Algún día de Cumpleaños

I missed holding your hand
This cold, cold January
The stake in my heart
Made the thought one to bury

There's a space in my garden
Where your flower used to bloom
Now I sleep on the floor
And the dark is my room

But there in the light
A sliver of youth
Of birth and days and soulful eyes
I live alone with your truth

The blue bird at my window
Sings not for the day
But admires the reflection
Of echoes at bay

Suspended by feathers
On winged aural flight
The listening to whispers
The voices of night

My body now wracked
With fever and pain
My mind on the bridge
Between desert and rain

I loved you no matter
The dancing we missed
Tomorrow the echo
The stranger I kissed

From gifts you bestowed
To my inner child
Where castings of bronze
Are sculpted the wild

Out there in the forest
I'll carve out my space
And breezes uplifting
For framing your face

b

This is well presented. Deer in the headlights, revelation entranced . . .

Spellbound

Emily Jane Bronte

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Schenectady Pete really liked his meat.

The end. Thank you in advance.

Longing

Could I from this valley drear,
Where the mist hangs heavily,
Soar to some more blissful sphere,
Ah! how happy should I be!
Distant hills enchant my sight,
Ever young and ever fair;
To those hills I'd take my flight
Had I wings to scale the air.

Harmonies mine ear assail,
Tunes that breathe a heavenly calm;
And the gently-sighing gale
Greets me with its fragrant balm.
Peeping through the shady bowers,
Golden fruits their charms display.
And those sweetly-blooming flowers
Ne'er become cold winter's prey.

In you endless sunshine bright,
Oh! what bliss 'twould be to dwell!
How the breeze on yonder height
Must the heart with rapture swell!
Yet the stream that hems my path
Checks me with its angry frown,
While its waves, in rising wrath,
Weigh my weary spirit down.

See—a bark is drawing near,
But, alas, the pilot fails!
Enter boldly—wherefore fear?
Inspiration fills its sails,
Faith and courage make thine own,—
Gods ne'er lend a helping-hand;
'Tis by magic power alone
Thou canst reach the magic land!

Friedrich von Schiller

Flames

Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.

His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them
how a professional does it.

Billy Collins

"How to make the likeness of a bird...
how to make a likeness
First draw a cage
with an open door
Then draw
then draw...

Something beautiful,
something simple,
something fitting for a bird.
Then walk through the garden,
or hide behind a tree in the wood
without a word...
without a word...
without a word...
...immobile.

Sometimes the bird comes soon
but it can take its time.
It can take years to decide
to venture forth.
So wait...
wait...
wait...
wait...
wait...
wait for years, of need be.

But the waiting is not in relation
to how the picture worked out.
When the bird comes,
if it comes...
if it comes...
if it comes...
if it comes be very quiet.

Wait for it to enter the cage.
Just keep very quiet.
Just keep very quiet.

When it's inside
slowly shut the door with the paint brush
and then...
and then...

Rub the cage out carefully
without touching the bird's feathers.
In your tree find the prettiest branch
for the bird...

Paint in the leaves, the wind,
insects buzzing in the summer heat,
and then wait... for the bird to sing.

If not, it is a bad omen.
It means the painting is bad.

But if it sings...
But if it sings...
that is a good omen.

And that means you can sign the painting.
So just take your pen,
sign your name in the corner of the painting."

~ Jacques Prevert

 

Somebody Else

by Me

December 23, 2010

The sound of rain

on a night of thoughtful

introspection.
 

Memories,

experience,

longing,

loss,

and dreams

reflected on.

"Love" may be too strong of word.

"Good friends" might seem too personal.

"Brotherly love" leaves out the sisters...

the mothers, the fathers...

fire, earth, air, water,

and soul.

"Care" has come to mean big money.

So when I wish to tell

what I should feel about life,

and all that lives,

what words suffice?

What labels what I should feel?

What road do I walk;

the light or the dark...

the comfort-sounding

or the be damned?

How should I feel

about the dishonesty of how I should feel

about what I should be?

"To each their own,"

or so it is said...

and yet much of the world

would have it

I was somebody else.

Someone less than I see myself to be...

something contrived

and not so frightening.

DAYS

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin

The Sower

Sure of the spring that warms them into birth,
The golden seeds thou trustest to the earth;
And dost thou doubt the eternal spring sublime,
For deeds—the seeds which wisdom sows in time.

Friedrich von Schiller

Humility

In the necessary field among the round
Warm stones we bend to our gleaning.
The brown earth gives in to our hands, and straw
By straw burns red aslant the vesper light.

The village behind the graveyard tolls softly, begins
To glow with new-laid fires. The children
Quiet their shouting, and the martins slide
Above the cows at the warped pasture gate.

They set the tinware out on checkered oilcloth
And the thick-mouthed tumblers on the right-hand side.
The youngest boy whistles the collie to his dish
And lifts down the dented milk pail.

This is the country we return to when
For a moment we forget ourselves,
When we watch the sleeping kitten quiver
After long play, or rain comes down warm.

Here we might choose to live always, here where
Ugly rumors of ourselves do not reach,
Where in the whisper-light of the kerosene lamp
The deep Bible lies open like a turned-down bed.

Fred Chappell

Well it's Ninth and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow...
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat...
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
til you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen...
And I've seen it all, I've seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train...

~Tom Waits

i think i post this every year....

Winter Solstice

by ~triskele

Silently
Through dancing stars
and Darkest Night

Silently
by way of Grace
into Grace


Silently
one snow flake
joins another

Silently
Hope awakes
and Light is born.

The Gardener
by Linda Pastan

He's out rescuing his fallen hollies
after the renegade snowstorm,

sawing their wounded limbs off
quite mercilessly (I think of the scene

in "Kings Row," the young soldier waking
to find his legs gone).

He's tying up young bamboo—
their delicate tresses litter the driveway—

shovelling a door through the show
to free the imprisoned azaleas.

I half expect him to tend his trees
with aspirin and soup, the gardener

who finds in destruction
the very reason to carry on;

who would look at the ruins
of Eden and tell the hovering angel

to put down his sword,
there was work to be done.

 newwavegurly wrote: 

thank you, doll. I spotted an emotional tidal wave out there a few days ago. I'll surf it if I can, but if not, I'll try to hang ten anyway...

 oldviolin wrote: 
Love this one, B.

I need you here with me today
Making love to my woefully disfigured heart
Loving cups over filled having run over the fine table cloth
Down the leg
And to the ground.
There, as if fertile soil were your womb,
I gaze in wonderment at the new life girding my hopes
And my wasted youthful stretch
The small voices enraptured by noble human pain
I inhabit a chorus
Lifted by a heart such as mine
Bathing in the salted warmth of my tears and devastating dreams...

b

 

Any End Times Scenario worth its weight in eternity
has, among other motivational side effects, 
debilitating cravings for popcorn at or near the event horizon...

b

 

Acknowledgment

Now at thy soft recalling voice I rise
Where thought is lord o'er Time's complete estate,
Like as a dove from out the gray sedge flies
To tree-tops green where coos his heavenly mate.
From these clear coverts high and cool I see
How every time with every time is knit,
And each to all is mortised cunningly,
And none is sole or whole, yet all are fit.
Thus, if this Age but as a comma show
‘Twixt weightier clauses of large-worded years,
My calmer soul scorns not the mark: I know
This crooked point Time's complex sentence clears.
Yet more I learn while, Friend! I sit by thee;
Who sees all time, sees all eternity.

By the more height of thy sweet stature grown,
Twice-eyed with thy gray vision set in mine,
I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown,
I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine.
No text on sea-horizons cloudily writ,
No maxim vaguely starred in fields or skies,
But this wise thou-in-me deciphers it:
Oh, thou'rt the Height of heights, the Eye of eyes.
Not hardest fortune's most unbounded stress
Can bind my soul nor hurl it from on high,
Possessing thee, the self of loftiness,
And very light that sight discovers by.
Howe'er thou turn'st, wrong Earth! still Love's in sight
For we are taller than the breadth of night.

Sidney Lanier