Self-Liberty

[ex-oneperfec858.livejournal.com]

I would not be dependent, even for love,
On man or woman. Nay, I would - I will
Be as the eagles through the heavens that move
Boundlessly free, though separate. And as still
A torrent, dashing from its native hill,
Doth make its own best way, be't mine to groove
My individual world-path, and approve
Its lonely fitness with a sovereign thrill!
Thus large must be my freedom, for the need
Is in my nature and defies dispute,
Even as the bent peculiar to its breed
Constrains yon tree to bear its proper fruit:
And though the pliant deem me a strange brute
What care I, being thus myself indeed!

~ Charles Harpur

day of the bride

[nonsensical-fae.livejournal.com]

the day of the bride comes
through layers of white plaster skin
and multi-sashed kimono
head made huge by lacquered hair-----
she is swept ashore in her glass bottle
white and tight as a folded paper message
eyes hidden in a swirl of green boughs.
she moves like a mannequin
manoeuvred by centuries of ceremony
under the weight of speech and incantation
a wail of priest and watching families
beside rows of low tables
with small triangles of paper
congratulatory slits of squid and curls of seaweed.
then kneeling at the bend of fresh memory
she is discarded by her heavy day
and is plunged into the twentieth century
tiny apartment daily stream
as a barely visible
folded paper speck

joy kogawa

(no subject)

[iamkatia.livejournal.com]

The Man Who Makes Brooms

So you come with these maps in your head
and I come with voices chiding me to
"speak for my people"
and we march around like guardians of memory
till we find the man on the short stool
who makes brooms.

Thumb over thumb, straw over straw,
he will not look at us.
In his stony corner there is barely room
for baskets and thread,
much less the weight of our faces
staring at him from the street.
What he has lost or not lost is his secret.

You say he is like all the men,
the man who sells pistachios,
the man who rolls the rugs.
Older now, you find holiness in anything
that continues, dream after dream.
I say he is like nobody,
the pink seam he weaves
across the flat golden face of his broom
is its own shrine, and forget about the tears.

In the village the uncles will raise their kefiyahs
from dominoes to say, no brooms in America?
And the girls who stoop to sweep the courtyard
will stop for a moment and cock their heads.
It is a little song, this thumb over thumb,
but sometimes when you wait years
for the air to break open
and sense to fall out,
it may be the only one.


~ Naomi Shihab Nye

one of my favorites.

[jewlers.livejournal.com]

the love song of j. alfred prufrock
by t.s.eliot.

(hope you enjoy.)

The Terrorist, He Watches

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

The bomb will go off in the bar at one twenty p.m.
Now it's only one sixteen p.m.
Some will still have time get in,
some to get out.

The terrorist has already crossed to the other side of the street.
The distance protects him from any danger,
and what a sight for sore eyes:

A woman in a yellow jacket, she goes in.
A man in dark glasses, he come out.
Guys in jeans, they are talking.
One seventeen and four seconds.
That shorter guy's really got it made, and gets on a scooter,
and that taller one, he goes in.

One seventeen and forty seconds.
That girl there, she's got a green ribbon in her hair.
Too bad that bus just cut her off.
One eighteen p.m.
The girl's not there any more.
Was she dumb enough to go in, or wasn't she?
That we'll see when they carry them out.

One nineteen p.m.
No one seems to be going in.
Instead a fat baldy's coming out.
Like he's looking for something in his pockets and
at one nineteen and fifty seconds
he goes back for those lousy gloves of his.
It's one twenty p. m.
The time, how it drags.
Should be any moment now.
Not yet.
Yes, this is it.
The bomb, it goes off.

Szymborska, Wislawa.

(no subject)

[blndwitdaboo-t.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare's 63rd SONNET
Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er-worn; When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night, And all those beauties whereof now he's king Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight, Stealing away the treasure of his spring; For such a time do I now fortify Against confounding age's cruel knife, That he shall never cut from memory My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life: His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green.

(no subject)

[agiyosiha.livejournal.com]

it may not always be so;and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another's,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be,i say if this should be--
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

-- e.e. cummings

(no subject)

[caseofyou.livejournal.com]

David C. Wright = Old Women in Eliot Poems
1
With fine hair on their arms,
with Michelangelo on their lips,
who do not understand the play at all,

not at all—still sing such lovely trills,
for someone, and dance rhumbas
on the beach, and pinch sugar cookies

( Read more... )