December
At evening jugglers travel through the forest
On quaint wagons, small steeds.
A golden stash seems locked in clouds.
In the white plain villages are painted.
The wind swings shield and billet black and cold.
A raven follows the morose comrades.
From the sky a ray falls on bloody gutters
And placidly a funeral procession pilgrimages to the cemetery.
The shepherd's hut dwindles nearby in the gray,
In the pond a brilliance of old treasures glistens;
The farmers sit down in the tavern for wine.
A boy glides shyly to a woman.
One still sees the sexton in the vestry
And reddish utensils, beautiful and dim.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Related quotes
December Sonnet
At evening jugglers travel through the forest
On quaint wagons, small steeds.
A golden stash seems locked in clouds.
In the dark plain villages are painted.
The red wind billows linen black and cold.
A dog rots, a shrub smokes blood-doused.
The reed is flown through by yellow horror
And placidly a funeral procession pilgrimages to the cemetery.
The old man's hut dwindles nearby in the gray,
In the pond a brilliance of old treasures glistens;
The farmers sit down in the tavern for wine.
A boy glides shyly to a woman.
A monk fades in the darkness soft and dark.
A bleak tree is a sleeper's sexton.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Melancholy
The blue soul has mutely closed,
In the open window the brown forest sinks,
The stillness of dark animals; in the valley
The mill grinds, by the footbridge clouds rest outpoured,
The golden strangers. A procession of steeds
Gallops red in the village. The garden brown and cold.
The aster freezes, so delicately painted on the fence
The sunflower's gold almost flown away.
The stumpets' voices; dew is poured out
On the hard grass and stars white and cold.
See death painted in the dear shadow,
Every countenance full of tears and closed.
poem by Georg Trakl
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The Truth the Dead Know
For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Dan Costina?
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The Raven Crows
The Raven Crows
by Charles Robert Hice on Thursday, November 22,2012 at 9: 27pm ·
The Raven Crows
The Raven stretches its wings and flies into the gray winter skies while the raven flies it Crows its rawkish voice makes aweful noise
it blows the wind it howls and sounds like a mechanical noise inside the wind
the noise pretends to be the raven as it crows it flies it crows and flies it dives down into the wind and sounds like a noise falling fast and then it sort of dies and falls away not the sound it echoes and it blows
in the middle of the night no one can see the ravens flight but they hear the voice the noise the sound even the wings they flap they glide silent and they hide
The raven seldom crows when it is in its glide it falls and hides no one can see the feathers as it plummets from the sky it moves in a silent fashion
as the raven glides it hides from the eyes of the men it has a sense of reality and a purpose as it glides it looks neither to the left or to the right finally it is satisfied with its destination in its sight the raven crows one final time and plummets like a stone into the night and suddenly a poem is come to earth as Poe hears his famous bird not the crow the rook or the blackbird as it sings but the Raven as it speaks to only him
Nevermore
The Raven Crows
poem by Charles Hice
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To Angela (2nd Version)
1
A lonely destiny in abandoned rooms.
A soft insanity gropes on wallpapers,
On windows, reddish beds of geraniums,
Daffodils also and more chaste in wasting away
As alabaster which gleams in the garden.
In blue veils India 's mornings smile.
Their sweet incense scares away the stranger's worries,
Sleepless night by the pond because of Angela.
His pain rests hidden in an empty mask,
Thoughts which steal away blackly in the darkness.
The thrushes laugh all around from soft throats.
2
In the crossway surrounded by spiky grass
The mowers crouch tiredly and drunk with poppy,
The sky has sunk very heavy on them,
The milk and desolation of long midday bells.
And sometimes crows flutter up in the rye.
With fruit and horrors the hot earth grows.
In golden brilliance, o childish gesture
Of lust and its hyacinthine silence,
When bread and wine nurtured by the flesh of the earth
Show Sebastian in dream their spirituality.
Angela's spirit belongs to gentle clouds.
3
The fruits which round red in branches,
The angel's lips which show her sweetness,
Like nymphs who bend over springs
In restful viewing for long hours,
The green-gold, long hours of the afternoon.
However, sometimes the spirit returns to fight and game.
In golden clouds a battle melee of flies
Surges over putrefaction and abscesses.
A demon ponders thunderstorms in the sultriness,
In the grave's shadow of sad cypresses.
Then the first lightning falls from black flues.
4
The willow-copses' whisper in the evening;
A rain resounds in flute sounds.
Motionless birds hang in the evening!
And here Angela's rest in the dim branches;
The poet is this beauty's priest.
Painful pondering in the dark coolness.
Balmy puddles scent with poppy and incense
By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow
Angela's joy and the games of the stars
The night embraces the languishing of lovers.
The edge of the forest and gloom's shadow.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Season
Ruby-veins crept into the foliage.
Then the pond was calm and wide.
By the forest's edge brightly scattered
Bluish speckles and brown dust lay.
A fisherman drew in his nets.
Then dusk came over the field.
But, a yard shined still palely illuminated
And maids brought fruit and wine.
Distantly a shepherd's song died after.
Then huts stood bleak and strange.
The forest in gray shroud
Evoked sad memory.
And overnight time became quiet
And an army of ravens flew
As if in black holes in the forest and moved
Toward the town's very distant ringing.
poem by Georg Trakl
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The Swan ~ A Villanelle
Floating upon the crystal pond
She kept wearing her diamond crown
While the other white swan was gone
Never doubting their fierce loving bond
As the leaves went from reddish to brown
Floating upon the crystal pond
Her blue eyes searching far beyond
Couldn't see that he'd recently drowned
While the other white swan was gone
So curling, becoming withdrawn
When ten suns in the sky settled down
Floating upon the crystal pond
She talked to the geese that were blond
And asked where he was with a frown
While the other white swan was gone
They cared not and didn't respond
In the reeds was a kings golden crown
Floating upon the crystal pond
While the other white swan was gone
poem by Sara Fielder
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My Heart at Evening
Toward evening you hear the cry of the bats.
Two b l a c k h o r ses bound in the pasture,
The red maple rustles,
The walker along the road sees ahead the small
tavern.
Nuts and young wine taste delicious,
Delicious: to stagger drunk into the darkening woods.
Village bells, painful to hear, echo through the black
fir branches,
Dew forms on the face.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Magical Mystery Tour
I am in this low-slung sports car
painted a deep, rich yellow
driving under an Italian sun.
I have a British accent.
I'm wearing dark shades
an expensive silk shirt.
there's no dirt under my
fingernails.
the radio plays Vivaldi
and there are two women with
me
one with raven hair
the other a blonde.
they have small breasts and
beautiful legs
and they laugh at everything I
say.
as we drive up a steep road
the blonde squeezes my leg
and nestles closer
while raven hair
leans across and nibbles my
ear.
we stop for lunch at a quaint
rustic inn.
there is more laughter
before lunch
during lunch and after
lunch.
after lunch we will have a
flat tire on the other side of
the mountain
and the blonde will change the
tire
while
raven hair
photographs me
lighting my pipe
leaning against a tree
the perfect background
perfectly at peace
with
sunlight
flowers
clouds
birds
everywhere.
poem by Charles Bukowski
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Graveyard in the snow
Today, I cannot find your grave,
because the stone with your name
is set in the earth,
down, where it is not in the way,
when the caretakers mow the grass,
now you are covered with snow.
Everything is white,
so full of peace, so still,
I sit on the bench,
it is so cold, but
I feel so close to you,
after all, you are cold,
under the earth,
under this white sheet,
hidden, but there, I know.
Only a raven,
shiny in funeral coat of feathers,
black against the white,
sits with me, in a tree,
not far, insistently cawing,
a warning, an emphatic word
of solace.
The trees, dark green
under the snow,
are so silent,
I can hear a soft sliding,
when the clumps of snow
fall on the ground,
startling the raven.
He flies away,
a shadow against the clouds
of winter sky.
I must leave you now,
the deep cavity of my grief
is like the silence
of your snow-covered grave,
enticing me to stay.
But I have promised
a pledge to live,
before I can sleep
under the snow.
poem by Martina E. Elenbaas
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With the Young Wine
Sun sets purple,
Swallow has already flown far off.
Under arches in the evening
New wine goes round;
Snow falls behind the mountain.
Summer's last green drifts away,
Hunter comes from the forest.
Under arches in the evening
New wine goes round;
Snow falls behind the mountain.
Bat blows around the forehead,
A stranger comes silently.
Under arches in the evening
New wine goes round;
Snow falls behind the mountain.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Red Sky: The Good Shepherd and I
Jesus, the good shepherd, once said:
'When it is evening, ye say,
It will be fair weather:
For the sky is red.
And in the morning,
It will be foul weather today:
For the sky is red and lowering.'
Evening red and morning gray
Are the signs of a bonny day.
Evening red:
'Shepherd's delight, '
Daddy said.
That is to say,
'Red sky at night,
Shepherd's delight.'
Evening gray and morning red
Bring down rain on the farmer's head.
Morning red:
'Shepherd's warning, '
Daddy said.
That is to say,
'Red sky in the morning,
Shepherd's warning.'
Evening gray and morning red
Brought down rain on my father's head.
My father, a seasoned farmer,
Could discern the face of the sky.
O Lord, my shepherd, so can I.
poem by Monty Gilmer
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The Orient Express
One looks from the train
Almost as one looked as a child. In the sunlight
What I see still seems to me plain,
I am safe; but at evening
As the lands darken, a questioning
Precariousness comes over everything.
Once after a day of rain
I lay longing to be cold; after a while
I was cold again, and hunched shivering
Under the quilt's many colors, gray
With the dull ending of the winter day,
Outside me there were a few shapes
Of chairs and tables, things from a primer;
Outside the window
There were the chairs and tables of the world ...
I saw that the world
That had seemed to me the plain
Gray mask of all that was strange
Behind it -- of all that was -- was all.
But it is beyond belief.
One thinks, "Behind everything
An unforced joy, an unwilling
Sadness (a willing sadness, a forced joy)
Moves changelessly"; one looks from the train
And there is something, the same thing
Behind everything: all these little villages,
A passing woman, a field of grain,
The man who says good-bye to his wife --
A path through a wood all full of lives, and the train
Passing, after all unchangeable
And not now ever to stop, like a heart --
It is like any other work of art,
It is and never can be changed.
Behind everything there is always
The unknown unwanted life.
poem by Randall Jarrell
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Her Kind
have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
poem by Anne Sexton
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Black N White (Cloak N Dagger Poem)
I've always been a man who treasures black and white.
One either is still breating or one must be dead,
all cats are gray due to the colour of the darkest night
so black and white is king and that is what I said.
Be flexible said he whose bow was made of pine,
there came a point when nothing could extend it more,
the splinter took his eye, he fell into the vat of wine
his ship was lost at sea and never did return to shore.
A friend named Malcolm Williams, Nigger though to me
was quite ashamed of being black, me being white,
went through Chicago after curfew, it was hard to see
I figured it could be an asset to be dark without the light.
poem by Herbert Nehrlich
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This evening I wish to suggest that we Christians should accompany people on their pilgrimages. Specifically we should travel with people as they search for the good, the true and the beautiful.
quote by Timothy Radcliffe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Colour Changes Life
Life is a long journey
But the terrain is not at all smooth
Full of uncertainties
Ups and downs
And we are to move ahead.
Your journey begins with white liquor
Giving full energy like nectar in life
To continue journey against all odds
And to achieve the desired goal.
As you are grown up,
With the influence of friends
The colour of liquors changes slowly
From white to yellowish and ultimately reddish.
You are lying on a roadside now
In a midway of your journey
With a reddish liquor scattered nearby
To have your last breath.
Alas! A beautiful journey starts with a
White bottle of liquor given by your mom
Ends with reddish bottle gifted by friends
Only the colour changes as does the end!
poem by Bireswar Halder
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Songs Of The Sky
In a sky of layered clouds,
dawn becomes a rainbow,
moving through the spectrum
toward the day.
In a sky of always blue,
no clouds ride the wind:
the sun burns brightly,
high and hot and long.
In a sky of may grays,
clouds crash, explode and roar;
rain-filled winds sweep across the prairie.
In a sky of many blues,
clouds dance on the wind;
and endless and quixotic
Rohrschach test.
In a sky of always gray,
no clouds seem to move;
overcast blots out imagination.
In a sky of cold, cold blue,
gray clouds scrape the treetops;
harbingers of winter storms to come.
Beneath a sky of darkening gray,
the prairie grasses rustle
on the small, forgotten farms
of what could've been
and was.
In a sky of mottled gray,
cold rains fall, now and then;
the seasons struggle
for control of April.
In a sky of broken gray,
cold winds precede the rains;
and before long
the darkened clouds re-gather.
In a sky as clear as glass,
and blue from top to bottom,
sultry days of August
slowly drift into September.
In a twi-lit noon-time sky,
this annular eclipse
leaves us just a
ring around the moon.
In a sky of many clouds,
sunset's an inferno;
ablaze, in this,
my father's final twilight.
In a sky that slowly burns,
the clouds of fire fade
and leave a darker beauty
to hold the night.
poem by William Kruse
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On The Fourth Day Of March
The pleasant aroma of the peppercorn trees
That come wafting to me in the evening breeze
And on the nearby pond the shy moorhen call
On the fourth day of March and the southern Fall.
A white backed magpie pipes on a nearby gum tree
A bird one so often does hear and does see
And though early Autumn the deciduous trees in the park of the town
Their leaves still quite green and not showing any brown.
The weather quite cool compared to yesterday
But the temperatures perfect for me anyway
Today a cool high of twenty two degrees
From the recent warm weather we do need some ease.
The brown and bare paddocks could do with some rain
And the farmers are feeling the financial strain
Of months of dry weather they feel burdened by care
And their financial cross for them heavy to bear.
There is not one rain cloud in the clear blue sky
And the thistledown flying in the breeze through the sky
And the dark moorhen call in the brown pond nearby
And the paddocks are looking so bare, brown and dry.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Raven, Raven
I took my children to the Zoo.
That was in March of 1993
And there was a sharp wind.
We saw a black
Raven who had stories.
'Are you thirsty, Raven? '
They asked him.
He said: 'Raven, Raven.'
'Are you hungry, Raven? '
He said: 'Raven, Raven'
'Do you have a family, Raven? '
I asked.
He said: 'Raven, Raven.'
We came back smiling
My children and I.
The children left.
We remained: sharp wind and me.
We went to my apartment:
My memories and I.
Unbearable loneliness.
I went to a pub.
The waiter asked:
'Are you thirsty or hungry?
You are not with your kids tonight? '
I replied: 'RAVEN, RAVEN.'
poem by Jankovic Zoran
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