Share A Poet

Merrymaker

Literotica Guru
Joined
Apr 15, 2004
Posts
517
I was off on a quest, to find what now I cannot seem to remember...but I found this gentleman instead:

Federico Garcia Lorca, Spanish surrealist.
Now, one of his gems

The Gypsy and the Wind

Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes
along a watery path of laurels and crystal lights.
The starless silence, fleeing
from her rhythmic tambourine,
falls where the sea whips and sings,
his night filled with silvery swarms.
High atop the mountain peaks
the sentinels are weeping;
they guard the tall white towers
of the English consulate.
And gypsies of the water
for their pleasure erect
little castles of conch shells
and arbors of greening pine.

Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes.
The wind sees her and rises,
the wind that never slumbers.

Naked Saint Christopher swells,
watching the girl as he plays
with tongues of celestial bells
on an invisible bagpipe.

Gypsy, let me lift your skirt
and have a look at you.
Open in my ancient fingers
the blue rose of your womb.

Precosia throws the tambourine
and runs away in terror.
But the virile wind pursues her
with his breathing and burning sword.

The sea darkens and roars,
while the olive trees turn pale.
The flutes of darkness sound,
and a muted gong of the snow.

Precosia, run, Precosia!
Or the green wind will catch you!
Precosia, run, Precosia!
And look how fast he comes!
A satyr of low-born stars
with their long and glistening tongues.

Precosia, filled with fear,
now makes her way to that house
beyond the tall green pines
where the English consul lives.

Alarmed by the anguished cries,
three riflemen come running,
their black capes tightly drawn,
and berets down over their brow.

The Englishman gives the gypsy
a glass of tepid milk
and a shot of Holland gin
which Precosia does not drink.

And while she tells them, weeping,
of her strange adventure,
the wind furiously gnashes
against the slate roof tiles.



Feel free to share a poet you find enticing.
 
Last edited:
Oh Yes!

Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
Federico Garcia Lorca

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.
 
Kim Addonizio

Good Girl by Kim Addonizio

Look at you, sitting there being good.
After two years you’re still dying for a cigarette.
And not drinking on weekdays, who thought that one up?
Don’t you want to run to the corner right now
for a fifth of vodka and have it with cranberry juice
and a nice lemon slice, wouldn’t the backyard
that you’re so sick of staring out into
look better then, the tidy yard your landlord tends
day and night—the fence with its fresh coat of paint,
the ash-free barbeque, the patio swept clean of small twigs—
don’t you want to mess it all up, to roll around
like a dog in his flowerbeds? Aren’t you a dog anyway,
always groveling for love and begging to be petted?
You ought to get into the garbage and lick the insides
of the can, the greasy wrappers, the picked-over bones,
you ought to drive your snout into the coffee grounds.
Ah, coffee! Why not gulp some down with four cigarettes
and then blast naked into the streets, and leap on the first
beautiful man you find? The words Ruin me, haven’t they
been jailed in your throat for forty years, isn’t it time
you set them loose in slutty dresses and torn fishnets
to totter around in five-inch heels and smeared mascara?
Sure it’s time. You’ve rolled over long enough.
Forty, forty-one. At the end of all this
there’s one lousy biscuit, and it tastes like dirt.
So get going. Listen, they’re howling for you now:
up and down the block your neighbors’ dogs
burst into frenzied barking and won’t shut up.
 
Nice thread

Saul Williams was a favourite poet of mine for alot of my young years... back in the day I appreciated free verse etc. Nowadays, even though I don't really like his structure, I still appreciate his substance and style. I'll cease all rambling now and just post a poem or two of his.... the first has a nice sound and tempo to it, very musical I feel.... the second I just think shows wonderful insight.

Untitled. Taken from She by Saul Williams

"I chased birds today
I sang on a sphere
Changing octaves through fear
Wedged my voice into the bark of trees
Cleared my throat
And my throat clearly soared
amongst those chased birds

chaste words

in the ghetto of my mind
sentiments tenement
prolific project

12 story complex
but only one landlord
and I;m behind in rent
and they're threatening
to turn off the lights

section 8 asylum
why do I allow such tenants?
they never pay on time
and actions speak louder than...

but I have a million idealogical mouths to feed
whildren who play hooky on the roof of my mouth
and every cavity has squatters

all this
before a single word is said

I am still
but seldom silent"



Untitled. Taken from She by Saul Williams

"Is it ideas that I love?
Well framed thoughts?

There are many galleries
That sit unattended
Never communing
With the common

Then actions are graffitied ideas

My eyes are closing
As my heart opens
So does this book."
 
An interesting thought:

"Victorious! Sometimes victorious over the most atrocious inhibitions, a last-minute maneuver corrects a shadow, an imprudent gesture--and beauty is reborn."
Claude Cahun aka Lucy Schwob (1894-1954)
 
Merrymaker said:
An interesting thought:

"Victorious! Sometimes victorious over the most atrocious inhibitions, a last-minute maneuver corrects a shadow, an imprudent gesture--and beauty is reborn."
Claude Cahun aka Lucy Schwob (1894-1954)


I see someone is feeling much better and perhaps has her new super computer up and working??
:D

I saw this the other day and knew you'd like it.

"Love is a friendship with erotic moments."
Antonio Gala (Spanish writer, b.1930)

Good to see you back around
:rose:
 
Tathagata said:
I see someone is feeling much better and perhaps has her new super computer up and working??
:D

I saw this the other day and knew you'd like it.

"Love is a friendship with erotic moments."
Antonio Gala (Spanish writer, b.1930)

Good to see you back around
:rose:


Nice one!
:kiss:

Oh yes, glad to have my own portal to the magical mystery tour back. ;)
 
My Siren
by Robert Desnos, translated by Amy Levin

My siren is blue as the veins where she swims
For the moment she sleeps on mother-of-pearl
And on the ocean I create for her
She can visit the magic grottoes of preposterous isles
There, some very foolish birds
converse with crocodiles who never finish up
And the very foolish birds fly above the blue siren
The crocodiles return to their drink
And the island doesn't come back
doesn't come back from where it's placed
where my siren and I have forgotten it
My siren has some very beautiful stars in her sky
Blonde stars with black eyes
Red haired stars with sparkling teeth
and dark stars with beautiful breasts
Each night three by three
alternating the color of their hair
These stars visit my siren
This makes for lots of comings and goings in the sky
But my siren's sky isn't an ordinary sky
My siren has seven boats on her ocean
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Saturday and Sunday
Some with steam the others with sails
Some rapid the others slow
But all beautiful all charming
with sailors who know their craft

My siren has soaps in all shapes and colors
To wash her lovely skin
My siren has many soaps
One for her hands
Another for her feet
One for yesterday
One for tomorrow
One for each eye
And that one for her scaly tail
And this other one for her hair
And another one for her belly
And another one for her back.

My siren sings for no one but me
I tell my friends to listen to her in vain
No one ever hears her
Except one, only one
But though his air is sincere
I mistrust him, he might be a liar
 
Last edited:
I have always loved this...

Singing-Woman At The Wood's Edge
Edna St Vincent Millay


What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?

And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?

You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother's web,

But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love a a priest for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!

After all's said and after all's done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.

And there'd sit my Ma, with her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!

Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both way by my mother and my father,
With a "Which would you better?" and a " Which would you
rather?"

With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?​
 
Maya Angelou

I love the way Maya Angelou writes.... here is one that captured me.

Touched by An Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
 
The Moon Is Always Female
Marge Piercy

The moon is always female and so
am I although often in this vale
of razorblades I have wished I could
put on and take off my sex like a dress
and why not? Do men always wear their sex
always? The priest, the doctor, the teacher
all tell us they come to their professions
neuter as clams and the truth is
when I work I am pure as an angel
tiger and clear is my eye and hot
my brain and silent all the whining
grunting piglets of the appetites.
For we were priests to the goddesses
to whom were fashioned the first altars
of clumsy stone on stone and leaping animal
in the wombdark caves, long before men
put on skirts and masks to scare babies.
For we were healers with herbs and poultices
with our milk and careful fingers
long before they began learning to cut up
the living by making jokes at corpses.
For we were making sounds from our throats
and lips to warn and encourage the helpless
young long before schools were built
to teach boys to obey and be bored and kill.

I wake in a strange slack empty bed
of a motel, shaking like dry leaves
the wind rips loose, and in my head
is bound a girl of twelve whose female
organs all but the numb womb are being
cut from her with a knife. Clitoridectomy,
whatever Latin name you call it, in a quarter
of the world girl children are so maimed
and I think of her and I cannot stop.
And I think of her and I cannot stop.

If you are a woman you feel the knife in the words.
If you are a man, then at age four or else
at twelve you are seized and held down
and your penis is cut off. You are left
your testicles but they are sewed to your
crotch. When your spouse buys you, you
are torn or cut open so that your precious
semen can be siphoned out, but of course
you feel nothing. But pain. But pain.

For the uses of men we have been butchered
and crippled and shut up and carved open
under the moon that swells and shines
and shrinks again into nothingness, pregnant
and then waning toward its little monthly
death. The moon is always female but the sun
is female only in lands where females
are let into the sun to run and climb.

A woman is screaming and I hear her.
A woman is bleeding and I see her
bleeding from the mouth, the womb, the breasts
in a fountain of dark blood of dismal
daily tedious sorrow quite palatable
to the taste of the mighty and taken for granted
that the bread of domesticity be baked
of our flesh, that the hearth be built
of our bones of animals kept for meat and milk,
that we open and lie under and weep.
I want to say over the names of my mothers
like the stones of a path I am climbing
rock by slippery rock into the mists.
Never even at knife point have I wanted
or been willing to be or become a man.
I want only to be myself and free.

I am waiting for the moon to rise. Here
I squat, the whole country with its steel
mills and its coal mines and its prisons
at my back and the continent tilting
up into mountains and torn by shining lakes
all behind me on this scythe of straw,
a sand bar cast on the ocean waves, and I
wait for the moon to rise red and heavy
in my eyes. Chilled, cranky, fearful
in the dark I wait and I am all the time
climbing slippery rocks in a mist while
far below the waves crash in the sea caves;
I am descending a stairway under the groaning
sea while the black waters buffet me
like rockweed to and fro.

I have swum the upper waters leaping
in dolphin's skin for joy equally into the nec-
cessary air and the tumult of the powerful wave.
I am entering the chambers I have visited.
I have floated through them sleeping and sleep-
walking and waking, drowning in passion
festooned with green bladderwrack of misery.
I have wandered these chambers in the rock
where the moon freezes the air and all hair
is black or silver. Now I will tell you
what I have learned lying under the moon
naked as women do: now I will tell you
the changes of the high and lower moon.
Out of necessity's hard stones we suck
what water we can and so we have survived,
women born of women. There is knowing
with the teeth as well as knowing with
the tongue and knowing with the fingertips
as well as knowing with words and with all
the fine flickering hungers of the brain.
 
The Happiest Day
Linda Pastun


It was early May, I think
a moment of lilac or dogwood
when so many promises are made
it hardly matters if a few are broken.
My mother and father still hovered
in the background, part of the scenery
like the houses I had grown up in,
and if they would be torn down later
that was something I knew
but didn’t believe. Our children were asleep
or playing, the youngest as new
as the new smell of the lilacs,
and how could I have guessed
their roots were shallow
and would be easily transplanted.
I didn’t even guess that I was happy.
The small irritations that are like salt
on melon were what I dwelt on,
though in truth they simply
made the fruit taste sweeter.
So we sat on the porch
in the cool morning, sipping
hot coffee. Behind the news of the day—
strikes and small wars, a fire somewhere—
I could see the top of your dark head
and thought not of public conflagrations
but of how it would feel on my bare shoulder.
If someone could stop the camera then …
if someone could only stop the camera
and ask me: are you happy?
perhaps I would have noticed
how the morning shone in the reflected
color of lilac. Yes, I might have said
and offered a steaming cup of coffee.
 
impressive said:
The Moon Is Always Female
Marge Piercy

The moon is always female

<snip>

Marge Piercy is one of my favorite writers. Have you ever read any of her novels? Gone to Soldiers about World War II is a masterpiece.

:)
 
Untitled
by Margus Bobesich


I move in to life,
my slippers black from the street -
dumbstruck.

Our neighbours ask, "What's with him?
the walking through sleep,
the running through our hedges full tilt?"

But we suck at saving face -
standing there, pajama-bottomed.
"Can't you hear the noise?" I offer.
"Your heart telling you
night after night what it really wants;
where it really wants to go?"

How it's kicking at the tires, the pillows,
our roofs -
a pounding you could dance to.
 
Love Song
Forugh Farrokhzad

My nights are painted bright with your dream, sweet love
and heavy with your fragrance is my breast.
you fill my eyes with your presence, sweet love.
giving me more happiness than grief.
like rain washing through the soil
you have washed my life clean.
you are the heartbeat of my burning body;
a fire blazing in the shade of my eyelashes.
you are more bountiful than the wheat fields,
more fruit-laden than the golden boughs.
against the onslaught of darkening doubts
you are a door thrown open to the suns.
when I am with you, I fear no pain
for my only pain is a pain of happiness.
this sad heart of mine and so much light?
sounds of life from the bottom of a grave?

Your eyes are my pastures, sweet love
the stamp of your gaze burning deep into my eyes.
if I had you within me before, sweet love
I would not take anybody else for you.
oh it's a dark pain, this urge of wanting;
setting out, belittling oneself fruitlessly;
laying one's head on chests hiding a black heart;
soiling one's breast with ancient hatred;
finding a snake in a caressing hand;
discovering venom behind friendly smiles;
putting coins into deceitful hands;
getting lost in the midst of bazaars.

You are my breath of life, sweet love,
you have brought me back to life from the grave.
you have come down from the distant sky,
like a star on two golden wings
silencing my loneliness, sweet love,
Imbuing my body with odors of your embrace.
you are water to the dry streams of my breasts,
you are a torrent to the dry bed of my veins.
in a world so cold and as bleak,
in step with your steps, I proceed.

You are hidden under my skin
flowing through my every cell,
singeing my hair with your caressing hand,
leaving my cheeks sunburned with desire.
you are, sweet love, a stranger to my dress
but so familiar with the fields of my nakedness.
o bright and eternal sunrise,
the strong sunshine of southern climes,
you are fresher than early dawn,
fresher and better-watered than spring-tide.
this is no longer love, it is dazzlement,
a chandelier blazing amidst silence and darkness.
ever since love was awakened in my heart,
I have become total devotion with desire.
this is no longer me, no longer me,
oh wasted are the years I lived with "me."
my lips are the altar of your kisses, sweet love
my eyes watching out for the arrival of your kiss.

You are the convulsions of ecstasy in my body,
like a garment, the lines of your figure covering me.
oh I am going to burst open like a bud,
my joy becoming tarnished for a moment with sorrow.
oh I wish to jump to my feet
and pour down tears like a cloud

This sad heart of mine and burning incense?
music of harp and lyre in a prayer-hall?
this empty space and such flights?
this silent night and so much song?
your gaze is like a magic lullaby, sweet love,
a cradle for restless babies.
your breathing is a breeze half-asleep
washing down all my tremors of anguish;
it is hidden in the smiles of my tomorrows,
it has sunken deep into the depths of my worlds.

You have touched me with the frenzy of poetry;
pouring fire into my songs,
kindling my heart with the fever of love,
thus setting all my poems ablaze, sweet love.
 
Not a Poet

but a link to a wonderful lecture about writing by one of my favorite writers, Chaim Potok. I just wanted to share it--it's a great read about passion for writing and living the writer's life.

It's not short--it's a lecture, but it is great stuff.

It's here.

:)
 
Last edited:
A Tale
by Louise Bogan

This youth too long has heard the break
Of waters in a land of change.
He goes to see what suns can make
From soil more indurate and strange.

He cuts what holds his days together
And shuts him in, as lock on lock:
The arrowed vane announcing weather,
The tripping racket of a clock;

Seeking, I think, a light that waits
Still as a lamp upon a shelf, --
A land with hills like rocky gates
Where no sea leaps upon itself.

But he will find that nothing dares
To be enduring, save where, south
Of hidden deserts, torn fire glares
On beauty with a rusted mouth, --

Where something dreadful and another
Look quietly upon each other.
 
Listen
by Laura Stamps

The pinewoods whistle as if
it were a steaming coffee kettle,
leaves crackling like cotton
sheets on a clothesline, an
emerald tide rippling without end.
Listen, the moon is afire, her
pale cup a cameo pinned to the
suede collar of the morning sky.
Red geraniums laugh a riot of
blossoms. Clouds rub against
one another, preening, twittering,
perched in the warm, hazy cage
of a blue canary day. Listen
how the wind licks the city,
crunching stacks of pampas grass
like saltine crackers. Spangled
lilies smack their gums, devouring
pennies from the sun, while tree
frogs rehearse graveled songs,
chanting to the lemon meringue
of the moon. Listen, it’s June.
 
Last edited:
from Sonnets from the Portugese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
 
"The Hug" by Thom Gunn

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend​
Who'd showed us in the end​
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.​
Already I lay snug,​
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.



I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,​
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,​
My shoulder-blades against your chest.

It was not sex, but I could feel

The whole strength of your body set,​
Or braced, to mine,​
And locking me to you​
As if we were still twenty-two

When our grand passion had not yet​
Become familial.​
My quick sleep had deleted all

Of intervening time and place.​
I only knew​
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.
 
I doubt many of you part take of gothic metal/rock but the lyrics to this song are so...good...I just had to share them. They read like poetry to me.

Her Ghost In The Fog
By: Cradle of Filth
CD: Midian


"The Moon, she hangs like a cruel portrait
soft winds whisper the bidding of trees
as this tragedy starts with a shattered glass heart
and the Midnightmare trampling of dreams
But on, no tears please
Fear and pain may accompany Death
But it is desire that shepherds it's certainty
as We shall see..."

She was divinity's creature
That kissed in cold mirrors
A Queen of Snos
Far beyond compare
Lips attuned to symmetry
Sought Her everywhere
Dark liqoured eyes
An Arabian nightmare...

She shone on watercolours
Of my pondlife as pearl
Until those who couldn't have Her
Cut Her free of this World

That fateful Eve when...
The trees stank of sunset and camphor
Their lanterns chased phantoms and threw
An imquisitive glance, like the shadows they cast
On my love picking rue by the light of the moon

Putting reason to flight
Or to death as their way
They crept through woods mesmerized
By the taffeta Ley
Of Her hips that held sway
Over all they surveyed
Save a mist on the rise
(A deadly blessing to hide)
Her ghost in the fog

They raped left...
(Five men of God)
...Her ghost in the fog

Dawn discovered Her there
Beneath the Cedar's stare
Silk dress torn, Her raven hair
Flown to gown Her beauty bared
Was starred with frost, I knew Her lost
I wept 'til tears crept back to prayer

She'd sworn Me vows in fragrant blood
"Never to part
Lest jealous Heaven stole our hearts"

Then this I screamed:
"Come back to Me
I was born in love with thee
So why should fate stand inbetween?"

And as I drowned Her gentle curves
With dreams unsaid and final words
I espied a gleam trodden to earth
The Church bell tower key...

The village mourned her by the by
For She'd been a witch
their Men had longed to try
And I broke under Christ seeking guilty signs
My tortured soul on ice

A Queen of snow
Far beyond compare
Lips attuned to symmetry
Sought Her everywhere
Trappistine eyes
An Arabian nightmare...

She was Ersulie possessed
Of a milky white skin
My porcelain Yin
A graceful Angel of Sin

And so for Her...
The breeze stank of sunset and camphor
My lantern chased Her phantom and blew
Their Chapel ablaze and all locked in to a pain
Best reserved for judgement that their bible construed...

Putting reason to flight
Or to flame unashamed
I swept form cries
Mesmerized
By the taffeta Ley
Or Her hips that held sway
Over all those at bay
Save a mist on the rise
A final blessing to hide
Her ghost in the fog

And I embraced
Where lovers rot...
Her ghost in the fog

Her ghost in the fog
 
Du Lac said:
I love the way Maya Angelou writes.... here is one that captured me.


Another synchronicity, poet sister. I love Maya! Here is one of hers that I love~

"Phenomenal Woman"

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah! That's me.

Syn :kiss:
 
Back
Top