(no subject)

[consonantia.livejournal.com]

I am the torch, she saith, and what to me
If the moth die of me? I am the flame
Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see
Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame,
But live with that clear life of perfect fire
Which is to men the death of their desire.

I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen
Troy burn, and the most loving knight lie dead.
The world has been my mirror, time has been
My breath upon the glass; and men have said,
Age after age, in rapture and despair,
Love's poor few words, before my image there.

I live, and am immortal; in my eyes
The sorrow of the world, and on my lips
The joy of life, mingle to make me wise;
Yet now the day is darkened with eclipse:
Who is there lives for beauty? Still am I
The torch, but where's the moth that still dares die?

-- Arthur Symons, "Modern Beauty"

Jane Hirshfield -- "Not Even Moving One Step"

[charientism.livejournal.com]

Not Even Moving One Step

The rain falling too lightly to shape
an audible house, an audible tree,
blind, soaking, the old horse waits in his pasture.
He knows the field for exactly what it is:
his limitless mare, his beloved.
Even the mallards sleep in her red body maned
in thistles, hooved in the new green shallows of spring.

Slow rain streams from fetlocks, hips, the lowered head,
while she stands in the place beside him that no one sees.

The muzzles almost touch.
How silently the heart pivots on its hinge.


 

Jane Hirshfield

Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff, John Keats

[gladiolishaker.livejournal.com]

For the person who was surprised Keats wrote a cheery poem:

Give me Women, Wine, and Snuff
Until I cry out, 'Hold, enough!'
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection;
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My belovéd Trinity.

first post: request and contribution

[bravest-unsaid.livejournal.com]

I've been looking for this poem for so long, I'm beginning to doubt whether it exists. I used to think it was Denise Levertov but now I'm plagued by uncertainty. I only remember images: sunlight, watermelon, flock of birds, tenement windows. If you know or think you know what in the name of puppies I'm talking about, please aid my sanity.

Sooo anyways.

Gamin

All the roofs are wet
and underneath smoke
that piles softly in
streets, tongues are
on top of each other
mulling over the night.

We lay against each other
like banks of violets
while the slate slips
off the roof into the
garden of the old lady
next door. She is my

enemy. She hates cats
airplanes and my self
as if we were memories
of war. Bah! when you
are close I thumb my
nose at her and laugh.

(Frank O'Hara)