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January 29th, 2010
 | 12:39 pm - Chinese Villanelle - John Yau
I have been with you, and I have thought of you
Once the air was dry and drenched with light
I was like a lute filling the room with description
We watched glum clouds reject their shape
We dawdled near a fountain, and listened
I have been with you, and I have thought of you
Like a river worthy of its gown
And like a mountain worthy of its insolence. . .
Why am I like a lute left with only description
How does one cut an axe handle with an axe
What shall I do to tell you all my thoughts
When I have been with you, and thought of you
A pelican sits on a dam, while a duck
Folds its wings again; the song does not melt
I remember you looking at me without description
Perhaps a king's business is never finished,
Though "perhaps" implies a different beginning
I have been with you, and I have thought of you
Now I am a lute filled with this wandering description
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 | 12:34 pm - To an Isle in the Water - W. B. Yeats
Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart.
She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.
She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;
And shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.
---
Dear Mr. Yeats, I am aware that you are dead, but I am sure you are listening. Couldn't we get married? Don't you think? Just a little bit, maybe? I could always let you go back to being dead if it turned out you didn't like it.
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 | 12:05 pm - Five Years Old - James Tate
Stars fell all night.
The iceman had been very generous that day
with his chips and slivers.
And I had buried my pouch of jewels
inside a stone casket under the porch,
their beauty saved for another world.
And then my sister came home
and I threw a dart through her cheek
and cried all night,
so much did I worship her.
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 | 12:03 pm - It Happens Like This - James Tate
I was outside St. Cecelia's Rectory
smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me.
It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish
brown here and there. When I started to walk away,
it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered
what the laws were on this kind of thing. There's
a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People
smiled at me and admired the goat. "It's not my goat,"
I explained. "It's the town's goat. I'm just taking
my turn caring for it." "I didn't know we had a goat,"
one of them said. "I wonder when my turn is." "Soon,"
I said. "Be patient. Your time is coming." The goat
stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked
up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew
everything essential about me. We walked on. A police-
man on his beat looked us over. "That's a mighty
fine goat you got there," he said, stopping to admire.
"It's the town's goat," I said. "His family goes back
three-hundred years with us," I said, "from the beginning."
The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped
and looked up at me. "Mind if I pat him?" he asked.
"Touching this goat will change your life," I said.
"It's your decision." He thought real hard for a minute,
and then stood up and said, "What's his name?" "He's
called the Prince of Peace," I said. "God! This town
is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there's mystery
and wonder. And I'm just a child playing cops and robbers
forever. Please forgive me if I cry." "We forgive you,
Officer," I said. "And we understand why you, more than
anybody, should never touch the Prince." The goat and
I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning
to wonder where we would spend the night.
---
I love you so much, you maniac.
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 | 11:39 am - Civilization - Dorianne Laux
Language was not my servant
the day I slapped my mother
back, she had me up against
a wall, I've never spoken
of this before, I held her wrist
in one hand and with the other
left my mark, we stared into
each other's eyes, two flinty
animals equally matched,
though animals cannot control
their fury, cannot say "Do not
ever raise your hand to me again"
and walk away, a phrase I must
have read in a book found
among the many books stacked
in dusty columns beside her bed.
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 | 11:36 am - Honey Like Forgiveness - Mark Conway
He counts on me
like he counts the corn.
He worries down to Harvest.
While Father sleeps,
the moon gets fat on cheese—
it lasts all night,
a little head on fire,
still eating. It's like me,
I heal well, too.
When Father leaves for town,
there will be a silver
flask, forgotten
cigarettes, everything
I've been punished for
there for the taking.
In the morning I still like
to see the thorn riding
its rose
and put out
my thumb to prick
the needle, swollen to the stem.
When he returns, the mare blooded
on the flanks,
I'll clear her eyes with water,
then vapor seethes off her back.
The mare is so beautiful
he rides her
too hard to get home, the way
he loves me so much
it makes him angry.
He said I am forgiven.
I only have to ask like the bird
for seed. I'm the one
who caught it and named it,
stupid wren crashing
into windows. I only expect it
to sing. I give it old cake
drenched in honey, stick
its beak shut, say Sing.
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January 26th, 2010
 | 03:06 pm - Vespers - Louise Gluck
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.
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 | 02:32 pm - Orkney/This Life - Andrew Greig
It is big sky and its changes,
the sea all round and the waters within.
It is the way sea and sky
work off each other constantly,
like people meeting in Alfred Street,
each face coming away with a hint
of the other's face pressed in it.
It is the way a week-long gale
ends and folk emerge to hear
a single bird cry way high up.
It is the way you lean to me
and the way I lean to you, as if
we are each other's prevailing;
how we connect along our shores,
the way we are tidal islands
joined for hours then inaccessible,
I'll go for that, and smile when I
pick sand off myself in the shower.
The way I am an inland loch to you
when a clatter of white whoops and rises...
It is the way Scotland looks to the South,
the way we enter friends' houses
to leave what we came with, or flick
the kettle's switch and wait.
This is where I want to live,
close to where the heart gives out,
ruined, perfected, an empty arch against the sky
where birds fly through instead of prayers
while in Hoy Sound the ferry's engines thrum
this life, this life, this life.
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 | 02:28 pm - Places Among the Stars - Stephen Crane
Places among the stars,
Soft gardens near the sun,
Keep your distant beauty;
Shed no beams upon my weak heart.
Since she is here
In a place of blackness,
Not your golden days
Nor your silver nights
Can call me to you.
Since she is here
In a place of blackness,
Here I stay and wait
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 | 02:24 pm - Every day you play - Pablo Neruda
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.
You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.
The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you
what spring does with the cherry trees.
---
Sitting hard on my customary 'oh no a cat' about posting certain kinds of poems because some of these lines are too beautiful and I can't bear to let them go.
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