Please stay!
Cried the daisies
In their summer guise.
But the bee
Persuaded me
To do otherwise.
Persuasion
Reply
Tag Archives: poetry
Against Order
The arches found the city which the river underlies.
The tall cathedral towers are aspiring to the skies.
We would all be very happy in that geometric land
Some above and some below, but each according to a plan.
The rich are the deserving and the poor accept their lot
And the rich have mausoleums and the poor will get a plot.
Meanwhile, what symmetry and balance we have bought!
Did anybody notice that the pieces fit so neatly
You could jumble up the city once and fill it in completely?
You could jumble up the city like a set of building blocks
Collect them when they’ve fallen and return them to their box.
The Gargoyle Repudiates Religion
No mere cathedral is complete
for all it has a floor, walls, and a roof.
Behind me! — I would see
the world just as it is in truth.
I turn my ass toward faith,
toward teachings without proof.
Believe You Me
Always on time, is something I’m.
Always seemly, yes, extremely.
And polite? Oh, very, quite.
Don’t crack knuckles, won’t stamp feet.
My room, my handwriting, both are neat.
Never cry unless I’m hurt.
Never ask for more dessert.
Tie my shoes before I’m told.
Eat my food before it’s cold.
Respect old people ‘cause they’re old.
Ever lie? Oh, no – not I!
The Lost Child
Little one, what have you heard, and how?
That grave-stones cluster on the hill’s cold brow
and wanderers are lost without a sound
beneath the moon, when the hard winds blow.
I hid here in the grass, and hide here now.
Little one, what have you seen, and where?
The dead and deathless wail upon the air;
the living will not go abroad for fear,
but build their fires up high, and sit, and stare
into the dark. I have been there.
Little one, what meaning do you find?
I wish to live, to live! Death is not kind.
The dying do not leave this world behind.
Alphabet, Schmalphabet – W, w
Worm, worm, worry-wart
Wriggling underground.
What should worms be worried for,
Hiding safe and sound?
If it were not for just one thing
They’d all be happy fellows:
But here’s what really worries worms:
They haven’t any elbows.
Alphabet, Schmalphabet – Y, y
“Yes, yes, yes!” yells young Yvonne,
Yelling loudly all day long
Yelling, yowling, yelping, howling,
In the kitchen, on the lawn,
Caterwauling in the hallway,
“Yes, yes, yes!” from dusk till dawn;
Yelling till her mother wonders,
“How long can this noise go on?”
Yelling till her father tells her,
“Yes, all right! Go on, Yvonne!
Do what you wish, do what you want to,
Only please stop yelling so!”
But Yvonne cries, “No, no, no!”
Alphabet, Schmalphabet – F, f
Flying floating free and slow
High or in between or low
Flying’s easy if you try
Take two steps and grab the sky
Flying all last night I found
Air is friendlier than ground
Flying slower than the wind
I took the moonlight in my hand
Flying through the midnight trees
I left the moonlight on the leaves
Flying must have been a dream
But that’s not the way it seemed.
Spanish Dancer
(translated from the German of Ranier Maria Rilke)
As fire lives in the cold matchstick
Before its striking, which when struck
Flicks out white tongues of flame from every side —
So she, within that curious circle, side to side,
Her body quick and hot and bright
Darts out, and back, and dances out again —
And suddenly she blazes up in flame.
Her kindled eyes ignite her hair,
And she with perfect skill whirls up her skirt
Into that swirling pyre,
From out of which, like writhing snakes,
Her naked arms rise rattling, waked by fire.
But then – as if the fire pressed her too close,
She spins it up into a ball – and casts it off,
And spurns it with her heel and with her eye
Imperious it lies, still raging, still alive,
Fueled with itself, and not to be denied –
Till she, unflinching, lifts her face up sweetly
Heavenward, with gentle, loving smile,
And stamps it out with small, firm feet.
Words: my translation of Spanische Tänzerin by Ranier Maria Rilke (ca. 1906) [public domain in U.S.]
Image: Dancer in Pigalle by Gino Severinix (1912) [public domain in U.S.]
Haiku (McCall, Idaho)
Fly sang his death song
All afternoon, mourning sky
Beyond his reaching.
Bag of Anything 