Poetry Appreciation (do NOT post your own poetry)

A Prayer

'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.

Mine eyes are open but they cannot see for gloom of night:
I can no more than lift my heart to thee for inward light.

The wild and fiery passion of my youth consumes my soul;
In agony I turn to thee for truth and self-control.

For Passion and all the pleasures it can give will die the death;
But this of me eternally must live, thy borrowed breath.

'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.

-Claude McKay

 

Flower of Love

The perfume of your body dulls my sense.
I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone
Suffices. In this moment rare and tense
I worship at your breast. The flower is blown,
The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,
The yellow heart is radiant now with dew
Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South;
O flower of love! I give myself to you.
Uncovered on your couch of figured green,
Here let us linger indivisible.
The portals of your sanctuary unseen
Receive my offering, yielding unto me.
Oh, with our love the night is warm and deep!
The air is sweet, my flower, and sweet the flute
Whose music lulls our burning brain to sleep,
While we lie loving, passionate and mute.

-Claude McKay

 

I Know My Soul

I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
And held it to the mirror of my eye,
To see it like a star against the sky,
A twitching body quivering in space,
A spark of passion shining on my face.
And I explored it to determine why
This awful key to my infinity
Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace.
And if the sign may not be fully read,
If I can comprehend but not control,
I need not gloom my days with futile dread,
Because I see a part and not the whole.
Contemplating the strange, I'm comforted
By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.

-Claude McKay

 

Great posts, MM! Thank you!

 

Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I’ll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I’ll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.


_ Rainer Maria Rilke

 

The Dream


Walking on the sands

I decided to leave you.

I was treading a dark clay
that trembled
and I, sinking and coming out,’
decided that you should come out
of me, that you were weighing me down
like a cutting stone,
and I worked out your loss
step by step:
to cut off your roots,
to release you alone into the wind.

Ah in that minute,
my dear, a dream
with its terrible wings
was covering you.

You felt yourself swallowed by the clay,
and you called to me and I did not come,
you were going, motionless,
without defending yourself
until you were smothered in the quicksand.

Afterwards
my decision encountered your dream,
and from the rupture
that was breaking our hearts
we came forth clean again, naked,
loving each other,
without dream, without sand,
complete and radiant,
sealed by fire.

~Pablo Neruda

 

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside
The diaries of grief,
the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid.
What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.

-Dana Gioia

 

Tangle together like painted
Clouds on a screen, then,
Thighs enlaced, heads together
On the pillow we sing softly
To the full moon and watch time pass.
The declining moon marks the hours.
Suddenly we are seized by grief and fear.
Three o’clock in the morning
Has gone by but we cannot
Get enough of one another. Insatiable
Passion, night swift as the shuttle
In the loom. Oh heaven, what is
Your price for one more hour?

Kuan Yun She
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth

 

ALONE

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

 

To see what we have never seen,
to be what we have never been,
to shed the chrysalis and fly,
depart the earth, kiss the sky,
to be reborn, be someone new:
Is this a dream or is it true?

Can our future be cleanly shorn
from a life to which we’re born?
Is each of us a creature free-
or trapped at birth by destiny?
Pity those who believe the latter.
Without freedom, nothing matters…….


An Excerpt from The Book of Counted Sorrows by Dean Koontz.

 

There Are Poems

There are poems
that are never written,
that simply move across
the mind
like skywriting
on a still day:
slowly the first word
drifts west,
the last letters dissolve
on the tongue,
and what is left
is the pure blue
of insight, without cloud
or comfort.

~Linda Pastan

 

Pressed Flowers

To the quiet one,
the coy,
the wallflower.

Her dark circled eyes
buried in a book.

Hard little nipples,
dusty pink,
beneath a tatty
black singlet.

Those restless legs,
sprawled across
a squeaky bed.

Her secrets kept,
like pressed daisies
hidden by
pages read.

-Michael Faudet

 

An Honest Haiku

I’m sorry I can’t
be lovely and delightful
all the time for you.

 

Every Time

Do you have stars
in your mouth?
she asks
and I laugh,
she’s never tasted
winter like I have,
midnights that linger
for days. Yes,
I tell her. Come see.

Will there be breath?
For a while, I whisper
and blow on her hands,
but you will sing
and the aurora lights
will walk across the ice.

She lets me
put my hands on her.
Will I die? her hair
like snow.
Yes. I tell her.
Every time.

-Jude Goodwin

 

I want to see you.
Know your voice.

Recognize you when you
first come around the corner.

Sense your scent when I come
into a room you’ve just left.
Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.

I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more”.

-Rumi

 

I stand here alone,
without the cadency
of your heartbeat,
without the certainty
of tomorrows lost
in your arms,
in eyes that speak
of the tides fervency.

I stand here alone
without skin,
vulnerable,
with no bones
to carry the weight
of my heavy heart
waiting……
waiting……
for you to hold my soul
against your own.

 

Self-Knowledge

And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.



-Kahlil Gibran

 

Being Peace

If we are peaceful.
If we are happy.
We can smile and blossom
Like a flower.

And everyone
In our family,
Our entire society
Will benefit
From our peace.

-Thich Nhat Hahn