orange Buds by Mail from Florida