put your chair where your mouth is and i welcome your opinion.

children in a field / angela shaw

They don’t wade in so much as they are taken.
Deep in the day, in the deep of the field,
every current in the grasses whispers hurry
hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume
like a rumor, impelling them further on.
It is the way of girls. It is the sway
of their dresses in the summer trance-
light, their bare calves already far-gone
in green. What songs will they follow?
Whatever the wood warbles, whatever storm
or harm the border promises, whatever
calm. Let them go. Let them go traceless
through the high grass and into the willow-
blur, traceless across the lean blue glint
of the river, to the long dark bodies
of the conifers, and over the welcoming
threshold of nightfall.

windfall / jay farrar

Now and then it keeps you runnin'
Never seems to die
Trails spin with fear
And not enough livin' on the outside
Never seem to get far enough
Stayin' inbetween the lines
Hold on to what you can
Waitin' for the end
Not knowin' when

May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind take your troubles away
Both feet on the floor
Two hands on the wheel
May the wind take your troubles away

Tryin' to make it far enough
To the next time zone
Few and far between past the midnight hour
You never feel alone
You're really not alone

Switchin' it over to AM
Searchin' for a truer sound
Can't recall the call letters
Steel guitar and settle down

Catchin' an all night station
Somewhere in Louisiana
It sounds like 1963
But for now it sounds like heaven

i remember you / steve earle

When I'm walkin' these streets
And I'm countin' my steps
And I'm draggin' my feet
'Cause I ain't ready yet
To start all over again
'Cause every time that I do
I remember you

Well, you broke my heart
And it healed alright
Now we're far apart
And I don't lie awake at night
But every once in a while
Right out of the blue
I remember you

Well, you never write and I never call
And I don't miss you tonight
I'm just curious, that's all
Do you still have dreams?
Did they all come true?
Does it ever seem like you'll never make it through?
And do you ever miss me the way that I do
When I remember you?

When I'm walkin' these streets
Well, you broke my heart
And I'm countin' my steps
But it healed alright
And I'm draggin' my feet
Now we're far apart
'Cause I ain't ready yet
Every once in a while
Right out of the blue

open your window / steve earle

Just open your window
On a night like tonight
No matter which way the wind blows
Let your heart out to ride
High above all the care and woe
In the world down below
Just open your window
Then you'll know where to go

On a big city sidewalk
All alone in a crowd
No one listenin' when he talks
To himself right out loud
He was somebody's darlin' boy
She held him close when he cried
Just open your window
And let him inside

You may think that you're dreaming
You may think you've gone blind
If your eyes fail to see 'em
Listen hard and you'll find
There's a song that the angels know
Ringin' true every time
If you open your window
Let the music inside

marching / jim harrison

At dawn I heard among bird calls
the billions of marching feet in the churn
and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet
still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid,
and very old halting feet, the feet
of the very light and very heavy, all marching
but not together, criss-crossing at every angle
with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump
into each other, walking in the doors of houses
and out the back door 40 years later, finally
knowing that time collapses on a single
plateau where they were all their lives,
knowing that time stops when the heart stops
as they walk off the Earth into the night air.

stages / herman hesse

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.

Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slave of permamence.

Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

misgivings / william matthews

Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,

but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods.  And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may auger we're on our owns

for good reason.  "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door; "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-

in-advance charisma.  Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other.  Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.

the blues / william matthews

What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet
and boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons?
I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve

you think the heart and memory are different.
"'It's a poor sort of memory that only works
backwards,' the Queen remarked." Alice in Wonderland.

Although I knew the way music can fill a room,
even with loneliness, which is of course a kind
of company. I could swelter through an August

afternoon -- torpor rising from the river -- and listen
to Stan Getz and J. J. Johnson braid variations
on "My Funny Valentine" and feel there in the room

with me the force and weight of what I couldn't
say. What's an emotion anyhow?
Lassitude and sweat lay all about me

like a stubble field, it was so hot and listless,
but I was quick and furtive as a fox
who has his thirty-miles-a-day metabolism

to burn off as ordinary business.
I had about me, after all, the bare eloquence
of the becalmed, the plain speech of the leafless

tree. I had the cunning of my body and a few
bars -- they were enough -- of music. Looking back,
it almost seems as though I could remember --

but this can't be; how could I bear it? --
the future toward which I'd clatter
with that boy tied like a bell around my throat,

a brave man and a coward both,
to break and break my metronomic heart
and just enough to learn to love the blues.

no return / william matthews

I like divorce. I love to compose
letters of resignation; now and then
I send one in and leave in a lemon-
hued Huff or a Snit with four on the floor.
Do you like the scent of a hollyhock?
To each his own. I love a burning bridge.

I like to watch the small boat go over
the falls -- it swirls in a circle
like a dog coiling for sleep, and its frail bow
pokes blindly out over the falls' lip
a little and a little more and then
too much, and then the boat's nose dives and butt

flips up so that the boat points doomily
down and the screams of the soon-to-be-dead
last longer by echo than the screamers do.
Let's go to the videotape, the news-
caster intones, and the control room does,
and the boat explodes again and again.        

trapped / charles bukowski

Don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin:
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.

raw with love / charles bukowski

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
I won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
I won't blame you,
instead
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and I won't use it
yet.        

for jane: with all the love i had, which was not enough / charles bukowski

I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,
and I call God a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my name
could never die
in the common verity of dying,
and I pick
up her lovely
dress,
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak to all the gods,
Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,
rats in the gravy of two gone quite mad
without a chance,
hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know
her dress upon my arm
but
they will not
give her back to me.        

finish / charles bukowski

We are like roses that have never bothered to
bloom when we should have bloomed and
it is as if
the sun has become disgusted with
waiting

some trees / john ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

the grapevine / john ashbery

Of who we and all they are
You all now know. But you know
After they began to find us out we grew
Before they died thinking us the causes

Of their acts. Now we'll not know
The truth of some still at the piano, though
They often date from us, causing
These changes we think we are. We don't care

Though, so tall up there
In young air. But things get darker as we move
To ask them: Whom must we get to know
To die, so you live and we know?

fumblin'with the blues / tom waits

Friday left me fumblin' with the blues
And it's hard to win when you always lose
Because the nightspots spend your spirit
Beat your head against the wall
Two dead ends and you've still got to choose

You know the bartenders
They all know my name
And they catch me when I'm pulling up lame
;And I'm a pool-shooting-shimmy-shyster shaking my head
When I should be living clean instead

You know the ladies I've been seeing off and on
Well they spend your love and then they're gone
You can't be lovin' someone who is savage and cruel
Take your love and then they leave on out of town
No they do

Well now fallin' in love is such a breeze
But its standin' up that's so hard for me
I wanna squeeze you but I'm scared to death I'd break your back
You know your perfume
Well it won't let me be

You know the bartenders all know my name
And they catch me when I'm pulling up lame
And I'm a pool-shooting-shimmy-shyster shaking my head
When I should be living clean instead

Come on baby
Let your love light shine
Gotta bury me inside of your fire
Because your eyes are 'nough to blind me
You're like a-looking at the sun
You gotta whisper tell me I'm the one
Come on and whisper tell me I'm the one
Gotta whisper tell me I'm the one
Come on and whisper tell me I'm the one

old shoes / tom waits

Well I'm singing this song, cause it's time it was sung
I've been putting it off for a while,
Cause it's harder by now, and the truth is so clear
That I am crying when I'm seeing you smile.
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.

And every time that I tried to tell you
that we'd lost the magic we had at the start,
I would weep my heart when I looked in your eyes
And I searched once again for the spark.
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.

Oh you know that there's something calling me dear
and by morning, I'm sure to be gone
For I'm older than you and you know so well
That our time for to love was a song
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.

And So It Goes / Tom Waits

If I was a seagull high and aloof
I'd sail to the highest perch on your roof
But I ain't no seagull, you know my name
And the wind's blowin fortune, the wind's blowin pain
And so it goes, nobody knows
How to get to the sky, how to get to the sky

If I was a puppy dog in the early dawn
I'd make it to your house and sleep on your lawn
but I ain'ty no puppydog, you know my name
And the wind blows fortune, the wind blows pain
And so it goes, nobody knows
How to get to the sky, how to get to the sky
How to get to the sky, how to get to the sky

the love song of j. alfred prufrock / t.s. eliot

ET us go                       then, you and I,                      

When the evening is spread out against the sky                      

Like a patient etherized upon a table;                      

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,                      

The muttering retreats                      

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels                      

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:                      

Streets that follow like a tedious argument                      

Of insidious intent                      

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...                      

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"                      

 

Let us go and make our visit.                      

In the room the women come and go                      

Talking of Michelangelo.                      

 

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,                      

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,                      

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,                      

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,                      

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,                      

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,                      

And seeing that it was a soft October night,                      

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.                      

 

And indeed there will be time                      

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,                      

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;                      

There will be time, there will be time                      

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;                      

There will be time to murder and create,                      

And time for all the works and days of hands                      

That lift and drop a question on your plate;                      

Time for you and time for me,                      

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,                      

And for a hundred visions and revisions,                      

Before the taking of a toast and tea.                      

 

In the room the women come and go                      

Talking of Michelangelo.                      

 

And indeed there will be time                      

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"                      

Time to turn back and descend the stair,                      

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--                      

(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!")                      

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,                      

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--                      

(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")                      

Do I dare                      

Disturb the universe?                      

In a minute there is time                      

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.                      

 

For I have known them all already, known them all:                      

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,                      

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;                      

I know the voices dying with a dying fall                      

Beneath the music from a farther room.                      

So how should I presume?                      

 

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--                      

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,                      

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,                      

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,                      

Then how should I begin                      

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?                      

And how should I presume?                      

 

And I have known the arms already, known them all--                      

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare                      

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)                      

Is it perfume from a dress                      

That makes me so digress?                      

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.                      

And should I then presume?                      

And how should I begin?                      

 

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets                      

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes                      

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...                      

 

I should have been a pair of ragged claws                      

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.                      

 

* * *                      

 

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!                      

Smoothed by long fingers,                      

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,                      

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.                      

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,                      

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?                      

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,                      

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought                       in upon a platter,                      

I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;                      

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,                      

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,                      

And in short, I was afraid.                      

 

And would it have been worth it, after all,                      

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,                      

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,                      

Would it have been worth while,                      

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,                      

To have squeezed the universe into a ball                      

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,                      

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,                      

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--                      

If one, settling a pillow by her head                      

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;                      

That is not it, at all."                      

 

And would it have been worth it, after all,                      

Would it have been worth while,                      

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,                      

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that                       trail along the floor--                      

And this, and so much more?--                      

It is impossible to say just what I mean!                      

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on                       a screen:                      

Would it have been worth while                      

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,                      

And turning toward the window, should say:                      

"That is not it at all,                      

That is not what I meant, at all."                      

 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;                      

Am an attendant lord, one that will do                      

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,                      

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,                      

Deferential, glad to be of use,                      

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;                      

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;                      

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--                      

Almost, at times, the Fool.                      

 

I grow old ... I grow old ...                      

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.                      

 

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?                      

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.                      

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.                      

 

I do not think that they will sing to me.                      

 

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves                      

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back                      

When the wind blows the water white and black.                      

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea                      

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown                      

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.                    

                                                                          

"As Once the Winged Energy of Delight" by Rainer Maria Rilke

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions...For the god
wants to know himself in you.

"For The Record" by Adrienne Rich

The clouds and the stars didn't wage this war
the brooks gave no information
if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river
it was not taking sides
the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf
had no political opinions

and if here or there a house
filled with backed-up raw sewage
or poisoned those who lived there
with slow fumes, over years
the houses were not at war
nor did the tinned-up buildings

intend to refuse shelter
to homeless old women and roaming children
they had no policy to keep them roaming
or dying, no, the cities were not the problem
the bridges were non-partisan
the freeways burned, but not with hatred

Even the miles of barbed-wire
stretched around crouching temporary huts
designed to keep the unwanted
at a safe distance, out of sight
even the boards that had to absorb
year upon year, so many human sounds

so many depths of vomit, tears
slow-soaking blood
had not offered themselves for this
The trees didn't volunteer to be cut into boards
nor the thorns for tearing flesh
Look around at all of it

and ask whose signature
is stamped on the orders, traced
in the corner of the building plans
Ask where the illiterate, big-bellied
women were, the drunks and crazies,
the ones you fear most of all: ask where you were.

"Prospective Immigrants Please Note" By Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

"To Drink" by Jane Hirshfield

I want to gather your darkness

in my hands, to cup it like water

and drink.

I want this in the same way

as I want to touch your cheek –

it is the same –

the way a moth will come

to the bedroom window in late September,

beating and beating its wings against the cold glass,

the way a horse will lower

his long head to water, and drink,

and pause to lift his head and look,

and drink again,

taking everything in with the water,

everything.

"Even Because" by Ralph Angel

Because it all just breaks apart, and the pieces scatter and
       rearrange without much fanfare or notice.

Because you can't and don't remember the step that kicked up
       dust and left this planet—you'd give up even more now.

Because the body itself—the heart's

not dead but deeper, wrapped up in curtains, a different color,
      among the railings and the pigeons, the rooftops and
      walls—

for all you know it's a question of bread

or beer.

Because even love

returns.  The city's all brightness

and shadow, deckle-edged, bluer than air—there's no help
anywhere—you no longer know how to listen.

And love says, love—midnight to midnight,

already ablaze. And the boulevard—wide-open.  And the well-
        stocked crowdless market, and a lone taxi blears.

Even happiness—the way anger's come back to roost again.
        And joy, though joy's not in the ear or the eye.  On this
        walk.

The gulls hover offshore and the islands are speckled with fire.

Even love, even because.

"A Serenade in G Major" by Rod McKuen

You are not like anything
except yourself. The autumn you
the winter you the same. Your
cavities and mounds ignore all
similes. Your eyes are not the stars.
                    Not to be compared
                                    to satellites.

One day the latitudes of everything
will change, but not your breasts
or your smiles language. And not
the roots that are your legs that
lead to heaven. The luscious air
on summer evenings tricks me
into thinking I touch August
but I am not in touch with
summer or some season thing.
It's you on me or me on you
or us not anywhere at all
together or two gether. What
does comparison mean anyway
when rose is never asked
                     to vie with lily?

Some things alike, some not.
                             I have thought
that I had caught the smell
                             of honey once
when I was resting deep inside you
but it was only that sweet dominion
that is you, while making love
                            or making bread
or making fun of me when I am
being serious or silly about us.

When your eyes are heavy and
your mouth is as a whisper I detect
the sea but it is only heavy lidded
You and no imitation rolling ocean.

You are not like anything
except perhaps yourself. Even then
      You are never quite like You.

"A Nocturne for Hermes" by Rod McKuen

Love is mindless.
Give it directions and off it goes.
Provide it with purpose and lose it.
Excuse it for being only love
         and expect a confrontation.
Remind it of its duties
and it will stay in bed asleep.

But let us pretend it's a bit more balanced,
             just for the sake of pretending.

Suppose it's a rose forever opening.
A wise little child that won't grow old.
How do you keep its center
                               from darkening?
Always lean it toward the light.
Give it the afternoon off when you can,
but never a rest in the middle night.

"Dangerous Liasions" by Rod McKuen

I have fallen in love with the world
And I am aware that I have chosen
the most dangerous lover of them all.

I kiss the bare feet of the forenoon
undress the shadows all along the wall
and on non sunny days
                      I copulate with clouds.
I should be more prudent. The sun stings,
wilts, goes away. Clouds pass over
                                and are gone.

On evenings long and languid, I am long
and languid too, stretching out toward
the North Star, shimmering but unmoved.

There is bird song in the mornings. I
imagine, no I know, it is meant for only me.
Little sparrow, serenade me. Sing sweetly
lover, cover me.

Once I thought I'd charmed the breeze,
trees laughed at me. Foolish suitor of
the world you might have been less
                ambitious in your quest.
But love is love and I will do my very best
to please the lady.

Smokestacks also, not just nature, put
their wide black arms around my middle,
hold me, haunt me, want me to embrace
the fatal feted air they bellow, belch..

No help comes as I tramp on, enchanted
by the cities marble mansions, beguiled
by suburb shacks and their surroundings.
Sounds I hear are my beloved world's sighs.

Fouled faded factories too, eye in awe this
hapless lover, doomed to dream of world
embraces as he chases down the hill and
highways worn by other lovers who may
have missed the world's soft kisses.

I who chased the rainbows once have
been seen erasing phrases I punched out
and sent seaward in brown bottles with
               no destination preannounced.

A piece of ocean is not quite enough,
Some land lubber, even one who loves
me, cannot satisfy the yearning I have
learned from years of searching faces
when it was the world & all it's places
I was loving without knowing.

"With the voice of the field mouse..." by Paul Celan

WITH THE VOICE OF THE FIELDMOUSE
you squeak up to me,

a sharp
clip,
you bite your way through my shirt to the skin,

a cloth,
you slide across my mouth
midway through the words
I address to you, shadow,
to give you weight.

"With A Variable Key" by Paul Celan

With a variable key
you unlock the house in which
drifts the snow of that left unspoken.
Always what key you choose
depends on the blood that spurts
from your eye or your mouth or your ear.

You vary the key, you vary the word
that is free to drift with the flakes.
What snowball will form round the word
depends on the wind that rebuffs you.

"Count.." by Paul Celan

COUNT the almonds,
count what was bitter and kept you awake,
count me in:

I looked for your eye when you opened it, no one was looking at
you,
I spun that secret thread
on which the dew you were thinking
slid down to the jugs
guarded by words that to no one's heart found their way.

Only there did you wholly enter the name that is yours,
sure-footed stepped into yourself,
freely the hammers swung in the bell frame of your silence,
the listened for reached you,
what is dead put its arm round you also
and the three of you walked through the evening.

Make me bitter.
Count me among the almonds.

"Your hands full of hours.." by Paul Celan

YOUR HAND FULL OF HOURS, you came to me - and I said:
Your hair is not brown.
So you lifted it lightly on to the scales of grief; it weighed more
than I...

On ships they come to you and make it their cargo, then put it on
sale in the markets of lust -
You smile at me from the depth, I weep at you from the scale
that stays light.
I weep: Your hair is not brown, they offer brine from the sea and
you give them curls ...
You whisper: They're filling the world with me now, in your
heart I'm a hollow way still!
You say: Lay the leafage of years beside you - it's time you came
closer and kissed me!

The leafage of years is brown, your hair is not brown.

"Poetry" by Nichita Stanescu

Poetry is the weeping eye
it is the weeping shoulder
the weeping eye of the shoulder
it is the weeping hand
the weeping eye of the hand
it is the weeping soul
the weeping eye of the heel.
Oh, you friends,
poetry is not a tear
it is the weeping itself
the weeping of an uninvented eye
the tear of the eye
of the one who must be beautiful
of the one who must be happy.

"Distance" by Nichita Stanescu

Distance is the cog wheel
on the haunted axle of my hearing,
grinding fine the deadened mind
of that unborn god
waiting to be caught
by the earth's blue speed,
and carrying in a handled urn
the plucked heart - ours,
it's beating, it's heard, it's beating, it's heard,
a sphere in wild growth -
the roads are wet with tears,
memory frail and elastic,
a sling for stones, a gondola
drowned in childlike Venice's,
a tooth yanked from the cells with a string -
down the empty socket of Vesuvius. And you exist.

"Another Kind of Mathematics" by Nichita Stanescu

We know that one times one is one,
but an unicorn times a pear
have no idea what it is.
We know that five minus four is one
but a cloud minus a sailboat
have no idea what it is.
We know that eight
divided by eight is one,
but a mountain divided by a goat
have no idea what it is.
We know that one plus one is two,
but me and you, oh,
we have no idea what it is.

Oh, but a comforter
times a rabbit
is a red-headed one of course,
a cabbage divided by a flag
is a pig,
a horse minus a street-car
is an angel,
a cauliflower plus an egg
is an astragalus.

Only you and me
multiplied and divided
added and subtracted
remain the same...

Vanish from my mind!
Come back in my heart!

"A Poem" by Nichita Stanescu

Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn't you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?...

"I Am Dying" by Leonard Cohen

I am dying

because you have not

died for me

and the world

still loves you.

I wirte this because I know

that your kisses

are born blind

on the songs that touch you.

I don't want a purpose

in your life

I want to be lost among

your thoughts

the way you listen to New York City

when you fall asleep.

"Owning Everything" by Leonard Cohen

You worry that I will leave you.

I will not leave you.

Only strangers travel.

Owning everything,

I have nowhere to go.

"What?" by Ray Sweatman.

I don’t know why I bother

on this or that or any other

for I was never much of a son

and you not much of a mother

and Silvia Silvia Silvia

do you still dine upon poison dimes

in search of your missing father?

and Leadbelly too crying out

for just one drink of water,

what became my dear

of our simple honor?

so so random is the blood

now rising in our streets,

scattered bones and buried limbs

will this wine never cease?

And the wafer on the bed

where your head used to be,

where we nailed each other’s

flesh and hung like eternity?

So you say you’ve found a way

to escape the vicissitudes of karma,

wrapped up in the bloodless moon

of a bodiless nirvana,

And that Love was not to save

but to rent and tear asunder,

and at best could only tease,

like the phantom glow in

your window where the secret

light tickles in your sleep,

Like the oldest star falling

with all our noble thoughts

and deeds, always in the

distance and just out of reach.

"Music" by Mary Oliver

I tied together

a few slender reeds, cut

notches to breathe across and made

such music you stood

shock still and then

followed as I wandered growing

moment by moment

slant-eyed and shaggy, my feet

slamming over the rocks, growing

hard as horn, and there

you were behind me, drowning

in the music, letting

the silver clasps out of your hair,

hurrying, taking off

your clothes.

I can’t remember

where this happened but I think

it was late summer when everything

is full of fire and rounding to fruition

and whatever doesn’t,

or resists,

must lie like a field of dark water under

the pulling moon,

tossing and tossing.

In the brutal elegance of cities

I have walked down

the halls of hotels

and heard this music behind

shut doors.

Do you think the heart

is accountable?  Do you think the body

any more than a branch

of the honey locust tree,

hunting water,

hunching toward the sun,

shivering, when it feels

that good, into

white blossoms?

Or do you think there is a kind

of music, a certain strand

that lights up the otherwise

blunt wilderness of the body –

a furious

and unaccountable selectivity?

Ah well, anyway, whether or not

it was in late summer, or even

in our part of the world, it is all

only a dream, I did not

turn into the lithe goat god.  Nor did you come running

like that.

Did you?

"Te Iubesc" by Adrian Paunescu

Te iubesc cu toata toamna, te iubesc cu toata moartea,
Te iubesc cu toata viata, te iubesc cu tot ce esti,
Pentru tine lumineaza toate stinsele feresti.
Pentru tine se coboara din biblioteci si cartea,
Dar auzi ca e mai mare toamna asta decit noi,
Dar auzi un plug de berze ceru-n suflet ni-l rastoarna,
Te iubesc cu-ntreaga toamna, te iubesc cu-ntreaga iarna,
Tot ce vad in lumea mare iau in ochi si-mpart la doi,
Te iubesc cind nu mai este nici o umbra impotriva-ti,
Te iubesc din departare, te iubesc din trupul tau,
Te iubesc sub jugul dulce al parerilor de rau,
Sint actorul care joaca rolul ultimului crivat.
Te iubesc din tina insati, te iubesc din mine insumi,
Risul tau ce bine sade blind proteguit de plinsu-mi.

"There Were Nights..." by Paul Celan

Those were nights when it appeared to me that your eyes, which I fitted with large orange circles, would enkindle their cinders. Those nights the rain rarely fell. I opened the windows and stepped up naked on the window sill to gaze at the world. The trees of the forest advanced towards me, one by one, prostrate, a vanquished armada advancing to lay down their weapons. I sat motionless and the sky lowered the standard under which it had dispatched its armadas into battle. From a cranny you stared at me, how I stood there, unspeakably entrancing in my bloodstained gymnosophy: I was the single constellation the rain did not extinguish, I was the Great Southern Cross. Yes, those nights it was cumbersome to open up your veins, while the flames engulfed me, the fortress of urns was mine, I filled it with my blood, soon after I discharged the rival armada, rewarding it with cities and harbors, while the silvery panther lacerated the twilight which stalked me. I was Petronius and spilled my blood again among the roses. For each petal I stained you extinguished a torch. Do you recall? I was Petronius and you didn't entrance me.

"Sentimental Story" by Nichita Stanescu

Then we met more often.
I stood at one side of the hour,
you at the other,
like two handles of an amphora.
Only the words flew between us,
back and forth.
You could almost see their swirling,
and suddenly,
I would lower a knee,
and touch my elbow to the ground
to look at the grass, bent
by the falling of some word,
as though by the paw of a lion in flight.
The words spun between us,
back and forth,
and the more I loved you, the more
they continued, this whirl almost seen,
the structure of matter, the beginnings of things.

"The Golden Age of Love" by Nichita Stanescu

My hands are in love,
alas, my mouth loves -
and see, I am suddenly aware
that things are so close to me
I can hardly walk among them
without suffering.

It is a sweet feeling
of waking, of dreaming,
and I am here now, without sleep -
I clearly see the ivory gods,
I take them in my hands and
thrust them, laughing, in the moon
up to their sculpted hilts -
the wheel of an ancient ship, adorned
and spun by sailors.

Jupiter is yellow, Hera
the magnificent shades to silver.
I strike the wheel with my left hand and it moves.
It is a dance of sentiments, my love,
many a goddess of the air, between the two of us.
And I, the sail of my soul
billowed with longing,
look for you everywhere, and things come
ever closer,
crowding my chest, hurting me.

"A Poem" by Nichita Stanescu

Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn't you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?...

"Death of Europe" by Nicolae Sirius

Hissing snakes withdrew into underground forests:
Europe was a game
A cross
We carried in our scales.

Some speculate
That Europe is not dead
It still trades
And has recently raised
The price of uranium.
Its warships increase
In sophistication, and an angel
>From across the seas
Watches over her
As over an innocent, still unspoilt child.

Long ago
Someone said that Europe was a bloodbath
And even the stars,
Gazing at her tremulously,
Burn off
And grind into metal-gray dust.

Cannon-eyed metal wreaths rose
In her place.
As dargsmen, what would you know?
You have learned
To kiss and fondle the silicon.

I was told
Europe was a princess
And she became enamoured
Of a golden calf
She had met at a ball
(Just as a wave clings
To an oar)
And she wore her bridal gown
Hemmed about the restiveness of planets.

And everyone came to woo her
Offering her giant mother-of-pearls
Which later opened up
Like coffins.

She was sad, as if permeated
By the sorrow of autumn.

She was angry with Hitler, who wanted
To kidnap and conceal her under a rock
Of aversion.

She was Othello's disconsolate
Spouse; but one stormy night
She met a man who was to tell
All her misfortunes:
"Look, your gown is undone,
I think you're courting great danger;
Listen, don't try to make out
You're still a virginal bride;
Stop overacting - after all,
You're not a harlot
But a woman of prodigious elegance;
For you kings went barmy;
For you they die every day.
Stop deflecting
Or you may lose the moon
From the chignon of your hair."

There was a time
When Brahms saw her too. And Brancusi;
He loved her speechlessly
Offering her a Table of Silence
And sculpting her body
Into the raptures of the Endless Column.

"Days of Me" by Stuart Dischell

When people say they miss me,
I think how much I miss me too,
Me, the old me, the great me,
Lover of three women in one day,
Modest me, the best me, friend
To waiters and bartenders, hearty
Laugher and name rememberer,
Proud me, handsome and hirsute
In soccer shoes and shorts
On the ball fields behind MIT,
Strong me in a weightbelt at the gym,
Mutual sweat dripper in and out
Of the sauna, furtive observer
Of the coeducated and scantily clad,
Speedy me, cyclist of rivers,
Goose and peregrine falcon
Counter, all season venturer,
Chatterer-up of corner cops,
Groundskeepers, mothers with strollers,
Outwitter of panhandlers and bill
Collectors, avoider of levies, excises,
Me in a taxi in the rain,
Pressing my luck all the way home.

That's me at the dice table, baby,
Betting come, little Joe, and yo,
Blowing the coals, laying thunder,
My foot on top a fifty dollar chip
Some drunk spilled on the floor,
Dishonest me, evener of scores,
Eager accepter of the extra change,
Hotel towel pilferer, coffee spoon
Lifter, fervent retailer of others'
Fumor, blackhearted gossiper,
Poisoner at the well, dweller
In unsavory detail, delighted sayer
Of the vulgar, off course belier
Of the true me, empiric builder
Newly haircutted, stickerer-up
For pals, jam unpriser, medic
To the self-inflicted, attorney
To the self-indicted, petty accountant
And keeper of the double books,
Great divider of the universe
And all its forms of existence
Into its relationship to me,
Fellow trembler to the future,
Thin air gawker, apprehender
Of the frameless door.

"America" by Robert Creeley

America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.

Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world

you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.

People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.

Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back

what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be.

"Affirmation" by Donald Hall

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

"You Who Never Arrived..." by Rainer Maria Rilke

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

"Couplets" by David Lehman

Say the brokers: buy shares now.
Dance the orange: ask Rilke how.

The girls undress when no one looks.
The boys keep their noses in books.

The joker puts a color in every line,
Adds an ice cube to a glass of white wine.

To you I say good morning,
But the red sky is a warning.

The sea says no, not yet.
And you wonder what kind of pet you should get.

Open the orange and watch its perfume
Like molecules of dust in your sunny room.

You say you may have to eject.
I say OK, I will not reject.