(no subject)

[ohyou.livejournal.com]

poem at thirty - sonia sanchez

it is midnight
no magical bewitching
hour for me
i know only that
i am here waiting
remembering that
once as a child
i walked two
miles in my sleep.
did i know
then where i
was going?
traveling. i'm
always traveling.
i want to tell
you about me
about nights on a
brown couch when
i wrapped my
bones in lint and
refused to move.
no one touches
me anymore.
father do not
send me out
among strangers.
you you black man
stretching scraping
the mold from your body.
here is my hand.
i am not afraid
of the night.

(no subject)

[pushyouaround.livejournal.com]

i enjoy poetry that i can relate to. i found this poem in the book Spoken Word [which is just a collection of different slam and beat poets]. the first and last 4 lines are what i find the most attractive.


48 Hours After You Left by dj renegade

the telephone
has put on a bathrobe
complaining that my constant staring
makes it feel naked,
and i find myself out in the street
interrogating raindrops
as to your whereabouts.
this one particular raindrop
keeps being very evasive
answering in metaphors,
(i may have to get rough).
happiness stumbles along
smelling of Mad Dog
and mumbo sauce,
wearing cheap sneakers

with holes the size
of a headache
and a shirt that reads
like a menu of stains.
i've begun bottling my tears,
to serve as holy water,
and all the vowels
of my vocabulary
are new lookouts
on my windows,
waiting to trumpet
your return.

The Circe Poems by Louise Glück

[asthenos.livejournal.com]

Circe's Power

I never turned anyone into a pig.
Some people are pigs; I make them
Look like pigs.

I'm sick of your world
That lets the outside disguise the inside. Your men weren't bad men;
Undisciplined life
Did that to them. As pigs,

Under the care of
Me and my ladies, they
Sweetened right up.

Then I reversed the spell, showing you my goodness
As well as my power. I saw

We could be happy here,
As men and women are
When their needs are simple. In the same breath,

I foresaw your departure,
Your men with my help braving
The crying and pounding sea. You think

A few tears upset me? My friend,
Every sorceress is
A pragmatist at heart; nobody sees essence who can't
Face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you

I could hold you prisoner.

Circe's Torment

I regret bitterly
The years of loving you in both
Your presence and absence, regret
The law, the vocation
That forbade me to keep you, the sea
A sheet of glass, the sun-bleached
Beauty of the Greek ships: how
Could I have power if
I had no wish
To transform you: as
You loved my body,
As you found there
Passion we held above
All other gifts, in that single moment
Over honor and hope, over
Loyalty, in the name of that bond
I refuse you
Such feeling for your wife
As will let you
Rest with her, I refuse you
Sleep again
If I cannot have you.

Circe's Grief

In the end, I made myself
Known to your wife as
A god would, in her own house, in
Ithaca, a voice
Without a body: she
Paused in her weaving, her head turning
First to the right, then left
Though it was hopeless of course
To trace that sound to any
Objective source: I doubt
She will return to her loom
With what she knows now. When
You see her again, tell her
This is how a god says goodbye:
If I am in her head forever
I am in your life forever.

Helen - by Hilda Doolittle

[mark101.livejournal.com]

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.