For another bone in the stock,mug of water in the soup,more of the plate,more fresh air baked into the cake:for a better look at the breadthrough the butter, at the kneethrough the trouser leg;for a longer washing line,for the bar of grimeto be raised a little higher up the side of the shared brown bath;for a wider photograph,extra drawer –another face,but it’s full of yours.
Jacob Polley
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:36 (twenty years ago) link
i thank You God for most this amazingday:for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky;and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birthday of life and love and wings:and of the gaygreat happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeingbreathing any-lifted from the noof all nothing-human merely beingdoubt unimaginably You?
(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)
-E. E. Cummings
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:37 (twenty years ago) link
1 put dogs on the list 2 of difficult things to lose. Those dogs ditched 3 on the North York Moors or the Sussex Downs 4 or hurled like bags of sand from rented cars 5 have followed their noses to market towns 6 and bounced like balls into their owners' arms. 7 I heard one story of a dog that swam 8 to the English coast from the Isle of Man, 9 and a dog that carried eggs and bacon 10 and a morning paper from the village 11 surfaced umpteen leagues and two years later, 12 bacon eaten but the eggs unbroken, 13 newsprint dry as tinder, to the letter. 14 A dog might wander the width of the map 15 to bury its head in its owner's lap, 16 crawl the last mile to dab a bleeding paw 17 against its own front door. To die at home, 18 a dog might walk its four legs to the bone. 19 You can take off the tag and the collar 20 but a dog wears one coat and one colour. 21 A dog got rid of---that's a dog for life. 22 No dog howls like a dog kicked out at night. 23 Try looking a dog like that in the eye.
Simon Armitage
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:39 (twenty years ago) link
1 The rain. Rain that will not end. 2 The daily errands. Daily bread. 3 No letting up. No pause 4 as I steer blindly, circling 5 the great city. City of tears and blood. 6 I woke this morning to the ringing phone. 7 To the last days of the twentieth century. 8 Hello. Hello. But the line was dead. 9 The phone in my hand heavy. 10 My mind whirling. Numb. Taken
[...]
Elizabeth Spires
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 April 2004 15:15 (twenty years ago) link
― the pomefox, Monday, 26 April 2004 14:28 (twenty years ago) link
Next, anybody gets an orange from a hat, takes it, & keeps it;then anybody goes underwhile doing something under the conditions of competition& ends by putting in languages other than English.
--Jackson Mac Low, "19th Dance - Going Under - 1 March 1964"
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 26 April 2004 17:45 (twenty years ago) link
with His old detachment, and the old warningsstill have power to scare me: Hybris comes toan ugly finish, Irreverenceis a greater oaf than Superstition.
Our apparatniks will continue makingthe usual squalid mess called History:all we can pray for is that artists,chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.
[Auden - "Moon Landing']
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 26 April 2004 19:05 (twenty years ago) link
-- Ted Berrigan, from "Train Ride"
(I hope the formatting worked out OK...)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 26 April 2004 20:42 (twenty years ago) link
It snows, obscuring the lamp until, in a Great Plains blizzard, I find myself in a self-constructed Eskimo igloo waiting with the family lantern in the yard, for father to come up the path from work, lift me and take me inside the house to the warm flickering wicks before a harsh electric glare had replaced them. I remember sitting in the snowhouse waiting....
Father, mother take me back even though life was harsh in the small kitchen. Who would have dreamedthe universe so large?
...
Can there not be miniature time? Some place where one stays forever at the kitchen table, on the same page of one's book, with one's parents looking on, an old photograph perhaps but that would have faded. We would not truly be there....
I do not recognize this alien grown up body. I will not recognize it ever. I am there, there, in the yellow light in the kitchen, reading on the stained oilcloth We are all there. I did not grow up....
I have rushed like a moth through time toward the light in the kitchen.I am safe now. I never grew up.I am no longer lost in the mist on the mountain.
(Loren Eiseley, The Innocent Assassins)
No relation.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 26 April 2004 23:04 (twenty years ago) link
A tree trunk is something "pressed together" and sois money, weighed. Both produce softly graded shadowsby repeated small touches (resembling freckles), oruse "for" to become appendages capable of passing implementsthrough substances with circular movements.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:07 (twenty years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:38 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 18:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 29 April 2004 00:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 30 April 2004 03:40 (nineteen years ago) link
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughsAbout the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,...Time let me hail and climbGolden in the heydays of his eyes...
...In the sun that is young once only,Time let me play and beGolden in the mercy of his means...
And nothing cared I...that time allows...so few and such morning songsBefore the children green and goldenFollow him out of grace...
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea.
(Fern Hill, of course. Which I think is the greatest poem in the English language.)
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 30 April 2004 03:53 (nineteen years ago) link
sun youngtime playgolden mercy means
cared time allowsmorning songschildren green goldenfollow grace
young easy mercy meanstime held green dyingsang chains sea
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 30 April 2004 04:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 30 April 2004 04:13 (nineteen years ago) link
alien blizzard body book child come dreamed electric eskimo faded family father father father find five flickering glare great grew grow grown harsh harsh house igloo kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen lamp lantern large letters life lift light light little looking lost miniature mist moth mother mother mountain mouthing myself myself obscuring oilcloth oilcloth old page parents path peering photograph place plains primer reading reading recognize recognize remember replaced rushed safe same self-constructed sitting small snowhouse snows stained stays table table take take time time time truly universe waiting waiting warm wicks window work yard yellow
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 30 April 2004 04:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 30 April 2004 04:22 (nineteen years ago) link
time; little window; oilcloth table; mother; father; child; primer; letters;lamp; Great Plains blizzard; self-constructed Eskimo igloo; family lantern; yard; path; work; house; warm flickering wicks; harsh electric glare; snowhouse;father; mother; life (harsh) ; small kitchen; universe (large);miniature time; place; kitchen table; same page; book; old photograph (faded);alien grown up body; yellow light; kitchen; stained oilcloth;moth; time; light; kitchen; [I (safe, no longer lost)]; mist; mountain
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 30 April 2004 08:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― aimurchie, Friday, 30 April 2004 10:10 (nineteen years ago) link
(''For a Diva' by Geoffrey O'Brien, whose brilliant book about pop I am relishing at the moment.
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 30 April 2004 10:33 (nineteen years ago) link
The Flea, John Donne
― Cathryn (Cathryn), Friday, 30 April 2004 11:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 30 April 2004 12:54 (nineteen years ago) link
- William Wordsworth, 'There was a boy...'
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 30 April 2004 12:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Friday, 30 April 2004 13:05 (nineteen years ago) link
To cross the borderBetween the sunflowerAnd the moonflowerBetween the alphabetOf handwrittenAnd printed events.
To be friend of all atomsWhich form the lightThat sings with the atomsFor the atoms that dieTo enter into all the days of one's lifeNo matter whether they fall on one side or the otherOf the word'Earth'.
This passportIs written in my bonesOn my skull, femur, phalanges and spineAll arranged in a wayTo make clearMy right to be human.
Marin Sorescu
― bnw (bnw), Friday, 30 April 2004 13:15 (nineteen years ago) link
(from Errata 5uite by Joan Retallack)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 30 April 2004 17:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 30 April 2004 19:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 30 April 2004 19:15 (nineteen years ago) link
Then I understood--if it had beenhalf a generation later you would have been lovers, you would have marriedand it seems to me I might be dead by now, dead long since, not married, or marriedbadly, never had children or written anywords. I'd have died on West 12th Street, that time, making a bomb--badly--they would haveidentified me by my little finger, mymother sitting at the precinct, holdingmy cocked pinky.
To My Husband
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 30 April 2004 19:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 30 April 2004 19:32 (nineteen years ago) link
I think I love you, all.
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 30 April 2004 20:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 1 May 2004 00:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― aimurchie, Saturday, 1 May 2004 03:01 (nineteen years ago) link
Sticks-in-a-drowse drop over sugary loam,Their intricate stem-fur dries;But still the delicate slip keeps coaxing up water;The small cells bulge.
One nub of growthNudges a sand-crumb loose,Pokes through a musty sheathIts pale tendrilous horn.
Theodore Roethke
― aimurchie, Saturday, 1 May 2004 03:13 (nineteen years ago) link
I love Roethke even more than Sharon Olds. Yes.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 1 May 2004 04:47 (nineteen years ago) link
As for the hibiscusby the roadside,my horse ate it.-Basho
Napped half the day -no onepunished me.-Issa
― aimurchie, Saturday, 1 May 2004 11:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Saturday, 1 May 2004 12:11 (nineteen years ago) link
The memories of long love gather like drifting snow, poignant as the mandarin ducks who float side by side in sleep.
MURASAKI SHIKIBU
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Saturday, 1 May 2004 12:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Saturday, 1 May 2004 12:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 1 May 2004 16:01 (nineteen years ago) link
The three graces and the greenwood nymphs,naked, dare to dance.You won't live always, warn the year and the hour,seizing the honeyed day. ...
Who knows how many tomorrows the gods will addto day's small sum?Whatever you spend in pleasures now, you won'tleave in your heir's moist grip.
--excerpt from IV. 7 Ode by Horace. tran. Rosanna Warren
― donald, Saturday, 1 May 2004 16:13 (nineteen years ago) link
A kinswoman covered me in the clothes she wore,no kind but kind indeed. I was coddled & swaddledas close as I had been a baby of her own,until, as had been shaped, so shielded, though no kin,the unguessed guest grew great with life.
She fended for me, fostered me, she fed me up,till I was of a size to set my boundsfurther afield. She had fewer dearsons and daughters because she did so.
[Riddle No. 9 from the Exeter Book, translated from the Anglo-Saxon by Michael Alexander.]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 1 May 2004 16:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Nelly Mc Causland (Geborwyn), Saturday, 1 May 2004 18:43 (nineteen years ago) link
A serious love touches the universe,the two and one of it contributing to the sum of what's real.Not that planets or even hydrogen atomsbegin falling toward you,yet something intensifieswhere you are. The different lightshed by double stars. No consensus why they form,or how they'll dim or dazzle, perishing.
Laura Fargas ( do I love this poem? I think so. She's an attorney. I forgive her.)
― aimurchie, Saturday, 1 May 2004 20:00 (nineteen years ago) link
If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,and of thy slender storetwo loaves alone to thee are left--sell one, and with the dolebuy hyacinths to feed thy soul
...one of the best memories I have of her. For some reason, Among Our Great Ceremonies reminded me of this.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 1 May 2004 20:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― aimurchie, Saturday, 1 May 2004 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― aimurchie, Sunday, 2 May 2004 01:39 (nineteen years ago) link
PRAYER
Angel of lost spectaclesand hen's teeth
angel of snow's breathand the insomnia
of cats, angelof snapshots fading
to infinity,don't drop me--
shoeless,wingless.
Defender of Burrows,carry me--
carry mein your pocket of light.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Sunday, 2 May 2004 02:36 (nineteen years ago) link