#poetry - "To Your Golden Age Approaching"

My dear, you are stunning in your myriad way,
Your world within, your world without;
The warmth and radiance of what makes today
Is becoming your gold, you cannot doubt.

The path you have taken has had many turns,
The people you have loved, all the joys and sorrows,
The places you have been; and travels you yearn,
Are all here today and becoming your tomorrows.

You are a monarch of love in all your worlds,
You are a spire of strength, an example to many,
You have kindness for all while your wisdom unfolds,
You have peace any day, you are often ready.

Remember to love and that you are much loved,
Remember to be yourself always, that you are above.

#poetry - Friend

When I rise its only for a moment I'm alone,
and then the fog of sleep is clearing,
and then the weight of day comes bearing,
but with it too is knowing you are with me.

Chugging along, just chug chugging along.
Its something more than that though!
and I know you know it too and so
we're grooving on up and down and around.

You make me jump right out of my skin--
you've done this before, you'll do it again.
You drive me crazy, but that's not a sin!
I holler at you cause you are my friend.

Where we're going and where we've been
is all the same to me and it is all the world.

#poetry - whether a spirit or mind yearns

i see the love, the Love, with all
its faces in all its forms,
and know we are only the jesters
of such places, we are the storms.

about these observations'
indications i have no qualms,
for too many abrasions already
control the wiggle of arms.

there is, on any occasion,
for any reason a case for charms,
and the maker of these merits
shall inherit all bizarre urns.

fire lights, warms and burns,
whether a spirit or mind yearns.

#poetry - there is as much of you in you as me

there is as much of you in you as me
when i count it all out upon my hand.
i come at last in this moment to see
there is not much of me in you, my friend.

perhaps i should take this insight and end
my quest to be one in your circle,
and draw out my circles and lines and then
forget as much of you in me. less full,

i could go out and hunt another dull,
but life battered wit as you, and then find
in he or she or them the miracle
of balanced friendship, something more sublime,

or continue here to draw out your life--
like a mosquito fat on rhino hide.

#Poetry - Fortune Rings the Fool Heart

Character is Fate -Heraclitus

Marvelous how Fortune rings the fool heart!
No need this fool to break bread and wonder,
He starves himself one to work the other--
Kind by these ways, he views end before start,
Takes it all in, staggering with bother,
Falling for the rise he knows each will bring,
Folly! for his eyes meet his suffering,
But he does not back down despite its fire.
Where do fool hearts come from if not Fate's spring?
Character flaws don't know fool hearts at all,
Speak only of blind eyes toward a signal,
Not of standing sight-full at center ring,
Not of leaning rightful for the bull's horn,
Not of He who's courage shows wisdom scorn.

#poetry - The Door and The Hand

A sonnet for Nicole

Now to the door we had since left open,
where the bodies and ghosts of now and past
came and went by, moving perhaps too fast,
but free, to take for granted such motion,
coursing unconcerned whether it would last,
a high charge spiriting this untolled way,
far away from the discharged shock of day,
this one true passage, the first and the last.
To this open door a hand, hard and gray,
with force of will born out the anti-charge,
manifesting spite, until now at-large,
held Doom's Day's thunder, held its crash at bay,
held the door and paused, it could not slam gloom,
for Infinity's Love was in that room.

#poetry - Edna and Robert, Sonnets on Love

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

men have not yet served love as i do now;
at most, in courts of gilt with ivory cast—
of arabic sands ‘neath saracen brow
or black forest trees shading legions fast
little they vest invading—an heirs' affair,
or prey by candle and wine, winning no test,
i find there are no men wearing, as i wear
Love, the eternal city of my crest.
i know all living die once while alive
but i only this long sought after way
do reckon Love; my time sees goodness thrive
in limbs unparted by passionate sway
that quiets would-be kings their claims ahead
and keeps each knight afoot until they're dead.

robert daniel david ortiz

The Poser

You come out the wood same as you went in,
one hand on a bottle of your customary gin.
How true, sincerity was never your flaw.
In conversation you are now, as ever before,
with nimble tongue and convincing eyes,
a Shakespeare reader, a mere sonnet stealer,
an artful seamstress over-coating your lies
with a layer of sweetness, just enough for her
not to realize the hollowness within you,
and give you chance again, chance #10,
to flourish a knight, for the one night you do,
and in the morning be the poser you are again.
But here now comes the day for original verse,
and on this day your silence could be worse.

look first how well Order serves Mystery

There even in the wildest flower
is all the Order any day may hold.
We all must clamor by some grand measure
for the slightest hint of absolute power.
Really, a simple few are shown favor
in the echoing great halls of the bold,
for one satellite orbits another,
while one consumes one, the sum somehow one,
and one and one make one to yield us three.
Same strange rules for flowers direct the sun.
A Source is yet revealed, to you and me,
as an entity apart from what we see---
Hope for such a governor? Presumption!
Ah, the lines we hold and force aspire to be,
look first how well Order serves Mystery.

after cataclysm

more can be said for centripetal force
by others than by me, but perhaps this---
matters not the cause a ship can lose course,
or wherefrom comes destructive impulses
or how one's hello and goodbye kisses
are same while differs the staying exchange,
variables determine hits and misses
and wakes the choices that create our range.
if i were the earth now and you the moon
and i knew how our crests were once estranged
from warm-hearted oneness by some fortune,
you swirling outward and forever strange,
no time would i waste calculating how,
i'd say, 'good-bye love. what do i do now?'

to the painter who would be king

i guess i will let you burn this one out---
this fatherless turmoil renews itself
by swift turns and self-proclaiming clout,
ladder rung, echelon, hierarchic shelf,
at least you see there are these planes upon
which we are judged before the self ascends,
but you got mixes flowing in you son,
that skip beginnings, genuflect for ends,
and muddy the middle waters with vice.
because now you burn, now is time for ice.
you are not the king. more, you are broken
inside, warbling in perfect trees your flaws,
all who hear may never see who's spoken,
you are a conscience, just a painter of laws.

she cuts a line along her arm each day

she cuts a line along her arm each day,
the same two thoughts upon her skin journal,
in one clean line, a thin writing to say
at once that art is long but not floral.
such truth, a place holder for tomorrow,
these chevrons of yesterday's blinding breaks,
today's record of resilient sorrow
is silent and constant through steady wakes
of the same old woe she recognizes
and cannot escape---what else can she do?
her heart quickens to touch the falls and rises
by these marks of scar---her clean growth rings tattoo
texturizes the main complaints to form
a lurid Braille reading of her life's storm.

The Physical Power of Prayer

The Physical Power of Prayer

Sometimes throughout a normal day or night
my mind is taken by a sudden fright
and a portion of it, usually small,
turns like active rebels in my great hall
and demands in no uncertain terms rights
to speak and command the rest of my all.
For to this certain charging sect, its clear,
the end of my days and nights is near!
A bell is rung when this foul charge is sung,
the sect hijacks my peaceable order---
my heart and nerves and spirit beat quarters,
my pulse and timing change elevation.
I end upon my knees, always, in prayer,
where pulse to pulse fingertips subdue this care.

The Old Priest and the Terrible Age

The Old Priest, grinding teeth in cheerless smile
and trembling knees under careful wrinkles
looks out his window. The insular tile
his lawn with their news cameras swiveled
and tracked and craned and bayed and yet idle.
Encamped, full flanking, they drum a warlike style
and drive his neighbors mad with wonder till
the rally point bulges with rankophiles.
"There!" they claim, "He lives in there. Here we'll stand
a close-linked chain," they feign, "We will wait here."
And they wait. While, encircled, he overhears
the day's complaint. At glass and door demands
come with a knock, knock, knock, "Put up your frock!"
But with eyes that mock, the Old Priest eyes the Clock.

Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal, I Know by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal, I Know by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far Underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.





The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library Classics)

after a brief encounter, after a long time

 in the evening i heard your voice again
there came along your scent and taste and touch---
your skin sweat, your shower breath, your nose kiss.

and with that flush too my shoulder and neck
remembered how your head fit right their nook,
my arms your shoulders, my knees your kneecaps.

my feet then recalled wearing your shoes,
my fingers your fingers, my bones your bones,
my heart fluttered to resync to your heart.

i took off your cap and felt my head round,
my crown your crown, inside the cap i found,
behind a fold, one long strand of your hair

long and brown and, in the lamplight, gold---
so i wove your hair round to a ring i now wear.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair by Pablo Neruda

I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair by Pablo Neruda
Translated by Stephen Tapscott
 
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

how the bards run my allergic reactions

waking me now, there are demons who sing
sonnetry poetry (oh how lovely!)---
bound in this awful sad form that is me
the demons claw my brain mass and sting
nerves in me till bluish light radiates,
then the bards of old rise and stretch and dance
taps and jigs and signals to imitate the
words and music, rhyme and reason, rants and
chants and all the happy bullshit they love.
bark is what i am to them and they ride
me and i obey for they all reside
where my heart and mind and soul were born of---
they are dust i breathe each day and sneeze by;
and the          and the          and the
songs i sing them are my allergic cry.

Ichor Flow

The brilliance that made Heart beat the horizon
With warm vanity and counter Autumn’s air,
Also gave that Crimson force enough to shun
Our fear and say, “No frost will bare this hand’s fare.”
The day the cold came, it confused our will
With love, and quilled our skin with blood to mend
Our words, and woke the cure to our tongue’s ill—
That day we mortals could breathe by a god send.
That day we felt the sanguine humor—graced
As aural light falling on lays of plain—
Incite us to become the demure and chaste,
Giving our Heart strength to graze its lovely grain.
   That immortal brilliance that put fire to cold
   Is the divine right of the mortal soul.

chalice aflood

Ramses II, pharoah god, was a little man.
Napolean the French, even smaller...
Neither Pere Stalin nor Herr Hitler knew,
but our dear Fidel Castro was taller—
only George W. Bush had the wherewithal
to keep his statue neither short nor tall.
Khomeini, bin Laden, Milosevic,
                               and Sharon,

bloodshed to bloodshed, brothers to the bone---
where a savior to bind them all by turn,
where is this malycon for whom I yearn?
If she'll dance with me, I'll play her a song,
a Volta! Strike it----here comes Mao Zedong!
I've sung your name before, Mistress Malice---now,
wring their hands bare of blood, drink the chalice
                                                  aflood