Ode to Walt Whitman
By the East River and the Bronx
boys were singing, exposing their waists
with the wheel, with oil, leather, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners taking silver from the rocks
and children drawing stairs and perspectives.
But none of them could sleep,
none of them wanted to be the river,
none of them loved the huge leaves
or the shoreline's blue tongue.
By the East River and the Queensboro
boys were battling with industry
and the Jews sold to the river faun
the rose of circumcision,
and over bridges and rooftops, the mouth of the sky emptied
herds of bison driven by the wind.
But none of them paused,
none of them wanted to be a cloud,
none of them looked for ferns
or the yellow wheel of a tambourine.
As soon as the moon rises
the pulleys will spin to alter the sky;
a border of needles will besiege memory
and the coffins will bear away those who don't work.
New York, mire,
New York, mire and death.
What angel is hidden in your cheek?
Whose perfect voice will sing the truths of wheat?
Who, the terrible dream of your stained anemones?
Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,
nor your thighs pure as Apollo's,
nor your voice like a column of ash,
old man, beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with its sex pierced by a needle.
Enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies beneath rough cloth...
Not for a moment, virile beauty,
who among mountains of coal, billboards, and railroads,
dreamed of becoming a river and sleeping like a river
with that comrade who would place in your breast
the small ache of an ignorant leopard.
Not for a moment, Adam of blood, Macho,
man alone at sea, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
because on penthouse roofs,
gathered at bars,
emerging in bunches from the sewers,
trembling between the legs of chauffeurs,
or spinning on dance floors wet with absinthe,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, point you out.
He's one, too! That's right! And they land
on your luminous chaste beard,
blonds from the north, blacks from the sands,
crowds of howls and gestures,
like cats or like snakes,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, the faggots,
clouded with tears, flesh for the whip,
the boot, or the teeth of the lion tamers.
He's one, too! That's right! Stained fingers
point to the shore of your dream
when a friend eats your apple
with a slight taste of gasoline
and the sun sings in the navels
of boys who play under bridges.
But you didn't look for scratched eyes,
nor the darkest swamp where someone submerges children,
nor frozen saliva,
nor the curves slit open like a toad's belly
that the faggots wear in cars and on terraces
while the moon lashes them on the street corners of terror.
You looked for a naked body like a river.
Bull and dream who would join wheel with seaweed,
father of your agony, camellia of your death,
who would groan in the blaze of your hidden equator.
Because it's all right if a man doesn't look for his delight
in tomorrow morning's jungle of blood.
The sky has shores where life is avoided
and there are bodies that shouldn't repeat themselves in the dawn.
Agony, agony, dream, ferment, and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
Bodies decompose beneath the city clocks,
war passes by in tears, followed by a million gray rats,
the rich give their mistresses
small illuminated dying things,
and life is neither noble, nor good, nor sacred.
Man is able, if he wishes, to guide his desire
through a vein of coral or a heavenly naked body.
Tomorrow, loves will become stones, and Time
a breeze that drowses in the branches.
That's why I don't raise my voice, old Walt Whitman,
against the little boy who writes
the name of a girl on his pillow,
nor against the boy who dresses as a bride
in the darkness of the wardrobe,
nor against the solitary men in casinos
who drink prostitution's water with revulsion,
nor against the men with that green look in their eyes
who love other men and burn their lips in silence.
But yes against you, urban faggots,
tumescent flesh and unclean thoughts.
Mothers of mud. Harpies. Sleepless enemies
of the love that bestows crowns of joy.
Always against you, who give boys
drops of foul death with bitter poison.
Always against you,
Fairies of North America,
Pájaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cádiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Floras of Alicante,
Adelaidas of Portugal.
Faggots of the world, murderers of doves!
Slaves of women. Their bedroom bitches.
Opening in public squares like feverish fans
or ambushed in rigid hemlock landscapes.
No quarter given! Death
spills from your eyes
and gathers gray flowers at the mire's edge.
No quarter given! Attention!
Let the confused, the pure,
the classical, the celebrated, the supplicants
close the doors of the bacchanal to you.
And you, lovely Walt Whitman, stay asleep on the Hudson's banks
with your beard toward the pole, openhanded.
Soft clay or snow, your tongue calls for
comrades to keep watch over your unbodied gazelle.
Sleep on, nothing remains.
Dancing walls stir the prairies
and America drowns itself in machinery and lament.
I want the powerful air from the deepest night
to blow away flowers and inscriptions from the arch where you sleep,
and a black child to inform the gold-craving whites
that the kingdom of grain has arrived.
poem by Federico García Lorca
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Ode For Walt Whitman
A Translation for Steve Jonas
Along East River and the Bronx
The kids were singing, showing off their bodies
At the wheel, at oil, the rawhide, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners were drawing silver out of boulders
While children made perspective drawings of stairways.
But no one went to sleep
No one wanted to be a river
No one loved the big leaves, no one
The blue tongue of the coastline.
Along East River into Queens
The kids were wrestling with industry.
The Jews sold circumcision’s rose
To the faun of the river.
The sky flowed through the bridges and rooftops—
Herds of buffalo the wind was pushing.
But none of them would stay.
No one wanted to be cloud. No one
Looked for the ferns
Or the yellow wheel of the drum.
But if the moon comes out
The pulleys will slide around to disturb the sky
A limit of needles will fence in your memory
And there will be coffins to carry out your unemployed.
New York of mud,
New York of wire fences and death,
What angel do you carry hidden in your cheek?
What perfect voice will tell you the truth about wheat
Or the terrible sleep of your wet-dreamed anemones?
Not for one moment, beautiful old Walt Whitman,
Have I stopped seeing your beard full of butterflies
Or your shoulders of corduroy worn thin by the moon
Or your muscles of a virgin Apollo
Or your voice like a column of ashes
Ancient and beautiful as the fog.
You gave a cry like a bird
With his prick pierced through by a needle
Enemy of satyrs
Enemy of the grape
And lover of bodies under rough cloth.
Not for one moment, tight-cocked beauty,
Who in mountains of coal, advertisements, and railroads
Had dreamed of being a river and of sleeping like one
With a particular comrade, one who could put in your bosom
The young pain of an ignorant leopard.
Not for one moment, blood-Adam, male,
Man alone in the sea, beautiful
Old Walt Whitman.
Because on the rooftops
Bunched together in bars
Pouring out in clusters from toilets
Trembling between the legs of taxi-drivers
Or spinning upon platforms of whiskey
The cocksuckers, Walt Whitman, were counting on you.
That one also, also. And they throw themselves down on
Your burning virgin beard,
Blonds of the North, negroes from the seashore,
Crowds of shouts and gestures
Like cats or snakes
The cocksuckers, Walt Whitman, the cocksuckers,
Muddy with tears, meat for the whip,
Tooth or boot of the cowboys.
That one also, also. Painted fingers
Sprout out along the beach of your dreams
And you give a friend an apple
Which tastes faintly of gas-fumes
And the sun sings a song for the bellybuttons
Of the little boys who play games below bridges.
But you weren’t looking for the scratched eyes
Or the blackswamp-country where children are sinking
Or the frozen spit
Or the wounded curves like a toad’s paunch
Which cocksuckers wear in bars and night-clubs
While the moon beats them along the corners of terror.
You were looking for a naked man who would be like a river
Bull and dream, a connection between the wheel and the seaweed,
Be father for your agony, your death’s camellia
And moan in the flames of your hidden equator.
For it is just that a man not look for his pleasure
In the forest of blood of the following morning.
The sky has coastlines where life can be avoided
And some bodies must not repeat themselves at sunrise.
Agony, agony, dream, leaven, and dream.
That is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
The dead decompose themselves under the clock of the cities.
War enters weeping, with a million gray rats.
The rich give to their girlfriends
Tiny illuminated dyings
And life is not noble, or good, or sacred.
A man is able if he wishes to lead his desire
Through vein of coral or the celestial naked.
Tomorrow his loves will be rock and Time
A breeze that comes sleeping through their clusters.
That is why I do not cry out, old Walt Whitman,
Against the little boy who writes
A girl’s name on his pillow,
Or the kid who puts on a wedding dress
In the darkness of a closet
Or the lonely men in bars
Who drink with sickness the waters of prostitution
Or the men with green eyelids
Who love men and scald their lips in silence,
But against the rest of you, cocksuckers of cities,
Hard-up and dirty-brained,
Mothers of mud, harpies, dreamless enemies
Of the Love that distributes crowns of gladness.
Against the rest of you always, who give the kids
Drippings of sucked-off death with sour poison.
Against the rest of you always
Fairies of North America,
Pajaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cadiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Adelaidas of Portugal,
Cocksuckers of all the world, assassins of doves,
Slaves of women, lapdogs of their dressing tables,
Opening their flys in parks with a fever of fans
Or ambushed in the rigid landscapes of poison.
Let there be no mercy. Death
Trickles from all of your eyes, groups
Itself like gray flowers on beaches of mud.
Let there be no mercy. Watch out for them.
Let the bewildered, the pure,
The classical, the appointed, the praying
Lock the gates of this Bacchanalia.
And you, beautiful Walt Whitman, sleep on the banks of the Hudson
With your beard toward the pole and your palms open
Soft clay or snow, your tongue is invoking
Comrades to keep vigil over your gazelle without body.
Sleep, there is nothing left here.
A dance of walls shakes across the prairies
And America drowns itself with machines and weeping.
Let the hard air of midnight
Sweep away all the flowers and letters from the arch in which you sleep
And a little black boy announce to the white men of gold
The arrival of the reign of the ear of wheat.
poem by Jack Spicer
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In St. Louis the boys
In St. Louis the boys
Gather at night to pause
Beneath a cloud
To count the industry
Of circumcision
Driven by the memories
Of needles of the moment
Their bodies clothed in
Rough beauty that sleeps
In the breast of comrades
Who ache for Walt Whitman
Who ache between the river
And the sexual Satyr
Among the billboards
That howls to be heard
Like the taste of the
Nude Mississippi
That groan at the
Shore of St. Louis.
The boys, yes the boys
Darker then swamp water
The boys with pricks
The size of a long finger
They huddle at the corner of the river
Where the word faggot was drowned
And the blaze of the burnt color water
Decompose its rich
Stores of dying things.
In the wardrobe of a solitary man
Whose tongue is caked with
River mud and enemies
Of the desires that reaches
Out as branches
To pierce the pillow
Is to be found the secrets
That he keep in his back pocket.
The boys who stoned to death tomorrow
By his faith that foul
The silent sleepless
Motion of the water
The boys are swimming
The classical river
They celebrate the edge
Of the river with the words
Father of the waters
That celebrates nothing human.
poem by David E. Patton
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A Supermarket in California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price
bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in
driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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An Apple from Walt Whitman
There's never been a poet where I live,
but I grew up in the shade of Whitman's name:
born in West Hills—our hills—he would have walked
our paths along the crest. I walked Whitman Road,
crashed the Whitman Drive-In, stole a book
from the sci-fi rack at the Melville-Whitman Pharmacy,
even played lacrosse against Whitman High;
we lost three times, the guys from Halfway Hollow,
to young men with Whitman in white on their varsity jackets.
My mother tells a story about Thanksgiving,
back when kids went begging in rags and blackface:
how Carrie Wicks's sister said she got
an apple from Walt Whitman, right at his house,
an old man with a beard. The big kids laughed,
knowing the white-haired caretaker was no one.
I set no foot inside the Whitman House
or Leaves of Grass till after I went away,
but I'm better having grown up with the name,
the house and hills of a poet everyone knew,
a poet big enough in the mothers' stories
for a girl to believe he came to the door with a long
white beard and smiled and handed her an apple.
If a poet the size of Whitman named our few
square miles and a few in Jersey it's going to take
a lot more big ones to hand us all a welcome
sweet as a Thanksgiving apple from Walt Whitman,
white-haired care-taker, seed of mothers' stories,
Appleseed of our poetry: nourishment, shade.
poem by Eric Torgersen
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Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies.
quote by Federico Garcia Lorca
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To A Stranger
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me,
as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours
only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you. 10
poem by Walt Whitman
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Sleep on, Sleep on...
Sleep on, Sleep on…
Though the moon is playing tag with the sun
And hides in it’s dark penumbra
Sleep on, sleep on…
Clutch the pillow ever tighter
Sleep on, nothing remains now
Dancing walls stir in the prairies
America drowns itself in machinery
Proudly lamenting the price of oil
I have never understood, never,
The perfume of your dark magnolia
Nor the parrot who flies out your teeth
From the martyred belly of your heart
A thousand Roman sentries fell asleep
in the moonlit plaza of your forehead
while four months I sought the knowledge
from your hands and waist, enemies of snow
between painted plaster of jasmine
your glance, mouth full of seeds
searched my breast to give me
the Latin prayer saying: Never!
Never! , never, my agony’s garden
feeds your elusive form of woman
the taste of your veins in my mouth
your mouth now lightless in the desert
Sleep on, sleep on, forget the moon!
Playing hide and seek with the sun
While hiding all of eternity’s sunsets
In it’s somnambulistic lover’s ballet
I choose to sleep and dream
Perhaps arise for the next one
I endured sunrise’s green poison
the struggles of wounded nights
but how to endure your nudeness
like a lotus open in the reeds
show me oceans finding channels
emptiness of shadowy planets
valleys knee deep in ice water
flowers of red for my heart
but do not let me see again
the coolness of your waist:
talk things over with friends
wearing wings of caterpillars
while blades of larks return
while I seek you in wine’s cave
sleeping the tacit sleep of grapes
far from the noise of cemeteries
I sleep often lost on the sea
With an ear full of tiny piers
My sliced tongue full of agony
And love; oh, lost on that sea
As I am lost in the heart
Of certain grown children
Sleep on, sleep on, forget the moon!
There is no one I can kiss
Without feeling the smile
Of your many faces
There is no one I can touch
my hands have no more sense
than to seek for your roots
beneath all this virgin soil
Tho’ I am lost in the heart
of certain grown women
a branch broken by itself
neath an apple tree of sobs
while hummingbirds sigh
and feral cats drive them
off through the salt marsh
This branch is happy
It’s dropped off to sleep
As if it was a tree
neither, thinking of rain
nor awaiting the moon’s dance
nor awaiting steps of spring.
While I, I want nothing else,
Only a hand. I desire
a wounded hand, if possible.
Pale lily of a dove anchored
Hard in my sleeping heart
Being the guard blocking
Entrance forever to the moon
I want nothing else, only that hand
Everything else to someone else
All the leaves have fled whirling
The harbour is naked in its green
The salt marsh is flooded in tears
All the roses are awaiting dawn
Through sleep’s branches
I dream two dark doves
One is the sun
The other the moon
Little neighbors, I called
And reached for the earth
Then, I saw two naked doves
The one was the other
And both of them, neither
As two snowy eagles
And a naked woman
Flew away.
Sleep on, sleep on…
poem by Liberatore Suffoletta
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Come, Said My Soul
Come, said my soul,
Such verses for my body let us write, (For we are One),
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chants resuming,
(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultous waves,)
Ever with pleas'd smile I may keep on
Ever and ever to the verses owning - as, first, I here and now,
Signing for soul and body, set them to my name,
Walt Whitman.
poem by Walt Whitman
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A Different Sky Is Waiting
We’ve been in the rain so long
That our eyes are sore and red;
When joy is missing,
We gaze down too long at our feet
As we slowly walk through the city,
But there must be a different sky waiting
Offering love and inspiration.
Beneath these yellow factory skies,
Even the street lights look sadly dim,
Like our spiritual light within
Blurred by an affectionless life.
Things began to change
When I met you in a small bar
Not far from the school where you teach;
I saw Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
Easing out of your purse,
I knew we had to talk.
As we spoke over drinks
In the early evening,
I felt loneliness begin to lift
Like dark persistent clouds
Being pushed aside by sunlight,
As if Walt Whitman were sending us
Prayers mingled with lilacs.
Indeed, there is a different sky waiting,
Azure blue and dazzling,
Inviting flowers to bloom
On romantic avenues
When two people finally find each other.
In my mind I have already seen
You smile in a summer dress
Beneath a different sky welcoming our love.
poem by Uriah Hamilton
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So Far And So Far, And On Toward The End
SO far, and so far, and on toward the end,
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of
me;
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,
Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired,
(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?
No--it has not yet fully risen;)
Whether I shall complete what is here started,
Whether I shall attain my own height, to justify these, yet
unfinished,
Whether I shall make THE POEM OF THE NEW WORLD, transcending all
others--depends, rich persons, upon you,
Depends, whoever you are now filling the current Presidentiad, upon
you, 10
Upon you, Governor, Mayor, Congressman,
And you, contemporary America.
Whitman, Walt. 1900. Leaves of Grass.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Behold This Swarthy Face
BEHOLD this swarthy face--these gray eyes,
This beard--the white wool, unclipt upon my neck,
My brown hands, and the silent manner of me, without charm;
Yet comes one, a Manhattanese, and ever at parting, kisses me lightly
on the lips with robust love,
And I, on the crossing of the street, or on the ship's deck, give a
kiss in return;
We observe that salute of American comrades, land and sea,
We are those two natural and nonchalant persons.
poem by Walt Whitman
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River of Love
I've been to many places throughout the world,
As a teen and as a small girl,
But one place holds me to the end,
That place has always been a questioning friend.
One moment sweet and so golden pure,
other times so evil, leaving me unsure,
But whether I dream or sit awake,
River of love knows my heart did break.
River of love, river of pure,
Why do you leave me so unsure?
River of mortality,
Why do you do this to me?
River of love, river of my youth,
Will you tell me where I went wrong?
because one's heart is not a dead flower,
And I don't want to spend my life crying for hours.
poem by Adnana Saric
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In Midnight Sleep
IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded--of that indescribable
look;
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm--and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather
the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long, long have they pass'd--faces and trenches and fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure--or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time--But now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream. 10
poem by Walt Whitman
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Blue Queen
One last time I am to suffer in agony for my love of ecstasy
One last time I am to offer myself to the gods of midnights hour.
Fresh death within a cage of flesh is calling
Upon my knees I find my body falling
What elder god's shall bear witness to my sacrifice?
Who shall be the suckling babe upon the blood of the night?
Who shall be the chosen light to shine upon the end of time?
A halo of light surrounding
The memory of life forever grounding
Until we drink and take joy from the river of life’s forgetting.
The prophet and the underground
Upon the shoreline there is a child by the day
Asking questions to all that pass him by,
He seeks the city beneath the waves
He seeks a womb anew within the tomb of the Blue Queen sleeping.
Yet as the moon arises to take reign of the night
His skin sheds from his form and he is the serpent sand,
The movement of the torching dunes, he carries the answers secured within the day realm
And delivers them to the minds of those who dare not ask yet are forever searching.
His lover is the Lady of the Water, and from her sleep within the golden realm she awakes to bless with bliss her lover,
Silver lips, ice blue eyes,
She who is the muse of this shoreline lover, this serpent of midnight sand
Each day the sea is absorbed into the sand
Each day the sand, a thousand shells lost to the movement of the waves slips back unto the sea.
When he is weary of the sun he gathers his possessions - a conch shell a gift from his lover,
a batter hat that keeps the sun from his head and his walking staff decorated with various gifts from the ocean.
The bird his friend is the wind and the wind that carries the waters to the mountains to water the land upon which the man lives,
The man can fly upon the birds back but can not see through its eyes
Where as when the blue queen dreams she sees all that the bird sees
poem by David Lacey
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Offerings
A THOUSAND perfect men and women appear,
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and
youths, with offerings.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Interior
In the cool of the night time
The clocks pick off the points
And the mainsprings loosen.
They will need winding.
One of these days
they will need winding.
Rabelais in red boards,
Walt Whitman in green,
Hugo in ten-cent paper covers,
Here they stand on shelves
In the cool of the night time
And there is nothing . . . .
To be said against them . . . .
Or for them . . . .
In the cool of the night time
And the docks.
A man in pigeon-gray pyjamas.
The open window begins at his feet
And goes taller than his head.
Eight feet high is the pattern.
Moon and mist make an oblong layout.
Silver at the man's bare feet.
He swings one foot in a moon silver.
And it costs nothing.
(One more day of bread and work.
One more day . . . .so much rags .
The man barefoot in moon silver
Mutters "You" and "You"
To things hidden
In the cool of the night time,
In Rabelais, Whitman, Hugo,
In an oblong of moon mist.
Out from the window . . . . prairielands.
Moon mist whitens a golf ground.
Whiter yet is a limestone quarry.
The crickets keep on chirring.
Switch engines of the Great Western
Sidetrack box cars, make up trains
For Weehawken, Oskaloosa, Saskatchewan;
The cattle, the coal, the corn, must go
In the night . . . . on the prairielands.
Chuff-chuff go the pulses.
They beat in the cool of the night time.
Chuff-chuff and chuff-chuff . . . .
These heartbeats travel the night a mile
And touch the moon silver at the window
And the hones of the man.
It costs nothing.
Rabelais in red boards,
Whitman in green,
Hugo in ten-cent paper covers,
Here they stand on shelves
In the cool of the night time
And the clocks.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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There is a moment in time
There is a moment
where the interaction with the female form,
where the attraction of eyes, mouth, touch and skin
is drawing you in
and it’s as if you are living
in a time and place devoid
of any other thing
where religion, heaven and hell
is swept away by sheer bliss
where a moment is truly limitless
in the ebb and flow of mating
and the being together becomes everything.
[Reference: I sing the body electric by Walt Whitman.]
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In Michael Robins’s Class Minus One
At the desk where the boy sat, he sees the Chicago River.
It raises its hand.
It asks if metaphor should burn.
He says fire is the basis for all forms of the mouth.
He asks, why did you fill the boy with your going?
I didn't know a boy had been added to me, the river says.
Would you have given him back if you knew?
I think so, the river says, I have so many boys in me,
I'm worn out stroking eyes looking up at the day.
Have you written a poem for us? he asks the river,
and the river reads its poem,
and the other students tell the river
it sounds like a poem the boy would have written,
that they smell the boy's cigarettes
in the poem, they feel his teeth
biting the page.
And the river asks, did this boy dream of horses?
because I suddenly dream of horses, I suddenly dream.
They're in a circle and the river says, I've never understood
round things, why would leaving come back
to itself?
And a girl makes a kiss with her mouth and leans it
against the river, and the kiss flows away
but the river wants it back, the river makes sounds
to go after the kiss.
And they all make sounds for the river to carry to the boy.
And the river promises to never surrender the boy's shape
to the ocean.
Lovely One
Lovely one,
Just as on the cool stone
Of the spring, the water
Opens a wide flash of foam,
So is the smile of your face,
Lovely one.
Lovely one,
With delicate hands and slender feet
Like a silver pony,
Walking, flower of the world,
Thus I see you,
Lovely one.
Lovely one,
With a nest of copper entangled
On your head, a nest
The coloUr of dark honey
Where my heart burns and rests,
Lovely one.
Lovely one,
Your eyes are too big for your face,
Your eyes are too big for the earth.
There are countries, there are rivers,
In your eyes,
My country is your eyes,
I walk through them,
They light the world
Through which I walk,
Lovely one.
Lovely one,
Your breasts are like two loaves made
Of grainy earth and golden moon,
Lovely one.
Lovely one,
Your waist,
My arm shaped it like a river when
It flowed a thousand years through your sweet body,
Lovely one.
Lovely one,
There is nothing like your hips,
Perhaps earth has
In some hidden place
The curve and the fragrance of your body,
Perhaps in some place,
Lovely one.
Lovely one, my lovely one,
Your voice, your skin, your nails,
Lovely one, my lovely one,
Your being, your light, your shadow,
Lovely one,
All that is mine, lovely one,
All that is mine, my dear,
When you walk or rest,
When you sing or sleep,
When you suffer or dream,
Always,
When you are near or far,
Always,
You are mine, my lovely one,
Always.
poem by Pablo Neruda
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Dream Of The Flesh
we are in the river
naked
our bodies meet
like
one body
missing
another body
and the river
becomes
one warm
water
trickling down
our two bodies
body to body
flesh to flesh
hands
to hands and
arms entwine
like some
chains of
daisies
to our necks
this oneness
that we
finally make
eyes to eyes
closing
and lips to lips
searching
tongues
we dare
search
our souls
if they
are there
too
in this
fusion
for the
meantime
we have no time
to ask
the river
has no name
even
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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