not to touch
I read Neruda with you
in a dream that was
worthy of your untamed mouth,
your heavy eyes, they
hold the deep night's velvet
your roughened hands, impossible
not to touch

I woke with you
my eyelids
draped by May’s first dew, then
opened to cold solitude
an emptiness caressed
by dawn’s orange fingers
your touch fleeing on chaste butterfly wings

my love, a transparent child,
cries soft round tears
that float up and leave my
tender kisses in the
pure whiteness of clouds.

confession

and when first I loved

you, I was my other self,

whose surface love gripped, and
clung in fear

with dreadful fingernails.

when first I tried

new love.

layers have peeled;

of love, of scorn,

and fresher passions,
flayed from

fragile skin.

nerves lay alive on

frail new membranes, alert to

desire’s precise pain.

trembling, I stand alone
becoming stronger;
virgin flesh
still unprotected.

my hidden love,
my fierce passion
for you, bound loosely
deep within myself.
I swallow back and
gag on my bile stained
remorseful confessions.

you are

my unremitting bedrock

worth capricious joy;

essential still,

for each heart beat,

and my every
single breath.

the strongest of the strange

you wont see them often
for wherever the crowds are
they
are not.

these odd ones, not
many
but from them
come
the few
good paintings
the few
good symphonies
the few

good books

and other
works.

and from the
best of the
strange ones
perhaps
nothing.

they are
their own
paintings
their own
books
their own
music
their own
work.

sometimes i think
i see
them- say
a certain old
man
sitting on a
certain bench
in a certain
way

or
a quick face
going the other
way
in a passing
automobile

or
there’s a certain motion
of the hands
of a bag-boy or a bag-
girl
while packing
supermarket
groceries.

sometimes
it is even somebody
you have been
living with
for some
time-
you will notice
a
lightning quick
glance
never seen
from them
before.

sometimes
you will only note
their
existence
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone.

i remember
such a
one-
he was about
20 years old
drunk at
10 a.m.
staring into
a cracked
new orleans
mirror

face dreaming
against the
walls of
the world

where
did i
go?

-charles bukowski.

THE HUSK OF YOUR VOICE

By David Whyte

The husk of your voice
is like a chrysalis
grown round something
hidden,
waiting to be born
and waiting for you
to stop.

What is inside
wants to know itself fully
before it is born.
That's why it refuses
to reveal itself,
sure as you are
that you need not slip down
that long branch of your body
to the very root
and in the earth of your body
near the damp echo
of everything
you have not touched
reflected in your voice, and the air
suddenly quicken
as if innocent speech
could rise again
from that rich and
impossible soil
composed of your neglected past.
Like sap rising
in the steady tree
of your courageous life.
Your voice opens

and shows
the strong outline
of that tree
against the sky,
where another
shadow
takes flight
startled by your
new cry,

the shadow
of something leaving
to find its own way
in the world.

Something you carried
as a black weight
for many years.
You watch it go

relieved
as if it might return
blessed by a world
which
allows its going,
refusing to be held
and refusing to hold
you again,
free and finally
in its flight
to another's mouth
untroubled by your breath.

Mount Gabriel

by Peter Dunne

The sheep keep their horns up here,
Unlikely cattle graze the crevices.
Every cloud is a mouth in the rock,
Ravening caverns crab across the face,
Searching out souls; swallowing a herd
Of black cattle, an acre of stone:
Finding no sustenance, disgorge them.
They reach for heaven, these heights; they speak of hell.
Fire licks at the gates, and they are wax,
Drip feeding the inferno's cold flame.

A stark ascetic place, a dark acidic place,
A bitter, barren place, yet men build fences here.
The ancients scratched the surface for tin,
Mad hermits glowered at valleys of sin,
And they built their fences. Heaven and hell
Played mischief in their hearts
While earth laughed at her captives.

Gabriel grumbles on ascent. Crossing the top of his
Great turtle back he drenches me with
Spluttering guffaws, throws me an incongruous
View. Out of dark lowering, eons of days and nights
Battle and dance on valley and sea. It sucks at my breath
And earth implodes in my breast.
Too much to know, to see, to bear.
I glide down to the valley, landing among
The stone walls and hedges of familiar fields
And my exhilaration is without bounds.

Yo no soy yo by Juana Ramon Jimenez

Yo no soy yo
Soy el que marcha a mi lado
y a quien no veo
Al que visito algunas veces
y olvido otras
El que me perdona
cuando como golosinas
El que anda en la naturaleza
cuando yo estoy en el interior
El que permanece silencioso
cuando yo hablo
El que permanecera en pie
cuando yo muera

translation #1

I AM NOT I

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.

translation #2 by piktor (thank you)

I am not myself.
I am this,
that travels next to me without notice;
whom I visit sometimes,
and, sometimes, I forget.
Whom, quietly, silences when I speak,
who grants blithe pardon, while I hate,
that wanders into where I'm not,
who will still stand when I die.

spider haiku

struggling spider's
fine weave, defies elements
to watch, happiness.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ by Marianne Williamson

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

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.