Poetry slam

[Jeff]

Only a Recession


After hunger
two days long,
sitting happy before
a plate of beans,

I delicately slip
each kernel with
my incisors,

let my tongue run
twitching with joy
across the texture
of the meat.


- Milton Acorn

[brainpanhandler]

Trashcan Lives


the wind blows hard tonight
and it's a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle
of red.

it's when you're on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything.
this is the way a democracy
works:
you get what you can,
try to keep that
and add to it
if possible.

this is the way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.

we just forget
ours.

in either case
it's a hard
cold
wind.

- Charles Bukowski

[Alaya]

Parting at a Wine Shop in Nan-king

A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it.
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend's love!

Li Po

[compared2what?]

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

[norton ash]

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in the green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

James Wright

[Allegro]

Earth observed a space of blue,
Green plants birthed a leaf;
Blossoms blushed exquisite colors
Crowned in pink for you.

~ A.

[Allegro]

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.

~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

[AmyRose]

[brainpanhandler]

A Poison Tree


I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

- William Blake

[Allegro]

.
Forgetfulness | Billy Collins

[Allegro]

.
Siren Song | Margaret Atwood

[norton ash]

Elizabeth

Catch, my Uncle Jack said
and oh I caught this huge apple
red as Mrs Kelly's bum.
It's red as Mrs Kelly's bum, I said
and Daddy roared
and swung me on his stomach with a heave.
Then I hid the apple in my room
till it shrunk like a face
growing eyes and teeth ribs.

Then Daddy took me to the zoo
he knew the man there
they put a snake around my neck
and it crawled down the front of my dress
I felt its flicking tongue
dripping onto me like a shower.
Daddy laughed and said Smart Snake
and Mrs Kelly with us scowled.

In the pond where they kept the goldfish
Philip and I broke the ice with spades
and tried to spear the fishes;
we killed one and Philip ate it,
then he kissed me
with the raw saltless fish in his mouth.

My sister Mary's got bad teeth
and said I was lucky, hen she said
I had big teeth, but Philip said I was pretty.
He had big hands that smelled.

I would speak of Tom, soft laughing,
who danced in the mornings round the sundial
teaching me the steps of France, turning
with the rhythm of the sun on the warped branches,
who'd hold my breast and watch it move like a snail
leaving his quick urgent love in my palm.
And I kept his love in my palm till it blistered.

When they axed his shoulders and neck
the blood moved like a branch into the crowd.
And he staggered with his hanging shoulder
cursing their thrilled cry, wheeling,
waltzing in the French style to his knees
holding his head with the ground,
blood settling on his clothes like a blush;
this way
when they aimed the thud into his back.

And I find cool entertainment now
with white young Essex, and my nimble rhymes.

- Michael Ondaatje

[Alaya]

THE CRIME WAS IN GRANADA

to Frederico Garcia Lorca


1. THE CRIME

He was seen walking between the rifles
down a long street
and going out to the cold countryside
still with stars of early dawn.
They killed Frederico
when light came.
The squad of executioners
didn't dare look him in the face.
They closed their eyes.
They prayed,"Not God can save you!"
Dead fell Frederico,
--blood on his forehead and lead in his stomach--
That the crime was in Granada--
know it--poor Granada!--in his Granada.

2. THE POET AND DEATH

He was seen walking alone with her,
not afraid of her scythe.
--The sun already on tower and tower; the hammers
on the anvil--anvil and anvil of the forges.
Frederico was speaking,
flirting with death, she listened.
"Companion, because yesterday, in my verse,
the clapping of your dry palms resounded
and you gave ice to my song, and edge
of your sickle of silver to my tragedy,
I will sing you your missing flesh,
the eyes you lack,
your hair the wind was ruffling,
the red lips where they kissed you...
Today as yesterday, gypsy, my death,
how good alone with you
in these breezes of Granada, My Granada!

3.

he was seen walking...
friends carve
a tomb of stone and dream in the Alhambra,
for the poet,
over a fountain where the water weeps
and forever says,
The crime was in Granada, His Granada!

~ Anthony Machado

[Alaya]

Home Is the Sailor



Home is the sailor, home from sea:

Her far-borne canvas furled

The ship pours shining on the quay

The plunder of the world.



Home is the hunter from the hill:

Fast in the boundless snare

All flesh lies taken at his will

And every fowl of air.



'Tis evening on the moorland free,

The starlit wave is still:

Home is the sailor from the sea,

The hunter from the hill.


A.E. Housman

[Alaya]

IT BIDS PRETTY FAIR

The play seems out for almost an indefinite run.
Don't mind a little thing about the actors fighting.
The only thing I worry about is the sun.
We'll all be alright if nothing goes wrong with the lighting.

~ Robert Frost