Linda Pastan ~ Beech Avenue: The Fourth of July

[terabithiabeth.livejournal.com]

Beech Avenue: The Fourth of July

How heavy the summer seems, how thick-waisted
and full of heat. The elm is swollen with leaves,
and the lowing clouds, still filled with rain,
hang pendulous as unmilked udders.
The air tastes faintly of cordite where
a Roman candle flickers and is snuffed out.
One by one the minutes gather and spill
over the rim of my cupped hands, and I
watch as though already remembering
these friends scattered like spit watermelon seeds
over the garden; Rachel holding
her first amazing sparkler; the boys
running through grass away from us, from
the whole green day which nonetheless will keep
hard as a pebble around which moss will grow
and lichen. Where shall I be on that July
when the pebble cracks like a geode,
and there perfectly preserved in layers
of crystal my grown sons find these very
trees, short-circuited with fireflies,
this restless lightning, locked in cloud but
hammering out now, sparks flying, as rain
hesitant all day finally starts to fall?

~ Linda Pastan, A Perfect Circle of Sun (1971)

(no subject)

[asthenos.livejournal.com]

World, World—
George Oppen

Failure, worse failure, nothing seen
From prominence,
Too much seen in the ditch.

Those who will not look
Tho they feel on their skins
Are not pierced;

One cannot count them
Tho they are present.

It is entirely wild, wildest
Where there is traffic
And populace.

'Thought leaps on us' because we are here. That is the fact of the matter.
Soul-searchings, these prescriptions,

Are a medical faddism, an attempt to escape,
To lose oneself in the self.

The self is no mystery, the mystery is
That there is something for us to stand on.

We want to be here.

The act of being, the act of being
More than oneself.

h.d.

[lunar-endeavor.livejournal.com]

It's been a couple weeks since I had much time to read or post here, and I've missed it terribly. Here's a bit from a favorite of mine.

from The Walls Do Not Fall
H.D.

[10]

But we fight for life,
we fight, they say, for breath,

so what good are your scribblings?
this---we take them with us

beyond death; Mercury, Hermes, Thoth
invented the script, letters, palette;

the indicated flute or lyre-notes
on papyrus or parchment

are magic, indelibly stamped
on the atmosphere somewhere,

forever; remember, O Sword,
you are the younger brother, the latter-born,

your Triumph, however exultant,
must one day be over,

in the beginning
was the Word.

"I Feel Horrible. She Doesn't"

[theblankpaper.livejournal.com]

I feel horrible.  She doesn't
love me and I wander around
the house like a sewing machine
that's just finished sewing
a turd to a garbage can lid.

-Richard Brautigan