Poem of the Day

[KnottedYet]

I don't think I can get the spacing of the lines right, but we'll give this a try.

D@MN THIRSTY

First
The fish needs to say,

"Something ain't right about this
Camel ride--

And I'm
Feeling so d@mn

Thirsty."

-Shams-ud-uddin Muhammmad Hafiz (c. 1320-1389 A.D.)
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

[margo49]

AHHH , Hafez

A liberal translation to say the least.

Yeah, the missing link between Islam and Zen.

Has anyone else noticed that Knot is reading a lot of poetry lately?

'nuff said...

[KnottedYet]

I've always read a lot of poetry. Turned it into a Bachelor's degree, too. Edited a poetry magazine briefly. Very briefly.

Not too bad at writing parodies (anybody remember "The Naming of Bikes"?) but otherwise can't write my way out of a wet paper bag.

I like reading poetry.
Novels are too long for my limited attention span.

[Bad JuJu]

The Red Bicycle (with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

So much depends
upon
a red
bicycle
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
panniers.

[KnottedYet]

An oldie, but a goodie...


WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, "Dream Work" 1986.

[Brandi]

I need moonscreen not
sunscreen it's the nights
the age me fastest it's
the neon girls girls girls
sighn and the light from
aol and yahoo I need some
screenscreen and a bottle of
porn block but they make that.

Exene Cervenka " a beer on every page" 2003

[Kitsune06]

Drumming fingers
waiting
for time to pass
wearing
hopes like old clothes
feeling
seconds like hours.

[Brandi]

Oh this is fun!

[Kitsune06]

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures.
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz.
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal -
For thou art with me;
Thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks.
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the House of Mocha forever.

[KnottedYet]

Dharma


The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance--
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

Billy Collins, 2001.

[Brandi]

Oh I like Billy!

[Bad JuJu]

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, "Dream Work" 1986.

My yoga teacher read this poem last Friday! She always reads a poem as we begin our practice, and she uses Mary Oliver's a lot. I love Oliver!

I esp. love that bit about letting "the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves"--ahhhhhhh...........

[Bad JuJu]

Sleep

The young dog would like to know
why we sit so long in one place
intent on a box that makes the same
noises and has no smell whatever.
Get out! Get out! we tell him
when he asks us by licking the back
of our hand, which has small hairs,
almost like his. Other times he finds us
motionless with papers in our lap,
or at a desk looking into a humming
square of light. Soon the dog understands
we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping
with our eyes open, then goes to sleep
himself. Is it us he cries out to,
moving his legs somewhere beyond
the rooms where we spend our lives?
We don't think to ask, upset
as we are in the end with the dog,
who has begun throwing the old,
shabby coat of himself down on every
floor or rug in the apartment, sleep,
we say, all that damn dog does is sleep.

Wesley McNair, 2002

[KnottedYet]

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of extemporanea
And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Roumania

--Dorothy Parker

[Kitsune06]

THE BODY grows outside,—
The more convenient way,—
That if the spirit like to hide,
Its temple stands alway

Ajar, secure, inviting; 5
It never did betray
The soul that asked its shelter
In timid honesty.
-Emily D!ckinson