One Day
Today I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.
So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and murder done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.
poem by Rupert Brooke (1913)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Man Parts the Water
The man parts the water with a simple stone,
turning when the laughter
of a child retraces the shattered waves.
The man remembers with a smile
the days when he walked the shore,
dancing with silver-eyed seagulls, and he
was always looking ahead as he
stands and tilts releasing stone,
watching it sail through the misty shore.
The child parts the water with shrieking laughter,
and dreams about the day he will knowingly smile
as his cocked man-hand reaches the stormy waves.
Watching the moon pull the scornful waves
that kick the sand onto the shore, now he’s
the ghost of a child that stands with a smile.
He parts the water with a simple stone,
listening to the moon’s blue shaken laughter
at a man awaiting his golden hour upon the murky shore.
The grains whisper into the wind. And the shore
is crowded with memories of waves,
filling a young boy’s face with laughter.
It permeates the darkness, yet he
still craves the stone
to bring the man’s euphoric smile.
Caught in a moment without laughter or smiles,
walking along the shore
he wishes upon a simple stone
for another chance to play and frolic in waves.
The child sees his reflection with an anxious smile, and he
becomes a man between the laughter.
And he will always remember the laughter,
and he will always long for an innocent smile
of waiting for the day that unknowingly he
could never return to the shore.
Churning as it breaks the waves,
the past is left in simple stone.
But for now there is laughter upon the shore,
riding along the whispering waves,
the child’s future still a simple stone.
(- for Nicolas Mathew)
poem by Matt Ullman
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A Strange Day
Give me your eyes
That i might see the blind man kissing my hands
The sun is humming
My head turns to dust as he plays on his knees
As he plays on his knees
And the sand
And the sea grows
I close my eyes
Move slowly through drowning waves
Going away on a strange day
And i laugh as i drift in the wind
Blind
Dancing on a beach of stone
Cherish the faces as they wait for the end
Sudden hush across the water
And we're here again
And the sand
And the sea grows
I close my eyes
Move slowly through drowning waves
Going away
On a strange day
My head falls back
And the walls crash down
And the sky
And the impossible
Explode
Held for one moment i remember a song
An impression of sound
Then everything is gone
Forever
A strange day
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Street-Children's Dance
NOW the earth in fields and hills
Stirs with pulses of the Spring,
Next-embowering hedges ring
With interminable trills;
Sunlight runs a race with rain,
All the world grows young again.
Young as at the hour of birth:
From the grass the daisies rise
With the dew upon their eyes,
Sun-awakened eyes of earth;
Fields are set with cups of gold;
Can this budding world grow old?
Can the world grow old and sere,
Now when ruddy-tasselled trees
Stoop to every passing breeze,
Rustling in their silken gear;
Now when blossoms pink and white
Have their own terrestrial light?
Brooding light falls soft and warm,
Where in many a wind-rocked nest,
Curled up 'neath the she-bird's breast,
Clustering eggs are hid from harm;
While the mellow-throated thrush
Warbles in the purpling bush.
Misty purple bathes the Spring:
Swallows flashing here and there
Float and dive on waves of air,
And make love upon the wing;
Crocus-buds in sheaths of gold
Burst like sunbeams from the mould.
Chestnut leaflets burst their buds,
Perching tiptoe on each spray,
Springing toward the radiant day,
As the bland, pacific floods
Of the generative sun
All the teeming earth o'errun.
Can this earth run o'er with beauty,
Laugh through leaf and flower and grain,
While in close-pent court and lane,
In the air so thick and sooty,
Little ones pace to and fro,
Weighted with their parents' woe?
Woe-predestined little ones!
Putting forth their buds of life
In an atmosphere of strife,
And crime breeding ignorance;
Where the bitter surge of care
Freezes to a dull despair.
Dull despair and misery
Lie about them from their birth;
Ugly curses, uglier mirth,
Are their earliest lullaby;
Fathers have they without name,
Mothers crushed by want and shame.
Brutish, overburthened mothers,
With their hungry children cast
Half-nude to the nipping blast;
Little sisters with their brothers
Dragging in their arms all day
Children nigh as big as they.
Children mothered by the street:
Shouting, flouting, roaring after
Passers-by with gibes and laughter,
Diving between horses' feet,
In and out of drays and barrows,
Recklessly, like London sparrows.
Mudlarks of our slums and alleys,
All unconscious of the blooming
World behind those housetops looming.
Of the happy fields and valleys,
Of the miracle of Spring
With its boundless blossoming.
Blossoms of humanity!
Poor soiled blossoms in the dust!
Through the thick defiling crust
Of soul-stifling poverty,
In your features may be traced
Childhood's beauty half effaced--
Childhood, stunted in the shadow
Of the light-debarring walls:
Not for you the cuckoo calls
O'er the silver-threaded meadow;
Not for you the lark on high
Pours his music from the sky.
Ah! you have your music too!
And come flocking round that player
Grinding at his organ there,
Summer-eyed and swart of hue,
Rattling off his well-worn tune
On this April afternoon.
Lovely April lights of pleasure
Flit o'er want-beclouded features
Of these little outcast creatures,
As they swing with rhythmic measure,
In the courage of their rags,
Lightly o'er the slippery flags.
Little footfalls, lightly glancing
In a luxury of motion,
Supple as the waves of ocean
In your elemental dancing,
How you fly, and wheel, and spin,
For your hearts too dance within.
Dance along with mirth and laughter,
Buoyant, fearless, and elate,
Dancing in the teeth of fate,
Ignorant of your hereafter
That with all its tragic glooms
Blindly on your future looms.
Past and future, hence away!
Joy, diffused throughout the earth,
Centre in this moment's mirth
Of ecstatic holiday:
Once in all their lives' dark story,
Touch them, Fate! with April glory.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Believe It Or Not
Believe it or not
Ive been waiting for you to come through
Love of my life
Believe it or not
Ive been waiting for you to come through
Love of my life
And though the hour grew later and later
I would hold on for one more heartbeat
While my friends around me were calling
Today, today, today, today
As strange as it seems
I remember your face from before
Believe it or not
Before you and I were washed up
On this alien shore
As strange as that seems
Though the hour grew later and later
Still Id hold on for one more heartbeat
While my friends around me were calling
Today, today, today, today
Today the world seems brighter
Light and bright and right somehow
I could not have held on tighter
Waiting for the past to come to pass, no
Once in a dream Ive seen myself through your eyes
This you should know
Wading the stream that flows in between you and i
Once in a dream
And though the hour grows later and later
I would hold on for one more heartbeat
While my friends around me were calling
Today, today, today, today
song performed by by James Taylor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Queensland Opal
Opal, little opal, with the red fire glancing,
Set my blood a-spinning, set my pulse a-stir,
Strike the harp of memory, set my dull heart dancing
Southward to the Sunny Land and the love of Her!
Opal, shining opal, let them call you luckless jewel,
Let them curse or let them covet, you are still my heart's desire,
You that robbed the sun and moon and green earth for fuel
To gather to your milky breast and fill your veins with fire!
Green of fluttering gum-leaves above dim water-courses,
Red of rolling dust-clouds, blue of summer skies,
Flash of flints afire beneath the hoofs of racing horses,
Sunlight and moonlight and light of lovers' eyes
Pink clasping hands amid a Southern summer gloaming,
Green of August grasses, white of dew-sprung pearls,
Grey of winging wild geese into the Sunset homing,
Twined with all the kisses of a Queen of Queensland girls!
poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Lightly Come or Lightly Go
Lightly come or lightly go:
Though thy heart presage thee woe,
Vales and many a wasted sun,
Oread let thy laughter run,
Till the irreverent mountain air
Ripple all thy flying hair.
Lightly, lightly -- - ever so:
Clouds that wrap the vales below
At the hour of evenstar
Lowliest attendants are;
Love and laughter song-confessed
When the heart is heaviest.
poem by James Joyce
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That Summer Afternoon
That summer was not easy on us
But one afternoon the clouds came
And the shadows gave way to quiet light
As we walked to the park half regretting
Having cursed the heat
We were tired of summer, and afraid of winter
Lying by me, you read a book, occasionally
Turning your head to see what I was doing
But I was reading too
And I would bend over to your side
And kiss you lightly on the head
It was a quiet summer afternoon, and
We had all life can offer
The rest being vanity and excess
I flipped a page and turned to you
To kiss you on the head
It was the last of that hot summer
But winter would be warm
poem by Cesar Nascimento
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The Father
The evening found us whom the day had fled,
Once more in bitter anger, you and I,
Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing
Our anger would not decently let die,
But dragged between us, shamed and shivering
Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard,
Until we lost the sense of all we said,
And knew not who first spoke the fatal word.
It seemed that even every kiss we wrung
We killed at birth with shuddering and hate,
As if we feared a thing too passionate.
However close we clung
One hour the next hour found us separate,
Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue.
To-night we quarrelled over one small head,
Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud
Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead
First rapture of our wild, estranging blood.
You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes,
We breathed like beasts in thickets, on the wall
Our shadows in huge challenge seemed to rise,
The room grew dark with anger. Yet through all
The shame and hurt and pity of it you were
Still strangely and imperishably dear,
As one who loves the wild day none the less
That breaks in bitter hands the buds of Spring,
Whose cold hand stops the breath of loveliness,
And drives the wailing ghost of beauty past,
Making the rose, — even the rose, a thing
For pain to be remembered by at last.
I said: 'My son shall wear his father's sword.'
You said: 'Shall hands once blossoms at my breast
Be stained with blood?' I answered with a word
More bitter, and your own, the bitterest
Stung me to sullen anger, and I said:
'My son shall be no coward of his line
Because his mother choose'; you turned your head
And your eyes grew implacable in mine.
And like a trodden snake you turned to meet
The foe with sudden hissing… then you smiled,
And broke our life in pieces at my feet,
'Your child?' you said: 'Your child?'
poem by Muriel Stuart
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Moon Bathers
Falls from her heaven the Moon, and stars sink
burning
Into the sea where blackness rims the sea,
Silently quenched. Faint light that the waves hold
Is only light remaining; yet still gleam
The sands where those now-sleeping young moon-bathers
Came dripping out of the sea and from their arms
Shook flakes of light, dancing on the foamy edge
Of quiet waves. They were all things of light
Tossed from the sea to dance under the Moon —
Her nuns, dancing within her dying round,
Clear limbs and breasts silvered with Moon and waves
And quick with windlike mood and body's joy,
Withdrawn from alien vows, by wave and wind
Lightly absolved and lightly all forgetting.
An hour ago they left. Remains the gleam
Of their late motion on the salt sea-meadow,
As loveliest hues linger when the sun's gone
And float in the heavens and die in reedy pools —
So slowly, who shall say when light is gone?
poem by John Freeman
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The Lost Embassy
THE lilies lean to the white, white rose,
The sweet limes send to the blossomed trees,
Soft kisses borne by the golden bees--
And all the world is alive, awake,
And glad to the heart for the summer's sake.
From her tower window the Princess leant,
Where the white light butterflies came and went;
She dropped soft kisses by twos and threes:
'White butterflies mine, will you carry these
To my Prince in prison? for they, who knows,
May break the spell that has held him close
And wake him and win him to stand up free
And laugh--in the sun--with me!'
White lilies, gold in the golden sun,
White Princess, gold in your golden gown--
Far off lies the sad, enchanted town!
Bright wings, light wings, white wings that tire,
Though they carry the flower of the heart's desire--
Will you trust to these, too white, too slight
To bring back the fruit of heart's delight?
All round and about the spell-bound town
The ways are dusty, the woods are brown;
There are no green coverts, no welcoming flowers
For little weary butterfly wings,
No dew, no lilies, no glad live things.
'Neath the sky of steel and the brazen sun
White wings, kiss-laden, dropped one by one:
By twos and threes they dropped by the way,
And only one reached the grim, gray tower
Where, witched from his kingdom, the poor Prince lay--
One poor tired butterfly, smirched and gray
With the dust of the town and the weary way,
And it lit on the Prince's hand and died.
'Bright wings, light wings, white wings,' he cried
'You, only you, might have lived and borne
My prayer to my love in her tower forlorn,
And brought back the kiss that could set me free--
She might have broken the spell that lies
On my foolish heart and my foolish eyes--
But no live butterflies come my way!'
The winds are cold and the skies are gray,
And all the lilies died yesterday;
The Princess leans from her steel-wrought tower
To watch for her butterflies hour by hour.
Poor little Princess, you watch in vain!
Butterflies die where the green wood browns,
And kisses sent to enchanted towns
Never come home again.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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On being called a considerate soul who has good memory
I'd rather consider less
And turn into a worry-free princess
It's a misery to wake in the mid of the night
Considering all things that could've been possible
And no way found for them to be possible
Being considerate?
I'd rather be a magnate
I'd rewire my memory too
If brain science got a breakthrough
Long live will the memory of laughter
The memory of honor
But not for the memory of an unrequited love
Enchanted by a sweet smile
Though love can be as pure as a white dove
And a smile can be very attractive
The disappointment that follows is hard to shove
How foolish is the memory cell
That holds fast to a cute smile
The pains that follow
Are far more than poetry words can tell
If the memory cell has wings
It'll probably turn into a moth
Flying into a blazing fire
And thinking itself a light-seeking pioneer
Oh, I'd better donate the foolish cell to some wise guy
But finally
I decide to keep it and give it another try
After all
What if there really is a considerate soul in me
Soul, please, be considerate
And help rewire the memory cell for me
poem by Cathy Shao
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I'm Very Young Today
I drank the sky, the summer sky
And watched the orchestrated trees
Symphony with woodwind breeze
And 'Lovin' Spoonful' on the radio
In long grass where I lay
As children's laughter narrates this play
I'm very young today
I'm very young today..
Your strawberry lips with a forever kiss
As I slumbered to a faraway shore
Setting sun takes pictures for the memory
That the wind alone will store
And Dylan on the radio
On white sand 'Lay Lady Lay'
I'm very young today
I'm very young today.
And now after all these years, time pushed you away
Love burns bright within me, just to find you in the dark
Dreams just lend me moments
Stargazing in the park
I never held you tight enough
But would have crushed you like a flower.
Yet when your hand stroked my cheek
- I wasn't tough
God give us one more hour
And Beach Boys on the radio
I close my eyes and sway
I'm very old today
I'm very old today.
poem by Kevin East
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Joseph
If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams
Of bliss and blasphemy came true,
If skies were green and snow were gold,
And you loved me as I love you;
O long light hands and curled brown hair,
And eyes where sits a naked soul;
Dare I even then draw near and burn
My fingers in the aureole?
Yes, in the one wise foolish hour
God gives this strange strength to a man.
He can demand, though not deserve,
Where ask he cannot, seize he can.
But once the blood's wild wedding o'er,
Were not dread his, half dark desire,
To see the Christ-child in the cot,
The Virgin Mary by the fire?
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Old School House At Ruby
In old school house yard at Ruby a dark brown shorthorn cow
And leghorn pullets cackling beneath the cypress bough
This school must hold good memories and memories live somehow
Here in their lunch hour children played but where are those children now? .
The old school room now a tea room has undergone some change
And if past pupil came back here he'd find the place quite strange
Where is the desk he sat at? the blackboard is not there
And time has brought change to Ruby as it has done elsewhere.
The old school house at Ruby a memory of past years
Here Ruby children sang and laughed and shed their fledgeling tears
And do those children of Ruby who now live far away
In dreams return to old school house and Ruby childhood day? .
The old school house at Ruby a memory of the past
And time has brought about some change and time bring change too fast
This school must hold good memories and memories live somehow
Here in their lunch hour children played but where are those children now? .
poem by Francis Duggan
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What Were They Like?
Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?
Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone gardens illumined pleasant ways.
Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after their children were killed
there were no more buds.
Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
it is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
There is an echo yet
of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.
poem by Denise Levertov
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Yesterday Now Just A Memory
Now these days gone by
I see you only in my dream
you're always there somewhere
but never here next to me
my head held low
I had to let you go
I knew it had to be
now you must set me free
Like yesterday now just a memory
torn and frayed
love was lost as it would seem
to this scene we already played
as I walk on alone
through this bitter December cold
with nothing left to hold
there's nothing left here to try
with yesterday now just a memory
promises we made are forever gone
these tears turned to a heart of stone
all these years on this highway I roam
So many roads I traveled down
gone town to town
but with yesterday now just a memory
none never lead me back home
Spiritwind-2009
poem by Spiritwind Wood
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Rain
Since I lived a stranger in the City of Hsün-yang
Hour by hour bitter rain has poured.
On few days has the dark sky cleared;
In listless sleep I have spent much time.
The lake has widened till it almost joins the sky;
The clouds sink till they touch the water's face.
Beyond my hedge I hear the boatmen's talk;
At the street-end I hear the fisher's song.
Misty birds are lost in yellow air;
Windy sails kick the white waves.
In front of my gate the horse and carriage-way
In a single night has turned into a river-bed.
A Fairy Tale
All things grew upwards, foul and fair:
The great trees fought and beat the air
With monstrous wings that would have flown;
But the old earth clung to her own,
Holding them back from heavenly wars,
Though every flower sprang at the stars.
But he broke free: while all things ceased,
Some hour increasing, he increased.
The town beneath him seemed a map,
Above the church he cocked his cap,
Above the cross his feather flew
Above the birds and still he grew.
The trees turned grass; the clouds were riven;
His feet were mountains lost in heaven;
Through strange new skies he rose alone,
The earth fell from him like a stone,
And his own limbs beneath him far
Seemed tapering down to touch a star.
He reared his head, shaggy and grim,
Staring among the cherubim;
The seven celestial floors he rent,
One crystal dome still o'er him bent:
Above his head, more clear than hope,
All heaven was a microscope.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Then I Would Love You
Were you to come,
With your clear, gray eyes
As calmly placid as, in summer's heat,
At noontide lie the sultry skies;
With your dark, brown hair
As smoothly quiet as the leaves
When stirs no cooling breath of air;
And shorn of smile, your full, red lips
Prest firmly close as the chaliced bud,
Before the nectar-quaffing bee ere sips;
I would not know you.
I would not love you.
But should you come
With your love-bright eyes
Dancing gaily as, on summer's eve,
The stars adown the Western skies;
With your hair, wind-caught
And circled round your shining face
In fashion which no hand ere wrought;
And your full, red lips poised saucily,
As the slender moon midst an hundred stars,
And held aloof in daring taunt to me,
Then I would know you,
Then I would love you.
poem by Joseph Seamon Cotter
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The End of Love
WHO shall forget till his last hour be come,--
Until the useful service of the dust
Hath drawn the emptying cerements in and in;--
Until the Earth hath eaten love and lust,
Mirth, Beauty, and their kin . . .
Who shall forget that hour
That night unstarred, that day ungarlanded;
Where fell the petals of that fadeless flower?
When every word was said
That long had bared frustrate and savage teeth,
Leashed in the perishable thong of days,
And whipped to words of praise!
When every ill, and each ingratitude,
Each joy misnamed,
Each deed misunderstood,
Was flogged into the daylight, halt, and maimed,
Out of its bier, to bear the day's disgust--
Out of its decent bed
To beat Love's tortured head
Into the troubled and uncertain dust.
Who can forget the naked hour profane,
When Love fled from us, shrieking through the dark,
His torch blown backward by the hurricane
Licking his dreadful features with its tongue,
While his mouth spat a curse at every spark,
And a scourged menace flung?
Thou wert that dreadful thing!
O Beautiful, O Rare, O Breath of rose,
O Spirit as impalpable as Spring!
How have I held thee, then? Too long, too close?
For it was thou, was thou, who left me thus,
With each sweet thing, with all the lovely host
That turning stared at us,
And, shuddering, gave up their frailest ghost!
Oh! to remember! Oh! to hear the tune
That Love first sang to us, that happy day;
When over us was furled his radiant wing.
Oh! for that one May moment. Not to lose
Its greenest leaf, or miss its singlest spray
So that this hour by that forgotten day
Might be all buried by the buds of Spring
That soft winds beat,--not bruise,--
To make a bridal bed for June
From the pale shroud of May.
O Love, O Love! There was not any need
For thee to die, for me to be bereft,
Our garden to be left
To nettle and to weed,--
To whips of rain when the chid wind was wroth.
Surely by some word, some sigh, had saved us both?
Could everything be lost,
All torn and tossed
Between thy speech and mine? Could all our vows,
And all our lovely life be laid so low,
And God fall on His face within the house
At first marauder's blow?
Yea, it was so:
And all of pride and pleasure, peace and power,
All Life's rich fruit and flower,
Died, as least darnel dies, in that dread hour.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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