Conversations with Grief, Denise Levertov
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Posted:Dec 5, 2014 6:36 pm
Last Updated:Jan 23, 2018 9:12 pm
4198 Views
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Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
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A little too familiar
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Posted:Jul 2, 2014 2:28 pm
Last Updated:Oct 20, 2014 6:16 pm
5106 Views
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Bet I'm not the only one who identifies with this poem... Ah, modern love (sic)!
Self-help, by Michael Ryan
What kind of delusion are you under?
The life he hid just knocked you flat.
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
What God hath joined let no man put asunder.
Did God know you’d marry a rat?
What kind of delusion are you under?
His online persona simply stunned her
as it did you when you started to chat.
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
To the victors go the plunder:
you should crown them with a baseball bat.
What kind of delusion are you under?
The kind that causes blunder after blunder.
Is there any other kind than that?
You see the lightning but not the thunder,
and for one second the world’s a wonder.
Just keep it thrilling under your hat.
What kind of delusion are you under?
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
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Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen
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Posted:Jun 29, 2014 7:42 am
Last Updated:Dec 6, 2021 8:08 pm
5075 Views
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I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
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Like a storm, indeed.
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Posted:Mar 4, 2013 9:04 pm
Last Updated:Dec 2, 2017 8:23 pm
7055 Views
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Love this poem by Marilyn Hacker. Fond memories of my lover making me come with his whole hand...
First, I want to make you come in my hand while I watch you and kiss you,
and if you cry, I'll drink your tears while, with my whole hand,
I hold your drenched loveliness contracting.
And after a breath, I want to make you full again, and wet.
I want to make you come in my mouth like a storm.
No tears now.
The sum of your parts is my whole
most beautiful chart of the constellations--
your left breast in my
mouth again.
You know you'll have to be your age.
As I lie beside you, cover me like a gold cloud,
hands everywhere, at last inside me where I trust you,
then your tongue where I need you.
I want you to make me come
--Marilyn Hacker
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1
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Intoxication
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Posted:Mar 2, 2013 8:58 pm
Last Updated:Dec 6, 2021 8:08 pm
7044 Views
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One Night, by CP Cavafy
The room was cheap and sordid,
hidden above the suspect taverna.
From the window you could see the alley,
dirty and narrow. From below
came the voices of workmen
playing cards, enjoying themselves.
And there on that common, humble bed
I had love’s body, had those intoxicating lips,
red and sensual,
red lips of such intoxication
that now as I write, after so many years,
in my lonely house, I’m drunk with passion again.
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4
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Buzz
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Posted:Sep 25, 2012 9:12 pm
Last Updated:Mar 2, 2013 8:37 pm
6874 Views
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King Bee Blues
BY GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE
I’m an ol’ king bee, honey,
Buzzin’ from flower to flower.
I’m an ol’ king bee, sweets,
Hummin’ from flower to flower.
Women got good pollen;
I get some every hour.
There’s Lily in the valley
And sweet honeysuckle Rose too;
There’s Lily in the valley
And sweet honeysuckle Rose too.
And there’s pretty black-eyed Susan,
Perfect as the night is blue.
You don’t have to trust
A single, black word I say.
You don’t have to trust
A single, black word I say.
But don’t be surprised
If I sting your flower today.
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Heady
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Posted:Aug 9, 2012 6:41 pm
Last Updated:Aug 13, 2012 5:57 pm
7038 Views
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Drunk as Drunk
by Pablo Neruda
Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.
Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.
Pablo Neruda
Translated from the Spanish by Christopher Logue
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Why I'm a grammar snob
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Posted:Jul 17, 2012 8:12 pm
Last Updated:Jul 18, 2012 3:43 pm
7220 Views
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A well-written letter, or well-"spoken" chat, makes a BIG difference. Here's why...
[image]
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Pressing out the wrinkles
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Posted:Jul 16, 2012 8:03 pm
Last Updated:Jul 17, 2012 8:38 pm
7093 Views
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From the excellent literary erotica site, Clean Sheets. Every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man.
from an ironing board
by William Wright Harris
spread my legs
apart
slam me onto
the kitchen floor
force your hands
against
my body
an iron
running steam
up
and
down
my sides
i have been
without you
too long
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Another member of my congregation speaks
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Posted:Jun 23, 2012 8:12 am
Last Updated:Dec 2, 2017 8:24 pm
7439 Views
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What You Pray Toward
BY PATRICIA SMITH
“The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge, 1966
I.
Hubbie 1 used to get wholly pissed when I made
myself come. I’m right here!, he’d sputter, blood
popping to the surface of his fuzzed cheeks,
goddamn it, I’m right here! By that time, I was
in no mood to discuss the myriad merits of my
pointer, or to jam the brakes on the express train
slicing through my blood, It was easier to suffer
the practiced professorial huff, the hissed invectives
and the cold old shoulder, liver-dotted, quaking
with rage. Shall we pause to bless professors and
codgers and their bellowed, unquestioned ownership
of things? I was sneaking time with my own body.
I know I signed something over, but it wasn’t that.
II.
No matter how I angle this history, it’s weird,
so let’s just say Bringing Up Baby was on the telly
and suddenly my lips pressing against
the couch cushions felt spectacular and I thought
wow this is strange, what the hell, I’m 30 years old,
am I dying down there is this the feel, does the cunt
go to heaven first, ooh, snapped river, ooh shimmy
I had never had it never knew, oh i clamored and
lurched beneath my little succession of boys I cried
writhed hissed, ooh wee, suffered their flat lapping
and machine-gun diddling their insistent c’mon girl
c’mon until I memorized the blueprint for drawing
blood from their shoulders, until there was nothing
left but the self-satisfied liquidy snore of he who has
rocked she, he who has made she weep with script.
But this, oh Cary, gee Katherine, hallelujah Baby,
the fur do fly, all gush and kaboom on the wind.
III.
Don’t hate me because I am multiple, hurtling.
As long as there is still skin on the pad of my finger,
as long as I’m awake, as long as my (new) husband’s
mouth holds out, I am the spinner, the unbridled,
the bellowing freak. When I have emptied him,
he leans back, coos, edges me along, keeps wondering
count. He falls to his knees in front of it, marvels
at my yelps and carousing spine, stares unflinching
as I bleed spittle unto the pillows.
He has married a witness.
My body bucks, slave to its selfish engine,
and love is the dim miracle of these little deaths,
fracturing, speeding for the surface.
IV.
We know the record. As it taunts us, we have giggled,
considered stopwatches, little laboratories. Somewhere
beneath the suffering clean, swathed in eyes and silver,
she came 134 times in one hour. I imagine wires holding
her tight, her throat a rattling window. Searching scrubbed
places for her name, I find only reams of numbers. I ask
the quietest of them:
V.
Are we God?
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Ain't it the truth?
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Posted:May 23, 2012 5:48 pm
Last Updated:Dec 2, 2017 8:25 pm
8012 Views
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How is it had I never found this poem until today?
I picture the crystal goblet and the wine on the shelf above the bed, right next to the pillaged box of Trojans.
Litany, by Billy Collins
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
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Breathe it in
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Posted:May 16, 2012 11:29 am
Last Updated:Dec 6, 2021 8:09 pm
7487 Views
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Smell matters. The olfactory nerves go directly to the part of the human brain that is most primal, least evolved. No wonder scent is so evocative, so intimately linked with desire--and the recollection of desire...
Hygiene
BY RAFFAELLO BALDINI
TRANSLATED BY ADRIA BERNARDI
I understand, sure, hygiene, these days, if you're not paying attention,
with all these sicknesses, you think I'm not aware?
I'm not saying not to bathe, are you crazy?
you don't want to wash? I'm just saying to not go overboard,
because there's clean, that's fine, but not clean and shiny,
it's just that people now, bath foams, bath salts,
a bar of soap's not good enough,
no, instead, sometimes, by washing too much,
some things even get lost, the other day,
there was one lady, I didn't know her,
even if you tell me her name, she's not from here,
she's from Rimini, we had met each other by chance,
two months ago, then we met again,
but it's not like now I'm wanting, I'm just telling you
to give you an idea, it was Tuesday afternoon,
at her house, her husband was away,
she started to unzip me, she was wearing a dressing gown,
we'd been drinking, we'd danced, then we went to bed,
she climbed on top of me, sssh!
and today is Thursday
and I still smell her, do you understand?
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Heat
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Posted:May 12, 2012 1:52 pm
Last Updated:May 14, 2012 1:55 pm
7319 Views
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Heat
BY JANE HIRSHFIELD
My mare, when she was in heat,
would travel the fenceline for hours,
wearing the impatience
in her feet into the ground.
Not a stallion for miles, I’d assure her,
give it up.
She’d widen her nostrils,
sieve the wind for news, be moving again,
her underbelly darkening with sweat,
then stop at the gate a moment, wait
to see what I might do.
Oh, I knew
how it was for her, easily
recognized myself in that wide lust:
came to stand in the pasture
just to see it played.
Offered a hand, a bucket of grain—
a minute’s distraction from passion
the most I gave.
Then she’d return to what burned her:
the fence, the fence,
so hoping I might see, might let her free.
I’d envy her then,
to be so restlessly sure
of heat, and need, and what it takes
to feed the wanting that we are—
only a gap to open
the width of a mare,
the rest would take care of itself.
Surely, surely I knew that,
who had the power of bucket
and bridle—
she would beseech me, sidle up,
be gone, as life is short.
But desire, desire is long.
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To link to this blog (MistressBehavin) use [blog MistressBehavin] in your messages.
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