Today's poet

[Alf]

I think is a pretty stunning poem from the forward book of poetry 2010.


Altogether Elsewhere
Tess Taylor

They multiply, these cities of the heart.
Rooms we stop to rest our bodies in.

Brief beds: One California night
I saw humpbacked coastal ranges,

and scotch-tinged, wet from naked swimming,
woke to smokestacks and dawn in Queens.

Light split the branches of new trees.
Stage set lives implied themselves from props.

Now morning, with its birds, construction sites,
sun on a western feeway, city garden filled

with lavender, with childhood light
this midsummer too will go soon.

O unfinishable rooms,
homes that feel so real so briefly,

I feel you incomplete me, incompletely.

Good choice freckle, I love those two lines I have highlighted particularly

[Alf]

Traveling through the Dark


Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.


William Stafford

[Derby Tup]

Sonnet LXIV

My life was tinted purple by so much love,
and I veered helter-skelter like a blinded bird
til I reached your window, my friend:
you heard the murmur of a broken heart.

There from the shaodws I rose to your breast:
without being or knowing, I flew up the towers of wheat,
I surged to life in your hands,
I rose from the sea to your joy.

No one can reckon what I owe you, Love,
what I owe you is lucid, it is like a root
from Arauco, what I owe you, Love.

Clearly, it is like a star, all that I owe you,
what I owe you is like a well in the wilderness
where time watches over the wandering lightning

Pablo Neruda, from 100 Love Sonnets

[Hes]

Oh Gosh...gutwrenching stuff Alf! I loved this but found it really upsetting. It reminds me of two occasions. One when I found the skeleton of a dead roe deer and curled up among the bones was the perfect skeleton of its faun. I think she'd tried to jump the river and broken her leg (probably not used to the extra bulk of her baby). The other was when my friend was driving through the lake district and I was in a car behind and a deer lept out of the woods and straight under the wheels of my friend's camper van. Nothing he could do. He literally didn't know what hit him. I, on the other hand, saw the deer come out via the back wheels and lie gasping and broken in the road. We both stopped, hazards on, and carried her to the woods where she died in front of us with my hand laid on her sweating hot flank. I think I cried until I got to Sedburgh.

Traveling through the Dark


Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.


William Stafford

[Derby Tup]

I'm not sure which is more sad, Alf's poem or Hes' stories


They Were Burning Dead Leaves

They were burning dead leaves. Must oozed with scent,
tar bubbled and blew.
The moomlight glow behind the thistle bent
like a torn rainbow.

The street was a forest, night slid into the heart
of deepest autumn.
A guilty music blew the house apart
with its fife and drum.

To have this again, just this, just the once more:
I would sink below
autumnal earth and place my right hand in your
hand like a shadow

Zsuzsa Rakovszky, chosen by Sean O' Brien, for the Hand in Hand collection, edited by Carol Ann Duffy

[Mossdog]

Sonnet LXIV

My life was tinted purple by so much love,
and I veered helter-skelter like a blinded bird
til I reached your window, my friend:
you heard the murmur of a broken heart.

There from the shaodws I rose to your breast:
without being or knowing, I flew up the towers of wheat,
I surged to life in your hands,
I rose from the sea to your joy.

No one can reckon what I owe you, Love,
what I owe you is lucid, it is like a root
from Arauco, what I owe you, Love.

Clearly, it is like a star, all that I owe you,
what I owe you is like a well in the wilderness
where time watches over the wandering lightning

Pablo Neruda, from 100 Love Sonnets

Magnificent - thanks DT. On the same theme:

Rapture

Thought of by you all day, I think of you.
The birds sing in the shelter of a tree.
Above the prayer of rain, unacred blue,
not paradise, goes nowhere endlessly.
How does it happen that our lives can drift
far from ourselves, while we stayed trapped in time,
queuing for death? It seems nothing will shift
the pattern of our days, alter the rhyme
we make with loss to assonance with bliss.
Then love comes, like a sudden flight of birds
from earth to heaven after rain. Your kiss,
recalled, unstrings, like pearls, this chain of words.
Huge skies connect us, joining here to there.
Desire and passion on the thinking air.

CADuffy

[Hes]

Sorry about the sad stories DT! This is a beautiful poem and also really sad...has Alf set the tone for the evening? I think the misty moors and the soaking I got on my bike today have definitely put me in the mood for melancholy.

(must check out that anthology you mention)

I'm not sure which is more sad, Alf's poem or Hes' stories


They Were Burning Dead Leaves

They were burning dead leaves. Must oozed with scent,
tar bubbled and blew.
The moomlight glow behind the thistle bent
like a torn rainbow.

The street was a forest, night slid into the heart
of deepest autumn.
A guilty music blew the house apart
with its fife and drum.

To have this again, just this, just the once more:
I would sink below
autumnal earth and place my right hand in your
hand like a shadow

Zsuzsa Rakovszky, chosen by Sean O' Brien, for the Hand in Hand collection, edited by Carol Ann Duffy

[Hes]

death felled a bird
heights touched by her wings
shed silent tears

erode tamizhanban

[Derby Tup]

inky black corvids
wheel, arcing overhead
paired for life

[freckle]

Traveling through the Dark


Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.


William Stafford

this is so very moving Alf.......brought a tear to my eye, thank you for posting