And I Don't Know If I Succeed
And I don’t know if I succeed myself
in every moment, a hereditary dynasty;
are ashes the continuum of fire, sorrow
the natural legator of joy, one thought
the progenitor of the next? How
can the mirror reflect itself
unless all things are mirrors
drinking from their own faces; unless
there are roses even as we speak
growing the eyelids and lips
of young women elegant
as eighteenth century herons and willows,
a poet who once dedicated himself like rain
to the battered body of the moon,
trying to turn his visions into atmospheres
that she might breathe again,
that the atrocity of her nakedness
might be clothed in orchids and grass
that shuddered in the gentle foreplay of the wind,
now bagging grams like the loaves and fishes
of a street messiah? In a world
where it is always autumn for the children
who wither and twist like brittle leaves
in the arms of desecrated mothers
whose wombs are trivial catastrophes, the flesh
of their emaciate sons and daughters
buried like shoes in short graves
pathetic with flowers, is art, is God, is love
merely the dodge and deceit
of the bored and obese, these
metaphors and symbols, this search
for a truce among these unknown factions
on which I ruin myself
in minor holy wars against ferocious kennels,
only the debauchery and douche
of a mystic luxury
that refuses to see the moon and the earth
for what they are, a blood-stained rock
beside a shattered skull? I love
the orange trollops of the wild honeysuckle
and the open palm of summer stars
that comes in the night for a reading,
I love the negligent beauty of the high fields
and the radiant empires of time
that suggest I was not always thus
in the all-night laundromats
that pry through my dirty linen
out of the corner of their small town eyes
to see if I’m deranged or dangerous, but how many times
in a mudpack of disgust and laughter
who has not reviled the self-indulgent facials
that estrange them from the truth
of what they fear they have become,
a pampered sin of omission
looking for the words to enroll their emptiness
in a night school for working corpses?
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Someone's Cut The Tongues Out Of The Bells Tonight
Someone's cut the tongues out of the bells tonight.
Even the silence isn't singing to itself.
The windows are generously tolerant of intruders
but I'm locked into the splendour of my isolation
empathizing with things I don't love.
Full moon. Fruit moon. Moon of berries and grain.
I thought I'd be happier at this time in my life,
but I'm threshing a harvest of shadows
for having sowed all my wild oats on the moon.
I'm intrigued by the fragrance of occult raptures on the air.
Dark intensities that can only end in immolation.
Black roses that only bloom in fire. Mystic disobedience
that lifts the flesh and blood taboos off
whatever comes to it naturally
as a late night 24-7 convenience store
or the fire that started in the kitchen of the Chinese restaurant
three doors down from my apartment yesterday.
Late night moods. The mind dogpaddling in its immensities.
Heritage town standing down from its fieldstones.
No drunks on the street, and all those angry voices
I didn't recognize, gone home to sleep off their disappointment.
I sit like an air traffic comptroller mindwatching
behind these panes of glass as Arcturus goes down
over the tar paper rooftops I poetically associate
with clouds, stars, seagulls and hand-held mirrors of rain
after a thunderstorm has shattered its reflection in them
like a love affair that wasn't going anywhere.
Doing time on earth, but of little consequence.
The bank across the street makes me feel depreciated.
Ask me this moment what legacy I've left
for the half century I've laboured creatively here
and I'd probably answer indignantly, a garage sale,
then reassure you by saying, for a good cause,
and mostly mean it, and partially wish I didn't.
poem by Patrick White
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O Beauty of Night...
As the golden sun goes to rest,
And the sky drape into black blanket,
Now take your turn
O beauty of Night – Moon.
Variety of moods makes me wonder,
Sometimes you look like circular disc,
At times spongy ball of cotton
O beauty of Night – Moon.
Eyes long to catch the glimpse,
Hands reach to hold you,
Lips hum song for you,
O beauty of Night – Moon.
Play not hide & seek,
Cover not behind the dark cloud
Unveil your beauty for me to gaze
O beauty of Night – Moon.
Cool gentle breeze blowing in silent night
Urge my heart to
Bathe in the white beam
O beauty of Night - Moon.
Reflection of my love I see in you
Fall down from the starry sky
To hold you in my arms
O beauty of Night – Moon.
poem by Geeta Nair
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Slow Summer Dancin'
I'll set the stage while she's still dancing
I'll make the music soft and slow
Then i'll turn down the lights
Make things just right
For every slow song that we know
Over and over again
One summer night
(do do do)
We fell in love
One summer night
I held you tight
(one summer, one summer)
You and i
(one summer, one summer)
Under the moon for love
(ooo one summer, one summer)
We'll spin around this room together
I'll treat my angel really nice
We'll fall in love, we'll fall forever
Thank god for lazy summer nights
Over and over again
One summer night
(do do do)
(one summer, one summer)
I kissed your lips
(one summer, one summer)
One summer night
(one summer, one summer)
I held you close
(one summer, one summer)
You and i
(one summer, one summer)
Under the moon of love
(ooo one summer, one summer)
(one summer, one summer)
One summer night
(one summer, one summer)
(one summer, one summer)
(one summer, one summer)
(one summer, one summer)
(one summer, one summer)
(one summer, one summer)
One summer night
(one summer, one summer)
Under the moon of love
(ooo one summer, one summer)
Under the moon of love
(ooo one summer, one summer)
Under the moon of
Love
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Slow Summer Dancin' (One Summer Night)
I'll set the stage while she's still dancing
I'll make the music soft and slow
Then I'll turn down the lights
Make things just right
For every slow song that we know
Over and over again
One summer night
(Do do do)
We fell in love
One summer night
I held you tight
(One summer, one summer)
You and I
(One summer, one summer)
Under the moon for love
(Ooo one summer, one summer)
We'll spin around this room together
I'll treat my angel really nice
We'll fall in love, we'll fall forever
Thank God for lazy summer nights
Over and over again
One summer night
(Do do do)
(One summer, one summer)
I kissed your lips
(One summer, one summer)
One summer night
(One summer, one summer)
I held you close
(One summer, one summer)
You and I
(One summer, one summer)
Under the moon of love
(Ooo one summer, one summer)
(One summer, one summer)
One summer night
(One summer, one summer)
(One summer, one summer)
(One summer, one summer)
(One summer, one summer)
(One summer, one summer)
(One summer, one summer)
One summer night
(One summer, one summer)
Under the moon of love
(Ooo one summer, one summer)
Under the moon of love
(Ooo one summer, one summer)
Under the moon of
Love
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Come, Night...
come, night...
night of the holy,
open arms outstretched,
wrapping all that hurts
and burns in cooling blackness.
come, night,
night of the candle lit,
of the curtains blown,
of the silent whispers.
come, night,
night of the glass upturned,
of the laughter of comrades,
of the talking of the eyes.
come, night,
night of the bodies wrapped,
the tongues electric,
the hardness and the wetness.
come, night,
night of quiet reflection,
of soulful introspection,
of prayer beyond words.
come, night,
night of sleep eternal,
of the wind that leaves the body,
and searches the depths of emptiness.
come, night...
let us walk!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Love Outshines The Summer Sun (Sonnet Corona)
(after William Shakespeare)
I
My love outshines the summer sun,
even stars in their remote twinkling light
and her eyes are more beautiful, each one
than the stars glimmering at night
Her cheeks is dimpled cute
her hair is an auburn crown,
her cheeks is rosy beyond repute
her hair is sun-shot twisting in a way of their own.
Her lips are more soft and warm
and her spirit is more mild
than a ray of light falling on my arm
or at times more free and wild
than birds where they fly,
my love is like the radiant sapphire sky.
II
My love is like the radiant sapphire sky
like the breeze rustling through trees
so lovely on my eye,
eager to please.
My love is like the summer sun,
like the blue hued sea
always warm and full of fun,
touching me gently
even when the darkness calls
and when time goes to its finality
like a star her light still falls,
my love stays true to me
in every thing her face I see
so gentle, sweet and free.
III
So gentle, sweet and free
my love lives her life
but I long for her to be near to me
in a world without any strive.
Like a lily prospering alone in the marsh
blooming pure and serene,
my darling lives unknown to a world harsh
out of control, away from the limelight scene
and in that rural place
her beauty is untouched by makeup,
filled with a sweet grace
and even in the morning when she wakes up
the sun is in her hair,
my darling is really fair.
IV
My darling is really fair
there are stars in her eyes,
she’s the most beautiful flower found anywhere,
her eyes are much more pure than the bluest skies.
When she smiles at me,
smiling tenderly,
I in her smile blessings see
as if love is there in all of its glory.
Still more so the bliss
that is caught in her kiss
that comes from the divine
which she is making mine
and sometimes the beauty makes her cry,
when the day flutters by.
V
When the day flutters by
with the sun setting red
you will find my love and I
where stars come out from bed,
then like a butterfly
the sun kisses the night,
touches the dark low and high
before it goes by with its last light
and she unloosens my tie
while we watch the full yellow moon,
while the fire in her eyes lie
sparkling, much brighter than the sunny afternoon,
but with a passing bat flying low she catches a fright,
while the stars are shining bright.
VII
While the stars are shining bright
like jewels in the sky’s crown
on a winter night
it has tranquillity, a beauty of its own,
her eyes are radiant,
as if aflame
lovely and brilliant
and of some she know the name
and something indiscernibly small
creeps into the very soul, into the heart
and of it that is all,
a smouldering, something with which we cannot part:
to me she remains the only one in joy and fun,
my love outshines the summer sun.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Dirty Old Town
I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Clouds a drifting across the moon
Cats a prowling on their beat
Springs a girl in the street at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Im going to make me a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
Will chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
song performed by by Pogues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Divine Spice
Beneath the ashes golden rivers
Feathers preened in gentle winds
Beacons like snow capped mountains
Shine on all you humble friends
Gold finches with ebullient joy
Her marvelous smile is a dream
Fields of yellow daffodils
Wreaths made of ancient streams
Muse wiser than great Solemn
Sleep in dreams of acacia and honey
Spirit of the garden gently blows
She awakes the fire of dawn in me
Night blazes with cleansing fire
Zephyrs of first delicate love
Recipients of eternal stars
The mystic moon shines above
Perfume rich from apple blossoms
Barley sires elegant meadows of time
Radiant soul elegant as maple leaves
Autumn shelters beauties sweet delight
Voices gentle with patience sing forever
The cloak of the muse in purple twilight
Candles shine on her face of rapture
Stars of ruby queens prickle the night
Tides glow with embellished blue
Light dances like mysterious elves
Gatherings of the oaks and pines
Owls amidst the eagle’s high realm
Born in rivers laced with romance
The royal sea sparkles in her eyes
Nectarines in orchards of cinnamon
Love is truly the eternal divine spice
By Violet Sublime
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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I Flesh Your Spirit Out In Starmud
I flesh your spirit out in starmud. No creator.
No created. Between the leaf and the sky
I mix the colour of your eyes on the palette
of a rainbow that let's the darkness
sit at the same fire it does. Because the spirit is free.
I hang crescent moons from your earlobes.
I release the sacred deltas of small night creeks
into your veins, and talk to deserts on the moon
about the manes of sidereal lions for your hair.
I search the darkening hills at night for a black rose
with eyelids as cool as mushrooms, and lips,
that are more the wings of auguries, birds and bows
disappearing into the distance to imagine you
than they are the words and arrows
of a flightless heart dipped in stars that don't ignite.
I'm a blind man in a room, painting eyes,
trying to grow flowers out of last year's fragrances,
interpret every syllable and sacred pixel
of your red ochre glyphs of lipstick
I used to bury myself in when I lived in caves with bears
and rubbed the stuff all over my face
like blood and corn flowers under the hearthstone.
Now I'm a dragon rising from my urn of ashes
like a volcano of serpent-fire out of the chrysalis
of my crystal skull, looking for signs, hints, clues,
any whisper of linear B as to who you are
in the shadows of the sundials of the mountains
you go walking with at night with your dogs.
And the stars you must see in the clear-eyed desert
when the temperature drops and all you've got
to keep you warm from the inside out is not
you in my arms, but this small dropp of blood
in our chests, this cosmic thermometer of a heart
on the night ward of a perilous greenhouse.
And I went to a cactus with thorns like a voodoo doll
with oracular powers to ask about the shape
of the body I should root you in like an hourglass in sand
and she said to me, a rootless peach tree on the moon.
And ever since, I've touched your skin
with eyes at the end of my fingertips
like a new world gnostic gospel for the blind
that can see you in the flesh, naked, sublime
like a desert island it would be worth drowning for
just to be washed up on the curvature of your dunes
like a starfish when the mind comes back to its senses
like the first sign of life on the moon in a long time.
You emerge like wild irises of hydrogen out of
this cloud of unknowing, this cocoon of nebularity
like one star among many in an almost perfect vacuum.
I can see you. I can almost taste you. I can feel
your last lover trying to squeeze into the chrysalis
of the infinite straitjacket of your last exorcism
as if he'd finally run out of dawns as alibis
for why he didn't want to leave just yet. Who
hasn't stood in the doorway of Orion
sinking down in the west? For some
the threshold's the longest part of the journey
and they make a nadir of everything at zenith
by letting their horizons down like a crosswalk
waiting for a change of colour blind traffic lights
that don't know, for all that Stop. Go. Maybe so.,
anymore about passage than the road does
or a starmap that always certain of where it's going
but never has a reason why it should
jump the gun like a star and get ahead of its light
like a car on a long dark dusty country road at night,
one headlight out, trying not to hit a doe
in the glare of the sun at midnight
on its way out of town, whether that's up, down,
or omnidirectionally radiant as the Pleiades in tears.
Drift and mingle, merge, enhance,
dance, glance, shadow and glow,
still more ghost around you than I am a mirror,
I know what it means to be summoned to a seance
and not know what to wear. What lifemask to put on
like a Mason jar full of fireflies trying to decide
what constellation has the fewest short circuits in it
and is the least likely to lead anyone astray
when the lights go on and off like a fickle tranformer
or a Cepheid variable that was just born that way.
And here, now, your ears and your hands, your arms
and bones of your own that don't owe a thing
to anyone else's bird cage after the bird has flown.
And now I think I've got the eyes just right
but it's the heart calling its rivers back to it
like the sea I can't quite find the likeness of
even when I appeal to the most ancient galaxies
in the Hubble mirror for a similitude of love
that might serve as the understudy of a metaphor
in an expanding universe that keeps exceeding
the boundary stones of the stars at zenith
and even the chipped cup of the moon full
and a skull that used to juggle mirrors
like shattered insights into reality for those
so spiritually inclined at harvest time to listen
to the blue moonrise peering through the cedars
like an effulgent pearl of wisdom shedding her skin
like a mystic in rapture on the dark side she keeps to herself.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Holy Night
Everything sighs with moonlight
Who owns the sun and stars?
Prayer sails outside of mortal time
My soul lives in another dimension
Gentle palm trees sway in shadows
The sea shines in wake of the moon
Waves role and ebb on quiet shores
Sacred moment swells with eternity
The universe is a friend to sojourners
Stars of Holy portent glow with awe
Gentle night along this white sand
Mystic soft light on kelp and shells
Lights from the small mountain village
They fish the sea like centuries before
I sit on an old rock of ancient lava
The glimmer of the stars is hypnotic
Dreams mingle with beauty true
Fellowship with wonder and peace
Assurance that all will be well
Spirit in the sweet breeze and tide
Gratitude ascends on this Holy Night
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Sex Confessions
The Bed
Your Mouth
My Touch
Our Lips
It’s a fever
In the night
Forbidden
Forbidden
Desecr ated and damned together
Desecrated and damned forever
One naked flesh, we’ll die together
One naked flesh, making love forever
The Flame
Your Cries
My Salt
Our Wounds
It’s a fever
In the night
Forbidden
Forbidden
Desecrated and damned together
Desecrated and damned forever
One naked flesh, we’ll die together
One naked flesh, making love forever
The Earth
Your Rain
My Seed
Our Life
It’s a fever
In the night
Forbidden
Forbidden
Desecrated and damned together
Desecrated and damned forever
One naked flesh, we’ll die together
One naked flesh, making love forever
Hell
Regrets
Confessions
Of Love
Your Love
My Love
Our Love
Love
It’s a fever
In the night
Forbidden
Forbidden
Desecrated and damned together
Desecrated and damned forever
One naked flesh, we’ll die together
One naked flesh, making love forever
poem by Catman Cohen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Your Eyes For Awhile
Your eyes for awhile
were the only eyes
I could see through
to catch a glimpse of god;
were windows into my own soul
that I could look through from the outside
without throwing the moon
through my reflection like a stone
in the hand of an angry boy.
And it was always as true
as the way your heart grew
that you could love strangers
easier than I do even now
after all these years of learning how
to talk to mirrors in their own language.
And you were not one woman
but all women forever
when I saw you once
bending down like the dusk
to touch the last of the flowers
as if you would never see them again.
As serene as the evening
there was no labour in your beauty
and I swear when I saw you that night
I felt as if I were the whole world watching
time put a finger to its lips
and pour its fountain
into the flow of your body
as if it were the sum of all passage.
And though I was your friend in all things
every evening since
the candle went out
in the lantern of a lost tomorrow
I have walked out into abandoned fields alone
and asked the saddest questions
of the most distant stars
knowing there is not enough light sometimes
even in the eyes of God
to be a companion of our sorrows.
And the questions grow longer
as the darkness deepens
the echo of my longing
in a well as dry as my skull
and closes its gates like scars.
And then those nights come
like a life or a day
or even just this moment
when I stop asking
why human suffering
is always indescribably true
and joyful as an irreproachable buffoon
sword-dancing alone with the moon
who writes me dangerous loveletters
as if she were the Lady of the Lake
receiving me back
like a funeral ship
into this mysterium of you,
I can almost believe that you know
even though the night mocks the crow
that pines for mercy
and turns its lightless face toward you
as if it could still feel
the warmth of the sun at midnight
in your eyes again
like the afterlife of light
playing with fireflies in the abyss
now that the summer constellations have gone down;
that somehow you must know
like a guitar
on the far side of a room
where someone is singing
as if they had their ear
to the womb
of your irrevocable absence
that binds me to you with every breath
I take for two
as if I had learned to live on death
to keep you alive in me
where you still flow through the seasons
on the nightstreams of my blood
like blossoms and leaves and stars
and the moon leaves no scars on the water;
must know. Or a demon’s a kinder face
to bestow on the darkness
than a black hole without eyes,
though it’s taken many, long, painful years
for the night to share the light with its jewels again
and as many schools as there are fools to fill them
that even just one
of those slightly compassionate smiles
you would send across the room
to cool the furnace of my heart
with the lightness of one snowflake,
one feather
gracing a change in the weather,
knew more about love
as a raindropp knows the sea
than all of us
who have been washed up
on this cold, lonely shore together
thinking we may have been saved
for something more
than this tidal longing
to brave the sea again
and even if doomed to drown
as I have learned
from this shale of pain
that has carbon-dated the eras
of my missing you
like a life that didn’t
flash before my eyes
as I went down for good with everything,
to thank-you, o, yes,
with nothing but love and light in my heart
and your face in the eye of my solitude
as I stand before the sea in gratitude
to thank-you
as you well knew one day I could
for the generosity of the wound
that has run like my life
down these eyes
these windows
this page
these empty mirrors
of autumn rain
that have wept for years without you
just to see you again
for one moment more
than the time I have left
to know that I never will.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dangerous (Look In The Light Of What You're Searching For)
Come into the light, passing through wisdom.
Hoping for love, all of the moves
Don't come across; you get too much.
Everybody needs it; don't show your body.
So dangerous - This fear of love
So dangerous - Can you handle it?
So dangerous - To love
So dangerous - Everyone else can do it
Walking the street, you're breaking your love.
Lose your heart, all in a mess.
In the middle of the night, looking for a little
Hands to the sun; don't show your body.
Death defying - Hurt by love
Passing through shadows - Don't lose your body
So dangerous - This fear of love
So dangerous - Can you handle it?
So dangerous - To keep this fear of love
So dangerous - To let it go
I don't imagine, I don't imagine as it is;
Don't get confused.
In the light, through the night...
Look in the light, through the night
Look in the light of what you're searching for.
Hide from your heart here in the arms of wanting.
Hide from the dark here in the arms of love.
Run from the fear inside the darkest reaches.
Look to yourself; you'll see the path is clear
So dangerous - This fear of love
So dangerous - Can you handle it?
So dangerous - To love
So dangerous - Everyone else can do it
Take what you have into the arms of wanting (to the arms of love)
song performed by by Yes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dangerous (Look In The Light Of What You're Searching For)
Come into the light, passing through wisdom.
Hoping for love, all of the moves
Don't come across; you get too much.
Everybody needs it; don't show your body.
So dangerous - This fear of love
So dangerous - Can you handle it?
So dangerous - To love
So dangerous - Everyone else can do it
Walking the street, you're breaking your love.
Lose your heart, all in a mess.
In the middle of the night, looking for a little
Hands to the sun; don't show your body.
Death defying - Hurt by love
Passing through shadows - Don't lose your body
So dangerous - This fear of love
So dangerous - Can you handle it?
So dangerous - To keep this fear of love
So dangerous - To let it go
I don't imagine, I don't imagine as it is;
Don't get confused.
In the light, through the night...
Look in the light, through the night
Look in the light of what you're searching for.
Hide from your heart here in the arms of wanting.
Hide from the dark here in the arms of love.
Run from the fear inside the darkest reaches.
Look to yourself; you'll see the path is clear
So dangerous - This fear of love
So dangerous - Can you handle it?
So dangerous - To love
So dangerous - Everyone else can do it
Take what you have into the arms of wanting (to the arms of love)
song performed by by Yes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Night In The Wounded Mirror
The night in the wounded mirror
is only a childhood away from my face
and there's always a shattered window
between me and my starless shining,
and a dead bird upturned on the sill
as if the sky, too, had its quota of roadkill.
Looking back from all these
lightyears and constellations away,
on the black day I was born under an eclipse
like a flower clenched into a fist,
an eye without an iris darker than a shark's,
I suspect there was a lot more suffering back then
than I was able to live my way through,
estranged in the corner of a kitchen
that was a feeding frenzy of knives.
I still can't leave one out on the counter
without fearing it's just another punctuation mark,
the claw of a comma in a long sentence of blood.
At best, it's the silver scar of the moon
that slashed me open like a well-honed loveletter
that wasn't meant for me.
And I still don't know how to approach
the child I was, the child I still am
time-travelling through himself like a glacier
as if he could put a stop to evolution
or survive his extinction
by keeping to himself like ice.
I look upon his solitude and silence,
the unaccusing indictment of his face,
like a cold, brass plaque
commemorating the unidentifiable victims
of an atrocity that can't be understood.
He's still seven and I'm looping through sixty
like the spine of a calendar
shedding me like autumn,
a picture of turning leaves on every page,
until there's no way of telling what age we are
in this season out of time,
and I want to love him, I want
to say things that could heal us both like water
before I take him with me into my grave,
but I don't truly know how,
and there are secret vows of violation
that are taken without a mouth
and assassins of intimacy in the shadows
and children sleeping in snakepits
who make up their own bedtime stories
and dream of things that can't be told to anyone
who hasn't been devoured in their ancient infancy
by the furious innocence of the sea.
Dark-hearted jewel
of a child in the night,
older than light
who has made more of me
than I can make of him,
when I weep for what he knows
and will not say, what am I,
what are these words
in the inky shacks of the trees
but the lengthening shadow
of the darkness that pours out of him like blood,
or duct-tape like moonlight
over the mouth of a scream?
And if I come back now
like the legend I have made of his sorrow
to gather him up in my arms
like a harvest under a full moon,
and if I sit with him all night
without saying anything
here on this skull of a rock
until each of us is the memory of the other,
could it make anything better,
would it take the thorn of the moon
out of the eye of the dragon
that sheds its skin like childhood skies,
not knowing where things end, things begin?
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Willow-Minded Friend Of Mine
Willow-minded friend of mine
you're the star of Isis in the palm of my hand
that keeps me from drowning in a sea of glass.
How often have I been washed ashore
on the coasts of your flesh
like a naked sailor in an icestorm
of breaking chandeliers
and been taken to see the king
by a princess doing laundry?
A firefly in the distance
might be a great star up close
and your every breath
seed the whirlwind
with golden drops of rain
after the tempest has exorcised its pain
and you grow more beautiful picture by picture
like someone who wants to be redeemed
in her own eyes
for things that only she could be.
But that's not why I love you.
No siren no muse no priestess no witch
no shepherdess of exotic snakes
squirming with the future
like mystic themes around your body
no sacred whore ready to party in the temple
with Minervan night owls and Cepheid movie-stars
that don't want anybody to turn the lights on
to see what's going on in the darkness
they are to everybody,
you are to me more
than I have eyes to see
to the beginning and end of things
but I can feel the night within
flowing like dark energy through space
and tendrils of time growing like paisley lifelines
into something sweeter than the wine
the white mirror drinks from its own reflection.
Before the arising of signs
I can feel your presence moving in me
like unborn constellations playing chess with time
to see who shall be the blossom
who the root
who the leaf
and who shall prime the lightning of the vine.
Long before your veils are parted by no one
like rivers of insight
I can hear your stars
whispering things into my ear
that make whole worlds appear
rocking life in their arms like water.
Time is a mental space
with different flavours.
You taste like the wounded grace
of an eloquent truce with flowers
or as Dogen Zenji said in l238
the lucky day is when you discover it's all one day
meaning one chameleon
turning many different colours
to match the hours it spends
in front of the mirror
that keeps it guessing
who's the seer and who's the seen.
The grass turns red.
The flower turns green.
How long have I waited for you
like a tide on the moon to come in
like the spoke of a tree for a rim of stars
like a metaphor in the chrysalis of a dragonfly for wings
you could see through like a stained-glass window
divining the silence like a witching wand
in a waterless church?
And it's all just been a moment ago
that isn't at the discretion of birth and death
I learned to breathe with you on the moon
like some atmospheric fish
transformed by a new medium
into whatever you wished me to be
when I was the lifeboat
in the eye of the endless sea
that washed me out like a cinder
with the tears of a passing mindstream
as if I got in the way of my own dream
and you?
You were the mystic specificity
as you will always be
in the lunar pearl of it all
that sometimes doubles for my skull.
And isn't it funny how when the night screams
it's always an aurora
that everyone mistakes for dawn?
A snail of a comet smears the mirror and moves on
and it's as good a path as any to follow I suspect
if I had a destination in mind
that wasn't looping in retrograde like a noose.
I may be as footloose and fancy-free as a ghost
but there's no end of this longing
that keeps making me up as I go along
trying to be true and strong
to what I love the most about being dead.
I think of you
and I burn in the terrible clarity
of a light that's never fallen on anyone
as if illumination were endlessly eyeless.
I think of you
like water looking up at the moon as it rises
and I realize the wingless openness
of the dark gates before me
and pass through like a midnight sun
whose seeing evaporates in the morning
like visions and words and waterbirds
that have been transcendentally uplifted out of the graves
of their own reflections.
We are what we need to be to each other
without knowing what that is
like a phantom kind of picture-music
that's always changing its lyrics
to keep up with the mood of the times
whether it's the high definition tunnel vision
of the smokey beekeepers
trying to bring law to the unruly flowers
or the dark energy of an expansive space
driving the stars like exiles
into the absolute sublimity of a starless place
deep in the heart of God
that even creation can't fill
or we're just kicking pebbles down the road together
through clouds of white sweet clover
like afternoon companions of each other's solitude.
Time is the poetry of the eternal
when love sits by itself under its willow tree
and watches the stream pass by
like the flowing eye it drinks from.
I drink pellucidly on the moon
from old grails of sacred blood
like an ark that survived the flood
only to find itself abandoned like a farm
on a mountaintop with two of every kind
except for one
who made his way down alone with the alone
to sing his lover up out of the dead
as if he were missing one of his eyes
and the other had turned to stone.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Frankie
Dark weekends in the sun, out on chelsea row
Descending the stairs, frankie my love
Check your make-up in the mirror
Come on, baby, lets go
Well dance round this dirty town
till the night is all done
Then all the finer things sleep alone tonight
Then all the minor kings lose their thrones tonight
Dont worry about me baby, Ill be alright
Theres machines and theres fire
On the outside of town
Young boys for hire
Waiting to blow us all down
There are strange flashes in the sky up above
Ill spend the night at the movies
With my secret love
At dusk the stars all appear on the screen
Just like they do each night in my dreams
But tonights no dream, frankie
I can feel myself move
Living and dying
Like I was born to do
Walk softly tonight little angel
I wanna be alone with you
Talk softly to me tonight angel
Make all my dream-world come true
I remember standing in the freezing rain
Reading them want ads out on chelsea row
Winging down the street in search of new games
Hustling through the night packs where the actors go
Frankie they are crazy, lets run and hide
In the darkness therell be hidden worlds that shine
When all of the glory in this desperate land
Will rise like raindrops in the palm of our hands
Rise like the rain
Let your sadness rise
Walk softly tonight little angel
Into the shadows where the lovers go
Talk softly tonight angel
Whisper your secrets so soft and low
song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Black Fire
Evaporating in a black fire.
Don't want to drink the night from the window again.
Won't be a chain trying to escape itself
when I'm already free,
but what an affront of mirrors to be so diminished
because the lions of fire, the dragons
that flare from the eye of the black sun,
their shadows spanning the heartless abyss
of their ferocious lucidities,
pitched their wings like huge, black tents of night
at the gates of the wide-eyed gazelles of emotion
they could bed freely under the moon,
unspool in the blue grass silvered by the wind,
their eyelids waning like a glass of wine.
In the obvious light of the morning
they will run from lesser hunters
mistaking the truce of nightblood
on the horn of the moon
for a rag of surrender, a gesture of clarity
like a star in a well,
the signet of an ancient moment
when the abyss returns to itself
like the echo of a wounded voice
to heal at the foot of a throne of shadows.
Though I could have stung like a serpent,
I was the wind at your heel once, once
like the wind I would have sowed the path before you
with seeds that would have bloomed like the eyes of the stars,
I would have saturated the air with lachrymose diamonds,
and poured the oil of the only lantern of my afterlife out like rain
so you could have shone like a rainbow at night
and your roots were luminously charged
with vital urges of mystic lightning.
I would have come to you like a flashflood of silver on the moon
and run the labyrinth of dry creekbeds
that scar the lifelines on your palm.
I would have kissed the black rose awake from its dream
of being stoned for a miscreance of the light,
and held the nightsky up to its beauty
like the forbidden side of a mirror
to jewel the eclipse you wear like a face.
I would have lain down beside you
like the shore of an unmapped island beside the sea
and answered every wave of your incoming tide
with a nightbird in the mouth of a bell of blood
that ripened in a watchtower on the moon,
but every kiss was a translucent jellyfish,
the auroral rose of an ambivalent Medusa
rooted in the lethal snakepit,
the toxic electricity of her stoned hair,
the trawling storm of her decapitated tresses
when the truth struck like an unexpected fang of light.
Now you spend your time
trying to tie knots in your spinal cord
like the severed filament of the moon,
trying to wick amputated candles in the darkness
that might help you grope your way
back to your head
like the black hole that became of the star
that went looking for its lost planet
like a blind shepherd startled awake by the howling of wolves
running across the sky in a wilder freedom
above the timberline of your eyelashes,
tinkling in the glass womb of your brittle shining
like the tungsten crumbs of a burnt-out dream.
Even now you don't understand
how you can pour so much of yourself into yourself
like an ingrown hair, your love
merely an idea infatuated with itself
that your eyeshadow festers like a palette of gangrene
and like me the vision won't paint you again
in the vivid constellations and kells of braille
you insisted on reading backwards
in the troubled mirror of your own perversity.
No rose in the shadow of the black Pegasus
born from the blood that pours from the vase of your neck
like a dead bouquet of poppies, no inspiration
in the petrified skulls of your past lovers
scattered like the beads of a broken rosary at your feet
you once fingered carelessly
like the writing on the wall.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rip The Night Away
If it ain't natural, then it ain't real
Ohh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Ohh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
If this was the last joint, that we ever rolled up tight,
I'd want to be with good friends, underneath that open sky,
Play some mellow music, throw our dreams into the fire,
Release all the demons, and our souls are uprising
Oh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Oh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
Oh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Oh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
There's nothing in the world like some good times and good vibes
Surrounded with your friends and your family by your side
All the time you spent together going out havin' fun
Doin' the things you do, this life style's got us on the run
Life's too precious every moment make it count
Some days you're on the top some day's you're down and out
This life's a gift, I'm gonna shine my light
So sit back, relax, get high, with us and kick it with us tonight
Oh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Oh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
Oh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Oh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
(Rip the night away)
Burning, burning, burning
(Rip the night away)
Burning, burning, burning
(Rip the night away)
Burning, the night away
Take me to the mountain high, where I can smoke a bowl in peace while I drive
I'm on a
Back road with my sunroof open, on the way to meet the friends, we'll gather and tokin', and we
Build a fire and chill for the night, get drunk on old times and roll a few, what I like we just,
Sit there, fire and reminisce 'bout the best days of our lives and we be the ones blazin'
Oh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Oh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
Oh we gon' be kickin' tonight
We gon' be sipping tonight
Ripping the night away (rip the night away)
Oh, when the time is right
Another full moon light
We rip the night away (rip the night away)
song performed by by Kottonmouth Kings
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dark Night
Night dark but your lies were darker
Night cruel but your love more crueler
Night all alone yet better than your absent minded with me
Night was the time i gave my whole to you
Night was the time you slapped my face
Night was the day you pushed me to the door.
Night was the time you abused me
Night was the time you slit my tongue
Night was the time the moon refuses to smile at us
Night was the time i lost you
Night was the time you left me all in the rain
Night was the time i cry you a river
Night under the tree you promise me your undying love
Night was the time you bid me goodbye
Night was the time you threw a stone into my glassy world.
poem by Blessing Ekpe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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