contemporary poetry
The Blues
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 24, 2013
The Blues
Much of what is said here
must be said twice,
a reminder that no one
takes an immediate interest in the pain of others.
Nobody will listen, it would seem,
if you simply admit
your baby left you early this morning
she didn’t even stop to say good-bye.
But if you sing it again
with the help of the band
which will now lift you to a higher,
more ardent, and beseeching key,
people will not only listen,
they will shift to the sympathetic
edges of their chairs,
moved to such acute anticipation
by that chord and the delay that follows,
they will not be able to sleep
unless you release with one finger
a scream from the throat of your guitar
and turn your head back to the microphone
to let them know
you’re a hard-hearted man
but that woman’s sure going to make you cry.
Billy Collins
Astral bard
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 22, 2013
Astral bard
Fair seer
intuit beauty
as night absorbs the moon and stars
as thorns know the rose
time streams along age-worn bedrock
underscored by muse.
Hush! Listen!
Life sings a solar windsong
Lips open to paint new visions
Ink sweeps silks in fantasy strokes
her poems plucked from the ether
to reanimate,
as nectar for soul
fragrant
as rose wine
from PoetryZoo Abigael
Gael Bage
Christmas Sparrow
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 21, 2013
Christmas Sparrow
The first thing I heard this morning
was a soft, insistent rustle,
the rapid flapping of wings
against glass as it turned out,
a small bird rioting
in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of transparency into the spacious light.
A noise in the throat of the cat
hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap in a basement door,
and later released from the soft clench of teeth.
Up on a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a small towel and carried it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.
But outside, it burst
from my uncupped hands into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
and disappearing over a tall row of hemlocks.
Still, for the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms whenever I thought
about the hours the bird must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie here tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.
Billy Collins
I Ask You
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 19, 2013
I Ask You
What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?
It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside–
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.
No, it’s all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles–
each a different height–
are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt–
frog at the edge of a pond–
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.
Billy Collins
Woman ( 5 cinquain sequence) (titles make a sixth)
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 14, 2013
Woman ( 5 cinquain sequence) (titles make a sixth)
Ice Queen
Woman
introverted,
lives in ice-olation
fears love and closeness, if warmth comes –
she melts.
Potential Love
Woman
love does not come
on plates for the needy
seek inner riches and blossom –
reap love.
Existence would miss You
Woman
home is no place –
but inner acceptance.
Love falls on you from everything
on earth.
Create a Change in Gravity.
Woman,
where is your joy?
Forget tides and build sand
castles, playfully greet the day
weightless.
In Time.
Woman
the seeds you plant
reveal time’s mystery
to make a grain of sand a pearl –
patience.
from PoetryZoo Abigael
Gael Bage
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’ s Clothes
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 13, 2013
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’ s ClothesFirst, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything –
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corsetand I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.
from ” Taking Off Emily Dickinson’ s Clothes (2000)”
Billy Collins
Aimless love
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 13, 2013
Aimless love
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.
In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.
The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.
No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then
for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.
But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.
After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
from the volume “Aimless love”
Billy Collins
Cascade
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 13, 2013
Cascade
Waiting for a bus by The Western Infirmary
One Dreary Overcast October day.
Scanning the dirty, tenement lined streets for a 43.
Windy-empty wrappers whipping around my feet
Students and hospital visitors huddled in the shelter
In scarves and anoraks. Wrapped up against the chill.
Suddenly, something changed. Quietly. Unnoticed.
A change of wind direction perhaps or
A drop in temperature as dusk descended,
but nature chose that moment to interrupt, to inspire.
For 3 whole minutes, the trees rained down their leaves
in a multi coloured cascade of splendour
Pedestrians stopped, looked up and marvelled at the show.
They talked to each other, smiled,
enjoyed 3 minutes that rivalled the Borealis,
starling clouds or bluebell woods,
and left each other as friends, with a warm feeling
on a cold Autumn day in Glasgow.
I thought of my friend in ward 8
Bright and sharp. Beautiful in her Autumn,
And strode towards Queen Street
With a renewed Spring in my step.
from “Newbury Makar”
Thatcham Festival Poetry Competition
winner of the adult category
John Black
The Secrets of Life
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 8, 2013
The Secrets of Life
The riptide pulled and weighed us down,
swimming in our shoals.
It bent us in our will to win,
oh weary, sorry souls.
Oh tiresome, terrifying days
when scholars moved to preach
that all of Christendom was ours,
but always out of reach.
Oh weary, sorry souls, I cried
for all of us, who’re driven,
wherein unconscious mind, so tuned,
lays bare the ego given.
Always, it seems, beyond our reach,
genetics never fail
to teach us how we must survive,
not how to trim the sail.
Ego’s given winds may blow,
but odysseys must end.
For quests beyond our human bounds,
Inferno may portend.
Just when this sea of troubles weighed
too much on mortal coil,
the magic of encircling arms
became the perfect foil.
So I reset the sails for home,
embracing Vesta’s heart;
discovered Marais’ secret strength:
in concert, ne’er apart.
from My Poetry Library
© 2013 John Anstie
Deniers deny…
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 7, 2013
Deniers deny…
Deniers deny what they don’t understand
Believers believe what they do.
Whatever you do, whatever you say
Never confuse the two.
Those who believe what they don’t understand
Or deny what they truly believe
Are caught in a spot without any hope
Of anything new to receive.
Raymond Joy
