Request

[appyella.livejournal.com]

I've searched the tags, and come up empty handed in my quest to find poems about the night sky (stars, constellations, planets, etc.). Any and all would be greatly appreciated and treasured, especially if they are, in anyway, about or relating to love. Thank you kindly in advance.

Also, so I needn't feel cheap requesting and not posting, I'll share one of my favorites. Though, I'd be surprised if it had not been posted before.

From up here in the crow's nest
I see a small crowd gather.
Who do you gather, my townsmen?
There is no news here.
I am not a trapeze artist.
I am busy with my dying.
Three heads lolling,
bobbing like bladders.
No news,
The soldiers down below
laughing as soldiers have done for centuries.
No news,
We are the same men,
you and I,
the same sort of nostrils,
the same sort of feet.
My bones are oiled with blood
and so are yours.
My heart pumps like a jack rabbit in a trap
and so does yours.
I want to kiss God on His nose and watch Him sneeze
and so do you.
Not out of disrespect.
Out if pique.
Out of a man-to-man thing.
I want heaven to descend and sit on My dinner plate
and so do you.
I want God to put His steaming arms around Me
and so do you.
Because we need,
Because we are sore creatures.
My townsmen,
go home now.
I will do nothing extraordinary.
I will not divide in two.
I will not pick out My white eyes.
Go now,
this is a personal matter,
a private affair and God knows
none of your business.

-From The Book of Folly

Comments

[bluetreepoet.livejournal.com]

The Astronomer to His Telescope

Weigh the stars down. Tie them with threads
and tow them gently into the yard. Lash them
with strings. Tug them, as you would a kite
or a ship that has drifted too far into the bay.

Do you think them nonchalant? They love each word of praise.
They are already half in the water the rain has left.
Call them into their reflections. They won’t singe us
or pervert your glass. They are too vain for that.

Like trees, they drizzle from gaudy leaves.
Like dryads, they strum the sky away.
Like sweet lounge singers, they turn our heads
all night. Applaud them down, before it’s too late.

They are always thinking about the perfect exit––
redshift in the curve of your glass buffed eye.

––Kevin Prufer


Field Guide to the Night Sky

No one witnesses
the history of light.
The sky litters itself
with dust and I’m unsettled
by the steadfast burn
of thinking.
The night sky reaches
inside me,
I am sleepless
waiting for each star
to cross
into its corner, flower
then dim.
I do not believe
in paradise:
to flower, then dim.

––Jennifer Chang