I Turn the Carriage, Yoke and Set Off - Traditional Chinese Poem (anon, tr. Burton Watson & Arthur Waley)
I turn the carriage, yoke and set off,
far far, over never-ending roads.
The autumn winds shake the hundred grasses,
On every side, how desolate and bare!
Among all I meet, nothing of the past;
Their strangeness hastens the coming of old age.
Prosperity and decay, each have their season;
success is bitter when it is so late in coming!
Man is not made of metal or stone;
He cannot far prolong the days of his fate.
Swiftly he follows in the wake of change;
Fame is the only treasure that endures.
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On the Nature of Love - Rabindranath Tagore
The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom - of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith - that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
for your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who came close and moved off
in the darkness - I don't know if they exist or not.
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Black Woman - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Don’t knock at my door, little child,
I cannot let you in,
You know not what a world this is
Of cruelty and sin.
Wait in the still eternity
Until I come to you,
The world is cruel, cruel, child,
I cannot let you in!
Don’t knock at my heart, little one,
I cannot bear the pain
Of turning deaf-ear to your call
Time and time again!
You do not know the monster men
Inhabiting the earth,
Be still, be still, my precious child,
I must not give you birth!
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Nothing - Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (tr. Sarah Maguire & Atef Alshaer)
Before you start reading,
put down your pen:
consider the ink,
how it comprehends bleeding
Learn
from the distant horizon
and from the narrowing eyes
the expansiveness of vision
and the treachery of hands
Do not blame me – do not blame anyone –
if you die before you read on
before blood is understood
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The Infinite Shining Heavens - Robert Louis Stevenson
The infinite shining heavens
Rose and I saw in the night
Uncountable angel stars
Showering sorrow and light.
I saw them distant as heaven,
Dumb and shining and dead,
And the idle stars of the night
Were dearer to me than bread.
Night after night in my sorrow
The stars stood over the sea,
Till lo! I looked in the dusk
And a star had come down to me
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Love Poems When All The Flowers Are Dead - Ash Davida Jane
This is the start of a new poetry school It’s called ~Dinosaur Romanticism~
We write lines like
I miss you like a long-dead pterodactyl misses the air rushing through its wings!
&
You make my body tremble like a much younger Earth under a T-Rex’s feet!
I’d swallow the comet whole for you
but it can’t make them come back
Here’s my ode to a diplodocus Here’s my meditation on brachiosaurus hearts
It would have gone down well in the Late Jurassic era but it’s no good as elegy
Here’s a pile of old bones lashed together +
a library like a graveyard with shiny new
headstones
This poem is like a bird’s broken rib It’s so small you’d never notice it
but once there’s enough of them you’ll start to hear it –
the gaps in the song
You can dress a skeleton up as much as you want but it still looks just as dead
You can hide the scent
You can come crying when all your books are full of rotting corpses
& all your love poems are about birds that your children will never see alive
only tiny dioramas in museums
cold bones with the feathers hot-glued on
Source: https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-7/ash-davida-jane
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Breathe. As in. (shadow) - Rosamond S. King
Breathe
. As in what if
the shadow is gold
en? Breathe. As in
hale assuming
exhale. Imagine
that. As in first
person singular. Homonym
:eye. As in subject. As
in centeroftheworld as in
mundane. The opposite of spectacle
spectacular. This is just us
breathing. Imagine
normalized respite
gold in shadows
. You have the
right to breathe and remain
. Imagine
that
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Gone to the Unseen - Rumi
At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen.
What marvelous route did you take from this world?
Beating your wings and feathers,
you broke free from this cage.
Rising up to the sky
you attained the world of the soul.
You were a prized falcon trapped by an Old Woman.
Then you heard the drummer’s call
and flew beyond space and time.
As a lovesick nightingale, you flew among the owls.
Then came the scent of the rosegarden
and you flew off to meet the Rose.
The wine of this fleeting world
caused your head to ache.
Finally you joined the tavern of Eternity.
Like an arrow, you sped from the bow
and went straight for the bull’s eye of bliss.
This phantom world gave you false signs
But you turned from the illusion
and journeyed to the land of truth.
You are now the Sun –
what need have you for a crown?
You have vanished from this world –
what need have you to tie your robe?
I’ve heard that you can barely see your soul.
But why look at all? –
yours is now the Soul of Souls!
O heart, what a wonderful bird you are.
Seeking divine heights,
Flapping your wings,
you smashed the pointed spears of your enemy.
The flowers flee from Autumn, but not you –
You are the fearless rose
that grows amidst the freezing wind.
Pouring down like the rain of heaven
you fell upon the rooftop of this world.
Then you ran in every direction
and escaped through the drain spout . . .
Now the words are over
and the pain they bring is gone.
Now you have gone to rest
in the arms of the Beloved.
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Cradle Song - William Blake
Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.
Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.
As thy softest limbs I feel
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart doth rest.
O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart doth wake,
Then the dreadful night shall break.
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Freedom - Langston Hughes
Freedom will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want my freedom
Just as you.
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On World-Making - Nomi Stone
To love is to tell the story of the world. There was
an ocean with a boat mountains a meadow too painful to stare
at directly. Haven’t I been here before? Yes. No: not quite here.
“It is not as if,” the philosopher writes, “an I exists
independently over here and then simply loses a you over there.”
In the mist, a man rigs the Suzelle, little red boat.
Loved labored for months, learning to tie the right knot. The exact
and only knot that will keep the vessel tethered. She rehearsed
for the worst possible thing. “The attachment to you,” it is written,
“is part of what composes who I am.” I know/knew
those hands, hers. I watched her dust the sourdough with flour
at midnight a moon between her fingers. Gone
went Loved. But the half-world of her in me
was me. It was lit by the moon.
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A White Rose - John Boyle O’Reilly
The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rose bud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
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Last Curtain - Rabindranath Tagore
I know that the day will come
when my sight of this earth shall be lost,
and life will take its leave in silence,
drawing the last curtain over my eyes.
Yet stars will watch at night,
and morning rise as before,
and hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains.
When I think of this end of my moments,
the barrier of the moments breaks
and I see by the light of death
thy world with its careless treasures.
Rare is its lowliest seat,
rare is its meanest of lives.
Things that I longed for in vain
and things that I got
---let them pass.
Let me but truly possess
the things that I ever spurned
and overlooked.
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On a Night of the Full Moon - Audre Lorde
Out of my flesh that hungers
and my mouth that knows
comes the shape I am seeking
for reason.
The curve of your waiting body
fits my waiting hand
your breasts warm as sunlight
your lips quick as young birds
between your thighs the sweet
sharp taste of limes.
Thus I hold you
frank in my heart's eye
in my skin's knowing
as my fingers conceive your flesh
I feel your stomach
moving against me.
Before the moon wanes again
we shall come together.
And I would be the moon
spoken over your beckoning flesh
breaking against reservations
beaching thought
my hands at your high tide
over and under inside you
and the passing of hungers
attended, forgotten.
Darkly risen
the moon speaks
my eyes
judging your roundness
delightful.
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Georgia Dusk - Jean Toomer
The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
The setting sun, too indolent to hold
A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,
Passively darkens for night’s barbecue,
A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,
An orgy for some genius of the South
With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,
Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.
The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,
And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,
Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfil
Their early promise of a bumper crop.
Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile
Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low
Where only chips and stumps are left to show
The solid proof of former domicile.
Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp,
Race memories of king and caravan,
High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,
Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp.
Their voices rise . . the pine trees are guitars,
Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain . .
Their voices rise . . the chorus of the cane
Is caroling a vesper to the stars . .
O singers, resinous and soft your songs
Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.
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Among Worlds - Innokenty Annensky
Among the worlds, in the glittering of luminaries,
I keep repeating the name of one Star only….
Not because I feel love for Her,
But that with others all is mirthless cheating.
And when I am overpowered by doubt,
from Her alone I seek an answer,
not because she gives light,
but because with Her no light is needed.
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Среди миров, в мерцании светил
Одной Звезды я повторяю имя…
Не потому, чтоб я Её любил,
А потому, что я томлюсь с другими.
И если мне сомненье тяжело,
Я у Неё одной ищу ответа,
Не потому, что от Неё светло,
А потому, что с Ней не надо света.
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On Trans - Miller Oberman
The process of through is ongoing.
The earth doesn’t seem to move, but sometimes we fall
down against it and seem to briefly alight on its turning.
We were just going. I was just leaving,
which is to say, coming
elsewhere. Transient. I was going as I came, the words
move through my limbs, lungs, mouth, as I appear to sit
peacefully at your hearth transubstantiating some wine.
It was a rough red, it was one of those nights we were not
forced by circumstances to drink wine out of mugs.
Circumstances being, in those cases, no one had been
transfixed at the kitchen sink long enough to wash dishes.
I brought armfuls of wood from the splitting stump.
Many of them, because it was cold, went right on top
of their recent ancestors. It was an ice night.
They transpired visibly, resin to spark,
bark to smoke, wood to ash. I was
transgendering and drinking the rough red at roughly
the same rate and everyone who looked, saw.
The translucence of flames beat against the air
against our skins. This can be done with
or without clothes on. This can be done with
or without wine or whiskey but never without water:
evaporation is also ongoing. Most visibly in this case
in the form of wisps of steam rising from the just washed hair
of a form at the fire whose beauty was in the earth’s
turning, that night and many nights, transcendent.
I felt heat changing me. The word for this is
transdesire, but in extreme cases we call it transdire
or when this heat becomes your maker we say
transire, or when it happens in front of a hearth:
transfire.
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