Tube Station
The tube lift mounts,
sap in a stem,
And blossoms its load,
a black, untidy rose.
The fountain of the escalator
curls at the crest,
breaks and scatters
A winnow of men,
a sickle of dark spray.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Polyphony In A Cathedral
Music curls
In the stone shells
Of the arches, and rings
Their stone bells.
Music lips
Each cold groove
Of parabolas' laced
Warp and woof,
And lingers round nodes
Of the ribbed roof
Chords open
Their flowers among
The stone flowers; blossom;
Stalkless hang.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Black On Black
Serrations of chimneys
Stone-black perforate
Velvet-black dark.
A tree coils in core of darkness.
My swinging
Hands
Incise the night.
A man slips into a doorway,
Black hole in blackness, and drowns there.
A second man passing traces
The diagram of his steps
On invisible pavement. Rain
Draws black parallel threads
Through the hollow of air.
Submitted by Steohen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Cats 1
To walk as you walk, green eye, smiler, not
Even ostentatiously alone but simply
Alone ... arching the back in courteous discourtesy,
Gathering the body as a dancer before an unworthy
Audience, treading earth scantly - a task to be done
And done with, girt (curt introvert) for private
Precise avoidance of the undesired,
Pride-attired, generalissimo
Knife-eyed, bisector of moonshine with indigo
Shadow, scorner of earth-floor, flaunter of
Steel-hard sickle curve against the sky ... !
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Wet City Night
Light drunkenly reels into shadow;
Blurs, slurs uneasily;
Slides off the eyeballs:
The segments shatter.
Tree-branches cut arc-light in ragged
Fluttering wet strips.
The cup of the sky-sign is filled too full;
It slushes wine over.
The street-lamps dance a tarentella
And zigzag down the street:
They lift and fly away
In a wind of lights.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Music
This shape without space,
This pattern without stuff,
This stream without dimension
Surrounds us, flows through us,
But leaves no mark.
This message without meaning,
These tears without eyes
This laughter without lips
Speaks to us but does not
Disclose its clue.
These waves without sea
Surge over us, smooth us.
These hands without fingers
Close-hold us, caress us.
These wings without birds
Strong-lift us, would carry us
If only the one thread broke.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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A Black Single Rose.
A single black rose.
A single black rose to carry the load,
A single black rose to turn the road,
A single black rose to touch the soul,
A single black rose to widen your hole,
A single black rose to melt your heart,
A single black rose to force a start,
A single black rose to make you cry,
A single black rose to make you dry,
A single black rose to help you climb,
A single black rose to make you lie,
A single black rose to take a life,
A single black rose to take away strife.
poem by Natasha Ligons
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Sea
1
(Windless Summer)
Between the glass panes of the sea are pressed
Patterns of fronds, and the bronze tracks of fishes.
2
(Winter)
Foam-ropes lasso the seal-black shiny rocks,
Noosing, slipping and noosing again for ever.
3
(Windy Summer)
Over-sea going, under returning, meet
And make a wheel, a shell, to hold the sun.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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~ My Hidden Stem ~
I give you my rose, yet you see it so beautiful all around, the petals so blooming and so lovely, but look at the stem which is my stem, the green root of nevergazing attractivness, that which is hidden, that which is the real and genuine beauty, my nights of eternal desire lie within the stem, but you only see the outside beauty of the painted red petals, the power, the force, the passion, the fountain that spring forth the lifted rose, is found on my stem. For beauty can be easily found, but sheer beauty is not, and you must find me and travel as deep, as lenthly and beyond.
poem by Dandy leo jr.
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O
Old women look intently at Nothing when the doctor
announces a cancer, dark fruit, under the
shrunk left breast.
Girls' hands hold Nothing when the train sucks their
men from the platform and scoops them down the
slipway of rail.
Nothing beats in deafened ears on the empty and
godless altars of mountain tops.
Nothing is the final strength of the strong: the
last poison on the crumpling lips of the weak.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Flight Of Stairs
Stairs fly as straight as hawks;
Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing
At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching.
Stairs sway at the height of their flight
Like a melody in Tristan;
Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers
Before they close them.
They curiously investigate
The shells of buildings,
A hollow core,
Shell in a shell.
Useless to produce their path to infinity
Or turn it to a moral symbol,
For their flight is ambiguous, upwards or downwards as you please;
Their fountain is frozen,
Their concertina is silent.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Epitaph For Our Children
Blame us for these who were cradled and rocked in our chaos;
Watching our sidelong watching, fearing our fear;
Playing their blind-man's-bluff in our gutted mansions,
Their follow-my-leader on a stair that ended in air.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Chaplin
The sun, a heavy spider, spins in the thirsty sky.
The wind hides under cactus leaves, in doorway corners. Only the wry
Small shadow accompanies Hamlet-Petrouchka's march - the slight
Wry sniggering shadow in front of the morning, turning at noon, behind towards night.
The plumed cavalcade has passed to tomorrow, is lost again;
But the wisecrack-mask, the quick-flick-fanfare of the cane remain.
Diminuendo of footsteps even is done:
Only remain, Don Quixote, hat, cane, smile and sun.
Goliaths fall to our sling, but craftier fates than these
Lie ambushed - malice of open manholes, strings in the dark and falling trees.
God kicks our backsides, scatters peel on the smoothest stair;
And towering centaurs steal the tulip lips, the aureoled hair,
While we, craned from the gallery, throw our cardboard flowers
And our feet jerk to tunes not played for ours.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Don Juan
Under the lips and limbs, the embraces, faces,
Under the sharp circumference, the brightness,
Under the fence of shadows,
Is something I am seeking;
Under the faces a face,
Under the new an old or a not-yet-come-to;
Under the voices a peace.
Am I a darkness all your flames must light?
A mirror all your eyes must look into -
That dares not yet reflect the neutral sky,
The empty eye of the sky?
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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A Single Black Rose
A single Black Rose to turn the tide
A single Black Rose to make one die
A single Black Rose to ensnare the soul
A single Black Rose to widen that hole
A single Black Rose to melt the heart
A single Black Rose to force a start
A single Black Rose to entwine the bodies
A single Black Rose to dictate the deaths of these
A single Black Rose to lie upon her breast
A single Black Rose to stop the tears from soaking his vest
A single Black Rose to mourn this memory
A single Black Rose to become a plot in this cemetery
A single Black Rose to take a life
A single Black Rose to end his strife.
(8/21/2007)
poem by Michael Koelliker
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Never
Suddenly, desperately
I thought, "No, never
In millions of minutes
Can I for one second
Calm-leaving my own self
Like clothes on a chair-back
And quietly opening
The door of one house
(No, not one of all millions)
Of blood, flesh and brain,
Climb the nerve-stair and look
From the tower, from the windows
Of eyes not my own: ...
No, never, no, never!"
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Epilogue
"Why can't you say what you mean straight out in prose?"
Well, say it yourself: then say "It's that, but more,
Or less perhaps, or not that way, or not
That after all." The meaning of a song
Might be an undernote; this tree might mean
That leaf as much as trunk, branch, other leaves.
And does one know till one begins? And let's
Look over hedges far as eyesight lets us,
Since road's not, surely, road, but road and hedge
And feet and sky and smell of hawthorn, horse-dung.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Betrayal
If a man says half himself in the light, adroit
Way a tune shakes into equilibrium,
Or approximates to a note that never comes:
Says half himself in the way two pencil-lines
Flow to each other and softly separate,
In the resolute way plane lifts and leaps from plane:
Who knows what intimacies our eyes may shout,
What evident secrets daily foreheads flaunt,
What panes of glass conceal our beating hearts?
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Life Blossoms into vitality
Petals blossoms into flowers,
Clouds blossom into rain,
Seeds blossoms into trees,
Minutes blossom into hours,
Bricks blossom into dwellings,
Anger blossoms into destruction,
Exuberance blossoms into newness,
Nervousness blossoms into exhaustion,
Teamwork blossoms into unity,
Perseverance blossoms into success,
Beauty blossoms into enchantment,
Intrigue blossoms into enigma,
Trends blossom into innovations,
Eggs blossom into fledglings,
Rose blossoms into scent,
Sun blossoms into optimism,
Stars blossom into radiation,
Soil blossoms into vegetation,
Art blossoms into exoticism,
Ice blossoms into waterfalls,
Fire blossoms into compassion,
Imagination blossoms into concepts,
Wine blossoms into sedation,
War blossoms into hatred,
Pearls blossom into resplendence,
Dreams blossom into floatation,
Fashion blossoms into style,
Roots blossom into stem,
Salt blossoms into tanginess,
Strength blossoms into fortitude,
Resilience blossoms into conviction,
Surrender blossoms into despair,
Truth blossoms into harmony,
Relationships blossom into empathy,
Violence blossoms into prejudice,
Discrimination blossoms into bloodshed,
Scalp blossoms into hair,
Love blossoms into passion,
Peace blossoms into solidarity,
Rainbow blossoms into vivacity,
Endeavor blossoms into sweetness,
Tunes blossom into songs,
Mind blossoms into ingenuity,
Wilderness blossoms into mysticism,
Flames blossom into ardor,
Corpses blossom into ghosts,
Retreat blossoms into sadness,
Bondage blossoms into rebel,
Faith blossoms into worship,
Infidelity blossoms into nemesis,
Idiosyncrasy blossoms into nothingness,
Spiders blossom into webs,
Benevolence blossoms into humanity,
Independence blossoms into character,
Renunciation blossoms into divine,
Introspection blossoms into discovering,
Emotions blossom into yearning,
Death blossoms into extinction,
And life blossoms into vitality…..
poem by Nikhil Parekh
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A Black Rose
A Black Rose,
Glistening in the rain,
A sign, a symbol,
An insignia of loss,
It’s the Flower of Darkness,
Lying in wait on this cold winter night,
It represents the beauty of despair,
The grace of defeat,
The feelings we all find hard to bear,
The millions of people that have all loved and lost,
All behind this flower that holds us aloft,
Within its petals we drown our grief,
With its stem we clutch to what’s left of life,
Within its thorns we spite those who have set us so
And within this dark flower we find our peace,
The power to let go and leave the loved lie,
So with this flower we sign our hearts,
We accept our everlasting love,
And move on,
A Black Rose,
Glistening in the rain,
Ill forever love you,
Ill never lose hope,
But until you come back,
Here’s a Black Rose,
For my love…
- The Black Rose
poem by Andrew Rose
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Nursery Rhyme For A Twenty-First Birthday
You cannot see the walls that divide your hand
From his or hers or mine when you think you touch it.
You cannot see the walls because they are glass,
And glass is nothing until you try to pass it.
Beat on it if you like, but not too hard,
For glass will break you even while you break it.
Shout, and the sound will be broken and driven backwards,
For glass, though clear as water, is deaf as granite.
This fraudulent inhibition is cunning: wise men
Content themselves with breathing patterns on it.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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