from 'Ragas For Krishna
A little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:
'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'
A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,
You may shout if you wish to wake
the Temple for the cow cannot speak -
Wake up! Awake! Make haste!
Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,
the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!
Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!
There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.
After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.
'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?
\Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.
from 'Ragas For Krishna'
poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Ragas for Sleepy Bee
for Krishna, both of them, god, man
And so we began
the cooking lessons
the first demur approaches
the blushing papayas then
the fires the chilies harvested
curtains drawn
1
Dawn.
Slow him down.
He speaks
his accent thickly
richly Tamil
enunciating
each syllable
a child's story
stutters a boy
waking at dawn
asking for something
to eat
Sleepy Bee - she calls to him -
Go my Sleepy Bee to the garden
smell the jasmine there touch
softly the spices in trembling
rows fetch then chilies of many
colors I will prepare for you a
meal as you desire
when teacher makes you drowsy
by noon smell the spices in finger rows
upon your hand there remember the touch
of chillies smooth whispering of lingering
liaisons to come and you will brighten
my Sleepy Bee
A chili omelet she makes
a side of yogurt to soothe
the burn and milk from the
cow drawn as dawn's first
udder swells against the
press of distant hills where
the Temple soundly sleeps
so very pleased with itself
Mother each morning - rubbing his eyes
as he stumbles into the garden - sings
You may shout if you wish to wake
the Temple for the cow cannot speak -
Wake up! Awake! Make haste!
Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,
the incense sticks for Holy Fire!
Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!
There beside Indra's captured fire
the little grate her Bee awakens
watches slow movements slicing of chilies
removal of seeds washing again plump
hands cracking of eggs beating them
bent spoon spreading ghee sings upon
hot stone enchantment of liquid becoming
firm becoming food she turns in rhythms
round she rhythmically prays
After breakfast the rose oil is
poured his raven hair smoothly
brushed his shining face his smile
reveals prepares him for school
kisses his uniform clean ironed
smelling too of rose scented soap
lunch a string of chilies many colors
sewn together when still in a waking
dream smell of chapatis fresh from
palms to stone
Chilies burn - he speaks slowly
each syllable enunciating practicing
through smiles -
but the touch of her
hand is fire She is far away
but I can feel her burning
hand upon me now
He is quiet
It is I who stammer
How can one enunciate such wonder?
2
Krishna complains of tilting
his head when he speaks
while his hands speak
too in their own way of
entwining morning glories,
the morning cock already
at quarrel with the world
head tilted too just beyond
the tin roof reaching in to
steal too enticing to pass
the untimid spices
3
He will soon be bored with me, I fear,
my humble 'ministrations' but still he
sweeps into my small room - the candles
lit, the incense rich - a young prince
beaming, more stories to tell, and food,
spicy hot, prepared for me, an offering.
Smiling, he strips instantly lays upon the
pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness
a proud new tattoo of a god on his shoulder
he wears an amulet a sacred bracelet
and a waist scapular the image of which
is just below his navel
So why - I ask only myself and the god,
never Krishna - why must I hide my large
wooden statue of the god? I hide it in
deference to Krishna's wish thus become
willing consort to the god-in-miniature,
scraping it with an ear, a tongue, receive
a scapular kiss its image upon my forehead
as I trace the wonderful hairlines of his
body on my way to other deities
4
Ah! give me all the cabbages
in the world in all my poverty!
Am I not, too, a Raj of floors
and scented pillows, this heaving
god upon me thrusting utterly
to reveal Himself, His mystery
to me who am not a god?
5
So please the intemperate
humanity in face of patient
deities burning I am ill with
grief with prayer into now
emptier hands the sea
I am when he departs
the wax hardened long
sputtered without form
the stories to me return
I reach then beggars fingers
to my face smell his flavors there
remember chilies smooth skinned
touches whispering of lingering
liaisons finally come
'and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee'
In my sputtering darkness O return
6
The room fills with Krishna
aromas of rose oil in his hair
pungent spices and sweat
upon his hands, his skin, his sex.
I retrieve the god from his little
sanctuary of hiding - it seems
I am always retrieving deities -
and we are both laughing
anointing cologne upon Him
pour milk into the votive bowl
rub His belly light another candle
the other extinguished panting
while busy bees exchange knees
and sighs diffuse male spices
to vapor migrant fingers upon
chilies thickening in always
morning hunger
7
More incense then
thank the god in all his forms
appearing both large and small
His adornment of secrets though
one cannot easily hide such deity
man-love and more in such intimate
universe whose toes I tickle shoes
abandon as tides shrink swell
grow diminish upon worshipers
those who will do so
in spite of those who would kill
delicate or manly infidels whose
worship - forever babies breath -
is all the more meaningful
because forbidden
Be damned the trellises
the petals reach
shall extend outward
the violin's throat cut
Do not ask me to see it
Then - deity restored to rightful place
good-natured from obscurity
again revered - return
to the kitchen onion slices garlic crushed
wine poured then begins fire O Indra
more aromas extend into
entwine
He leaves me the better for the wear
more the better for me.
8
He is leaving me
will be returning to India soon
He is departing such as our strange
arrangement has been almost four
years of weekly 'chillies gathered'
Sad I knew as empty hands know
at the start to keep the reins ever
taut while keeping open the heart
for new breaching
how I had to teach him what lovers
give to each how to kiss how to touch
how love is fluctuate fluent in dirty
tongues entanglements with the world
Still I have fluttered mightily in long tangles
of hair black, black his darker eyes shine
his bottom lip petulant hungry for mine and
those his parts smooth rivaling Everest
always beckoning to be climbed
Surprises tenderness on his part
graces unexpected quick disrobing
the easy nakedness the hunger so
clean the affection grown from early
flings to ring heart rosaries
toes fall down to tumbles
grasps and pressing flesh
its own alchemy merging
but let there be two solid
but encroachable objects
together crushed into each
He is soon departed
likelihood of similar rare
the room empties
late afternoon shadows
his leaving leaves ghosts
traces and I am full
yet
emptiness is never fuller but
for beloved's absence felt which
of course is the mystic's launch
the desert dweller and the roof
the longing tooth gnawing
one claws inwardly through
layers to find that Name that
Holier Ones say is written on
the back of the Heart
Thus remain I here in monk cell
soon to be more the monk's than
the once spunk monkey's boudoir
9
I retrieve the god
from his little sanctuary
of hiding - it seems I am
always retrieving deities -
O retrieve thou me my heart
poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sleepy Bee, He Is Rising Beneath Me, The Hidden God Is Pleased
Sleepy Bee, He Is Rising Beneath Me, The Hidden God Is Pleased
for Karthik
Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased
'...descend and of the curveship lend a myth to God.' - Hart Crane
The boys, seven falling: Jamey Rodemayer, Tyler Clementi,
Raymond Chase, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg
Oh Valdosta,
He is busy preparing a repast for many paying guests who will watch him cook sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born, who will hear him sing their praises...Krishna was over yesterday more radiant than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian spice and food shop not easily hidden below the sidewalk, such aromas cannot to be tucked away like the shop is beside and below the avenue.
Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.
If you serve, said he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.
And so we began our time together, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, the cooking lessons, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I to shall fall but in this way:
I shall fling back the curtains
Open the window
Throw cut sleeves for years
gathered, hidden, to the street.
Shouting out names of lovers,
I shall then leap openly into life
land softly upon the Autumn
ginkgo leaves and, golden,
kiss every parked car
on the street leaving
lips like leaves and all
the cut sleeves in love
with all the world and if
not all the world then
all the cars and a fiddle
dee dee for the fall of me
Yesterday I coached him how to slow down as he speaks (his accent is thickly, richly Tamil) , how to enunciate each syllable. He had several stories to choose from which he may relate to the guests, all of which he related to me, a sweet one of him as a little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:
'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'
A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,
You may shout if you wish to wake
the Temple for the cow cannot speak -
Wake up! Awake! Make haste!
Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,
the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!
Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!
There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.
After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.
'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?
Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.
I have been encouraging Krishna (which is a funny thing to say, Krishna being a bold, blue God) to find a language coach to help him with his accent, to tone it down while keeping the wonderful music/lilt of it and he's going to do that...he complains of tilting his head as he talks 'as all Indians do' but I insist he merely speak and let his head and hands speak, too, in their own way. If he does more public events he will need to be understood clearly when he speaks while preparing his magnificent dishes from his country, his rich feasts of stories of the chilies from his mother's garden entwined by morning glories, the morning cock already at quarrel with the world just beyond the tin reaching in to take some spices too enticing to refuse...
I always feel as if he is, or will soon be, bored with me and my humble 'ministrations' but he sweeps into my little 'box-doir' - you recall how tiny my expensive studio on the 5th floor is! - like a Raj, a young prince beaming, brimming full of stories to tell me, usually some food, spicy hot, he has prepared for me, offered with a grin. Then he strips instantly down, lays upon the down pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness - it catches my breath, I do want to see! - checks his Blackberry for the latest cricket scores while I hurriedly 'hide' my Ganesha, the prominent statue of the god I have in front of my useless fireplace; this hiding I half understand...but still, naked, he has a fresh and beautifully made tattoo of Ganesha on his shoulder, he wears a Ganesha necklace, a Ganesha bracelet, and a Ganesha waist scapular, the image of which is just below his navel. So why, I ask only myself and Ganesha, never Krishna, why must I hide my large wooden Ganesha statue? But I do hide Him in deference to Krishna's wishes and meanwhile have intercourse with the god-in-miniature, scraping a necklace trunk with an ear, a tongue, receive a scapular kiss of the image upon my forehead as I trace those wonderful hairlines of the male body on my way to other deities.
Ah! give me all the beans in the world in all my poverty! Am I not, too, a Raj of floors and scented pillows, this beaming god beneath me thrusting utterly to reveal his secrets, his desires, his pleasures to me who am not a god?
Life, dear Valdosta, over all, is good, yes? I wish it no ill. But, agreeing with the cock, I will quarrel, even fight, with life when young men still leap too soon from bridges because I have learned (and relearn it hard lesson by hard lesson at a time) visionary company insists its tracings in many forms, man to man being but one holy expression, those sons, burning mother's hands upon them demanding, insisting to life that each her sons is a rajah, a Sleepy Bee.
So please the intemperate humanity, in the face of patient deities the burning ones are leaping still and I am ill with grief, with prayer, their dead bodies gone, their now emptier hands.
And he leaves me.
I return to my poems.
The room is filled with Krishna, aromas of rose oil in his hair, pungent spices in his sweat and upon his hands and skin, and sex.
I retrieve Lord Ganesha out from his little sanctuary of hiding (it seems I am always retrieving deities) and we both laugh richly. I remember to sprinkle some cologne upon Him, to pour out some milk into His votive bowl, to rub His belly, to light another candle (the other extinguished, panting, while we were busy bees exchanging knees and sighs, diffusing male spices into bracing air, fingers upon oily chilies thickening in always morning hunger) .
I light more incense and thank the Lord Ganesha in all his forms, appearing both large and small, His adornment of Secrets, though one cannot easily hide an Elephant, man-love and more in such a small infinite universe whose toes I seek to tickle then gather for a shoe as tides shrink and swell, grow and diminish depending upon the worshipers, those who will do so in spite of those who would kill delicate or manly infidels whose worship, forever babies breath, is all the more meaningful.
Be damned the trellises. The petals shall reach, shall extend outward.
The violin's throat cut.
'Do not ask me to see it! '
Then, Ganesha restored to His rightful place; good-natured about being hidden, it is back to the kitchen, the slicing of the onion, the crushing of the garlic, the pouring of the wine, the selecting of the greens and washing them of the clinging sand and grit they kindly bring, then to the pot to cook them in, the meat to go with, and begins the fire, O Indra, more aromas extend into, entwine with what Krishna has left to me and the god and I am grateful, full of heart, for each time he is here is a miracle. A grace. Mother India with hot hands gifts me one of Her Raj's who graces me with his presence evoking praise bestowed from oft bitter lips and tongue made the more bilious by aging, aching joints, laxer muscles, and yet the encroaching decrepitude is bent and stretched, the better for the wear from Krishna's 'half nelsons' and yogic overreaches. More the better for me.
Yet I remain bitter, too, from the senseless loss of young men who could not endure, no fault of their own, for sure, who leap from bridges, forced to by killing edges broken open within and by hateful, fearful others forgetting, if ever had, those restorative burning constancies of a Mother's hands upon them
I have placed your picture, dear Valdosta, upon my altar beside Lorca's portrait, and Hart Crane's young face, the image of a sweet Christ holding a lamb en perpetua, and the yellowed newspaper clipping from Spain of the Matador's death, along with photos of the young men in the past two weeks who have joined Hart becoming ghostly visionary company. They now remain forever chaste not having lived long enough to be wasted, emptied of love from loving deeply out into love for more love, endlessly bleeding out like our Lorca, a corrida of laurel encircling his head no longer remembering but remembering only one sound, guns exploding outward, extending, bullets, petals, one by one beyond the wall where he stood stunned, 'how young and handsome are assassins' faces', he flew backward in the wall graced with his brave shadow then his blood until he fell. I believe he fell hard for life demands it as does death which will continue its duende.
Love, as Hart and all hearts love, is still a vision not yet fully, solidly formed in spite of stones and walls forgetting noble shadows, but there are foolish Krishnas, restoring Krishna-moments, patient hidden gods though human hearts and bodies remove themselves from the potter's wheel too early, too broken, too tired, too alone to try to shape love from Love from the tiny shard, the remnant bone of the ancient mastodon, the last one, dreaming within each heart of that Love which all Nature yearns for.
I pray for my inherited brood of brothers, and remember to be gay for all the gray afternoons in this sad but forgiving confessional, while not forgetting mine and the cock's quarrel with life, in the booth by the cracked window near the corner of 7th and Second.
I am yours, bleating, sometimes crowing, but almost always bestowing praise. I am loved, Valdosta, and I love you.
N. Nightingale
poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Of Ancient Mastodon, Sleepy Bee & Young Men Who Leap Too Soon From Bridges - Nightingale Confesses Into Straighter Teeth
'...descend, and of the curveship lend a myth to God.' - Hart Crane
Pueri aeterna, septem cadens
Etiam plures ad
The boys eternal, seven falling
Too many more to come
Jamey Rodemayer
Tyler Clementi
Raymond Chase
Asher Brown
Billy Lucas
Seth Walsh
Justin Aaberg
Sub olivae, pacem
Ut vos omnes adoremus orientatio
Under the olive trees, peace
May you all adore this orientation
******
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their
hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once
hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
- James Baldwin
'Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood
Do not ask me to see it! '
- Federico Garcia Lorca*
1
Even the pigeons on my stoop are silent now.
One mourning dove coos tenderly for these who
have taken their own lives publicly on our behalf,
for those many gone before them, broken hearts
enraged, no more to engage the unpersuaded
world which, one of them, one of the public ones,
in spite of murmuring wharves, in spite of amorous
dark alleys bitter in the pitch of the last hateful
American Century, Hart Crane, wrote before his leap
from the ship beside the phallic curve where Cuba
meets the lisping sea, took his tongue away which
sang of chill dawns breaking upon bridges whose
spans still freely splinter light returning hungover
from the night wharves, grottoes, and denim World
Wars, industrial embraces crushing every man and
now another one abandons his fingers and fiddling
to scattering light, takes flight from ledges to
edge close to an embrace no longer forbidden -
'And so it was I entered the broken world
to trace the visionary company of love...'
I am at the 'Way of Peace Bistro, ' where the server
Alberto whose cousins are the famous Wolf Boys in
Jalisco, Mexico, hirsute himself, gives me free double
espressos so I may hear his confession, who only just
yesterday came out to me in my confessional booth
here at the perpetually wobbly table in the far corner
at the cracked window rocking with Hart's un-confessed
bones wrapped in soothing silt which he now dreams
to be his silken pall.
Life is indeed strange above the veiled bottom.
I do receive confessions here where I weekly haunt
for studying, writing, chasing down dreams, waves,
receding horizons.
Why, I wonder, is each window where I sit cracked?
I am the itinerant priest who sits at meager feasts.
Suffering congregants, forlorn over their starfish
and soup, ask about dreams, confess to anguish, ask
what should be done. I consult espresso foam, open
the nearest book at hand willy nilly to see what advice
or wisdom might be gained from That which, we hope,
indiscriminately sustains us all here straining after
some realing thing to keep us going when Hart and
those too recent others obey some impulse to place
at last the final period, reifiying the punctuate
though unrepentant ending of this too too long run-on
sentence of hate. One hopes this period holds fast,
that Logos/meaning is somehow, plates of starfish
with fork and knife beside, true or truing at least.
One serves where needed. And when.
So come unto me you 'sad young men.
All the news is bad again so kiss your dreams goodbye.'**
Here at my confessional I can only plead mercy upon the boys
who have jumped from bridges, hung themselves, cut, sliced their
compulsive hands, exploded hearts, leaping dears eyes ablaze in
thrall of antlers, trembling flanks strong to fly decrying the
violent hunt which always ends in a death bequeathing these
chopped bits to me and to others like me who remain at table,
plates before, to stare at what is to be later scattered, sown,
these pieces in and for Love-without-name still a stain upon
confused local deities and their wild-eyed supplicants.
But there is no stain upon the promiscuous sea.
The compliant sky is not confused.
Neither is all that is between confused,
allowing birth and blessing, passing of
all kinds in all manner of motive and motion.
But in the human world, distressing, there
will be more boys, more men growing up as
from the very beginning where earliest enmity
mythically grew strong before shoes, before
hearts were capable of breaking, before turgid
theological floods spilled blood of brother
by brother turning witness stones toward silence,
echoing lamenting Federico,
'Do not ask me to see it! '
I don't want to see it!
I will not see it!
But I, but perhaps we, who remain to plant these
petaled parts of these unwitting scapegoats whose
eyes are milk now forever, we must bar sentimentality,
must move toward genuine knowing which comes from
the long hard stare beyond Milky Ways at the way
things still inexorably are. 'Nothing gets better -
or changes for the better - until it is what it is.'
But the falling ones, half-way to eternity while
here and eschewed, know what the 'is' is of the matter,
that it is the others, too many of them, who don't
or won't know, who willingly refuse to see 'what is'
in order to reach beyond the collective NOT SEE
solutions' of hetero-normative culture/religion.
Perhaps even in the deepest fault of the ocean that
very visionary company - in league with stuporous
pigeons, a mourning dove, me here who remains-not
-yet-remains, tearful over my espresso looking for
signs, finding only an endlessly fracturing rainbow,
remembering, too, the murmuring secrets of wharves
and co-mingled breath - that very visionary company
traces all the sunken ones, the jumping ones, those
with other means for departure by their own hands
empty now of demands for love.
Here I sit, arthritic living hands still
demanding, remembering full of past and
present griefs the Violin with a cut throat
in a youthful suicide once writ years ago,
hidden, hiding out, refusing to shout my
rage to Almighty 'Nothing-But':
Do not hear nothing but the cabin walls,
do not hear nothing but late summer roses
petal by petal leaping from the still too
white trellises, leaping pinkly, redly,
memory to breezes, overwhelmed by trellises
shagged with cut sleeves.***
But not me. Not yet.
I don't want to see it!
I will not see it.
On the mute page, the Violin refusing to sing
- in love with Garcia Lorca,
the goring horn of the Bull,
the destined cornada -
each and all appalling, commanding 'Write'
in long nights working where the mentally ill
wandered with me, keys ironically in my hand,
the yellowing hallways with even more ironic
EXIT signs brightly RED above the locked doors,
silent companions somnolent but for the jangling
joke of the keys.
Do not ask me to see it!
I don't want to see it!
I will not see it.
Still, I have now these better days in the Village,
broke or near to it, with eggs and beans, cheap but
edible things. An epicurean after all, I do luxuriously
head to the Polish butcher shop nearby to gather meat
but not any of the young butchers want to be gathered
- too Catholic - for Poland is 'passing strange' with
bad teeth, fingers stained with nicotine. Or is it rust
from once Curtains of Iron,
or the Blood of the Acetylene Virgin? ****
I get my meat, cook my greens and things, have good-enough feasts for garlic and the right spice make grander the demanded abstemiousness of current coin. I purloin my pleasure during eats in my dirty yet happy apron with recordings of poetry, lectures or a good aria or two to salt my food with tears, a blubbering fool beside his one low watt lamp, darkness too too comfortable like a pooch or cat at feet. What is that bleating in the darker corner? I shall wait for daylight to see what it can be. And if I can I shall free it from it's trap and in doing so perhaps free me from all this, all this witnessing as life demands I must, of young ones setting themselves free because they are forced to do so by collective psychopathology now rendered even more effective and efficient via technology, via internet, emphasis upon the 'net', where the ills set free from Pandora's Modem have only begun to be revealed.
But I shall use that 'net' and my still goodly paper and goodly pen to dim whatever ill tides there are and to come, as they surely will in spite of low wattage. I'll jangle keys on the night watches reading my mystic books, making my prayers with roamers of wards and wharves glancing up, considering bridges, edges, silty bottoms. The tides are here even now. But right now I wish to sing a lullaby in protest to those hurting departed, even to those coming ills, that I may sing innocence dumbly back to those who may come ashore again more gently having forgotten enforcing depths insisting them toward resistant yet resolved embraces...
...So breech then, waves. Feet first. Heads in the brine. I shall keep time on your wrinkled toes sticking up from the sand, play peek-a-boo. Then while you sleep I shall harvest gently, place them firmly in that old woman's shoe...'there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, had so many children she didn't know what to do'.
She may yet have learned what to by now.
I haven't. But for my one strange harvest here below...
2
Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased
He is busy even as I write this preparing a repast for many paying guests who will watch him cook sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born, who will hear him sing their praises...Krishna was over yesterday, nervous and excited about it all. Working out regularly at the gym he is now very toned, muscular in a good way, not too pumped in exaggerated lumps, and he is even more radiantly beautiful/handsome than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian spice and food shop not easily hidden, such aromas are not to be tucked down like the shop is beside and below the avenue.
Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.
If you serve, said he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.
And so we began our time together, the cooking lessons, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I to shall fall but in this way:
I shall fling back the curtains
Open the window
Throw cut sleeves for years
gathered, hidden, to the street.
Shouting out names of lovers,
I shall then leap openly into life
land softly upon the Autumn
ginkgo leaves and, golden,
kiss every parked car
on the street leaving
lips like leaves and all
the cut sleeves in love
with all the world and if
not all the world then
all the cars and a fiddle
dee dee for the fall of me
Yesterday I coached him on slowing down as he speaks (his accent is thickly, richly Tamil) , how to enunciate each syllable. He had several stories to choose from which he may relate to the guests, all of which he related to me, a sweet one of him as a little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:
'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'
A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,
You may shout if you wish to wake
the Temple for the cow cannot speak -
Wake up! Awake! Make haste!
Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,
the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!
Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!
There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.
After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.
'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?
Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.
I have been encouraging Krishna (which is a funny thing to say, Krishna being a bold, blue God) to find a language coach to help him with his accent, to tone it down while keeping the wonderful music/lilt of it and he's going to do that...he complains of tilting his head as he talks 'as all Indians do' but I insist he merely speak and let his head and hands speak, too, in their own way. If he does more public events he will need to be understood clearly when he speaks while preparing his magnificent dishes from his country, his rich feasts of stories of the chilies from his mother's garden entwined by morning glories, the morning cock already at quarrel with the world just beyond the tin reaching in to take some spices too enticing to refuse...
I always feel as if he is, or will soon be, bored with me and my humble 'ministrations' but he sweeps into my little 'box-doir' - you recall how tiny my expensive studio on the 5th floor is! - like a Raj, a young prince beaming, brimming full of stories to tell me, usually some food, spicy hot, he has prepared for me, offered with a grin. Then he strips instantly down, lays upon the down pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness - it catches my breath, I do want to see! - checks his Blackberry for the latest cricket scores while I hurriedly 'hide' my Ganesha, the prominent statue of the god I have in front of my useless fireplace; this hiding I half understand...but still, naked, he has a fresh and beautifully made tattoo of Ganesha on his shoulder, he wears a Ganesha necklace, a Ganesha bracelet, and a Ganesha waist scapular, the image of which is just below his navel. So why, I ask only myself and Ganesha, never Krishna, why must I hide my large wooden Ganesha statue? But I do hide Him in deference to Krishna's wishes and meanwhile have intercourse with the god-in-miniature, scraping a necklace trunk with an ear, a tongue, receive a scapular kiss of the image upon my forehead as I trace those wonderful hairlines of the male body on my way to other deities.
Ah! give me all the beans in the world in all my poverty! Am I not, too, a Raj of floors and scented pillows, this beaming god beneath me thrusting utterly to reveal his secrets, his desires, his pleasures to me who am not a god?
Life, dear Valdosta, over all, is good, yes? I wish it no ill. But, agreeing with the cock, I will quarrel, even fight, with life when young men still leap too soon from bridges because I have learned (and relearn it hard lesson by hard lesson at a time) visionary company insists its tracings in many forms, man to man being but one holy expression, those sons, burning mother's hands upon them demanding, insisting to life that each her sons is a rajah, a Sleepy Bee.
So please the intemperate humanity, in the face of patient deities the burning ones are leaping still and I am ill with grief, with prayer, their dead bodies gone, their now emptier hands.
And he leaves me.
I return to my poems.
The room is filled with Krishna, aromas of rose oil in his hair, pungent spices in his sweat and upon his hands and skin, and sex.
I retrieve Lord Ganesha out from his little sanctuary of hiding (it seems I am always retrieving deities) and we both laugh richly. I remember to sprinkle some cologne upon Him, to pour out some milk into His votive bowl, to rub His belly, to light another candle (the other extinguished, panting, while we were busy bees exchanging knees and sighs, diffusing male spices into bracing air, fingers upon oily chilies thickening in always morning hunger) .
I light more incense and thank the Lord Ganesha in all his forms, appearing both large and small, His adornment of Secrets, though one cannot easily hide an Elephant, man-love and more in such a small infinite universe whose toes I seek to tickle then gather for a shoe as tides shrink and swell, grow and diminish depending upon the worshipers, those who will do so in spite of those who would kill delicate or manly infidels whose worship, forever babies breath, is all the more meaningful.
Be damned the trellises. The petals shall reach, shall extend outward.
The violin's throat cut.
'Do not ask me to see it! '
Then, Ganesha restored to His rightful place; good-natured about being hidden, it is back to the kitchen, the slicing of the onion, the crushing of the garlic, the pouring of the wine, the selecting of the greens and washing them of the clinging sand and grit they kindly bring, then to the pot to cook them in, the meat to go with, and begins the fire, O Indra, more aromas extend into, entwine with what Krishna has left to me and the god and I am grateful, full of heart, for each time he is here is a miracle. A grace. Mother India with hot hands gifts me one of Her Raj's who graces me with his presence evoking praise bestowed from oft bitter lips and tongue made the more bilious by aging, aching joints, laxer muscles, and yet the encroaching decrepitude is bent and stretched, the better for the wear from Krishna's 'half nelsons' and yogic overreaches. More the better for me.
Yet I remain bitter, too, from the senseless loss of young men who could not endure, no fault of their own, for sure, who leap from bridges, forced to by killing edges broken open within and by hateful, fearful others forgetting, if ever had, those restorative burning constancies of a Mother's hands upon them
I have placed your picture, dear Valdosta, upon my altar beside Lorca's portrait, and Hart Crane's young face, the image of a sweet Christ holding a lamb en perpetua, and the yellowed newspaper clipping from Spain of the Matador's death, along with photos of the young men in the past two weeks who have joined Hart becoming ghostly visionary company. They now remain forever chaste not having lived long enough to be wasted, emptied of love from loving deeply out into love for more love, endlessly bleeding out like our Lorca, a corrida of laurel encircling his head no longer remembering but remembering only one sound, guns exploding outward, extending, bullets, petals, one by one beyond the wall where he stood stunned, 'how young and handsome are assassins' faces', he flew backward in the wall graced with his brave shadow then his blood until he fell. I believe he fell hard for life demands it as does death which will continue its duende.
Love, as Hart and all hearts love, is still a vision not yet fully, solidly formed in spite of stones and walls forgetting noble shadows, but there are foolish Krishnas, restoring Krishna-moments, patient hidden gods though human hearts and bodies remove themselves from the potter's wheel too early, too broken, too tired, too alone to try to shape love from Love from the tiny shard, the remnant bone of the ancient mastodon, the last one, dreaming within each heart of that Love which all Nature yearns for.
I pray for my inherited brood of brothers, and remember to be gay for all the gray afternoons in this sad but forgiving confessional, while not forgetting mine and the cock's quarrel with life, in the booth by the cracked window near the corner of 7th and Second.
I am yours, bleating, sometimes crowing, but almost always bestowing praise. I am loved, Valdosta, and I love you.
N. Nightingale
******************
*Opening quote is from Lorca's elegy, 'Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías'
** The Ballad of the Sad Young Men
Music written by: Tommy WolfLyrics written by: Fran Landesman
(best version sung that I know of is by an aged Mabel Mercer in concert, hard to find it now)
Sing a song of sad young men
Glasses full of rye
All the news is bad again so
Kiss your dreams goodbye
All the sad young men
Sitting in the bars
Knowing neon nights
Missing all the stars
All the sad young men
Drifting through the town
Drinking up the night
Trying not to drown
All the sad young men
Singing in the cold
Trying to forget
That they're growing old
All the sad young men
Choking on their youth
Trying to be brave
Running from the truth
Autumn turns the leaves to gold
Slowly dies the heart
Sad young men are growing old
That's the cruelest part
All the sad young men
Seek a certain smile
Someone they can hold
For a little while
Tired little bird,
She does the best she can
Trying to be gay for her
sad young man
While the grimy moon
Blossoms up above
All the sad young men
Play at making love
Misbegotten moon
Shine for sad young men
Let your gentle light
Guide them home again
All the sad young men
***In China homosexuality was referred to as 'the cut sleeve'.
Read an excellent account of this in
Passions of the Cut Sleeve, The Male Homosexual Tradition in China.
http: //www.ucpress.edu/book.php? isbn=9780520078697
****Surrealistic Sutures For The Acetylene Virgin by Warren Falcon
'I think that poetry should stay awake all night drinking in dark cellars.' - Thomas Merton
Look to the body for metaphor
Look to blood, use this word
in relation to dreams or flowers
while silver runs in veins which
are usually streets or vines.
Breasts, male and female,
are stars, have to do with
a handful or feet to span them.
Abdomen, then, is a great
Milky Way gathering,
holding, expelling comets,
caroling colons' humming.
Spleens are bones to
pick teeth with, teeth
which are, of course,
sea horses or gravestones
bearing images of the Flagrant
Heart to tame this spot of
gypsum and flint, to charm
where Violin's cut throat
sings itself awake, one
black breast out of its fold
slapping metal seas against
dropping metal shores in
Sidelight's shadow across
this hand writing now,
slap of waves mute in
this stillness of knees.
So lend a darkness to gardens,
ancient pattern of a breast,
cloth lightly lifting, black on black.
From Her chest reveal a slenderer throat
that nods when she swallows
and names her peace.
The delicate will not pass away just yet.
Great Seamstress of Space
sew, please,
with fingers of dew.
poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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from 'Ragas For Krishna' Part 2
from 'Ragas For Krishna' Part 2
I have been encouraging Krishna (which is a funny thing to say, Krishna being a bold, blue God) to find a language coach to help him with his accent, to tone it down while keeping the wonderful music/lilt of it...he complains of tilting his head as he talks 'as all Indians do' but I insist he merely speak and let his head and hands speak, too, in their own way. If he does more public events he will need to be understood clearly when he speaks while preparing his magnificent dishes from his country, his rich feasts of stories of the chilies from his mother's garden entwined by morning glories, the morning cock already at quarrel with the world just beyond the tin reaching in to take some spices too enticing to refuse...
I always feel as if he is, or will soon be, bored with me and my humble 'ministrations' but he sweeps into my little room like a Raj, a young prince beaming, brimming full of stories to tell me, usually some food spicy hot he has prepared for me offered with a grin. Then he strips instantly down, lays upon the down pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness - it catches my breath, I do want to see! I hurriedly 'hide' my Ganesha, the prominent statue of the god I have in front of my useless fireplace; this hiding I half understand...but still, naked, he has a fresh and beautifully made tattoo of Ganesha on his shoulder, he wears a Ganesha necklace, a Ganesha bracelet, and a Ganesha waist scapular, the image of which is just below his navel. So why, I ask only myself and Ganesha, never Krishna, why must I hide my large wooden Ganesha statue? But I do hide Him in deference to Krishna's wishes and meanwhile have intercourse with the god-in-miniature, scraping a necklace trunk with an ear, a tongue, receive a scapular kiss of the image upon my forehead as I trace those wonderful hairlines of the male body on my way to other deities.
Ah! give me all the cabbages in the world in all my poverty! Am I not, too, a Raj of floors and scented pillows, this beaming god beneath me thrusting utterly to reveal his secrets, his desires, his pleasures to me who am not, when all is done, a god?
Life, dear Valdosta, over all, is good, yes? I wish it no ill. But, agreeing with the cock, I will quarrel, even fight, with life when young men still leap too soon from bridges because I have learned (and relearn it hard lesson by hard lesson at a time) visionary company insists its tracings in many forms, man to man being but one holy expression, those sons, burning mother's hands upon them demanding, insisting to life that each her sons is a rajah, a Sleepy Bee.
So please the intemperate humanity, in the face of patient deities the burning ones are leaping still and I am ill with grief, with prayer, their dead bodies gone, their now emptier hands.
And he leaves me.
I return to my poems.
The room is filled with Krishna, aromas of rose oil in his hair, pungent spices in his sweat and upon his hands and skin, and sex.
I retrieve Lord Ganesha out from his little sanctuary of hiding (it seems I am always retrieving deities) and we both laugh richly. I remember to sprinkle some cologne upon Him, to pour out some milk into His votive bowl, to rub His belly, to light another candle (the other extinguished, panting, while we were busy bees exchanging knees and sighs, diffusing male spices into bracing air, fingers upon oily chilies thickening in always morning hunger) .
I light more incense and thank Lord Ganesha in all his forms, appearing both large and small, His adornment of Secrets, though one cannot easily hide an Elephant, man-love, and more in such a small universe whose toes I seek to tickle then gather for a shoe as tides shrink and swell, grow and diminish depending upon the worshipers, those who will do so in spite of those who would kill delicate or manly infidels whose worship, forever babies breath, is all the more meaningful.
Be damned the trellises. The petals shall reach, shall extend outward.
The violin's throat is cut.
'Do not ask me to see it! '
poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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from 'Ragas For Krishna' - Part 3
from 'Ragas For Krishna'
Sleepy Bee, he is rising beneath me, the hidden god is pleased
Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased
He is busy preparing a repast of sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born. Who will hear him sing their praises but me present alone with him here?
Yesterday Krishna arrived more radiant than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian food and spice shop not easily hidden below the sidewalk, such aromas cannot to be tucked away like the shop is, beside and below the avenue, just as his radiance cannot, should not, be hidden.
Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.
If you serve, says he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.
And so we begin our time together, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, the cooking lessons, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I shall fall but in this way:
I shall fling
the curtains back
Open the window
Throw cut sleeves,
for years gathered,
hidden, to the street.
Shouting out names
of lovers, I shall then
leap openly out, into,
land softly upon ginkgo
leaves and, golden, kiss
every parked car leaving
lip traces upon hoods,
trunks, windshields and,
lustily, rear view mirrors
reviewing all yore's cut
sleeves of love, secret
no longer, newly in love
with all the world and
if not all the world then
all the grinning griddled
faces of chrome and a
fiddle dee dee for the
fall of me into he who
has become my home
How I had to teach him what lovers
give to each how to kiss how to touch
how love is fluctuate fluent in dirty
tongues entanglements with the world
Still I have fluttered mightily in long
tangles of hair black, black his darker
eyes shine his bottom lip petulant hungry
for mine and those his parts smooth rivaling
Everest always beckoning to be climbed
And surprises
tenderness on his part
graces unexpected quick disrobing
the easy nakedness the hunger so
clean the affection grown from early
flings to ring heart rosaries forged
toes fall down to tumbles
grasps and pressing flesh
its own alchemy merging
but let there be two solid
but encroachable objects
together crushed into each
He is soon departed
likelihood of similar rare
the room empties
late afternoon shadows
his leaving leaves
traces and I am full
yet
emptiness is never fuller but
for beloved's absence felt which
of course is
the mystic's launch
the desert dweller and the roof
the longing tooth gnawing
one claws inwardly through
layers to find that Name which
Holier Ones say is written on
the back of the Heart
Thus remain I here in monk cell
soon to be more the monk's than
once spunk monkey's boudoir
poem by Warren Falcon
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How can you be burnt by chilies which you have not eaten?.
Where the Wild Things Are
So wake up sleepy one
It's time to save your world
Steal dreams and give to you
Shoplift a thought or two
All children touch the sun
Burn your fingers one by one
By one
Will this earth be good to you ?
Keep you clean or stain through ?
So wake up sleepy one
It's time to save your world
You're where the wild things are
Yeah
song performed by by Metallica from Reload
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Two Sleepy People
Two sleepy people miles apart,
May be sleepy but close in heart.
Two so alike it's hard to believe.
Too much to do, too much to achieve.
Awake in hours of the night,
Unable to rest, too uptight.
Two sleepy people, one young, one old.
Maybe sleepy but both are bold.
Not afraid to tackle anything.
Not afraid to face what life may bring.
Awake and burning the hours away.
Two sleepy people are too far away.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Morning
GRAY-VESTED Dawn, with flameless, tranquil eye,
Cool hands, and dewy lips, is in the sky,
A sober nun, with starry rosary.
With eyes downcast and with uplifted palm,
She seems to whisper now her silent psalm;
Beneath her gaze the sleeping earth is calm.
Her prayer is ended, and she riseth slow,
And o'er the hills she quietly doth go,
Noiseless and gentle as the midnight snow.
Then suddenly the pale-east blushes red,
The flowers to see upraise a sleepy head,
The rosy colors deepen, grow, and spread.
A cool breeze whispers: 'She is coming now!'
And then the radiant colors burn and glow,
The white cast blushes over cheek and brow,
And glorious on the hills the Morning stands,
Her saffron hair back-blown from rosy bands,
And light and joy and fragrance in her hands.
Her foot has touched the hill-tops, and they shine;
She comes,— the willow rustles and the pine;
She smiles upon the fields a smile divine,
And all the earth smiles back; from mount to vale,
From oak to shuddering grass, from glen to dale,
Wet fields and flowers and glistening brooks cry 'Hail!'
poem by Emma Lazarus
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Reason
i won't touch you
i only take a look and feast my eyes on you
i know what happens when i touch you
you turn into stone and i become fire that cannot burn you
i burn all night and day because i cannot touch you
because i won't dare
i burn all of myself without gaining from this heat
i burn myself in sleep
there is reason that this fire cannot burn
it is like you it is stone
it is the only one that i can touch
the one that now i can fully trust
this stone is cold it is very cold
look at me the burning finally stopped
look at me and if you must feel me
to your hands i am dust i am ashed
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Sleepy Time Girl (Song) :
Sleepy time girl.She never gets her rest.
Sleepy time girl.She never does her best.
At anything!
Sleepy time girl.She's never on the ball.
Sleepy time girl.Her words! They're always
off the wall.
That little sleepy time girl.
Sleepy time girl.Sleepy time girl.
She's always late for school.
Sleepy time girl.
She never ever seems to care.
That little sleepy time girl..
Short-Song-Poem By Kim Robin Edwards
Copyright 1986,2009..
ALL rights reserved..
poem by Kim Robin Edwards
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Sleepy Head
Terry widlake
Sleepy head isnt it time that you were in your bed?
The sandman will be coming soon, with a dream or two
Perhaps tomorrow they will all come true
Ooh sleepy head whispering all the things that we left unsaid
And so its time to make your weary way into a brand new day, tomorrow
The little pigs were certain that the wolf was here to stay
But in your dreams youll chase that wolf away
Hey sleepy head the princess has been saved and the dragons dead
Goodnight, and may God keep you in his sight
Safe until the early light, sleepy head, sleepy head, sleepy head.....
song performed by by Roy Orbison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Lovely Rose
I have a rose in the garden,
Unfolding red lovely petals,
With thorns surrounding it,
Could not touch and smell its fragrance.
I left the garden,
I left my lovely rose,
Far away yet so near,
Could not touch and smell its fragrance.
Time have passed,
Have seen again my rose,
Beautiful and sweetly scented at its full blossom,
Could not touch and smell its fragrance.
My rose is not mine anymore,
Yet I let my rose feel
Thy undoubting care and heart rejoicing,
Could glimpse again my lovely rose.
poem by Dong Agosto
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The Resembling Shadow
The creaking sounds did make me wake,
Fetched me back from the dream lake
Of peaceful sleep, profound and deep,
Again did bring me to the world fake.
Rubbing the sleepy eyes I stifled yawn,
Waited, watched till the light of dawn,
My mother beside the spinning wheel,
Near my cot, she dragged and drawn.
The spinner was made of wood brown,
Her hands did move, the face did frown,
She raised her arm with twisting strand,
Then to the reeling spike it did go down.
She joined the strands when they broke,
To reply my questions she often spoke,
“The truth bears fruit and lie pointy thorns,
God loves those who love His needy folk.”
A feeble flickering flame copied the sight,
Her movements cast spell in the lamp light,
That threw the gigantic shadow on the wall,
Resembling the lunar’s, at fourteenth night.
poem by Muhammad Shanazar
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Photos of War
Photo of War - 1
no milk for her
child the nipple
droops a sad
thing while dogs
run wildly about
Photo of War - 2
Geese tell of return
the burning village
counts its embers
measured in hands
Photo of War - 3
there are treaties
generals
prisoners and
gilded boxes
exchanged
then the
Mongol spices
Photo of War - 4
boys
muddy feet
cheer
chase behind
battalions
innocent fists
raising threat
for them
such regrettable
punctuation
Photo of War - 5
Hold Fast
the greatest
among us
he knows
only war which
makes him great
in one thing
alone
I know
of waiting
what the horizon
safe keeps behind
its ear
of love, yes
Photo of War - 6
your top knot my hand
unknotting
your long hair my
scented bedding
sudden
startled
wildness of laps
in the vase
so very
still
a clutch of stamens
Arrival at last -
the fallen petal
of your navel
Photo of War - 7
Dream again
of moonlight
of sewing
that work of warriors
naked needling of seams
In this dream
I know the pattern well
so near to hand
a blessing
let the dead bury
theirs
Photo of War - 8
his face
sleeps upon my
belly
I do not breathe
do not wish to disturb
Dawn just
light fingers
trace in circles
each my
breasts
what tickles
but a sigh interrupted
Photo of War - 9
In your dream
a gentle
boat slowly rises
with waves
the gentler subsiding
slides up
my torso
to keel
to kiss
Never again will I go to war
Photo of War - 10
I lie
Already
the men are heavily gathering
new arrows hot for flesh
only for yours I am
Photo of War - 11
Fortress a better world
between the teeth
on tips of tongues
on lip perimeters
strung by kisses
Photo of War - 12
From childhood our song:
Hurry awake sleepy bee
Softly sings the breeze
To sweetness we are called
when the sun high shall be
freshened with tears our parting
Photo of War - The Last
behind the barred door wait
a lock of wound hair
silk pouch of my gated heart
it will be a hard arrow to pierce it
poem by Warren Falcon
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The Passing Of A Heart
O touch me with your hands--
For pity's sake!
My brow throbs ever on with such an ache
As only your cool touch may take away;
And so, I pray
You, touch me with your hands!
Touch--touch me with your hands.--
Smooth back the hair
You once caressed, and kissed, and called so fair
That I did dream its gold would wear alway,
And lo, to-day--
O touch me with your hands!
Just touch me with your hands,
And let them press
My weary eyelids with the old caress,
And lull me till I sleep. Then go your way,
That Death may say:
He touched her with his hands.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Life of a teen girl.
Alarm sounds
arm moves, snooze button
mother yells time for school
she rolls out of bed
looking back out of the mirror her sleepy
face stairs back,
gets dressed
on the bus
talks to friends
school starts
this guy gives a smile
blushes
lunch time to eat
gose to calss, math boring
home, homework
shower, than bed.
poem by Jennifer Helton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sleepy Time Time
By jack bruce and janet godfrey
Im a sleepy time baby, a sleepy time boy.
Work only maybe, life is a joy.
Well have a sleepy time time.
Well have a sleepy time time.
Well have a sleepy time time.
Well have a sleepy time time.
Sleepy time time, sleepy time all the time.
Asleep in the daytime, asleep at night.
Life is all playtime; working aint right.
Chorus
I have my sunday, that aint no lie.
But on monday morning comes my favorite cry.
Chorus
song performed by by Cream
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Somethings Burning
You lie in gentle sleep beside me
I hear your warm and rhythmic breathing
I take your hand and hold it tightly
Listen, can you not hear our young hearts beating
Chorus:
I kiss the sleep from your eyes
Your smile is sweeter than the morning
And here it comes, cant you feel it, baby
Cant you feel it, here it comes
Feel it, feel it, fire, fire
Somethings burning, somethings burning
Somethings burning, and I think its love
And now the sun is burning brightly
We lie in love so close together
And I get the feeling deep inside me
My love for you will burn forever
2nd chorus:
I cup my hands to touch your face
Once again I feel your fire
And here it comes, cant you feel it, baby
Cant you feel it, here it comes
Feel it, feel it, fire, fire
Somethings burning, somethings burning
Somethings burning, and I think its love
I think its love, I think its love
I think its love, I think its love
Cant you feel, the fire keeps burning
Cant you feel, the fire keeps burning
Cant you feel, the fire keeps burning love
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Two Sleepy People (feat. John Travolta)
(f. loesser/h. carmichael)
Here we are, out of cigarettes
Holding hands and yawning, see how late it gets
Two sleepy people by dawn's early light
Too much in love to say goodnight
Here we are, in the cozy chair
Pickin' on a wishbone, from the frigidaire
Two sleepy people with nothing to say
But too much in love to break away
Do you remember, the nights we used to linger in the hall
Your father didn't like me at all
Do you remember the reason why we married in the fall
To rent this little nest, get a bit of rest
Who will .......
Here we are just about the same
Foggy little fella, drowsy little dame
Two sleepy people by dawn's early light
And so much in love, so much in love
Too much in love to say, too much to say, to say
song performed by by Carly Simon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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