starved rock

I am drifting mist shrouding sacred souls condensing cool on rounded rocks, a blanket for embracing moss hazy fingers who in grasping for the twisted trees plummet instead to churning waters merging my sorrows' songs with loons’ soft and haunting melodies I am the dying shattered tree my red heart laid open, my decay - now marrow for our mother earth the musky redolence in damp disintegrating leaves, my grave - a witness forever to the silhouettes of passing lives I am footfalls barely heard between heartbeats - felt scarcely behind you on the leaf-strewn path dancing in the mist of a waterfall who carved my stone face within each teardrop I am all of these I am the questions you dare not ask your face - that you do not see I am your dead I am forever. Dedicated to: The Illinois. Seeking revenge for a tribal murder the Potawatomi paddled down river to attack the Illinois. The Illinois sought refuge on top of a high rock. They climbed up to the summit of the rock hoping that the Potawatomi would by-pass them on their way southward. Unfortunately, the plan backfired and the Potawatomi surrounded the base. As the Illinois tried to get water by lowering buckets with rope the Potawatomi would cut the ropes or shatter the buckets with their arrows. They also climbed up on top of Devil's Nose and showered them with arrows. As the Illinois grew more desperate, some tried sneaking down, but they were murdered. The rest that were left on top, starved. Since then, the rock has been known as "Starved Rock."

universally speaking

I am nothing

more than words;

(composed in marrow)

meaningless
shapes on
dry pages

every thought
is a prayer

for heaven?
for hell?
I don't know.

engulfed in
unutterable answers

I make love
to darkness

are you more precious
because of your
dying?

- picking, eating, dead flesh
with your iced fingers -

or still precious in spite of it?

do hearts explode
with grief,
or do they hide,
again?

again. and again. and, again.

a man will bury himself
alive,
(I've watched. holding his shovel)
(again)

do you notice
mother earth's dark womb
engulfing you again?

I hate these words.

I hate my words.
again.

I hate.
I hate loving you
again.

I
3am

there is someone
in here
dying

it's 3am, and I
need to hear
sunlight

you, obviously
hours wealthier,
step off into
your life

the blackness between
your words
will not hold time

curled
within it - I
listen for breathing.

II
continuum

inside

I waited for rules
to change

-time is dripping somewhere in a cave-

(Do Not drink the
black drops)

love?
you were in love with it

(it tasted of quinine
dipped in too much sugar)

III
space

a heart holds
enough blood to
flow
evenly across
a kitchen table

before turning
black

(you never wrote this down)

in the space beside speech
you can
hold smooth
cold stones

collected, I
wear them in a sac
around my neck

they weigh the same as time.

IV
patterns of engagement

number one
embrace bleeding

learn to love
sticky sweetness

this is how snow
feels to a daffodil
french kissing
cold with hot

fuck this.

blood in snow feels
beautiful

the velvet of black
roses
is absolutely edible.

V
infinity

metaphorically speaking

my murder will
be misunderstood

it will be enough to say
it's hour
was infinite

like the taste of
chocolate
kissed from your tongue
in solitude.

From Ear to Quaternity
(a Ruthless and Toothless Production)

by Leanne Handson
(fabulous poet - and not just because she wrote this)
author of "Odd Verse Effects"


Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Mistress of misery, goddess of gore
Lady of leg humping fantasies blue
Driving us mad with foot flat on the floor

If you’re disturbed (perhaps sick to the core)
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Read and prepare to be struck down with awe
(Some say it feels like a dose of the flu)

If you’ve a parrot to spare (maybe two)
Drop by the Bulldog for cheeses galore
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Pay your respects to the nut we adore

Nearly the end now, there’s just one verse more
Then you can go back to peanuts and brew
Make sure you’ve done what I got you here for:
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh




Never, get too friendly with a poet....

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.

Liquid (Villanelle)

She longs to drown in liquid thrill;
To spin within colourless thread
With sharp cold taste, my fond lungs fill.

Our hearts entwined would oft distill
Unchanging ever flowing dread;
With sharp cold taste, my fond lungs fill.

I watch upon a foreign hill
My feet on frozen stones, are shred;
She longs to drown in liquid thrill.

Her dragonfly deep colours spill
Pale rainbows on the surface spread;
With sharp cold taste, my fond lungs fill.

Floating flowers cast in the chill
In words' remembrance, letters shed;
She longs to drown in liquid thrill.

No letters linger, water’s still,
Softly etched on heartbeats fled,
She longs to drown in liquid thrill;
With sharp cold taste, my fond lungs fill.

The Song of Wandering Aengus
-W.B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my names;
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

prism

Beyond memory’s shore
the waist-high dreams
wander inside of
my skin

scented strands slip
into my understanding
as cooling waves of
bottle-blue sky
engulf

my desires

whispering mists
curl
cocooning me from
rainbow coloured tears

and when I look down
the prism
has broken
and lays piercing

Little Poems


cold sleep

no stars
weep abandon
as our discarded die
disappeared in foul rooms, cold tears
dried wine.




claws

fear strolls
on soft bear’s paws
hushed growling, calmly tastes
decides – and stretching sharpest claws
carves me.

cut me
I hate
the sky’s fading
touch – etched within my heart
take the words from me – cut them all
away

empty

blackened
charcoal crumbles
pale colourless am I
as grimy guilt on paper pressed
my blood

small

I cannot be seen
squeezed in the palm of your hand
I have disappeared

leaving

yesterday I tried –
tried to go – someone Shouted
“Hey you!” then – s h o o k – me

“don’t you – Don’t You Dare Leave Me”
She shook me –
Hard ---

The Elephant in our Garden (excerpt)
by Peter Dunne

When I first saw the elephant hanging from the the tree,
I must confess that it startled me.
"What are you doing there and how long will you stay?"
I enquired of the elephant to hear what he'd say.
"I'm an arboreal pachyderm, small and compact,
And I've chosen this tree to make up for its lack
Of an elephant."

Island

queen anne's lace 2
Originally uploaded by Callooh.

if
I make myself
an island;
grow daffodils
in the garden,
feed birds thistles,
will butterflies
wrap me in
their gossamer wings?