(Poem #230)The Tree of Song I sang my songs for the rest, For you I am still; The tree of my song is bare On its shining hill. For you came like a lordly wind, And the leaves were whirled Far as forgotten things Past the rim of the world. The tree of my song stands bare Against the blue -- I gave my songs to the rest, Myself to you. |
The Tree of Song -- Sara Teasdale
The Light Above Cities -- Jay Leeming
(Poem #229)The Light Above Cities Sitting in darkness, I see how the light of the city fills the clouds, rosewater light poured into the sky like the single body we are. It is the sum of a million lives; a man drinking beer beneath a light bulb, a dancer spinning in a fluorescent room, a girl reading a book beneath a lamp. Yet there are others — astronomers, thieves, lovers — whose work is only done in darkness. Sometimes I don't want to show these poems to anyone, sometimes I want to remain hidden, deep in the coals with the one who pulls the stars through a telescope's glass, the one who listens for the click of the lock, the one who kisses softly a woman's eyes. |
where we are -- Gerald Locklin
(Poem #228)where we are i envy those who live in two places: new york, say, and london; wales and spain; l.a. and paris; hawaii and switzerland. there is always the anticipation of the change, the chance that what is wrong is the result of where you are. i have always loved both the freshness of arriving and the relief of leaving. with two homes every move would be a homecoming. i am not even considering the weather, hot or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope. |
Unclaimed -- Vikram Seth
(Poem #227)Unclaimed To make love with a stranger is the best. There is no riddle and there is no test. -- To lie and love, not aching to make sense Of this night in the mesh of reference. To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day, And understand, as only strangers may. To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart Preferring neither to prolong nor part. To rest within the unknown arms and know That this is all there is; that this is so. |
Sex Without Love -- Sharon Olds
(Poem #226)Sex Without Love How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, Gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice, fingers hooked inside each other's bodies, faces red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth, whose mothers are going to give them away. How do they come to the come to the come to the God come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them, light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin? These are the true religious, the purists, the pros, the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God. They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure, they are like great runners: they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio- vascular health--just factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time. |
The Story We Know -- Martha Collins
(Poem #225)The Story We Know The way to begin is always the same. Hello, Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, Just fine, And Good-bye at the end. That's every story we know, And why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No? Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine? The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello, And then it's Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow Day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine And Good-bye. In the end, this is a story we know So well we don't turn the page, or look below The picture, or follow the words to the next line: The way to begin is always the same Hello. But one night, through the latticed window, snow Begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine. Good-bye is the end of every story we know That night, and when we close the curtains, oh, We hold each other against that cold white sign Of the way we all begin and end. Hello, Good-bye is the only story. We know, we know. |
Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man -- Ogden Nash
(Poem #224)Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,
And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission
and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from
Billy Sunday to Buddha,
And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.
I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as long as,
in a way, against each other we are pitting them,
And that is, don't bother your head about the sins of commission because
however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn't be
committing them.
It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.
The way you really get painfully bitten
Is by the insurance you haven't taken out and the checks you haven't added up
the stubs of and the appointments you haven't kept and the bills you
haven't paid and the letters you haven't written.
Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn't as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round
of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven't done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn't do give you a lot more trouble than the
unsuitable things you did.
The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if some kind of
sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.
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