It's National Poetry Month. This is your time, people/poets.
Contribute your poetry, or a friend's poetry who gave you permission, or a dead person's copyright-free poetry, or a link to a page of poetry, below in the comments.
19 thoughts on “National Poetry Month 2012 Open Thread”
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Here’s one from T.S. Eliot. I like the line about the accidental stars.
“Hysteria”
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her
laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were
only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I
was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary
recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her
throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An
elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly
spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty
green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman
wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden …” I
decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be
stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might
be collected, and I concentrated my attention with
careful subtlety to this end.
They pass before me one by one riding on animals
“What are you waiting for,” they want to know
Z—, young as he is (& mad into the bargain) tells me
“Some day you’ll drop everything & become a rishi, you know.”
I know
The forest is there, I’ve lived in it
More certainly than this town? Irrelevant—
What am I waiting for?
A change in customs that will take 1000 years to come about?
Who’s to make the change but me?
-From “A Vision of the Bodhisattvas” by Philip Whalen, the complete text of which can be found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180973
Correspondances
La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliersLaissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symbolesQui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondentDans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.
II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’enfants,Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,— Et d’autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,
Ayant l’expansion des choses infinies,Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens,Qui chantent les transports de l’esprit et des sens.
— Charles Baudelaire
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/103
IF THEN
if i am the night
then you are the moon
if i am the flower
then you are the bloom
if i am the philosopher
then you are the quote
if i am the lyric
then you are the note
if i am the glass
then you are the wine
if i am the root
then you are the vine
if i am the clay
then you are the potter
if i am the fountain
then you are the water
if i am the book
then you are the page
if i am the wisdom
then you are the sage
if i am
then you are
http://www.facebook.com/notes/poetsings-muse/if-then/190709467622860
I will come bearing mangoes,
wearing the war-paint of a whoreand the anklets of a thief,
a sunburst, spilling nectar,
summer-kissed by the yellowblossom that fell from a tree and into my braid.
Sharpen your knifeand hold out your tongue,for life is sweetest in small pieces
and I could feed it to you in thewhite wicker-plaited shadowsof your sun-flooded veranda
while we drink to beauty and wait for the fire flowers of the year’s first rain.
http://english.louisiana.edu/rougarou/currentIssue/p-Manivannan_IWillCome.html
we left a thousand machines on in this tired old highrise
a throbbing structure a sixty-cycle hum
laugh and joke about all the potential meaning behind each and every door
all existential so exit then this still holds
prying open little chambers hidden thoughts and flyers
on the walls a little reminder to be reminded
collapse tomorrow there is no tomorrow
we’ll have no tomorrow until never finally comes
then its time to pack up things best left behind
and kill a part of ourselves and hand it back in to the machine
this is destiny this is object this product consumer
consumed and destiny describes fate as a constant death wish
we unplugged a thousand machines a high-rise concept
top of their game buildings fall
out of the dust up a trash heap a garbage bag
cellular telephone history calls up and no one’s there
escape.
(posted originally on everything2.org 25 April 2005 – but not there anymore)
Bittersweet
Like morning coffee
Am I…awake?
luckily
To meet Eye to Eye
with such sweetness
Face to Face
wondering what bitters her.
Why, carefully
outside
defend her loneliness
when fragrant inside
sweet nectar escapes
Waiting
Will she open up
Fill her her heart’s cup.
Where bitter connects
sweet
Complete Together.
http://www.bluemoonnortheast.blogspot.com
NAPOWRIMO DAY 23: Penelopeaid
As you leave,
it’s not so much the desire to kiss as much as
put mouth on, or
around; that
first and most direct desire to receive via
– to nurse –
that it might sustain
in your absence.
Perhaps one might
take between lips
a fingertip, as though
it could stay behind;
a reminder, like
a marble or a small piece
of ice, leaving
my tongue recalling
you as it reads this
cool roundness, or
crevice, respectively.
There’s comfort in knowing how
a stone or piece of weathered wood
in the hand
can be the same – a surface to
trace and retrace, erased
of scalar dependencies:
a shoulderblade, a hip,
the hollow of your chest
when you exhale.
and all at once I was there
at its origin; the first
to know and speak a word –
“touchstone” –
a small solace
to hold as you journey, to
locate in an instant
your star
in the sky.
madly backwardssirens singjunkies to sleepon the stairwayof the sunset hotelold hopes fade& dance awaymadly backwardsrain reclaimsworn tire tracksof piss-yellow cabspointed cross townby gypsy hacksinsomniacsfrom new yorknew jerseynew delhichasing american dreamsdown empty streetsred—white & blue illusionsslippinginto the darknessof rearview mirrorslost in the shadowsof sacred skyscrapersthat sigh & bendin the windold myths fade& dance awaymadly backwardssirens sing
junkies to sleep
on the stairway
of the sunset hotel
old hopes fade
& dance away
madly backwards
rain reclaims
worn tire tracks
of piss-yellow cabs
pointed cross town
by gypsy hacks
insomniacs
from new york
new jersey
new delhi
chasing american dreams
down empty streets
red—white & blue illusions
slipping
into the darkness
of rearview mirrors
lost in the shadows
of sacred skyscrapers
that sigh & bend
in the wind
old myths fade
& dance away
madly backwards
Sorry. Somehow the formatting was lost in this poem. I’ll try one more time:
“madly backwards”
sirens singjunkies to sleepon the stairwayof the sunset hotelold hopes fade& dance awaymadly backwardsrain reclaimsworn tire tracksof piss-yellow cabspointed cross townby gypsy hacksinsomniacsfrom new yorknew jerseynew delhichasing american dreamsdown empty streetsred—white & blue illusionsslippinginto the darknessof rearview mirrorslost in the shadowsof sacred skyscrapersthat sigh & bendin the windold myths fade& dance awaymadly backwards
junkies to sleep
on the stairway
of the sunset hotel
old hopes fade
& dance away
madly backwards
rain reclaims
worn tire tracks
of piss-yellow cabs
pointed cross town
by gypsy hacks
insomniacs
from new york
new jersey
new delhi
chasing american dreams
down empty streets
red—white & blue illusions
slipping
into the darkness
of rearview mirrors
lost in the shadows
of sacred skyscrapers
that sigh & bend
in the wind
old myths fade
& dance away
madly backwards
i give up
dont give up mate, sounds good, ignore formatting just get it out
(Introduction)
The odor of blood drops in drapes,
figures half-lit form false shapes;
the bed on which I lay and the windows
welcome what the delicate line knows:
the open imagination’s well-kept trade
that many shrug off
with a stilted stare or cough,
throwing discredit on what honest hands have made.
All that dreamlike inspiration
becomes a beautiful conflagration:
the smell of emblematic men and women slain,
and flickering lights from where thought’s shadows came,
issue out of the creative heart’s desire
that’s uncontrollable,
requiring an artistic toll,
like the worn fingers of the bard that plays the lyre.
But that’s what poetry’s about,
a deep and draining silent shout;
the hand is left cramped and consumed,
the heart’s violet blossoms begin to bloom:
sedative perfumes slide over your wearied frame –
half-memories abate,
the odorous dead dissipate –
you’re deserted, yet the halcyon heart flares aflame.
Symbols come and symbols go:
the disfigured trees obscured by snow,
or simply standing against the wind
or windless heat; a cherished friend
and loved ones who’ve passed; a lost lyricist;
the Muses that elude;
the damp room in which I brood;
a horseman, his blade; a stony tower’s twist.
Find here, dear reader and friend,
a testimony sung over again.
I write this text to release me from
broken thoughts and anger’s sum:
everything that childhood and adolescence approved.
The unvoiced thoughts
of a boy caught by cast lots
inked to find something beyond evanescent truths.
My brother left
before I knew he had.
His flight trailed off into a Utah
sunrise. He left behind a little strand
of thought, and, in a cramped, amber room that saw
long talks of topics that soon thinned grey,
a set of dog-eared books has been put down.
Books that brought nearer to my thought his own,
while somewhere Interstate-5 grates ‘cross the ground.
I sleep there still, although I left for good.
That house to this day asks me where he was.
Their smiles, the little comfort that they could
give, were emptier than their words. Often
I feel the vague pulse of their ragged stares –
torn, threadbare they unravel in the air
to mask their faces: that inner decree
which shades the truth. Where and how’d they ever grow wrong?
He must have, as the plane touched the runway,
felt the dawn’s shudder fracture his young bones,
his thoughts turning to those dog-earing days.
The seemingly endless months full of groans,
as they should have been, being spent alone.
And that set of books, at least it would seem,
ignited the wick on which our passions gleam –
slate-grey regards.
These six years past since they took him away
held minutes like a needle in plied dust.
There’s something in the spring that brings decay
here. The outward beauty of the world just
clouds the mind’s loss within the spinning gust
that all the blooming flowers usher in.
Then the rain comes – in spitters and spats it spins
the spire. When gone the white-wick’s still on fire.
As the 5’s scratch cracks up the drying earth,
I recall Nietzsche, Guevara, Burgess.
Famed men who’d not anticipated births
inside my brother and I like cypress
trees, evergreen and coniferous we
drop seeds year-round. The setting Utah sun,
barely audible, gasps in the copse.
He’s with me now. What’s done is done.
The Memory of Malani Sathyadev, Preserved on an Answering Machine
She vanished in the shadows
of a mid-March Sunday’s moon
that quickly slipped below
streetlights and ran to the shore.
When I first heard the news
an orange leapt from its bough.
There were bees in the flowerbed.
Grass shattered under my feet;
the smell of soot and ash
clung lightly to the breeze;
her smile fell
from a Hong Kong orchid
off Market Street.
The news first came
dead-ended and one-way.
Eight years’ reflection on that day
have hoped it was a turn in life:
the harrowing left onto Texas
from Mulberry Drive –
the high-branch’s snap
in the old, ragged pine –
when I was lost
in an Irish poet’s mind.
Hearing her voice, years since passed,
among this phone’s old messages,
I hear myself the day I heard the news –
Christianity’s eternity
became eternally confused.
Her long, black-curtain-hair,
the books piled at her feet,
the way philosophy
rolled off of her physique…
All I hear now when I think of that day
is the frail rattle of a noose’s
sway, like pebbles
beneath the midnight train.
April 2012
Desert Rain
illusion…nature’s effort to cause confusion.
baked soil drinking in with thirsty fear… it will never come again.
swollen river washes remembrance away.
and prepares us…for the painful emergence of the sun it’s blistering renewal…
but with it the energy of forgiveness and refusal…
which in the end…is victorious.
Desert Rain
illusion…nature’s effort to cause confusion.
baked soil drinking in with thirsty fear… it will never come again.
swollen river washes remembrance away.
and prepares us…for the painful emergence of the sun it’s blistering renewal…
but with it the energy of forgiveness and refusal…
which in the end…is victorious.
The beauty of the moon always makes me wonder…
Does the magic inside rise you up or hold you under?…
Lost by the morning light and the promise of a new day…
But still hoping the moon loved you in some small way…
The mighty rhthym pushes forth and causes me to speak…
rolling forth until I realize the freedom that’s inside of me and reminds me…
of where I came from…
the moon…it’s inside of me…
teaches me and gives wisdom to remember i am where i am supposed to be…
beauty of the moon…heals me.