Friday
Jan162015
Friday, January 16, 2015 at 04:44AM
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S t e p s I n T h e L i g h t
Anshai Sfard Cemetery
Rossford, Ohio
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Who are we in the valley of their language?
The landscape listens to their
Shapes like sounds
That perfectly express the heliocryptic
Slant of the rays they tread
Homeward to barn.
And so -- grown bright enough to still our speech
And let them embody a thought
We cannot say --
We perch on the fence and study that free tongue
Of color wonderfully winding
The ragged hill.
It used to be when cows came home transfigured
One of us always jumped some
Flank of splendor
In hope of a big ride over a thousand acres --
Only to get thrown hard
On humble ground.
But now their quiet moves us. Our golden faces
Crisped by aubergine shadows from
Our golden hands
Turn after them an abstruse longing to learn --
From the slowly pageanted idiom
Their shapes take on
With jewelled clarity from the hypnogogic
THAT ART THOU still hanging bright
In the West --
Just who we are in the valley of any language
If only the gates of our silence
Let in sky.
= Frederick Stern Bock =
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Happy Friday
Thursday
Jan152015
What you have to get over
Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 04:44AM
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T h e H e i g h t s A r e A f r a i d O f M e
Allissa :: Spring 2011
Lenoir, North Carolina
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Stumps. Railroad tracks. Early sicknesses,
the blue one, especially.
Your first love rounding a corner,
that snowy minefield.
the blue one, especially.
Your first love rounding a corner,
that snowy minefield.
Whether you step lightly or heavily,
you have to get over to that tree line a hundred yards in the distance
before evening falls,
letting no one see you wend your way,
you have to get over to that tree line a hundred yards in the distance
before evening falls,
letting no one see you wend your way,
that wonderful, old-fashioned word, wend,
meaning “to proceed, to journey,
to travel from one place to another,”
as from bed to breakfast, breakfast to imbecile work.
meaning “to proceed, to journey,
to travel from one place to another,”
as from bed to breakfast, breakfast to imbecile work.
You have to get over your resentments,
the sun in the morning and the moon at night,
all those shadows of yourself you left behind
on odd little tables.
the sun in the morning and the moon at night,
all those shadows of yourself you left behind
on odd little tables.
Tote that barge! Lift that bale! You have to
cross that river, jump that hedge, surmount that slogan,
crawl over this ego or that eros,
then hoist yourself up onto that yonder mountain.
cross that river, jump that hedge, surmount that slogan,
crawl over this ego or that eros,
then hoist yourself up onto that yonder mountain.
Another old-fashioned word, yonder, meaning
“that indicated place, somewhere generally seen
or just beyond sight.” If you would recover,
you have to get over the shattered autos in the backwoods lot
“that indicated place, somewhere generally seen
or just beyond sight.” If you would recover,
you have to get over the shattered autos in the backwoods lot
to that bridge in the darkness
where the sentinels stand
guarding the border with their half-slung rifles,
warned of the likes of you.
where the sentinels stand
guarding the border with their half-slung rifles,
warned of the likes of you.
= by Dick Allen :: Poet Laureate of Connecticut =
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Happy Thursday
Wednesday
Jan142015
Unaware what is myth
Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 04:44AM
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C o n s t r u c t
Southland Memorial Gardens
West Columbia, South Carolina
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Whatever hid the sun and moon inside a mountain
brought people there to found the night
where a city swans on river water
laving with light each passing wake,
mesmerizing a couple on the riverbrink.
They seem unaware what is myth
or real, taken up, as it were, by a swan’s bill
and flown to a milkwater world
where it’s possible to drink only the milk
and eat pearls. A gunshot, a siren
interrupts the quiet. Something is thrown
into the river, then the swan is mute.
To sing of this the swan would have to out-swan
itself, Sibelius out-Sibelius Sibelius.
brought people there to found the night
where a city swans on river water
laving with light each passing wake,
mesmerizing a couple on the riverbrink.
They seem unaware what is myth
or real, taken up, as it were, by a swan’s bill
and flown to a milkwater world
where it’s possible to drink only the milk
and eat pearls. A gunshot, a siren
interrupts the quiet. Something is thrown
into the river, then the swan is mute.
To sing of this the swan would have to out-swan
itself, Sibelius out-Sibelius Sibelius.
= Carol Frost =
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Happy Wednesday
Tuesday
Jan132015
Splendors past the sun
Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 04:44AM
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R e m e m b e r e d D a y s
October Sunset
Lexington, South Carolina
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Life! Ay, what is it? E'en a moment spun
From cycles of eternity. And yet,
What wrestling 'mid the fever and the fret
Of tangled purposes and hopes undone!
What affluence of love! What vict'ries won
In agonies of silence, ere trust met
A manifold fulfillment, and the wet,
Beseeching eyes saw splendors past the sun!
What struggle in the web of circumstance,
And yearning in the wingèd music! All,
One restless strife from fetters to be free;
Till, gathered to eternity's expanse,
Is that brief moment at the Father's call.
Life! Ay, at best, 'tis but a mystery!
= Henrietta Cordelia Ray =
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Happy Tuesday
Monday
Jan122015
To spare one drop for dreaming
Monday, January 12, 2015 at 04:44AM
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R o b i n ' s N e s t :: T h i s H e a r t I L a y D o w n F o r Y o u
Temple Baptist Church Cemetery
Lenoir, North Carolina
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Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks,
And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
Far from my cause, my proper heat and center.
Better to walk forth in the frozen air
And wash my wound in the snows; that would be healing;
Because my heart would throb less painful there,
Being caked with cold, and past the smart of feeling.
And wash my wound in the snows; that would be healing;
Because my heart would throb less painful there,
Being caked with cold, and past the smart of feeling.
And where I walked, the murderous winter blast
Would have this body bowed, these eyeballs streaming,
And though I think this heart’s blood froze not fast
It ran too small to spare one drop for dreaming.
Would have this body bowed, these eyeballs streaming,
And though I think this heart’s blood froze not fast
It ran too small to spare one drop for dreaming.
Dear love, these fingers that had known your touch,
And tied our separate forces first together,
Were ten poor idiot fingers not worth much,
Ten frozen parsnips hanging in the weather.
And tied our separate forces first together,
Were ten poor idiot fingers not worth much,
Ten frozen parsnips hanging in the weather.
= John Crowe Ransom =
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Happy Monday