(no subject)

[orneryhipster.livejournal.com]

i was privileged enough this evening to be able to attend a reading by contemporary Irish poet, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. she writes in Irish, one of few people who do. i went on a whim, having never read or heard anything by her, and i was truly moved, so i would like to share some of her work with you guys.

( Aubade )

( Inside Out )

( Labysheeby (The Silken Bed) )

( Standing Still for the Night )

(no subject)

[lilpheebs6.livejournal.com]

Frank O'Hara, "Having a Coke with You"

is even more fun than going top San Sebastain, Irun, Hendaye,
Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in
Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better
happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love
for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the
birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people
and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be
anything as still
as solemn as unpleasently definitive as statuary when right in
front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and
forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just
paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in
the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's
in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go
together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes
care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michaelangleo
that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the impressionists do
them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree
when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider
as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some
marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I'm
telling you about it.

because bashing on WC Williams is fun

[ann-septimus.livejournal.com]

The Poetry of Place

A resident of Rutherford, New Jersey,
happens to have for sale, at collectors'
price, a wheelbarrow,
old, but not old enough, red,
but too red: painting it up,
he's obviously not seen the shade
quite right. His greed makes him
a hasty reader. Glazed
with varnish, it'll do. Whoever buys it
gets to see the room where the original
things with ideas in them are.

~Roy Fisher

a few by Karol Wojtyla (who would later be known as Pope John Paul II)

[doorinward.livejournal.com]

Over This, Your White Grave

Over this, your white grave
the flowers of life in white--
so many years without you--
how many have passed out of sight?
Over this your white grave
covered for years, there is a stir
in the air, something uplifting
and, like death, beyond comprehension.
Over this your white grave
oh, mother, can such loving cease?
for all his filial adoration
a prayer:
Give her eternal peace--
[Krakow, spring 1939]

Actor

So many grew round me, through me,
from my self, as it were.
I became a channel, unleashing a force
called man.
Did not the others crowding in, distort
the man that I am?
Being each of them, always imperfect,
myself to myself too near,
he who survives in me, can he ever
look at himself without fear?

( more )

In honor of April

[hellspoette.livejournal.com]

A Well-Worn Story

In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.

His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.

Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.

In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.

Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?

-Dorothy Parker