My kitty is sick...

[joseishijin.livejournal.com]

And thus reminded me of this poem:

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

-D.H. Lawrence

David Lehman - February 11 (Portrait d'une Femme)

[natelyswhore.livejournal.com]

Portrait d'une Femme


She had the ugliest handwriting
and the prettiest green eyes
of any woman at the Museum
of Modern Art. She had
the loveliest legs and the smallest
apartment of any editor
at Vogue. She had the reddest
hair and the worst insomnia
of any actress on the Upper West Side.
She had the best mind and
the nastiest manners of any Swarthmore
graduate in the gym. She had
the meanest father and the leanest
mother and the crudest brotehr
and the lewdest sister adn the most
money and the least compunction
of any divorcee in this room.
She had the sweetest voice.
She had the darkest moods.

Charles Simic - The Old World

[natelyswhore.livejournal.com]

The Old World


I believe in the soul; so far
It hasn't made much difference.
I remember an afternoon in Sicily.
The ruins of some temple.
Columns fallen in the grass like naked lovers.

The olives and goat cheese tasted delicious
And so did the wine
With which I toasted the coming night,
The darting swallows,
The Saracen wind and moon.

It got darker. There was something
Long before there were words:
The evening meal of shepherds . . .
A fleeting whiteness among the trees . . .
Eternity eavesdropping on time.

The goddess going to bathe in the sea.
She must not be followed.
These rocks, these cypress trees,
May be her old lovers.
Oh to be one of them, the wine whispered to me.

"Tortoise Shout" by D. H. Lawrence

[lygophilous.livejournal.com]

I thought he was dumb,
I said he was dumb,
Yet I've heard him cry.

First faint scream,
Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,
Far, far off, far scream.

Tortoise in extremis.

Why were we crucified into sex?
Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
As we began,
As he certainly began, so perfectly alone?

( More... )

(cross-posted to theysaid)

the heaven of earth

[madmouth.livejournal.com]

My favourite two poets explore a beloved theme

( Gwendolyn Brooks and Wallace Stevens, in 3 parts )