Sea-Fever BY JOHN MASEFIELD "I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over."
Reasons to Log Off by Kate Baer The girl who said she could never eat a second slice of pizza my senior year of college is doing really well. My cousin posts a photo of a loaded gun. Have I ever heard of the Second Amendment? Have I ever heard of this new recipe? Cauliflower, a hint of lemon, some chopped-up ginger root. Hey, do you want to lose weight in only thirty minutes? Hey, can I have just a moment of your time? Click here to receive a special invitation. Click here if you want to believe in God. Tomorrow there’s a Pride walk to support the right to marry. One comment says: I will pray for your affliction. Another says: I hope you trip, fall down, and die. Swipe up to find my new lip filler. Scroll down to read why these four girls were horribly afraid. Greg is asking for your number. Greg wants to send a big surprise. (via The New Yorker↱)
"The Ship of Death (1933) By D.H. Lawrence I Now it is autumn and the falling fruit and the long journey towards oblivion. The apples falling like great drops of dew to bruise themselves an exit from themselves. And it is time to go, to bid farewell to one’s own self, and find an exit from the fallen self. II Have you built your ship of death, O have you? O build your ship of death, for you will need it. The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth. And death is on the air like a smell of ashes! Ah! can’t you smell it? And in the bruised body, the frightened soul finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold that blows upon it through the orifices. III And can a man his own quietus make with a bare bodkin? With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make a bruise or break of exit for his life; but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus? Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder ever a quietus make? IV O let us talk of quiet that we know, that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet of a strong heart at peace! How can we this, our own quietus, make? V Build then the ship of death, for you must take the longest journey, to oblivion. And die the death, the long and painful death that lies between the old self and the new. Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised, already our souls are oozing through the exit of the cruel bruise. Already the dark and endless ocean of the end is washing in through the breaches of our wounds, already the flood is upon us. Oh build your ship of death, your little ark and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine for the dark flight down oblivion. VI Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises. We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world. We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying and our strength leaves us, and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood, cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life. VII We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship of death to carry the soul on the longest journey. A little ship, with oars and food and little dishes, and all accoutrements fitting and ready for the departing soul. Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith with its store of food and little cooking pans and change of clothes, upon the flood’s black waste upon the waters of the end upon the sea of death, where still we sail darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port. There is no port, there is nowhere to go only the deepening black darkening still blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood darkness at one with darkness, up and down and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more and the little ship is there; yet she is gone. She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by. She is gone! gone! and yet somewhere she is there. Nowhere! VIII And everything is gone, the body is gone completely under, gone, entirely gone. The upper darkness is heavy as the lower, between them the little ship is gone she is gone. It is the end, it is oblivion. IX And yet out of eternity a thread separates itself on the blackness, a horizontal thread that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark. Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume A little higher? Ah wait, wait, for there’s the dawn, the cruel dawn of coming back to life out of oblivion. Wait, wait, the little ship drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey of a flood-dawn. Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose. A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again. X The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell emerges strange and lovely. And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing on the pink flood, and the frail soul steps out, into the house again filling the heart with peace. Swings the heart renewed with peace even of oblivion. Oh build your ship of death, oh build it! for you will need it. For the voyage of oblivion awaits you."
Purple by Adélia Prado Issue no. 103 (Summer 1987) "Purple puts on the squeeze. Purple is tart and narrow. Tyrant purple goes straight for the heart, crazy for dawn. Jesus’s passion is purple and white, very close to joy. Purple is tart, it will ripen. Purple is handsome and I like him. Yellow likes him. The sky purples morning and evening, a red rose growing older. I gallop after purple, a sad memory, a four o’clock flower. I round up love to turn me purple with passion, I who choose and am chosen."
Like a small grey coffee-pot, sits the squirrel. He is not all he should be, kills by dozens trees, and eats his red-brown cousins. The keeper on the other hand, who shot him, is a Christian, and loves his enemies, which shows the squirrel was not one of those.
How to boil a lettuce "I'm going to boil a lettuce" My mother said to me "I'm going to boil a lettuce. We are having it for tea" "I'm not that partial to boiled lettuce" I replied in my disapproving voice "Are you only serving lettuce? Or do I have a choice?" "You always have a choice" My mother did reply "Eat a well done boiled lettuce, Or fill your mouth with nothing and die" "Would you prefer I die In the dinning room Or move into the lounge To pass away to my doom?" "I really don't care" said mother "How you conduct yourself" Said mother as she swept into the kitchen So here I am, by myself I peeked into the kitchen To see what was going on Mother had the lettuce placed in a pot The lettuce I had forgone At one time I mentioned "You boil a cabbage" Nearly started a riot " No no no you boil a lettuce. A cabbage on a diet" Water in the saucepan Put the lettuce in Heat the water to boiling Boil for about 10 min Not a lot to remember Not a lot required You could boil lettuce all day But your brain might get tired If you have come this far Now you know the method You can adapt the technique As long as not slipshod Go my friends I wish you luck But for me boiled lettuce Bah its just muck Messing about, to many spare moments I know it could be a lot better but was getting bored Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.” ~Mary Oliver, “Mysteries, Yes”
"Dear Someone" by Deborah Landau Issue no. 192 (Spring 2010) "my emptiness has a lake in it deep and watery with several temperaments milk cola beer at night the selves are made of water all the openings flooded streaming with rain my emptiness has an aqueduct in it selves rushing through channels dissolving washing away in streaks my emptiness has a fish in it a piece of seaweed liferaft a rocky strait all night the selves are breaking themselves again and again on the sandbar you can’t get out from the drowning nightwatery the blacksparkling pools my emptiness has a nowhere reef an island at night the immersion comes deep-running and sudden the selves it washes us under and sudden"
Rain Edward Thomas, 1916 Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: But here I pray that none whom once I loved Is dying tonight or lying still awake Solitary, listening to the rain, Either in pain or thus in sympathy Helpless among the living and the dead, Like a cold water among broken reeds, Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff, Like me who have no love which this wild rain Has not dissolved except the love of death, If love it be towards what is perfect and Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint. [via Poetry Foundation↱]
Untitled by Rainer Maria Rilke "What birds plunge through is not the intimate space in which you see all forms intensified. (Out in the Open, you would be denied your self and disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and construes the world. To know a tree, in its true element, throw inner space around it, from that pure abundance in you. Surround it with restraint. It has no limits. Not till it is held in your renouncing is it truly there."
The lyrics are from a song I wrote in my 20s. Had to use words with different meaning from original trying to keep the rhyme. No One's Land Now I wish you with lean passion and I smile I'm feeling your skin soft and delicious you are all I want... my Lyle cheerful... vain... and capricious. The afternoon deceives us the sense night comes and you wake up my sleep to stay with you, you ask so tense you want to always be mine, to me your life to keep I go outside to breathe some air, I can do no more you call me and I answer, I'll be there... ma'am slowly in silence I rather walk the back door my love, I leave you, because no one's land... I am.
My Favorite Poets by Adam Zagajewski My favorite poets never met They lived in different countries and different ages surrounded by ordinariness by good people and bad they lived modestly like an apple in an orchard They loved clouds they lifted their heads a great armada of light and shade sailed above them a film was playing that still hasn’t ended Moments of bitterness passed swiftly likewise moments of joy Sometimes they knew what the world was and wrote hard words on soft paper Sometimes they knew nothing and were like children on a school playground when the first drop of warm rain descends —Translated by Clare Cavanagh
Paradox Georgia Douglas Johnson I know you love me better, cold— Strange as the pyramids of old, Responselessly; But I am frail, am spent and weak With surging torrents that bespeak A living fire! So, like a veil, my poor disguise Is draped to save me from your eyes' Deep challenges. Fain would I fling this robe aside And from you, in your bosom hide Eternally! Alas! You love me better cold, Like frozen pyramids of old, Unyieldingly! [via Poems.org↱]
The Snowy Egret by Nancy Keating, 2021 Give me another word for regret, something more like forget only better, more effective, since in fact we really don’t forget the bad things we did or caused. I read in a letter to The Sun Magazine where a man will always remember the egret lying, a silent heap of cirrus clouds, at his 12-year-old feet. It was his first and last time shooting a gun. His confession stabbed me into a memory of unremembered shame and the ache in my stomach telling me I had joined humanity. [via American Life in Poetry↱
Peripheral by Toi Derricotte "Maybe it’s a bat’s wings at the corner of your eye, right where the eyeball swivels into its pocket. But when the brown of your eye turns where you thought the white saw, there’s only air & gold light, reality—as your mother defined it— (milk/no milk). Not for years did you learn the word longing, and only then did you see the bat— just the fringe of its wings beating, its back in a heavy black cloak."
We are All God's Poems Phillip Metres, 2021 all I crave is light & yet wintersky is busy imitating milk frozen in an upturned bowl to be a person is a sounding through, host of breathrehoused & rib scribbled inside you there above the pagecasting your gaze over us wanting us to be your mouth & what would you say with my bodybowed to bear the weight of a line so taut it sings [via Poets.org↱]
The Solstice by W. S. Merwin "They say the sun will come back at midnight after all my one love but we know how the minutes fly out into the dark trees and vanish like the great ‘ohias and the honey creepers and we know how the weeks walk into the shadows at midday at the thought of the months I reach for your hand it is not something one is supposed to say we watch the red birds in the morning we hope for the quiet daytime together the year turns into air but we are together in the whole night with the sun still going away and the year coming back."
Untitled by James Baldwin (ca. 1983) Lord, when you send the rain, think about it, please, a little?Donot get carried away by the sound of falling water, the marvelous light on the falling water. Iam beneath that water. It falls with great force and the lightBlinds me to the light. [via Poets.org↱]
Me and Trees Trees speak to me; Their language is full of silent tones, bare whispers. They almost forget that I know what they're saying, which is kind of cute. When I was young, I climbed trees to see what they had to say about it. The world was full of sound and light up there, and the view was to die for.
"Dusk fell and the cold came creeping, came prickling into our hearts. As we tucked beaks into feathers and settled for sleep, our wings knew. That night, we dreamed the journey: ice-blue sky and the yodel of flight, the sun's pale wafer, the crisp drink of clouds. We dreamed ourselves so far aloft that the earth curved beneath us and nothing sang but a whistling vee of light. When we woke, we were covered with snow. We rose in a billow of white.” ― Joyce Sidman, Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold