Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy

[karmaisspecial.livejournal.com]

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing....

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Buddy Wakefield’s “Giant Saint Everything”

[essius.livejournal.com]

There were days I wanted out.
But then You would go and do things
like dive into the Vancouver ocean,
big brilliant cliché poem that You are,
water rolling off Your back
as You swam toward a sunset
that hung like a sacred recipe painted
all the way around Your holy head.

And then there were the ways You caught me
moving back into my cave where the wheels turn,
same wheels that drove You off.
I should have told You
before talking in terms of Forever
that any given day wears me out and works me sour,
that there are nights when the sky is so clear
I stand obnoxious underneath it
begging for the stars to shoot at me
just so I can feel at Home.

What’s left of You now is a shrine
built from the pieces I kept of Your presence,
Your incredible stretch of presence.
It sits in Our room like a sandpiper
cross-legged and crying,
remembering the night we met
and the day You left, and the Light
shifting in between.
By the side of it stands a picture of the poem where I promised,
“You will never have another lonely holiday.”

The words “I Promise” and “Forever”
begged me not to use them
but sometimes I don’t listen to God,
so You can imagine how much it hurt
to let Your last birthday pass
with no word. August 3rd.
You weren’t the only one comin’ up lonesome.

( Listen… )

Dream by Maria Polydouri

[namelessslobcat.livejournal.com]

Dream - Maria Polydouri

 

I gathered roses for you

wandering about the mount;

a thousand thorns in my view,

my clasping hands in hurt abound.

 

I longed so much for you to pass                          

through the icy northern wind,

holding a gift for you –alas-

tight against my bosom’s tilt.

 

I kept on gazing afar,

full of yearning was my heart                              

and my eyes streaming tears.

 

In my craving I failed to see

the dead of night was drawing nigh;

and I cried and cried –whatever be-

me and my roses in the night. 

Suburban Lovers by Bruce Dawe

[red-corals.livejournal.com]

Every morning they hold hands
on the fleet diesel that interprets them
like music on a roller-piano as they move
over the rhythmic rails. Her thoughts lie
kitten-curled in his while the slats of living
racket past them, back-yards greying
with knowledge, embankments blazoned
with pig-face whose hardihood
be theirs, mantling with pugnacious flowers
stratas of clay, blank sandstone, sustaining them
against years' seepage, rain's intolerance.

Each evening they cross the line
while the boom-gate's slender arms constrain
the lines of waiting cars.
Stars now have flown up out of the east.
They halt at her gate. Next-door's children
scatter past, laughing. They smile. The moon,
calm as a seashore, raises its pale face.
Their hands dance in the breeze blowing
from a hundred perfumed gardens. On the cliff of kissing
they know this stillness come down upon them like a cone.
All day it has been suspended there, above their heads.

The Love Cook -- Ron Padgett

[aimlesswanderer.livejournal.com]

The Love Cook
by Ron Padgett

Let me cook you some dinner.
Sit down and take off your shoes
and socks and in fact the rest
of your clothes, have a daiquiri,
turn on some music and dance
around the house, inside and out,
it's night and the neighbors
are sleeping, those dolts, and
the stars are shining bright,
and I've got the burners lit
for you, you hungry thing.