Twentieth Century Brit Lit or: Post War

There it was alone,
Crimson leaf,
In a shivering body of green.
Was this the Poet come before his time,
Flashing eyes and floating hair?
Or a prophet, fire in his veins,
And ash upon his head,
Too late to save
The world?

malcontent

All balled up inside.
Compressed and compact, the words
Crushed together, mumbled, jumbled,
Filling the fist.
Momentary freedom, perfect arch --
Swish.
A nod of the head, no more.
Who cares.

Fatal Attraction

Desperate. Desperate for another line.
For another poem. Anything new,
Not to make it new, but to renew.
To drench me in its warm spring rain
After these unrelenting winters.
There are warmer times, but they only
Make the grey less bearable.
I keep reading to find --
Something...

No, not here, lovely though, perhaps too simple;
Here in this verse? In this rhyme?
I think i may have found it this time --
But no.
Just words again, falling down in a cold rain.
Soon. Soon.
Well, write another paragraph for them.
Waiting, hoping, willing time for the poet,
Springing up, ...to give me life anew.

Serenity

Rustling leaves --
Cubes of ice,
Clinking in the tumbler --
Golden and smooth.

Child of the Sun

Child of the Sun
: a poem adapted from Carl Sandburg's Chicago

Life force for a world
Log floater, transporter
Player with laborers and the Nation's tourists
Murky, threatening, seductive --
River of the Northwest:

They tell me you are polluted and I believe them, for I have seen
Your mines under the dark mountains destroying life.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true
I have seen the backward twists and rocky falls.
And they tell me you are pitiless and my reply is: on the faces of
Parents and loved ones I have seen the tragedy of drowning.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at
This my river, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another river with its thousand feet running so
Smooth to meet the great Columbia and so vibrant, and strong and teeming,
Flinging its golden droplets a million ways down rock after rock,
Here a dappled trout leaps to meet the sun set bright against the dark soft stream;
There an angler, all boots and rod, holding back the current, cunning and quiet
As a savage anticipating the run of the buffalo
Brown-skinned,
Waiting,
Wishing,
Wanting,
Casting, circling, recasting,
Under the blue, dew all over his beard, laughing with white
teeth,
Under the awful burden of creativity, eyes shining as a young boy's
shine,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost
a battle,
Bragging and laughing that in his wrist is the pulse, and in
his chest is the heart of a man,
Laughing!
Shining the brilliant, passionate, planning genius of Man,
Half-river, striving, proud to be Logger, Hunter,
Laborer, guide and life force
to a Nation.

_______________________________
*Update: Published in Gonzaga's Reflection Spring 2009 issue. Read about it here.

Aubade

"To see God only, I go out of sight:
And to scape stormy days, I choose
An everlasting night."

As night falls,
He comes slowly, but
With an insistence beyond my ken,
Insisting on things
That when day dawns
I push beyond my limited sight
Waiting again on the dusk
When He is come again to
Harass, to caress,
To imprison, to claim,
Each time, again,
As he always does,
But only,
As night falls.

The Emperor's New Heart

Sew up my heart
With french seams
So you cant tell
There was ever anything
But perfect lines and
Crisp layers,
Perfectly tailored to match
Any situation.
Cover my untrained actions
And hide my deep thoughts
With suave comments
And clever remarks;
New clothes to cover
All the tears and ragged edges
And maybe once, all these
Solitary patches
Can beat as one:
Warm and bright
And full of life.

Poetry... Boris Pasternak

A Russian Poem by Boris Pasternak

February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.

Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noise of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all your grieving
Are muffled when the rainshower falls.

To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.

Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.

1912. By Boris Pasternak. Translated by Alex Miller.

Every Other Day

Id cry to get it all out,
But I'm so empty, even these echoes find themselves lost.
In this world where friends,
Still there,
Disappear for parts -- not unknown --
I don't even know what hurts;
It's not as if I cant make it on my own,
I just don't remember how.
I want to whisper "I'm so lost without you here"
But nothing's changed. You're still there, I'm still here
Making my way, like before,
Groping in the dark, perhaps,
But not any darker than it ever was,
Not any more alone than I ever was.
You're willing, I know, but not able.
I pretended you could make it all right,
All this time, every time, after that terrible night.
I wouldn't wake you after,
But at least I knew I could.
But I cant even pretend,
Cant even hope, anymore.
I want to be happy, and I am,
But why these burning tears?
Why all these dark days?
And all these crippling fears?
I cant love myself, and how,
How can someone love me?
And who will save me now?

unfinished business...

I cant hear my own thoughts these days.
Only words of songs I know too well
And forgotten poems -- a line
here and there
Missing its
other half
Sometimes its head, sometimes
-- its heart;
Never complete, never really
Saying what it means to say,
Like a clever joke with
bad deliv-
ery.
I try too hard, and yet, I never try.
I want so much --
And yet I have nothing to give.