Related quotes: Waking to a breaking thought...

A bare afternoon

Waking to a breaking thought
rude warblers in the tree's dark
contort the image
in the eye
of a sundered dream
into a wholesome bounteous vision

The symphony is expansive
trained to unnatural correctness
alien to the warbler
bends order to
mastered mindfulness
regimental violins
scold and chastise
the senses to D Major

Now the sparrow and Segovia
minuet in the sun
lurk in the veins
clasping word on wing
numbing sense within sound
silenced within windows
the blaring harshness of the warbler

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Related quotes

Bush warbler

again the bush warbler
perhaps another stroke
of good luck coming

inspired by
Bush warbler:
shits on the rice cakes
on the porch rail.
Translated by Robert Hass
Matsuo Basho

poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Ethereal Bard

“ Of what these bewitching calls,
whistled long from a tree? ”.
Waking up at five in a Spring-morn
I sought an answer from the watchman
of a school near the Eastern Coast.
“The cuckoo is vocal here sir”,
he said and fell to his sleep.

What a mystic note of the bard
sending into oblivion the banal cries
of the birds, we often see!
“Is the melody tragic or merry? ”
A pensive poet will be inspired with
unwept tales of sorrow so much.
A blithe poet will slip into wonder
tasting the tunes of the songster.

I waddled towards the tree
to have a glimpse of the bird.
But the music came now from a mango.
I raced towards that tree a little away
but the call now was showered from a tree afar.
Till the mid-June, I relished from its bounteous songs
but repined at not glimpsing that black warbler.

poem by Rajendran Muthiah
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Künst

Each sound
free or bound
each petal
Each quivering utterance
bold and round

these handicrafts
these unthinking feelings
flower in the minute thinking fingers
untranslatable intent
when other more enduring
forms
stop the outpour
tax and stem
and call for aged patience's munificence:

At this the heart will pause
before labour
the consciousness severing from congenital cries

« I'll pound harder for patience's sake »
the penitent heart upbraids.

« Only so, until I too have learned
to punish words into some form
then men of all climes may equally say
‘This I understand for my father did as well
as forefathers to grandchildren might dwell' «

Might one say again
- need it be said -

Why this shape for the violin
Is this the only colour of sound
That must with horsetail on bark
be whipped to wail and whine
like an harpy

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

To our dearly-beloved son, now dead

In a makeshift vihara in the heart of London
Bikku then disclosed his parents long gone
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears

Somewhere in the saffron folds of his faith
A lonely boy still lurked wanting his mother
Or brother sister and hope-dislocating father
Of how they could abandon even his wraith

Just a single line in the inner board of a book
Over dried blue ink his fingers caressed words
A life he might've had in who knows what worlds
He just wanted to say: ‘See, who so forsook! '

In an unwatched vihara in the heart of London
A forsaken boy dared break out of monkdom
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears

Too late he had come to own up this truth:
‘If there's a Supreme Being leave Him well be
He knows best what He's doing forsooth
Mind your own business leave Him well be! '

Should one gauge the measure of a man's humanity
From his ability to outgrow imposed attachments:
Such as confines of his community race or country
But most of all withstand the viral encroachments
Of his conditioned beliefs upon his own personality.

Dedicated to Mahathero Gunasena

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Doppelgänger

Coming home late from wandering in my sleep
In search of that which goes ahead of chase
i saw the image of my form stretched on my bed
His looks - minus my glasses - through an impish mien
transfixed me
my sandals gently flapping on his soles.

i peeped into the mirror
and saw him hovering
over my upturned eyes.
Out of the window and still his eyes held me.

i was aware my room was lived-in:
my cigarette wasting in an arc of ash i rescued
my opened book advanced a page or two
(no great reader, thought i)

But when i saw him in my new shirt too
There was little i could do.
i turned as if to go
and thought i saw him beckon to me thus: _______))

i stripped
till limp as limbless on my bed
He gave myself up to him.

He's looking down this ball-point
and methinks i'm trying to say
what he wants me to think
and i'm not quite sure
if what he thinks i'd want

It seems to me
He MUST of needs have his mischief
But couldn't i do both
and bring him back to me

Yet he seems to be saying
how free i am
Mocking my ways as sham.

Then when my eyes keep drooping
i say - i think i'm saying to him:
Wait!
i'll trap you yet in my consciousness!

Abruptly i rise up not seeing him around and wonder
Where has he loped
What has he seen that i have not
Who has he met
Whose stealthy arms enveloped my torso
Why would he not share what he knows
with me

And when total strangers in foreign places
cock their eyes at me
i'm verily jealous-ed
that he makes friends with such ease
and judging by the curves and peaks
with such aplomb too
- the impish fella -
though i dare not return the blown conniving kisses
from his chance acquaintances

Downcast as i halt from straying
in the lower lids of my eyes
i spy him once again
cavorting: clasping his fingers in mock tantara
cartwheeling: jumping in and out of my almeirah

and yet when i try to read what i have written
he sits on the sill of the wash-basin
his taunting bee's eyes stilled on me
the stand-stillness sucking all sound from around
and when i dare return his wistful stare
he throws a manic tantrum
a million tam-tams bursting through my ear-drums

And when his time to leave comes round
by fall of each full lid
Departing he leaves me
worsted, stuck and fey

Now when alas i stand apart, i think…
Well, you know, when i recall…
Well, what gets my goat…you see, that is…
What i darned can't stand about him
is that prankish habit of his in bed:

While mine halves
The woman's doubles

(©: T. Wignesan, London,1959; from the collection: T. Wignesan. tell them i'm gone,1983)

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Before you go a little way, prospecting...

You, in going a little way from yourself
Have gone a long way from my gullible ilk.
« I'm trying hard not to like you, » you said
The breaths of several men surging in your nostrils
And the stench abraded in your flesh:
« You are unshaven. »

You took proper care to remember the right words:
« Why are you so far away, I cannot reach you. »
The orgasm you probably tried to fake -
Thanks for the repeated protestations -
Blew all the other exhausted noises through.
« I think it's all this lack of sleep and all that, » you said
Trapping me with your alien scents.

You have gone away more than a little from yourself.
I have felt and avoided the humiliation in your voice:
« Turn out the lights. I'm afraid
You'd never like me again. »
These are bothersome words.
Only constant repetition make them less wearisome.

One whole week you waited and watched.
One by one you chalked us down.
We fled, not so much from you
As from ourselves, not knowing which
You or the condemned flower to take:
« Why don't you tell me something about yourself.
I've said enough, » you said and came closer
Wraithed in your trapper's overflying airs.

Now that you have prospected a little
Confiscated my intimate thoughts, coaxed my ego
Applied the guileful balms which embolden
A man in bed and made of the future a promise
And turned and sighed like the unwanted thing

Now that you have preyed in my sanctuary
Gazed long in wistful silence my empty shrine
How can I let you go - take my scent
And mix it till it roots in other flesh
And wandering, I'll not know why someday
I might fret in the company of familiar strangers.

« What about the lad? » Alone and wishfully loitering
« Oh, let him toss and turn. Why shouldn't he?
He'll write better then, » you said, for once
Rippling the nimble calm embossed on feigning face
That poised flutter of your lips when words you wield
Assume a dextrous innocence
Little wonder then the sensually provoked blushes
Cross-fertilise the loping lurk of your poems.

You in going a little way towards me
Have gone a long way from yourself.

Before you go a little way prospecting
Leave leave a little of yourself in your safe.

Dedicated to F. A.

(©: T. Wignesan,1965, London; from the collection: tell them i'm gone,1983, rev.2012)

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Thought Order v The Senses

Out of nothing but a need
From sense unsatisfying
Thought arose
Found its order gratifying.

The need for satisfaction
Is what brought it all about.
Something about the senses
Thought order put to rout.

The degrees of satisfaction
Existing in the senses
Enable thought to overwhelm
Sensual pretences.

poem by Douglas Scotney
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking:
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more:
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armour's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping.

Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveillé.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest; thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveillé.

poem by Sir Walter Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Lady of the Lake: Canto 1 (excerpt)

SONG

poem by Sir Walter Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Leaf

A single season of life
Borne of spring’s dew, released on fall’s winds
Great oak’s life running through its veins
To the forest, a gift of motion and color

Great tree, expanding out, gripping its earth
Dancing slowly in the currents of time
In an instant, illusions of stillness

Basking in brilliant sunshine
Flowing feathers in the music of the night
Silt carried by water
Returning to roots once more

Trunk, branches, ever thinner, expansive
Ever softer, edges of fragility
Branches holding mirrors for tree’s image

From the tree, our image of leaf
From the leaf, our image of tree
Leibniz' monad reflecting the whole

poem by George Kassabgi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Willy-Wag and Sparrow

Willy-wag and Sparrow
sat on a stone.
Said Willy, it's cold
when the sun is gone.

But my heart beats hot
in my white silk breast;
time enough later
for me to rest.

Said Sparrow, It's dark
in the green willow,
and the cat may lurk
in the shade below.

He fluffed his feathers
and shook his head;
by now the others
are safe in bed.

Said Willy, the sky
is full of light,
and a juicy fly
is quickly caught.

I'll flirt my fan
awhile the cold,
and I won't go in
till the moon is gold.

Said sparrow, the tree
is full by now,
and I'm off to my perch
on the topmost bough.

But Willy said, whether
it's dark or light,
if I feel like singing
I'll sing all night.

poem by Nancy Fotheringham Cato
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

BirdSong Part Two

A gentle trill comes through the breeze
A warbler sings its song
'Tis the Deity's Golden Rhapsody
How could such beauty e'er be wrong?
Gentle feathers plume their pride
In the mornings most dewy glow
A choir of feathered Angels upon the wing
Drown out morose cries of days woe
Our birds are true Aristocrats
Their own melody-a reigning crown
Dressing up a kingdom of bucholic vales
Bringing forth smiles instead of frowns
'Tis a Birdsong World- i am told
'Tis a Birdsong Season- O' Spring
So sorry to eventually see them all go
With the Winter the cold wind brings
Birdsong -Warblers travel deeper south
Seeking they -the warmth O' the Sun
Bringing their Psalms of Godly songs
To deep south climbs- where Spring has just begun

poem by Theodora Onken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Stop writing Literature, You garrulous Indian

a life of toil for the man in the centre
a hub in the peripheral tireless wheel

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

no words cling now no words meant in blame
the tongue he lash the words they now tame

no shock of blast open laughter rock the hall
everyman there say there sure were a man

a man no fear cowed in communion to other
made for no gods made for no demons either

all men he know best when he see just once
no second thought resurrect the man if bad

so go tell the magi no trek in sight in sky
here a man be born here he so sure die

other no like see one so bright stand up high
other no like feel like sky fall low into ocean

what make ‘m i say with feeling so just
is sure he different he force hisself work

work work work work an' again work
he work nite an' nite so 50-hour in day

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

where you go from word born here now
turn and twist all whoring the alphabet

‘don't write anything you can get published'
so publish only what you can't call your own

writing like reading's a public coital act
so showing your work is exhibitionism

‘why don't you send your stuff around
keeping it to yourself's sheer masturbation'

reading-watching-listening's just voyeurism
so sending wares around is prostitutionism

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

he it was in minesweeper capture aurora borealis
message from extrasensory enter into he word

in Bengal waters alone he hear No-man cry
only in deepdown psyche water drip drip dry

then on land he no see reason to the fight
so he let he wrists spill he guts to the fill

then he take the world on all by he torn self
he spare no skin in dug-Malayan-jungle-out

what he do what he think he do he no tell
everybody meet man an' no see albatross hang

he no tell story like ol' mariner in dream
he go wake people from dumb dead trance

many many people high up no like this act
some call him stuckup other just ‘im damn

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

is all he do then what kind of working this
is big work man ‘cause most body dead sleep

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

Dedicated to Eric Mottram,1924 - 1995

(© T. Wignesan 13-15 October 1995. Pub. in 'Radical Poetics (Inventory of Possibilities) ', London,1997.)

* Eric N. W. Mottram held a personal Chair, since 1983, in English and American Literature at King's College, University of London where he was first appointed as lecturer in American Literature in 1960. A prolific poet (34 vols.) and critic (15 vols.) , he also taught at Zurich, Singapore and Gröningen after obtaining a Double First in English Tripos from Cambridge in 1950. He was a recepient of the American Learned Societies award in 1965 and had also subsequently taught at North Western University and New York University at Buffalo. He edited 22 issues of the Poetry Society's Review in the seventies and was largely responsible for introducing Beat literature in Europe. He authored Algebra of Need on William Burroughs.

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Give me back my name

tell them i'm gone
tell them i'm gone to change my name
give them any name
i'll not give them another name

tell them i'll not take my father's name
no more father than i'm my own
i do not create
i'm not responsible
i have no ownership over my makings

so i'll take this name i've got
for the moment
tell them
and i'll go short-changed to be cast again

yes
tell them i'll go and change my name
not have my name changed
and come out again unchanged

tell them again i'll not take my father's name
yes
tell them that
tell them i've gone to change my name
my very own name
and yet keep the name i've gone to change

yes
tell them that

tell them when i'm there
i'll see why josephus broke the essenic law
why marx the mighty essene changed his name
and note
why the ribonucleic-acid embargo in between
why the dna father-son short supply

i am a cell lodged in the molecular-memory-millennia
i'm the agent of growth and decay
i see the cells strung out in an embryonic fantasy riddle
while intercourse was still permissible

i proclaim
i propound
in my genes the spermatic stimulation
the evolutionary process
the woman the link-breaker
keeps it all going longer and longer
until i stand and transmit
until we reach out into the micro-wave length
listen in on ourselves
in the multi-macro-cosmic network:
the tv stations
the electronic transmitters
the nether-world subliminal messages
all shall interlock
and we remain tuned in
sitting bolt-tight-up
in our nudging squeezing cells
no more afearing nor doing
no more no less that is
than sucking a python diet

we'll do without rousing sex-play
courtship nor foreplay
or even sans monetary excuse
we'll do it for ourcells
in ourcells
by ourcells

then i'll not have to go away
nor will you have to tell them

‘he thinks he's gone to change his name
his only name
and quite probably not take his father's name'

rendes-moi mon nom unique

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Fogging Up The Windows

the sound of a small child crying
hungry in the night
of a young woman sleepless
waiting for daylight
the sound of church bells ringing
not too far away
the sound of an old man dying
remembering how to pray

the sound of two hearts breaking
a thousand miles apart
of the last tear a fallin'
unseen in the dark
the sound of lifetimes wasted
of a love that didnt last
the sound of memories forgotten
of a time already past

can you hear?
can you hear?
a lone tree a fallin'
a hoot owl callin'

life and death, a lover's breath
fogging up the windows
of an empty room...
fogging up the windows
of an empty room...

the sound of the nails driven
into His screaming hands
the sound of salvation
entrusted to a man
the sound of bodies falling
of buildings swept by flame
the sound of different voices
whose souls are the same

can you hear?
can you hear?
a lone tree a fallin'
a hoot owl callin'

life and death, a lover's breath
fogging up the windows
of an empty room...
fogging up the windows
of an empty room....

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

London

We came from the far North
summered in Crimea
deserted the armed forces
had to disappear
made it to the free West
on a chartered flight
so we could see what
we trained to fight
We were in London
"Let's do it - let's break the law!"
We were in London
Tell it like it is
We were in London
Tell it like it is
Looking for hard work
or credit card fraud
What do you expect from us?
We come from abroad
to get ourselves a new job
on a building-site
They work you so hard
but we trained to fight
We were in London
"Let's do it - let's break the law!"
We were in London
Tell it like it is
We were in London
"Let's do it - let's break the law!"
We were in London
Tell it like it is
My father fought in Afghanistan
His widow's pension ain't worth a damn
My mother works and goes home to cry
I want to live before I die
We were in London
"Let's do it - let's break the law!"
We were in London
Tell it like it is
We were in London
Tell it like it is

song performed by by Pet Shop Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Way out over Copland's Appalachian Springs

We dragged the slopes to our feet.
On the summit, we burnt our clothes
for wood and there shuffled our feet
in the hush of the falling snow.

We had come out of the scuffed grass.

With one look back in unbelief
exhuming the long trek
the silent keen
puffing through blubbery fingers.
We pulled the hoofed trail through
the trapdoor of our unchained links
foisting for new heights.

Beyond the Appalachian Mountains
the hanging fern on pine dripped snow
on moles burrowing in gashed hollows.

We paused. In that doubtful moment
we rued the climb, succumbing to the assault
upon this stilled millennia's eerie silence.

All that time the swivelling blizzards raged
shifting soil, eroding avalanches.
Below, burgeoning customs
unmaned the silent dignity of bisons.
All bore testimony to a familiar preparation.

And then, suddenly before our eyes
the solemn ground rose with the breeze
the spangled map changing to the quick:

Chicago Pittsburgh Kansas City
wild barnyards dry-coughing, pop-corning garages
horrent timber ribbed the coasting steamboats
the linoleum walls
the mild Indian piqued he was
by the mahogany cubism of our speech.

We wondered if coming so far
only mattered, we would be content
to build a fire, here and now
and unpack our horses.

We saw little need to go on.

One night the summit might open
up and swallow us all or old age
would come upon us like a lonely neighbour
on a pretext to the door.

[© T.Wignesan 1964 - London, U.K., from the collection: tell them i'm gone,1983; published in Fire Readings (A Collection of Contemporary Writing from the Shakespeare & Company Fire Benefit Readings) . Paris-Boston: Frank Books,1991, pp.36-37.]

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Sound

In this world
You might have heard
So many sound words
As there was a poet
Non -serious
Using only them
Without any sense
A complete nonsense
But have you ever heard
The sound of a breaking heart
It breaks like a mirror
And the images of memories
Are sent to the cosmos
Have you ever heard the sound of Recycle Bin
No reconciliation is possible
As it produces the sound of breaking friendship
Have you ever dream of breaking faith
It breaks with a cracking sound
When tablets of cyanides are spread in the wind.

poem by Abdul Wahab
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Warbler Sings

the warbler sings
among new shoots of bamboo
of coming old age

poem by Matsuo Basho
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

A cure for forty death-dealing cells

Impotent at birth

Impotent at death

and only somewhat potent in between

Why were you born without your own consent

What was the karmic guilt of your first birth
and what about those maimed in the mind
crippled in the womb
eaten by meningitis
by herpes
by syphillis
by aids

What are their chances of mending their karma

And what about that baby born without a brain
How is it to be blamed
for not giving its organs to some transplant bank

Who cares if you live on
If you die
who cares
and for how long

Does one have to care
being but ephemeral

poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

En.Citatepedia®.ro

A bare afternoon

Related quotes

Bush warbler

The Ethereal Bard

Künst

To our dearly-beloved son, now dead

Doppelgänger

Before you go a little way, prospecting...

Thought Order v The Senses

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

The Lady of the Lake: Canto 1 (excerpt)

Leaf

Willy-Wag and Sparrow

BirdSong Part Two

Stop writing Literature, You garrulous Indian

Give me back my name

Fogging Up The Windows

London

Way out over Copland's Appalachian Springs

Sound

The Warbler Sings

A cure for forty death-dealing cells

En.Citatepedia^®.ro