Grey Sparrow Addresses the Mind's Ear
In the Japanese tongue of the mind's eye one two syllable word tells of the fringe of rain clinging to the eaves and of the grey-green fronds of wild parsley.
poem by Denise Levertov
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Mr. Green
Green leaves tell you
How green your mind is,
Wide boroughs tell you
How broad your mind is,
Velvet grasses tell you
How soft your hair is,
Clean water ponds tell you
How your tears are,
White clouds tell you
How your floating thoughts are,
Birds in group tell you
How you enjoy friend’s company,
Peacock tells you
How you dance in rain,
Lion tells you
How to react with pride,
Deer tells you
How you enjoy your freedom,
And environment tells you
How you can become Mr. Green.
poem by Biswajit Ganguly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Fringe
There was something no poet could name for sure
no Shakespeare -
no nobody -
about watching the girl with the tiny hearts
glittered beneath her eyes
and the passionate curl of breath
passing from her lips straight into winter
while standing frozen
as she walked up and asked
if I was cold
if I was okay
if I was frozen
if I was perhaps
some sort of snowman
as she giggled and draped
a red fringe scarf around me
me - just barely a boy
a boy in a new red fringe scarf
a new body of red fringe
lips of red fringe
a new soul and mind of red fringe
with legs wanting
and warm pink toes curled
from wanting
poem by Michael Pacholski
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Turning Japanese
Ive got your picture
Of me and you
You wrote, I love you.
I love you, too
I sit there staring when theres nothing else to do
Oh, its in color
Your hair is brown
Your eyes are hazel
And soft as clouds
I often kiss you when theres no one else around
Ive got your picture, got your picture
Id like a million of em over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Ive got your picture, Ive got your picture
Id like a million of them over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder its dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
Everyone
Thats why Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so)
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so...)
song performed by by Liz Phair
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
My Sneaking Tears
How heavy fell the rain that day
From burdened clouds of mournful grey.
The torrent forced them stay their height -
Composure swayed by onerous might.
My skin wrung wet with icy chill
As mud embraced that sodden hill;
But mind of mine had elsewhere gone -
'Twas clouds abandoned I was on.
The driving drops advanced their gears
To camouflage my sneaking tears -
Whence now did swell such floods of pain
To see me melt into this rain…
On equal bearing now were we:
This rain, myself, in harmony.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain
Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain
Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain
Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Impeccable...
each word is well chosen
it has a history and significance
each syllable is important
to build the empire
of his poem,
majestic now
people keep on reading
amazed and
awed
by the impeccable,
and yet for how long will this majesty
last?
only for once,
and then the reading is over
and no one talks about
the word, and the syllable is not even uttered
only for once and then
gone forever.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Eclipse
PALE veil of mist bound round the trees
Pale fringe of rain upon the hills,
Cold earth, cold sky and biting breeze
That mock the withered daffodils.
And yet so short a while ago,
The sunlight on the quickened land
Laughed at the memory of the snow,
And we went hand in hand.
Pale veil of doubt wound round my heart,
Pale fringe of tears upon your eyes;
Why did we choose the evil part?
Why did we leave our Paradise?
There were such green and pleasant ways
Where you and I with happy heart
Laughed at the old unhappy days,
And now--we are apart.
Will the sun shine again some day?
Will you forgive me and forget?
Chill is the east, the west is gray,
And all our world with tears is wet.
Ah! love, the world is wide and cold,
The weary skies are wild with rain;
Give me at least your hand to hold
Till the sun shines again.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
They got word that the Japanese planes were coming back, so we sunk her ourselves so the Japanese wouldn't get it. We didn't want the Japanese to get it intact.
quote by Barney Ross
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Rain
I don't know how far I can see
'cause it's all blue water streaming towards me
The sun needs to shine normally
but it's all grey rain
The rain, the rain on me, rain on me
Chorus
So I will find a place, where I can hide from the sky
And I will wait in this place,
'cause I know you're trying to
Open up your sky
Push away the dark clouds and shine
Forget the thunder so loud, don't be afraid
Show yourself ! Don't hide now !
The rain, the rain on me, rain on me
The rain, the rain on me, rain on me
I don't know how high you can see
but it's all grey water falling down on me
The sun needs to shine normally
but it's all grey rain
Chorus
song performed by by Kate Ryan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Rain
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
poem by Edward Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Grey World
Grey nights in the wind,
And the grey-faced dead.
Grey hairs in my head,
And grey eyes in my mind.
Grey mists in the morn,
And grey waves that rave,
Grey mould on my grave,
And grey eyes forlorn.
Grey clouds in the sky,
And the grey world asleep,
Grey ghosts that sigh,
And grey eyes that weep.
poem by Leon Gellert
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Grey Wolves Grey
The Russian march is soft and slow,
Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,
When the Russian skies hang grey and low
To the frontiers far where the Russians go;
And they march to-night and they march to-day
Like the grey wolves grey, like the grey wolves grey.
Nor song nor sound their track reveals,
Save the ceaseless “clock” of the waggon wheels;
But a rift in the mist shows a glint of sun
On the long, dark shape of a toiling gun;
And they strain by night and they drag by day
To a distant goal, like the grey wolves grey.
As the horses toil at the ends of trains,
And the ends of roads on the Blacksoil Plains.
And Ivan digs in the frozen clay,
And he rolls the logs a bed to lay
For a gun that’s five hundred miles away,
But as sure to come as the grey wolves grey.
He is marching on with a purpose grand,
For brother Slav in another land;
Whose tongue, perchance, he cannot understand.—
But he knows the cry from the far-away,
And he smells the blood like the grey wolves grey.
And Ivan’s wife in her den at home,
While hunger looms and his lean wolves come—
With her grey-black bread like the Darling mud,
And her tea-bricks bound with the bullock’s blood—
She shields her cubs by night and day
Like the crouching sluts of the grey wolves grey.
And I march with Ivan where’er he be,
With the foreign blood that is strong in me,
And the love and the hate that is fantasy,
Like the ghosts of a father’s memory.
With the blood that is strange to us to-day
As the strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
Grey wolves,
Grey wolves—
The strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Larkspur
Words roll free from a tongue sometime
From a sometime, tongue-tied tongue,
Words that were heard by the stream and the bird
When the world and the wild were young,
When the world and the wild were young, sometime…
(Larkspur, marigold, ebony, lime) .
Sounds that were born in sweet young breath
In a bubble-sighed, trouble-tried time,
Sounds that were found by a child at the breast
In a bubble-tried pantomime,
In a bubble-tried pantomime, no less…
(Nightshade, cinnamon, green watercress) .
Love is the sound of a word, soft-said
From the lips of the love you too,
Love is the dove of the bubble-thought read
Soft sift from the me to you,
Soft sift from the me to you, soft said…
(Homespun, empathy, marmalade, bread) .
poem by David Lewis Paget (16 December 1973)
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Wild Geese
Wild geese fly overhead
In the wild Autumn weather.
Souls of the newly-dead
Crying and flying together.
Home from the last great fight,
The souls of the Irish farin'
With a wild heart in the night,
A grey eye turned to Erin.
High and high in the sky,
From the red fields of slaughter
Ever they fly and cry
For the brown bog, the grey water.
Wild geese in the wild even,
Steady and strong their flight,
Their beds are made in Heaven,
All of the down white.
They have forgone that bliss
Till they have seen once more
The little land of peace,
Green and bright as of yore.
High o'er the sheep and cattle,
The bogs and the mountains lone,
The souls new-home from the battle
Cry their love and are flown.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Walked Down The Hill
I WALKED DOWN THE HILL
I walked down the hill
With the lines of others in mind
Old lines returned imperfectly
A Poem should be remembered
Word by word
As if each syllable a treasure.
All around the bustle of the world
Suggested Beauty
And I stopping to write
Felt in my mind
Perhaps for the first time
That I should love God forever.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Grey
Grey road stretched through grey rain.
Grey rain fell though grey mist.
Grey mist enveloped all,
all the eye could see,
all the land,
all the sky
and me.
Grey covered all,
all the way down to the sea.
Glimpsed through grey the swell of the ocean,
riding the waves a wind surfer surfing,
chopping, fighting the crests with swift motion
skirting the spray, sail unfurling.
Stopping, I stared at that sight in the mist,
oh how he came dancing over the sea,
right through the rain a state of sheer bliss,
the wondrous frolic rippling throughout me
making me tingle right down deep inside.
That misty image ripped all grey apart
a glorious vision of freedom untied,
returning tremendous joy to my heart
filling me up, bringing tears to my eyes,
emerging from grey a great love of life.
poem by Diana Rosser
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Palm Tree
Palm-tree: single-legged giant,
topping other trees,
peering at the firmament -
It longs to pierce the black cloud-ceiling
and fly away, away,
if only it had wings.
The tree seems to express its wish
in the tossing of its head:
its fronds heave and swish -
It thinks, Maybe my leaves are feathers,
and nothing stops me now
from rising on their flutter.
All day the fronds the windblown tree
soar and flap and shudder
as though it thinks it can fly,
As though it wanders in the skies,
travelling who knows where,
wheeling past the stars -
And then as soon as the wind dies down,
the fronds subside, subside:
the mind of the tree returns.
To earth, recalls that earth is its mother:
and then it likes once more
its earthly corner.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Stone and I
By the edge of the mini-pond
where I sit when the weather’s fit for it,
there’s this stone.
I’d like to call it a rock
because that sounds more dignified
and metaphorical and carries
more tradition, but
it’s a stone
and on it grows a lichen;
not the vivid, flat, yellow and vermilion and red and black
lichen that grows on stone walls
by the seaside; this one
has those colours at its edge
but has a furry crop of tiny green fronds
cropping from its mossy green
which are quite vigorous in their tiny way.
I liked it so much that I tried
to get the other stones around the pond
to match, by douching them alternately
with urine and yoghourt in the approved manner
after dark for obvious reasons
but they didn't respond;
I guess stonecrop beautiful word
knows its own field so to speak
and won't be rushed, at least
it makes me treasure this one more
If I had the money which I haven’t
and the patience which I don’t
I’d have a perfect, model
Zen garden complete with sand
which I’d rake with a wooden rake
every morning into swirly lines
with graceful sweeping Tai Chi movements
until I got bored
but I just have this stone
with faintly Japanese pretensions
mine not its
however I’d like to think a Zen master
would quite approve of my modest intention
and say, less is more, more or less…
and now I think of it, the stone
has its own Zen garden; though whether
you could call this an eco-system,
whether the stone and the lichen
have a relationship, is open
to question, as is
whether the stone so agreeably placed
by the pool well OK pond
has a relationship with the pond
anyway, on a sunny day
the stone and I sit there together
if together is quite the right word
I feel we’re together whatever it feels
if it feels at all that is
and I guess it's even possible
in an evolutionary view of things,
lichen on stone, first life on earth
and all that, that the lichen
and I are really related, with
a common ancestor
which would account for a lot
and we sit there quietly in quite
a Japanese sort of Zen-ness
of being one with nature
and I become don’t laugh more stony
and still; as for the stone
I really can’t say but
It feels good
and in this state of relaxed contemplation
which I guess is the point of those
Japanese gardens
it occurs to me that the stone
and perhaps the water too
have qualities that I lack –
they know just how to be,
to be still, to be themselves
so there may be a point to what
we sometimes call with the trace
of a sneer,
communing with nature
since as Saint Augustine said
the whole cosmos is our
holy book; so why not
open it
*
[with a namaste to Augustine and Eckhart Tolle]
poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Tongue
Inadvertently I passed the border of her teeth and swallowed
her agile tongue. It lives inside me now, like a Japanese fish. It
brushes against my heart and my diaphragm as if against the walls
of an aquarium. It stirs silt from the bottom.
She whom I deprived of a voice stares at me with big eyes
and waits for a word.
Yet I do not know which tongue to use when speaking to
her – the stolen one or the one which melts in my mouth from an
excess of heavy goodness.
poem by Zbigniew Herbert
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Need Something Far Away
I NEED SOMETHING FAR AWAY
I need something far away-
I don’t know what-
The sky after the rain
The green all around
Give me something-
But I need more-
I do not know what-
Something far away from myself
Far far far-
I need something-
Oh the cool air and the grey sky and the wind after the rain,
Do they begin to be that ‘something? ’
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Scarborough Fair
===================================
Simon & Garfunkel - Scarborough Fair
===================================
(3:52) Read the song on which this is based!
P. Simon/A. Garfunkel, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Without no seam nor needlework
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to find me an acre of land
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Between the salt water and the sea strand
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
song performed by by Simon & Garfunkel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!