The Riddle
it has a name
in seven letters
three are vowels
the moment
you call
its name
it simply
disappears
it only requires
that you
meditate
upon it
when you
shut your
mouth
when you
stand still
when nothing
falls
even a leaf
when no one
walks
when no one
talks
when no one
bothers
the world
be it in the city
or on top
of the mountain
this state
of being exists
(the answer
is silence)
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Related quotes
About A Stone Without A Door
you are telling me about a stone
who refuses to admit anyone simply
because it has no door, no room and no space
for someone like you,
you who does not even know what knowing someone
really means. you ask the stone for a space and it says no
and you tell the stone that it has a space
where the leaf and a dropp of water live
the stone says no, and you insist because of the state you are in
you are dying and you need a place
perhaps a burial space where you may finally lay yourself
to rest, but the stone still says no, telling you that it has
no feelings that for centuries it has always been its nature
stony, stony silence, stony stares, unfeeling, that in its
house of stone, there exists no word for sympathy
that it is simply living up to the demands of its true nature
its tradition, and you finally understand, yet somehow you
tell the stone about what it does not know
inside it there is this leaf with dew, there is dropp of water
coming from the rain, that until now it has not fully known,
that inside its stony silence, there is still this song
that it has a heart that it keeps denying.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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339
you are telling me about a stone
who refuses to admit anyone simply
because it has no door, no room and no space
for someone like you,
you who does not even know what knowing someone
really means. you ask the stone for a space and it says no
and you tell the stone that it has a space
where the leaf and a dropp of water live
the stone says no, and you insist because of the state you are in
you are dying and you need a place
perhaps a burial space where you may finally lay yourself
to rest, but the stone still says no, telling you that it has
no feelings that for centuries it has always been its nature
stony, stony silence, stony stares, unfeeling, that in its
house of stone, there exists no word for sympathy
that it is simply living up to the demands of its true nature
its tradition, and you finally understand, yet somehow you
tell the stone about what it does not know
inside it there is this leaf with dew, there is dropp of water
coming from the rain, that until now it has not fully known,
that inside its stony silence, there is still this song
that it has a heart that it keeps denying.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Dignity Of Words
i agree as you say
that words must still keep that dignity
they used to have
before we meet
after all we started with a few words
took some more
and savored its flavors
the scents of its letters
the tastes of its
sweet vowels
when we kissed if you remember
we swallowed words
when we made love we let go
some consonants
to our satisfaction
the thrill seemingly without end
now while dining we are four seats apart
you seat at the front
i at the rear of this distance
between us
the words are not reborn
only this silence
constricting like a boa
swallowing
the crowd of thoughts in concrete
on walls of words
our heads finally collide
i could have opted for
the mute and deaf
the dumb who loves me for whatever i am
regret is not my choice
it is here and not leaving
it is eating me
like i am a delicious delicacy
i am sorry, i keep my mouth shut.
what will i say? i am back to the silent world
of my solitude
long time ago, this was paradise of clauses
now, you say it, this is a complete sentence.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Money Talks
Money talks
While the time walks.
Money warms up your desires.
while everything else goes.
We forget to live.
while trying to pick up too much 'rose'!
so survive folks,
Lets do over time works,
To ride of falls
Dont get mad folks.
This is how the things works.
money opens closed locks.
No one cares how u doing
If u dont have enough'dolls'!
So wake up early every morning
so ur brain works.
Just Because in this world the money talks.
Work enough and you'll find opened doors.
You'll have farms even horses.
Big shining cars and huge houses.
But when the winter comes and the green falls.
The rain sweeps away the golden 'roses'.
When the white snow falls
No one has the chance to the better choice,
All ends up in the same place poor or rich then the money walks.
poem by Sossi Khachadourian
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Mawe Mawe
you have your reasons
for disappearing
what they do not want to see
you have covered them all
down to the last word of your mouth
you swallowed it
and keep your mouth
shut, shut, shut
i guess you are happy
on the land of the ice
cold maybe
but the silence inside you
keeps the warmth.
we miss you somehow
and your art of
concealment but where
ever you are now
we wish you the best
if you come back
we are always here to pretend
nothing happened
and nothing happens still
in the bleak future
we are always here to keep our
mouths shut too.
we will always love you somehow.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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God Save The South
It was a red hot night night in mobile
Sweat glistened on the reverends chin
His mohair suit was shinin
He told us all about sin
It could be wall to wall in wall street
We could be livin hand to mouth
Jesus loved a yankee
But God saved the south
Across the street in the pool hall
Bubba put the eight ball down
Its a high five celebration
They passed the jack around
Its wall to wall in wall street
Were livin hand to mouth
Jesus loved a yankee
But God saved the south
God saved the south
Yankee boy shut your mouth
Yes, God saved the south
Yankee boy shut your mouth
Shut your mouth
Some long haired boys with guitars
Playin behind the chicken wire
Theyre goin up to new york city
Gonna sing about atlantas fire
It could be wall to wall in wall street
We could be livin hand to mouth
Jesus loved a yankee
But God saved the south
And God saved the south
Yankee boy shut your mouth
Yes, God saved the south
Yankee boy shut your mouth
Yes, God saved the south
Yankee boy shut your mouth
And God saved the south
So,yankee boy shut your mouth
And God saved the south
Yankee boy shut your mouth
Yes, God saved the south
So, yankee boy shut your mouth
God saved the south
So, yankee boy shut your mouth
song performed by by Nazareth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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She Talks About Love
Once in a lifetime....
Down at the end, the end of the line
There's a girl who waits for love
She is the one he's hoping for
But there's another one she's thinking of
She doesn't know his name, doesn't know his face
She'll recognize the feeling in any case
She'll be swept away by the flies inside
Make her beautiful, make her come alive
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, nobody cares
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, she believes in love
She falls and she falls but never laughs
In the arms of the one she wants
Fights for a dream she's never seen
In a world of rocks and stones
Ands she knows it's there, knows it does exist
A feeling oh so real, almost divine bliss
Takes her breath away, a gem beyond compare
Makes her weak in the knees, she knows that love is rare
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, nobody cares
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, she believes in love
The measure of time
Will prevent what's mine
She believes in once upon a time
Once in a lifetime
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, nobody cares
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, she believes in love
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, nobody cares
She talks about love, nobody listens
She talks about love, she believes in love
song performed by by Vitamin C
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Brand New Sunrise
City wins another fight
To take the day into the nite
My shadows been around for too long
Daylight understands me, the part thats not alone
Hide n seek they try to be discreet
Moonlight walks with me, sunset talks to me
But all I want from you is a brand new sunsrise
Silently keeping what they are keeping
Moonclouds are flocking, streetlamps mockin
Time to work it out somehow
But the day whispers someone
The nite moves so slowly
He wont take it out on his head
Nite walks away with the summer
Day gives into the fall
Moonlite walks with me
Sunset talks to me
But all I want from you is a brand new sunrise
song performed by by Wet Wet Wet
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Happy Endings
Time does tell
That even if they say so
Shed be the one that would know
That I did do what Ive done
And i, I wouldnt call it cheating
Id just say I was leading her on
Why walk while I run a-way
You- you ask me what went wrong
Me- Ill write you this last song
Please- just tell me one way we can win
One- more thing before I go
Two- the one who loves me so
Three- dont make me count to three again
Happy endings
Just what did you do, if youre a dream then come true
Stop pretending
That what you mean isnt what you say
Hopeful dreaming,
Of times before the pain, wishing it was still the same
Loving, leaving
Round and round and round we go again
Walks a-lone, have often lead to thinking
My love for you is sinking to what seems an all time low
Or high, the limits never ending,
And dont you know Im sending
Theres no venture I wont go
For you
She walks away, she talks away
She walks away
She walks away, she talks away
Away, away...
song performed by by All American Rejects
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rondeau at the Train Stop
It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay
drifting toward me on the T stop, the train
circling the city like a dingy, year-round
Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin
is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound
in the population. it bothers me
because it's summer now and sticky - no rain
to cool things down; heat like a wound
that will not close. Too hot, these shameful
percolations of the body that bloom
between strangers on a train. It bothers me
now that I'm alone and singles foam
around the city, bothered by the lather, the rings
of sweat. Know this bay's a watery animal, hind-end
perpetually raised: a wanting posture, pain
so apparent, wanting so much that it bothers me.
poem by Erin Belieu
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And If I Am A Mediocrity?
AND IF I AM A MEDIOCRITY?
And if I am a mediocrity?
And what I have written is not worthy of remembrance?
And if I belong to the great mass of those not good enough?
And if all I have done disappears as if it never were?
And I also?
Should I blame myself
Or simply say God made me not good enough?
Should I feel sad and a failure
Or simply resign myself to what is the case?
Should I protest in anger
Or simply go on meeting the obligations of my life
As best I can?
I know the answer.
Being the best person I can
Especially to those closest to me
Is what is most important.
Mediocre or not as a writer
I must try to be a decent human being-
This is what the service of God really means-
And this is what all of us can try to do,
Wherever we are in the world of work and accomplishment.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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What's Your Name?
while walking...
i stopped beneath a tree,
and spoke to a leaf:
'what's your name? '
the leaf paused for a moment,
and spoke,
'you can call me child of the limb,
or child of the tree,
or child of the earth,
or child of the sun and rain...
or you can just call me, Bob!
what's your name? '
i thought for a moment,
and smiled:
'you can just call me...
.....leaf! '
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Mail Call
The letters always just evade the hand
One skates like a stone into a beam, falls like a bird.
Surely the past from which the letters rise
Is waiting in the future, past the graves?
The soldiers are all haunted by their lives.
Their claims upon their kind are paid in paper
That established a presence, like a smell.
In letters and in dreams they see the world.
They are waiting: and the years contract
To an empty hand, to one unuttered sound --
The soldier simply wishes for his name.
poem by Randall Jarrell
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Hold Her In Your Hand
You got to walk a little slower when youre with her
Take the time to be tender, thats the plan
You got to stand a little taller while her world falls to pieces
Only then can you hold her in your hand
You got to live for every moment that she gives you
Make the one in a million understand
You got to stand a little taller while her world falls to pieces
Only then can you hold her in your hand
Now too many faces have come down between us
And I was the fool to be
And I cant deny you the wide open spaces
As long as she stops loving me
You got to stand a little closer when you hold her
Make her feel like a woman , understand
You got to stand a little taller while her world falls to pieces
Only then can you hold her in your hand
song performed by by Bee Gees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cry Of Love
Stand in the window
Close to the edge
As the neon signs surrender to the light of day
I sip a bitter cup of coffee
And I fade away oh I fade away
Theres a cross above my pillow
Curse words on the wall
What Id give to write the pages of my life again
No I cant believe this is the way
The story ends oh is this the end is this the end
I wanna run to the highest mountain
I wanna stand in the light of the sun
I wanna ask all this world to forgive the man that Ive become
And now I call on the angels above
Wont somebody hear wont somebody hear
My cry of love
Got a shoe box full of letters
Got a ring that I should pawn
Theres a picture on the table of the way we were
I wish to God I could forget
But I still think of her I think of her
Oh I think of her
I wanna run to the highest mountain
I wanna stand in the light of the sun
I wanna ask all this world to forgive the man that Ive become
And now I call on the angels above
Wont somebody hear wont somebody hear
My cry of love
Wont anybody listen to me
Can anybody hear my prayer
Wont anybody listen to my cry of love
Wont anybody listen to my cry of love
Wont anybody listen to my cry of love
I wanna ask all this world to forgive
The man that Ive become
And so I call on the angels above
Wont somebody hear wont somebody hear
My cry of love
Wont anybody listen to me
Can anybody hear my prayer
Wont anybody listen to me
Does anybody really care
My cry of love
song performed by by Gino Vanelli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sleep II
She holds a soft cloth over my mouth
Whispers it will be alright-my nostrils burn
Her lips are on mine. Her embrace is so close,
Massive, dark as every dark, heavy with the weight of all things.
I am born down and down, ears,
Nostrils, throat, into each orifice she runs
Like the sea into the ruins of an antique city,
Eddies in my belly, relaxes my limbs,
Her ckeek is not rough, her hair smooth and mink-like.
I can see her heavy-lidded, half-closed eyes
My eyelids fall shut, my mouth falls open
My tongue falls to the back of my throat, everything falls,
I do not want her. I regret my huge obligation
Yet it is good to be held so, immobilized,
But strangely free to range, the night is for us.
What shall...
poem by Morgan Michaels
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Catching Snowflakes in the sun
It's amazing what people do
When snowflakes fall on top of you
Some run and hide from the falling snow
Whilst others make balls to throw
Life is weird that way
Catching snowflakes in the sun.
As they drift slowly down and fall around you
Look up and open your palms and let land a few
And try to catch their silence and serenity in your hand
Before they quickly melt and disappear
Leaving drops like those from an emotional tear
Catching snowflakes in the sun.
Open your mouth wide and let them land on your tongue
And try to taste the essence from where they have come
For if heaven really exists and is the place to be
Then you could be there in a dream alone floating free
Magic aerial crystals dancing through the air
Catching snowflakes in the sun.
Lie on the ground and you'll be covered from head to toe
Like everything around you in a blanket of snow
Pretend to guide them towards you to the ground
By slowly moving your arms up and down
For a brief moment a snow angel you've become
Catching snowflakes in the sun.
Stand up and brush away the snow
Then build a snowman for you to enjoy
For as the season changes - as it surely will
No longer will you suffer from winter's chill
Instead enjoy every moment before it disappears
Leaving sounds of silenced snow whispers in your ears.
poem by JeanJacques Evendon
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How Does One Hear The Echoes Of Silence?
silence. Does not speak, silence is dead.
it is buried underneath the mouth,
and simply rots there, like dust,
with worms. It will be the worms
that shall utter silence, but at the end
silence is devoured
and gone.
what you hear and see is this
emptiness. it has feet and walks in air.
and tinkers in space, some moods and
feelings, fleeing, fleeting,
this emptiness speaks a lot
some words turning themselves
from elves to giants to cyclops
to monsters of the universe
where this emptiness dwells
it is in my heart, always, resounding,
with lots of echoes as it reaches
the walls of the farthest planet
and comes back to me
like the twinkling of a star.
and then i am full.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Host, He Says That All Is Well
He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That idiot fiddling with the sounds of things.
He asked himself, poor moron, because he had
Nobody else to ask. The others went right on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.
So there he was, this forty-year-old teen-ager
Dreaming preposterous mergers and divisions
Of vowels like water, consonants like rock
(While everybody kept discussing values
And the need for values) , for words that would
Enter the silence and be there as a light.
So much coffee and so many cigarettes
Gone down the drain, gone up in smoke,
Just for the sake of getting something right
Once in a while, something that could stand
On its own flat feet to keep out windy time
And the worm, something that might simply be,
Not as the monument in the smoky rain
Grimly endures, but that would be
Only a moment's inviolable presence,
The moment before disaster, before the storm,
In its peculiar silence, an integer
Fixed in the middle of the fall of things,
Perfected and casual as to a child's eye
Soap bubbles are, and skipping stones.
poem by Howard Nemerov
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lion & Honeycomb
He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That idiot fiddling with the sounds of things.
He asked himself, poor moron, because he had
Nobody else to ask. The others went right on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.
So there he was, this forty-year-old teen-ager
Dreaming preposterous mergers and divisions
Of vowels like water, consonants like rock
(While everybody kept discussing values
And the need for values), for words that would
Enter the silence and be there as a light.
So much coffee and so many cigarettes
Gone down the drain, gone up in smoke,
Just for the sake of getting something right
Once in a while, something that could stand
On its own flat feet to keep out windy time
And the worm, something that might simply be,
Not as the monument in the smoky rain
Grimly endures, but that would be
Only a moment's inviolable presence,
The moment before disaster, before the storm,
In its peculiar silence, an integer
Fixed in the middle of the fall of things,
Perfected and casual as to a child's eye
Soap bubbles are, and skipping stones.
poem by Howard Nemerov
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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