February 2012
32 posts
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Touch
My hands
Open the curtains of your being
Clothe you in a further nudity
Uncover the bodies of your body
My hands
Invent another body for your body
(Octavio Paz 1914-1998)
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sealed in vaine ...
Take, oh take those lips away (William Shakespeare)
Take, oh take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworne,
And those eyes: the breake of day,
Lights that doe mislead the Morne;
But my kisses bring againe, bring againe,
Seales of love, but seal’d in vaine, seal’d in vaine.
(Manasse’ Foto-Salon; Olga Solarics & Adorja’n von Wlassics, photographers)
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ask me ...
“Ask me whether what I have done is my life.”
Wonderful.
Ask me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn...
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like a perhaps hand ...
III
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
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a...
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looking for signs after parting
As a child, I always looked for signs. I counted steps on my way to places (something I have since learned is common among many musicians) and was sure if I ended on an even number, I had good luck. If I was wishing fervently for something, I would look for confirmation everywhere that my wish would come true: A word on the side of a passing delivery truck, a song on the radio, an overheard word...
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a ready heart ...
i think that, sometimes, your heart has to be ready for the poem. just like a lover, it has been there all along; growing, maturing, moving toward you without your knowledge. but when you meet, the words slip right into where they belong.
so keep your heart open.
“Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they...
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contemplation
CONTEMPLATION (kɒntəmˈpleɪʃən) 1. thoughtful observation. 2. full or deep consideration; reflection: 3.purpose or intention.
I am trying to carve out more time for this.
Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne, 1890; Paul Gaugin
(photo: mine; iphone 4s; Art Institute of Chicago)
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Sonnet XCI. ... nothing is worth more than your...
XCI
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force;
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill;
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest;
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is...
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heard but not seen
Reblogged by request - here you go, anon.
Originally posted 09 Sept, 2010.
……………
My office has a balcony over a public space. It is a beautiful fall day, so I have my sliding door open to catch autumn while I can. I hear people chat as they walk through the courtyard.
This morning, I heard a single, strong voice state emphatically:
“But I never knew...
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if there is something to desire 9 ... 17 ... 18...
18
—Sing me The Song of Songs.
—Don’t know the words. —Then sing the notes.
—Don’t know the notes. —Then simply hum.
—Forgot the tune. —Then press my ear
to your ear
and sing what you hear.
(Vera Pavlova)
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i have a need for your voice ...
I have a need for your voice,
a longing for your company,
and an ache of melancholy
for the absence of signs of arrival.
Fantastic. Here is the entire poem:
XII: From ‘El Rayo Que No Cesa’ (Miguel Hernandez)
Una querencia tengo por tu acento
una apetencia por tu compañía
y una dolencia de melancolía
por la ausencia del aire de tu viento.
Paciencia necesita mi tormento,
urgencia de...
need to travel ...
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three odd words ... three-odd ...
The Three Oddest Words
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.
(Wislawa Szymborska - trans. S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh)
(Hannah Höch - “liebe” 1931)
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i like my body when it is with your ...
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like„ slowly stroking...
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to one unknown ...
To One Unknown
I have seen the proudest stars
That wander on through space,
Even the sun and moon, But not your face.
I have heard the violin,
The winds and waves rejoice
In endless minstrelsy; Yet not your voice.
I have touched the trillium,
Pale flower of the land,
Coral, anemone, And not your hand.
I have kissed the shining feet
Of Twilight lover-wise, ...
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evening love song ...
Evening Love Song
Ornamental clouds
compose an evening love song;
a road leaves evasively.
The new moon begins
a new chapter of our nights,
of those frail nights
we stretch out and which mingle
with these black horizontals.
(Rainer Maria Rilke - translator uncredited)
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…Mysticis umbraculis
She slept: her finger trembled, amethyst-less And naked, under her nightdress: After a deep sigh, ceased, cambric raised to her waist.
And her belly seemed of snow on which might rest, If a ray of light re-gilded the forest, A bright goldfinch’s mossy nest.
(Mallarme)
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angelic intervention trope ...
I’ve written in the past about my fear (phobia) of dogs. What I haven’t told you is that I evolved into a full-fledged, card-carrying, supply-your-own-metaphor dog lover.
I wish I could share with you a tale of miraculous canine-human interaction; the “angelic intervention trope” of bible stories, wherein the very course of one’s life is fundamentally altered. Or...
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Mozart in E-flat Major
(Hsia Yü)
I turn around.
I feel Monday’s well-shaven face lightly
caress my left shoulder
most cherished part
most crucial here and now
…..
So which Mozart piece was the poet referencing in this title?
Unknown.
I choose to believe it is the Adagio in Eb Major (from Sonata K. 457 in C Minor); In rondo form,...
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sound of rain
the sound of rain
fills the quiet of
the dark as it
falls through leafless
branches.
nests
unprotected.
your hand finds
my breast
thumb rolling nipple,
holding it
as if the first time.
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Veux-tu me prendre dans tes bras?
Conjugal
A man is bending his wife.
He is bending her around something that she has bent
herself around.
She is around it, bent as he has bent her.
He is convincing her.
It is all so private between them.
He bends her around the bedpost.
No, he is bending her around the tripod of his camera.
It is as if he teaches her to swim
as if he teaches acrobatics
as if he could form her into...
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in the library...
An Afternoon in the Stacks
Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Long passages open at successive pages. An echo,
continuous from the title onward, hums
behind me. From in here, the world looms,
a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences...
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a (little) keats
”Poetry should…strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.”
- John Keats