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These are poeticaL artistS that inspire mE! Poem No. 3
Sonia Sanchez I gather up
each sound
you left behind
and stretch them
on our bed
each night
I breathe you
and become high
~Nothing Gold Can Stay~
Robert Frost - 1923 Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Even This Shall Pass Away
Theodore Tilton Once in Persia reigned a king
who upon his signet ring
graved a maxim true and wise
which when held before the eyes
gave him counsel at a glance
fit for every change and chance.
Solemn words, and these are they
'Even this shall pass away.'
Trains of camels through the sand
brought him gems from Samarkand.
Fleets of galleys through the seas
brought him pearls to match with these.
But he counted not his gain,
treasure of the mine or main.
'What is wealth,' the king would say
'Even this shall pass away.'
In the revels of his court,
at the zenith of the sport.
when the palms of all his guests
burned with clapping at his jests,
he amid his figs and wine
cried, 'Oh, loving friends of mine!
Pleasure comes but not to stay.
'Even this shall pass away.'
Lady, fairest ever seen,
was the bride he crowned his queen.
Pillowed on his marriage bed,
softly to his soul he said:
'Though no bridegroom ever pressed
fairer bosom to his breast,
mortal flesh must come to clay
'Even this shall pass away.'
Fighting on a furious field,
once a javelin pierced his shield.
Soldiers with a loud lament
bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning from his tortured side,
'Pain is hard to bear', he cried.
'But with patience, day by day,
'Even this shall pass away.'
Towering in the public square,
twenty cubits in the air,
stood his statue carved in stone.
Then the king, disguised, unknown,
Stood before his sculptured name
musing meekly 'what is fame?'
Fame is but a slow decay.
'Even this shall pass away.'
Struck with palsy, sere and old
waiting at the gates of gold,
said the king with dying breath
'Life is done, but what is death?'
Then, in answer to the king,
fell a sunbeam on his ring
showing by a heavenly ray,
'Even this shall pass away'. anyone lived in a pretty how town
e.e. cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.
women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
no one and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
I want to die while you still love me
Georgia Douglas Johnson I want to die while you still love me
While yet you hold me fair
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair
I want to die while you still love me
And bear to that still bed
Your kisses turbulent, unspent
To warm me when Im dead
I want to die while you still love me
Oh who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give
I want to die while you still love me
And never never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim or cease to be
saddest poem
Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her. Nicole Blackman
Victim I feel the motion of the car before I open my eyes.
The air is blue-black, brown-black, black-black.
Smell of gas, oil, animals.
I'm in the trunk.
My wrists and ankles tied.
Tape over my mouth
it almost covers my nose
but I can breathe barely.
I must have been here for hours,
everything's stiff and my head throbs
like someone's drumming on china.
The car stops.
He turns off the motor -- but there are no traffic sounds.
No people sounds. No wind. What place has no wind?
I turn my head towards the sounds
like people watch radios when something terrible happens.
My palms are sweating. Where am I?
The trunk squeaks as he lifts it up and the sun blinds me.
He almost looks like a faceless Jesus surrounded by light.
He pulls me out of the trunk and bangs my head against the door.
I try to cry out, but it comes like a hum.
He drags me, half-standing, along a dirt road into a house.
I can't see any other houses and it looks like a farm.
The screen door bangs behind me and I feel a deep, deep pressure inside.
All the rules have changed here.
I'm dragged down a hall like a bag and I look for a phone, other doors.
Nothing but bare floors and brown boxes in small rooms.
He pulls me into the bathroom
and I almost crack my head as he pushes me onto the floor.
Tilts his head to the side and gazes at me
as if I was a pet then walks out.
I'm lying there for a long time, trying to get the tape off of me.
My eyes are tearing. I don't make a sound.
I can't get up and I keep rolling from side to side, trying not to make noise.
I've got to get him to talk to me.
If I can get this thing off my face I can talk to him.
I'll tell him my name.
Have you killed other women in here?
I'm thinking you've got hundreds of them nailed down,
hung on walls, hanging from ceiling fans
swinging dead in summer wind.
Why did you pick me?
If I had stayed to finish at the library
I would have been there twenty minutes longer
maybe I'd have been OK.
Would have rushed into the house, books piled up in my arms like a baby,
and blurted explanations why I was sorry.
So sorry I'm late everyone.
Would you have waited for me anyway?
Would you have picked another woman?
Would I have read about her in the paper and said
oh my god, I was there that night...
and called all my friends in a panic.
Telling them then how much I loved them
as if I'd never have the chance again.
I wonder what everyone is doing now. Putting up signs.
Showing my picture on the evening news. Calling old friends.
Maybe I'm not even considered missing yet.
The family will fall apart and my parents will go crazy. Slowly.
My brother will be so quiet at the funeral and insist the casket be closed.
(I never even told anyone what kind of funeral I wanted when I died.)
Maybe years from now they'll find my skeleton
on the floor here and they'll have to use dental records to identify me.
My family will say "At least we know now.
We always hoped she was alive somewhere.
We just hope she's in peace."
When I sleep my dreams are crazy -- I'm flying over fields.
I don't think I sleep for more than twenty minutes and when I wake up,
it feels like I'm under a heavy blanket. I'm still here.
As I wake up I hear a dog barking in the distance
and I think I'm in my parents' house in South Carolina.
When I open my eyes, there's a shotgun pressed between them.
I'll never get married.
I'll never have kids.
I'll never go to Europe.
I'll never learn to play piano.
I'll never write a book.
The last thing I hear is a click. lawrence ferlenghetti "and i am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and i am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and i am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and i am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and i am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder."
~and~
Where does light go when it dies?
Is snow
frozen moonlight?
Will the spring forever stir
winter hearts?
How many angels & devils dance
on the head of a phallus?
Are flowers crying
when they nod their heads in the rain?
Does the tree believe its panoply of leaves
will protect it
from acid rain?
Have you ever found
a bottomless bottle of love?
Is hope just something to indulge in
when you're going nowhere?
Is love an onion
or a unicorn caged in a tapestry?
Can a cat hear the sound
of one paw clapping?
Why is there darkness
at night?
Did Emiliano Zapata, Augusto Sandino, Jose Marti, Che Guevara
live and die in vain?
Should a girl in her summer dress
ever undress?
Was the Immaculate Conception
a misconception?
Does the dawn wind
have secrets to tell us?
What is more nostalgic
than a train whistle lost
in book of night?
Was Neruda
the Picasso of poetry?
Why write
when you can dance?
Does sleep unravel
the knitted sleeve of care?
Can we stop time
with a stopwatch?
Why haven't we seen a photo
of the whole moon yet? | |
