poetry from the bus

DE-TOUR (sing-song voice)
detour, detour
take the detour
we can squeeze through.
you can start thinking skinny thoughts NOW.

to love.

i belong as a black atom

No sólo son míos la piel venenosa del cobre
o el salitre extendido como estatua yacente y nevada,
sino la viña, el cerezo premiado por la primavera,

son míos, y yo pertenezco como átomo negro
a las áridas tierras y a la luz del otoño en las uvas,
a esta patria metálica elevada por torres de nieve.

from Cien sonetos de amor, LXIII, Pablo Neruda
full poem here

where do you want to walk to?
where do you want to walk to?
where do you want to walk to?
where do you want to walk to?

being forever/in the pre-trembling of a house that falls.

last night beth and i attended a poetry reading.

this was my favorite:

Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, by Galway Kinnell

and i see losing love
is like a window in your heart

one related to the one before. thanks amy.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.



Elizabeth Bishop

was born to

let it go


let it go--the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise--let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go--the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers--you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go--the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things--let all go
dear
so comes love



E. E. Cummings

Recuerdo

Edna St. Vincent Millay

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

i am not the bread and the knife.

i love this so. still.

Il faut être absolument moderne.

rimbaud, 1873.


in rebellion,

nap,
a cat,
friends,
my crochet,
debussy,
a book,
soup,
tea.

lifted from npr tumblr, now i must read it.

“The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off too. But before I did, it occured to me, looking around at all your things, and all your work, and going through all the years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still the most beautiful, the most beautiful work of all.”

patti smith, just kids

ahora, sí, estoy enamorada

the serviceberry leaves are red.
the oaks are dropping acorns.
the bigtooth maple leaves are sugary and falling.
the male tarantulas are wandering.

today, i found a dead bumblebee clinging to a rabbitbrush stem.

everyday with the garden will be missed.

Por donde fuimos, islas o puentes o banderas,
violines del fugaz otoño acribillado,
repitió la alegría los labios de la copa,
el dolor nos detuvo con su lección de llanto.

Soneto XXVIII, Neruda.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

ever

watching up in the air made me want to die a little bit. good movie; weird/sad commentary about how we live. the phrase "cocoon of self-banishment" hit me in the face.

in better news, i did a translation of the poem recited here.

Today I awoke outside myself
and I went to search for me.
I walked over ways and paths
until I found myself
seated on a mossy edge
at the foot of a cypress
chatting with the mist
and trying to forget
what I cannot.
At my feet,
leaves, only leaves.


Today, Humberto Ak'ab'al