Luminous Hour
Far on the hill flute-sounds.
Fauns lurk in the marshes,
Where sluggishly the slender nymphs
Rest hidden in reed and seaweed.
In the pond's mirror-glass
Golden butterflies ecstacize,
Quietly an animal with two backs
Moves in the velvety grass.
Sobbing in the birch grove
Orpheus breathes tender love-babble,
Softly and jokingly the nightingales
Join in his song.
Phoebus a flame glows
Still on Aphrodite's mouth,
And drizzled from ambergris scent -
The hour reddens darkly.
poem by Georg Trakl
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The Dream of an Afternoon
Be silent! the ancestor arrives;
And his step dusks away again.
Shadows float up and down -
Birches hanging in the window.
And on the old vine-hill
The round dance of fauns romps anew,
And the slender nymphs rise
Quietly from the fountain-mirror.
Hear! A far thunderstorm threatens.
Incense steams from dark cresses,
Moths celebrate silent masses
Before decayed flower trellises.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Age
An animal face in the brown green
Glows shyly to me, the bushes smolder.
Very far away an old fountain sings
With children's voices. I listen there.
The wild jackdaws mock me
And all around the birches veil themselves.
I stand silent before a weed fire
And softly pictures paint themselves on it,
An ancient fairytale of love on golden ground.
The clouds spread their silence on the hill.
From the ghostly pond-mirror
Fruits beckon, shining and heavy.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Loud And Low In The Chimney
LOUD and low in the chimney
The squalls suspire;
Then like an answer dwindles
And glows the fire,
And the chamber reddens and darkens
In time like taken breath.
Near by the sounding chimney
The youth apart
Hearkens with changing colour
And leaping heart,
And hears in the coil of the tempest
The voice of love and death.
Love on high in the flute-like
And tender notes
Sounds as from April meadows
And hillside cotes;
But the deep wood wind in the chimney
Utters the slogan of death.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Sufi
A broken reed. No longer
its feet in earth, its stalk in water;
what will become of it?
Taken by grace; cut; shaped
into new name, new form;
breathed into it, the breath of life;
the breath, heard by a song
unmanifest, that waits to be born
from cause to mind to sound:
how can this sound be described,
the joy of broken reed now flute?
Now the reed can sing; speaks
of how it cried its loss;
yearned to find itself again;
knowing in its heart
that wholeness waits, somewhere, for ever;
now it sings for joy, so purely that
no ears, no heart, can resist its call;
nevermore to part the reed, the flute, the song.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Raking Leaves
Look to the tallest tree
and see how the noon-day sun
glints through slender grey limbs
to where leafless Life contracts
to its tender core
(this year’s ring
complete)
and waits for winter’s storms.
Leaves lie,
golden harvest, luxuriant carpet
to kick and scatter like
brittle snow...
... years ago
playing through long autumn days,
we built castles and smashed them,
diving deep into fragrant mounds
as the incense of burn piles
filled the chilled air of November.
Today I just rake,
scraping turf
making smaller heaps to haul
into my big green recycle bin
and see how golden autumn light
softly glows in gleaming grass,
free at last
from the detritus
of summer.
poem by Steven Federle
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Seaweed Shovelling Song
This is my seaweed shovelling song
Ive been shovelling all day long
Ive got got my seaweed shovel in hand
Because Im a seaweed shovelling man
Green weed, red weed, still alive and dead weed
Lying in a pile on the shore
Brown weed, pink weed, smelly kind of stink weed
Who on earth could ask for more!
This is my seaweed shovelling song
Ive been shovelling all day long
Ive got got my seaweed shovel in hand
Because Im a seaweed shovelling man
Dry weed, wet weed, aint-been-troubled-yet weed
Glinting in the morning sun
Thin weed, thick weed, slimy kind of slick weed
Every bucket weighs a ton!
This is my seaweed shovelling song
Ive been shovelling all day long
Ive got got my seaweed shovel in hand
Because Im a seaweed shovelling
Seaweed shovelling
Seaweed shovelling
Seaweed shovelling man!
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You Know What Happens When Love Is Gone
she knows what happens when love is gone:
the sun turns black
and the moon becomes red
and the trees become like
some grass in the
brackish water of
the marshes
where the air
stinks like a pond
where all the frogs
are dead
and rotten
where the dragonflies
are headless
where the wings
of the butterflies
turn into threads
the sea is gray
and the sands
are pins hurting
to our feet
the leaves
are skeletal
and the stems
are spikes
of bicycles
without wheels
you know what happens
when your love is gone
but take a look at me
when you finally decided
to throw my love away
i still bloom
as a mushroom
after the thunder
the lightning
and the storm
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Love's Coming
QUIETLY as rosebuds
Talk to thin air,
Love came so lightly
I knew not he was there.
Quietly as lovers
Creep at the middle noon,
Softly as players tremble
In the tears of a tune;
Quietly as lilies
Their faint vows declare,
Came the shy pilgrim:
I knew not he was there.
Quietly as tears fall
On a warm sin,
Softly as griefs call
In a violin;
Without hail or tempest,
Blue sword or flame,
Love came so lightly
I knew not that he came.
poem by John Shaw Neilson
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To Angela
1
A lonely destiny in abandoned rooms
A soft insanity gropes on wallpapers.
Beds of geraniums flow by windows,
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
The fruits which round red in branches,-
Angela'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 surges
And a hyacinth-like thing floats from mazy cresses.
A demon ponders thunderstorms in the sultriness,
In the grave's shadow of sad cypresses.
Then the first lightning falls from black flues.
3
The June willows' whisper in the evening;
A rain resounds long in flute sounds.
How motionless the birds hang in the gray!
And here Angela's rest in the dim branches;
The poet is this beauty's priest.
His mouth is flowed around by dark coolness.
In the valley fog softy rests poured out.
By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow
A golden thing floats flowing from his mouth
By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow.
Night embraces his drunken languishing.
poem by Georg Trakl
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The Garden Wall
Can you meet me in the evening
behind the garden wall
where the roses grow with scent so sweet
and the misty air does fall?
I will meet you there with open arms
and there we'll hear the song
that plays for lovers everywhere
with the musk of the rose so strong.
I shall wait quite still for your approach
and let my heart be stirred.
I'll anticipate your arrival
as the night creatures all are heard.
As the frogs do croak and the owl does hoot
they do not understand
how I long to see you once again
and take you by the hand.
Ah! to be in love is ecstasy
and to be without is pain.
So meet me behind the garden wall
and allow me to remain
alert for the sound of your footsteps
so softly in the grass.
One small hour is all I ask of thee,
so quickly shall it pass.
But that one small hour will content me
for I'll know that you still care.
And when that hour has passed on by
with the scent of the roses still there
I shall pick one for you, ripe from the vine
and place it in your hair.
And I'll remember how you looked at me
and the hour we did share.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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O Word I Love to Sing
O word I love to sing! thou art too tender
For all the passions agitating me;
For all my bitterness thou art too tender,
I cannot pour my red soul into thee.
O haunting melody! thou art too slender,
Too fragile like a globe of crystal glass;
For all my stormy thoughts thou art too slender,
The burden from my bosom will not pass.
O tender word! O melody so slender!
O tears of passion saturate with brine,
O words, unwilling words, ye can not render
My hatred for the foe of me and mine.
poem by Claude McKay
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The timetable of four
The golden glows of sunlight hit me
The smell of freshly cut grass reached me
The sight of freedom exhilarated me
The sounds of birds intrigued me
The beauty around me radiated from everything
The long open stretches of grass
The shady woodlands going on and on
The unending number of livening creatures
The cawing raven in the tree branches
The worm busily digging in the soil
The fish swimming idly in the pond
The child playing happily in the park
It is summer now but soon it will change
Soon it will change
Soon it will change into Autumn
I’ll still be in my tree
The children are playing in the heaps of leaves
The leaves have all gone a golden colour
The ravens are searching for bugs in the leaves
The fish are swimming slower in their pond
It is Autumn now but it will soon change
Soon it will change
Soon it will change into Winter
I’ll still be in my tree
There are no children playing
There are no leaves on the trees
The ravens have all gone south
There are no fish in the pond
It is Winter now but it will soon change
It will soon change
It will soon change into spring
I’ll still be in my tree
The children are starting to come back
The ravens are backing cawing in the trees
There is new fish in the pond
There are new buds on the trees
It is Spring now but soon it will change
Soon it will change
Soon it will change into Summer
I’ll still be in my tree
Waiting
Watching
Writing
Thinking
The Mirror Struggled
The mirror struggled; reflecting beauty such as hers
Prescribed a glory in the challenge – a fairytale
Or such as like! To shimmer back hypnotic hues
From auras of her skin – how do mirrors cope?
Hoary tales of pretty adolescent buds
Could never hope to match the tomes of dreamy
Pulchritude apprising us of such a belle as she.
The mirror shone; and as it worked itself, a moment –
Did it overlook the hidden melancholy?
Were melting eyes bedewed–? Florid lips imbued
With mournfulness? The hindrance of the silver glass!
Oh! to seek – to know the meaning of the sorrow!
She (with tearful hair, an image out of heaven)
Never opened up her heart. The mirror struggled.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
m irror mirror mirror - mirror mirror mirror
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mirror mirror mirror - mirror mirror mirror
mirror mirror mirror - mirror mirror mirror
mirror mirror mirror - mirror mirror mirror
mirror mirror mirror - mirror mirror mirror
mirror mirror mirror - mirror mirror mirror
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Homecoming
When the evening breathes golden rest
Forest and dark meadow before which
Man is a looker,
A shepherd, dwelling in the flocks' dusking stillness,
The patience of the red beeches;
So clearly since it has become autumn. By the hill
The lonely one listens to the flight of birds,
To dark meaning and the shadows of the dead
Have gathered more seriously around him;
Cool mignonette scent fulfills him with shudders,
The huts of the villagers the elder,
Where in former times the child dwelled.
Memory, buried hope
Is preserved by these brown rafters,
Over which dahlias hang
So that the hands strive after them,
In the brown garden the shimmering step
Forbidden loving, dark year,
That from blue eyelids the tears
Of the stranger fell irresistibly.
From brown treetops dew drips,
When that one, a blue deer, awakes on the hill,
Listening to the loud calls of the fishermen
By the evening pond
To the amorphous cry of the bats;
But in golden stillness
The drunken heart dwells
Full of its noble death.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Grateful
Grateful am I to rise with this new day
To see once more the butterflies arrayed
In majestic luminous hues.
To gaze the crimson sky
as the wind blows delicately by
Dancing trees give glory to this day.
How grateful am I to feel the morning grass
and shiver to its soft due chill.
Grateful, to grace all reflection hidden - still
in the mirror-glass stream
then be at rest to wander
in a forrest of dreams.
The world outside these are distant
as a procession of heavenly stars
But pleasures do abound in natures wings
just to spare a thought
There is life in abundance for all.
poem by Godfrey Morris
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Poetry Time
forget work for a while
leave the paper piles as they are
let them grow
up to the sky
let reality be a mountain
before you
and let things work on
themselves
let them have hands
and feet
let them have wings
and fly away
it is poetry time
my heart is king and the rest
of these fantasies
are nymphs and fauns
come butterflies
come stars
let them know that there are wings
and light and fire and glitters and diamonds
comes the moon shining
this lady coming too early at noontime
dancing on my table
with fireflies and lies
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Nymphs And Shepherds
Nymphs and shepherds, come away.
In this grove let's sport and play,
For this is Flora's holiday,
Sacred to ease and happy love,
To dancing, to music and to poetry;
Your flocks may now securely rest
Whilst you express your jollity.
Nymphs and shepherds, come away.
poem by Thomas Shadwell
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The River Song
This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut
magnolia,
Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of gold
Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine
Is rich for a thousand cups.
We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water,
Yet Sennin needs
A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen
Would follow the white gulls or ride them.
Kutsu's prose song
Hangs with the sun and moon.
King So's terraced palace
is now but barren hill,
But I draw pen on this barge
Causing the five peaks to tremble,
And I have joy in these words
like the joy of blue islands.
(If glory could last forever
Then the waters of Han would flow northward.)
And I have moped in the Emperor's garden, awaiting an
order-to-write !
I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-coloured
water
Just reflecting the sky's tinge,
And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing.
The eastern wind brings the green colour into the island
grasses at Yei-shu,
The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring
softness.
South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and
bluer,
Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like
palace.
Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from
carved railings,
And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to each
other, and listen,
Crying—‘Kwan, Kuan,' for the early wind, and the feel
of it.
The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders
off.
Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are the
sounds of spring singing,
And the Emperor is at Ko.
Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky,
The imperial guards come forth from the golden house
with their armour a-gleaming.
The Emperor in his jewelled car goes out to inspect his
flowers,
He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks,
He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new
nightingales,
For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nightingales,
Their sound is mixed in this flute,
Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Fall of the Evening Star
Speak softly; sun going down
Out of sight. Come near me now.
Dear dying fall of wings as birds
complain against the gathering dark...
Exaggerate the green blood in grass;
the music of leaves scraping space;
Multiply the stillness by one sound;
by one syllable of your name...
And all that is little is soon giant,
all that is rare grows in common beauty
To rest with my mouth on your mouth
as somewhere a star falls
And the earth takes it softly, in natural love...
Exactly as we take each other...
and go to sleep...
poem by Kenneth Patchen
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Gentle Poem
The gentle poem with palms so tender
Caress mine heart and with song render
A man sweet, whom was born a brute
Now as gentle as love's played flute
Tranquil I play in her love's fair
And run my fingers down her love's lyre
Never was a love's palm so tranquil
As my love touched a polished heart; genteel
The placid lake of her palms blood
Did gradually inundate my mind's flood
And write her name in my soul clement
For my love to taste and nobly lament
The gentle poem of her calm palm
And sing to me, her amiable psalm
Of ‘love is love in a mine dove-like touch
Lady like, civil, elegant as such
A love like me, sings softly
I love you my love so quietly'….
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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