e.e. cummings, 'a total stranger one black day'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

a total stranger one black day

a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me--

who found forgiveness hard because
my(as it happened)self he was

-but now that fiend and i are such
immortal friends the other's each

by e.e. cummings

"Oil and Blood," Yeats

[switchercat.livejournal.com]

More Yeats. Posting this one because it's very short and bizarre and seems little-known. I'm finding that Yeats used the word "blood" all the time, in lots of poems, and "beast" too, and there seems to be a symbolic link there from which I want to puzzle out some meaning.

* * *

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.
But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

Next, Please by Philip Larkin

[winter156.livejournal.com]

Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead wit golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.

A moment

[awaltzf0ranight.livejournal.com]

I have been a regular lurker in this community. I never really had anything I felt like I could share. I recently heard this poem while watching a Hindi ( Indian) movie.  I translated it into English and I hope I did it justice.

The moment flows by like molten sapphire
Deep Blue silences
No Earth below
No Sky above
The rustling branches and leaves
Saying that only you are here
Only me
My breath
My heartbeat
Such Depth like this
Such Loneliness like this
And me only me
I now believe I exist.


By Javed Akhtar for the movie Zindagi Na Milangi Dobara