On Joy and Sorrow by Khalil Gibran

On Joy and Sorrow

Kahlil Gibran, from "The Prophet"


Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

___________________

all that by Charles Bukowski

all that

by Charles Bukowski

the only things I remember about
New York City
in the summer
are the fire escapes
and how the people go
out on the fire escapes
in the evening
when the sun is setting
on the other side
of the buildings
and some stretch out
and sleep there
while others sit quietly
where it’s cool.

and on many
of the window sills
sit pots of geraniums or
planters filled with red
geraniums
and the half-dressed people
rest there
on the fire escapes
and there are
red geraniums
everywhere.

this is really
something to see rather
than to talk about.

it’s like a great colorful
and surprising painting
not hanging anywhere
else.

“all that” by Charles Bukowski from Open All Night. 

Life Slips By...

And The Days Are Not Full Enough by Ezra Pound

And the days are not full enough

And the nights are not full enough

And life slips by like a field mouse

Not shaking the grass

The Scaffolding Inside You

The Scaffolding Inside You
By Olena Kalytiak Davis

Your thoughts have hung themselves from nails
like workshirts.

The sky has stopped
offering you reasons to live and your heart is the rock
you threw through each window
of what's deserted you, so you turn
to the burnt out building inside you: the scaffolding
overhead, the fallen beams,
the unsound framework;

according to the blue that's printed on the inside of your arms
you have no plans, no plans
uncovered, or uncovering: the offing is emptying,

the horizon empty

now that your sanity is
a tarp or a bedsheet
in the rough hands of the wind,

now that everything is hooded
in drop cloth.

It didn't happen
overnight. Or maybe it did:

your heart, the rock;
your soul, the Gothic barn.

You've even started envying the flowers their stems.

Will the Norther let up?

Will the moon ever again be so full of itself
that that ragged barn will fill with light, through its tin-covered roof?

You should bury more than the dead.
You should try harder.

You should give up.

From:  "And Her Soul Out of Nothing"

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Never think tomorrow will ever remotely resemble today...

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His Wife by Andrew Hudgins

His Wife
by Andrew Hudgins

My wife is not afraid of dirt.
She spends each morning gardening,
stooped over, watering, pulling weeds,
removing insects from her plants
and pinching them until they burst.
She won't grow marigolds or hollyhocks,
just onions, eggplants, peppers, peas –
things we can eat. And while she sweats
I'm working on my poetry and flute.
Then growing tired of all that art,
I've strolled out to the garden plot
and seen her pull a tomato from the vine
and bite into the unwashed fruit
like a soft, hot apple in her hand.
The juice streams down her dirty chin
and tiny seeds stick to her lips.
Her eye is clear, her body full of light,
and when, at night, I hold her close,
she smells of mint and lemon balm.

From:  American Rendering: New and Selected Poems

Like That by Kim Addonizio

We all want to be lit on fire & burned to ash...like that... xo

LIKE THAT

By Kim Addonizio

Love me like a wrong turn on a bad road late at night, 

with no moon and no town anywhere

and a large hungry animal moving heavily through the brush in the ditch.

Love me with a blindfold over your eyes and the sound of rusty water

blurting from the faucet in the kitchen, 

leaking down through the floorboards to hot cement. 

Do it without asking,

without wondering or thinking anything, while the machinery’s

shut down and the watchman’s slumped asleep before his small TV

showing the empty garage, the deserted hallways, 

while the thieves slice through the fence with steel clippers. 

Love me when you can’t find a decent restaurant open anywhere, 

when you’re alone in a glaring diner

with two nuns arguing in the back booth, when your eggs are greasy

and your hash browns underdone. 

Snick the buttons off the front of my dress

and toss them one by one into the pond where carp lurk just

beneath the surface,

their cold fins waving. 

Love me on the hood of a truck no one’s driven

in years, sunk to its fenders in weeds and dead sunflowers;

and in the lilies, your mouth on my white throat, 

while turtles drag their bellies through slick mud, 

through the footprints of coots and ducks.

Do it when no one’s looking, when the riots begin and the planes open up,

when the bus leaps the curb and the driver hits the brakes and the pedal sinks to the floor,

while someone hurls a plate against the wall and picks up another...

Love me like a freezing shot of vodka, like pure agave, love me

when you’re lonely, when we’re both too tired to speak, 

when you don’t believe in anything...

Listen, there isn’t anything, it doesn’t matter; lie down

with me and close your eyes, the road curves here, 

I’m cranking up the radio

and we’re going, 

we won’t turn back as long as you love me,

as long as you keep on doing it 

exactly like that.

My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer by Mark Strand

My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer

Mark Strand, 1934 - 2014

1

When the moon appears
and a few wind-stricken barns stand out
in the low-domed hills
and shine with a light
that is veiled and dust-filled
and that floats upon the fields,
my mother, with her hair in a bun,
her face in shadow, and the smoke
from her cigarette coiling close
to the faint yellow sheen of her dress,
stands near the house
and watches the seepage of late light
down through the sedges,
the last gray islands of cloud
taken from view, and the wind
ruffling the moon’s ash-colored coat
on the black bay.


2

Soon the house, with its shades drawn closed, will send
small carpets of lampglow
into the haze and the bay
will begin its loud heaving
and the pines, frayed finials
climbing the hill, will seem to graze
the dim cinders of heaven.
And my mother will stare into the starlanes,
the endless tunnels of nothing,
and as she gazes,
under the hour’s spell,
she will think how we yield each night
to the soundless storms of decay
that tear at the folding flesh,
and she will not know
why she is here
or what she is prisoner of
if not the conditions of love that brought her to this.


3

My mother will go indoors
and the fields, the bare stones
will drift in peace, small creatures --
the mouse and the swift -- will sleep
at opposite ends of the house.
Only the cricket will be up,
repeating its one shrill note
to the rotten boards of the porch,
to the rusted screens, to the air, to the rimless dark,
to the sea that keeps to itself.
Why should my mother awake?
The earth is not yet a garden
about to be turned. The stars
are not yet bells that ring
at night for the lost.
It is much too late.

From Mark Strand: Selected Poems, by Mark Strand, published by Atheneum. Copyright © 1979 by Mark Strand. Used with permission.

The Snowfall is So Silent by Miguel De Unamuno

The Snowfall Is So Silent

Miguel de Unamuno, 1864 - 1936

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless; 
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls, 
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off 
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness 
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

From Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975, translated by Robert Bly

A New Poet by Linda Pastan

A New Poet

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower. 

Linda Pastan

More Olena Kalytiak Davis

The Scaffolding Inside You
By Olena Kalytiak Davis

Your thoughts have hung themselves from nails
like workshirts.

The sky has stopped
offering you reasons to live and your heart is the rock
you threw through each window
of what's deserted you, so you turn
to the burnt out building inside you: the scaffolding
overhead, the fallen beams,
the unsound framework;

according to the blue that's printed on the inside of your arms
you have no plans, no plans
uncovered, or uncovering: the offing is emptying,

the horizon empty

now that your sanity is
a tarp or a bedsheet
in the rough hands of the wind,

now that everything is hooded
in drop cloth.

It didn't happen
overnight. Or maybe it did:

your heart, the rock;
your soul, the Gothic barn.

You've even started envying the flowers their stems.

Will the Norther let up?

Will the moon ever again be so full of itself
that that ragged barn will fill with light, through its tin-covered roof?

You should bury more than the dead.
You should try harder.
You should give up.

From:  "And Her Soul Out of Nothing"

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I'm listing, falling & yes, envying the flowers their stems... xo, ML

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