Poem

[firecat]

Seen in dawnd's journal

"Pick a poem you like. Your favourite, if you have a favourite, or one you think should be better known and more widely appreciated."



I don't have a single favorite poem.

Here's one I wrote:

Somewhere there was a world
where I lay down in your arms
and we watched the dawn.


And here's one Rumi wrote:


Thirst drove me down to the water
Where I drank the moon's reflection.
Now I am a lion staring up totally
lost in love with the thing itself.
Don't ask questions about longing.
Look in my face.

-- Rumi, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

Comments

[cha.livejournal.com]

Variations on the Word Sleep
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
-Margaret Atwood

[lcohen]

there isn't room for whitman's song of the open road so i'll put my favorite part:

The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

[firecat]

gasp
[swipe into the quote file]

[firecat]

I would love for Walt Whitman and Rumi to meet, and to be a fly on the wall.

Re:

[cha.livejournal.com]

*grin* my favorite author :)

The one from my fridge

[kyubi.livejournal.com]

Care

The lump of coal my parents
teased
I'd find in my Christmas stocking
turned out each year to be an
orange,
for I was their sunshine.

Now I have one C gave me,
a dense node of sleeping fire.
I keep it where I read and write.
"You're on chummy terms with
dread,"
it reminds me. "You kiss
ambivalence
on both cheeks. But if you close
your
heart to me ever, I'll wreathe you
in flames
and convert you to energy."

I don't know what C. meant me to
mind
by her gift, but the sun returns
unbidden. Books get read and
written.
My mother comes to visit. My
father's

dead. Love needs to be set alight
again and again, and in thanks
for tending it, will do its very
best not to consume us.

-William Matthews-

[firecat]

I've only read The Handmaid's Tale, which I hated, but I heard from some folks over the weekend that most of her other stuff is bunches better.

Re: The one from my fridge

[firecat]

oh... yes

(I [heart] kyubi)

I don't identify with it as I used to...

[diony.livejournal.com]

But I find it very beautiful, and nobody seems to know it.


A Poem of Explanations

Some people know how to love,
for others it's just not right.
Some people kiss in the street,
others find it unpleasant
and not only in the street.
I think it's a talent like any other,
perhaps that's an advantage.
Like the rose of Sharon
with a gift for blooming,
like the hyacinth that chooses its colours.
A rose or a hyacinth in bloom
can blind you.
I mean no offense: of course
there are others.
Hummingbirds are the most beautiful of birds,
but if you like
you can go to the sparrow.
Even so, I keep telling myself,
I'm not a bird of paradise,
I'm not a three-legged ram,
I'm not an apple that never ripens.

[Dahlia Ravikovitch, translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch.]

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Just as the hyacinth
up in the mountains
is trampled underfoot by shepherds
who spurn what they find commonplace,
you are bruised and neglected now
but soon you will grow back
stronger than you were before
to be discovered by someone
who will gaze in awe at your beauty.

That's a Sappho fragment I finished. It seemed to go with the other things here.

Re: I don't identify with it as I used to...

[firecat]

Ooh - nice

[firecat]

Jo! You have a LiveJournal! *bounce

And yes, it goes very well. I'm going to go point teal7 at it.

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Ha! This meme was my invention, mine, mine! See me take over the universe!

[firecat]

[*grabs and smooches you*]

This is one of my favorite memes ever. I'm blown away by how many of my LJ-friends love cool poetry. I'm sure there are dozens of poetry communities here but I'm now tempted to create another one.

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

I've been smooched by firecat! *swoon*

It does my little heart good (as opposed to the big heart, which I save as emergency backup) to see the meme spread, and I don't care (much) if not everyone credits me; though I wish there were a way to see just how widely it's been disseminated. (wandra found a five-user-link back to one of my friends while we were at bitty's).