Moon River: poetry

Motion

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:47:10 GMT

Motion By Octavio Paz

If you are the amber mare
              I am the road of blood
If you are the first snow
              I am he who lights the hearth of dawn
If you are the tower of night
              I am the spike burning in your mind
If you are the morning tide
              I am the first bird's cry
If you are the basket of oranges
              I am the knife of the sun
If you are the stone altar
              I am the sacrilegious hand
If you are the sleeping land
              I am the green cane
If you are the wind's leap
              I am the buried fire
If you are the water's mouth
              I am the mouth of moss
If you are the forest of the clouds
              I am the axe that parts it
If you are the profaned city
              I am the rain of consecration
If you are the yellow mountain
              I am the red arms of lichen
If you are the rising sun
              I am the road of blood

Afternoon on a Hill

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:06:56 GMT

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

Edna St.Vincent Millay

Alentejo Seen From The Train

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 07:53:33 GMT

Nothing with nothing around it
And a few trees in between
None of wich very clearly green,
Where no river or flower pays a visit.
If there be a hell, I've found it,
For if ain't here, where the Devil it is?

Fernando Pessoa (1907)

Alentejo Seen From The Train

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 19:03:23 GMT

world prayers

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:22:25 GMT

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.

mevlana jelaluddin rumi - 13th century

From Worldprayers site

Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Ode

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:00:18 GMT

We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams....

--Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Ode

ישראלים

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:16:46 GMT

ישראלים - אירווינג לייטון

A poetry by Irving Layton

(couldn't find an English translation so far)

הֵם סוֹמְכִים עַל עַצְמָם וְלֹא עַל אַחֵר;

מְטוֹסֵי הַקְּרָב שֶׁלָּהֶם הַצּוֹוְחִים בָּרָקִיעַ,

אֲמִתִּיִּים, נִרְאִים לָעַיִן כַּשֶּׁמֶשׁ בַּהֲדָרוֹ;

עֲשַׁן-רוֹבִים, נִצְנוּצֵי-תּוֹתָחִים וּשְׁאוֹן הַטַּנְקִים.

הָאָדָם הוּא זְאֵב בַּעַל-נִיבִים, חֲסַר חֶמְלָה

אוֹ רַחֲמִים: אָשׁוּרִים, מִדְיָנִים, יְוָנִים, רוֹמָאִים,

וְעוֹבְדֵי-אֱלִילִים אֲדוּקִים בִּסְפָרַד וּבְרוּסְיָה

- יְלָדָיו שֶׁל אַלְלָה, הָרַחְמָנִים מִכָּל.

אַיֵּה הַכֹּל-יָכֹל אִם הָרֶצַח מְשַׂגְשֵׂג?

הוּא מֵת כָּלִיל וְהֵם קָבְרוּ אוֹתוֹ

לִפְנֵי עֲשׂוֹרִים, כִּסּוּהוּ בְּמוֹ גּוּפוֹתֵיהֶם

הַתְּשׁוּשִׁים בְּבֶּלְזֶן וּבְבָּאבִּי יַאר.

הָנִיחוּ לַחֲזָקִים לְחַבֵּר שִׁירִים וְהִמְנוֹנוֹת,

לִחְיוֹת עִם נֹגַהּ הָאֱלֹהִים בְּגֻלְגְּלוֹתֵיהֶם הַקָּשׁוֹת

אוֹ לְהַגִּיד דְּבַר חַסְדּוֹ בָּרַבִּים;

לִבְהוֹת בַּמְּרוֹמִים וְלָחוּשׁ מְרוֹמָמִים

אוֹ מֻשְׁפָּלִים וַהֲלוּמֵי-יִרְאָה לִכְפֹּף בִּרְכֵּיהֶם:

הֵם גָּמְרוּ אִתּוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד.

בְּלֹא יִפְחָה מִצִּדּוֹ חָזְרוּ,

אוֹת כְּמוֹ יָד פְּתוּחָה בַּשָּׁמַיִם.

עַמּוּד הָאֵשׁ: בְּשָׂרָם כּוֹנֵן אוֹתוֹ;

הוּא בָּעַר קְצָרוֹת וָמֵת –כֻּלְּכֶם יוֹדְעִים הֵיכָן.

עַכְשָׁו בְּדָמָם הֵם מְחַשְּׁלִים אֶת הַפְּלָדָה,

כְּשֶׁאֱלֹהִים מֵת, וְאוֹיְבֵיהֶם לֹא.

Crystal Night

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 23:16:27 GMT

works of magic fly paula's photos at his Flickr album

under the summer moon

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:58:53 GMT

An octopus pot –
inside, a short-lived dream
under the summer moon
(Basho, trans.Ueda)

My way -
no-one on the road
and it's autumn, getting dark
(Basho, trans. Marsh)

*

The love of cats
When it was over, the hazy moon
Over the bed chamber
(Basho)

Lighting one candle
With another candle
An evening of Spring
(Buson)

TreeSpirit

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:03:27 GMT

Cypress Roots 4. TreeSpirit project

via realitycarnival, designobserver

A REED FLUTE

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 07:31:23 GMT

Can you catch a mermaid
And make her your wife?

On a night like this,
    the moon so wan,
Roaming the sea's warm depths....

Can you become a grasslike ghost
And appear just bare bones?

On a night like this,
    the moon so wan,
Riding a balloon
And floating, floating
    toward a pollen-strewn sky...
In a tree's empty shade,
I converse with my flute,
    just we two together.
CHONG CHI-YONG

We Rise On Sun Beams And Fall In The Night

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 21:30:46 GMT

We Rise On Sun Beams And Fall In The Night
Dawn's orb orange-raw shining over Palisades
bare crowded branches bush up from marshes--
New Jersey with my father riding automobile
highway to Newark Airport--Empire State's
spire, horned buildingtops, Manhattan
rising as in W. C. Williams' eyes between wire trestles--
trucks sixwheeled steady rolling overpass
beside New York--I am here
tiny under sun rising in vast white sky,
staring thru skeleton new buildings,
with pen in hand awake ...
-- Allen Ginsberg
via wood s lot

Dan Mcdermott The Green Wave IV Oil on Linen

Dan Mcdermott The Green Wave2 Oil On Canvas

I Keep A Close Watch

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:27:33 GMT

I Keep A Close Watch

Never win and never lose
There's nothing much to choose
Between the right and wrong
Nothing lost and nothing gained
Still things aren't quite the same
Between you and me

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I still hear your voice at night
When I turn out the light
And try to settle down
But there's nothing much I can do
Because I can't live without you
Any way at all

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

John Cale

cruelty and beauty

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:13:49 GMT

Ono no Komachi, lived around 850 C.E. during the Heian period. The story about her is that she was a woman of unparallelled beauty in her youth and enjoyed the attention of many suitors. She was, however, haughty and cruel, breaking many hearts. She was punished by living to an old age and dying as a destitute and ugly hag in loneliness. The legend is almost certainly false, but the passionate nature of her loves survives to this day.

Seeing the moonlight
spilling down
through these trees,
my heart fills to the brim
with autumn.

The autumn night
is long only in name --
We've done no more
than gaze at each other
and it's already dawn.

Yielding to a love
That knows no limit,
I shall go to him by night --
For the world does not yet censure
Those who tread the paths of dreams.

Now that I am entering
The winter of life,
Your ardor has faded
Like foliage ravaged
By late autumn rains.

The pine tree by the rock
must have its memories too:
after a thousand years,
see how its branches
lean toward the ground.

the strongest of the strange

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:54:41 GMT

you wont see them often
for wherever the crowds are
they
are not.
these odd ones, not
many
but from them
come
the few
good paintings
the few
good symphonies
the few
good books
and other
works.
and from the
best of the
strange ones
perhaps
nothing.
they are
their own
paintings
their own
books
their own
music
their own
work.
sometimes i think
i see
them- say
a certain old
man
sitting on a
certain bench
in a certain
way
or
a quick face
going the other
way
in a passing
automobile
or
there’s a certain motion
of the hands
of a bag-boy or a bag-
girl
while packing
supermarket
groceries.
sometimes
it is even somebody
you have been
living with
for some
time-
you will notice
a
lightning quick
glance
never seen
from them
before.
sometimes
you will only note
their
existence
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone.
i remember
such a
one-
he was about
20 years old
drunk at
10 a.m.
staring into
a cracked
new orleans
mirror
face dreaming
against the
walls of
the world
where
did i
go?

-charles bukowski. via thenonist

A DREAM OF WINDBLOWN WAVES 1

Mon, 29 May 2006 08:59:46 GMT

You say you are coming─
Just how will you come?

Like the grape-dark night surging in
To the sound of an endless cry
that embraces the sea─
Is that how you'll come?

You say you are coming─
Just how will you come?

Like an ashen silver giant from
a forlorn isle across the sea,
Swooping down on a day fierce with wind─
Is that how you'll come?

You say you are coming─
Just how will you come?

When outside the window
sparrows' eyes droop
And inside, chin in hands,
I'm crushed with care......
Like the dawn moon, round like
a silver door pull,
Doffing a veil tinged with shame─
Is that how you'll come?  CHONG CHI-YONG

astropoetica

Sat, 27 May 2006 22:25:54 GMT

Astropoetica: Mapping the Stars through Poetry.

Clickable Star Chart, each constellation was granted by an original poem

Clickable Star Chart: Galactic South. click on the link to get in to the poetic path. by clicking on the map it will take you to different poems dedicated to a star.

here is one:

Apus by Johann Bayer

In the nooks of the darkness
somebody has prepared a trap
the people's hopes
hardly flicker
like some fragile stars
hung by an insectarium

beyond the dreams
it raises splitting the darkness

the Bird of Paradise

לכל איש יש שם - זלדה

Sat, 27 May 2006 10:45:37 GMT

לכל איש יש שם

שנתן לו אלוהים

ונתנו לו אביו ואימו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו קומתו ואופן חיוכו

ונתן לו האריג

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו ההרים

ונתנו לו כתליו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו המזלות

ונתנו לו שכניו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו חטאיו

ונתנה לו כמיהתו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו שונאיו

ונתנה לו אהבתו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו חגיו

ונתנה לו מלאכתו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתנו לו תקופות השנה

ונתן לו עיורונו

לכל איש יש שם

שנתן לו הים

ונתן לו

מותו .

Doors

Thu, 25 May 2006 11:47:37 GMT

photo by: Maurice Hammon

There are barn doors
And there are revolving doors
Doors in the rudders of big ships
And there are revolving doors
There are doors that open by themselves
There are sliding doors
And there are secret doors
There are doors that lock
And doors that don't
There are doors that let you in and out
But never open
And there are trapdoors
That you can't come back from

Doors /Thom Yorke via cheek

ירח -אלתרמן Moon-Nathan Alterman

Mon, 22 May 2006 21:41:39 GMT

An old sight too has its moment of birth.
A birdless sky
Strange and set apart.
Facing your window on the moonlit night stands
A city plunged in crickets' tears.

And when you see a road still watching for a wayfarer
And the moon
Is on the cypress spear,
You say: 'My God, are all these things still out there?
May one whisper them a greeting?'

From their pools the waters gaze upon us.
The tree is at rest
In a flush of catkin blossoms.
Never shall the sorrow of Your great playthings
Be plucked from me, O our God.

גם למראה נושן יש רגע של הולדת.
שמים בלי צפור
זרים ומבצרים.
בלילה הסהור מול חלונך עומדת
עיר טבולה בבכי הצרצרים.

ובראותך כי דרך עוד צופה אל הלך
והירח
על כידון הברוש
אתה אומר - אלי, העוד ישנם כל אלה?
העוד מתר בלחש בשלומם לדרש?

מאגמיהם המים נבטים אלינו.
שוקט העץ
באדם עגילים.
לעד לא תעקר ממני, אלהינו,
תוגת צעצועיך הגדולים.

מעשה בילדה בודדה - מרים ילן שטקליס

Sun, 21 May 2006 17:19:51 GMT

ירח ירח ספר לי סיפור

ספר לי סיפור שמח!

ואל נא תגיד זה אסור וזה אסור,

ואל נא תגיד עתה אין לי פנאי-

ואל נא תגיד, סיפרתי לך די-

ספר לי סיפור ירח!

NASA's Solar System Exploration: Multimedia: Kid's Gallery: Moon

כי אמא איננה,

ואבא הלך.

וריק הבית, ריק כל כך-

כל כך לא שלנו הבית...

הלכתי לשבת מעט במטבח.

ואינני יודעת כיצד

מלפפון גדול שם אכלתי.

מאותם הכבושים השמורים בתוך כד-

אני לא לקחתי! הוא קפץ אל היד-

ואכלתי.

אחר כך נשברה כוסית של יין-

כל כך נבהלתי!

ואולי היו שם שתיים?

אינני יודעת-

מהר, מהר, על בהונות רגלי

ברחתי - ודי.

אחר כך קראתי בספר מילים רבות,

אחר כך השכבתי לישון את כל הבובות,

אחר כל הייתי בת-מלך,

ותעיתי בדרך,

באי-הקסמים,

ביער-אימים...

וטיפסתי מהר על העץ הגבוה,

כי למטה ארבו זאבים-

רעבים!

פצו את הלוע!

ואני יושבת למעלה בשקט,

וצוחקת!

ולא כלום.

כי מילה אחת אני יודעת-

המילה ההיא של הטבעת-

הטבעת שנתנו לי שלושת הגמדים-

הידידים-

לחשתי---

ומיד בא הירח עם שני כוכבים,

ומיד גרשו את כל הזאבים.

ועוד מילה אחת אמרתי,

ועד שלוש ספרתי-

ולפני מרכבה!

והמרכבה כולה

זכוכית צלולה,

ובמרכבה הושיבוני,

והביתה הביאוני!

והבית ריק.

אין איש בא,

אין איש צוחק.

אין איש גוער בי!

אין איש אומר לי:

זה אסור, וזה אסור...

ירח,ירח, ספר לי סיפור!

ועל מה לספר אם לא תדע,

ספר לי סיפור על ילדה בודדה...

כי אמא איננה,
ואבא הלך.
וריק הבית, ריק כל כך-
כל כך לא שלנו הבית...

הלכתי לשבת מעט במטבח,
ואינני יודעת כיצד
מלפפון גדול שם אכלתי.
מאותם הכבושים השמורים בתוך כד-
אני לא לקחתי! הוא קפץ אל היד-
ואכלתי.

אחר כך נשברה כוסית של יין
כל כך נבהלתי!
ואולי היו שם שתים?
אינני יודעת-
מהר, מהר, על בהונות רגלי
ברחתי - ודי.
אחר כך קראתי בספר מילים רבות
אחר כך השכבתי לישון את כל הבובות.
אחר כך הייתי בת מלך,
ותעיתי בדרך,
באי הקסמים
היער אימים...

וטיפסתי מהר על העץ הגבוה,
כי למטה ארבו זאבים-
רעבים!
פצו את הלוע.
ואני יושבת למעלה בשקט,
וצוחקת.
ולא כלום.
כי מילה אחת אני יודעת-
המלה ההיא של הטבעת-
הטבעת שנתנו לי שלושת הגמדים-
הידידים-
לחשתי--
ומיד בא הירח עם שני כוכבים,
ומיד גרשו את כל הזאבים.
ועוד מלה אחת אמרתי,
ועד שלוש ספרתי-
ולפני מרכבה!
והמרכבה כולה
זכוכית צלולה,
ובמרכבה הושיבוני,
והביתה הביאוני!
והבית ריק.
אין איש בא,
אין איש צוחק.
אין איש גוער בי!
אין איש אומר לי:
זה אסור, וזה אסור...

ירח ירח, ספר לי סיפור!
ועל מה לספר אם לא תדע,
ספר לי סיפור על ילדה בודדה...

מרים ילן שטקליס

Lost in Translation

Sat, 13 May 2006 09:43:29 GMT

Was talking to a friend last night, and he was telling me a story from "Life A User's Manual" by Georges Perec, a great french writer, In this book Perec creates a puzzle of a novel set in a building located in the 17th arrondissement of Paris at number 11 rue Simon-Crubellier, one of the stories he tells is about Bartlebooth-a rich man who *quit* life and goes for a long journey and create a life project - he spent 5 years studying painting and then for more then 20 years, he travels all around the world, stopping in each harbour town and make one painting of this harbor, then sending the painting to his friend that would cut the painting in to a puzzle, then seel it. after 20 years or so, Bartlebooth comes back from his journey, sit down in his home and starts solving and building each and every puzzle of every painting that he made (they were lots of them!) after solving each puzzle and having the painting all set up - he burnes it!

after few years of working his puzzle into image and then burning them, he died.

he writes: "Puzzling is not a solitary game... each hope and each encouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other."

the highlighted area where the fictional street (Rue Simon-Crubellier) that the apartment building is located

* (Perec’s writing consistently foregrounds and explores different relations between the pictorial and the written. Perec makes two key points about puzzles, and the experience of putting them together. The first is that the magic lies not in the image -- the content, if you will -- but in the form. He suggests, rightly, that the enjoyment provided by a puzzle does not depend on whether the completed image is a Vermeer or a Pollock, or even a complete blank. what matters is the relationship between each piece and the pieces around it. The second point Perec makes is that a puzzle is, like all art, an act of communication. Thus, the true puzzler derives little pleasure from a machine-cut puzzle because the message it sends is like a play written by 100 monkeys at typewriters; it may be Hamlet or Quixote, but it is most likely just gibberish. The hand-cut puzzle, on the other hand, represents an artist's attempt to convey meaning, to communicate, through the medium of the puzzle.)
read as well: Memory and Oulipian Constraints by Peter Consenstein

that amazing startling pensive story made me think today and i went to my every day serendipity quest and i stumbled of this poem and the story behind it, here it is:

"Lost in Translation" is a poem by James Merrill (1926-1995), originally published in The New Yorker magazine on April 8, 1974. The poem opens with a description of a summer Merrill spent as a child in a great house in The Hamptons, with his governess, waiting patiently for a rented wooden jigsaw puzzle to arrive in the mail from an Upper East Side Manhattan puzzle rental shop.

Lost in Translation

for Richard Howard

Diese Tage, die leer dir scheinen
und wertlos für das All,
haben Wurzeln zwischen den Steinen
und trinken dort überall.

A card table in the library stands ready
To receive the puzzle which keeps never coming.
Daylight shines in or lamplight down
Upon the tense oasis of green felt.
Full of unfulfillment, life goes on,
Mirage arisen from time's trickling sands
Or fallen piecemeal into place:
German lesson, picnic, see-saw, walk
With the collie who "did everything but talk"—
Sour windfalls of the orchard back of us.
A summer without parents is the puzzle,
Or should be. But the boy, day after day,
Writes in his Line-a-Day No puzzle.

He's in love, at least. His French Mademoiselle,
In real life a widow since Verdun,
Is stout, plain, carrot-haired, devout.
She prays for him, as does a curé in Alsace,
Sews costumes for his marionettes,
Helps him to keep behind the scene
Whose sidelit goosegirl, speaking with his voice,
Plays Guinevere as well as Gunmoll Jean.
Or else at bedtime in his tight embrace
Tells him her own French hopes, her German fears,
Her—but what more is there to tell?
Having known grief and hardship, Mademoiselle
Knows little more. Her languages. Her place.
Noon coffee. Mail. The watch that also waited
Pinned to her heart, poor gold, throws up its hands—
No puzzle! Steaming bitterness
Her sugars draw pops back into his mouth, translated:
"Patience, chéri. Geduld, mein Schatz."
(Thus, reading Valéry the other evening
And seeming to recall a Rilke version of "Palme,"
That sunlit paradigm whereby the tree
Taps a sweet wellspring of authority,
The hour came back. Patience dans l'azur.
Geduld im. . . Himmelblau? Mademoiselle.)

Out of the blue, as promised, of a New York
Puzzle-rental shop the puzzle comes—
A superior one, containing a thousand hand-sawn,
Sandal-scented pieces. Many take
Shapes known already—the craftsman's repertoire
Nice in its limitation—from other puzzles:
Witch on broomstick, ostrich, hourglass,
Even (surely not just in retrospect)
An inchling, innocently branching palm.
These can be put aside, made stories of
While Mademoiselle spreads out the rest face-up,
Herself excited as a child; or questioned
Like incoherent faces in a crowd,
Each with its scrap of highly colored
Evidence the Law must piece together.
Sky-blue ostrich? Likely story.
Mauve of the witch's cloak white, severed fingers
Pluck? Detain her. The plot thickens
As all at once two pieces interlock.

Mademoiselle does borders— (Not so fast.
A London dusk, December last.
Chatter silenced in the library
This grown man reenters, wearing grey.
A medium. All except him have seen
Panel slid back, recess explored,
An object at once unique and common
Displayed, planted in a plain tole
Casket the subject now considers
Through shut eyes, saying in effect:
"Even as voices reach me vaguely
A dry saw-shriek drowns them out,
Some loud machinery— a lumber mill?
Far uphill in the fir forest
Trees tower, tense with shock,
Groaning and cracking as they crash groundward.
But hidden here is a freak fragment
Of a pattern complex in appearance only.
What it seems to show is superficial
Next to that long-term lamination
Of hazard and craft, the karma that has
Made it matter in the first place.
Plywood. Piece of a puzzle." Applause
Acknowledged by an opening of lids
Upon the thing itself. A sudden dread—
But to go back. All this lay years ahead.)

Mademoiselle does borders. Straight-edge pieces
Align themselves with earth or sky
In twos and threes, naive cosmogonists
Whose views clash. Nomad inlanders meanwhile
Begin to cluster where the totem
Of a certain vibrant egg-yolk yellow
Or pelt of what emerging animal
Acts on the straggler like a trumpet call
To form a more sophisticated unit.
By suppertime two ragged wooden clouds
Have formed. In one, a Sheik with beard
And flashing sword hilt (he is all but finished)
Steps forward on a tiger skin. A piece
Snaps shut, and fangs gnash out at us!
In the second cloud—they gaze from cloud to cloud
With marked if undecipherable feeling—
Most of a dark-eyed woman veiled in mauve
Is being helped down from her camel (kneeling)
By a small backward-looking slave or page-boy
(Her son, thinks Mademoiselle mistakenly)
Whose feet have not been found. But lucky finds
In the last minutes before bed
Anchor both factions to the scene's limits
And, by so doing, orient
Them eye to eye across the green abyss.
The yellow promises, oh bliss,
To be in time a sumptuous tent.

Puzzle begun I write in the day's space,
Then, while she bathes, peek at Mademoiselle's
Page to the curé: ". . . cette innocente mère,
Ce pauvre enfant, que deviendront-ils?"
Her azure script is curlicued like pieces
Of the puzzle she will be telling him about.
(Fearful incuriosity of childhood!
"Tu as l'accent allemande" said Dominique.
Indeed. Mademoiselle was only French by marriage.
Child of an English mother, a remote
Descendant of the great explorer Speke,
And Prussian father. No one knew. I heard it
Long afterwards from her nephew, a UN
Interpreter. His matter-of-fact account
Touched old strings. My poor Mademoiselle,
With 1939 about to shake
This world where "each was the enemy, each the friend"
To its foundations, kept, though signed in blood,
Her peace a shameful secret to the end.)
"Schlaf wohl, chéri." Her kiss. Her thumb
Crossing my brow against the dreams to come.

This World that shifts like sand, its unforeseen
Consolidations and elate routine,
Whose Potentate had lacked a retinue?
Lo! it assembles on the shrinking Green.

Gunmetal-skinned or pale, all plumes and scars,
Of Vassalage the noblest avatars—
The very coffee-bearer in his vair
Vest is a swart Highness, next to ours.

Kef easing Boredom, and iced syrups, thirst,
In guessed-at glooms old wives who know the worst
Outsweat that virile fiction of the New:
"Insh'Allah, he will tire—" "—or kill her first!"

(Hardly a proper subject for the Home,
Work of—dear Richard, I shall let you comb
Archives and learned journals for his name—
A minor lion attending on Gérôme.)

While, thick as Thebes whose presently complete
Gates close behind them, Houri and Afreet
Both claim the Page. He wonders whom to serve,
And what his duties are, and where his feet,

And if we'll find, as some before us did,
That piece of Distance deep in which lies hid
Your tiny apex sugary with sun,
Eternal Triangle, Great Pyramid!

Then Sky alone is left, a hundred blue
Fragments in revolution, with no clue
To where a Niche will open. Quite a task,
Putting together Heaven, yet we do.

It's done. Here under the table all along
Were those missing feet. It's done.

The dog's tail thumping. Mademoiselle sketching
Costumes for a coming harem drama
To star the goosegirl. All too soon the swift
Dismantling. Lifted by two corners,
The puzzle hung together—and did not.
Irresistibly a populace
Unstitched of its attachments, rattled down.
Power went to pieces as the witch
Slithered easily from Virtue's gown.
The blue held out for time, but crumbled, too.
The city had long fallen, and the tent,
A separating sauce mousseline,
Been swept away. Remained the green
On which the grown-ups gambled. A green dusk.
First lightning bugs. Last glow of west
Green in the false eyes of (coincidence)
Our mangy tiger safe on his bared hearth.

Before the puzzle was boxed and readdressed
To the puzzle shop in the mid-Sixties,
Something tells me that one piece contrived
To stay in the boy's pocket. How do I know?
I know because so many later puzzles
Had missing pieces—Maggie Teyte's high notes
Gone at the war's end, end of the vogue for collies,
A house torn down; and hadn't Mademoiselle
Kept back her pitiful bit of truth as well?
I've spent the last days, furthermore,
Ransacking Athens for that translation of "Palme."
Neither the Goethehaus nor the National Library
Seems able to unearth it. Yet I can't
Just be imagining. I've seen it. Know
How much of the sun-ripe original
Felicity Rilke made himself forego
(Who loved French words—verger, mûr, parfumer)
In order to render its underlying sense.
Know already in that tongue of his
What Pains, what monolithic Truths
Shadow stanza to stanza's symmetrical
Rhyme-rutted pavement. Know that ground plan left
Sublime and barren, where the warm Romance
Stone by stone faded, cooled; the fluted nouns
Made taller, lonelier than life
By leaf-carved capitals in the afterglow.
The owlet umlaut peeps and hoots
Above the open vowel. And after rain
A deep reverberation fills with stars.

Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found—I wander through the ruin of S
Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness)
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

Maps and Wings

Fri, 12 May 2006 23:09:20 GMT

by Gary Mex Glazner



The road looks the same no matter where you are going. Some roads take on a magic from the hum of the wheels they hold. Route 66 was my father's road and his father's road. Model A with the dust bowl in the rear view mirror and California in the headlights. From being men to being Oakies. The vulgarities of newcomers. A drowsy distant hope. Plowing and sowing the stretch of pavement. A gateway to work and food. Following the hungry signs. Route 66 was their plowshare. They dug into the rank soil. Held the miles in rusted fingers. Cracked open its hull using the seeds for guidance. Maps folded like wings. A banquet of motion. Summoning us now with its broken fragments. Let us piece the road together. This is the way they went and we shall follow them as we are able. ©2001, Gary Mex Glazner

Carl Green. Soul Map

Any Map

by Chris Mansell

will do
no matter
how loosely
it fits
the terrain

any war
any path
will switch back
into any
future
any future will be
a destination

any map combined
with any time
and any theory
good or bad
will last
enough
to place
you there
me here
they
will find their place
too

only intent makes
us right
and you
over there
we say

and so
do you.

Artwork by Da-hee Lim

Map. Legend by Eric Falci

The bus routes were all in blue: curves only sometimes
Corresponding to how the buses moved

Among flat-beds and container trucks
Along the week's traveled groove. On hot days

The routes bled into the rivers, and turnpike's
Pooling tar edged over city lines.

The rivers, a species apart from the buses,
Often gave the sky in glass, but only
That scrap of sky that had already passed.

A map=frail city in full color,
Or another version of the same hour.

Although enough had been charted that you
Could get around in it, some corners
Were still entirely unreadable.

Soon they made progress on one of the tatters
And you could make out something with a split rib-cage:

Dragon or anchor riding the water.

On legends, some lines=festival or
Travel or the usual stretch of closed-off shore.

Artwork by Da-hee Lim

"America," Allen Ginsberg

Tue, 09 May 2006 10:47:02 GMT

Last night, this poem came to my heart, had this memory of Tom Waits reading it...i love it all the same with:

Allen Ginsberg reading America

Allen's “America”, as animated by Dan Meth

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
       sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
         speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
         workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
         was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch
         Mother Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
         must have been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
         factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, January 17, 1956

Happy

Mon, 08 May 2006 20:46:55 GMT

Happy, whose bodies under the trees Lie in the humid land, That never more suffer the sun, or know Of the illnesses of the moon. The entire cave sheds Eolo on orbe ragged, Launches Neptune, in full hands, to high the waves estoirando. Everything it is nothing, and the proper pegureiro That passes, finda the afternoon, Under the tree where who lies was the Imperfect shade of a god, does not know that its steps go covering What it could be, If the life was always life, the glory Of a perpetual beauty.

Ricardo Kink (One Fernando Pessoa Person and its we heterônimos)

Only I - Poetry By Children

Tue, 02 May 2006 11:59:56 GMT

It is the song in my heart,
that with which I cannot part.
The feeling of life, of being,
understanding nothing, but seeing.
The feeling of being someone
in this wide world, of no one,
to be, to live, to carry on,
draw my life's sketch with a crayon
in the colour of the sky -
it is nothing but a feeling,
nothing but only I.

Nivedita Bhattacharjee (15) Poetry By Children

Barbara - Jacques Prevert

Mon, 01 May 2006 17:39:14 GMT

Today is Memorial day for Israel's fallen in Israel. We take the time to remember all the heroic soldiers who perished in all the Wars and in the military activities, the Jewish who fought in WWII

(men and women, young and old) and fought for the establishment of the state of Israel. and i chosen a poem of Jacques Prevert a french poet. It's a love song, it's a memory of a long-gone-lost moment in time, crystallized in the poet's heart, and the war wind envelope it with sweet-sad colors. I'll hand this beautiful poem in French, English and Hebrew.

Barbara - Jacques Prevert

Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante
Épanouie ravie ruisselante
Sous la pluie
Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest
Et je t'ai croisée rue de Siam
Tu souriais
Et moi je souriais de même
Rappelle-toi Barbara
Toi que je ne connaissais pas
Toi qui ne me connaissais pas
Rappelle-toi
Rappelle-toi quand même ce jour-là
N'oublie pas
Un homme sous un porche s'abritait
Et il a crié ton nom
Barbara
Et tu as couru vers lui sous la pluie
Ruisselante ravie épanouie
Et tu t'es jetée dans ses bras
Rappelle-toi cela Barbara
Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
Même si je ne les ai vus qu'une seule fois
Je dis tu à tous ceux qui s'aiment
Même si je ne les connais pas
Rappelle-toi Barbara
N'oublie pas
Cette pluie sage et heureuse
Sur ton visage heureux
Sur cette ville heureuse
Cette pluie sur la mer
Sur l'arsenal
Sur le bateau d'Ouessant
Oh Barbara
Quelle connerie la guerre
Qu'es-tu devenue maintenant
Sous cette pluie de fer
De feu d'acier de sang
Et celui qui te serrait dans ses bras
Amoureusement
Est-il mort disparu ou bien encore vivant
Oh Barbara
Il pleut sans cesse sur Brest
Comme il pleuvait avant
Mais ce n'est plus pareil et tout est abimé
C'est une pluie de deuil terrible et désolée
Ce n'est même plus l'orage
De fer d'acier de sang
Tout simplement des nuages
Qui crèvent comme des chiens
Des chiens qui disparaissent
Au fil de l'eau sur Brest
Et vont pourrir au loin
Au loin très loin de Brest
Dont il ne reste rien.

זכרי ברברה

גשם ירד ללא הפסק על ברסט ביום ההוא

ואת הלכת מחייכת

קורנת מוקסמת נוטפת

בגשם

זכרי ברברה

גשם ירד ללא הפסק על ברסט

ואני נתקלתי בך ברחוב סיאם

את מחייכת

וגם אני חייכתי כמוך

זכרי ברברה

את שאותך לא הכרתי

את שאותי לא היכרת

זכרי

זכרי בכל זאת את היום ההוא

אל תשכחי

גבר מצא מחסה בתוך כניסה לבית

והוא צעק את שמך

ברברה

ואת רצת לעברו בגשם

נוטפת מוקסמת קורנת

והשלכת עצמך לזרועותיו

זכרי זאת ברברה

ואל תכעסי עלי אם אני פונה אל כל אלה שאני אוהב

אפילו אם ראיתי אותם רק פעם אחת

כך אני פונה אל כל המאוהבים

גם אם אני לא מכיר אותם

זכרי ברברה

אל תשכחי

את אותו גשם שקט ומאושר

על פניך המאושרים

על העיר המאושרת הזאת

הגשם הזה על הים

על המספנות

על הספינה לאווסאן

הו ברברה

איזו שטות מזויינת היא המלחמה

מה עלה בגורלך עכשיו

תחת גשם זה של ברזל

של אש של פלדה של דם

וזה שחיבק אותך בזרועותיו

באהבה

האם הוא מת, נעדר, או שמא עדיין חי

הו ברברה

גשם יורד ללא הפסק על ברסט

כמו שירד אז

אבל זה כבר לא אותו הדבר והכל הושחת

זהו גשם נורא ומלא צער של אבל

זוהי אפילו לא הסערה

של ברזל ופלדה של דם

אלה פשוט עננים

שמתפוצצים ומתפגרים כמו כלבים

כלבים שנעלמים

עם זרם המים של ברסט

והולכים להירקב במרחקים

הרחק הרחק מברסט

ממנה לא נשאר דבר

Remember Barbara
It rained all day on Brest that day
And you walked smiling
Flushed enraptured streaming-wet
In the rain
Remember Barbara
It rained all day on Brest that day
And I ran into you in Siam Street
You were smiling
And I smiled too
Remember Barbara
You whom I didn't know
You who didn't know me
Remember
Remember that day still
Don't forget
A man was taking cover on a porch
And he cried your name
Barbara
And you ran to him in the rain
Streaming-wet enraptured flushed
And you threw yourself in his arms
Remember that Barbara
And don't be mad if I speak familiarly
I speak familiarly to everyone I love
Even if I've seen them only once
I speak familiarly to all who are in love
Even if I don't know them
Remember Barbara
Don't forget
That good and happy rain
On your happy face
On that happy town
That rain upon the sea
Upon the arsenal
Upon the Ushant boat
Oh Barbara
What shitstupidity the war
Now what's become of you
Under this iron rain
Of fire and steel and blood
And he who held you in his arms
Amorously
Is he dead and gone or still so much alive
Oh Barbara
It's rained all day on Brest today
As it was raining before
But it isn't the same anymore
And everything is wrecked
It's a rain of mourning terrible and desolate
Nor is it still a storm
Of iron and steel and blood
But simply clouds
That die like dogs
Dogs that disappear
In the downpour drowning Brest
And float away to rot
A long way off
A long long way from Brest
Of which there's nothing left.

The Two Street Maps

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:35:34 GMT

MSN should allow Tags by now, where shall i post this beauty? under maps? under poetry, or Art? love them all as much. Elise, this one for YOU

Moira Roth. The Two Street Maps larger version.

Haiku Death Poetry

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:26:57 GMT

Plum petals falling

I look up...the sky,

a clear crisp moon.

Basho

The autumn hues
of knotweed seem
like cups of wine.

Isan

Japanese Death Poetry (via Plep)

The First Word

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:47:29 GMT

At the sea’s edge, in the hiss
and hush of wave, the first man
gathers sling-stones.
Suddenly he puts one
on his tongue. This is the start
of language. Watch any child.
The salt is desire. The stone
is stop.

Moon River: poetry

Motion

Motion By Octavio Paz

Afternoon on a Hill

Alentejo Seen From The Train

Alentejo Seen From The Train

world prayers

Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Ode

ישראלים

Crystal Night

under the summer moon

TreeSpirit

A REED FLUTE

We Rise On Sun Beams And Fall In The Night

I Keep A Close Watch

I Keep A Close Watch

cruelty and beauty

the strongest of the strange

A DREAM OF WINDBLOWN WAVES 1

astropoetica

לכל איש יש שם - זלדה

Doors

ירח -אלתרמן Moon-Nathan Alterman

מעשה בילדה בודדה - מרים ילן שטקליס

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation

Maps and Wings

"America," Allen Ginsberg

Happy

Only I - Poetry By Children

Barbara - Jacques Prevert

The Two Street Maps

Haiku Death Poetry

The First Word

seeker of truth

seeker of truth

follow no path

all paths lead where

truth is here

e. e. cummings