Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own -- but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late. And the truth is laborious.


Berkeley, 1980.


Trans. Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky
A block, a wall.
Taller than tall.
Away!
Far away,
forever she will stay.
If we have it my way.
Because my way is the only way.
A contradiction you'll say.
A game with no winner;
The saint, The sinner.
Find a way!
It's a new day.
Everyday.
Mine an yours
and their way.
Lost my mind!
And in no time, you will see;
there's a me,
and the me that I see.
Be free!
It could be a melody
or a song to sing.
New feelings to bring.
And in my soul,
the story she tells
will never fail
to lead me.
My way.
The way.
A contradiction I'll say.
You'll agree.
Love me to hate me.
Set you free!
Just let it be.
    You and me.
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Mark Rossol
My simple, awkward, unperfected prose
will never be compared or even see the light of day
against the beauty or importance of any Shakespeare Rose
even these rhymes are difficult to understand or say.

The truth is most of us will be forgotten or swept aside
we cannot keep or hold the attention  of such a crazy world.
Instead we are here and gone faster than the changing tide,
our best efforts, the almost perfect moments end up being hurled.

I say it's time instead to accept our imperfections
take chances that may leave us without a thing
ignore the popular opinion; the inevitable objections
stop waiting for what will be brought and see what we can bring.

It's only when we try and fail and try again
That we live a life not thinking of what might have been.
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Ada Cambridge
Spirit and Breath of Life, whate'er Thy name!
Bear with Thy creature, Man,
That makes his dwelling-place a blot of shame
Upon the Ordered Plan.

Not Thy hand, O Divine Designer, hurled
Athwart the starlit skies
One blood-stained, greed-diseased, hate-eaten world,
To shock celestial eyes.

Not Thy default, O Beautiful, this crust
Of fratricidal crime,
These maggot-breeds of hunger and of lust
That Thy fair work begrime.

But ours, who mock Thee from the highest place,
And in the light of day;
Who claim to lead an upward-struggling race,
And will not seek the way.

Guards of the human birthright, at Thy call -
A city sacked and burned;
Guards of the house that is the home of all,
But whence the weak are spurned.

Brothers, to whom the outcast brothers cry
As with a voice unknown;
Stewards of Nature's bounty, that deny
The lawful heirs their own.

Thou that hast made us men, and earth so fair,
To be so vilely used,
Give space for late repentance and repair
Of sacred trust abused.

Give time, Eternal, that we stanch these tears,
Give time to heal this sore,
That our brief speck amid the shining spheres
Disgrace its birth no more.
But sail ethereal seas, an orb of light,
To bear Thy purpose on
Until it fades into the cosmic night
Where the dead worlds have gone.
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Jessi Ann
11:32
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Jessi Ann
Let lovers sleep-- the night is mine and mine alone,
and I cannot close my eyes, for I am too busy thinking of the wide world.
I lay here in the pale dark, listening to the night
and I wonder if the universe is so much larger for a fly than it is for a woman--
are the days so much darker for the dead than for me?
I tangle my fingers in my hair and smile;
oh yes, I hear the delicate music creeping through the air,
and of course I am moved, Mother,
how could I not be?
How could you ever expect me to sleep when there is such a place
as this in my mind?
I will never close my eyes again, not when there is air like this to breathe,
not when there is pale dark to bathe in,
not when dawn is a matter of hours away and it is back to the stale air that crumbles in your lungs,
back to the carpet stains and back to all those thoughts
that are trying desperately to fill up my empty little head
or someone's pretty little head
like smoke withering away, dripping lazily out of my lips and into the ears of another
though there is no other,
not for me
not tonight,
tonight is a night to wonder about the universe of flies and women
and if my world will ever grow larger than this pin-head that is threatening to crush me
and a great deal of other things that I'm sure you've thought of, Mother,
though men have been sure that the earth is flat and that flies and women are not so different
so who knows what I'm sure of?
I certainly don't.
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Mark Rossol
When human hearts come to collide
The flaws of each are hard to hide.
And harder still each passing day
Till every block is thrown away.
We come to fear this truth so much,
That we flee the slightest nudge, the faintest touch.

Thou our fears may be plain and true.
You could hurt me; I could hurt you.
We tend to only see the person standing there.
The color of their eyes, their clothes, their hair.
We see the flaws: both on the in and out,
And some times our own merits do we doubt.

Yet this approach leaves out a vital part.
One we didn't finish, and one we didn't start.
It has to do with one mans death upon a cross.
Who couldn't bring us in without so great a loss
And rose again to name us all His own
And will have through our broken lives His glory shown.

So fear not when heart collisions come!
They're founded now, soley on what Christ has done!
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Mark Rossol
Jump
 Nov 2013 Eva Elyse
Mark Rossol
I want to jump out of a plane.
Not to die, but to feel
Wind against my face
Weightlessness, freedom
Adrenaline rush of it all
Quit sitting and looking
For cheap thrills, artificial experiences
Even the feelings will end.
Yet I will want more
Always wanting more
Never satisfied, never enough
Living is more than feeling
More than thrills or rushes
More than the sum of experiences
What have I done, left behind
Is anything my own
Or am I just passing through
Passing vapor?
I need to learn that life is more than jumping out of airplanes
How can I die, and end up learning how to live
Not just feel
How dull the wretch, whose philosophic mind
Disdains the pleasures of fantastic kind;
Whose prosy thoughts the joys of life exclude,
And wreck the solace of the poet's mood!
Young Zeno, practis'd in the Stoic's art,
Rejects the language of the glowing heart;
Dissolves sweet Nature to a mess of laws;
Condemns th' effect whilst looking for the cause;
Freezes poor Ovid in an iced review,
And sneers because his fables are untrue!
In search of hope the hopeful zealot goes,
But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!
Stay! Vandal sophist, whose deep lore would blast
The grateful legends of the storied past;
Whose tongue in censure flays th' embellish'd page,
And scorns the comforts of a dreary age:
Wouldst strip the foliage from the vital bough
Till all men grow as wisely dull as thou?
Happy the man whose fresh, untainted eye
Discerns a Pantheon in the spangled sky;
Finds sylphs and dryads in the waving trees,
And spies soft Notus in the southern breeze
For whom the stream a cheering carol sings,
While reedy music by the fountain rings;
To whom the waves a Nereid tale confide
Till friendly presence fills the rising tide.
Happy is he, who void of learning's woes,
Th' ethereal life of bodied Nature knows;
I scorn the sage that tells me it but seems,
And flout his gravity in sunlight dreams!
 Dec 2012 Eva Elyse
Pedro Poveda
I don't see the truth anymore
It floats by me like
the feather it is, carrying my
dreams and ambitions

Never returning yet I am
always yearning for its arrival
My eyes burn red with anticipation
for a moment that never actualizes

My life is such that it can be defined
by the feather that glided across the blue
Next page