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In Yucatan, the Maya sonneteers
Of the Caribbean amphitheatre,
In spite of hawk and falcon, green toucan
And jay, still to the night-bird made their plea,
As if raspberry tanagers in palms,
High up in orange air, were barbarous.
But Crispin was too destitute to find
In any commonplace the sought-for aid.
He was a man made vivid by the sea,
A man come out of luminous traversing,
Much trumpeted, made desperately clear,
Fresh from discoveries of tidal skies,
To whom oracular rockings gave no rest.
Into a savage color he went on.

How greatly had he grown in his demesne,
This auditor of insects! He that saw
The stride of vanishing autumn in a park
By way of decorous melancholy; he
That wrote his couplet yearly to the spring,
As dissertation of profound delight,
Stopping, on voyage, in a land of snakes,
Found his vicissitudes had much enlarged
His apprehension, made him intricate
In moody rucks, and difficult and strange
In all desires, his destitution's mark.
He was in this as other freemen are,
Sonorous nutshells rattling inwardly.
His violence was for aggrandizement
And not for stupor, such as music makes
For sleepers halfway waking. He perceived
That coolness for his heat came suddenly,
And only, in the fables that he scrawled
With his own quill, in its indigenous dew,
Of an aesthetic tough, diverse, untamed,
Incredible to prudes, the mint of dirt,
Green barbarism turning paradigm.
Crispin foresaw a curious promenade
Or, nobler, sensed an elemental fate,
And elemental potencies and pangs,
And beautiful barenesses as yet unseen,
Making the most of savagery of palms,
Of moonlight on the thick, cadaverous bloom
That yuccas breed, and of the panther's tread.
The fabulous and its intrinsic verse
Came like two spirits parlaying, adorned
In radiance from the Atlantic coign,
For Crispin and his quill to catechize.
But they came parlaying of such an earth,
So thick with sides and jagged lops of green,
So intertwined with serpent-kin encoiled
Among the purple tufts, the scarlet crowns,
Scenting the jungle in their refuges,
So streaked with yellow, blue and green and red
In beak and bud and fruity gobbet-skins,
That earth was like a jostling festival
Of seeds grown fat, too juicily opulent,
Expanding in the gold's maternal warmth.
So much for that. The affectionate emigrant found
A new reality in parrot-squawks.
Yet let that trifle pass. Now, as this odd
Discoverer walked through the harbor streets
Inspecting the cabildo, the facade
Of the cathedral, making notes, he heard
A rumbling, west of Mexico, it seemed,
Approaching like a gasconade of drums.
The white cabildo darkened, the facade,
As sullen as the sky, was swallowed up
In swift, successive shadows, dolefully.
The rumbling broadened as it fell. The wind,
Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry,
Came bluntly thundering, more terrible
Than the revenge of music on bassoons.
Gesticulating lightning, mystical,
Made pallid flitter. Crispin, here, took flight.
An annotator has his scruples, too.
He knelt in the cathedral with the rest,
This connoisseur of elemental fate,
Aware of exquisite thought. The storm was one
Of many proclamations of the kind,
Proclaiming something harsher than he learned
From hearing signboards whimper in cold nights
Or seeing the midsummer artifice
Of heat upon his pane. This was the span
Of force, the quintessential fact, the note
Of Vulcan, that a valet seeks to own,
The thing that makes him envious in phrase.

And while the torrent on the roof still droned
He felt the Andean breath. His mind was free
And more than free, elate, intent, profound
And studious of a self possessing him,
That was not in him in the crusty town
From which he sailed. Beyond him, westward, lay
The mountainous ridges, purple balustrades,
In which the thunder, lapsing in its clap,
Let down gigantic quavers of its voice,
For Crispin to vociferate again.
Old wooden knot holed thing.
rust wearing; sitting unplayed.
Strings silent.
Manuscripts of faded scores.
Tarnished ink quavers and semi quavers,
ride the weary stave.
This unheard music fills
the room with it's silence.
Brian Oarr Feb 2012
The Saturday night crowd, all here to see Dave Van Ronk,
sit huddled in the fashion of Antwerp diamond cutters,
sipping cinnamon/marshmallow coffee at the tables.
Caffe Lena is Saratoga's happening place in the 60's and
we're here to forget the war and civil strife in the ghettos.

Sister Mary Katherine, sans frock, is the warmup act,
but no one really gives her any mind,
as she struggles to seat herself upon the stool
intended for the six-foot plus Van Ronk.
Joan Baez prepare to eat your heart out!

Without so much as introduction, she
breaks into a high soprano Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
Heads pivot like synchronized swimmers toward the stage.
Her silken voice emits notes blinking
into reality from quantum fluctuations in space/time.

Every quivering high-C grafts the audience together.
She's spinning veils of sound,
the like of which our ears are unfamiliar.
The quavers in her throat match the tremors in my coffee.
In the back of the cafe a drunken Van Ronk passes out.
A true incident which occurred @ the Caffe Lena in 1968
Shortly thereafter Sister Mary Katherine left the convent
Shelby Lynn Aug 2013
the gazer, he is called.
he calmly watches the world around him.
he analyzes threats and joys.
he sees clouds, sun, planets, and people.
but this one stops him.
this thing.
it stops him. and it stops his heart.
this one, different thing...

first a description:
he is nothing miraculous
funny, because i love him
that, in itself is not a miracle.
for love is easy. it's blind and cruel.
but this...this feeling
whatever it is....it is unworldly.
this one, different thing...

here's the poem, here's some lines,
i'll try to make sense, i'll try to rhyme.
here is a special few verses
for the special man who nurses
not mine, but our weary souls.
this one, different thing...

-begin-

his past is as dark as his hair,
heart as light as his eyes are fair.
he is smart, but no genius
he is strong, with no meanness

he has a name which gives him no favors,
his voice is a sound that never quavers.
his family, a gem
not of glass or stone,
but one of him,
one of home.

to be polished and cleaned,
shined til it gleamed
scratches run deep
as it's surface will weep

but family, none-the-less
a gem, but i digress.
this is for him, not them.

he is taller than i,
he sees but is blind
but when i come to mind,
i open his eyes.

in a flash i arose, i shot through his sky
i lit up his world with my light and my try
i'm a once-in-a-lifetime
i'm a half-witted rhyme
i'm a comet, you see
flying alone and flying free.

but this flight was different.
every pass 'round the sun, i grow weaker.
my tail shortens, my ice is spent.
my voice becomes meeker.

as i shot by above the earth's sky
i spied with my little eye,
a man.

i've seen many men.
i've seen planets.
i've seen rocks.
i've seen just about anything a comet can see.

but this man. he stopped. and he looked.
right at me. right through me. right through me.
i may have been wrong, i may have mistook,
but when i saw him, i saw me, i saw we.

i'm not the only comet he's seen
but i am the brightest.
the time he's spent on earth
with rocks so mean,
they make diamonds look weak
(like the ones on her hand)

but i am the brightest.
i'm the cleanest, i'm the rightest.
that's why we froze in time.

but for a moment,
a fleeting, shining, bursting moment in time.
he made me want to stay.
he made me want to lay
on earth.
with him.
forever.

but this is not the way of comets.
we come and we go
we shine and we glow
but we never stop.
we never halt.
we never drop.
we don't show fault.

but this man, he stopped me.
my orbit slowed
my heart showed
i stared and i lingered
i grasped for his fingers.

he dragged me down to the hell on earth
we danced and we sang and giggled with mirth.
this man and i, had this thing.
this one, special thing.

but, as the way of comets, i desired to leave
i wanted to fly, i wanted to believe
that i had a choice, i had a say
in my present and my future day.

not true, not true, not true at all
this man made me stumble, this man made me fall.
he held me down and stole my flight
i begged and i pleaded to only his delight.

i am no longer a comet, bright and flashing
i am a rock with an icy core
but a heart still dashing
evermore, evermore.

he took my sky, my light, and space
but i had my heart, just enough to save face.
i still love him to this day
i love him and i will stay.

he melted my outer layer while freezing my soul
but i am still me and i will recover in time
his wedding ring lies on the counter in a bowl
and i'm here waiting to make him mine.

september can't come a day too soon
he's cheated, he's lied his way to the moon.
but he's here now, today, this moment in time.
he's honest, he's changing, and soon he'll be mine.

i trust and i believe with every fiber of my being
that we were meant to be, just the time will be fleeting.
wrong time, wrong place
there's nothing we can do to change the ways of fate.

this is how it will be.
he will walk away and i will be free.
i can wander, i can fight, i can die.
he will live, he will work, he will lie.

some things change and others do not
i accept him as he is and love him with all i've got.
there is that one special person that you never forget
he is mine in this lifetime as she was his, which i regret.

i wish it was me. i wish he could see.
i wish i was there. i wish life was fair.
but years separate our bodies and we
will never be one even if we did so care.

wrong time, wrong place
we were never meant to be.
but i will love him and he will love me.
soon we'll separate just to save face.

time will pass and nature will weather our core
our minds will be lost and our souls set free
maybe then we can truly be. you and i, him and me.
evermore, evermore.
C  May 2011
Into Great Silence.
C May 2011
The finger oil glistens in wide smears across convex glass
and the tired man in ***** Carhartts
asks the price for a rack of beef ribs.
The deli woman answers, his vision
quavers from the gristle and grease
as he dismisses the possibility of a feast,  
it just looked so good
he comments,  almost
pained or embarrassed.
She offers to cut it in half as
Dave the BBQ cook calls to me
across the fray and I wonder
if he wants my company,
for we talk long
about recent literary conquests
and our love of atypical diction.
The middle aged man
in the old ***** Carhartts
who walks
with the upright pain
of enduring parenthood
through poverty
refuses the meat with wry hurt
and wanders out of my life.
I drive one handed,
twelve ribs covered in tin foil
clutched dripping
as I peel back a metal edge
and gnaw flesh from bone.
Shalini Nayar  Sep 2014
Ganges
Shalini Nayar Sep 2014
Her song swims in waves into the river,
The swift current cradling it by.
Her melody stumbles across the rocks,
The quavers settle offshore till the wave-bubble
Licks them back.

The scattered ashes come to life.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005
Anthony Williams Jul 2014
There was no earthquake
no shattering birth
raging against the pane of existence
sending butterflies cowering behind glass
and wolves baying over a bloodless loss
in a forest where one tree falls to a soulmate
breaking free from clutter with a passionate flair
like a newly clustered sun's first real pulse
of living light
flung into a dark sky to dwell on its joy
at brightening its view of the universe

when I met you

there was no pepper spray
of subdued stinging elation
burning under my skin
when you climbed over everything
and demonstrated against
all I had ever defined
choking the air with a perfume
so hot it welded every flower
within miles into a single staggering
placard blowing me into a garden paradise
from where winds were strengthened
with a strange unprotesting fascination
only guessed at by curious angels
only sensed as the singular truth
amidst the nonsense of existence
by a philosophical idealist

when I met you

there was no starving ants' nest
hunger to consume you morsel by morsel
carry the idyllic seeds aloft in triumphal succession
and acclaim the day as evermore celebrated
store the piecemeal plot as sacred land
my eternal home to build on as we will
and relishing the daily harvest
the piled to spilling their vanity fruits
of Aphrodite's labouring shaken womb
by putting your heaving bodice of attraction
on display where the highest peak
looks up at your shockingly favoured nature
and in its warm shade curls up
contrite

when I met you

on a never to be exceeded
memory pillow of accomplished desire
below the tree line where it melts
the final crystals of snow
and rolls over on to its back
hard time ink tattoos giving way
to slipped on morning lipstick
like a puppy wanting a rub of its tummy
discovering the pleasures of green grass
on its first summer
of life

when I met you

there was no play of your fingers
skimming down my back
touching every vital chord
of merciless disharmony
tormenting the hell out of me
with a soft on my eyes stream
of exotically attired tireless servants
loyal only to our exchanged look of adoration

when I met you

performing in concert with your lithe body
by suddenly trumpeting the flash of lightening
generated by a momentary show
of everything you possess not static
and worn to part plush glimpses skin on skin
from shifting notes dripping under lazy dresses
dropping their quavers on to velvet carpet
and rubbing in the salted healing potion
you drummed up on quiet sleepless nights
inside a perfection of smooth conniving visions
bolting the bedroom of mad freedoms from inside
and banishing every other maiden's swan song
from this man's dreams of orchestral piece

when I met you

I found only the more
perfect body
personality
kindness
and love
and that
my dear one
was more than I deserve

way way beyond
what I couldn't find
what will ever be
envisioned
enough

when I met you

to think maybe the other bits
will follow
but it doesn't have to be so

when I meet you
and meet you more
by Anthony Williams
Sleepy Sigh Dec 2010
When I want to write
And the words are churlish and
Sluggishly slow in coming -
And even when they come
They linger at the door-frame
And rub their soft cheeks
Against the painted grain -

I read in a special voice.
Sometimes it's the voice
Of my English teacher from
Junior class. We didn't get along,
But not a word passed her
Lips that wasn't as gilded and
Mellifluous as edible gold-leaf
On a chocolate-chili sundae.

Or the voice belongs to
Rives, who plucks meaning
Out of words like candy
Out of an Easter egg.
He savors every syllable
Like it's an annual treat
And lines them up neatly
In his throat like some kind
Of spoken-word songbird,

But the things I write are
Least likely to be read aloud
By Rives and my English teacher.
(And reading in their voices
Seems too proud.) So I pen
The last of the stragglers down
And clear the alien voices out
Of my own (often sore) throat.

I enjoy my words, wallow in
Phrases, and praise lines of
Alliteration about as often as
A soldier runs past shelter
Helter-skelter and takes his
Chances with unfriendly crosshairs.
My voice quavers, quivers, shakes,
And shivers when I read my work.

I find every letter and line
And nuance absurd, but
I keep myself in check. Editing is
A controlled demolition of
Punctuation and capitalization;
Sometimes the "submit"
Button is hard to hit after
Splaying one more page of
Myself into crisp computer print.

But I breathe and repeat
The words that are lodged
Under my ribcage like a
Stray bullet: "You are not
Superlative; you are not
Fantastic; you will not be
Famous; you will not be
Any better for a long time
And even then you may be
Terrible, unbearable, and
Infinitesimal,

But everyone is."

                                                            click
Brrr, my fingers are FREEZING
Thomas Thurman May 2010
I saw the ruddy sunshine growing wild,
I saw his smiling visage disappear,
the sky, once filled with luminance so mild
becoming dark with shadowings of fear.
The southern wind with angry violence blows
Olympus, perched on Atlas' shoulders' height
who quavers as the tempest's fury grows
and fills the air with thunder in his fright.
But, see! I saw the veil of darkness break
within the morning's rainwater dissolving,
and see! I saw the daybreak's glory take
its former ground, back to its heights resolving;
and to the sky I wondered, "Who can say
if such a change as this lies in my way?"
This is my translation of *La tempestad y la calma*, by Juan de Arguijo (1567-1623).  My Spanish is very basic, and I was mainly working from someone else's translation into English prose.  The original is at http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/La_tempestad_y_la_calma .

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