Four Against the Shapeless Wind
for Selin
1
You may find me thundering in a hut
on the small of the mountain reading
poems to curious goats. They listen
patiently before eating the paper
upon which they are written.
I have now resorted, denying loneliness
(thus the always hovering goats) ,
to arguing with the sad priest twice
a week over bad sherry transported
over the mountain. The pass's old Rock
comments on the shape and weight of
each bottle carefully wrapped in soft
flannel curved the shape of the way
upon which unsteady travelers depart
and return. From such a journey it
is believed the cheap, sweet sherry
is redeemed in taste borne to the priest's
back door into his shaking hands casting
into legion swine divinations of sorrow.
As a grace, after some cups, setting aside
the card deck missing all Hearts, I hear
his confession, soul bared tearfully before
me. Pen in hand, I write sins tenderly down
on a yellowed page to be fed to atoning goats
who keep secrets well. They freely forgive
all faults for a taste of paper, a kind favor
for the priest then.
Only ink, the accusing words by drool undone,
stains their bearded chins.
Alone in the empty church I hover before
Stations of the Cross confessing poems
to believing dust, to patient corners.
How utterly and always irrelevant I have been.
2
In variations of weather and seasons
devoted dust shouts,
'Cousin! Cousin!
Come! Join us here.
Even now you succumb to us
slowly rolling beneath trembling
altars, fearful of candles,
an old woman's mop.
You are quieted as are we though we now
shout. Your presence provokes us toward
proclamations, manifestos against the
shapeless wind. But shapeless we remain.
At the Master's feet wounds, now bled
away to splinters, forget an ancient tree
in a carver's hand an ocean, an age, a god away.'
3
Torn feet tred a hard trail yet.
Without tongue, in the broken tower,
the recluse spider shapes its uniform prayer.
Unburdened, I depart, passing
old graves.
Dear friends the village dogs, thin,
thin.
Before my pine door -
a stooped body like these wooden
planks
more knots than wood -
a stranger pants in tongues
poems he shall never write but
only feel breath by breath
a visitor, long overstayed
remote neighbors are gracious still
pulling words from ears, he hurls them away
4
...a
broken
gate
One blind dog sleeps
curled
Indifferent before all machinery
it moves only, curiously,
before burros gray,
their large eyes wet, shining
the cooler shade and fields of hay
hang upon
the long lashes
A redundant whip in a whipped boy's hand
loudly cracks
Sway backs are unburdened by little cries
which simpler crickets take to heart,
their singing legs suddenly still to sighs
This makes absolute sense
in some discreet window of
the world where Meaning knits
then unknits what is
poem by Warren Falcon
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Black Mouse Surveys A Village
...a
broken
gate.
One blind dog sleeps
curled.
Indifferent before all machinery
it moves only, curiously,
before burros gray,
their large eyes wet, shining;
the cooler shade and fields of hay
hang upon
the long lashes.
A redundant whip in a whipped boy's hand
loudly cracks.
Sway backs are unburdened by little cries
which simpler crickets take to heart,
their singing legs suddenly still to sighs.
This makes absolute sense
in some discreet window of
the world where Meaning knits
then unknits what is.
poem by Warren Falcon
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Still Life With Burros
A redundant whip in a whipped boy's hand
loudly cracks.
Sway backs are unburdened by little cries
which simpler crickets take to heart.
Their singing legs suddenly still to sighs.
poem by Warren Falcon
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The Hand Wielding the Pen and Gun
I write poems by this hand
which helped my mother
to crush the grains in a stone mortar
by raising and hitting down with the pestle
before the grinding mills came to a nearby town.
I write poems by this hand
which got wounds swinging the hammer
to hit hard on rods to make holes into the rock
in our deep well, and filled them, with explosives
to blow off and find the burst of water.
I write poems by this hand
which drove the bulls cracking the whip
while ploughing and moving the cart
and drawing water from the well in leather sacks,
before the electrons flew through the wires to my village.
I write poems by this hand
which uprooted for wages the groundnut plants
beside the ghats from morn till dark on school holidays,
when the lack of rains shrivelled
our crops at our village.
I write poems by this hand
which made the eyes of professors wet
by scribbling short stories in my classical tongue.
I write poems by this hand
which quenched my thirst and of the kin
fetching waters from the falls in the hills
where herbs with healing powers grow.
I write poems by this hand
which feels restless to wield the gun
on seeing the coffins of our soldiers
taken to the graveyard in silence `
overwhelming with rage and fire.
---------
poem by Rajendran Muthiah
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The Poems Went Away
THE POEMS WENT AWAY
The poems went away.
Nothing inside.
An empty will for poetry
Forcing words on the page,
Words without music
Without resonance
Without great implication
Meaning.
Write, write, write
Lest you die.
And the words themselves
A kind of desperate uphill catching of breath
On the page.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Paper Thin
Rich and wealthy canvas
Clustered up in jewels
Finding all your heavyweights
Are featherweights and fools
Broken all your promises
Broken all your paper plates
Clustered in gold
Crusted in gold
Heavy and hollow
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
Heavy and humble
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
In origami cities
In nations build on sand
Love got bend right outta shape
Things got outta hand
Polystyrene skylines
Papier mch smiles
Rusted and bruised
Tarnished and frail
Heavy and hollow
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
Heavy and humble
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
Stars scrape the moon
And the moon scrapes the sky
We stand beneath
Wondering why
Stars scrape the moon
And the moon scrapes the sky
We stand beneath
Wondering, wondering why
Paper buys the men
The men that make the bomb
The bomb that makes this world
Paper thin!
Money markets crumble
Gentle as a drum
But if you see me stumble, im
Paper thin!
Life is but a fragile thing
So delicate and pure
An accolade bestowed on us
Paper thin!
So contemplate the skull
The skull beneath the skin
One day we all die, were
Paper thin
Bury your destruction
In your last battle hymn
The barriers between us, make em all
Paper thin! paper thin!
Paper thin! paper thin!
Underneath the paper moon
The sky is paper thin
Torn into a thousand shreds
So let the solar system in
Rich and wealthy canvas
Clustered up in jewels
Finding all your heavyweights
Are featherweights and fools
In origami cities
In nations build on sand
Love got bend right outta shape
Nothing ends as planned
And its all-paper thin
Paper thin. paper thin
song performed by by Abc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Wrote A Poem I Could Not Write
I wrote a poem I could not write-
And then when I tried to write it again
Could not write it again -
Poems written and not written
Words and more words
What do they mean?
Paradoxes and games with words
What do they mean?
If there is Beauty in the language
It is one thing
But words just to hear themselves think,
Why should they mean ‘Remembrance'?
Oh Words oh Questions oh Darkness oh Life-
Let me write myself to the grave
Believing at least
That poems too even when they can be written
Have their small unhidden meanings.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Back To My Work
It's time for me to write again
The poems were on pause
So as to ease my mind
Now I see it only took my emotions away
It was locked with the thoughts of new poems
Now I'm back and filled to the brim
Here come the poems
For so long tried to escape to paper
Blocked by procrastination and laziness
Welcome to the world new poems
May the paper caress you for years to come
Written January 31,2011
poem by Ryan Collins
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At The Confessional Box...
there is this boy
who looks like me when i was once a boy like him
who as taught by the priests
of the catholic schools have to be on a regular confession
inside that box where the priests
listens....
(Father i have sinned, i have not gone to confession
for a week and these are my sins...repeat, repeat, repeat,
and the priest, perhaps tired and
bored says...
my little son, say three hail marys, five our fathers, and 2 glory bes
and if you have time
write a poem) .
and so the poems since then were written.
the boy did not stop to live within that confessional box
the priest died
earlier than expected.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Solitude [Singurătate]
With the curtains pulled together
At my table made of wood
Near the fire burning slowly
I am in a thinking mood.
Through my mind are swiftly passing
Many thoughts that it recalls,
Chirping like a group of crickets
Among black and ancient walls.
In the soul then they are falling,
Breaking less and sometimes more,
As the burning wax is dripping
On the church's marble floor.
In the chamber, at the corners
Spider webs hang all around,
While the mice are slowly sneaking
On the shelves and on the ground.
In this peace reigning all over
I am casting bitter looks
When I hear the mice are crunching
The hard covers of my books.
Oh, how many times I wanted
To reject the lyre's call,
To forget my desolation
And my rhymes once and for all.
But then come the mice and crickets,
Walking slowly all the time,
Bringing back my gloomy feeling,
Which becomes again a rhyme.
Sometimes... but not very often...
When the lamp burns and I rest,
Suddenly, I hear the door knob
And my heart leaps from my chest.
It is her and in a moment
All my desert house looks right
And my dusky life is lighted
By her icon in the night.
I'm upset that time still passes
And at such a hurried pace,
When I'm talking to my darling
Hand in hand and face to face.
poem by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
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I Am My Poem
When you see me,
you see my poems.
For when i breath, i breath out ballads.
But vers libre express my heart.
Should i write in complicated
and rhythmic words to make
my poems deep and beautiful?
My life is complicated already.
Should i write in simple and
enticing words to make
my poems attractive?
My life is not that simple.
Like stream to the river
down to the sea,
so is my poems from my
soul to my spirit down to my body.
You may disapprove me
but come and take a walk
within my soul and see if
you can live there for a moment.
So when i write, must i
invite you to read.
Read if you want to.
I write because the chamber
of soul finds relieve.
poem by Enebeli Ifyprada
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308
more readers
write you, i like your poems, excellently written
i can feel them,
i can relate to them,
true you tell yourself, how these poems are written with
all simplicity and humility
experience-based years ago and now coming back
in metaphors as a matter of remembering
what happened, how, and
importantly why,
but sometimes he has regrets with some other poems
written and
not so appreciated because they are too deep and
need a lot of deciphering,
too personal,
metaphors too well derived
from some darkness
when he was all alone gripped with fear and trembling
to ghosts that do not exist
a beautiful mind,
the crazy mind he had in the dormitory
in the cemetery, haunting him
his passions on some squeaky beds
and foul rooms
cheap motels having a love affair
with a woman he never loved
but whom he pitied,
makes him feel
so inhuman and he writes them again
with a sense of betrayal
and self
humiliation
they do not like them
people ordinarily do not like
such poems,
bad poems, not relational, but more of
selfish, selfcentered, egotistical
like my mirror,
my walls,
my fences,
my closed windows,
a closed train station where the trains are all grounded
broken wheels
well, he bleeds for all these
but what can he do
they find them irrelevant,
the poems he likes most
are unpopular
the readers junked.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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More Readers Say Your Poems Are Good
more readers
write you, i like your poems, excellently written
i can feel them,
i can relate to them,
true you tell yourself, how these poems are written with
all simplicity and humility
experience-based years ago and now coming back
in metaphors as a matter of remembering
what happened, how, and
importantly why,
but sometimes he has regrets with some other poems
written and
not so appreciated because they are too deep and
need a lot of deciphering,
too personal,
metaphors too well derived
from some darkness
when he was all alone gripped with fear and trembling
to ghosts that do not exist
a beautiful mind,
the crazy mind he had in the dormitory
in the cemetery, haunting him
his passions on some squeaky beds
and foul rooms
cheap motels having a love affair
with a woman he never loved
but whom he pitied,
makes him feel
so inhuman and he writes them again
with a sense of betrayal
and self
humiliation
they do not like them
people ordinarily do not like
such poems,
bad poems, not relational, but more of
selfish, selfcentered, egotistical
like my mirror,
my walls,
my fences,
my closed windows,
a closed train station where the trains are all grounded
broken wheels
well, he bleeds for all these
but what can he do
they find them irrelevant,
the poems he likes most
are unpopular
the readers junked.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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If Poems Had...
if poems had hands,
they'd unload all the guns,
tear down the walls that divide us,
wipe tears from the face of sadness.
if poems had wings,
they'd fly over the barriers
and through the storms,
to nest on the cliffs of freedom.
if poems had hearts,
they'd feel all suffering as their own,
they'd forgive without hesitation,
and love without condition.
if poems had homes,
they'd unlock and open the door,
and let the stranger in,
giving shelter to the lost.
if poems had hope,
they'd believe in spite of,
validating the worth of,
each and every thing that breathes!
if poems had bodies,
hands, wings, hearts, homes, and hope...
turning into you and me,
written by an unseen hand!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Hiding From The Broom!
i walk the paths of stillness
into the setting sun...
in the company of dead poets,
and a few mongrel dogs.
we come to a clearing,
and gather wood for a fire,
waiting on the night spirits to join us.
my hands are broken,
they cling to nothing and no one.
i see with my ears,
and listen with my eyes.
my soul rhymed by darkness
dissolves into dust,
while crickets chant eternity.
i return to an empty house,
curtains pulled, door flung open.
lighting a candle, i sit on the floor,
waiting for death, or morning.
only then i notice the spider,
candlelight tracing the web in the corner.
and in this moment i knew,
of such am i!
a moment, a corner,
my heart just a web...
waiting on love,
while hiding from the broom!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Oh The Poems
OH THE POEMS AND THE POEMS AND THE POEMS
Oh the poems and the poems and the poems
Oh the love of Literature
Oh all that stuff
I have given my life to-
Words and meanings and feelings
Pages and pages and pages –
What it is all this literary life for?
When out the window out the door
With our eyes we see in an instant other worlds other dreams?
I don’t know and I will never know
And Literature is certainly far more than I can say it is-
Oh the poems and this poem and this day turning grey
And all my life old and old and more old and more old-
Oh why oh why oh why
And always back to God
My last rescue and refuge and escape
I who have read so much Great Literature
And can only write this-
Oh the why and the oh oh oh and the words
And the whole world of Literature
I would belong to and do not.
Oh the words oh the world oh the Literature
Oh God help me please can’t you please help me a little or not?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Sometimes I am amazed of the magic that is done
It all started with something insignificant
Like dust,
Sticking on a window pane, and I want it
Dusted off, it is dirt, it is unwanted,
And I do not even know what to do next
About such
Insignificance and feelings of simply
Trying to get rid of dust immediately,
But then, I begin to think about this
Dust, this me, this dust in me,
Some dusts on my feet, some dusts on
My forehead, and some dusts in my ears,
Some dusts in my eyes so obstructive
Of what I really am, and I know what to do next,
The bulb lighting in my head in a sudden,
I touch the dust,
I feel the dust with my fingers, and I am crazy enough
I taste the dust on my window pane,
And I shiver,
I am shaking to its taste, the taste of nothingness
If was from dust that I really come,
I now remember,
It will be to dust that I shall return,
I am now reminded,
And the dust that I used to see
As dirt, as something so insignificant, is now,
A magical patch, glistening, so filled with meaning,
I am nothing but dust; I am biting the dust,
I am very insignificant, in that window pane, at first.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Scapegoats Devour Sins
Written in The Book of Judgement
only ink, the accusing
words by drool undone,
stains their bearded chins.
poem by Warren Falcon
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Melancholy [Melancolie]
It was as if a gate was opened in the clouds
Through which the dead night's queen emerged in thin, white shrouds.
Oh, sleep in peace among the torches shining bright,
Rest in your bluish tomb and bathe in silver light,
The starry sky above, your monument will be,
Majestic queen of night that anyone can see!
The world beneath is large, but rime is all around,
Resembling a thin veil that covers all the ground;
The air is full of sparks, the buildings gnawed by time
Gleam like a bunch of ruins that have been smeared with lime.
The isolated graveyard is covered with thick moss,
A greyish owl is resting on a lopsided cross,
The wooden plank is sounding, the bell tower is creaking,
The cunning evil demon somewhere around is sneaking,
But when his wing is touching the shining copper bell
From it a sound emerges, like a pathetic spell.
The church now feels the cold
Deserted are its ruins, and very sad and old
And through the broken windows and through the open door
The wind is blowing harshly and you can hear its roar –
Inside the nave, on pillars, iconostasis, walls,
Faded conturs are present and a big shadow crawls;
The priest is a small cricket, who spins an obscure thought,
While cantor is the mildew, who the decay has brought.
................................................................................
The faith paints in the church small icons, full of glory,
And in my soul it slips its most amazing story,
But from the waves of life and from the stormy days
Only outlines remain and shadows and thick haze.
In vain I search my world within my weary brain,
Because a sad, hoarse cricket is singing in the rain;
On my deserted heart in vain my hand I keep,
It's beating like a fungus in coffins buried deep.
And when I think about my life, it seems to flow
Like an account retold by someone I don't know,
As if it weren't mine, as if I lost a part,
So, who's the guy who tells my story now by heart?
I lend my ear to him and laugh of what he said,
As if it were a fiction... as if I were long dead.
poem by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by anonym
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One Hundred
To all those who have read my poems,
this poem is just for you.
This is my hundredth poem this year
and I feel like celebrating too.
You see for years and years,
I did not want to write anymore,
until I came along here and met all of you.
For some reason I cannot explain,
you took me under your poetic wing.
You made me want to write again,
with your comments by the score.
You brought life back to me,
took my hand,
and guided me from the wilderness,
from which I ran.
You gave me injection,
and my confidence once more flowed.
My pen was put to paper again,
and out the poems came,
one after the other,
but never one the same.
I took a little time out to write a novel too.
All this and more is all thanks to you.
Without that hand of friendship,
which you’ve all shown to me,
I’d still be wandering like a lost soul,
in that wilderness out there.
Therefore, I am taking this opportunity
with this my hundredth poem this year,
to send you a special thanks,
from the bottom of my heart,
to each and every one of you out there.
poem by David Harris
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