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After Yehuda Amichai Don't forget them. You can't forget them. They are like a like the first balloon, inflating. They are sudden like a flying fish. They are friendly. Always moving about. Don't forget them. Feel them feeling the earth grind their skin. Go into the ground, go out. What will you come to? But don't forget them, for they are awake in no time and they busy themselves inside, their loving fulfilled, eternal; they will live through it. Don't forget them. They never forget to jot down the lively music playing. To write, to hear other sounds--they starve in a symphony. Don't forget them. Keep your distance, for they are feeding forever, and there's still more to go, As in a long run, when a thousand begin the last stretch. Who is the runner And what is the challenge, unless it be the day's empty canvas stretching out Over the dearth of indifference. posted by Reen at 7:16 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Who gives me a bad name Causing former friends to shrink; new foes to light up like Christmas--suspected, unknown, leaving jettrails of ill-favor, but no sure destination -- let him choose that name too lowly or too high, a tarnish fast-passing into unbelievability--oh, go for broke, accuse me -- I'm a stingy miser, a profligate drunk A puller of others' posies, tormenter of dogs. Have no sense of middle ground when you accuse me; be a wild-eyed prophet when you level your finger; and so miss the names of crimes too much my own. posted by Reen at 7:31 AM | link| versify 0 comments
After Osip Mandelstam American woman -- twenty years old An artifact like one from Egypt A life vest with "Titanic" on the reverse, She sleeps like a mummy in a frozen hearse. In America, the birds are singing Their lovely, ahistorical tune No cold is so strong it can quiet Them or her. They have a singular diet-- They eat the Louvre, ocean showers Building beautifully like towers along the coast. They steal death's polish; Shear the white from the Acropolis And they understand none of it. She reads Faust in translation and sighs, who nothing tempting, can tempt She is some symbol or sign-- She is all we have dreamt. posted by Reen at 7:34 AM | link| versify 0 comments
The small erudite face of a morning roadkill, the cartoon raccoon face upwards on the road as if to trace the shapes of cloads, the delicate paws, fingerlike, each claw separated, on display to passengers at the intersection, looking through the thick glass--they crowd to see those eyes at last, not reflected in flashlight, but softened, still; Hair sticky with blood on the pavement, each filligreed, bright tooth, in the open jaw, more sharply drawn than ever in life, life, which would never let us see so much. posted by Reen at 7:31 AM | link| versify 0 comments
We went north; you grew more ugly, A mermaid lumpen with tangled hair. Too heavy, your hips slid outward, Your eyes growing lamplike, large, And your fingers lengthier, grasping. Your laugh became a thick gruel. That washed over you nightly. Unhinged, it clung to you like a robe When we left you at the river basin, Floating on a water-slimed log, Your hair eddying eel-like in shallow currents, your strange chuckling moving in with the tide. posted by Reen at 7:27 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Sunburn The green aloe from Grandma’s medicine cabinet Became Drum tight skin over skin Our faces still as Small movie screen aliens Drying To a pale green sheen And then the fun— To smile widely, the mask cracking To splinters, as our human Faces show suddenly through. posted by Reen at 7:21 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Reach over to feel the back of the green signs directing The traffic below onto 395 and points Southward and out Of the city. The buildings here channel to wind to a sharp Slice; birds flying above hover like fish in a current. Below, we act out the mime; The cars are caught up in a bottleneck. The birds get nowhere. They’re headed the wrong way. posted by Reen at 7:20 AM | link| versify 0 comments
The poems for today, yesterday, and Saturday are all on a disk in my bag. Unfortunately, I don't have the floppy drive in my laptop right now. So you will have to wait until somewhat later in the day for poemy goodness. Alack, Alack. posted by Reen at 6:41 AM | link| versify 0 comments
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