A Landscape
A Landscape
Here in this landscape of bushes and crippled
trees, silence speaks of the final peace.
Grotesque dead trees, daylight ghosts, stand there
with grey boughs stretching upward appealing
to a fairytale god, “give us today a new life” but
no, there is only one god he is almighty, and hears
not your fearful whispered wishes, those who do
not understand are doomed to a life of an empty
pursuit for pleasures, crowding nightclubs and
casinos trying to avoid being alone with the night
and facing the truth: we are mortal and heaven is
to be remembered for a while by other mortals.
Faces in a black frame seeing you seeing through
you and into a void. Yet I fear not this landscape as
it is shunned by man and no harm can happen to me
here except the inevitable
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Related quotes
California Hills in August
I can imagine someone who found
these fields unbearable, who climbed
the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust,
cracking the brittle weeds underfoot,
wishing a few more trees for shade.
An Easterner especially, who would scorn
the meagerness of summer, the dry
twisted shapes of black elm,
scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape
August has already drained of green.
One who would hurry over the clinging
thistle, foxtail, golden poppy,
knowing everything was just a weed,
unable to conceive that these trees
and sparse brown bushes were alive.
And hate the bright stillness of the noon
without wind, without motion.
the only other living thing
a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended
in the blinding, sunlit blue.
And yet how gentle it seems to someone
raised in a landscape short of rain—
the skyline of a hill broken by no more
trees than one can count, the grass,
the empty sky, the wish for water.
poem by Dana Gioia
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The way he paints the sun and the trees
He paints the sun in black bold colors
Flaming in black smoke and the trees
Are tiny and thin all in black like
Charred sticks from a huge fire
He did not place people in the landscape
The black rays are like the hands of octopuses
Crawling and perhaps eating the landscape
I look at his eyes, they are all red
Blood spurting out from his capillaries
With this huge fire of anger
Burning the painting the canvass ashed.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Amazement
The Amazement
The track I walked, in the thorny landscape, was full of loose
stones that kept coming up from ground trying to trip me up,
where the track narrowed amongst unkempt trees, boughs
tried to push me over, and in the undergrowth I heard snarls
of animals too vicious and hideous too appear in the flesh.
Overcast day and the wind that blew had ice on its breaths,
I shivered alone in the enmity of a landscape gone feral.
But I staggered on unwilling to give into phobias and fear,
suddenly stones went subversive and the path was soft as
a carpet, unseen animals disappeared and trees welcomed
me with fluttering leaves; even a love hungry zephyr
whispered sweet words. In a shimmering glade- smooth as
a rich man’s lawn- a plum tree, full of juicy fruit, I picked and
ate some; they tasted of magic and sweet marvel.
Dizzy with pleasure I sat on a stone, formed by ten million
years of rain, like a throne, saw sirens dance to Pan’s flute and
swim with sunrays and moon waves that hadn’t made it home
and had to wait for night, and mother moon to come pick them
up. Fell asleep when I woke up a boar, with her seven piglets,
drank water by the lake’s far shore. White clouds on blue, time
to go home and remember not speak of this to anyone.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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How Mild Fall Is
How mild the fall is?
I followed a track between tall, pale green cactuses, in this harsh landscape
where even the smallest plant has thorns, where bark and leaves, of even
regular trees, like carob and olive, are tough and will not softens to human
touch. Yet this is a landscape that once was tilled and now abandoned, does
this landscape’s common soul feels rancorous of being left to fend for itself?
I found a ruin. More than a ruin, a pile of stones only its outline told me that
once this had been a home where children had been born, lived and died
for generations, till someone said: enough! And left for pastures green, (most
likely USA or Canada,) poverty is only romantic in movies. Half of November
gone, I’m walking about in shirt sleeves the ground is rock hard and dusty,
the local paper tells us that 14 years ago the weather was mild too till January,
then it snowed and it was cold till May. Feel I’m being watched in the bushes
I see a boar watching me it is a wily old boar it sees I carry no gun, yet keeps
its distance; and high above me circles eagles; the landscape is teaming with
rabbits which used to be food for the people, who lived in the ruin (when
they could snare one) now business men, who have paid for a license to kill,
come here to unwind. To kill seems to satisfy a base desire in mankind; yet, it
is better a rabbit is scarified, then to see a dead Afghan child with eyes that
reflect the grey mountains, poppy fields and the blue unfeeling sky.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Frost Roses
Ice Roses
Frost on windows? Not where I live now, but where
I grew up, winter windows had thick layers of ice.
And in mornings, before anyone got out of bed, I
carved landscape and faces and saw my work fade
slowly away, by noon I could see the landscape
I had carved through clear windows, the mountain’s
stream, frozen solid now, and trees; mother’s face
also as she was busy in the kitchen baking bread.
I do not miss the cold Nordic land I came from, but
wish windows here too have frost roses, or be as
blank as a new page I could write. “I love you on.”
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Martian Landscape
* come from the land where
The wheat is still wheat
Where the waters in the rivers is still water
In this land every man lends
A hand when you need it
But your hands are full of life
So you can help yourself and feel it
Its been a long way from the red of my home
From the valleys
And the green plains never ending
Everyone knows that the sun in his land is stronger
And your hands are full of life
If you can only wait just longer
** so let it be a small haven big in your heart
Dont let it turn into a nova
Tryin to climb and climb
Try and forget this place where
I can still find time
To sing in rhyme
.*** martian landscape,
Ill learn to lie in your arms
Where all the freedom is mine and it comes
Martian landscape,
Ill turn my face to your sun
Where your horizon is mine and it comes
* repeat
** repeat
*** repeat
Martian landscape
Martian landscape
song performed by by Ufo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I've walked a lot in the mountains in Iceland. And as you come to a new valley, as you come to a new landscape, you have a certain view. If you stand still, the landscape doesn't necessarily tell you how big it is. It doesn't really tell you what you're looking at. The moment you start to move the mountain starts to move.
quote by Olafur Eliasson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sonnet: Grow Trees
The branches cut the wind fierce to a breeze;
The leaves break sunlight into chequered beams;
The shade of trees affords all travelers peace;
The wearied ones sleep ’neath the trees in dreams!
And birds too build their nests on branches high;
The squirrels eat their berries with great joy;
The trees make verdant all landscape near-by;
And attract rain in which children enjoy!
Trees make the earth greener and beautiful,
Adding oxygen to the air we breathe;
Preserve its trees, man! Nature is grateful;
The leaves and flowers can make us a wreath.
Trees are so useful to mankind always;
’midst good trees, men have spent their earthly days!
7-14-2002
poem by John Celes
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Landscapes
Landscapes
The landscape I walk, used to be guarded by stone hedges; infinite
supply of stones this soil yields if not much else. Nature has taken
back what man did, the landscape is lush of weed, and bent trees.
I’m sliding into silence, but if I listen I can hear Spanish bluebells
peal in a mild breeze that also carries a whisper of a Nordic lullaby,
Last year a Canadian couple walked with me, their ancestors came
from around here. We stopped outside a ruin and they went silent,
cried. An ancient memory stirred they knew this place. Where their
tears had fertilized the ground, is, this year, full of wild flowers.
No, they are not returning, Canadians now and proud of that too.
I sit on a stone, not by the river of Babylon, and see how the brook,
free from icy shackles elatedly run, will not heed words of caution.
I have made boats of bark, and sail of green leaves, see them hasten
towards the North Sea. The brook is no more, indifference has seen
to that, but the landscape of my childhood is clear as a stream.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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More varied than any landscape was the landscape in the sky, with islands of gold and silver, peninsulas of apricot and rose against a background of many shades of turquoise and azure.
quote by Cecil Beaton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Regenerating
The trembling hands were
ostrasized for living more
than the mafia.
Why the marigold
will not use the magical potent
to understand the conceit?
Wounded by street
an unease settles on devestated trees.
How the broken moon will rise now?
The giver will not distort
the truth for the sake of bleak landscape.
Seeds were waiting to sprout.
You can bend the rainbow.
Night was raped for nothing.
Sun will take the revenge.
poem by Satish Verma
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Sonnet: Nature Resurrects
The ‘curry-leaf’ tree bears berries again!
The black fruits look enticing, succulent;
And more will ripen with the August-rain,
A feast to the spotted-grey bird, God-sent.
The guava-trees are full of flow’rs and fruits!
They ripen fast each morn to squirrel’s squeak;
The landscape will have ripe fruits like a ‘Blitz, ’
Which many birds will then happily beak.
The rain can do such magic to the lands;
It resurrects the almost dead, dry trees;
Some fairies good are working with their wands!
The fauna seems as busy as the bees.
Thus, Nature sprinkles compassion on all!
Her heart melts to each creature’s plaintive call.
8-9-2002
poem by John Celes
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Overall, the anarchy was the most creative of all periods of Japanese culture for in it there appeared the greatest landscape painting, the culmination of the skill of landscape gardening and the arts of flower arrangement, and the No drama.
quote by J.M. Roberts
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To Change Me?
when you arrive here
you change the paint of the house
you like it pastel blue on the door
white on the walls
and green on the windows
you change the landscape
except of the wanton garden
you opt for a manicured lawn
and some of my trees
and shrubs have to be
cut down,
some flowers have to go
you bring in
the violets, and lavenders
and white champacas
you like a scent from around
you
specially during the night
when we simply sit
on the lawn
now you begin to demand
some changes from me
the time when i wake
up or sleep
you like soap i like sports
you want me to enjoy
love stories
the color of my socks
my tie my polo shirts
i give in for a while
but there is an end to all these
attempts to change me
you cannot,
i am me before the landscape
before the paints of the house
i am me before the lawns and flowers and socks
and shirts and soap
i am already me before you arrive
to my house
to my life
you cannot change me
because
i love who i am what i am and i know perfectly just what i want to make
myself
even without you,
make some more attempts to change me
and i will ask you to leave at once
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A Vision Of Skulls and Bones
I had a vision
of walking through
a desolate land
skulls were covering
the ground
like wildflowers
In mingled together
bones and rubble
I was startled to see-
a dog half-starved
searching for food
and finding none
the landscape was barren
what once was trees
is now dried stalks
there was no birds
there was no flowers
only pure desolation
oh my soul
my heart cried out
oh my God in heaven
how could you
let this happen
poem by Rachel Nichols
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I have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the English landscape in search of ancient field systems, drove roads, indications of prehistoric settlement.
quote by Penelope Lively
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Spasskoe
In Spasskoe, unforgettable September sheds its leaves.
Isn’t it time to close up the summer-house?
Echo traps the thudding of axe-blows in the trees,
and, past the fence, barters a herd-boy’s shout.
Last night the marsh by the park shivered, too.
The moment the sun rises it vanishes.
The bluebell can’t drink the rheumatic dew,
and a dirty lilac stain soils the birches.
The wood’s downcast. It wants to sleep, as well,
under the snow, in the deep quiet of the bear’s den.
The park, gaping, framed by tree-trunks stands still,
in neat obituary-columns, its edges blackened.
Has the birch copse stopped fading, staining,
its shade more watery still, and growing thin?
And again, you’re, fifteen – it’s still complaining –
again – ‘oh child, oh, what shall we do with them?’
They’re already so many it’s time to stop playing.
They’re – birds in the bushes, mushrooms in the trees.
Already we’ve veiled our horizon with them, shrouding
each other’s landscape with fog-bound mysteries.
The comic, on the night of his death, typhus-stricken,
hears a peal: it’s Homeric laughter from the box.
Today in Spasskoe, the same grief, in hallucination,
stares, from the road, at a house of weathered logs.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Heart Beating In Time
Each day without fail
the road would visit the house
(it was the only house the road knew)
and the house too
would look forward to
the road’s visit.
Over the years they became
good friends.
Then one day the house died
from lack of people
and was torn down
until it was only
memory and rubble.
The road continued to visit it
but could only stare into empty space
at the place where the house
had been.
The road was lonely.
At night it talked to
the landscape and the stars
but life was never the same
again.
One day the road just up and died
from lack of use.
Now only the dream
of a memory exists
and the landscape and stars
talk to themselves
and try to remember
what it is...they have
forgot.
poem by Dónall Dempsey
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In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.
quote by Thomas Keneally
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Lost My Life To Fear
Fear in the midst of the night
Fear in broad daylight
Fear of what could happen
Fear of what did happen
Fear insinuating my every day
Fear controlling all that I say
Fear governing me as I sleep
Fear deriding me as I weep
Fear that puts my sanity at steak
Fear that prays for me to break
Fear that strikes me with perplexity
Fear with a recipe of complexity
Fear that deprived me of exhilaration
Fear that admitted me to frustration
Fear that is prevailing my mind
Fear that manipulates humankind
Fear that was unveiled in my DNA
Fear that still holds my life today
poem by Heather Albright
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