Like A Chinese Lantern
At the end of the thought
was sadness.
When temple lies broken
a little white lotus comes up
on the tranquil lake.
A cute word enters the lone voice,
stands down, collapses, retreats into silence.
A chaste tree becomes a sage
and tenderness of the ash turns into an elegy.
The moon-face has frost on the eyes.
Tears blaze the lips.
Unbounded grief holds the space between
sobs, a bodiless spark.
Moons ago when sleep was a fragrant
gift, the song never touched the earth.
That dream sways like a Chinese lantern
without enthusiasm.
poem by Satish Verma
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Clair de Lune
In the moonlit room your face,
Moonlight-coloured, fainting white,
And the silence of the place
Round about us in the night,
And my arms are round about you
In the silence of the night.
Lips that are not mine to kiss,
Lips how often kissed in vain,
Broken seal of memories,
Where the kisses come again
That the lips of all your lovers
Laid upon your lips in vain;
Eyes that are not mine to keep
In the mirror of mine eyes,
Where I tremble lest from sleep
Other ghosts should re-arise;
Why enthrall me with your magic,
Haunting lips, triumphant eyes?
For the silence of the night
Swims around me like a stream,
And your eyes have caught the light
Of a moon-enchanted dream,
And your arms glide round about me,
And I fade into a dream.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Tenderly you come
tenderly you come
to touch the locks of hair
that rest there on the pillow
feathered in a dream
i sleep my silence long
two words for its spell
and no silence for a word
you touch my face and line it
up in warmth through glass
that stands there instead of window
sundialed roomed so spacious
i sleep my silence long
two words for its spell
and no silence for a word
you open eyes of a closure
'neath unfaithful sky
to write me there word cloudward
wipe me away or melt
in my sleep silence long
two words for its spell
and no silence for a word
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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The Immortal
BEAUTY is still immortal in our eyes;
When sways no more the spirit-haunted reed,
When the wild grape shall build
No more her canopies,
When blows no more the moon-gray thistle seed,
When the last bell has lulled the white flocks home,
When the last eve has stilled
The wandering wing and touched the dying foam,
When the last moon burns low, and, spark by spark,
The little worlds die out along the dark,–
Beauty that rosed the moth-wing, touched the land
With clover-horns and delicate faint flowers,
Beauty that bade the showers
Beat on the violet's face,
Shall hold the eternal heavens within their place
And hear new stars come singing from God's hand.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Lover's Gifts XIII: Last Night in the Garden
Last night in the garden I offered you my youth's foaming wine. You
lifted the cup to your lips, you shut your eyes and smiled while
I raised your veil, unbound your tresses, drawing down upon my
breast your face sweet with its silence, last night when the moon's
dream overflowed the world of slumber.
To-day in the dew-cooled calm of the dawn you are walking to
God's temple, bathed and robed in white, with a basketful of
flowers in your hand. I stand aside in the shade under the tree,
with my head bent, in the calm of the dawn by the lonely road to
the temple.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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Not With These Eyes
Let me not see your grief!
O, let not any see
That grief,
Nor how your heart still rocks
Like a temple with long earthquake shocks.
Let me not see
Your grief.
These eyes have seen such wrong,
Yet remained cold:
Ills grown strong,
Corruption's many-headed worm
Destroying feet that moved so firm--
Shall these eyes see
Your grief?
And that black worm has crawled
Into the brain
Where thought had walked
Nobly, and love and honour moved as one,
And brave things bravely were begun....
Now, can thought see
Unabashed your grief?
Into that brain your grief
Has run like cleansing fire:
Your grief
Through these unfaithful eyes has leapt
And touched honour where it lightly slept.
Now when I see
In memory your grief
There is no thought that's not
Yours, yours,
No love that sleeps,
No spiritual door that opens not
In the green quiet village of thought
Shining with light,
And silent to your silence.
poem by John Freeman
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The lotus eye
A lotus is born in muddy water
You cannot grow lotus anywhere else
A sage is born in a decadent world
Jesus never comes during any golden age
He came in an age harrowed by humbugs
A lotus has eyes
They are enamoured of the Sun
Jesus had lotus eyes
They could see the Sun and nothing else
He saw light and nothing else
He was always in light
The lotus is the Sun on earth
Jesus was the Sun on earth
When we pray to Jesus
Our prayer goes to a lotus
When we caress a lotus
We caress God the Son
poem by Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
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In Winter's Arms
Winter holds me with his arms of icy white,
and kissed my breath with frost upon the pane.
Subdued by touch of winter's frigid hand,
I pray for spring to find me once again.
O'wind, you whistle to the winter's tune.
Your melody is heard 'pon day and night,
but one day spring will come to rescue me,
and wisk away your song of winter's blight.
O'tree, you're frozen in the winter's dream.
Your leaves have left you 'neath a moon of white,
but when my prayers are answered 'pon spring's dawn,
you'll thaw beneath its sun with warm delight.
O'field, your harvest has been reaped and spent ~
and winter blankets you 'neath snowy mounds.
Yet one day soon in springtime's rising mist
you'll feel the greening of your earth rebound.
Winter holds me with his arms of icy white,
and kissed my breath with frost upon the pane ~
but deep within I somehow always know,
that spring will come and find me once again.
poem by Hazelmarie Elliott
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Becoming
Come and let her fall in the silence of your voice;
never ask if she'll remain, the sobs escaping
through the sound of running water will make
her voice in a whisper and reveal the infinity of
her falling tears, rising so many questions, of
which, or why the uncertain secrets of love, the
never ending yearn, that grabs and holds on to
her skin, she becomes steady and firm like the
North Star, waiting to bring her a dropp or sip of
hope, it seems clearly more each day every time
she loves someone Is doomed, good things never
last "she thinks" not for her, she knows is a lie that
keeps hunting her path. Perhaps she shall be like
butterflies and live a life without an address, live
among the flowers and nectars, without the mental
thought of loving again, become a gift to the wind
and forget what gave her so much grief and
unhappiness, she shall live for all purpose of nature.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
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Awaken Little Dreamer
With my eyes closed I see sadness. Sadness I held in for so long. Sadness that is beginning to be replaced with madness. Madness that's been eating at my core, my thought process, my mind for so long.
Eyes open, I see a reality I've been trying to to change, to better it. A lie, I've been living a lie. My life is a lie, one I've been living for so long.
A single tear escapes my eye as I am awaking from my made up reality, my created world. Reality, my reality is tragic not magic. Tears I held back now pour from my eyes, tears I held back for so long.
With my eyes closed I see sadness. I see pain masked by madness. I see sadness hidden by a web of lies and as I open my eyes I hear a voice say, 'Awaken from your dream, come and face reality. Awaken little dreamer. Awaken.'
poem by Suzaku Vaneko
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I Charge You
I charge you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove,
That ye blow o'er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I sicken for love.
I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,
That ye fall at the feet of my love with the sound of one weeping forlorn.
I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest,
That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast.
I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels consumed by despair.
O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,
A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.
Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish, the flames of love's fire,
Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its desire.
I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low,
That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with its woe.
I go like one in a dream, unbidden my feet know the way
To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May.
The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core,
The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no more.
The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep,
My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne'er soothed into sleep.
The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf,
But Love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Howl
I am alone this night,
underneath the starlit sky,
Nothing but the stars to comfort me.
I raise my head in homage to the moon,
And my song shatters the silence.
It is a bitter song.
A somg about grief and loss,
Her pale saphire eyes still with me after so long.
A song of betrayal,
The white snow stained red.
A song about failure,
I am a banished prince,
Humbled and broken.
poem by Nichole Webb
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Silence Is Golden
If I am silent
I am not real
If I speak up then
No one will hear
If I wear a mask there's
Somewhere to hide
Silence is golden
I have been broken
Safe in my own skin
So nobody wins
If I raise my voice
Will someone get hurt?
If I can feel it
But I can't get touched
If no truce was spoken
Then don't ask me why
Silence is golden
I have been broken
Safe in my own skin
So nobody wins
Won't someone listen
I have been broken
Safe in my own skin
So nobody wins
Did you hear me speak
Do you understand
Did you hear my voice
Did you take my hand
Did you understand me
Won't someone listen?
I have been broken
My body's a temple
But nothing is simple
Won't someone listen?
Something was stolen
Silence is golden
So nobody listen
Won't someone listen?
I have been broken
My body's a temple
But nothing is simple
Won't someone listen?
I have been broken
My body's a temple
But nothing is simple
Won't someone listen?
I have been broken
The silence is golden
I'm safe in my own skin
Won't someone listen?
I have been broken
My body's a temple
But nothing is simple
song performed by by Garbage
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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China Song (Zhong guo ge qu)
Last night I heard a Chinese song
That conjured almond eyes,
It swelled and soared, and took the air
I sought to breathe, my friend,
That song poured out the sadness that
I’d seen behind your lies,
It soared and swelled, and slipped and dipped,
Heartbroken at the end.
But you just smiled and chattered,
Though your words were terse and bleak,
They hid some strange confusion, and
A hurt that would not mend,
I’d seen you cry before, with not
A tear on either cheek,
When Chinese tear-ducts dry, but cry -
It seems that you pretend.
Five thousand years of sorrow
Taught you Chinese not to weep,
To show no strong emotion, to
Accept the fate you’re sent,
The pendulum that swings one way,
May cut you while you sleep,
But always swings the other way
Confucius say - my friend!
So all your love and laughter and
The sadness of your past,
Is built in to the music that your
Cultured songsters write,
And truly, when I listen
To that swelling sound at last,
Your tears well up, and overflow
From my eyes, every night.
26 December 2007
poem by David Lewis Paget
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All White
All white, all light, all beautiful she stands,
Love in her eyes, a glory round her brows,
Blanched as the lilies chaste in her chaste hands.
Even so God's saints in their celestial house.
Red only are her lips, ay, red as those
Turned by the Queen, that happy day in France,
As yet unkissed, to him who made his vows,
Victor in fight, to her his soul's romance.
Idly she stands in dreams.--Ah, Launcelot,
Couldst thou but plead here haply and prevail,
Touch her soft cheek, draw tears from her sweet eyes,
Open her lips to passionate words unwise,
Receive her true kiss 'neath thy coat of mail:
In Love's name, I who love, should grudge it not.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Mandolin Rain
(bruce hornsby/john hornsby)
The song came and went
Like the times that we spent
Hiding out from the rain under the carnival tent
Id laugh and hed smile
And it would last for a while
You dont know what you got til you lose it all again
Listen to the mandolin rain, listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break, every time that he goes away
Listen to the banjo wind, a sad song drifting low
Listen to my tears roll, down my face as he turns to go
A cool evening dance
Listening to the bluegrass band takes the chill
From the air til they play the last song
And Ill do my time
Keeping you off my mind but theres moments
That I find, Im not feeling so strong
Listen to the mandolin rain, listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break, every time that he goes away
Listen to the banjo wind, a sad song drifting low
Listen to my tears roll, down my face as he turns to go
Running down by the lakeshore
He did love the sound of a summer storm
It played on the lake like a mandolin
Now its washing him away once again
Once again, once again
Listen to the mandolin rain, listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break, every time that he goes away
Listen to the banjo wind, a sad song drifting low
Listen to my tears roll, down my face as he turns to go
Listen to my tears roll, down my face as he turns to go
song performed by by Pam Tillis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Pine Tree in My House
A tree that grows in my garden
A robust pine tree
Stands big and Proud
Sinks its roots deeply into the Earth
A pine tree in my house
Spreads its seeds every where
Sheds needles all over
Drops big cones onto my lawn
Survives within the sun
Ambles forth in all direction s with each gust of wind
Bends over the roaring storm
Tosses its branches in magnificent enthusiasm
Attracts the colors of a million sunsets into its needles leaves
Sways gracefully with the wind
Whispers with the blowing breeze
Cuddles joyfully with the changing seasons
Tries to reach the sky!
Looks beautiful in a peaceful state,
Is wise in its silence
Grows lush in all seasons
Allows the birds to perch and soar
Never holds them back
Never pines for their return when they fly away
If our hearts were like pine trees
We would have no apprehension in our minds
No one would wish to bring us down
No one would wake us up at night
A pine tree in my house
I Call it the tree of paradise
What I’ve got, I know it matters
For paradise, I wish to pave the way!
poem by Dr Shamim ali
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These tears of mine
Tears of mine, lover of mine
Until when shall i mourn,
Your presence which is ever absent,
I miss the days we never spent,
The kiss you never gave,
The scent i never smelt,
And the tenderness of yours,
I miss you so,
These are tears of mine
I thought i touched you,
I thought i kissed you,
I thought i felt you,
It was just but a dream,
I miss you so,
These are the tears of mine
My nights are desolate,
My bed is empty,
My hands are damp,
My lips so dry,
Rescue me oh my love,
I miss you so,
These are tears of mine
I see myself,
I imagine,
I cogitate,
Then i cry
Yes come to me,
Yes set me free,
My cheeks are wet,
I miss you so,
These tears of mine
poem by Gaylord Munemo
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I Had a Vision
I dreamed a dream, a vision came to me.
Lost youth imploring, 'God, we beg of Thee! '
With lined and aged face, though they were young,
They plead for mercy, silence had no tongue.
At flooding shore, they streached for higher ground.
Earth slipped beneath them, cries the only sound.
Extending them my hand, they could not reach.
In tides of sorrow, eyes their only speech.
Debauchery engulfed them, steeped in brine.
Their temple housed an hedonistic shrine.
They struggled for the surface, death their fate.
Akashic records were the scrivener's slate.
Past hope, their childhood blossemed all too soon.
Depraved, they thought that life would not impugn.
Within the deep I entered in their mind,
So many broken promises, so blind.
The sadness is: The waste of all those years.
The irony is: The sea was their own tears.
poem by Lynn W. Petty
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Everything That Acts Is Actual
From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me
into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over
new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?
The flawed moon
acts on the truth, and makes
an autumn of tentative
silences.
You lived, but somewhere else,
your presence touched others, ring upon ring,
and changed. Did you think
I would not change?
The black moon
turns away, its work done. A tenderness,
unspoken autumn.
We are faithful
only to the imagination. What the
imagination
seizes
as beauty must be truth. What holds you
to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.
poem by Denise Levertov
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In Memory of Edward Butler
A voice of grave, deep emphasis
Is in the woods to-night;
No sound of radiant day is this,
No cadence of the light.
Here in the fall and flights of leaves
Against grey widths of sea,
The spirit of the forests grieves
For lost Persephone.
The fair divinity that roves
Where many waters sing
Doth miss her daughter of the groves —
The golden-headed Spring.
She cannot find the shining hand
That once the rose caressed;
There is no blossom on the land,
No bird in last year’s nest.
Here, where this strange Demeter weeps —
This large, sad life unseen —
Where July’s strong, wild torrent leaps
The wet hill-heads between,
I sit and listen to the grief,
The high, supreme distress,
Which sobs above the fallen leaf
Like human tenderness!
Where sighs the sedge and moans the marsh,
The hermit plover calls;
The voice of straitened streams is harsh
By windy mountain walls;
There is no gleam upon the hills
Of last October’s wings;
The shining lady of the rills
Is with forgotten things.
Now where the land’s worn face is grey
And storm is on the wave,
What flower is left to bear away
To Edward Butler’s grave?
What tender rose of song is here
That I may pluck and send
Across the hills and seas austere
To my lamented friend?
There is no blossom left at all;
But this white winter leaf,
Whose glad green life is past recall,
Is token of my grief.
Where love is tending growths of grace,
The first-born of the Spring,
Perhaps there may be found a place
For my pale offering.
For this heroic Irish heart
We miss so much to-day,
Whose life was of our lives a part,
What words have I to say?
Because I know the noble woe
That shrinks beneath the touch —
The pain of brothers stricken low —
I will not say too much.
But often in the lonely space
When night is on the land,
I dream of a departed face —
A gracious, vanished hand.
And when the solemn waters roll
Against the outer steep,
I see a great, benignant soul
Beside me in my sleep.
Yea, while the frost is on the ways
With barren banks austere,
The friend I knew in other days
Is often very near.
I do not hear a single tone;
But where this brother gleams,
The elders of the seasons flown
Are with me in my dreams.
The saintly face of Stenhouse turns —
His kind old eyes I see;
And Pell and Ridley from their urns
Arise and look at me.
By Butler’s side the lights reveal
The father of his fold,
I start from sleep in tears, and feel
That I am growing old.
Where Edward Butler sleeps, the wave
Is hardly ever heard;
But now the leaves above his grave
By August’s songs are stirred.
The slope beyond is green and still,
And in my dreams I dream
The hill is like an Irish hill
Beside an Irish stream.
poem by Henry Kendall
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