beautiful. intriguing. poetic.
oniric. abstract. surrealist.
i like things that tell story.
1
There’s this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.
What does the world
mean to you if you can’t trust it
to go on shining when you’re
not there? and there’s
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.
2
I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the
green pine tree:
little dazzler
little song,
little mouthful.
3
The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It
grunts into view. There is no measure
for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes—
there is no telling
the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns
and yawns.
Near the fallen tree
something—a leaf snapped loose
from the branch and fluttering down—tries to pull me
into its trap of attention.
4
It pulls me
into its trap of attention.
And when I turn again, the bear is gone.
5
Look, hasn’t my body already felt
like the body of a flower?
6
Look, I want to love this world
as thought it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.
7
Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink
from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;
I won’t whisper my own name.
One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn’t see me—and I thought:
so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful.
(via sharingpoetry, rabbit-light)
(Source: proustitute)
It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down
whose secret we see in a children’s game
of ring a round of roses told.
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
Robert Duncan, Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow, 1960
thanks you ymutate
[English audio poem - production of poetryfoundation.org]
“Tel qu’en Lui-même enfin l’éternité le change,
Le Poète suscite avec un glaive nu
Son siècle épouvanté de n’avoir pas connu
Que la Mort triomphait dans cette voix étrange !
Eux, comme un vil sursaut d’hydre oyant jadis l’ange
Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu,
Proclamèrent très haut le sortilège bu
Dans le flot sans honneur de quelque noir mélange.
Du sol et de la nue hostiles ô grief !
Si notre idée avec ne sculpte un bas-relief
Dont la tombe de Poe éblouissante s’orne,
Calme bloc ici-bas chu d’un désastre obscur,
Que ce granit du moins montre à jamais sa borne
Aux noirs vols du Blasphême épars dans le futur.”
— Stéphane Mallarmé, Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe, Les Poèmes d’Edgar Poe, 1889
He is your child
He runs away
Does not look back
To fight a war which I no longer know is mine
Are you coming closer
Are you going further away.
Where is it that you walk now?
I know you are seeing the sun I see
I see the moon you see
I walk the land you walk
Why can’t I see you
The inches, the feet, the kms
The inches, the feet, the kms
Inches, feet, kms
The markings that we have made on this land
Has increased the distance so much
Am no longer able to see you
We’ll never be able to mark enough
No man will be able to mark all the land
The woman will stand and watch
I no longer want to count
Time
Time
Time
Is it your dream that am more in love with than with you
Walk Straight Don’t See
Bend forward Don’t see
Walk in the line Don’t see
Walk Straight Don’t See
Bend forward Don’t see
Walk in the line Don’t see
I can hear silence
Why does your smell not leave with you
It is him. He loves me
He’ll come
Is he dead
Is he dead
Do dead people love
Do dead people love.
He said he ll come back
Am jealous of the land he loved more than me.
First the father.
Father
My lover
Child
They leave for the land
They leave with a half of you
I didn’t marry the land
I don’t want to be half widow…
Voiceover intercepted with sound of stones falling on floor and footsteps
Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s’ouvraient tous les cœurs, où tous les vins coulaient.
Un soir, j’ai assis la Beauté sur mes genoux. — Et je l’ai trouvée amère. — Et je l’ai injuriée.
-
Translated by Paul Schmidt:
Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.
One evening I took Beauty in my arms — and I thought her bitter — and I insulted her.
(submitted by rerylikes on sharingpoetry)
“I went to the market, where they sell birds
and I bought some birds
for you
my love
I went to the market, where they sell flowers
and I bought some flowers
for you
my love
I went to the market, where they sell chains
and I bought some chains
heavy chains
for you
my love
And then I went to the slave market
and I looked for you
but I did not find you there
my love”
— Jacques Prévert
(via billyjane)
