The Invitation

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

"The Invitation"
by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

( I want to know... )

This hasn't been posted here in about 3 years and I though it was well past time to share it again.

Wooden Table // Cecep Syamsul Hari (translated from the Indonesian by Harry Aveling)

[iatrogenicmyth.livejournal.com]

This is the secret of one twilight, of how a life was wasted,
of death that invites and denies us all. The ocean was vast,
the night was marble. I heard various voices inside myself:
there was fighting. Mephisto dancing, moans and sighs,
herbs soaking, as she picked shadows. There were wounds,
and the prelude to some forgotten sorrow. There was a mature woman,
with teeth like filaments of wire, standing at the edge

of day, at the end of a sodden year, underneath casuarina trees
covered with lanterns. I confess in my shame, I met
a girl, and we drank coffee together. The less I kiss you,
the older I feel the lonelier I become. Once, I accepted
failure and sorrow, and thought that they were love. I went out,
one day, wearing brown polished shoes,

and new cotton socks. The grass in the courtyard
had turned to straw. Long ago, Chopin wrote a sad song
about the rain. The mist swirled, coins jingled, a match flared,
her cheeks were plump, that corner of the city
was full of noise. I sang. I always sing
when I'm sad. Forget my love, tomorrow I'll wake up again
back in my hotel room, alone. Everyone I love

always leaves me. This is the secret of one twilight,
without any jagged memories, or the need
to worship old legends. It was beautiful,
the sky was bright, the train sped past,
a parking official blew his whistle to remind us
of some forgotten schedule. I was sad, disappointed,
I jumped out at Tugu Station, and laughed out loud.
Full of faith, Faust was not prepared for the smile
of a young girl, a bombastic leader, a friend

who hid a wolf in his chest, for no particular
reason. Unlike those who had left their homelands behind,
I had lost very little. A leaf fell. The conversation swung
to and fro. A weak and gentle woman took off
her veil, displayed her kisses, tidied some letters,
some trivial gifts, and buried my embraces

beneath a wooden table.


from "language for a new century: contemporary poetry from the middle east, asia, and beyond

Sometimes Gladness | Bruce Dawe

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Sometimes Gladness – by Bruce Dawe

 

Sometimes gladness crooks me like an arm

Adoro te or some more crazy hymn

scrambling like a monkey up a rope

to bang for hours in my soul’s swung bell

that I was born and blessed with the broad thumb

of sheer stupidity and doused unknowing

in such uncertainty I only need

to run my tongue across my lips to taste

the salt of that immersion     

                                                Down the aisle

come all my years, none altogether miserable, none

without the saving grace of some mistake that bent me

in the sly human shape I recognise

- day-labourer slouching in at the ninth hour

to pick up a quick penny Oh ordinary

holiness of people shining out

against the blurred reredos of their dreams!

 

I never knew a friend who did not leave me

the richer for the knowing, pour them on

- I wait for the friends I’ve yet to meet who crowd

like seasons, apt, amenable, beyond

the familiar ambiguity of the hill.

 

Along each vein like air-bubbles children run

and when the heart bursts suddenly or descends

in swooning spiral to the lonesome ground

and the grasses with their dry blank commentary

are all the cushion one can choose

who knows but what some last

galvanic impulse will upraise the arm

or squeeze the throat to whisper while it can:

‘There is nothing in life as beautiful as life…’?

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