The American Flag Just Below My Studio Window
The American flag just below my studio window
one floor down, a real estate office carrying the colours
on the left and on the right, the Maple Leaf,
stubbornly clinging to its flagpole like the bough
of a tree that won't let go of it even in a storm,
are both snapping in the air like two mad dogs
at the end of their chains, as if they smelled bush wolfs
moving through the dark without any respect for property.
Poor dogs. Poor wolves on a night like this.
Store lights smeared on the black asphalt streets,
a Fauvist palette, or the trail of a snail of lipstick
on a mirror in full eclipse. Everything tonight,
a jaywalker, a refugee, an exile, or a pariah,
with a mind shattered like pottery into any one
of a hundred ostrakons. No country for him,
his identity ends at the limits of town
as the willows rave in the asylum of Stewart Park.
The windows are rattling and the doors are banging
their pots and pans to keep the ghosts at bay
as the hard eyes of the rain sadistically whip my face
while the waters of the Tay froth like a troll throwing a tantrum
over the rocks under the Rainbow Bridge
that's standing its ground like a harp in a rage.
Nocturnal greys with a tinge of infra-red in the clouds.
For anyone who likes to look up, it's a night
to keep your eyes on the ground as I make my way
to Devil's Rock, to watch the white mustangs
of the river run wild the way they used to drive
sheep through town a hundred years ago
before the coyotes and coydogs took their toll
and the vagrant hearts of the shepherds
found it a lot easier to go with the flow
by leading from behind with a couple of dogs
turning their flanks than I do tonight,
with a hemorrhaging heart in the eye of a hurricane rose
stirring the cauldrons of things up like the golden ratio
of galaxies and sunflowers thrown into the mix
like memories of better days at an exorcism.
Things torn away like children and lovers
caught in the turmoil and undertow of cosmic venting
that breaks the koan like a one-fingered wishbone
and achieves liberation followed by
the interminable solitude of going it alone
on a starless night out into the open fields
trashed by autumn after the harvest,
complicit with the storm, the pathetic fallacy
of the objective correlative that plunders my soul of adjectives
until all that's left are these verbs gnawing at my bones
like a neolithic grammar of scarred calendars
and discarded manuscripts not worth another draft
with beautifully illustrated cave paintings
spit on the walls of my inaccessible skull
like shamanistic magic under a Hunter's Moon
I can feel, even if I can't see it, under this snarling
wolf-hide of clouds, from the inside out,
howling back in agony over the roadkill I've become.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
This Town
I'm cured
When you say there's something left
It's pure
Just to know we will always be friends
I hope you find your mind and let them go
Theres nothing left to do in this town
Theres no where left to fly but on the ground
I'll reach you
It's over me
That I cannot describe it
My friends
You know that I can't hide it
Like planets
Contemplate my worlds
Painting all the colours
Running dry like me
There's nothing left to say in this town
There's nowhere left to hide but inside pride
I'll reach you
I'll reach you
Theres nothing left to do in this town
Theres no where left to fly but on the ground
I'll reach you
Tonight (I'll reach you)
Tonight (I'll reach you)
Tonight (I'll reach you)
Tonight
I'm cured
When you say there's something left
When you say there's something left
I'm cured
There's nothing left to do in this town
There's no where left to fly but on the ground
I'll reach you
Tonight (I'll reach you)
Tonight (I'll reach you)
Tonight (I'll reach you)
Tonight (no matter were u are)
Tonight
Tonight
I'll reach you
I'll reach you
Tonight
song performed by by Inme
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hot Town
Written by dewey bunnell, 1998
Found on human nature.
Down in this hot town
At some old cafe tonight
You hear the dogs bay
At the green neon light
Its one hundred degrees
But the heat is free
In this hot town
This hot town tonight
And that there candle
Only adds to the heat
As you sit in your t-shirt
Trying to eat
You watch the waitress, you watch the clock on the wall
And the flies in the window climb up just to fall
In this hot town (hot town, hot town)
This hot town tonight (hot town, hot, hot)
Down in this hot town
Dont know no person to call
And this here cafe
Dont serve no beer at all
Out on the sidewalk
Its cooling down for your feet (cooling down, cooling down for your feet)
But the women are still sweaty and sweet (still sweaty, sweaty and sweet)
So you watch the waitress, you watch the clock on the wall
And the flies in the window climb up just to fall
In this hot town (hot town, hot town)
This hot town tonight (hot town, hot, hot)
Its one hundred degrees
But the heat is free
In this hot town (hot town, hot town)
This hot town tonight (hot town, hot, hot)
Its one hundred degrees (oh yeah)
In this hot town (hot town, hot town)
This hot town tonight (hot town, hot, hot)
(hot town, hot town)
(hot town, hot, hot)... (fade)
song performed by by America
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Side Of My Face
One side of my face what the world
looks like on the inside,
a mindscape I’m walking through
that changes shape whenever I do.
And the other just a clay bust of the moon
that somebody keeps working on
like erosion in Death Valley.
But tonight I’m tired
of looking for signs of life
where there are none.
The air is as smudged with cigarette smoke
as the dirty winter windows
I’m staring numbly through are.
Infra red aura of the town lights
reflected off the big-bellied clouds
as if something were burning
across the highway as those
who are awake yet listen
to the Doppler Effect of the sirens
to know if they’re still safe or not.
A pastel green wall
through an open window
across the street from here.
But I haven’t seen anybody in it
for nearly a year since I moved in here
where every second thought
ends in so what?
Like a cynical kind of cowboy zen
that’s had it up to the proverbial
with koans and haikus
that provide you with spurs to enlightenment
but no winged horse
that isn’t already a corpse
lying by the side of the road like roadkill.
My mind soars like a turkey-vulture
when my heart
wants to swim like a swan
down river with the stars of the Milky Way
as I did one suicidal May in a six man raft
with no rudder or guide
in the spring run off of the Ottawa River
to raise money for
the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
But the cheap thrill
of risking my life for virtue
has worn off like chalk on a pool cue
and if light is the function
of the body of the lamp
right now I feel like
a blackhole with a bad complexion
that’s gone snowblind
in the glare of a computer screen.
I figure if I stare back long enough
sooner or later
one of us is going to blink
and discover what’s on the other side
of what the other one thinks
it’s looking at
when it puts an hourglass
up to its eye like a telescope
to know what time it is
and how many light years there are
between solitude and exile.
Between staying in and going out.
The tin gas pipes crackle
like ice breaking underfoot
or a bird in the chimney
trying to peck its way out
of a black cosmic eggshell
that’s as starless as hell on the inside
and tarred and feathered on the other,
assuming, of course,
it ever does crack the koan
in the liberty bell of enlightenment
and emerge with the wingspan of a dragon
into a room full of cigarette smoke
and patchouli incense
rising like the ghost of a white horse
as if someone who just fell off
the cutting edge of the flat earth
were trying to get on again like Icarus
waning in a wax museum on the moon.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Can't Let Go
Well I rush out blazin'
My pulse is racin'
As the rain streams down my face
There's no turning back now
To fight with fate
Outnumbered, out of place
They said go west young man, that's best
It's there you'll feel no pain
Bel-Air's okay if you dig the grave
But I want to live again
Can't let go
There's a madness in my soul tonight
Can't let go
Must ride like the storm
Can't let go
Will I run out of control tonight
Can't let go
Until every trace is gone
It's a winding road from Cuesta way
Down sunset to the beach
Though Canoga Park is a straight safe drive
It's too far outta reach
But now the headlights are flashin'by so fast
All directions seems the same
And the windscreen wipers keep a beat repeatin'
You can't let go again
What's in a name on the street tonight
I'm only a face in the crowd
All in the dark and afraid tonight
Nowhere to run or to hide
But I can't let go
Sometimes the world outside'll take you in
With just a smile
And you so blinded with desire
A hundred sleepless nights have left me
Wasted and so cold
But I can take it I'm hangin'on
Can't let go
There's a madness in my soul tonight
Can't let go
Must ride it like the storm
Can't let go
Will I run out of control tonight
Can't let go
Until every trace is gone
song performed by by Roxy Music
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Suburbia
Lost in the high street, where the dogs run
Roaming suburban boys
Mothers got a hairdo to be done
She says theyre too old for toys
Stood by the bus stop with a felt pen
In this suburban hell
And in the distance a police car
To break the suburban spell
Lets take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide, run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
Break the window by the town hall
Listen, the siren screams
There in the distance, like a roll call
Of all the suburban dreams
Lets take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide, run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
Its on the front page of the papers
This is their hour of need
Wheres a policeman when you need one
To blame the colour tv?
Lets take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide, run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
Take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide, run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
Run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide
In suburbia
In suburbia
In suburbia
In suburbia
In suburbia
song performed by by Pet Shop Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Giving You The Scenario
i am the culprit who gives you the scenario of his
driving alone on one stormy night
the white bridge taken away by the strong river
where there is no more connection, and you write me hoping that this
cannot be true, because you always believe what i write and because i always
assure you that everything is true, oh my, oh my,
the storm is true, and the river and the bridge too, and its color and its rage
but oh my, oh my,
the one who is driving
the one who was lost and stopped by the side of the road and wished
that the tree above him may fall on his car and damage it and even
kill him inside the confines of his anxieties
need not be me,
he could be someone else, a neigbor, a friend, an acquaintance of the mind, a character of his short story,
or the mad man in his poem
or it could even be you
in some figures of speech
yes, everything are possibilities,
and oh my, oh my,
yes, i finally agree,
on that stormy night with all the details in tact
trees bending, leaves blown away, rain as thick as walls,
rivers raging like a revolution
darkness as black as ink
howling sounds like dogs seeing the bad spirits
oh my, oh my with all the stark detail they are so real
so real that i know how it feels like i am touching the flame itself
from the dirty kitchen,
well, you are right
he could be me, how can i now disown who i am and what i have seen?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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As If Beyond Death
As if beyond death today,
as if I lay already under the eyelid of the moon,
the echo of my heart
pumping shadows
through my perfectly preserved corpse
in a silence that's never known the wind,
a fallen wharf without arrivals or departures,
and sad enough not to care why,
blood on the dolphin in the black tide
that pours me out of the horseshoe of the bay
like a road from its boot,
wipes me like the pollen and dust of dark matter
off the windowsills of the constellations,
my unknown mass crucial
to the cosmic contractions
that might give birth to the world again,
and I'm here alone in the high field
drowning in the twilight with the wildflowers
and the sky a last exhalation of the blue-green luster
that flirts with the mystic violet
on a homing crow's head
as the shadows assemble the wings
of a total eclipse
and a new dragon is born of the pain
that shrieks like lightning in the mouth of the abyss,
a torn animal
peeled out of its own skin like an eye
to add its darkness to the furnace of the black rose
that roars in the night
to blood the hungry mirror
with the thorns and talons of clarity,
to feed the wound of its existence
its existence.
And when I walk to the end of myself
through the golden rod and waist-high asters,
the seed of the stars that sleep with the daughters of men,
some of the flowers close up like fists and kisses
and others grasp themselves like a key
to a door that the whole universe can walk through,
and there are strange birds
flying from the eyes
in the rising skull of the moon
that sing like the pyres of cremated guitars
that died like trees in their solitude
and even the gates are weeping like wild dogs.
And there's a wind, intelligent, dark
the ghost of an ancient serpent
horned without ears,
an ocean of mind that exceeds itself like a wave
that howls like a secret it can't tell itself,
like a root blind to its own flowers,
that wants to lead my voice away in chains,
that wants my tongue to try
like a leaf in the updraft of a fire storm
to scream its agony out in the night
so that even the furthest star shudders
with the horror of its final liberation
like an arrow through the throat of a caged hawk.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Inside
Inside the doors are sealed to love
Inside my heart is sleeping
Inside the fingers of my glove
Inside the bones of my right hand
Inside it's colder than the stars
Inside the dogs are weeping
Inside the circus of the wind
Inside the clocks are filled with sand
Inside she'll never hurt me
Inside the winter's creeping
Inside the compass of the night
Inside the folding of the land
Outside the stars are turning
Outside the world's still burning
Inside my head's a box of stars I never dared to open
Inside the wounded hide their scars, inside this lonesome sparrow's fall
Inside the songs of our defeat, they sing of treaties broken
Inside this army's in retreat, we hide beneath the thunder's call
Outside the rain keeps falling
Outside the drums are calling
Outside the flood won't wait
Outside they're hammering down the gate
Love is the child of an endless war
Love is an open wound still raw
Love is a shameless banner unfurled
Love's an explosion,
Love is the fire of the world
Love is a violent star
A tide of destruction
Love is an angry scar
A violation, a mutilation, capitulation, love is annihilation.
Inside the failures of the light, the night is wrapped around me
Inside my eyes deny their sight, you'd never find me in this place
Inside we're hidden from the moonlight, we shift between the shadows
Inside the compass of the night, inside the memory of your face
Outside the walls are shaking
Inside the dogs are waking
Outside the hurricane won't wait
Inside they're howling down the gate
Love is the child of an endless war
Love is an open wound still raw
Love is a shameless banner unfurled-acapo
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On a Sunlit Night
Tonight I walk outside alone,
Hoping for autonomy from the world's intruders-
The sky appears as dark as night can be but
Tonight the moon is hiding and I believe I see pink and purple clouds
Tip-toeing out from the darkness, as the stars are disappearing,
Are fading behind these clouds,
I believe I see the sun- as its rays are fighting their way
Through the clouds, and pushing the darkness aside-
It is only an hour past midnight and
The trees are tall and golden, some are touching the sky.
I hear wild geese calling and I can feel the gentle late spring breeze, as it
Rustles the silken blue-green leaves upon the trees-
While I rejoice being safe in my solitude.
I am alone on a sunlit night, on a trail leading toward
That phantasmal land of my utmost dreams-
Branches upon the trees, golden or copper shaded
Are sparkling with dew as would be polished diamonds-
I sing songs of peace with the cicadas- releasing my fears to the wind.
As I behold the splendor of the sun against magenta-pink clouds, as it
Rises above the mountains, purple in their hue, I can see
A rainbow on the horizon, and the creek nearby sparkling and reflecting the light.
I am wondering if I have lost touch with all that is real, for
I have never seen pink clouds, purple mountains or a rainbow,
While the sun shines upon this world in the dead of night-
I am enraptured with the magnificence of this sunlit night, and
I have found freedom from the war my thoughts continually carry on,
The voices inside of mind are presently not cruelly commanding, but
Carrying on miraculously beautiful tunes from far away places-
I may have escaped reality or perhaps I am only dreaming, although
I feel as if I have abandoned my plight, and whatever the reason for
This amazing journey I am on, whether real or imagined -the reason hardly matters as
I have found all of the pleasure, placidity and freedom from pain and anguish.
Even if I were to awaken from this reverie, the fond memory shall always remain,
I shall close my eyes and will be able to relive
My phenomenal journey beneath pink and purple clouds of fortune, and
That special rainbow on the horizon illuminating the sky on that astonishing sunlit night.
poem by Claudia Krizay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Jailbreak
Tonight theres gonna be a jailbreak
Somewhere in this town
See me and the boys we dont like it
So were getting up and going down
Hiding low looking right and left
If you see us coming I think its best
To move away do you hear what I say
From under my breath
Chorus
Tonight theres gonna be jailbreak
Somewhere in this town
Tonight theres gonna be jailbreak
So dont you be around
Dont you be around
Tonight theres gonna be trouble
Some of us wont survive
See the boys and me mean business
Busting out dead or alive
I can hear the hound dogs on my trail
All hell breaks loose, alarm and sirens wail
Like the game if you lose, go to jail
Chorus
Bridge
Tonight theres gonna be trouble
Im gonna find myself in
Tonight theres gonna be jailbreak
So woman stay with a friend
You know its safer
Breakout!
Tonight theres gonna be breakout
Into the city zones
Dont you dare to try and stop us
No one could for long
Searchlight on my trail
Tonights the night all systems fail
Hey you good looking female
Come here!
Chorus
Bridge
song performed by by 911
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Wolves Out Tonight
Wolves out tonight.
The smart dogs are stay-at-homes.
No berries. The bears have torn up
the garbage dumps and heaped
what fat they could manage in caves
to sleep their hunger away
in whatever a bear dreams of.
The natives are predicting a hard winter
by counting beads on an abacus of holly.
Corrugated drifts of the first snow,
wavelength after wavelength of a frozen tide
even if you were to take it at the high
would lead to nowhere but here
where the common mullein
whose cobs and towers of yellow flowers
are now rags of light
thrown to the back of the closet of the sun,
its grey-green felt leaves
too brittle and withered
to insulate an Ojibway’s moccasin.
And there, Jupiter rising in the east,
every planet so sublimely immersed
in its own business, it hasn’t got time
to interfere in the worldly affairs of this one.
Here, six months of the year,
earth in a coma of its own
and everything waiting like a relative
beside a rumpled white hospital bed
for spring to open
the eyelids of the flowers again.
The wind whips and spurs
the flanks of the horses
that have dug their hoofs
into the frozen earth
standing in the meagre fields,
bridges to nowhere,
half-finished wharfs in the snow,
the wind whipping
their ice-encrusted manes
like a cat o’ nine tails
stinging the soft lustre
of their wounded eyes.
Wolves out tonight
down by the lake
searching the cattails for muskrat,
an agony of longing in their howling
that’s older and deeper than pain.
The moon almost full in Taurus.
Does it ever answer them
like a snowy owl
high in a basswood tree nearby
or the echo of a wavelength
long after the loon has gone
it left as a keepsake in a locket
like the sea leaves itself in a shell?
Languages in a polyglot wilderness
you can only listen to
but never speak until
you let the silence speak for you.
Tracks in the first snow
like a junkie’s arm
leading away from a shell-shocked juniper
each with glyphs and scripts of their own.
Just like poetry.
Line by line.
There goes the hare.
Here comes the fox.
Or tonight, more likely, a wolf.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Legend Of The O Keeffes
It must be a fallacy that dead canines can fly
But of the mystery in myths and legends one cannot deny
And one legend I recall from decades gone by
Is when an O Keeffe dies in Cullen dogs bark in the sky.
The legend of the O Keeffes has travelled far and wide
They hunted with their dogs in Duhallow's country-side
And stories of them in Duhallow abound
Of how with their dogs they hunted on foot covering miles of ground.
'Tis said the O Keeffes the best hunting dogs kept
And with their wives in their beds their dogs with them slept
And for the kindness shown to them their dogs them did repay
The O Keeffes never did know a poor hunting day.
I tell it as I heard it and I don't tell you a lie
It is said that in Cullen when an O Keeffe die
The dogs of their dead ancestors bark in the moonlight
In the starry sky in the dead of the night.
You can make out of this whatever you may
But in Duhallow the legend is living today
Of when a Cullen O Keeffe dies canines bark in the sky
The ghosts of their ancestors dogs on them have wings to fly.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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The Nightwind
The nightwind is dancing with the leafless trees
under a new moon
as if they were crutches
that couldn't keep up with its moves.
April night.
All potential.
Lilac month in the valley
and blue hyacinth soon
in the corners of forgotten yards
and for the first time today
down by the Tay where the willows
are going blonde
that bruise of a flower
that looks like a cross
between a broken egg and the moon.
A crocus
like a dab of violet paint
in the foreground of a drab impression.
The apple-trees are waiting for their brides like blossoms.
Saturn's in Virgo
and I'm out for stars
on my hobby-horse of a telescope
that's jealous of the easel I paint on
because it thinks it's the unheralded genius
and can do more with light
than that other moron.
More Copernicus for the moment
than van Gogh
I cut through fields
that look like November all over again
now that the snow's gone
to keep from being blinded
by the blazing of the town
attentive as a doe to the barking
of distant farmyard dogs.
I'm a one man band of snapping twigs
and slashing branches
moving deeper into the silence
away from windows and doors.
My telescope sneers at the vanity
of birches posing in the nude
because they've heard I'm a painter
into feminine nocturnal effects.
And I've been here before
looking for suitable subjects
but tonight I'm out for stars
and the wounded mystery of being alone
in a place that everything's adapted to
but where nothing feels it belongs
to judge by the way they keep to themselves.
Wherever I am
the stars have always reminded me of home
as if this were the place of exile
and the testing ground
of life on earth
to see who makes it back
and I am stilled and mindbound
by such a commingling
of longing wonder and sadness
my blood burns like a lovesong
to the great absence that keeps us apart
and how much time and distance it takes
to abandon a heart that clings
like colour to the clouds.
How much darkness
must be intensified by a human
into black matter
before the ore
is prodigal with light.
All the good stars are going down with Taurus
though I can see the snakes
still flaring lethally in Al Gol
like the Medusa's severed head
and there's that poor man's chandelier
the Pleiades
still enchanted with the charms
of Alcyone and her sisters
though like me
they're getting on in years.
Longer wavelengths
Longer shadows
shifting into infrared.
All the blue-white fury
that was the frequency of my youth
the mellow yellow of the autumnal truth
that the seeing might be as ageless
as the perennial insight
into the beginningless birth of the mind
but my eyes are estranged from the light
like two drops of water on a starless night
ripening like bells
sweetened by thoughts of perishing
above the abyss below them.
Hanging from the tip of a blade of stargrass
they're trying to remember
without crying
what became of the wedding
that wore them like an orchard up the aisle
before they're lowered
like the eyelids of a crocus
and disappear
into the source of themselves
like a well that can't hold back its tears
when it remembers
light on the mindstream
like a voice in a dream
they haven't heard for years.
What can you say?
Life is a breathful.
And if I were to guess
it's probably better that way.
Don't wear the silver off the mirror
with too much looking
but glance at it out of the corner of your eye
in passing
as if to say under your breath
o.k. you've got my attention
what now?
You should stay alert to things
without crowding them out of their eyes
the way a snakecharmer
listens to the cobra
not his flute
and maintains his dangerous distance.
And don't judge things by their magnitude.
Sometimes it's the dim stars
like the pale one above the middle
of the brightest three in Andromeda
that can lead you to a galaxy.
But there too you have to look askance
even to see hundreds of billions of stars
shining at such a great distance
right next door.
When everything in the knowable world is relative
it's because of the interdependence of its origins
on everything else
and blood is thicker than water
except when it's not
but when all is said and done
we're all the seventh son of the seventh son
of an identity theft.
Muddy Waters
there's another mule
kickin in your stall.
Born of fire without smoke
you're a jinn.
Born of water without ice
you shine like a sea urchin.
Born of earth without roots
there's starmud on your boots.
Born of air without clouds
you're welcome everywhere.
Born of stars without eyes
you come as quite a surprise to them.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hurricane 2000
It's early morning
The sun comes out
Last night was shaking
And pretty loud
My cat is purring
And scratches my skin
So what is wrong
With another sin
The bitch is hungry
She needs to tell
So give her inches
And feed her well
More days to come
New places to go
I've got to leave
It's time for a show
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
My body is burning
It starts to shout
Desire is coming
It breaks out loud
Lust is in cages
Till storm breaks loose
Just have to make it
With someone I choose
The night is calling
I have to go
The wolf is hungry
He runs the show
He's licking his lips
He's ready to win
On the hunt tonight
For love at first sting
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
song performed by by Scorpions
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hurricane 2001
It's early morning
The sun comes out
Last night was shaking
And pretty loud
My cat is purring
And scratches my skin
So what is wrong
With another sin
The bitch is hungry
She needs to tell
So give her inches
And feed her well
More days to come
New places to go
I've got to leave
It's time for a show
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
My body is burning
It starts to shout
Desire is coming
It breaks out loud
Lust is in cages
Till storm breaks loose
Just have to make it
With someone I choose
The night is calling
I have to go
The wolf is hungry
He runs the show
He's licking his lips
He's ready to win
On the hunt tonight
For love at first sting
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
song performed by by Scorpions
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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He Will Stay Tonight
she opens the door
and switches on the light
of the ceiling
she kisses him
and he hugs her
tightly
like a cork
to a bottle of red wine
there is a need
for more sparkles
but the champagne
is too expensive
there is a need
for moonlight
to make tonight
more romantic
but frankly
tonight is the
night
when the storm
comes
when the wind
blows
so hard
when the rain
pours
like cats and dogs
touche!
they will talk
and she will open
up
no not her legs
but her
mind
they will face
each other
with sad eyes
and
pleadings
for forgiveness
this the time
for their last
lovemaking
tomorrow
is another goodbye
and they know
it
there is no more
love
to speak about
inside
the forbidden radius
of their
respective
circles
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Outside331’sSleep
Don’t open your eyes yet not until I explain last night I went to bed with Sleep last night I fell for Sleep last night Sleep unclothed me left me naked in a room painted black I couldn’t see Sleep because Sleep was dark too and the room was black and the foreground blended in with the background I couldn’t tell what was far and what was close I became frustrated because Sleep was either hiding inside the room or the room was hiding behind Sleep neither were being fair to my eyes who wanted to play hide and go Sleep I hide inside the room and Sleep seeks I said where are you Sleep I can’t see you my eyes can’t find you Sleep I said I wanted to fall inside you brought me into this black room and I am trying to wrap myself around you won’t you come inside of me you won’t stage scenes in my eyes created with color everything is black one long stretch Sleep are you moving and I can’t see you or are you standing still and I can’t feel you are here Sleep you are silent Sleep I feel alone Sleep I want you to be inside me if you take me to a black room and make me go to bed are your eyes open I can’t see you did you leave is Sleep here Sleep am I inside you explain Sleep explain did you open your eyes Sleep are my eyes open Sleep are you outside me Sleep you took me to bed and left me Sleep I can’t open my eyes until you are back inside me I can’t see Sleep when you’re not inside me open your eyes Sleep do you see me inside you explain last night am I still inside Sleep?
(12-13-07)
poem by Chelsea Trescott
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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