Poet's Corner

[sky dancer]

won't you celebrate with me


won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my one hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Lucille Clifton

 

[chloe]

Ballade of a Complete Flop

Sad the matter of which I speak,
Deep the trouble of which I sigh.
To the heavens my woes I shriek--
I'd just love to sit down and cry.
Though I hate to admit it, my
Batting av'rage is less then fair.
Generous gentlemen pass me by--
all that they give me is the air.

Rich man, beggar-man, merchant, sheik,
Actor, congressman, human fly.
Argentinean, Czech, and Greek
Give and give, till the well runs dry,
Gifts of elderly Scotch and rye.
Gifts of jewels and orchids rare
To a more competent Lorelei--
All that they give me is the air.

What's the matter with my technique?
I can't fathom, or even try.
I'm intelligent, fond, and weak--
Why don't I get a regular guy?
Just for others, the goose hangs high;
All love's tokens that form my share
May be placed in a pig's left eye--
All that they give me is the air.

Dorothy Parker

 

[sky dancer]

Nothing like a poem to bring a smile to your face.

 

[sky dancer]

Laughing At the Word Two



Only



That Illumined

One



Who keeps

Seducing the formless into form



Had the charm to win my

Heart.



Only a Perfect One



Who is always

Laughing at the word

Two



Can make you know



Of



Love.



~Hafiz~

 

[sky dancer]

I Know The Way You Can Get

by Hafiz


I know the way you can get

When you have not had a drink of Love:



Your face hardens,

Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned

About a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror

And nose.



Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant

To help your mind and soul.



Even angels fear that brand of madness

That arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into

The innocent

And into one's self.



O I know the way you can get

If you have not been drinking Love:



You might rip apart

Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.



You might weigh every word on a scale

Like a dead fish.



You might pull out a ruler to measure

From every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once

Trusted.



I know the way you can get

If you have not had a drink from Love's

Hands.



That is why all the Great Ones speak of

The vital need

To keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him

As being so Playful

And Wanting,

Just Wanting to help.



That is why Hafiz says:

Bring your cup near me.

For all I care about

Is quenching your thirst for freedom!



All a Sane man can ever care about

Is giving Love!

 

[sky dancer]

The Hope of Loving



What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.



I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover’s
warm gaze.



We weep when light does not reach our hearts. We wither
like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.

~Meister Eckhart~

 

[sky dancer]

The madness of love
Is a rich fief;
Anyone who recognized this
Would not ask Love for anything else:
It can unite Opposites
And reverse the paradox.
I am declaring the truth about this:
The madness of love makes bitter what was sweet,
It makes the stranger a kinsman,
And it makes the smallest the most proud.

To souls who have not reached such love,
I give this good counsel:
If they cannot do more,
Let them beg Love for amnesty,
And serve with faith,
According to the counsel of noble Love,
And think: 'It can happen,
Love's power is so great!'
Only after his death
Is a man beyond cure.



~Hadewijch of Antwerp~

 

[chloe]

Admonitions To A Special Person

Watch out for power,
for its avalanche can bury you,
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

Watch out for hate,
it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out
to eat off your leg, an instant leper.

Watch out for friends,
because when you betray them,
as you will,
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.

Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

Watch out for games, the actor's part,
the speech planned, known, given,
for they will give you away
and you will stand like a naked little boy,
pissing on your own child-bed.

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes),
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will end.

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Special person,
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.

Let go. Let go.
Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon.

Anne Sexton

 

[chloe]

ANGEL OF FLIGHT AND SLEIGH BELLS

Angel of flight and sleigh bells, do you know paralysis,
that ether house where your arms and legs are cement?
You are as still as a yardstick. You have a doll's kiss.
The brain whirls in a fit. The brain is not evident.
I have gone to that same place without a germ or a stroke.
A little solo act--that lady with the brain that broke.

In this fashion I have become a tree.
I have become a vase you can pick up or drop at will,
inanimate at last. What unusual luck! My body
passively resisting. Part of the leftovers. Part of the kill.
Angels of flight, you soarer, you flapper, you floater,
you gull that grows out of my back in the drreams I prefer,

stay near. But give me the totem. Give me the shut eye
where I stand in stone shoes as the world's bicycle goes by.

Anne Sexton

 

[chloe]

Killing The Love

I am the love killer,
I am murdering the music we thought so special,
that blazed between us, over and over.
I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss.
I am pushing knives through the hands
that created two into one.
Our hands do not bleed at this,
they lie still in their dishonor.
I am taking the boats of our beds
and swamping them, letting them cough on the sea
and choke on it and go down into nothing.
I am stuffing your mouth with your
promises and watching
you vomit them out upon my face.
The Camp we directed?
I have gassed the campers.

Now I am alone with the dead,
flying off bridges,
hurling myself like a beer can into the wastebasket.
I am flying like a single red rose,
leaving a jet stream
of solitude
and yet I feel nothing,
though I fly and hurl,
my insides are empty
and my face is as blank as a wall.

Shall I call the funeral director?
He could put our two bodies into one pink casket,
those bodies from before,
and someone might send flowers,
and someone might come to mourn
and it would be in the obits,
and people would know that something died,
is no more, speaks no more, won't even
drive a car again and all of that.

When a life is over,
the one you were living for,
where do you go?

I'll work nights.
I'll dance in the city.
I'll wear red for a burning.
I'll look at the Charles very carefully,
weraing its long legs of neon.
And the cars will go by.
The cars will go by.
And there'll be no scream
from the lady in the red dress
dancing on her own Ellis Island,
who turns in circles,
dancing alone
as the cars go by.

Anne Sexton

 

[chloe]

The Fury Of God's Good-bye

One day He
tipped His top hat
and walked
out of the room,
ending the arguement.
He stomped off
saying:
I don't give guarentees.
I was left
quite alone
using up the darkenss.
I rolled up
my sweater,
up into a ball,
and took it
to bed with me,
a kind of stand-in
for God,
what washerwoman
who walks out
when you're clean
but not ironed.
When I woke up
the sweater
had turned to
bricks of gold.
I'd won the world
but like a
forsaken explorer,
I'd lost
my map.

Anne Sexton

 

[PoliticalChic]

Soft Paws

3/10/2008

Soft paws creep up the stairs
Nudging against all the chairs
It cuddles up on winter nights
Without making such a fright
Its eyes like diamonds, its nose the same
But nobody knows what is its name
It looks upon us like giants on a large mountain
Thinking it’s a water fountain
Soft paws creep up the stairs
Nudging against all the chairs.

My daughter wrote this when she was 8. Was a winner of a poetry competition run by the Humane Society of NY -- Paws for Poetry

 

[sky dancer]

kidnap poem

ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i'd kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see
play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i'd kid
nap you


~Nikki Giovanni~

 

[sky dancer]

CHOICES

if i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

it's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

if i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

when i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry




~Nikki Giovanni~

 

[midcan5]

from Knots

"There must be something the matter with him
because he would not be acting as he does
unless there was
therefore he is acting as he is
because there is something the matter with him

He does not think there is anything the matter with him
because
one of the things that is
the matter with him
is that he does not think that there is anything
the matter with him
therefore
we have to help him realize that,
the fact that he does not think there is anything
the matter with him
is one of the things that is
the matter with him
there is something the matter with him
because he thinks
there must be something the matter with us
for trying to help him to see
that there must be something the matter with him
to think that there is something the matter with us
for trying to help him to see that
we are helping him
to see that
we are not persecuting him
by helping him
to see we are not persecuting him
by helping him
to see that
he is refusing to see
that there is something the matter with
him
for not seeing there is something the matter
with him
for not being grateful to us
for at least trying to help him
to see that there is something the matter with
him
for not seeing that must be something the
matter with him
for not seeing that there must be something the
matter with him
for not seeing that there is something the
matter with him
for not seeing that there is something the
matter with him

for not being grateful

that we never tried to make him
feel grateful"

R.D. Laing

 

[midcan5]

Mom and Dad

"Gentle readers, feel your naked belly button where
you were tied to your mother. Kneel and thank
her for your jubilant but woebegone life. Don’t
for a moment think of the mood of your parents
when you were conceived which so vitally affects
your destiny. You have no control over that and
it’s unprofitable to wonder if they were pissed
off or drunk, bored, watching television news,
listening to country music, or hopefully out in
the orchard grass feeling the crunch of wind-
fall apples under their frantic bodies."

Jim Harrison

 

[eots]

Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you


Population keeps on breeding
Nation bleeding, still more feeding economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees make honey, who needs money, No more for me

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you

o yah

World pollution, there's no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Senators stop the war


I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you

TEN YEARS AFTER - I'D LOVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD LYRICS

 

[midcan5]

When I woke this morning
I realized my parents weren't rich
my wife and I were growing old
and I was gaining weight
so I lay in bed
staring at the ceiling
get up
I couldn't
life is short
but I will never win the Nobel prize
nor a Pulitzer
I can't get up
the radio clicked on
and a voice
she was someplace
where bombs sounded
a toll of figures
and numbers of dead
voices and screams
I looked back at the ceiling
I turned over
I got up.

mc5

 

[sky dancer]

Light


I look behind and after
And find that all is right,
In my deepest sorrows
There is a soul of light.



- Swami Vivekananda

 

[sky dancer]

Rain

by Tu Fu

Roads not yet glistening, rain slight,
Broken clouds darken after thinning away.
Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken.
And beyond -- white birds blaze in flight.

Sounds of cold-river rain grown familiar,
Autumn sun casts moist shadows. Below
Our brushwood gate, out to dry at the village
Mill: hulled rice, half-wet and fragrant