Share A Poet

[Tzara]

I really like Daphne Gottlieb. She's more hard-edged than me, but I can relate to her voice. She sounds like a cousin or someone who lived on my dorm floor in college. Must be the Jewish thing. I totally got the Jewish Aetheist Mother poem.

watch your tense and case
daphne gottlieb

oh baby
i want to be your direct object.
you know, that is to say
i want to be on the other
side of all the verbs i know
you know how to use.

i've seen you conjugate:
i touch
you touched
you heard
she knows
who cares

i'm interested in
a few decent prepositions:
above, over, inside, atop,
below, around and
i'm sure there are more
right on the tip of
your tongue.

i am ready to spend
the present perfect
splitting your infinitive
there's an art to the way you
dangle your participle and

since we're being informal it's okay to
use a few contractions, like
wasn't (going to)
shouldn't (have)
and a conjunction:
but (did it anyway)

and i'm really really glad
you're not into dependent
clauses since all i'm really
interested in is your
bad, bad grammar
and your exclamation point.

Excellent poems, you two. Sigh, now I have yet another poet on my must read list. Bastards!

(Uh, I mean, "bastard (that's you, DA) and, um, you pushy woman!" Or something like that.)

Hey. Those Tal Bagels were flat! Don't they know about yeast?

I owe you for the scallion cream cheese, though. My wife renewed her vows over that. Excellent stuff.

 

[DeepAsleep]

Slam Poetry

I thought I'd share some slam stuff that I've found influential, both from a performative standpoint, and because I feel that it's good, solid work. I'll include audio/video as much as possible - it's no secret that Slam is intended for performance, and you miss half the experience when you only get it on paper. Sometimes, I think people don't pay attention to the fact that poetry should be heard as often as read, anyway. And, much as people rage against it ("Slam is the death of art." - some critic, Paris) I think slam's the only thing keeping people really interested in poetry.

This is the millionth part of what's out there, when it comes to slam poetry. If you find yourself in Austin, this year, around the 7th, look up the National Poetry Slam.

And, come say hi to me. Hah.




Buddy Wakefield (www.buddywakefield.com)

Flockprinter
Flockprinter

Human The Death Dance

Anis Mojgani

3 Poems, "Direct Orders," "Here am I" and "Shake the Dust"

Rachel Mckibbens
Central Park, Mother's Day


Andrea Gibson
Blue Blanket

For Eli

 

[Angeline]

<snip>

Hey. Those Tal Bagels were flat! Don't they know about yeast?

I owe you for the scallion cream cheese, though. My wife renewed her vows over that. Excellent stuff.

Welcome home honey. I dunno about the Tal Bagels; maybe it was a bad day or maybe they're chasidic bagels (no yeast), but scallion cream cheese is the bomb, so to speak, isn't it?

 

[Angeline]

I thought I'd share some slam stuff that I've found influential, both from a performative standpoint, and because I feel that it's good, solid work. I'll include audio/video as much as possible - it's no secret that Slam is intended for performance, and you miss half the experience when you only get it on paper. Sometimes, I think people don't pay attention to the fact that poetry should be heard as often as read, anyway. And, much as people rage against it ("Slam is the death of art." - some critic, Paris) I think slam's the only thing keeping people really interested in poetry.

This is the millionth part of what's out there, when it comes to slam poetry. If you find yourself in Austin, this year, around the 7th, look up the National Poetry Slam.

And, come say hi to me. Hah.




Buddy Wakefield (www.buddywakefield.com)

Flockprinter
Flockprinter

Human The Death Dance

Anis Mojgani

3 Poems, "Direct Orders," "Here am I" and "Shake the Dust"

Rachel Mckibbens
Central Park, Mother's Day


Andrea Gibson
Blue Blanket

For Eli

These are excellent, DA. I especially like the Rachel McKibbens poem. Really compelling.

I won't say anything about the poet who made his city's finals for the National Poetry Slam team because I know he's modest, and wouldn't want me to brag on him, but people here would be really proud of him and happy for him if they knew.

 

[Tzara]

Welcome home honey. I dunno about the Tal Bagels; maybe it was a bad day or maybe they're chasidic bagels (no yeast), but scallion cream cheese is the bomb, so to speak, isn't it?

Actually, they were supposed to be flat; advertised as so: flat sunflower seed bagels. Almost good enough, with that sublime cream cheese, for me to move to the wrong coast, but not quite.

Anyway. Poets. How 'bout this:

The Bagel
David Ignatow

I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as if it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.

 

[DeepAsleep]

K-t F-s

If you caught Rattle's Tribute To Slam edition, then you've heard katie's poem, "Two Bits" But this one, I think, is superior. I'll share a few of hers over the next week or so. She's one of my favorite poets.

a valentine with wings
(o icarus o)


today, a bird dropped
no
bullet
drilled
down
from the blue and hazy sky
I dreamed, "Suicide" or "poison"
neither here nor there
where the air
(disappears)
inside and below,
In the end, when death says "rain"
we go.

Still, I seem to be a storm
that hasn't struck sidewalk
or stone, in weeks,
even here, where the bones
of this planet poke past her skin
and she is resplendent in all her
stark sunset glory.
But even best friends smiles stretch thin, here
like our teeth are where hurt
forced its way through
so our words sound like wounds
and the land lays so bare, here
and the trees crook like angels
paralyzed
in prayer.

Small wonder, we would rather
split open our ribs to the empty atmosphere
than pack our hearts with cornfields
or wheat
and push back upright,
it's love, i think,
and it's incarnation in this zeitgeist
promising us backbreak and drought.

have you seen the ripped and melancholy
nothing
that blankets alfalfa in spring?
If it's love you think you need
have mine.
I will love you with daisies and picnics
and tickets to Leonard Cohen
somewhere smoky and red
as a pigeon's thrumming undercarriage.

I will love you with haiku:

You want a puppy
to name Bruce; i can afford
this coloring book.

I will love you with my breath
and my hands; this space beside
me while I sleep can happen in
the exact shape of you,
wrapped up
pretty please
in a 2:30 telephone call
if you are losing by degrees
the distinction between flight
and freefall.

I will love you revolutionary style,
cognizant of our flaws,
but confident in our capability.

I am weary of playing impenetrable
as if art were another word for armor
I
Am
Not
Machinery.
I am but a crabgrass blade
and i will paint green this whole fucking globe
if they don't care to look down
and recognize
who stands guard between them
and the void
and how vastly we outnumber them.

We have won an unquestioning victory:
We are here
We know how to survive
I love you
Now.
Thrive.

~D.A.

 

[annaswirls]

This is the millionth part of what's out there, when it comes to slam poetry. If you find yourself in Austin, this year, around the 7th, look up the National Poetry Slam.

And, come say hi to me. Hah.
]

cool beans. I will be there!

http://www.austinslam.com/

ps I promise not to say "cool beans" in front of your friends You can always tell people I am a friend of your Aunt or something.

 

[Tathagata]

THE ROBE
by MICHAEL McCLURE

Sleepwalkers . . . Ghosts! Voices
like bodies coming through the mists of sleep,
we float about each other --

bare feet not touching the floor.
Talking in our lovers' voice
NAMING THE OBJECTS OF LOVE

(Inventing new tortures,
machines to carry us.
Wonders full blown in our faces.
Eyes like sapphires or opals.
Aloof as miracles. Hearing
jazz in the air. We are passing --

our shapes like nasturtiums.)
Frozen, caught held there

my shoulders won't hold you.

HEROIC ACTS
won't free us. Free us. Love.
We are voices. Sleep is with us.

 

[Angeline]

THE ROBE
by MICHAEL McCLURE

Sleepwalkers . . . Ghosts! Voices
like bodies coming through the mists of sleep,
we float about each other --

bare feet not touching the floor.
Talking in our lovers' voice
NAMING THE OBJECTS OF LOVE

(Inventing new tortures,
machines to carry us.
Wonders full blown in our faces.
Eyes like sapphires or opals.
Aloof as miracles. Hearing
jazz in the air. We are passing --

our shapes like nasturtiums.)
Frozen, caught held there

my shoulders won't hold you.

HEROIC ACTS
won't free us. Free us. Love.
We are voices. Sleep is with us.

That's lovely, T. Guess my favorite line?

 

[Tathagata]

That's lovely, T. Guess my favorite line?

hearing jazz in the air??
lol

I like some of his stuff alot
his " Ghost Tantras" both fascinate and repel me
they are definately meant to be read aloud
I wonder if he has recorded them because they read hysterically

 

[unapologetic]

Cats

Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned

To rules or routes for journeys; counter
Attack with non-resistance; twist
Enticing through the curving fingers
And leave an angered empty fist.

They wait obsequious as darkness
Quick to retire, quick to return;
Admit no aim or ethics; flatter
With reservations; will not learn

To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.

-- A. S. J. Tessimond

 

[tungtied2u]

Kinky

by Denise Duhamel

They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance.
Ken wants to feel Barbie's toes between his lips,
take off one of her legs and force his whole arm inside her.
With only the vaguest suggestion of genitals,
all the alluring qualities they possess as fashion dolls,
up until now, have done neither of them much good.
But suddenly Barbie is excited looking at her own body
under the weight of Ken's face. He is part circus freak,
part thwarted hermaphrodite. And she is imagining
she is somebody else-- maybe somebody middle class and ordinary,
maybe another teenage model being caught in a scandal.

The night had begun with Barbie getting angry
at finding Ken's blow up doll, folded and stuffed
under the couch. He was defensive and ashamed, especially about
not having the breath to inflate her. But after a round
of pretend-tears, Barbie and Ken vowed to try
to make their relationship work. With their good memories
as sustaining as good food, they listened to late-night radio
talk shows, one featuring Doctor Ruth. When all else fails,
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned.
Barbie and Ken, on cue, groped in the dark,
their interchangeable skin glowing, the color of Band-Aids.
Then, they let themselves go-- Soon Barbie was begging Ken
to try on her spandex miniskirt. She showed him how
to pivot as though he was on a runway. Ken begged
to tie Barbie onto his yellow surfboard and spin her
on the kitchen table until she grew dizzy. Anything,
anything, they both said to the other's requests,
their mirrored desires bubbling from the most unlikely places.

 

[tungtied2u]

Everything

by Anna Akhmatova

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?

By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.

And something miraculous will come
close to the darkness and ruin,
something no-one, no-one, has known,
though we’ve longed for it since we were children.

 

[Surprizer]

Noon-Meem

[Hasan The Potter]

Jahanzad, down in the street before your door
Here I am, burnt-out Hasan the Potter
This morning in the bazaar when I saw you
At old Yusuf the perfumer’s shop
In you glance was that brilliance
I’ve longed for, wandering nine years in madness
During that time
I never looked back
At my ailing pots -
Pots formed by my deft hands,
Lifeless creatures of clay, color, oilglaze
They whispered:
“Where is Hasan the Potter now?
He left us, his own creations
He created us, then turned away like the gods!”
Jahanzad, nine years passed for me
As time would pass in a buried city;
Clay in the clay-vats
With its fragrance that used to ravish me
Lay stone-hard
Flagon and flask, jug and cup, candlestick, vase
Props of my trivial life, of my art
Lay broken
I myself, Hasan the Potter, mud-mired, dusty-haired, naked
Besied my wheel, hair disheveled, head on knees
Like some grieving demigod, from fantasized
Clay-and-nothing I molded pliant pots out of dreams.
Jahanzad, nine years ago
You were a child, but you knew
That I, Hasan the Potter
Had seen in your talisman eyes, you sky-warming eyes
Brilliance
Which made my body and sould an open road
For cloud and moon
Janhanzad, the dream-colored Baghdad night
That bank of River Tigris
That boat, the boatman’s closed eyes
For a worn-out, grief-burdened potter
One night was the charged amber
His static being clings to, even now.
His soul, his shape
But that night’s flavor was a river-wave in which
Hasan the Potter sank and has not come up.
Jahanzad, in those days, day after day
That ill-starred woman came
When she saw me by the wheel, mud-mired, head on knees
She shook me by the shoulders -
(that wheel which had been, year after year, my life sole prop!)
she shook me by the shoulders:
“Hasan, look at you desolate house
how will the children’s hollow stomachs be filled?
Love-struck Hasan
Love is a rich man’s game
Hasan, look around at your house!”
In my ears this mournful voice was like
A call to a drowning man in whirlpool.
Those heaps of tears were flower-beds, no doubt
But I, Hasan the Potter, lived among ruins
In a fantasy-city where not
A voice, a movement
A flying bird’s shadow
Not a trace of my life existed.
Jahanzad, here now in you street
Her in the cold-colored darkness of night
I stand before you door
Head and hair disordered
From the window those spell-drowned talisman eyes

Flance at me once again
Time, Jahanzad, it the wheel aon which like flagon and flask, cup,
candlestick, vase
Humans are made and unmade
I am a human but
Those nine years that passed in the mold of grief!
Hasan the Potter is now a dust-mound without
Even a hint of moisture.
Jahanzad, this morning in the bazaar
At Yusuf the Perfumer’s shop, your eyes
Spoke once again
Their brilliant mischief
Calls forth again in the dust-mound a quiver of wetness
Perhaps to turn the dust to clay
Who knows the scope of longing, Jahanzad, but
If you want, I go back to being
That potter whose pots
Were the pride of every house and street, city and town
Whose pot shone in the homes of rich and poor
Who knows the scope of longing, Jahanzad, but
If you want, I will go back to my forsaken pots
To the dried-out vats of clay-and-nothing
To the props of my life, my art
So from this clay-and-nothing, color and oil glaze, I
Can again strike sparks
That light up the ruins of hearts.

 

[Surprizer]

Poem

is orginally wrtitten by Noon Meem Rashid[a pakistani poet] in Urdu and Translation by Frances Pritchett

 

[tungtied2u]

Thank you

for sharing this beautiful poem. I really enjoyed it.

 

[Surprizer]

Thanks

for sharing this beautiful poem. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks

 

[Surprizer]

You are afraid of life? by Noon MeeM

----You are afraid of life?
But life is who you are, and life is who I am!
You are afraid of mankind?
But man is who you are, and man is who I am!
Man is language, man is expression,
but you are not afraid of that!
With the iron-bond of Word and Understanding, man is inextricably tied
With humanity's loins, life is inseparably tied
But you are not afraid of that!
Truth is you are afraid of the "unsaid"
The time that has yet to come are you afraid of it
Are you afraid to acknowledge the imminence of it!

---- Many periods of history have passed by before:
of freedom's remoteness, of godhood that is "self-less".
Even then you believe that it's useless to aspire,
that this night of suffocation is to Providence submission!
But what would you know,
that when lips fail to move, hands arise to life.
Hands arise to life to show to the way that is right,
as the expressions of light.
Hands cry out, yelling the end of the night.

You are afraid of light?
But light is who you are, and light is who I am,
You are afraid of light!
----The walls of the city
have been cleansed of the shadows of evil monsters.
The gown of night
has shredded to pieces, crumbled to dust.
From the mass of Humanity, the voice of Individual rises.
A cry of the soul rises.
On the paths of love, as if, some lover's passion leaps,
a new obsession leaps!
Humanity brims with life
Behold humanity laugh, see cities alive
Are you frightened now?
Yes now is who you are, yes now is who I am,
You are frightened now!
______

Translated by Hamid Rahim Sheikh

 

[Surprizer]

Do not ask, my love, for the love we had before

Do not ask, my love, for the love we had before:
You existed, I told myself, so all existence shone,
Grief for me was you; the world’s grief was far.
Spring was ever renewed in your face:
Beyond your eyes, what could the world hold?
Had I won you, Fate’s head would hang, defeated.
Yet all this was not so, I merely wished it so.
The world knows sorrows other than those of love,
Pleasures beyond those of romance:
The dread dark spell of countless centuries
Woven with silk and satin and gold braocade,
Bodies sold everywhere, in streets and markets,
Besmeared with dirt, bathed in blood,
Crawling from infested ovens,
My gaze returns to these: what can I do?
Your beauty still haunts me: what can I do?
The world is burdened by sorrows beyond love,
By pleasures beyond romance,
Do not demand that love which can be no more.

---------------------------------
A poem by Faiz ahmed Faiz
English Translation by MAR Habib

 

[RhymeFairy]

My Last Duchess


That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
"Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
"Must never hope to reproduce the faint
"Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart---how shall I say?---too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace---all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,---good! but thanked
Somehow---I know not how---as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech--- (which I have not)---to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
"Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
"Or there exceed the mark"---and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
---E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!


~ Robert Browning




~~

 

[RhymeFairy]

Will You Still Love Me?


When the day frightens me
And the fog r efuses to melt before the sun,
When the accusers rise within me from the past
And tell me I have failed
When i feel scarely valuable enought to live,
Will you still love me?

When weariness overpowers me
And I fear I cannot go on,
When there is no joy in my heart,
And I struggle to laugh and even breathe,
When I'm afraid I have accomplished nothing worthwhile,
Will you still love me?

When I am caught in the coccon of lost memories
And encapsulated in marauding anxieties,
When the bruises of the past make me prisoner,
And all the things I once dared now seem impossible,
When my thoughts race in a thousand, helpless directions,
Will you still love me?

When I have finally answered the past accusing voices
And find consistent delight in the present moment,
When I can laugh far into the night
And am strong and brave in the morning,
When I have found the serene rhythm of my life-force,
And can walk without clinging and run without bonds,
When I do not seem to need you, even then,
Will you still love me?



~~ James Kavanaugh

 

[RhymeFairy]

After Parting


Oh, I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,
That it may be a cloud by day,
And in the night a shaft of fire.



~~ Sarah Teasdale

 

[Angeline]

After Parting


Oh, I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,
That it may be a cloud by day,
And in the night a shaft of fire.



~~ Sarah Teasdale

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


~~ William Butler Yeats

 

[Eluard]

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


~~ William Butler Yeats

One of my favourite poems!

 

[Angeline]

One of my favourite poems!

Mine too. It's so beautiful.

Here's another of his I adore.

The Wild Swans at Coole

THE TREES are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?



Sigh. Loverly.