July 31, 2012

Sunset by John Clare


Welcome sweet eve thy gently sloping sky
And softly whispering wind that breathes of rest
And clouds unlike what daylight galloped bye
Now stopt as weary huddling in the West
Each by the farewell of day's closing eye
Left with the smiles of heaven on its breast
Meek nurse of wearing how sweet to meet
Thy soothing tenderness to none denied
To hear thy whispering voice—ah heavenly sweet
Musing and listening by thy gentle side
Lost to life's cares thy coloured skies to view
Picturing of pleasant worlds unknown to care
And when our bark the rough sea flounders through
Warming in hopes its end shall harbour there



http://johnclaresociety.blogspot.com/

July 17, 2012

Empty Summer Twilight by Patrick Bocarde




Shaded blondes, torn jean shorts
and loose t-shirt wait on dirtbikes
for me to pass the bike path
crossing Linden Street, Massapequa Park.

Frilled leafy trees snap
at my car windows like a mad Expressionist painter.

A squirrel starts across the streets,
pausing before darting off asphalt.
Telephone lines—black whipcords—slash
the sky into acres

as full of grazing buffalo
as any American plain.

A bird feeder, clear
cylinder offering only air,
sways to a stop
inside an evergreen.

A bluejay squawks for his free lunch.
I crash into a '72 Buick.



—from the chapbook "Suburban Fuck Farm Anonymous" by Patrick Bocarde


July 10, 2012

Carousel by Kori Sayer from the chapbook Dr. Turpentine

picture by richard schemmerer



I dreamt my life in terms of science


last night I threw a cigarette into the black blue
and you caught it 25 miles away
I'm grinning like a maniac into hair and rain
as you bring your arm back down and strike a match
We're talking through seemingly occupied space
seemingly... right?
wrong
this is one of those hard to perceive angles
where you are bigger and more dimensional
than your surroundings
that perfectly deceptive angle
i pose to one side
like so
and you do the same
when we do this
everything else is flexible
the stars will spin in circles
and the trees will go flat
you could be in China
and that ciggerette would still make it
to your mouth
because when you and I move
the earth stays right there
gravity doesnt know we're meaning
to let it win the race
we like it fast
we like sitting on that bench
and having the world mold for us





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ4Xa_6B9to&feature=plcp

July 9, 2012

poetry found a living room


Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian

sharpening knives with no reservations, the teacher anoints the teacher's fountain with righteous words as the painter tapes the plastic down. a couple ascend the stone stairway to the parking lot’s rooftop performance of dusk in july is an egg broken high above a concrete bowl and we are it's audience, dazzled by fading shine. the past arrives without a past, passing like a train that won't slow down as the dusty old salesman with his too translated book scurries by in his pinstriped suit, carrying the world on his back. isn't everything done and said, instead? the singer never asks. cartoons of diversity panel the plywood covered walkway downtown, the unaffordable and undesirable never sit & sip, together or still. out of the corner of my lazy eye, a handsome japanese couple tag team their toddler's pants off, replaced with swim trunks for the wading pool, where the unfortunate city slurps it's colors scraped on black square plates, giving the music color he says, the various feeling of the poets dictates to the painter, who declares all reasonable offers will be refused. i see we are stalked by fingerprinted skin like predator reconsidering our boundaries. the plastic chain stand collapses from the force of the painter's brute sincerity, slash & gash, he dabs the waiting mouths of distinct color as the wind stripes ripples across the moist eye of the reclining cyclops, and pigeons swoop the bowl where we sit pondering all that you, all that you scraped across your life, just to tease the eye with texture. he confesses his fandom with borrowed lines as hysterical preteen girls scream in swimsuits re-enacting the horror films they shouldn't have stayed up for the man who hasn't been able to sleep on anything soft in years does not really know the woman he sleeps with. the painter conjures with a swipe of his hand, and just like that, an emerald comet appears as the train wheezes past again with its icecream cone sigh, like an elderly star too tired to shoot, dragging itself in shame beneath its sky. an adolescent girl in denim shorts, worn over black lace stockings, florid with roses,  drags a chair into the center of the pool where sits, posing like a star jealous of our moon. delicacies or dry mouth delirium is no choice at all, cornered shadows saturated in shiny silences, slipping like spaghetti straps off a shoulder of sheer brick and we have been discovered by wind as they, the children run again into the pool to discuss the rules of their improvised play. no singer has ever been fired for moaning too many baby's he thinks, these towers of stone interrupted with predictable blinks of glass have all gotten jesus turned the other cheek. wind ripped what it could from the backs of our kneeling skeletons, assembled to expose like warm bellies giving themselves to the sherbet sun. waving goodbye, i feel the evening creeping with its delicate cool, menacing the small game of our affection. time to leave; i have a job to do, stapling the neighborhood with posters of regret.




July 2, 2012

The Wild Flower Man by Lu Yu (translated by Kenneth Rexroth)



Do you know the old man who
Sells flowers by the South Gate?
He lives on flowers like a bee.
In the morning he sells mallows,
In the evening he has poppies.
His shanty roof lets in the
Blue sky. His rice bin is
Always empty. When he has
Made enough money from his
Flowers, he heads for a teahouse.
When his money is gone, he
Gathers some more flowers.
All the spring weather, while the
Flowers are in bloom, he is
In bloom, too. Every day he
Is drunk all day long. What does
He care if new laws are posted
At the Emperor's palace?
What does it matter to him
If the goverment is built
On sand? If you try to talk
To him, he won't answer but
Only give you a drunken
Smile from under his tousled hair.



-from the book "The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry"
edited by Eliot Weinberger
http://ndbooks.com/book/the-new-directions-anthology-of-classical-chinese-poetry