Perfection
Ashes:
I was gathering blue light
from your lynx-eyed vessel
of death.
Against terror
blind-folded, shot in the head
on road.
Earth was your bed
and a shimmering moon
your pillow.
It was apathy of gates
of heaven.
The mist grows heavy.
Daring to bare
the jugs of wine,
body walks on edge.
poem by Satish Verma
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Mountain Drinking Song
To drown the ancient sorrows,
we drank a hundred jugs of wine
there in the beautiful night.
We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.
The finally the wine overcame us
and we lay down on the empty mountain--
the earth for a pillow,
and a blanket made of heaven.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
A Mountain Revelry
To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,
We drained a hundred jugs of wine.
A splendid night it was . . . .
In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,
But at last drunkenness overtook us;
And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,
The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet.
Far Away
By what pale light or moon-pale shore
Drifts my soul in lonely flight ?
Regions God had floated o'er
Ere He touched the world with light ?
Not in Heaven and not in earth
Is this water, is this moon ;
For there is no starry birth,
And no dawning and no noon.
Far away-0 far away,
Mist-born-dewy vapours rise
From the dim gates of the day
Far below in earthly skies.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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Apathy 83
(ian hunter)
Standin on the edge of vesuvius - my mouth is runnin dry
Drunk on wine & wisdom - giving it all away
Old enough to hate tomorrow - young enough not to know where to run
Oh there aint no rockn roll no more - just the music of the young
Apathy for the devil apathy for the devil
Apathy for the devil ,n apathy for the son.
The moon shines brightly on some summer lawn -
And envy caught like a leaf
Comes floating down upon this frozen desert sand -
Spitting bullets through the night
The siren wails on the ambulance - compassion touches my head n it bleeds
There aint no rockn roll no more just the sickly sound of greed.
And its apathy for the devil and its apathy for the devil
And its apathy for the devil n apathy for the creed
No more gardens for the gardenless - no more - havens for the havenless
No more helpers for the helplessness - no more - somethings for a less
For the law is now the lawless
n the flaw is now the flawless
n the crime is now accepted
n the criminal respected
n now evil gets elected
n now sinful get selected
Heed a president proven rotten now officially forgotten
Was it your general sheridan who once said the only good, good man is a dead good man.
It was not me babe
I just said keep your head n your bread well down under them floorboards
n you - you look like you gone with the wind
Running naked through the streets
Wired out - tired out - transcendental mental - only laughing in your sleep
Nostalgia is starting to focus too late, imagination is starting to itch
There aint no rockn roll no more just the music of the rich
n its apathy for the devil n its apathy for the devil
n its apathy for the devil apathys at fever pitch
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Winterlight
Winter-light
No one walks on the old road anymore, not even on a day
when almond trees are in bloom. Blue weed and thorny
bushes are shooting through, one day the road will be out
of sight. It leads to a ruin of a house, doors and windows
long since stolen, a door frame made of carved stone too;
half the roof has caved in. A vagabond lived in the ruin for
a time, till gruff voices told him to get lost. I saw him slowly
fade away, erased by shimmering winter light.
He must have walked long was found in a grotto, seeking
shelter from the rain. Three days dead, they said. No saintly
women came, cleansed and wrap his tired body in a shroud.
Funeral at five witnessed by a pale functionary of the state.
Church bells didn’t toll. No one walks on the old road
anymore, not since the bushes grew eagle’s talons and a boa
constrictor took abode in the ruin.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Haymakers’ Song
HERE’S to him that grows it,
Drink, lads, drink!
That lays it in and mows it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
To him that mows and makes it,
That scatters it and shakes it,
That turns, and teds, and rakes it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
Now here ’s to him that stacks it,
Drink, lads, drink!
That thrashes and that tacks it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
That cuts it out for eating,
When March-dropp’d lambs are bleating,
And the slate-blue clouds are sleeting,
Drink, lads, drink!
And here ’s to thane and yeoman,
Drink, lads, drink!
To horseman and to bowman,
Clink, jugs, clink!
To lofty and to low man,
Who bears a grudge to no man,
But flinches from no foeman,
Drink, lads, drink!
poem by Alfred Austin
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Feeling Guilty
if i met Tu Fu
and Li Po sometime
on top of the
misty mountain
and see them with their
poetry and
jugs of wine
beside the winding
yellow river
I'd tell them about
my guilt
that i am one kind of
a lost soul
preoccupied too
with poetry
sans the jugs of wine
but with a number of
concubines.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Sea-Weeds.
The sunlight piercing through the blue wave feeds
The joyous growths that, clustered from the air,
Throw forth their fibres to the Power that breeds
Love in the lives above of all things fair —
The ever-living Sun, that through man's days
Is as the breath of all the thinks and says.
Light streams down to them in that watery mist,
E'en as thought's splendor in a human mood
Life-filling, like a glorious amethyst
Among the mountains in their solitude;
And the sea-things drink in at every pore
The nurture of the light till life is o'er.
Till life is o'er, and Death within the ooze
Then hides them from the joyous light and air;
E'en as, too, in the mind the flaming muse
Burns down to ashes in a world made bare
With want and woe, and the pain whose defeat
Must be by death — when death alone is sweet.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Serpentine
Dark in the forest the sun dose not shine
Slowly in the night the snake walks
Hark in the sky an angle dose look
Down in my soul the death starts to infest
life has abandoned the garden where we stand
the snake walks no more in the light from heaven
man lives no more in the light as well
death is our calling and we must answer
your soul eternal this body but mud
crumble oh body and relinquish me
the pain is to much the façade is cracking
to the dirt i give my body
to you i give my soul oh lord
forgive me for the serpent has lead me astray
poem by Cody Moore
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Thin Veil
I begin unlearning
the script, in irreality,
find myself
my shadow in intermission
envelops the virtue
peak of sorrow, silence of space,
give your hand, within clarity
of reason, inner globe
of light, your kiss melts.
A water lily grows
in my palm, full of tears,
a terror strikes on thumb
like a dismembered limb
a veiled moon walks in night
to reach home.
The sun will find the road empty!
poem by Satish Verma
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Daughter of the Night
My body’s very heavy, lethargy
My eyelid’s very heavy, fluttering
My hand’s very heavy, twitching
My breathing’s very heavy, ragged
The sun is setting, bats are betting
The rats are scurrying
The miners are hurrying
The women are worrying
The sun is running
The moon is coming
Eye’s open, deep breath
Sky’s open, black death
Door’s open, living death
Daughter of the night
Slaughter of the light
Hunger pangs, bare fangs
Know where the younger, gangs
Know where the younger, hangs
Hear the blood flowing
Hear the wind blowing
A deep dark desire
A deep dark promise
Daughter of the night
poem by Anand Dixit
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When God Opens Heaven's Gates
When God opens Heaven's gates
As we cross that gulf so wide,
The arms of Jesus open
As our soul will there abide.
When God opens heaven's gates
We'll see beauty all around,
Our loved ones, too, will greet us,
As we leave this earth behind.
When God opens Heaven's gates
There'll be singing angels there,
The awesome peace and joyfulness
Will permeate the air.
As God opens Heaven's gates
And His Light takes place of day,
Jesus welcomes us forever
As the ones who found "The Way."
poem by Gloria Davis Walker
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Bring Wine
216
Bring wine, for I am suffering crop sickness from the vintage;
God has seized me, and I am thus held fast.
By love’s soul, bring me a cup of wine that is the envy of the
sun, for I care aught but love.
Bring that which if I were to call it “soul” would be a shame,
for the reason that I am pained in the head because of the soul.
Bring that whose name is not contained in this mouth, through
which the fissures of my speech split asunder.
Bring that which, when it is not present, I am stupid and ig-
norant, but when I am with it, I am the king of the subtle and
crafty ones.
Bring that which, the moment it is void of my head, I become
black and dark, you might say I am of the infidels.
Bring that which delivers out of this “bring” and “do not
bring”; bring quickly, and repel me not, saying, “Whence shall
I bring it?”
Bring, and deliver the roof of the heavens through the long
night from my abundant smoke and lamentations.
Bring that which after my death, even out of my dust, will
restore me to speech and thanksgiving even as Najjar.
Bring me wine, for I am guardian of wine like a goblet, for
whatever has gone into my stomach I deliver back completely.
Najjar said, “After my death would that my people might be
open-eyed to the ecstasy within me.
“They would not regard my bones and blood; in spirit I ama
mighty king, even though in body I am vile.
“What a ladder I, the Carpenter, have chiseled! My going has
reached the roof of the seventh heaven.
“I journeyed like the Messiah, my ass remained below; I do
no grieve for my ass, nor am I asslike of ears.
“Do not like Eblis see in Adam only water and clay; see that
behind the clay are my hundred thousand rose bowers.”
Shams-e Tabrizi rose up from this flesh saying, “ I am the
sun. Bring up my head from this mire.
“Err not, when I enter the mire once more, for I am at rest,
and am ashamed of this veil.
“Every morning I will rise up, despite the blind; for the sake
of the blind I will not cease to rise and set.”
The Lowering
The flag is folded
lengthwise, and lengthwise again,
folding toward the open edge,
so that the union of stars on the blue
field remains outward in full view;
a triangular folding is then begun
at the striped end,
by bringing the corner of the folded edge
to the open edge;
the outer point, turned inward along the open edge,
forms the next triangular fold:
the folding continued so, until the end is reached,
the final corner tucked between
the folds of the blue union,
the form of the folded flag is found to resemble that
of a 3-cornered pouch, or thick cocked hat.
Take this flag, John Glenn, instead of a friend;
instead of a brother, Edward Kennedy, take this flag;
instead of a father, Joe Kennedy, take this flag;
this flag instead of a husband, Ethel Kennedy, take this flag;
this 9-times-folded red-white-striped, star-spotted-blue flag,
tucked and pocketed neatly,
Nation, instead of a leader, take this folded flag.
Robert Kennedy, coffin without coverlet,
beside this hole in the grass,
beside your brother, John Kennedy,
in the grass,
take, instead of a country,
this folded flag;
Robert Kennedy, take this
hole in the grass.
poem by May Swenson
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Polly strips His bed
Polly strips back the sheets
where Master George has lain.
She folds the white sheets and
lays them on a chair. She lies
her head on the pillow where
his head has been. She sniffs
and smells him. Closing her eyes
she imagines she's there beside
him and he has her in his arms,
his lips against her flushed cheek.
She imagines they are in bed
together when dawn's light breaks
through the shutters and Susie
the other maid enters and wide
eyed she mouths a huge round O.
She opens her eyes; the pillow
is vacant beside her head, just
a small indentation where he had
laid his head the night before.
She fingers into the pocket of her
white apron a few black hairs she's
discovered on the white pillowcase.
She strips off the pillowcases and
puts them with the sheets. The bed
is now stripped of all coverings
and is left to air. She imagines as
she stands that he is still there,
laid out unclothed, skin all bare.
But in reality she knows he has
gone of to war as he has before.
She hopes he will return alive
and in one piece; no missing
limps or blind or gassed as some
have been she's read; but most of all
she dreads him laid out cold and damp
in some foreign field lying still and dead.
poem by Terry Collett
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Drift Wood
This politics of poverty
erupts again,
entrapped in arcane script.
A code of words will find
the fault lines.
Coerced to wait in a
black book, you start forgetting
the rules of game. It hits you
when you were writing
a poem.
At the end of the arguments
a lynx eyed moon walks
on the lake of tears, constructing
a dam of bread, for
a broken promise.
poem by Satish Verma
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Nocturne
The earth, still heavy and warm with afternoon,
Dazed by the moon:
The earth, tormented with the moon’s light,
Wandering in the night:
La, La, The moon is a lovely thing to see—
The moon is an agony.
Full moon, moon rise, the old old pain
Of brightness in dilated eyes,
The ache of still
Elbows leaning on the narrow sill,
Of motionless cold hands upon the wet
Marble of the parapet,
Of open eyelids of a child behind
The crooked glimmer of the windown blind,
Of sliding faint remindful squares
Across the lamplight on the rocking-chairs:
Why do we stand so late
Stiff fingers on the moonlit gate?
Why do we stand
To watch so long the fall of moonlight on the sand?
What is it we cannot recall?
Tormented by the moon’s light
The earth turns maundering through the night.
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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In Saint Gabriel's Wings
In saint gabriel's wings I will fly all thre way throught the sky
But first I will past through living waters here on earth
And soon I will enter the gate of heaven
But once I am inside the gates of heaven I will be inside God's abode Forever because I will be dead
My spirit will be in heaven
But my body will remain on the planet earth
And please don't go looking for me because I will not be on the planet Earth anymore
I will cry and water the earth with my cries every time that I will cry in Heaven
poem by Aldo Kraas
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A Vindication
If heaven loved not the wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not the wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on the earth.
Since heaven and earth love the wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both the sage and the wise were drinkers,
Why seek for peers among gods and goblins?
Three cups open the grand door to bliss;
Take a jugful, the universe is yours.
Such is the rapture of the wine,
That the sober shall never inherit.
The Color of the Moon
The color of the moon
so pale and so blue
makes me wanna cry
when I look at the moon
In black or white
dark or light
the moon cries
with all its might
With the moon cries
life dies
and the earth
breathes a heavy sigh
The color of the moon
so pale and so blue
makes me wanna cry
when I see the color of the moon
poem by Jasmine Thompson
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