when lips are silent…
the heart has a hundred tongues.
— Rumi —
a poem without a single bird in it…
What will I say to you, darling,
When you ask me for help?
I do not know the future.
Or even what poetry,
We are going to write.
Commit suicide. Go mad. Better people
Than either of us have tried it.
I loved you once but,
I do not know the future.
I only know that I love strength in my friends.
And greatness.
And hate the way the body cracks,
And is eaten by images.
The fun’s over. The picnic’s over.
Commit suicide. Go mad. There will be nothing left
After we die or go mad… but the calmness of poetry
And love.
— Jack Spicer —
please do not respond…
I was provoked,
because he was hiding his real self from me,
and would not continue
to be the man I loved.
— Tolstoy —
love is a growing up…
May I be between your two hands
the way sky is the center of beech dreams.
– Anita Endrezze –
balances…
In life
one is always
balancing
like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers
or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)
3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth
our sweet black essence
or the funky honkies down the street
and lately I’ve begun wondering
if you’re trying to tell me something
we used to talk all night
and do things alone together
and I’ve begun
(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you
– Nikki Giovanni –
favum… vos sunt a musa
Yes:
Let the wax raise
green statues, let the honey
drip in infinite tongues, let the ocean be a big comb
and the Earth a tunic of flowers, let the World
be a cascade, magnificent hair, unceasing
growth of Beedom.
– Pablo Neruda –
mantra…
there was time then
when love meant falling
love meant there was in
and out of it, love meant
so many adjectives
we kept losing the noun
under it all, remember the scraping then?
of naked knees against unwanted moments.
now love, love has nothing ha! nothing
but itself
and we rise
rise rise again
into each now
into this centre
where valleys and peaks
lie together in negatives
against a sky
and every image is love
making itself
i cannot fall in love with you.
do you see?
now we rise and meet on a line
where love opens these countless petals
your fingers yes are there
inside of them
your toes too, each eyelash
all fragrant fresh and fruits filling us
a harvest like a storm
love rises into itself
through all this geometry
and in becoming
we touch as one
with what was missing all along,
(auhm mane padme om)
– E.K. –
messenger….
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
– Mary Oliver –