April 2012
122 posts
4 tags
Exorcising the Ghost of You
Poem submission by thetommytimes
The pain from yesterday lingers on,
a recurring nightmare that last for eons.
You said you’ll love me true,
But you left me blue.
I was a terrible lover,
that I knew.
But remaining true,
I never once withdrew.
I was mean,
I was blunt.
So I guess,
that honesty shredded us apart.
5 years I fought,
It ended up nought.
Struggling with a pessimist,...
4 tags
Homecoming
Poem submission by Robert L. Phillips
The fields swayed green as an emerald ocean
As we marched heads proud away,
Only to have them hung with regret
For that which we’d lost and never again regained;
For our lives had grown calloused
And we ourselves grown old,
While the fields remained young and green by comparison.
4 tags
When you are old and grey
Submission by The Voices Project
Click here to view a short film from Australia that features W.B. Yeats’ “When You are Old and Grey”.
4 tags
Sonnet 7
Poem submission by Joshua D. Nightingale
A philosopher walking through a wood
is a sight you really must see.
His feet don’t quite work like they should.
They swish, they swoosh, along the autumn alley
Trudging along; without way for clock’s cogs, caring not, are too busy.
Yes, while a thinker’s feet shamble slow
their mind is a whole different story.
It races along those golden paths,...
3 tags
J. D. McClatchy's "Mercury Dressing"
The title poem of J. D. McClatchy’s most recent collection brings us his vision of Mercury, the God of thievery and travel, swift bearer of messages in his winged sandals.
- Knopf Poetry Team
***
Mercury Dressing
To steal a glance and, anxious, see
Him slipping into transparency—
The feathered helmet already in place,
Its shadow fallen across his face
(His hooded sex its...
4 tags
Yellow and Red
Poem submission by charmingnostalgia.tumblr.com
Last night I dreamt
Of yellow and red
Orange grinned
Where our paths met We walked quite a way
We talked and we sang
Your laughter like bells
Chimed as it rang The surrounding air
was sprinkled with mist
Coated with warmth
Contentment and bliss
Your hand in mine
Was like the sun on the snow
Melting away
The bittersweet cold
But...
4 tags
The Rabbit and the Bird
Poem submission by Chris Ferchen
Humid June day.
A little girl plucks dandelions;
hums a happy tune.
High in the sky, she notices
a rabbit and a bird
waltzing above the trees.
The animals slide
across the cornflower sky,
dancing too close to the sun.
“No,” the girl pleads,
“don’t go,
please stay.”
She runs over to the patio
where her parents sit
and talk and sit and talk and—
The little...
4 tags
2 tags
Edward Hirsch's "Green Figs"
The impossibility of religious faith has been a theme in the work of Edward Hirsch over the years; yet in the presence of doubt, in the experience of yearning, in encountering a small yield of sweetness, he finds something perhaps equivalent, or faith enough. “Green Figs” seems appropriate reading for Good Friday as well as the first seder of Passover tonight.
- Knopf Poetry Team
...
4 tags
Dreamscape
Poem submission by Marna Ashburn Krajeski
The recital hall is packed and
I don’t know how to play
the piano. Today is the exam
and I haven’t been to class.
I’m late for the test, the airport,
the tournament. I’m on a slow bus
that stalls at every turn.
I have no music, no shoes, no ticket.
The show is starting and
I’m not ready, not where I’m
...
4 tags
Composition
Poem submission by Benvenuto Garisto
My eyes are made of glass, my bones are without mass.
My heart is made of soil, my blood will always boil.
My hair is made of silk, purer than a mother’s milk.
X and Y have come together, ground together into leather.
This is how I am made, manufactured, cannot trade.
This is how I am made, laid to rest, diamond grade.
4 tags
The Seasons - "Spring"
Poem submission by Nathan Skky
Let us be Spring — with flowers in our hair and sap in our veins and the song of Life on our lips, loosed as a babbling brook and birdsong.
Let us be joyous with the sun pouring from our eyes; with the wind whispering words in our ear as we dance, swaying like the trees in the breeze.
Yes, let us be Spring with rose-petal skin and eyes so green which pierce the...
4 tags
Spinoza
Poem submission by innana.tumblr.com
A double yellow line
Our polar bodies
If not attractive
Then at any rate, convincing
The way you breathe
Is greed itself
Your nostrils widening
This is the main mistake
Everyone makes:
Confusing imagination
For intellect,
And collectively failing
To exhale
innana.tumblr.com
4 tags
Midnight Dew
Poem submission by thecityofrain.tumblr.com
An open canvas, shining gems,
Encompassed by the night.
Lustrous, twinkling specks abound,
Calling me in their light.
Bidding me to fancy them as
Things of soft silver made,
When hanging precariously,
They bend each tawny blade.
Begging me to imagine them,
As small fragile cocoons,
That are selfishly capturing,
The faint and distant moon.
7 tags
Marie Ponsot's "A Rune, Interminable"
Marie Ponsot, who turns 91 this month, still treads with sprightly step as she delivers her incomparable wisdom.
- Knopf Poetry Team
***
A Rune, Interminable
Low above the moss
a sprig of scarlet berries
soon eaten or blackened
tells time.
Go to a wedding
as to a funeral:
bury the loss.
...
4 tags
Untitled
Poem submission by viotron.tumblr.com
The soil was cold and wet on my skin. My chest to my knees; my knees to my chin. My thirsty roots drank milk dripped down from the plants I waited and grew with the snakes and the ants.
Suddenly daytime pried open my eyes The womb where I nestled pushed me toward the sky. My body displaced mud, bugs, grass, and earth. My head broke the surface as the ground...
4 tags
Invisible
Poem submsission by ariane-corinne.tumblr.com
the red
clashes violently
with the pink.
no one
even noticed
the difference.
4 tags
pyrotechny
Poem submission by eyezoffyre.tumblr.com
luminary-love the wild spirit of my cold winter winds becomes grounded and stationary in the heat of your fierce fever
you transform me I become the sky waiting on the day
this intricate secret of love blooms under my breasts into soft summer air filled with incandescent saffron rare and expensive expansive
I lazily toss my legs over the moon hanging,...
6 tags
Simon Armitage's "Sold to the Lady in the...
Simon Armitage’s latest volume, Seeing Stars, is a fascinating swerve for this lyric poet – while still emanating from the soul of Britain, this latest is a book of startling dramatic monologues, tall tales, and chillingly deadpan meditations by unforgettable people not unlike ourselves, stuck in the gears of an absurd modern society not unlike our own.
- Knopf Poetry Team
***
Sold to...
4 tags
Contrails
Poem submission by Stephanie Pushaw
Our compasses fail us again and again, leading us along the wrong magnetic fields, yet we sail still through quiet seas under the false mathematics of north. What the frontier means. Not conquering. Not masculinity, not like the blank box on a calendar, not the space between numbers on the face of a clock.
It’ll always be like this: the knots that tie me to...
