Poetry

My favorite poems, perfect to read on a rainy day with a cup of tea. Embrace your inner Martin Blackwood. All of these poetry books were thrifted and quite cheap so if you like poetry consider looking on old dusty bookshelves for these treasures. Thrifting will introduce you to many poets you would’ve never heard of otherwise. My favorite discovery is Cold Mountain who seems like a chill guy and got me into Taoism. I encourage you to do research on all these poets and their poems in your own time.

THE GARDEN OF THE ASYLUM AT ARLES

by Elizabeth McWethy

Peaceful, bathed in Provencal sun,

Bright with flowers;

It is garden of the asylum

To which Van Gogh went voluntarily

As an inmate in the last two years

Of his life. A private place,

A far cry from the image of “Mad House.”

In essence the garden is a very basic form–

Parterre–the beds laid out in simple shapes

Divided by narrow paths like rays

Around a central pool; goldfish carry

The sunlight on their flanks, while water

Reflects the brilliant blue sky and and an island,

Small, off-center tricks belief, insures sanity.

The wedge-shaped beds are planted with pansies.

Red poppies glow beside cool pink and white

Hyacinths edged with small child-faced violas.

The frame a quadrangle held steady at four corners

By trees of great age and grace; on its far side

A bed of blue iris is balanced by oleanders in bloom

Under the arched walks of the asylum building

Tea roses in pots calm agitation with perfume.

It is a walled garden with no more

Of the world in it than its simple design.

All is regular and ordered echoing

The need of inmates to have

something to contemplate.

Driven mad by sunflowers and the confusion

They cause when mistaken for the sun

That momentous clock ticking each day

With its load of action, its sparks, its flares

Its history of destruction as Daedalus

Learned when his son’s mind melted

And his wings lost their hold and fell

From him, leaving him to perish,

Rudderless, mindless, the weight of his being

Hurtling without boundaries through the air.

Steadied by the garden, Van Gogh healed.

But only for a time–two years, no more,

He again reached for the sun with its hot blast.

The feathers that fell from him were the black crows’.

Foxes

by Rosemary Winslow

They are alive somewhere

in the block of blackness that is trees,

the two foxes whose gold eyes

locked and gleamed as our headlights pried

nothing out of them, who waved off

through a door they opened in the grasses.

We had stopped to look at the stars.

No cloud, no moon, and the world’s

electric dimming three hundred miles away.

We were looking up, your breath stirred

tendrils on my neck, your wet mouth

was atop my head, I was a grass

waving. It was our first night, you

were a stranger. Fragments

of constellations whirled, wildness

cabled down through the woods, you went

into me, I went into you, some kind of light

wheeled as we stood, we were a grass

entered. Black heaven was alive,

had reached us across immeasurable spaces.

And was there as we drove back,

and was waiting through all the days

I did not know how to love you.

You waited and we grew like grasses.

Last Half of a Heartfelt Dialogue

by R. W. Haynes

Intensity? Here? In this smudge of ink?

Where silence resonates down the gloomy halls

And twitches misery’s cobwebs on the walls,

Here? Which eye cares, madam, do you think?

But in a while the desert sun will rise

And desert critters will try their morning voices

In a choir that lustily rejoices

As strong sunlight feasts its shining eyes.

And memory of this will fade for good

Back into ancient poetry’s dark wood

As blessed sunlight lights the world again.

Can we make patience, a haven in night fear,

Pull itself slowly together right here?

Trickle Drops

by Walt Whitman

Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!

O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,

Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,

From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d

From my face, from my forehead and lips,

From my breast, from within where I was conceal’d, press forth

red drops, confession drops,

Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody

drops,

Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,

Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,

Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.

Two Campers in Cloud Country

(Rock Lake, Canada)

By Sylvia Plath

In this country there is neither measure nor balance

To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,

The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.

No gesture of your or mine could catch their attention,

No word make them carry water or fire the kindling

Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.

Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants a vacation

Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice;

Away from the labeled elms, the tame tea-roses.

It took three days driving north to find a cloud

The polite skies over Boston couldn’t possibly accommodate,

Here on the last frontier of the big, brash spirit

The horizons are too far off to be chummy as uncles;

The colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance.

Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions

And night arrives in one gigantic step.

It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little.

These rocks offer no purchase to herbage or people:

They are conceiving a dynasty of perfect cold.

In a month we’ll wonder what plates and forks are for.

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I’m here.

The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened.

Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas,

The pines blot our voices up in their lightest sighs.

Around our tent the old simplicities sough

Sleepily as Lethe, trying to get in.

We’ll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn.

Poem by Cold Mountain

(translated from Chinese)

I sit on top of a boulder

the stream is icy cold

quiet joys hold a special charm

bare cliffs in the fog enchant

this is such a restful place

the sun goes down and tree shadows sprawl

I watch the ground of my mind

and a lotus comes out of the mud

When hermits hide from society

most retire to the  hills

where green vines veil the slopes

and jade streams echo unbroken

where happiness reigns

and contentment lasts

where pure white lotus minds

aren’t stained by the muddy world

Here’s some advice for meat-eating people

who eat without reflecting

living things were formerly seeds

the future depends on current deeds

seizing present joys

unafraid of sorrows to come

a rat gets into the rice jar

but can’t get out when he’s full

Thoughts

by Rousseau Phillips

the melancholy has devoured my ability to feel

alive

human

anything

I’m so lost in blue skies

it’s supposed to be good

but there is always a chance of rain

I might break again

rip open my seams

why do the scarlett threads make it good

why do the raspberry ribbons feel like home

I’m tumbling back down

my head is too crowded

I must release the clouds of noise

they will seep through my cracks

drenching the world in gray

but I’m in color

bright red

streaming

waterfalls

pooling

flowing back to my sea of insanity

just to cover me in mist once more

I just want to see

even if it’s through thorns