Radically Chinese
one
stroke
a point
leftstroke bent
hooked
two
a cover man
man enter eight borders to cover ice
table receptacle
knife strength
wrap spoon basket
box ten to divine
seal
cliff
private
also mouth enclosure
earth
scholar follow
walk evening
great woman child
roof inch small
lame crooked corpse
sprout mountain stream
work self
napkin shield
tiny shelter
move on
join hands
a dart
a bow
pig's head feathery
to pace heart spear door
hand branch
tap writings
measure axe square
not sun
speak
moon wood owe
stop evil kill
do not compare
hair
family
air
water
fire
claws father
change a frame
a strip
tooth
ox
dog
dark jade
melon
tile
sweet produce
use field
bolt of cloth
sick back to back
white skin dish
eye
lance
arrow
stone
spirit to track grain cave
erect
bamboo rice silk earthenware net
sheep feathers old
plough ear
brush flesh officer from self reach
a mortar tongue opposed boat
a limit
colour grass tiger
insect blood do clothes cover
see
horn
words
valley
platter
pig
reptile shell red
walk
foot body
cart bitter time
stop & go
city new wine separate village
metal long gate plenty
reach to a bird rain
azure false face
rawhide leather leek
sound heading wind
fly eat head fragrance
horse bone high
long hair fight wine cauldron ghost
fish bird
salt deer
wheat
hemp
yellow millet
black embroidery toad
tripod
drum rodent nose
even teeth drag on tortoise flute
Dedicated to: Eric Mottram: 1924-1995 (not because of any debt, felt or incurred)
(©: T. Wignesan,22-23 November 1995 - from the collection: longhand notes (a binding of poems) ,1999.)
poem by T. Wignesan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Skin Hair…
Skin Hair…
Where else does the earth rise?
settle down with a fall,
cover with strand...
after other strand,
of hair curl,
loom adversely,
along the length,
along the breadth....
of a man, woman
where it is delicate, where it is private...
pronounced an' concealed.
on the face above the eyes,
like a brush of feathers,
above the lip,
a moustache…
eloquently trim,
tweezed eye browses,
hair flock grace the neck,
onto the back.
Along the shin,
Along the skin,
Smooth touch rendered,
Chill rising the hair follicles,
Desire burn,
In the shower wet with soap,
Silk fiber strand,
Run through fingers of a lover,
Relishing the sensations erect,
Tiny hair, almost as fur…
Souring along the back,
Trough upon the skin,
Collect scent of a love scene.
The skin here dark,
Chocolate born,
Wind caress these, both hair an' skin
Creature so supreme,
Conquer all but this, delicate
Feather brush of skin against skin,
Hair rise here thin,
Space of a love gaze seen,
Hair on skin….
poem by Merlin Mwaura
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Skin Hair
Skin Hair…
Where else does the earth rise?
settle down with a fall,
cover with strand...
after other strand,
of hair curl,
loom adversely,
along the length,
along the breadth....
of a man, woman
where it is delicate, where it is private...
pronounced an' concealed.
on the face above the eyes,
like a brush of feathers,
above the lip,
a moustache…
eloquently trim,
tweezed eye browses,
hair flock grace the neck,
onto the back.
Along the shin,
Along the skin,
Smooth touch rendered,
Chill rising the hair follicles,
Desire burn,
In the shower wet with soap,
Silk fiber strand,
Run through fingers of a lover,
Relishing the sensations erect,
Tiny hair, almost as fur…
Souring along the back,
Trough upon the skin,
Collect scent of a love scene.
The skin here dark,
Chocolate born,
Wind caress these, both hair an' skin
Creature so supreme,
Conquer all but this, delicate
Feather brush of skin against skin,
Hair rise here thin,
Space of a love gaze seen,
Hair on skin….
poem by Merlin Mwaura
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A turning gold
I fear of being called old
but in fact turning Gold
astute behavior and approach bold
head of the family and very nice hold
Calmness like sea and brightness like sun
family members would love and make fun
my try to win the race with stick walk run
children may point with small barrel gun
'Grandpa, your time is over'
we will give you cover
your inning should not last
as you are aging very fast
Don't leave us behind
where from we will find?
you are our dad's dad and very kind
we touch your feet as you are soft and mild
It turns me old when somethig I hear
“One time handsome may not remain dear”
He is loosing charm and wrinkles developed
Great show on stage is likedly to be floaped
I feel delighted when hear nice words
There is no fun to think of age and look backward
Any one may go for high jump when fully young
Alas! it is beautiful inning but not going to last long
Who can stop the blowing wind?
Who can clip the bird’s wing?
You may go high in the air
The game is considered to be very fair
It is the test of time that you spread the fragrance
The ability and young age is thing of presence
It may stay as long as you think it is in your reach
The birds may come down to find and search
Where do we find peace and shelter?
Where is our final destginy and cover?
Who will accompany us till the end?
The world has to be made as lovely abode and friend
The sun may shine hard and rain may cause the blow
The vigor and strength may develop cracks and go slow
The speed may slower and ri ver may stop the flow
The eys may loose the sight and face its glow
The wrinkles are sign of wisdom
It truly reflects but speaks seldom
Who knows better what can be spoken off?
World may not realize when to cry and laugh
The river water have calmed down and flow silently
The words too are spoken very nicely and gently
You represent serious figure and act as saintly
The advice too comes easily and instantly
One must, in times to come, must grow old
So many may be following you and come in fold
It is not wrinkles but lines on face
That may speak of marathon race
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Litany
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
poem by Billy Collins
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Litany
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
Anonymous submission.
poem by William Taylor Collins
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Cover You In Kisses
(jerry kilgore/brett jones/jess brown)
You say its cold back there in denver
A foot of new snow on the ground
Youre all bundled up in blankets
Id give anything to be there with you now
Id cover you in kisses
Hold you in my arms
Thats all that I can think of
Every minute were apart
Darlin Ive been livin
For the moment that we touch
So I can cover you in kisses
And wrap you in my love
Baby keep that fire burnin
Pour a glass of that sweet wine
Let your hair down on your shoulders
And Ill be there just in time
To cover you in kisses
Hold you in my arms
Thats all that I can think of
Every minute were apart
Darlin Ive been livin
For the moment that we touch
So I can cover you in kisses
And wrap you in my love
Darlin Ive been livin
For the moment that we touch
So I can cover you in kisses
And wrap you in my love
I wanna cover you in kisses
And wrap you in my love
song performed by by John Michael Montgomery
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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For A While
i stop for a while on this morning walk
to see the ripening rice plants on the field
golden indeed like the blonde hairs
of the american woman
under the gentleness of the sun that has
newly arrived from the split sides of the
nearby mountain
my eyes were caught however
on this maiden with a brown skin
long black hair with an earthen jar
on her left shoulder held by her
small hands
she is just passing by to fetch
some water in the old stone-walled well
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Literary Tongue
at first i like the hands
those huge hands to cover the whole of my cold body
and then i begin to like the fingers
those that crawl and make my body warm
those that fill the orifice of my emptiness
those that caress my hair
and travel from my nose to my mouth
to my neck to the last tip of my toes
and then i like the mouth too
with its tongue that speak about gentleness
and make me a little bit heated
and brave
and then i am finally stuck with the tongue
the surrogate part of of them all
it speaks
it licks
it travels from the tip of my hair to the tip of my toe
and then it stops
hides inside the walls of my teeth and gums
and stay in the house of my mouth
it also knows
when to stop and just be alone and silent
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lord, what a Beloved is mine!
Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess
in my breast a hundred meadows from his reed.
When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me,
he says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.”
Last night I asked the new moon concerning my Moon. The
moon said, “I am running in his wake, my foot is in his dust.”
When the sun arose I said,” How yellow of face you are!” The
sun said, “Out of shame for his countenance I have a face of
gold.”
“Water, you are prostrate, you are running on your head and
face.” Water said, “Because of his incantation I move like a
snake.”
“Noble fire, why do you writhe so?” Fire said, “Because of
the lightning of his face my heart is restless.”
“Wind-messenger of the world, why are you light of heart?”
Wind said, “My heart would burn if the choice were mine.”
“Earth, what are you meditation, silent and watchful?” Earth
said, “Within me I have a garden and spring.”
Pass over these elements, God is our succorer; my head is
aching, in my hand I hold wine.
If you have barred sleep to us, the way of intoxication is open.
Since I have one to assist, he offers wine in both hands.
Be silent, that without this tongue the heart may speak; when
I hear the speech of the heart, I feel ashamed of this speech.
The farmer and his wife (Sestina)
A girl was lying down flat on her back
with a straw hat at eye height over hair,
she was sun-struck, curling and fair
with a rain cloud ominous and black
drifting in a blue sky and a small track
meandering past and it needed some repair.
Some of your makeup is in need of repair,
there’s a guitar bag slung over your back
where you walk pass the girl at the dirt track
with the strong wind frizzling through your hair
and the sky is already turning black
but the evening up to now is fair.
Slowly you walk past the local fair
with some of the stalls needing repair,
the guitar you are carrying is black
and you walk straight on, do not look back
at the whistles of some men with long hair
while home you take a narrow long track.
Watching our horses on the racetrack
you are really sexy and very fair,
our horses do parade with shining hair
you notice that the stands need some repair
and I am standing somewhat at your back
while you are dressed prettily in black.
The highway is like a ribbon that is black
where it meets the old overgrown farm track,
there are huge blue-gum trees some way back
and you agree that the price of the Lucerne is fair
where some cows graze at the pen, needing repair,
swishing with tails to drive flies from their hair.
I pull my fingers slowly through my hair
and there are streaks of grey in the black,
but the cattle are only doing fair
while my love is coming with the field’s track
that must constantly be kept in repair
and I hear her singing over my back.
There were torn out hair a long time back,
when I met my darling and she was fair,
at a fight at a track, I was in need of repair.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Swan Song
Her hair was as black as a starling's tail,
Her cheeks as pale as a swan,
Her eyes, like two slim moonstones, glowed
And her mouth was the Holy Grail.
She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream,
But now, that girl had gone.
While I still rise with the early bird
To tend to my father's fields,
As the only son of an only son
I watched the woman leave.
She cried sweet tears as she said farewell
And vowed to come back, and soon,
But the village streets of a western town
Hold nothing for Ling Xiaodan.
The weeks went by, then the months and years
And I heard of her now and then,
She was dressed in expensive clothes, I heard,
She was driving a shiny car;
She was seen at the Beijing Opera
By a man who worked at the door,
'She glided by like a Queen, ' he said,
'As her dress trailed long on the floor.'
And her wai po, down in the village square
Would brag of her daughter's girl,
'She will snare some man with a million yuan, '
She said, 'not a farmer's son.
Go home to your fields and forget her now,
She's not for an also-ran! '
And laughed, as the tears sprang into my eyes
For the love of Ling Xiaodan.
She came back once to the village street
To her home, as ever we must,
But carefully held her dress up high
To avoid the rubbish and dust,
I stood at the side and she looked at me,
Then turned, looked quickly away,
For Ling Xiaodan and a farmer's son
Had nothing at all to say.
But I saw her once before she left,
Alone by the mountain stream,
Her eyes were sorrowful, in remorse,
Remembering how we'd been.
'I loved you once, as a child, ' she said
'But the world is harsh, and grey...
We do what our fathers want us to,
And my father sent me away.'
I sat by her then, and held her hand,
Stroking her neck, and hair,
And kissed the cheek, so pale and wan,
And I cried in a deep despair.
'You must get on with your life, ' she said,
'Get a wife and a baby son;
I leave tomorrow to see the man
That my father has met in town.'
I heard that she'd wed a businessman,
And cried in the quiet gloom,
My dream had died by the mountain stream,
On that day, in the afternoon.
She worked in a shop her husband owned,
So they said, but I never heard
'Til the body was brought back home again,
That the love of my life was dead.
It seemed that she'd sold her favours there
In the rear of a grimy store,
To any man with the change to spare
While her husband played Mah Jongg.
He'd gambled his fortune, and lost it all
While his wife kept the fool from jail
With what she earned with her hands and hair,
And a mouth like the Holy Grail.
But then, a man who was ill or mad
Put his grimy hands at her throat,
And squeezed the life from the darling neck
That I'd once both loved, and stroked.
They buried her up on the mountainside
By the stream, in sight of her home,
And from where I stand in the paddy fields
I can see her pale white stone.
She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream,
But now, that girl had gone.
I married a woman I barely knew
And she bore me a black-haired girl,
With eyes like two slim moonstones, and...
A mouth like the Holy Grail.
10 March 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Everlasting Return
It is dark… so dark, I remember the sun on Chios…
It is still… so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean…
Ten times we had watched the moon
Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters
And round into a full maternity…
For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh
Save the man flesh on either hand
That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.
The Athenian boy sat on my left…
His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine…
And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian,
Grinning Phildar
With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth.
Many a whip had coiled about him
And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels,
And his skin was red and tough as a bull's hide cured in the sun.
He did not sing like the other slaves,
But when a big wind came up he screamed with it.
And always he looked out to sea,
Save when he tore at his fish ends
Or spat across me at the Greek boy, whose mouth was red and apart
like an opened fruit.
We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern.
She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea.
All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears,
And when night came on
And little naked stars dabbled in the water
And half the crouching moon
Slid over the silver belly of the sea thick-scaled with light,
We heard them singing at their oars…
We who had no breath for song.
There was no sound in our boat
Save the clingle of wrist chains
And the sobbing of the young Greek.
I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth, tasting salt of the sea…
I cursed him that his oar kept ill time…
When he looked at me I cursed him again,
That his eyes were soft as a woman's.
How long… since their last shell gouged our batteries?
How long… since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern?
(It was the damned green moon that nosed us out…
The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame…)
They loosed each man's right hand
As the galley spent on our decks…
And amazed and bloodied we reared half up
And fought askew with the left hand shackled…
But a zigzag fire leapt in our sockets
And knotted our thews like string…
Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten…
How long… since our gauges fell
And the sea shoved us under?
It is dark… so dark…
Darkness presses hairy-hot
Where three make crowded company…
And the rank steel smells….
It is still… so still…
I seem to hear the wind
On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above…
It was still… so still… we three that were left alive
Stared in each other's faces…
But three make bitter company at one man's bread…
And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon's edge in the water.
One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth…
And one shivered and whined like a gull as the waves pawed us over…
But one struck with his hate in his hand…
After that I remember
Only the dead men's oars that flapped in the sea…
The dead men's oars that rattled and clicked like idiots' tongues.
It is still… so still, with the jargon of engines quiet.
We three awaiting the crunch of the sea
Reach our hands in the dark and touch each other's faces…
We three sheathing hate in our hearts…
But when hate shall have made its circuit,
Our bones will be loving company
Here in the sea's den…
And one whimpers and cries on his God
And one sits sullenly
But both draw away from me…
For I am the pyre their memories burn on…
Like black flames leaping
Our fiery gestures light the walled-in darkness of the sea…
The sea that kneels above us…
And makes no sign.
poem by Lola Ridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dreaming Of Hair
Ivy ties the cellar door
in autumn, in summer morning glory
wraps the ribs of a mouse.
Love binds me to the one
whose hair I've found in my mouth,
whose sleeping head I kiss,
wondering is it death?
beauty? this dark
star spreading in every direction from the crown of her head.
My love's hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.
My fingers harvest the dark
vegtable of her body.
In the morning I remove it
from my tongue and
sleep again.
Hair spills
through my dream, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles from the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree
of my childhood--the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, _Don't fall!_
In my dream I fly
past summers and moths,
to the thistle
caught in my mother's hair, the purple one
I touched and bled for,
to myself at three, sleeping
beside her, waking with her hair in my mouth.
Along a slippery twine of her black hair
my mother ties ko-tze knots for me:
fish and lion heads, chrysanthemum buds, the heads
of Chinamen, black-haired and frowning.
Li-En, my brother, frowns when he sleeps.
I push back his hair, stroke his brow.
His hairline is our father's, three peaks pointing down.
What sprouts from the body
and touches the body?
What filters sunlight
and drinks moonlight?
Where have I misplaced my heart?
What stops wheels and great machines?
What tangles in the bough
and snaps the loom?
Out of the grave
my father's hair
bursts. A strand
pierces my left sole, shoots
up bone, past ribs,
to the broken heart it stiches,
then down,
swirling in the stomach, in the groin, and down,
through the right foot.
What binds me to this earth?
What remembers the dead
and grows towards them?
I'm tired of thinking.
I long to taste the world with a kiss.
I long to fly into hair with kisses and weeping,
remembering an afternoon
when, kissing my sleeping father, I saw for the first time
behind the thick swirl of his black hair,
the mole of wisdom,
a lone planet spinning slowly.
Sometimes my love is melancholy
and I hold her head in my hands.
Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death.
Then, I must grab handfuls
of her hair, and, I tell you, there
are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men
taking off their boots, their hearts breaking,
not knowing
which they love more, the water, or
their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.
poem by Li-Young Lee
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Four Woman
My skin is black
My arms are long
My hair is woolly
My back is strong
Strong enough to take the pain
inflicted again and again
What do they call me
My name is AUNT SARAH
My name is Aunt Sarah
My skin is yellow
My hair is long
Between two worlds
I do belong
My father was rich and white
He forced my mother late one night
What do they call me
My name is SAFFRONIA
My name is Saffronia
My skin is tan
My hair is fine
My hips invite you
my mouth like wine
Whose little girl am I?
Anyone who has money to buy
What do they call me
My name is SWEET THING
My name is Sweet Thing
My skin is brown
my manner is tough
I'll kill the first mother I see
my life has been too rough
I'm awfully bitter these days
because my parents were slaves
What do they call me
My name is PEACHES
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Death That Perfects Me
i like the way you show your back to me
i see you and you do not see me
that is the principle of my secret.
my world changes when you face me
in your being disinterested
nothing matters
i do not wish for more,
i do not need some stars
in my heavens.
my gaze to you is enough as
i go home again
incomplete,
like two hands opening to the sky
asking for light
or even rain and nothing
comes
to fill what my palms are longing
i close my hands again to cover
my face in shame.
For i have not changed.
No matter how,
i will never change.
i am this child and
i am the father of this man.
in my old age,
i am still my own child
the child whose mouth not any milk from any mother
can satiate
it is written in the skies
my name.
It is the name of dissatisfaction
and it wants to have a body
which must be reborn
until it finds what it has been searching
where is true love?
have you found it?
if sometime i find it,
that when i kiss i am also kissed back
when my fire is burned by another fire
when all of me is a forest
and consumed by wild fire
what can i ask?
i will not ask even for a dropp of rain
or a pinch of salt
or a syllable for understanding
i have enough.
But i do not have it now.
I know what is enough.
I have long defined it
in my series of deaths.
i know when it comes,
i can recognize completely its face
when it arrives.
when i hold it, i shall die
but i shall not
ask to be born again.
for by that time,
i am rested as a stone
beside a hill
i do not wish to be rolled again
neither shall i ask
Sisyphus to put me back to that same
place on top
for by that time
i am dead and so complete.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Baby Tortoise
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird,
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Cover You
You could read her lips well as I was able
She was into taking you where you aint been
I was looking in at the stroke of twelve
She came in the back door
You could see her climb the stairs
And the two of us , we wait , we wait
Ill cover you, girl I cover you
Cover you with...
Cover you with kisses
Shower you with love
Twist you up and turn you round
All night , all night
Cover you with kisses
Taste you with my tongue
Live on itchy fingers
All night long , all night
You could see her legs underneath the table
You could see the burn was on when she moved on you
I think I went insane
When the flesh is weak
The more that we discover
If we only trust just the two of us
You play me , you play me
Ill cover you , girl I cover you
Cover you with ....
Cover you with kisses
Taste you with my tongue
Live on itchy fingers
All night long, all night
Born to make love she was
To get up you go down
Its easy
Cover you with kisses
Shower you with love
Twist you up and turn you round
All night, all night
Cover you with kisses
Taste you with my tongue
Live on itchy fingers
All night long, all night
song performed by by Bee Gees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Crab
When I eat crab, slide the rosy
rubbery claw across my tongue
I think of my mother. She'd drive down
to the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a
huge car, she'd ask the crab-man to
crack it for her. She'd stand and wait as the
pliers broke those chalky homes, wild-
red and knobby, those cartilage wrists, the
thin orange roof of the back.
I'd come home, and find her at the table
crisply unhousing the parts, laying the
fierce shell on one side, the
soft body on the other. She gave us
lots, because we loved it so much,
so there was always enough, a mound of crab like a
cross between breast-milk and meat. The back
even had the shape of a perfect
ruined breast, upright flakes
white as the flesh of a chrysanthemum, but the
best part was the claw, she'd slide it
out so slowly the tip was unbroken,
scarlet bulb of the feeler—it was such a
kick to easily eat that weapon,
wreck its delicate hooked pulp between
palate and tongue. She loved to feed us
and all she gave us was fresh, she was willing to
grasp shell, membrane, stem, to go
close to dirt and salt to feed us,
the way she had gone near our father himself
to give us life. I look back and
see us dripping at the table, feeding, her
row of pink eaters, the platter of flawless
limp claws, I look back further and
see her in the kitchen, shelling flesh, her
small hands curled—she is like a
fish-hawk, wild, tearing the meat
deftly, living out her life of fear and desire.
Anonymous submission.
poem by Sharon Olds
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Story
The woman came home to find her husband and children sitting around the table
as they'd done so many nights, the lamp on the sideboard casting its usual glow
over the rough wood, some flowers the children had picked in a blue vase,
the youngest daughter's drawing of a horse tacked beside the window
with its burlap drape. They sat around the table with their severed heads set before them
on the woven placemats, and each one's arms had been lifted so the hands
rested on top of the hair, thick hair of her husband she'd wrapped around
her fingers, fine hair of her two daughters, and the baby's soft, barely visible wisps
over the small skull the baby's hands were tiny, they'd had to nail them in place,
and this is where I begin to hate the man who told the story, who made me see
not just their deaths but the soldiers standing around afterwards, the arc
of the hammer as it comes down and drives in what I now can't forget;
the best I can do is to think of Christ, so I can somehow bear the nails,
so I can carry them to you, and maybe I'm no better than the soldiers to do that.
I'm asking you to walk into your own house, to see a child's head
bent over her homework as she scissors pictures from a magazine,
the bright or dark hair she brushes impatiently out of her eyes.
I don't know why I need to say this, or what good or evil it does. I want
the old, acceptable story of suffering, the cross become icon, holy blood
in the chalice. I want not to know what I know as I turn back to my life,
my friends who love me, as I set the table with candles and glasses for wine
and later put my hands in my lover's hair; he enters me, we fall together
onto the bed, he bites my nipples as hard as I can stand it and then harder,
and still it's pleasure I feel, we are given this, too; I tell it to myself over
and over as we make love like animals deep in the forest, far from any village,
caring nothing for the world, ravenous for each other, crying out
while workmen slowly hack a road toward us, while the machines come on.
poem by Kim Addonizio
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Image
The girl in the mirror stared back at me.
Unflinching.
Eyes blood shot.
Cheeks stained with tears and sweat.
Her hands dangled weakly, swollen
and splattered with blood.
Matted hair sprung from her head and the black circles
made her eyes seem all the more sunken. Desperate.
She was small. Shriveled.
All hope sucked from her soul and left a scar
across her gray face like a tree branch
reaching for the sun but anchored by the abandoned
body of a young girl whose heart
had long ago stopped beating.
the fallen soldier of a country whose world
had fought against it. A country of Purity.
And this girl raised a cut and bruised arm
and lifted the mask from her face. Hesitantly.
The scars faded.
They left tiny white lines on my arms and face.
And my eyes cleared;
Hope glistening from them
and making my skin glow.
My hair curled softly.
My hands healed and were cleansed.
A slight pink stain rested on my fingers
My flesh was watered back to life.
And I smiled.
A weak, crooked sort of smile.
My teeth were not in their places
and a few were chipped,
but I loved the sight of that broken grin.
poem by Zoe Guillory
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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