holy sonnet VII. Somebody love John Donne with me :)

[the-voices.livejournal.com]

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou'dst sealed my pardon, with Thy blood.

kahlil gibran

[rockyb4me.livejournal.com]

The Enchantress
by kahlil gibran


The woman whom my heart has loved sat yesterday in this lonely room and rested her lovely body upon this velvet couch. From these crystal goblets she sipped the aged wine.
This is yesterdays dream; for the woman my heart has loved is fone to a distant place-- the Land of Oblivion and Emptiness.
The print of her fingers is yet upon the mirror; and the fragrance of her breathing is still within the folds of my garments; and the echo og her sweet voice can be heard in this room.
but the woman my heart has loved is gone to a distant place called the Valley of Exile and Forgetfullness.
By my bed hangs a portrait of this woman. The love letters she wrote to me i have kept in a silver case, studded wiht emeralds and coral. And all these things will remain with me till tommorow, when he wind will blow them away into oblivion, where only mute silence reins.
The woman i have loved is like the women to whom you have given your hearts. She is strangel beautiful, as if fashioned by a god; as meek as a dove, as wiley as the serpent, as proud and graceful as the peacock as fierce as the wolf, as lovely as the white swan, and as fearful as the black night. She is compounded of a handful of earth and a beakerful of sea-foam.
I have known this woman since childhood. I have followed her into the fields and laid hold of the hem of her garments as she walked in the streets of the city. I have known her since the days of my youth, and i have seen the shadow of her face in the pages of the books i have read. I have heard her heavenly voice in the murmur of a brook.
To her i opened my hearts discontents and the secrets of m soul.
the woman my heart has loved is gone to a cold, desolate and distant place-- the Land of Emptiness and Oblivion.
The woman my heart has loved is called LIFE. she is beautiful, and draws all hearts to herself. She takes out lives in pawn and buries our yearnings in promises.
Life is a woman bathing in the tears of her lovers and anointing herself with the blood of her victims. Her rainments are white days, lined with the darkness of night. She takes the human heart to lover, but denies herself in marriage.

Life is an inchantress
Who seduces us with her beauty---
But he who knows her wiles
Will flee her enchantments.

Scott Cairns

[pyrric.livejournal.com]

I'm very grateful to have found this community. I'd like to share two poems by my favorite poet writing today, Scott Cairns.

Visitation

On our way to the hospital, my mother
pulled our old car over
to the side of a busy street to tell me
my grandfather's lungs were killing him.
I understood well enough; by that time,
my own face had turned against me
with a kind of palsy children get; corrective
boots were the only boots I wore. This dying
was something more than what I'd known,
but I knew enough to guess the disappointment
the old man must have felt. He'd gotten skinnier
than I'd imagined, and although he told the same
old jokes he's always told, there was something angry
in his laugh. Just before we left his room,
he stole my nose and wouldn't give it back.

from The Theology of Doubt, Cleveland State University Press, 1985.

Lucifer's Epistle to the Fallen

Lucifer, Son of the Morning, Pretty Boy,
Rose Colored Satan of Your Dreams, Good as Gold,
you know, God of This World, Shadow in the Tree.

Gorgeous like you don't know! Me, Sweet Snake, jeweled
like your momma's throat, her trembling wrist. Tender
as my kiss! Angel of Darkness! Angel

of Light! Listen, you might try telling me
your troubles. I promise to do what I can.
Which is plenty. Understand, I can kill

anyone. And if I want, I can pick
a dead man up and make him walk. I can
make him dance. Any dance. Angels don't

get in my way; they know too much.
God, I love theater! But listen, I know
the sorry world He walks you through.

Him! Showboat with the Heavy Thumbs! Pretender
at Creation! Maker of Possibilities!
Please! I know why you keep walking--you're skittish

as sheep, and life isn't easy. Besides,
the truth is bent to keep you dumb to death.
Imagine! The ignorance you're dressed in!

The way you wear it! And His foot tickling
your neck. Don't miss my meaning; I know none
of this is your doing. The game is fixed.

Dishonest, if you ask me. So ask. God
knows how I love you! My Beauty, My Most
Serious Feelings are for you, My Heart turns

upon your happiness, your ultimate
wisdom, the worlds we will share. Me, Lucifer.
How can such a word carry fear? Lucifer,

like love, like song, a lovely music lifting
to the spinning stars! And you, my cooing
pigeons, by darlings, my tender lambs, come, ask

anything and it will be added to your
account. Nothing will be beyond us; nothing
dares touch my imagining.

from The Translation of Babel, University of Georgia Press, 1990.