Psalm
It is a light, that the wind has extinguished.
It is a pub on the heath, that a drunk departs in the afternoon.
It is a vineyard, charred and black with holes full of spiders.
It is a space, that they have white-limed with milk.
The madman has died. It is a South Sea island,
Receiving the Sun-God. One makes the drums roar.
The men perform warlike dances.
The women sway their hips in creeping vines and fire-flowers,
Whenever the ocean sings. O our lost Paradise.
The nymphs have departed the golden woods.
One buries the stranger. Then arises a flicker-rain.
The son of Pan appears in the form of an earth-laborer,
Who sleeps away the meridian at the edge of the glowing asphalt.
It is little girls in a courtyard, in little dresses full of heart-rending poverty!
It is rooms, filled with Accords and Sonatas.
It is shadows, which embrace each other before a blinded mirror.
At the windows of the hospital, the healing warm themselves.
A white steamer carries bloody contagia up the canal.
The strange sister appears again in someone's evil dreams.
Resting in the hazelbush, she plays with his stars.
The student, perhaps a doppelganger, stares long after her from the window.
Behind him stands his dead brother, or he comes down the old spiral stairs.
In the darkness of brown chestnuts, the figure of the young novice.
The garden is in evening. The bats flit around inside the walls of the monastery.
The children of the caretaker cease their playing and seek the gold of the heavens.
Closing accords of a quartett. The little blind girl runs trembling through the tree-lined street.
And later touches her shadow along cold walls, surrounded by fairy tales and holy legends.
It is an empty boat, that drives at evening down the black canal.
In the bleakness of the old asylum, human ruins come apart.
The dead orphans lie at the garden wall.
From gray rooms tread angels with shit-spattered wings.
Worms drip from their yellowed eyelids.
The square before the church is obscure and silent, as in the days of childhood.
Earlier lives glide past upon silvery soles
And the shadows of the damned climb down to the sighing waters.
In his grave, the white-magician plays with his snakes.
Silent above the place of the skull, open God's golden eyes.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Helian
In the spirit’s solitary hours
It is lovely to walk in the sun
Along the yellow walls of summer.
Quietly whisper the steps in the grass; yet always sleeps
The son of Pan in the grey marble.
At eventide on the terrace we got drunk on brown wine
The red peach glows under the foliage.
Tender sonata, joyous laughter.
Lovely is this silence of the night.
On the dark plains
We gather with shepherds and the white stars.
When autumn rises
The grove is a sight of sober clarity.
Along the red walls we loiter at ease
And the round eyes follow the flight of birds.
In the evening pale water gathers in the dregs of burial urns.
Heaven celebrates, sitting in bare branches.
In hallowed hands the yeoman carries bread and wine
And fruit ripens in the peace of a sunny chamber.
Oh how stern is the face of the beloved who have taken their passage.
Yet the soul is comforted in righteous meditation.
Overwhelming is the desolated garden‘s secrecy,
As the young novice has wreathed his brow with brown leaves,
His breath inhales icy gold.
The hands touch the antiquity of blueish water
Or in a cold night the sisters’ white cheeks.
In quiet and harmony we walk along a suite of hospitable rooms
Into solitude and the rustling of maple trees,
Where, perhaps, the thrush still sings.
Beautiful is man and emerging from the dark
He marvels as he moves his arms and legs,
And his eyes quietly roll in purple cavities.
At suppertime a stranger loses himself in November’s black destitution;
Under brittle branches he follows a wall covered under leprosy.
Once the holy brother went here,
Engrossed in the tender music of his madness.
Oh how lonely settles the evening-wind.
Dying away a man‘s head droops in the dark of the olive tree.
How shattering is the decline of a family.
This is the hour when the seer’s eyes are filled
With gold as he beholds the stars.
The evening’s descend has muffled the belfry‘s knell in silence;
Among black walls in the public place,
A dead soldier calls for a prayer.
Like a pale angel
The son enters his ancestor’s empty house.
The sisters have traveled far to the pale ancients.
At night, returned from their mournful pilgrimage,
He found them asleep under the columns of the hallway.
Oh hair stained with dung and worms
As his silver feet stepped on it
And on those who died in echoing rooms.
Oh you palms under midnight’s burning rain,
When the servants flogged those tender eyes with nettles,
The hollyhock’s early fruit
Beheld your empty grave in wonder.
Fading moons sail quietly
Over the sheets of the feverish lad,
Into the silence of winter.
At the bank of Kidron a great mind is lost in musing,
Under a tree, the tender cedar,
Stretched out under the father’s blue eyebrows,
Where a shepherd drives his flock to pastures at night.
Or there are screams which escape the sleep;
When an iron angel approaches man in the grove,
The holy man’s flesh melts over burning coals.
Purple wine climbs about the mud-cottage,
Sheaves of faded corn sing;
The buzz of bees; the crane’s flight.
In the evening the souls of the resurrected gather on rocky paths.
Lepers behold their image in dark water;
Or they lift the hemp of their dung soiled attire,
And weep to the soothing wind, as it drifts down from the rosy hill.
Slender maidens grope their way through the narrow lanes of night;
They hope for the gracious shepherd.
Tenderly, songs ring out from the huts on weekend.
Let the song pay homage to the boy,
To his madness to his white eyebrows and to his passage,
To the decaying corpse, who opened his blue eyes.
Oh how sad is this reunion.
The stairs of madness in black apartments –
The matriarch’s shadow emerged under the open door
When Helian’s soul beheld his image in a rosy mirror;
And from his brow bled snow and leprosy.
The walls extinguished the stars
And the white effigies of light.
From the carpet rise skeletons, escaping their graves,
Fallen crosses sit silent on the hill,
The night’s purple wind is sweet with frankincense.
Oh ye broken eyes over black gaping jaws,
When the grandson in the solitude
Of his tender madness muses over a darker ending,
The blue eyelids of the silent god sink upon him.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Daydreaming in the Evening
Where one goes in the evening is not the angel's shadow
And beauty! grief and gentler forgetting alternate;
The stranger's hands grope coolness and cypresses
And his soul is taken by an astonished languishing.
The market is emptied of red fruits and garlands.
Harmoniously the church's blackish pageantry attunes
In a garden the tones of soft play sound,
Where tired ones find each other after the meal.
A carriage rushes, a spring very far away through green puddles.
There a childhood appears dreamlike and elapsed,
Angela's stars, enclosed devoutly to a mystical constellation,
And calmly the evening coolness rounds.
White poppy loosens the limbs of the lonely ponderer,
So that he views righteousness and God's deep joy.
From the garden his shadow strays here in white silk
And bends down over mournful waters.
Branches knocked whispering into the abandoned room
And a loving and small evening flowers' tremor.
Corn and golden vines gird the site of man,
A lunar shimmer, however, ponders after the dead.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Colorful Autumn
The fountain sings, the clouds stand
In clear blueness, white, delicate;
Silent people wander thoughtfully
Down there in the evening-blue garden.
The ancestors' marble has turned grey.
A line of birds streaks into the distance
A faun with dead eyes gazes
On shadows that glide into darkness.
Leaves fall red from the old tree,
Rotate inside through the open window.
The room glows in dark fires,
In it shadows, like ghosts.
Opal smoke weaves over the grass,
A cloud of wilted, bleached scents,
In the fountain the sickle moon shines
Like a green glass in freezing air.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Early Morning Poetry
a gray cat so gentle
sleeping beside my easy chair
soft wind enters the window
from the far mountain
the white silky curtains
by the window
sway to the direction of the wind
a red rose blooms on the side
of the limestone wall
horse grazing on the grassy plain
a white dog runs toward a wooden gate
a car stops on the yard near the veranda of this old house
a brother from far announces his arrival
hot coffee and pancakes on the table
fumes of white rice and smoke from the grilled fish
faint classical Mozart music plays on the cassette
light from the sun penetrating the screen of the dining window
a black and white family picture on top of the family piano
grandpa on his military uniform as mother carries father on her arms
memories flood the room and words keep creeping like worms
i want to say that there are no termites on this house but that would be a lie.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Atlantis
The light of suns unseen, through depths of sea descending,
Within her street awakes the ghost of noon
To bide its little hour and die unheeded, blending
Into her night that knows nor stars nor moon.
The hurrying feet of storms that trample o’er the surges
Arouse no echo in these silent deeps;
No thunder thrills her peace, no sword of lightning scourges
The dim, dead calm where lost Atlantis sleeps.
Long leagues above her courts the stately days advancing
Kindle new dawns and see new sunsets dim;
And, white and weary-eyed, the old stars, backward glancing,
Reluctant pause upon the ocean’s rim.
But she, of dawns and dusks forgotten and forgetful,
Broods in her depths with slumber-weighted eyes;
For all her splendid past unanxious, unregretful,
She waits the call that bids her wake and rise.
No mortal voice she hears. The strong young ships, full-freighted,
With hopes of men, with women’s sighs and tears,
Above her blue-black walls and portals golden-gated
Sweep on unnoted through the speeding years—
Until at last they come, as still in silence resting
She keeps her vigil underneath the waves,
By tempests tossed and torn, and weary of their questing,
Slow sliding downward past her to their graves.
So side by side they lie in ever gaining number,
The sunken ships, by fate or fortune led
To this, their final port, resistless sent to slumber
Until the sea shall render up her dead—
Shall render up her dead to all their olden glories,
Shall render up what now so well she keeps,
The buried lives and loves, the strange, unfinished stories
Of these dim depths where lost Atlantis sleeps!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1899)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Return
The grass was gray with the moonlit dew,
The stones were white as I came through;
I came down the path by the thirteen yews,
Through the blocks of shade that the moonlight hews.
And when I came to the high lych-gate
I waited awhile where the corpses wait;
Then I came down the road where the moonlight lay
Like the fallen ghost of the light of day.
The bats shrieked high in their zigzag flight,
The owls' spread wings were quiet and white,
The wind and the poplar gave sigh for sigh,
And all about were the rustling shy
Little live creatures that love the night -
Little wild creatures timid and free.
I passed, and they were not afraid of me.
It was over the meadow and down the lane
The way to come to my house again:
Through the wood where the lovers talk,
And the ghosts, they say, get leave to walk.
I wore the clothes that we all must wear,
And no one saw me walking there,
No one saw my pale feet pass
By my garden path to my garden grass.
My garden was hung with the veil of spring -
Plum-tree and pear-tree blossoming;
It lay in the moon's cold sheet of light
In garlands and silence, wondrous and white
As a dead bride decked for her burying.
Then I saw the face of my house
Held close in the arms of the blossomed boughs:
I leaned my face to the window bright
To feel if the heart of my house beat right.
The firelight hung it with fitful gold;
It was warm as the house of the dead is cold.
I saw the settles, the candles tall,
The black-faced presses against the wall,
Polished beechwood and shining brass,
The gleam of china, the glitter of glass,
All the little things that were home to me -
Everything as it used to be.
Then I said, 'The fire of life still burns,
And I have returned whence none returns:
I will warm my hands where the fire is lit,
I will warm my heart in the heart of it!'
So I called aloud to the one within:
'Open, open, and let me in!
Let me in to the fire and the light -
It is very cold out here in the night!'
There was never a stir or an answering breath -
Only a silence as deep as death.
Then I beat on the window, and called, and cried.
No one heard me, and none replied.
The golden silence lay warm and deep,
And I wept as the dead, forgotten, weep;
And there was no one to hear or see -
To comfort me, to have pity on me.
But deep in the silence something stirred -
Something that had not seen or heard -
And two drew near to the window-pane,
Kissed in the moonlight and kissed again,
And looked, through my face, to the moon-shroud, spread
Over the garlanded garden bed;
And--'How ghostly the moonlight is!' she said.
Back through the garden, the wood, the lane,
I came to mine own place again.
I wore the garments we all must wear,
And no one saw me walking there.
No one heard my thin feet pass
Through the white of the stones and the gray of the grass,
Along the path where the moonlight hews
Slabs of shadow for thirteen yews.
In the hollow where drifted dreams lie deep
It is good to sleep: it was good to sleep:
But my bed has grown cold with the drip of the dew,
And I cannot sleep as I used to do.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Untitled: The stillness of the deceased loves the old garden,
The stillness of the deceased loves the old garden,
The madwoman who dwelled in blue rooms,
In the evening the still shape appears in the window
She, however, closes the yellowed curtain -
The trickling of the glass beads reminded of our childhood,
At night we found a black moon in the forest
The soft sonata sounds in a mirror's blueness
Long embraces
Her smile glides over the dying one's mouth.
poem by Georg Trakl
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In the Evening
A blue brook, path and evening along decayed huts.
Behind dark shrubbery children play with blue and red balls;
Some swap the forehead and the hands rot in the brown foliage.
In bony stillness the heart of the lonely one shines,
A small boat rocks on blackish waters.
Through dark woods hair and laughter of brown maids flutters.
The shadows of the old people cross the flight of a small bird;
Mystery of blue flowers on their temples.
Others sway on black benches in the evening wind.
Golden sighs quietly expire in the bleak branches
Of the chestnut; a sound of dark cymbals of summer,
When the strangeress appears on the decayed staircase.
poem by Georg Trakl
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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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The Gardener LXIV: I Spent My Day
I spent my day on the scorching
hot dust of the road.
Now, in the cool of the evening, I
knock at the door of the inn. It is
deserted and in ruins.
A grim ashath tree spreads its
hungry clutching roots through the
gaping fissures of the walls.
Days have been when wayfarers
came here to wash their weary feet.
They spread their mats in the
courtyard in the dim light of the
early moon, and sat and talked of
strange lands.
They woke refreshed in the morning
when birds made them glad, and
friendly flowers nodded their heads
at them from the wayside.
But no lighted lamp awaited me
when I came here.
The black smudges of smoke left by
many a forgotten evening lamp stare,
like blind eyes, from the wall.
Fireflies flit in the bush near the
dried-up pond, and bamboo branches
fling their shadows on the grass-
grown path.
I am the guest of no one at the end
of my day.
The long night is before me, and I
am tired.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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En-route
A scent of myrrh which roams in the twilight.
Plazas red and desolate sink in fume.
Bazaars circle and a golden ray flows
In old shops queerly and confused.
In the dishwater decay glows; and the wind
Evokes dully the agony of burnt gardens.
The possessed pursue golden dreams.
By windows dryads rest slender and dulcet.
The dream-addicted wander pined over by a wish.
Workers surge shimmering through a gate.
Steel towers glow upward at the edge of the sky.
O fairy tale barred gray in factories!
In the sinisterness an old man trips dollish
And a jingling sound of money laughs lasciviously.
A halo falls on that little girl
Who waits before the coffee house, soft and white.
O golden brilliance which she wakes in panes!
Sun-filled noise roars distantly and ecstatically.
A crooked writer smiles as if crazy
To the horizon which is frightened green by an uproar.
State coaches of crystal move on bridges,
Fruit barrows, hearse black and sallow,
The canal swarms with bright steamboats,
Concerts sound. Green domes drizzle.
Public baths flicker in magic of light,
Execrated streets which one tears down.
A center of epidemics chaotically circles in ether,
A light from forests breaks through ruby dust.
Enchanted an opera house shines in the gray.
From alleys masks flood unforeseen,
And somewhere a fire still blazes furiously.
A small moth dances in the wind-roar.
Lodgings threaten full of squalor and stench.
Viola colors and chords move
Along cellar holes before the hungry.
A sweet child sits dead on a bank.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Morning Song Of Senlin
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.
Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea. . .
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me. . .
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.
Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.
It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, I tie my tie.
There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains. . .
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor. . .
. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know. . .
Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Black Thunder
black thunder/ broken pieces, tired eyes.
church bells silent ringing, crow feet scarred pillows.
small children walking, without tongues praying,
wagon wheels bogged down in sand.
black thunder/ second hand lives, worn out lies.
dead soldiers mournful singing, borrowed tomorrows.
blind mouths moving, talking without saying,
unlit rooms forged by fugitive hands.
black thunder/ pregnant women without faces.
waves lapping orphan feet, ships lost in the storm.
refugee stars lost in unmarked skies,
an old tree dying rotting on the ground.
black thunder/ families disappearing without traces.
trash blown deserted streets, old men waiting to be born.
molded crucifixes, covered with flies,
clouds chant scriptures without a sound.
(guns silent weeping,
angels prayerful sweeping.
dreams born dying, dreams unfolding,
looking without seeing, touching without holding.)
black thunder/ hungry barefoot ghosts whisper.
priests covered in blood, empty windows open.
tiny infinities wrapped in colored matchsticks,
nowhere standing lost by the road.
black thunder/ brothers burying virgin sisters.
dialogue without talking, homeless heroes smoking.
ants' prophecies well hidden, time worn bricks,
strangers huddled against the cold.
black thunder/ salvation starved borrowed clothes.
smoke charred walls, forever dripping to the floor.
flesh tokens paid, lifetimes yet unforgiven,
candles dressed in cemetery suits.
black thunder/ nobody cares, nobody knows.
horses stomping stalls, doors open to doors.
while the dead barter for the living,
with bayonets and religious boots....
black thunder!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Betty
You can see the sandhills from our new room.
Butterflies
live in the sandhills
and lizards
and centipedes.
If you keep very still
lizards will think you a stone
and run over your lap.
Butterflies’ liveries
are scarlet and black.
They drive chariots in air.
People in the chariots
are pale as dew—
you can see right through them—
but the chariots
are made of gold of the sun.
They go up to heaven
and never catch fire.
There are green centipedes
and brown centipedes
and black centipedes,
because green and brown and black
are the colors in hell’s flag.
Centipedes
have hundreds of feet
because it is so far from hell
to come up for air.
Centipedes
do not hurry.
They are waiting for the last day
when they will creep over the false prophets
who will have their hands tied.
Night calls to the sandhills
and gathers them under her.
she pushes away cities
because their sharp lights
hurt her soft breast.
Even candles make a sore place
when they stick in the night.
There are things in the sandhills
that no one knows about…
they come out at dark when the young snakes play
and tell each other secrets
in the deaf logs.
Sometimes… before rain…
when the stars have gone inside…
the night comes close to your window
and sniffs at the light….
But you must not run away—
you must keep your face to the night
and walk backward.
When it rains
and you are pulling off flies’ legs…
mama lets you play houses
with Lizzie and Clara.
Because you are the Only One—
and because Only Ones have to live alone
while sisters stay together,
Lizzie and Clara
give you the dry house
and take the one with the leaking roof.
Rain like curly hairpins
blows on Lizzie and Clara’s two heads
turned like one head—
two mouths
spread into one laugh.
Lizzie is saying:
why don’t you want to play—
when you feel you’d like to braid
the crinkled-silver rain
into a shining rope
to climb up… and up… and up… into the wet sky
and never see any one again.
Our gate doesn’t hang right.
It must have pawed at the wind
and gotten a kick
as the wind passed over.
The sitting sky
puffs out a gray smoke
and the wind makes a red-striped sound
blowing out straight,
but our gate drags its foot
and whines to itself on one hinge.
What do you think I’ve found—
two wee knickers of fairy brass,
or two gold sovereigns folded up
in a bit of green silk,
or two gold bugs
in little green shirts?
If you want to know,
you must walk tip-toe
so your feet just whisper in the grass—
you must carry them careful
and very proud,
for their stems bleed drops of milk—
but Lizzie and Clara shout in glee:
Pee-a-bed, pee-a-bed—
dandelions!
You look in the eyes of grown-up people
to see if they feel
the way you feel…
but they hide inside of themselves,
and so you do not find out.
Grown-up people say:
The stars are bright to-night,
but they do not say
what you are thinking about stars—
not even mama says what you are thinking about stars.
This makes you feel very lonely.
It’s strange about stars….
You have to be still when they look at you.
They push your song inside of you with their song.
Their long silvery rays
sink into you and do not hurt.
It is good to feel them resting on you
like great white birds…
and their shining whiteness
doesn’t burn like the sun—
it washes all over you
and makes you feel cleaner’n water.
My doll Janie has no waist
and her body is like a tub with feet on it.
Sometimes I beat her
but I always kiss her afterwards.
When I have kissed all the paint off her body
I shall tie a ribbon about it
so she shan’t look shabby.
But it must be blue—
it mustn’t be pink—
pink shows the dirt on her face
that won’t wash off.
I beat Janie
and beat her…
but still she smiled…
so I scratched her between the eyes with a pin.
Now she doesn’t love me anymore…
she scowls… and scowls…
though I’ve begged her to forgive me
and poured sugar in the hole at the back of her head.
Mama says Janie is a fairy doll
and she has forgiven me—
that she’s gone to the market
to buy me some sweets.
—Now she’s at the door
and a little bag tied to her neck—
I run to Janie
and kiss her all over….
Ah… she is still frowning.
I let the sweets drop on the floor—
mama
has told you a lie.
Chinaman
singing in street:
gleen ledd-ish-es, gleen ledd-ish-es—
hot sun
shining on your face—
it must be a new day.
But why aren’t you happy
if it’s a new day?
Because something has happened…
something sad and terrible….
Now I remember… it’s Janie.
Yesterday
I took Janie out
and tied my handkerchief over her face
and put sand in it
and threw her into the ditch
down in the black water
under the dock leaves…
and when mama asked me where Janie was
I said I had lost her.
I’m glad it is night-time
so I’ll be able to go to sleep
and forget all about it….
But mama looks at my tongue
and says she will give me senna tea.
When you smell the tea
you shut your eyes tight
and pretend not to hear
the soft, cool voice of mama
that goes over your forehead
like a little wind.
And then you lie in the dark
and stare… and stare…
till the faces come…
yellow faces with leering eyes
drifting in a greeny mist….
I wonder
if Janie sees faces
out there… alone in the dark….
I wonder
if she has got the handkerchief off
or if the water has gone in the hole
where the whistle was
at the back of her head
and drowned her…
or if the stars
can see her under the dock leaves?
It’s smoky-blue and still
over the red road.
Wind must be lying down with its tail under it—
doesn’t even flick off the flies.
And you can hear the silence
buzzing in the gum trees,
the way the angels buzzed
when they flew through the cedars of Lebanon
with thin gauze wings
you could see through.
Nice to hear the silence buzzing—
till it comes too close
and booms in your ears
and presses all over you
till you scream….
When you scream at the silence
it goes to jingling pieces
like a silver mirror
broken into tiny bits.
Perhaps its wings are made of glass—
perhaps it lives down in a dark, dark cave
and only comes up
to warm its wings in the sun….
It’s cold in the cave—
no matter how you cover yourself up.
Little girls sit there
dressed in white
and the dolls in their arms
all have white handkerchiefs
over their faces.
Their shadows cannot play with them…
their shadows lie down at their feet…
for the little girls sit stiff as stones
with their backs to the mouth of the cave
where a little light falls off
the wings of the silence
when it comes down out of the sun.
Moon catches the flying fish
as they dive in the bay.
Flying fish
spin over and over
slippity-silver
into the water.
Mom bends over jungles
and touches the foreheads of tigers
as they pass under openings made by dropped leaves.
Tigers stop on the trail of the deer
while the moon is on their foreheads—
they let the stags go by.
Moon is shining strangely
on the white palings of the fence.
Fence keeps very still…
most times it moves a little…
everything moves a little
though you mayn’t know it…
but now the little fence
wouldn’t change places with the great cross
that stands so stiff and high
with its back to the moon.
Moon shining strangely
on the white palings of the fence,
I am shining too
but my light is shut inside of me
and can’t get out.
Old house with black windows—
blind house begging moonlight
to put out the shadows—
why do you want so much light?
You creak when the wind steps on you—
you cough up dust
and your beams ache—
you know you will soon fall,
the moon just pities you!
Don’t waste yourself moon—
come on my bed and play with me.
Wrap me up in blue light,
you who are cool.
I am too hot,
I am all alive
and the shadows are outside of me.
There are different kinds of shadows.
The blind ones
are the shadows of things.
These are the tame shadows—
they love to play on the wall with you
and follow you about like cats and dogs.
Sometimes
they hiss at you softly
like snakes that do not bite,
or swish like women’s dresses,
but if you poke a candle at them
they pull in their heads and disappear.
But there is a shadow
that is not the shadow of a thing…
it is a thing itself.
When you meet this shadow
you must not look at it too long…
it grows with your looking at it…
till you are all alone
with nothing around you…
nothing… nothing… nothing…
but a shadow
with its eyes full of black light.
There’s a shadow in the corner of the shed,
crouching, lying in wait…
a black coiled shadow,
watching… ready to strike…
but I mustn’t be afraid of it—
I mustn’t be afraid of anything.
Poor evil shadow,
the candle would chase it away
only she can’t get at it.
Do you think that every one hates you,
shadow with your back to the wall,
afraid to lie down and sleep?
But I don’t hate you.
Even the moon means to be kind.
She just treads on you
as I’d tread on a worm that I didn’t see.
Don’t be afraid of me, shadow.
See—I’ve no light in my hand—
nothing to save myself with—
yet I walk right up to you—
if you’ll let me
I’ll put my arms around you
and stroke you softly.
Are you surprised I’d put my arms around you?
Is it your black black sorrow
that nobody loves you?
poem by Lola Ridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Light o' the Moon
[How different people and different animals look upon the moon: showing that each creature finds in it his own mood and disposition]
The Old Horse in the City
The moon's a peck of corn. It lies
Heaped up for me to eat.
I wish that I might climb the path
And taste that supper sweet.
Men feed me straw and scanty grain
And beat me till I'm sore.
Some day I'll break the halter-rope
And smash the stable-door,
Run down the street and mount the hill
Just as the corn appears.
I've seen it rise at certain times
For years and years and years.
What the Hyena Said
The moon is but a golden skull,
She mounts the heavens now,
And Moon-Worms, mighty Moon-Worms
Are wreathed around her brow.
The Moon-Worms are a doughty race:
They eat her gray and golden face.
Her eye-sockets dead, and molding head:
These caverns are their dwelling-place.
The Moon-Worms, serpents of the skies,
From the great hollows of her eyes
Behold all souls, and they are wise:
With tiny, keen and icy eyes,
Behold how each man sins and dies.
When Earth in gold-corruption lies
Long dead, the moon-worm butterflies
On cyclone wings will reach this place —
Yea, rear their brood on earth's dead face.
What the Snow Man Said
The Moon's a snowball. See the drifts
Of white that cross the sphere.
The Moon's a snowball, melted down
A dozen times a year.
Yet rolled again in hot July
When all my days are done
And cool to greet the weary eye
After the scorching sun.
The moon's a piece of winter fair
Renewed the year around,
Behold it, deathless and unstained,
Above the grimy ground!
It rolls on high so brave and white
Where the clear air-rivers flow,
Proclaiming Christmas all the time
And the glory of the snow!
What the Scare-crow Said
The dim-winged spirits of the night
Do fear and serve me well.
They creep from out the hedges of
The garden where I dwell.
I wave my arms across the walk.
The troops obey the sign,
And bring me shimmering shadow-robes
And cups of cowslip-wine.
Then dig a treasure called the moon,
A very precious thing,
And keep it in the air for me
Because I am a King.
What Grandpa Mouse Said
The moon's a holy owl-queen.
She keeps them in a jar
Under her arm till evening,
Then sallies forth to war.
She pours the owls upon us.
They hoot with horrid noise
And eat the naughty mousie-girls
And wicked mousie-boys.
So climb the moonvine every night
And to the owl-queen pray:
Leave good green cheese by moonlit trees
For her to take away.
And never squeak, my children,
Nor gnaw the smoke-house door:
The owl-queen then will love us
And send her birds no more.
The Beggar Speaks
"What Mister Moon Said to Me."
Come, eat the bread of idleness,
Come, sit beside the spring:
Some of the flowers will keep awake,
Some of the birds will sing.
Come, eat the bread no man has sought
For half a hundred years:
Men hurry so they have no griefs,
Nor even idle tears:
They hurry so they have no loves:
They cannot curse nor laugh —
Their hearts die in their youth with neither
Grave nor epitaph.
My bread would make them careless,
And never quite on time —
Their eyelids would be heavy,
Their fancies full of rhyme:
Each soul a mystic rose-tree,
Or a curious incense tree:
Come, eat the bread of idleness,
Said Mister Moon to me.
What the Forester Said
The moon is but a candle-glow
That flickers thro' the gloom:
The starry space, a castle hall:
And Earth, the children's room,
Where all night long the old trees stand
To watch the streams asleep:
Grandmothers guarding trundle-beds:
Good shepherds guarding sheep.
poem by Vachel Lindsay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Late autumn
The yellow veldt, the skeleton chestnut trees
specs of orange-red aloes in the kopje
are near to the old white house
and in the late afternoon shades draw long lines
while I walk up to the house on the red-brown dirt road
and most of the flowers in the garden are stripped bare
but a few irises are flowering yellow,
purple and cream brown
and the sky is dull blue and the early evening cold
is already on the wind that is rustling everything
and after years I open the garden gate
are coming back to my childhood home
stripped from illusions,
and I am bare from the childhood innocence
but full of hope
and looking through a mature man’s eyes.
poem by Gert Strydom
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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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What The Hyena Said
The moon is but a golden skull,
She mounts the heavens now,
And Moon-Worms, mighty Moon-Worms
Are wreathed around her brow.
The Moon-Worms are a doughty race:
They eat her gray and golden face.
Her eye-sockets dead, and molding head:
These caverns are their dwelling-place.
The Moon-Worms, serpents of the skies,
From the great hollows of her eyes
Behold all souls, and they are wise:
With tiny, keen and icy eyes,
Behold how each man sins and dies.
When Earth in gold-corruption lies
Long dead, the moon-worm butterflies
On cyclone wings will reach this place—
Yea, rear their brood on earth’s dead face.
poem by Vachel Lindsay
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Black Mirror
Black Vs White
White Vs black
the mirror is against me
Or am i against the mirror?
we ARE the black Vs white
we are the dawn, battling the night
we are the stars in the evening sky
and we are the blood spilled in the hollow, dark night
we are brother and sister
Relatives yet foes
we will destroy each other
for you can't have one without the other
you look at me
i know your story
we will each scream in pain
and scream for glory
and watching the blood spill down your skin
i clutch your hand as the light dims
in killing you
i have killed myself
we are each others own personal black mirror
and as we fall down to the grave
i look at you as you try to pray
we may both die
but i have won
for the dark always covers the sun.
and as you cry while i clutch your hand
i whisper in your ear, so only you may hear
Dear brother, brother of mine
you are my black mirror
and now it is time.
poem by Kiele Kane
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song
No, I shall not say why it is that I love you—
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,—your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .
I'll say—my childhood broke through chords of music
—Or were they chords of sun?—wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty. .
I lay in the warm sweet grass on a blue May morning,
My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover,
And drowsed there like a bee. . . .blue days behind me
Stretched like a chain of deep blue pools of magic,
Enchanted, silent, timeless. . . .days before me
Murmured of blue-sea mornings, noons of gold,
Green evenings streaked with lilac, bee-starred nights.
Confused soft clouds of music fled above me.
Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.
I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight,
Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of beauty,
Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.
No, I shall not say 'this is why I praise you—
Because you say such wise things, or such foolish. . .'
You would not have me say what you know better?
Let me instead be silent, only saying—:
My childhood lives in me—or half-lives, rather—
And, if I close my eyes cool chords of music
Flow up to me . . . long chords of wind and sunlight. . . .
Shadows of intricate vines on sunlit walls,
Deep bells beating, with aeons of blue between them,
Grass blades leagues apart with worlds between them,
Walls rushing up to heaven with stars upon them. . .
I lay in my bed and through the tall night window
Saw the green lightning plunging among the clouds,
And heard the harsh rain storm at the panes and roof. . . .
How should I know—how should I now remember—
What half-dreamed great wings curved and sang above me?
What wings like swords? What eyes with the dread night in them?
This I shall say.—I lay by the hot white sand-dunes. .
Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny,
Stared at the sky. And silently there above us
Day after day, beyond our dreams and knowledge,
Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows,
Swift and blue, or dark. . . .What did they mean?
What sinister threat of power? What hint of beauty?
Prelude to what gigantic music, or subtle?
Only I know these things leaned over me,
Brooded upon me, paused, went flowing softly,
Glided and passed. I loved, I desired, I hated,
I struggled, I yielded and loved, was warmed to blossom . . .
You, when your eyes have evening sunlight in them,
Set these dunes before me, these salt bright flowers,
These presences. . . .I drowse, they stream above me,
I struggle, I yield and love, I am warmed to dream.
You are the window (if I could tell I'd tell you)
Through which I see a clear far world of sunlight.
You are the silence (if you could hear you'd hear me)
In which I remember a thin still whisper of singing.
It is not you I laugh for, you I touch!
My hands, that touch you, suddenly touch white cobwebs,
Coldly silvered, heavily silvered with dewdrops;
And clover, heavy with rain; and cold green grass. . .
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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