RIP Maya Angelou

MEN

When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men.
Young men sharp as mustard.
See them. Men are always
Going somewhere.
They knew I was there. Fifteen
Years old and starving for them.
Under my window, they would pause,
Their shoulders high like the
Breasts of a young girl,
Jacket tails slapping over
Those behinds,
Men.

One day they hold you in the
Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you
Were the last raw egg in the world. Then
They tighten up. Just a little. The
First squeeze is nice. A quick hug.
Soft into your defenselessness. A little
More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a
Smile that slides around the fear. When the
Air disappears,
Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly,
Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered.
It is your juice
That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes.
When the earth rights itself again,
And taste tries to return to the tongue,
Your body has slammed shut. Forever.
No keys exist.

Then the window draws full upon
Your mind. There, just beyond
The sway of curtains, men walk.
Knowing something.
Going someplace.
But this time, I will simply
Stand and watch.

Maybe. 

Maya Angelou

Theodore Roethke

The Dance

Is that dance slowing in the mind of man

That made him think the universe could hum?

The great wheel turns its axle when it can;

I need a place to sing, and dancing-room,

And I have made a promise to my ears

I'll sing and whistle romping with the bears.

For they are all my friends: I saw one slide

Down a steep hillside on a cake of ice, —

Or was that in a book? I think with pride:

A caged bear rarely does the same thing twice

In the same way: O watch his body sway! mdash;

This animal remembering to be gay.

I tried to fling my shadow at the moon,

The while my blood leaped with a wordless song.

Though dancing needs a master, I had none

To teach my toes to listen to my tongue.

But what I learned there, dancing all alone,

Was not the joyless motion of a stone.

I take this cadence from a man named Yeats;

I take it, and I give it back again:

For other tunes and other wanton beats

Have tossed my heart and fiddled through my brain.

Yes, I was dancing-mad, and how

That came to be the bears and Yeats would know.

Theodore Roethke

Czelaw Milosz

In The Middle Of Life (translation: Czeslaw Milosz)

After the end of the world
after my death
I found myself in the middle of life
I created myself
constructed life
people animals landscapes

this is a table I was saying
this is a table
on the table are lying bread a knife
the knife serves to cut the bread

people nourish themselves with bread

one should love man

I was learning by night and day
what one should love
I answered man

this is a window I was saying
this is a window
beyond the window is a garden
in the garden I see an apple tree
the apple tree blossoms
the blossoms fall off
the fruits take form
they ripen my father is picking up an apple
that man who is picking up an apple
is my father
I was sitting on the threshold of the house

that old woman who
is pulling a goat on a rope
is more necessary
and more precious
than the seven wonders of the world
whoever thinks and feels
that she is not necessary
he is guilty of genocide

this is a man
this is a tree this is bread

people nourish themselves in order to live
I was repeating to myself
human life is important
human life has great importance
the value of life
surpasses the value of all the objects
which man has made
man is a great treasure
I was repeating stubbornly

this water I was saying
I was stroking the waves with my hand
and conversing with the river
water I said
good water
this is I

the man talked to the water
talked to the moon
to the flowers to the rain
he talked to the earth
to the birds
to the sky
the sky was silent
the earth was silent
if he heard a voice
which flowed
from the earth from the water from the sky
it was the voice of another man

How Blue

The world is blue -
depressed valleys
surrounded by
rings of hills
the sky
wind and weather
the shiver of little leaves
over a tepid brook.

All lies 
as he leaned in for the kiss
all lies and eyes

she thought -
How blue.

-Debbie Calverley

Yaaaaaaaay Arsenal!!

Sting

Phantom Limb

Pain where I stepped on a pine 
cone

Pang from a 10 year old 
scar

Sometimes I think my left arm is
gone

Until I realize I'm still
attached

-Debbie Calverley

Poem by Spencer Reece

At Thomas Merton's Grave

We can never be with loss too long.
Behind the warped door that sticks,
the wood thrush calls to the monks,
pausing atop the stone crucifix,
singing: "I am marvelous alone!"
Thrash, thrash goes the hayfield:
rows of marrow and bone undone.
The horizon's flashing fastens tight,
sealing the blue hills with vermilion.
Moss dyes a squirrel's skull green.
The cemetery expands its borders—
little milky crosses grow like teeth.
How kind time is, altering space
so nothing stays wrong: and light,
more new light, always arrives.

SPENCER REECE

Poem by Martha Silano

The Poet Is the Priest of the Invisible

                        —Wallace Stevens

Dark-eyed, mysterious Meadowhawk,
the poet is the rabbi of the diaphanous,

scribe of the sheer, the barely-there
brief, pungi of the five o'clock shadow,

hint of rosewood and ghost. The poet
preaches a thin-barked willow sermon;

what she labors over is always prone
to sunscald, to scrutiny, its veins

visible through the skin. Gossamer
goddess, translucent muse, she lofts

a gauzy lug wrench toward the shadowy
freeway, where the alphabet—each of its

limpid clauses, each hyaline verb—
has once again broken down, needs a lift.

MARTHA SILANO

Claire by Rheostatics

RIP Farley Mowat

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/farley-mowat-dead-92-published-reports-173202001.html

Quote

Sometimes you can spend too long on a one sided love.

Downton Abby

Sandpipers!

Seasonality

The look on your face read wistful

on that gelid November morning.

“Could have beens should have beens” 
spun around the corners of your eyes, 
mouth mute with stories never told.

Bits of ice tapped at the window

a chilly day for resolution of the heart.

Only 3 months before everything had been

infinitely green, now even the sun

had turned its back to circle on.

I felt you leave slowly

ghost-like

a white bag  danced

strangely in the wind.

-Debbie Calverley

Passenger - Scare Away the Dark

Red Light

in the middle of nowhere

a guy on the street

holding 2 litres of minute maid

orange juice with pulp

I wondered when the bus
would come

-Debbie Calverley

Octavio Paz

As One Listens To The Rain

Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,
it is the mist, wandering in the night,
it is the night, asleep in your bed,
it is the surge of waves in your breath,
your fingers of water dampen my forehead,
your fingers of flame burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open eyelids of time,
a spring of visions and resurrections,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,
your shadow covers this page. 

Octavio Paz