Poem-a-Thon

[Jennifer C]

Everytime I read this poem,
it catches my breathe.

Love this poet ~!!!

Thanks for sharing
My Smutty, Nutty Buddy ~

You're welcome hun...

I love this poet too and always thought this poem to be beautiful...

 

[PatCarrington]

my mother learns how to fly by marie c. jones


she absent-mindedly steps
off the terrace into the radiant
summer night and vanishes
mouth puckering as if to warble

her friend and I pick her up
among mashed begonias
one wrist snapped swelling fast
she smiles through the grimace

as if her great three-yard voyage
had introduced her to some strange
lore or science we cannot grasp:
what light learns inside the kaleidoscope

or water from its sorrowful boiling
some subtle yet sustained change
that leaves her hanging from our arms
but already journeying toward far-off

Italy whose bridges dream in their stone
sleep whose churches disgorge life-size
gold reliquaries full of papal bones
whose phrases slide down the throat

like the sweetest bitter chocolate
a land no travel agency dares to advertise
and which eludes the eyes behind our eyes
a dot on a stone map in a very old tongue

 

[ewopper]

Ode to Angeline

At her keyboard quietly
the lovely Angeline sit
exploring the boundaries of her creativity
awing the readers at lit

this lady that I've yet to know
but for now i consider it a pleasure
to read her words that mystify so
one of lit's most beautiful treasures

please lady don't misconstrue
this poem is not to get in your pants
but is an honest tribute to you
yet should you by chance

wonder for an instant how it would be
to join me in the dance
know that undoubtably
I'd be willing to jump at the chance

but this poem is a tribute to you
and the wonderful words you write
may you ever continue to do
that which brings you delight

and should I turn you off in any kind of way
please accept this ode of mine
as sweet words to a poet I just had to say
a poet who's so darn fine

 

[Jennifer C]

The Sadness of the Moon

The Moon more indolently dreams tonight
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.

Charles Baudelaire

 

[Angeline]

At her keyboard quietly
the lovely Angeline sit
exploring the boundaries of her creativity
awing the readers at lit

this lady that I've yet to know
but for now i consider it a pleasure
to read her words that mystify so
one of lit's most beautiful treasures

please lady don't misconstrue
this poem is not to get in your pants
but is an honest tribute to you
yet should you by chance

wonder for an instant how it would be
to join me in the dance
know that undoubtably
I'd be willing to jump at the chance

but this poem is a tribute to you
and the wonderful words you write
may you ever continue to do
that which brings you delight

and should I turn you off in any kind of way
please accept this ode of mine
as sweet words to a poet I just had to say
a poet who's so darn fine

Thank you for the poem. I'm honored to be the subject of it.

 

[ewopper]

Thank you for the poem. I'm honored to be the subject of it.

you're very welcome it was an honor to write it

 

[Jennifer C]

Finding

From the candles and dumb shadows,

And the house where love had died,

I stole to the vast moonlight

And the whispering life outside.

But I found no lips of comfort,

No home in the moon's light

(I, little and lone and frightened

In the unfriendly night),

And no meaning in the voices....

Far over the lands, and through

The dark, beyond the ocean,

I willed to think of you!

For I knew, had you been with me

I'd have known the words of night,

Found peace of heart, gone gladly

In comfort of that light.



Oh! The wind with soft beguiling

Would have stolen my thought away

And the night, subtly smiling,

Came by the silver way;

And the moon came down and danced to me,

And her robe was white and flying;

And trees bent their heads to me

Mysteriously crying;

And dead voices wept around me;

And dead soft fingers thrilled;

And the little gods whispered....

Desperately I willed;

Till all grew soft and far

And silent...



And suddenly

I found you white and radiant,

Sleeping quietly,

Far out through the tides of darkness,

And I there in that great light

Was alone no more, nor fearful;

For there, in the homely night,

Was no thought else that mattered,

And nothing else was true,

But the white fire of moonlight,

And a white dream of you.

Rupert Brooke

 

[Jennifer C]

Sometimes The Sky's Too Bright

Sometimes the sky's too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away's too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel's face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my body go
Down into misery?
No stopping. Put the smile
Where tears have come to dry.
The angel's hurt is left;
His telling burns.

Sometimes a woman's heart has salt,
Or too much blood;
I tear her breast,
And see the blood is mine,
Flowing from her, but mine,
And then I think
Perhaps the sky's too bright;
And watch my hand,
But do not follow it,
And feel the pain it gives,
But do not ache.

Dylan Thomas

 

[Angeline]

I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming.
Much earlier the alarm broke us from each other,
you've been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed:
our friend the poet comes into my room
where I've been writing for days,
drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere,
and I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate
and wake. You've kissed my hair
to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone . . .
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carries the feathered grass a long way down to the upbreathing air.

Adrienne Rich

 

[Jennifer C]

Sudden Light

I have been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell:

I know the grass beyond the door,

The sweet keen smell,

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.



You have been mine before, -

How long ago I may not know:

But just when at that swallow's soar

Your neck turned so,

Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.



Has this been thus before?

And shall not thus time's eddying flight

Still with our lives our love restore

In death's despite,

And day and night yield one delight once more?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

[Jennifer C]

Dust

When the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath--
When we are dust, when we are dust!--

Not dead, not undesirous yet,
Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
Around the places where we died,

And dance as dust before the sun,
And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run
About the errands of the wind.

And every mote, on earth or air
Will speed and gleam, down later days
And like a secret pilgrim fare
By eager and invisible ways,

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie
Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
One mote of all the dust that's I
Shall meet one atom that was you.

Then in some garden hushed from wind,
Warm in a sunset's afterglow,
The lovers in the flowers will find
A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,
And such a radiant ecstasy there,

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
Or out of earth, or in the height,
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
Or two that pass, in light, to light,

Out of the garden, higher, higher....
But in that instant they shall learn
The shattering ecstasy of our fire,
And the weak passionless hearts will burn

And faint in that amazing glow,
Until the darkness close above;
And they will know -- poor fools, they'll know! --
One moment, what it is to love.

Rupert Brooke

 

[annaswirls]

I am a dangerous woman

I am a dangerous woman
by Joan Cavanagh (b. 1955)

I am a dangerous woman
Carrying neither bombs nor babies
Flowers nor molotov cocktails.
I confound all your reason, theory, realism
Because I will neither lie in your ditches
Nor dig your ditches for you
Nor join your struggle
For bigger and better ditches.
I will not walk with you nor for you,
I won't live with you
And I won't die for you
But neither will I try to deny you
Your right to live and die.
I will not share one square foot of this earth with you
While you're hell-bent on destruction
But neither will I deny that we are of the same earth,
Born of the same Mother
I will not permit
You to bind my life to yours
But I will tell you that our lives
Are bound together
And I will demand
That you live as though you understand
This one salient fact.
I am a dangerous woman
because I will tell you, sir,
whether you are concerned or not,
Masculinity has made of this world a living hell
A furnace burning away at hope, love, faith, and justice,
A furnace of My Lais, Hiroshimas, Dachaus.
A furnace which burns the babies
You tell us we must make.
Masculinity made Femininity
Made the eyes of our women grow dark and cold,
sent our sons - yes sir, our sons -
To War
Made our children go hungry
Made our mothers whores
Made our bombs, our bullets, our "Food for Peace,"
our definitive solutions and first strike policies
Yes sir
Masculinity broke women and men on its knee
Took away our futures
Made our hopes, fears, thoughts and good instincts
'irrelevant to the larger struggle.'
And made human survival beyond the year 2000
an open question.
Yes sir
And it has possessed you.
I am a dangerous woman
because I will say all this
lying neither to you nor with you
I am dangerous because
I won't give up, shut up, or put up
with your version of reality.
You have conspired to sell my life quite cheaply
And I am especially dangerous
Because I will never forgive nor forget
Or ever conspire
To sell yours in return.

by Joan Cavanagh (b. 1955)