mark doty

[maya3814.livejournal.com]

Tiara
by Mark Doty


Peter died in a paper tiara
cut from a book of princess paper dolls;
he loved royalty, sashes

and jewels. I don't know,
he said, when he woke in the hospice,
I was watching the Bette Davis film festival

on Channel 57 and then—
At the wake, the tension broke
when someone guessed

the casket closed because
he was in there in a big wig
and heels, and someone said,

You know he's always late,
he probably isn't here yet—
he's still fixing his makeup.

And someone said he asked for it.
Asked for it—
when all he did was go down

into the salt tide
of wanting as much as he wanted,
giving himself over so drunk

or stoned it almost didn't matter who,
though they were beautiful,
stampeding into him in the simple,

ravishing music of their hurry.
I think heaven is perfect stasis
poised over the realms of desire,

where dreaming and waking men lie
on the grass while wet horses
roam among them, huge fragments

of the music we die into
in the body's paradise.
Sometimes we wake not knowing

how we came to lie here,
or who has crowned us with these temporary,
precious stones. And given

the world's perfectly turned shoulders,
the deep hollows blued by longing,
given the irreplaceable silk

of horses rippling in orchards,
fruit thundering and chiming down,
given the ordinary marvels of form

and gravity, what could he do,
what could any of us ever do
but ask for it.


i love that poem.
i was hoping someone in this community might be able to help me in my quest to find a poem... the only things i know about it are that it is i guess a love poem, and talks about wanting to make someone pancakes everyday. it was published in some poetry anthology of american poets. i know there isn't alot to go on, but if anyone remembers the poem please tell me who its by/what its called. thanks.

(no subject)

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

Spicewood


The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky,
In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind,
That whips it all before, and all behind,
Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high,
It is the first, the homeliest thing of all--
At sight of it, that lad that by it fares,
Whistles afresh his foolish, town-caught airs--
A thing so honey-colored, and so tall!

It is as though the young Year, ere he pass,
To the white riot of the cherry tree,
Would fain accustom us, or here, or there,
To his new sudden ways with bough and grass,
So starts with what is humble, plain to see,
And all familiar as a cup, a chair.


Reese, Lizette Woodworth. 1920. Spicewood.

Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856-1935) was an American poet whose work drew heavily on rural Maryland, where she grew up. The images used in her poetry are strong, crisp, and simple. Her lack of sentimentality, her effective use of rhyme (which doesn't seem forced), and her striking sincerity were among the reasons Reese was widely praised. Her best- known poem "Tears" was published in 1899 in Scribner's magazine.