TREES

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

   - Joyce Kilmer     +1918

trembles and terror the rapture rends the bowels

AUNT

Her demure eyelids a magenta
My aunt touches an ash to the ashtray
The end of her cigarette sparkles

Between her frail hands
A glass of plum coffee rests

She takes the cigarette between her pale lips
And squints as she inhales smoke
(Pauses to read Book of Revelation)

Exhaling, small errant clergymen
Tumble like scorpions with women’s faces
Hands outstretched
They research the air for dark epiphanies.

 - Kirby Olson

NAKED

  We are mapped
in stitched flesh,
   ragged sighs.

    The naked
 know the way.

Learning love's fierce art,
         the naked walk
         the blood trail

            in silence

         to the heart.


-  Ivan M. Granger

germination and desire

LIKE A SEED

every
broken
dream

is
like
a seed
that
f
a
l
l
s

and is welcomed
by the soft black earth

and all the other dying things


be still now
and rest

rest safe
in the warm
silent
dark

for this
is God's womb
where
the force
of new life is at work

   - sally the geologian

of Rhodes it is said

 

 

The animated figures stand

Adorning every public street

And seem to breathe in stone, or

Move their marble feet.

                         -  Pindar

haiku

minutes to go
noplace seems real anymore
even the clouds are disinterested

a view

COME TO THE EDGE

come to the edge.
   -we might fall!
come to the edge.
    -it's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE.
and they came.
and we pushed.
and they flew.

-  Christopher Logue   +2011

intestinal stirrings of nuance

Angels of the house, come! May the power of Heaven spread
Through all the veins of life, ennobling and invigorating
And dispensing joy! So that joyful angels attend upon
Human goodness every hour of the day, and that
Such joy as I experience now, when loved ones
Are properly reunited, be suitably sanctified.
When we bless the meal, upon whom shall I call,
And when we rest after the day's activity, tell me,
How will I offer thanks? Should I call the Highest by name?
A god doesn't like what is inappropriate. Maybe our joy
Isn't big enough to grasp him. We must often remain silent,
A sacred language is missing — hearts are beating and yet
Speech can't emerge? But the sound of string music
Resonates hour by hour, and perhaps that pleases
The approaching gods. Begin the music, and the worries
Almost vanish which would have affected our joy.
Willingly or not, poets must often concern themselves
With such things, but not with others.

==Hoelderlin, from "Homecoming"

ALL NATURE HAS A FEELING

All nature has a feeling: woods, fields, brooks
Are life eternal:  and in silence they
Speak happiness beyond the reach of books;
There's nothing mortal in them;  their decay -woods, fields , brooks

Is the green life of change to pass away
And come again in blooms revivified.
Its birth was heaven,  eternal is its stay.
And with the Sun and Moon shall still abide
Beneathe their day and night and heaven wide.

   - John Clare     (1793-1864)

exceptions play by rules

Beyond the possibility of questioning,
certain marine reptiles once thought to be extinct
continue to live in the depths.
Through the ages they have evolved
and adapted to fantastic pressures that play upon them;
for which reason we observe them but rarely--
when they are sick,  or have been injured.
On such occasions they swim toward the surface,
becoming visible to us for a little while.

I believe the sea is preparing specific revelations
for the benefit of Man,
who has forgotten the value of himself.

Now,  another day comes quietly to its end.

The night is lambent;
it is wholly beautiful.

      - Evan S. Connell  (pg 151 of - Notes from a bottle....  1962   Viking Press)

it is hard to put the writing of Connell into a category.  often
you'll find his works in the poetry shelves of used bookstores
but it isn't rightly poetry...does not set out to be poetry.
insofar as he weaves a theme from beginning to end through a long series of
aphorisms independent insights or thematically arranged points of view 
one could call notes from a bottle found on the beach at carmel a long poem.
but more rightly it may be referred to as a narrative without particular characters.
i find him to be one of the most hard-hitting honest writers of the 20th century.

sequentia

no aesthetics to speak of nothing of sentiment nothing of acknowledgement of the souls yearning nothing of emotional pretense nothing of commentary on the plight of man nothing of hope just text text text text text...phrases sentences are photos and little else...


                         ...[The] crowd at the hockey game
                       is entirely white.
                     It's morning and trucks
                   double park.
                        in front of the market
                      utility crew sips cups
                    bright yellow hardhats
                  loud orange vests
               Unable to fathom love some men
             will crave power.
                           Not even May yet
                         and the hills are turning brown.
                      Out  here where old men
                     come to sit in the park
                    in the shade of
                  the great eucalyptus.
                              a yong man in white
                             turns slowly hands forward
                            in the silence of tai chi
                          an auto backs up.....
   
   from What  (pg 70)

   -ron silliman

i present this in a sloppily rendered way
like a photo too long in the pocket

it is not as if...

it is not as if the lights were dim
indeed silver is black
and the day as dark
sitting silently in a sliver of ray
the sun is whole again
forgotten is the excuse of night
he falls responsibly
and the day is dark
floating frightfully from that of grace
a soul is awake again
blind from that which is love
the prism of shackles and chains
darkness becomes the way
easterly dreams seek shelter from the weak
running from rain ... eclipsed

    - michael madsen

Lord, not you,

it is I who am absent.
At first
belief was a joy I kept in secret,
stealing alone
into sacred places:
a quick glance, and away--and back,
circling.
I have long since uttered your name
but now
I elude your presence.
I stop
to think about you,  and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows,  into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river's purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still,  but wanders
anywhere,
eveywhere it can turn.  Not you,
it is I am absent.
You are the stream,  the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow,
you the unchanging presence,  in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering,  perceive
at the fountain's heart
the sapphire I know is there?

  - Denise Levertov   feeling fraudulent

prose poem

           POEM OF THE MOON

There are upon the night three mushrooms that are the moon.

As brusquely as the cuckoo sings from a clock, they rearrange themselves at midnight each month. There are in the garden rare flowers that are small sleeping men, one-hundred of them. They are reflections from a mirror.

There is in my dark room a luminous censer that swings, then two... phosphorescent aerostats. They are reflections from a mirror.

There is in my head a bumblebee speaking.



 

          - translation of a Max Jacob poem













.

Memory

- I honestly haven't the slightest idea
where this all came from  -  Hoelderlin perhaps?

The northeast blows,
My favorite of the winds,
From its spirit of fire
And kind lift I prophesy sailors.
But go now and greet
The beautiful Garonne,
And the gardens of Bordeaux
There, where the sharp bank cuts
The path and the current falls deep
Below the brook, but looks
Come from above, a noble pair
Of oak and silver poplar;

Still I remember this well, how
The broad peak bows down
The elms, above the mill,
But the courtyard fig tree grows.
Go there on a holiday
Brown women walking
Silken ground,
The month of March,
When night and day are the same,
And on lazy trails,
Heavy with golden dreams,
Where lulling air tails.

But it is rich,
Full of dark light,
This fragrant cup
Of sleep; it's sweet
Under the shadow of slumber.
It's not good to think
The mortal is soulless.
But it’s good to converse
In the voice of the heart
And hear much as love emerges
And acts, occurrences happen.

But where are my friends? Bellarmin
With his companion? Some are afraid
To go to the source;
Where the wealth begins,
In the sea. They,
Like painters, pull together
The beauty of the Earth and disdain
War not winged, and
Live for years alone, below
The leafless mast, where night does not shine through
The city's festivities,
Nor its strings and indigenous dances.

But now the Indians are
The people left,
There on the airy spit,
And mountains of grapes fall
To the Dordogne, which along
With the mighty Garonne
Empties to the sea
That comes from the stream. Abounding,
It gives memories to the waters,
And to the lovers' eyes entwined,
But what remains, the poet finds.

visual poem

https://rosemarywashington.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/img_8051.jpg


















....

currency voices

Money Talks

1

Money is talking

to itself again

in this season's

bondage

and safari look,

its closeout camouflage.

Hit the refresh button

and this is what you get,

money pretending

that its hands are tied.

2

On a billboard by the 880,

money admonishes,

"shut up and play."

- Rae Armantrout

The Hermit

As he prowled the rim of his clearing
where the blade of choice had not spared
one stump of affection

he was like a ploughshare
interred to sustain the whole field
of force, from the bitted

and high-drawn sideways curve
of the horse's neck to the aim
held fast in the wrists and elbows-

the more brutal the pull
and the drive,  the deeper
and quieter the work of refreshment.

-  Seamus Heaney  (Station Island)
     the only poetry reading i attended this year was Seamus
     reciting in a large auditorium to a large crowd-
     a humble man stating his childhood and adult perceptions
     in terse words of irish-english gaelic tone
     i was left with the impression of his insight into blackbirds
     -  my sense is that these are poems which benefit a reader
         to the extent that they are uttered aloud

OF EARTH

Swallows looping and diving
by the darkening oaks,  the flash
of their white bellies,
the tall grasses gathering last light,
glowing pale gold, silence
overflowing in a shimmer of breeze--
these could have happened
a different way.  The heavy-trunked oaks
might not have branched and branched
and finely re-branched
as if to weave themselves into air.
There is no necessity
that any creature should fly,
that last light should turn
the grasses gold,  that grasses
should exist at all,
or light.
               But a mind thinking so
is a mind wandering from home.
It is not thought that answers
each step of my feet,  to be walking here
in the cool stir of dusk
is no mere possibility,
and I am so stained with the sweet
peculiar loveliness of things
that given God's power to dream worlds
from the dark,  I know
I could only dream Earth--
birds, trees, this field of light
where I and each of us walk once.

     - John Daniel

in the manner of this blog title

one day I walked up a wash
in some places more
a staircase
of white boulders
in other places
a ramp of rock-hard watermelons
that sometimes
tipped precariously
beneath my weight
making me aware
of the fragility
of my ankles
and other bones


not long ago
this was
a 3-4 meter deep channel
i was told
and then
after the fire
the boulders washed down
and filled up the channel
a good measure, pressed down,
and shaken together
an abundance of stones
brimming over
to create this ramp


up which
we were carefully treading
to see the sharp contact
at the base of a landslide


the rocks that tipped
and clunked beneath my feet
displayed an array of patterns
within defined parameters
a sort of typical signature
for this drainage


amazing, though
so many ways
of putting white and black
together in a rock
a limited palette
but a rich result
of patterns and textures
hornblende
and plagioclase
and quartz


i picked up a moderate
sized stone
on the way back
to take home with me


the sky was still gray and close
at the end of the day
the breeze cool
despite the approach of summer


and in this little patch
of wildness
on the edge of the city
nothing was lacking

---a geologian

MEDITATION BY HAKIM SANAI

trans. peter lamborn wilson
and
nasrollah pourjavady



Collect your mind's fragments
      that you may fill yourself
         bit by bit with Meaning:
    the slave who meditates
     on the mysteries of Creation
        for sixty minutes
          gains more merit
        than from sixty years
              of fasting and prayer.

Meditation:
    high-soaring hawk
       of Intellect's wrist
                 resting at last
         on the flowering branch
                 of the Heart:
            this world and the next
                   are hidden beneath
                      its folded wing.

Now perched before
                the mud hut
                           which is Earth
                             now clasping with its talons
                                  a branch of the Tree
                                                   of Paradise
                                                        soaring here
                                 striking there -- each moment
                                                 fresh prey
                                 gobbling a mouthful of moonlight
                                             wheeling away
                                                      beyond the sun
                                            darting between the Great Wheel's
                                 star-set spokes, it rips to shreds
                                                    the Footstool and the Throne
                                    a Pigeon's feather
                                                           in its beak --
                                                                            or a comet --
                                                   till finally free of everything
                                                      it alights, silent
                                                            on a topmost bough.

                     Hunting is king's sport,
                                      not just anyone's
                                                     pastime...
                   but you?
                          you've hooded the falcon
                                       -- what can I say? --
                                                  clipped its pinions
                                                        broken its wings...
                                                                                         alas.

circa.   1100 AD

ripple

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near, as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air .

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of man

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall, you fall alone
If you should stand, then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way, I would take you home

           -jerry garcia and robert hunter  ( as far as i know )

THE PLACE OF REST

          Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
           It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
         Only the Mighty Mother knows
           The wounds that quiver unconfessed.

          It seeks a deeper silence still;
           It folds itself around with peace,
          Where thoughts alike of good or ill
           In quietness unfostered cease.

             It feels in the unwounding vast
             For comfort for its hopes and fears:
                The Mighty Mother bows at last;
                  She listens to her children's tears.

                 Where the last anguish deepens -- there
                      The fire of beauty smites through pain:
                                 A glory moves amid despair,
                                        The Mother takes her child again.


                                                            A.  E.

a poem

I bear equally with you
the black permanent seperation.
Why are you crying?  Rather give me your hand
promise to come again in a dream.
You and I are a mountain of grief
You and I will never meet on this earth.
If only you could send me at midnight
a greeting through the stars.

                            by

Anna Akhmatova    (via John Berger)

love: stratified and strained ii, a poem

               ..








                
                               


                               Is it the necessity
                                  of a more precise definition
                                   or
                                    is it the possibility
                                 of a more precise definition??

                                 Thinkers bend
                               all their powers
                                 to the task of expressing
                              a half-intuitive dichotomy.
                           Yet I knew you loved me from the beginning;
                               all the knots you tied yourself up in
                          were merely a means
                                  of telling yourself
                               otherwise.
                                  Perception starts
                               with imagination
                              but what you saw in me
                                 was real
                             before you lost it
                               to the ghost.





                                        -matt shadow iris


they say that breakin' up is hard to do











.....

haiku

                                                                     





                                                                




                                                                This cold winter night,
                                                        that old wooden-head Buddha
                                                               would make a nice fire






 

                                                                                           Buson   (1716-1784)

                                                                                           trans.   Sam Hamill









.

inscribed on an egyptian statue, 1500 BC

 

O  my beloved

how sweet it is

to go down

and bathe in the pool

before your eyes

letting you see how

my drenched linen dress

marries

the beauty of my body.
 

Come,  look at me.

.

czerwonemaki na monte cassino

D'you see those ruins on the hill top?
There your foe hides like a rat!
You must, you must, you must
Grab his neck and cast him from the clouds!
And they went, heedless of danger
And they went, to kill and avenge
And they went stubborn as ever,
As always - for honour - to fight.

Red poppies on Monte Cassino
Instead of dew, drank Polish blood.
As the soldier crushed them in falling,
For the anger was more potent than death.
Years will pass and ages will roll,
But traces of bygone days will stay,
And the poppies on Monte Cassino
Will be redder having quaffed Polish blood.

They charged through fire like madmen,
Countless were hit and fell,
Like the cavalry at Samosierra,
Like the men at Rokitno years ago.
They attacked with fury and fire,
And they got there. They climbed to the top,
And their white and scarlet standard
They placed on the ruins 'midst clouds.

Red poppies on Monte Cassino
Instead of dew, drank Polish blood.
As the soldier crushed them in falling,
For the anger was more potent than death.
Years will pass and ages will roll,
But traces of bygone days will stay,
And the poppies on Monte Cassino
Will be redder having quaffed Polish blood.

D'you see this row of white crosses?
Polish soldiers did honour there wed.
The further you go, the higher,
The more of such crosses you'll meet.
This soil was won for Poland,
Though Poland is far away,
For Freedom is measured in crosses
When history from justice does stray.

Red poppies on Monte Cassino
Instead of dew, drank Polish blood.
As the soldier crushed them in falling,
For the anger was more potent than death.
Years will pass and ages will roll,
But traces of bygone days will stay,
And the poppies on Monte Cassino
Will be redder having quaffed Polish blood.

   - translation of {feliks konarski} lyrics

coyotes

      by Jason Bolles
(montana poet    +1943)




A flake of moon in a speckle of fire,
      Lighting a barren lea:
And out of the shadows a goblin choir
     Singing a ghostly glee:
           rrrrooooo

Now a single voice in a mellow yell;
   Hark to the flirt and fleer!
Now hark to the ravening chorus swell
   The wild cadenza of fear:
    rr rk rr
rooeeeyihyihyihrrr

'Rroyo and rimrock,  bench and butte,
   Pale in a whey of light,
While the voice of a mad, insouciant brute
   Sings in the sage-sweet night:
         eee







ed.  jdh

a song to nobody

A yellow flower
(Light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.

A golden spirit
(Light and emptiness)
Sings without a word
By itself.

Let no one touch this gentle sun
In whose dark eye
Someone is awake.

(No light, no gold, no name, no color
And no thought:
O, wide awake!)

A golden heaven
Sings by itself
A song to nobody.

  - thomas merton  (disciple of benedict)

untitled declaration

The milk of zero
        and the meat of wind.

I set my table with the sauce of the sun,
       the bowl of prayers,
     and the rice wine of fairie stories.

I ride with seven marvels;
      I sit among the stitches of the sea.
            I listen to sand arriving.

I have food to eat
     of which I know nothing.


JR Caines

the smile

this poem has been floating around on my desk for a few years
it hides away then i find it lodged in a book or a paper file
it pops up out of piles of papers
and reasserts itself into my consciousness i don't know why
it's like a reminder of something
so i try to take heed
there is no name on the page
thus i present it here as a poem from the great ageless poet
Anon  ( i should hope Anon accepts the few editorial gestures)



with jangling strings
and a scent of holiness
you crept in
through one of those cracks
in the hardened, sun-baked ground

you brought rains
softened the soil
stretched forth your roots
into the newly fertile ground

an unnamed longing
disturbing the stasis
deep below

erupting
into a boundless smile
growing from the dark recess

my face,  of its own accord,
betrays to me
its joy
at seeing yours








anon

trail song

Tear down the tent and the shelter
stars pale for the breaking of day
far over the hills lies canada
let us be on our way

THE FLOWER

One short flight below i hear you and our daughter
passionately pouring yourselves into each other
like two oceans collaborating on a flower.

- Michael Fried  (The Next Bend in the Road)

untitled love poem by samantha lioi

I open my lips

dripping tears, place kisses

on the feet of Jesus.

Pouring out

perfume like pent-up regrets,

filling the room,

cleansing him.

Hoping he'll return the favor.

I don't know why I've come why I

had to come.

Now gathering up

my hair, unable

to wipe away,

to clean up,

to stop weeping.

See me:

wet cheeks,

red nose;

now hear

the one with perfumed feet,

the one you were afraid

to love this much:

It's all right to touch me.

Friend, you are clean.

in this new format my one intention is to steal poems from anyone and anywhere i will show no prudence no taste no aesthetic predilection whatsoever and i will respect no one's intellectual property
i will publish poems which appear to me which flit across my consciousness like leaves of trees in autumn if anyone anyone whosoever should wish to publish a poem send me an email jhanson@csbsju.edu  otherwise prepare yourself for the biggest epistemological heist ever known to the world