45.

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights, heart, you saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
     With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives, alas! away.

  I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
  Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

50.

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

who is the raven
and who is the hawk
and who is the neighborhood sparrow

with dirty feet and spotted breast
tipping back beakfuls
which are drops of spilled coffee

A Midrash of Yael

 i.

Heber joined with Jabin -- against the tribe of our ancestors -- for profit. As a result of his alliance, we lived apart, near a solitary tree and a hasty road. Heber believed that Jabin was his friend, that we were protected. But when he traveled with the caravan, I was not safe.

Soldiers rode up to my tent, three or four of them, stuffed and ugly, waving spears and swords, demanding my hospitality. There was no one near to ward them off, and I learned that they were easier to satisfy than to resist. Satisfied, they wouldn't bruise me.

When Heber returned from his business, I couldn't tell him the truth. He had never cared for me deeply, we shared little, and he never stayed long. I was afraid he'd send me away, alone, and then what would I do?

ii.

At dusk he came to me, filthy and frantic. He had come to my tent before, but this time was different. He did not swagger as they usually did. He was wild-eyed, and he trembled. The aura of the battlefield was on him -- the dusty sweat and blood on his ankles, the furious madness. And somehow, the blood he tracked into my tent rubbed off on to me, and I was overcome by ferocity. I , too, became a soldier, and my tent, a battlefield.

But I was careful; I knew from painful experience that he could overpower me. I poured him fresh milk, assured him that he was a great warrior and a strong man, that he would never be defeated. I lulled him into a satiated sleep. But the more I soothed him, the higher my own blood was raised. By the time he snored, I was engorged.

As he slept, I drove my hatred through his damned head with all my might until he was dead. In that moment, I was stronger than 900 men. The peg and the mallet felt alive in my hand. Even the terrible crunch of his skull, the splat of brains and blood on my clothes and rugs did not bother me. I knew that Sisera had been sent to me to die.

There was no use hiding what I had done -- he was an important man, and I wasn't clever enough to conceal the deed. I had nothing left to lose. I beckoned the leader into my tent, saying, "Come, I will show you the man you are looking for." He entered, looked strangely at my face, and then saw the bloody corpse, sunken and staining my pillows. He whooped with joy! Laughing, embracing me, lifting and spinning me, he cried out, "Yael! Yael, savior of Israel!" The other soldiers rushed in to join, but it was only later, when I was brought to the tent of Deborah the Prophet, that I began to understand the consequences of my strange rage.

iii.

I've dwelt in the tent of Deborah ever since, though she rarely comes here anymore. In her old age, she lives in the city, far from the wilderness and the memory of battle. Sometimes she visits me after sitting under her palm of visions. Over tea, she entreats me to come with her to the city where there is comfort, security, and companionship. But I am comfortable and secure here, in this innocent tent. Colorful rugs cushion my steps; the wind, my neighbor, sings me to sleep; sturdy pegs remind me who I am. Alone, in a tent, is how I will die.

in memory, and also in life,
you are outside time's structure
-- as love is

Sonnet #44

by William Shakespeare

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
  Receiving nought by elements so slow
  But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

praying for closure in several places
openness in others
and acceptance to be in uncertainty

found poem

and we see spider silk and standards of ravishing frivolity corrupt an audience with pleasure. rubber flowers, reflective glass and carnival acts objectify variously as beautiful manners, bluster inseparable from fury. the overall air of strangeness extraordinarily fluid inspired by illumination create nonsense really intensely, but kind of unreadable: jar of fox bones or something similar.

(The New Yorker, May 7, 2012)

when the world was crumbling

perhaps a sad and anxious pollen infects us

but poets continue to breathe and distill

so the rest can nod our heads

yes.

hug the poet closest to you often

the reward will be yours

Lifting Belly (an excerpt)

by Gertrude Stein

 

Kiss my lips. She did.
Kiss my lips again she did.
Kiss my lips over and over and over again she did.
I have feathers.
Gentle fishes.
Do you think about apricots. We find them very beautiful. It is not alone their color it is their seeds that charm us. We find it a change.
Lifting belly is so strange.
I came to speak about it.

beautiful thank you

the holy, hidden heart

as it happens, grew

this day made fresh

may not be to order

but is what we have

where are you now
and where am I
and where is that honeybee headed

deep night birdsong
slowly lifts the drudge
of a saddened heart

when a window is open
and the heart is not bound
to create false smallness

16 Years

by my very inception I am
bound to you, sparked by desire
nutrients united in flesh

nurtured by time and mystery
beating, bleeding, secreting
my pledge to bend as you beseech

ribbons of flesh, boxes that are not hollow
whisper the letters of your name
loosening the hold

La Fuite de la Lune (The Escape of the Moon)

by Oscar Wilde

To outer senses there is peace,
A dreamy peace on either hand,
Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.

Save for a cry that echoes shrill
From some lone bird disconsolate;
A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.

And suddenly the moon withdraws
Her sickle from the lightening skies,
And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

Oscar Wilde was arrested on April 6, 1895. Homosexuality was classified as a crime in England at the time, and Wilde was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to two years of hard labor.

Tuesday Night Blues

don't ease me in
to olam ha'bah
I've been all night long coming home

I beg of you
hypnotize me
until we meet again

switch off for balance
turn the page
seek pure intentions

shift your gaze
to the original dreams of your heart
and hope your route is blessed with peace

you hold so much of the power
between us, so much
of the mystery

the eyes of your heart
unseen but for the glow
of knowing and being known

through tired words
romance languages
and holy tongues

this infernal structure
that to a soul is unity
is among your greatest gifts

and though I fight
your soundtrack
I know it to be true

if only I could hear you
ask me to dance
in the moonlight

Sonnet XVII

by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
... risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

will you drink more often
if your water is flavored with flesh
or will you stay stubborn

with dry gums and dashed dreams
wincing at each in-breath
inadvertently hitting the wrong keys

again you have your personal code
found ever at your elbow
and an uncapped pen

it was that look, from over there,
that primed the well
for drawing

again you offer your matching gift
of silence from afar
when your breath in my ear

would quench this thirst.
an empty bucket on a rope
dangles over a blank page

setting a setting
to convey intrigue
and coax

secrets encoded in color
evocative of what is not
yet open

a rolled wax candle,
burned just at it's long wick's tip
in our matching hue

not every dream
is a good poem
but every poem is a dream

Nothing Twice

by Wislawa Szymborska

translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

your face - as clear a vision
a conjuring, a plea
an ideal moment in a possible future

your voice - an echo in a tunnel
to my weak heart
unheard and unspoken

I will surely disintegrate if I am too far
down your earthen path
when I am so used to sand

this world - though stitched
with golden thread
defines the drape behind which you keep

silence amplifies our love
and our dreams of an ideal moment
in a possible future

and in our bravery - when we speak
our radiant joy, though it will not last,
will be a shard collected

what is never framed
cannot beautify, but sits instead
unloved in a pile

under the Nile, the silt
flows under the boats though
no one notices

smiles from beyond surround us
so sign up for more
and be satisfied

Gentle Admonition

thinking about doing
what is right is not the same
as doing what is right

what is most important
only has impact
if it is made most important

sunshine and birdsong
seep into your soul
only when you venture outside

so venture and make
your soul what is right
let light seep in and impact

Those who turn the many to tzedakah shall shine like the stars
-- Daniel 12:3

walk strong and point so
what is far away and continuous
appears as a point on the horizon

despite a dirty window
or our ugly impositions
a blue sky's abundant beauty

Occupy (11/9/11)

acknowledge the reality
assert your power
peaceably assemble and make your voices heard

we may not sit together
in quiet conversation
I fear

you come running to love
but meet a closed gate instead.
and yet,

you come running again --
all the world should learn
to love the way you do

Into A Fall

you live in my lap
as I drive through the wind
and struggle to breathe