[Sven2]

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand
- Plato

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash
- Leonard Cohen

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance
- Carl Sandburg

[Sven2]

Solstice

--Louise Gluck

Each year, on the same date, the summer solstice comes.
Consummate light: we plan for it,
the day we tell ourselves
that time is very long indeed, nearly infinite.
And in our reading and writing, preference is given
to the celebratory, the ecstatic.

There is in these rituals something apart from wonder:
there is also a kind of preening,
as though human genius has participated in these arrangements
and we found the results satisfying.

What follows the light is what precedes it:
the moment of balance, of dark equivalence.

But tonight we sit in the garden in our canvas chairs
so late into the evening -
why should we look either forward or backwards?
Why should we be forced to remember:
it is in our blood, this knowledge.
Shortness of the days; darkness, coldness of winter.
It is in our blood and bones; it is in our history.
It takes a genius to forget these things.

[Sven2]

Highway Apple Trees

--Rhina P. Espaillat

Nobody seeds this harvest, it just grows,
miraculous, above old caps and cans.
These apples may be sweet. Nobody knows

If they were meant to ripen under those
slow summer clouds, cooled by their small green fans.
Nobody seeds this harvest, it just grows,

nodding assent to every wind that blows,
uselessly safe, far from our knives and pans.
These apples may be sweet. Nobody knows

what future orchards live in cores one throws
from glossy limousines or battered vans.
Nobody seeds this harvest; it just grows,

denied the gift of purpose we suppose
would give it worth, conferred by human hands.
These apples, maybe sweet (nobody knows),

soften and fall, as autumn comes and goes,
into a sleep well-earned as any man's.
Nobody seeds this harvest, it just grows.
These apples may be sweet. Nobody knows.

[Eccles]

Thanks for the invite to this site, sven. I've missed the poetry.

[Sven2]

Welcome, Eccles, good to have you here with us.
I read poetry every day, developed the (bad?  ???) habit since the days of "Algon" that Walkara started and tirelessly supported.
Hope you like some of my choices and would share yours.

[Sven2]

Pray for Peace

--Ellen Bass

Pray  to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or  plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha  still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise  your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to  Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped  descent.       
Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to  work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for  everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and  pray.
Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for  your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and  drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act, 
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.
To  Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and  shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant  strawberries.
Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer,  every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As  you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a  prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that  wears away rock.
Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin,  and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile cases we are  poured into.
If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray  to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.
When  you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let  each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we  do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And  if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair,  each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less  harm, less harm, less harm.
And as you work, typing with a  new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or  delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials,  writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas--
With  each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed  when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out,  cherish.
Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for  peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto  the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your  mother, drink wine.
Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your  sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around  your VISA card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your  crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your  prayer through the streets.

[Sven2]

The Pistachio Nut

--Robert Bly

God crouches at night over a single pistachio.
The vastness of the Wind River Range in Wyoming
Has no more grandeur than the waist of a child.

Haydn tells us that we've inherited a mansion
On one of the Georgia sea islands. Then the last
Note burns down the courthouse and all the records.

Everyone who presses down the strings with his own fingers
Is on his way to Heaven; the pain in the fingertips
Goes toward healing the crimes the hands have done.

Let's give up the notion that great music is a way
Of praising human beings. It's good to agree that one drop
Of ocean water holds all of Kierkegaard's prayers.

When I hear the sitar give out the story of its life,
I know it is telling me how to behave-while kissing
The dear one's feet, to weep over my wasted life.

[Eccles]

Solstice

--Louise Gluck


What follows the light is what precedes it:
the moment of balance, of dark equivalence.

Thanks for posting this. It reminded me of Cass' Camera. What I mean is that at first I thought of Cass' Camera as a lens through which we see the world as it should be, but then, that would be Pollyanna's camera, I suppose, not Cass'. Perhaps Cass' camera is a lens which views the world honestly in the sense that what we see isn't filtered and distorted by chattering commentary or by twenty-five years of resentment, grudges, myths, memes, and conditioning as it was for the Yost family when we first met them. There was so much baggage between them every sentence seemed loaded, every glance and gesture charged, like tasering old wounds. I've been thinking that for me, Cass's camera has become the ability to simply see the world clearly, from "the moment of balance."

Or something like that.

I guess.

It seems hardly a day goes by when I don't think about this remarkable series.

[Sven2]

What We Miss

--Sarah Manguso

Who says it's so easy to save a life? In the middle of an interview for
the job you might get you see the cat from the window of the seven-
teenth floor just as he's crossing the street against traffic, just as
you're answering a question about your worst character flaw and lying
that you are too careful. What if you keep seeing the cat at every
moment you are unable to save him? Failure is more like this than like
duels and marathons. Everything can be saved, and bad timing pre-
vents it. Every minute, you are answering the question and looking
out the window of the church to see your one great love blinded by
the glare, crossing the street, alone.

[Eccles]

Welcome, Eccles, good to have you here with us.
I read poetry every day, developed the (bad?  ???) habit since the days of "Algon" that Walkara started and tirelessly supported.
Hope you like some of my choices and would share yours.

I do. I will. Thanks.

[Eccles]

This is what I'm listening to in the car.

WAIT NO MORE

(Bruce Cockburn, 16 July, 2001. Montreal.)


Wild things are prowling - storm winds are howling tonight
Everything's transforming into pure crystals of light
The heart is a mirror; it throws back the blaze of love
Bathed in that glow it's no secret what I'm thinking of

I want to wait no more
Wait no more
Wait no more

Sipping wine with angels in this torch-lit tavern by the sea
What does it take for what's locked up inside to be free?
Fold me into you, you know where I'm dying to be
When my ship sets sail on that ocean of deep mystery

I want to wait no more
Wait no more
Wait no more

What does it take for the heart to explode into stars?
One day we'll wake to remember how lovely we are
Lightning's a kiss that lands hot on the loins of the sky
Something uncoils at the base of my spine and I cry

I want to wait no more
Wait no more
Wait no more

* * *

One day we'll wake to remember how lovely we are.

8)

[Sven2]

Solstice

--Louise Gluck


What follows the light is what precedes it:
the moment of balance, of dark equivalence.

Thanks for posting this. It reminded me of Cass' Camera. What I mean is that at first I thought of Cass' Camera as a lens through which we see the world as it should be, but then, that would be Pollyanna's camera, I suppose, not Cass'. Perhaps Cass' camera is a lens which views the world honestly in the sense that what we see isn't filtered and distorted by chattering commentary or by twenty-five years of resentment, grudges, myths, memes, and conditioning as it was for the Yost family when we first met them. There was so much baggage between them every sentence seemed loaded, every glance and gesture charged, like tasering old wounds. I've been thinking that for me, Cass's camera has become the ability to simply see the world clearly, from "the moment of balance."

Or something like that.

I guess.

It seems hardly a day goes by when I don't think about this remarkable series.

Eccles, first about Cass's camera. I think that no one, besides the creator is able to see the world without any preconception unless they are 2-3 years old, (even then the life of the heart has pains and memories). And the creator in this case might be a power so many times removed from the human existence and indifferent to see the reality that way. So, who's seeing the world from the camera? Not us. Just a side thought though. 

I love Louise Gluck, she is sometime austere but that's one thinking poet. I have all her books, will post something else of hers later.

Some Bruce Cockburn songs I remember, you introduced his music on Algon thread on HBO, this one I didn't know. Thank you.

"It seems hardly a day goes by when I don't think about this remarkable series."

I "live" with those characters every day and feel the same way as you about JFC.
Thank you for saying that.

[Sven2]

A Man In His Life

--Yehuda Amichai

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.

[Sven2]

The Woman In The Film

--Lesley Dauer

Because the film is running backwards,
a fireman carries a woman up his ladder
and places her gently in a burning building.
She curls softly between her bed sheets
just as a slight line of smoke
winds around the room. I feel I should say something
to the projectionist--I begin to think backwards
to my childhood, when I lit matches
and threw them over the fence.
A fireman shows me what might have burned
besides the toolshed. He motions his hand
towards my family, until my mother tells him to stop.
I head to the projectionist's booth.
On screen, the fire's receding
towards the back of the woman's house--
my mind rewinds further until I'm nothing
but a look Father gives to Mother over a candle
in some restaurant, and further still,
until my parents haven't met.
The projectionist doesn't hear me knocking.
The audience is laughing. I turn to find the fire's
gone out by itself, and the woman's own child
has just put a match back into its box.

[Sven2]

My Name

Mark Strand

One night when the lawn was a golden green
and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials
in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed
with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass
feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered
what I would become -- and where I would find myself --
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.