Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning

1

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.

from Sunday Morning, Wallace Stevens
http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/wallace-stevens/sunday-morning/

"Real power comes not from hate, but from truth."
~Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Empires - Charles Simic

Empires
by Charles Simic

My grandmother prophesied the end
Of your empires, O fools!
She was ironing. The radio was on.
The earth trembled beneath our feet.

One of your heroes was giving a speech.
“Monster,” she called him.
There were cheers and gun salutes for the monster.
“I could kill him with my bare hands,”
She announced to me.

There was no need to. They were all
Going to the devil any day now.
“Don’t go blabbering about this to anyone,”
She warned me.
And pulled my ear to make sure I understood.

-Charles Simic

"Read them or don't read them, you will regret both."
~Kierkegaard

Travel (Jack)

 

We need to take
                Everywhere into                                                                                                              Join
                                Consideration:

India,
                Taiwan,
                                The plateau
                in Peru.
Holy Islam,                                                                                                                                          Me,
                Don’t forget
                                Israel,
Jerusalem,
                Bethlehem.
The winds blow trade
                Through infernos.                                                                                                            My
                                                Two
Toppled towers in
                Bologna. Lets
Give Spain a try,
                                Why not London                                                                                              Holy
While we’re there?

Countries I will
                Only know by their
                                Curve on the map.                                                                                          Brothers.
Perfectly flat world.

Pjc jr 92212

Unconscious Activity

Most of your unconscious
Activity is struggle.
Systems making assertive
Efforts to remain stable.
It's just evolution.
Metabolic cap breached.
Excessive post exercise
Oxygen consumption.
Lag for stabilization.

After car crashes,
Screaming children,
Showdowns with
Power hungry capitalists,
Avoiding cracks for
Six years,
Viewings and binges;
Why would you expect anything
Different from any
Other part of your life?

pjc jr 9812

On Turning Ten - Billy Collins

On Turning Ten - by Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

-Billy Collins

 

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-turning-ten/