"adust" poems
Down the quiet eve,
Thro' my window with the sunset
Pipes to me a distant *****
Foolish ditties;
And, as when you change
Pictures in a magic lantern,
Books, beds, bottles, floor, and ceiling
Fade and vanish,
And I'm well once more . . .
August flares adust and torrid,
But my heart is full of April
Sap and sweetness.
In the quiet eve
I am loitering, longing, dreaming . . .
Dreaming, and a distant *****
Pipes me ditties.
I can see the shop,
I can smell the sprinkled pavement,
Where she serves--her chestnut chignon
Thrills my senses!
O, the sight and scent,
Wistful eve and perfumed pavement!
In the distance pipes an ***** . . .
The sensation
Comes to me anew,
And my spirit for a moment
Thro' the music breathes the blessed
Airs of London.
1.9k
fragments of shadows found in between my finger tips
and your collar bone
provide safety in breathing
in tracing
reciprocating souls find a home
in exchange of glances and
colorful explosions followed by gentle,
studious hands.
reify things only dreamt of or written about
in tales of gods and poetry of the rich man.
leave the rest of the world adust
as they fall in their intentions --
in their questions,
we write among the stars
what they could not dare to fathom
as we all look toward a single sky.
Jul 13, 2018
Jul 13, 2018 at 6:18 AM UTC
Bronze roses
and dried leaves...
love lies adust
in this melancholy place.
Faint rays of light
through broken windows,
disturb the jealous darkness.
Pale figures glide
down gloomy hallways --
faint whisperings are heard.
Broken dreams: faded tapestries
of what was and will
never be again.
Mirrors reflect a sad masque:
what is lost to the day.
Bronze roses
and dried leaves.
Here in this somber place
the air is rare
and full of sighs.
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 11:55 AM UTC
In the Hot Summer
The sun mounts high
It blazes down on the floors
The children scurry by
Everyone has to be indoors
All the plants are adust
Temperature rises by degrees
Mulch thobs by gust
Wind is sighing in the trees
The men carpet mats
Lying in shodow they doze
Pests are the buzzing gnats
They deprive them of repose
Buffaloes let out gasp
Sheep squabble over water
On brims birds clasp
And each other they slaughter
A hot wind inflicts harms
Dust is carried by whirlwinds
Boys rush into farms
Eat up melons and leave rinds
Water begins to boil
Every drop ends up in smoke
It is the sons of soil
Who burn in heat and go broke
This is no less drought
Months ahead is the rain
Yet Karanj stands out
Blossomed in thirsty terrene.
S. Bharat
Apr 6, 2021
Apr 6, 2021 at 12:00 AM UTC
vaguen
(Samuel Beckett, notation on MS of Happy Days)
I
Fire comes bouncing in from the
desert a threat to houses Here’s
what we do says the King to
Rudyard Kipling who is visiting
Stuff wet rags in the eaves throw
the silverware in the swimming
pool And my letters Rudyard
Kipling is thinking will you be
pressing my letters to your
breast as we skid towards
the car Truly diverse people
the King and Kipling one or
the other was always getting
his feelings hurt Above them
a strip of once blue sky now
dark adust
II
Nowadays there are technicians
of despair you can work at it
Going to the Buddhist study
group I pass a thin crumpled
man at a wall his face on the
bricks Behind him another big
black city legs wide apart roaring
Say you aren’t stupid then why
aren’t you happy
III
New guy at the Buddhist study
group Eyes cut to bits I want
he keeps saying So I don’t get
so he keeps saying A bunch
of sage grass has blown onto
his head and grown down into
his mind He shakes hands with
everyone over and over again
at the door
IV
I had previously been to
the Old South Thirty minutes
into the faculty dinner a man
to my left drops his eyes and
his voice says he murdered his
brother with a shotgun when
he was twelve The other diners
appear to have heard this
before On the plane home I
sit across from a vet with a
falcon on his lap It observes
the other passengers severely
Drinks apple juice from a
cup with very small silver
lips
V
At twenty-eight thousand feet
above the uncarved block of
NY state a cricket jumps onto
my coat Vaguen it says
Anne Carson currently teaches at NYU and will publish a handmade book called NOX in 2010. She is the author of Autobiography of Red, Plainwater, and other books of poetry, non-fiction, and mixed genre.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 11:23 AM UTC
The birds
With their iridescent plumage
Have lost their color due to age,
Or cynical ways-
But they fly
Fly into endless skies
And I'm here
With my pretty thorns
In a world adust with scorn,
Wondering what it's like
To be free
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC