Posted in HD, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Sea Rose, Write, Writer, writing on 04/19/2007| 1 Comment »
Sea Rose
Rose, harsh rose
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,
more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem —
you are caught in the drift.
Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
-H.D.
Posted in kore, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Write, Writer, writing on 04/10/2007| Leave a Comment »
Kore
the same road upon…
-Robert Creeley
Posted in novel, poem of the day, poet, poetry, rimbaud, Write, writing on 04/03/2007| Leave a Comment »
Novel
I.
No one’s serious at seventeen.
–On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
–You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.
Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
The wind brings sounds–the town is near–
And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . .
II.
–Over there, framed by a branch
You can see a little patch of dark blue
Stung by a sinister star that fades
With faint quiverings, so small and white. . .
June nights! Seventeen!–Drink it in.
Sap is champagne, it goes to your head. . .
The mind wanders, you feel a kiss
On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .
III.
The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels
–And when a young girl walks alluringly
Through a streetlamp’s pale light, beneath the ominous shadow
Of her father’s starched collar. . .
Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,
She turns on a dime, eyes wide,
Finding you too sweet to resist. . .
–And cavatinas die on your lips.
IV.
You’re in love. Off the market till August.
You’re in love.–Your sonnets make Her laugh.
Your friends are gone, you’re bad news.
–Then, one night, your beloved, writes. . .!
That night. . .you return to the blinding cafés;
You order beer or lemonade. . .
–No one’s serious at seventeen
When lindens line the promenade.
-Arthur Rimbaud
Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, roethke, wife, words, Write, Writer, writing on 04/02/2007| 1 Comment »
Wish For a Young Wife
My lizard, my lively writher,
May your limbs never wither,
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice
Of envy’s mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
And your hair ever blaze,
In the sun, in the sun,
When I am undone,
When I am no one.
-Theodore Roethke
Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/30/2007| Leave a Comment »
Die Muhle Brennt–Richard
(after a painting by Georg Bazelitz)
When the red chair suspended in air
grazes the top of your head…
-Richard Matthews
Posted in Louis MacNeice, macneice, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Wolves, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/17/2007| Leave a Comment »
Posted in ice, poem, poem of the day, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/16/2007| Leave a Comment »
Ice and rain may cover the Northeast this weekend to such a degree that I won’t be able to travel to Morgantown and give my paper at the African Literature Association’s 33rd annual conference. In rueful honor of this, today’s poem:
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost
Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, roethke, waking, Write, Writer, writing on 03/13/2007| Leave a Comment »
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
-Theodore Roethke
Posted in piercy, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/12/2007| 3 Comments »
For the Young Who Want To
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
-Marge Piercy
Posted in painters, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Rukeyser, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/11/2007| Leave a Comment »
Painters
In the cave with a long-ago flare
a woman stands, her arms up. Red twig, black twig, brown twig.
A wall of leaping darkness over her.
The men are out hunting in the early light
But here in this flicker, one or two men, painting
and a woman among them.
Great living animals grow on the stone walls,
their pelts, their eyes, their sex, their hearts,
and the cave-painters touch them with life, red, brown, black,
a woman among them, painting.
-Muriel Rukeyser
Poem of the Month 