I Taught Myself To Live Simply
I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.
Anna Akhmatova
"Once you start to see through the myth of status, possessions, and unlimited consumption as a path to happiness, you'll find that you have all kinds of freedom and time. It's like a deal you can make with the universe: I'll give up greed for freedom. Then you can start putting your time to good use."
David Edwards, Nothing to Lose But Our Illusions
David Edwards, Nothing to Lose But Our Illusions
She's So Innocent
If she was a flower
she would be a Tiger Lily.
If the air and grass were not a stage for her
then her heart would have a window.
If you could distinguish between the devil and angel
in the movements of her eyebrows,
or whether or not she twists her foot so slowly
unintentionally,
then there would be no more
fun in uncertainty, no more risk in temptation.
If she was a note, then
she would slowly bend up a whole step
in a minor key, softly sustain it,
and fall, as in a gravity of sound
as strong as the pull of the twist
of the arch of her foot.
If she was a simile,
she would be a dress.
Nick A.
If she was a flower
she would be a Tiger Lily.
If the air and grass were not a stage for her
then her heart would have a window.
If you could distinguish between the devil and angel
in the movements of her eyebrows,
or whether or not she twists her foot so slowly
unintentionally,
then there would be no more
fun in uncertainty, no more risk in temptation.
If she was a note, then
she would slowly bend up a whole step
in a minor key, softly sustain it,
and fall, as in a gravity of sound
as strong as the pull of the twist
of the arch of her foot.
If she was a simile,
she would be a dress.
Nick A.
Zen and the Art of Saying Goodbye
I
She was so happy she could have cried,
she said. And he believed her.
He was taken by her honesty.
The room now felt as naked as they were, and new.
The radio alarm clock began its song perfectly.
Sinatra was signing "Fly Me to the Moon,"
And their laughter danced its way to the stars.
This morning the sunlight was not intrusive, but perfect.
II
But just as light breaks night falls,
and just as life wakes death calls.
Everything comes and goes.
There's a transitive nature to all things,
lovers, friends, ends beginnings.
Faith is a dog's nose.
"You fool," he said, but how could he be blamed to trust sincerity.
Words are words. Just words, just words.
They're glass they're masks, they're fire, they're swords
I know no other way to feel.
I tell you because I can.
Yet, I'm afraid to say I miss you.
You may not understand.
III
Still, in the darkest, most hidden corner of my soul
there is a hunger for the shadow that falls
between the soft curve of your back,
for the missing weight of your hand on my chest.
Nick A.
I
She was so happy she could have cried,
she said. And he believed her.
He was taken by her honesty.
The room now felt as naked as they were, and new.
The radio alarm clock began its song perfectly.
Sinatra was signing "Fly Me to the Moon,"
And their laughter danced its way to the stars.
This morning the sunlight was not intrusive, but perfect.
II
But just as light breaks night falls,
and just as life wakes death calls.
Everything comes and goes.
There's a transitive nature to all things,
lovers, friends, ends beginnings.
Faith is a dog's nose.
"You fool," he said, but how could he be blamed to trust sincerity.
Words are words. Just words, just words.
They're glass they're masks, they're fire, they're swords
I know no other way to feel.
I tell you because I can.
Yet, I'm afraid to say I miss you.
You may not understand.
III
Still, in the darkest, most hidden corner of my soul
there is a hunger for the shadow that falls
between the soft curve of your back,
for the missing weight of your hand on my chest.
Nick A.
Speculation
If he had merely smiled,
she would certainly have smiled back.
Or if he had offered, say, an orange,
a pleasant waxy glove of color,
a burgeoning world of pith and pulp
plucked unexpectedly from its citrus orbit,
then too, with yes please, thank you,
she would have smiled back.
Or if it were a joke, a joke
which had just then occurred to him
as his eyes scanned the effect
of waning light stretched out before them,
even a joke he had known for years, perhaps
one his grandfather had told him
on just such a gathering autumn evening,
if he had merely offered a joke,
surely then her generosity
would have proved magnificent,
and her smile, magnanimous.
If he had but thought,
had not let that slight phrase slide across his lips into the space
that formed the gloaming distance
between their bodies,
she just might have smiled.
Emily P.
If he had merely smiled,
she would certainly have smiled back.
Or if he had offered, say, an orange,
a pleasant waxy glove of color,
a burgeoning world of pith and pulp
plucked unexpectedly from its citrus orbit,
then too, with yes please, thank you,
she would have smiled back.
Or if it were a joke, a joke
which had just then occurred to him
as his eyes scanned the effect
of waning light stretched out before them,
even a joke he had known for years, perhaps
one his grandfather had told him
on just such a gathering autumn evening,
if he had merely offered a joke,
surely then her generosity
would have proved magnificent,
and her smile, magnanimous.
If he had but thought,
had not let that slight phrase slide across his lips into the space
that formed the gloaming distance
between their bodies,
she just might have smiled.
Emily P.
“Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry . . . have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere—let me be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.”
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure. Then it is better for you to pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
But if you love and have desires, let these be your desires: To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Love one another but make not a bond of love: Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of God can contain your hearts.
Khalil Gibran
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure. Then it is better for you to pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
But if you love and have desires, let these be your desires: To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Love one another but make not a bond of love: Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of God can contain your hearts.
Khalil Gibran
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13
Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13
"As we grow up, we put away our laughter and our silliness and our childish noises, the great sensory hilariousness of our young lives. We pick up a few notions about proper behavior, like what books to read and how to go about getting married and buying a home and being polite and having cocktail parties ... and the next thing you know, the little child - who was also an enormously alive sensory apparatus - is just another boring adult going to work in a seersucker suit with a briefcase."
John Rosenthal
John Rosenthal
elaborate signings
"women are the sweetness of life.”
poets can build galaxies from pebbles
& breathe the word of life into brief glances,
but one must be careful with the power of creation
so i scribble an obligatory, struggling to keep from
staining the page with the exaggeration of new passion,
unsure if i am simply the writer who lives downstairs,
plays his coltrane too loud & likes thunderstorms
i take a trip one flight up
where your eyes escort me to another country,
your touch becomes a wet kiss on the horizon
of a birthday in a warm july
i travel to your smile to hear stories of
wrecked trains parked in your dining room
but the past is a vulgar thief
it steals the laughter from your eyes,
tosses the broken edges of yesterday’s heartache
into this remembrance
i dream of erasing painful memories with lingering
caresses from a steady hand
i rearrange the jagged stars of your past
i am the young boy smiling at you with love letter eyes
i carve your name into the soul of graying trees
i am your first slow dance, a trembling hand teetering on your waist
i replace the melancholy prayers on your lips with urgent kisses
i swear an oath to your beauty, become holy in your embrace
traveling tall miles through years of distance, i arrive, wet from your tears,
my only tool—a poet’s skill
i mend your smile,
emancipate your eyes,
& together
we ride that wrecked train from your dining room
to the horizon of your birthday in another country.
Kenneth Carroll
"women are the sweetness of life.”
poets can build galaxies from pebbles
& breathe the word of life into brief glances,
but one must be careful with the power of creation
so i scribble an obligatory, struggling to keep from
staining the page with the exaggeration of new passion,
unsure if i am simply the writer who lives downstairs,
plays his coltrane too loud & likes thunderstorms
i take a trip one flight up
where your eyes escort me to another country,
your touch becomes a wet kiss on the horizon
of a birthday in a warm july
i travel to your smile to hear stories of
wrecked trains parked in your dining room
but the past is a vulgar thief
it steals the laughter from your eyes,
tosses the broken edges of yesterday’s heartache
into this remembrance
i dream of erasing painful memories with lingering
caresses from a steady hand
i rearrange the jagged stars of your past
i am the young boy smiling at you with love letter eyes
i carve your name into the soul of graying trees
i am your first slow dance, a trembling hand teetering on your waist
i replace the melancholy prayers on your lips with urgent kisses
i swear an oath to your beauty, become holy in your embrace
traveling tall miles through years of distance, i arrive, wet from your tears,
my only tool—a poet’s skill
i mend your smile,
emancipate your eyes,
& together
we ride that wrecked train from your dining room
to the horizon of your birthday in another country.
Kenneth Carroll
XVII (I do not love you...)
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Pablo Neruda
The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
Mary Oliver
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
Mary Oliver
Unending Love
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell -
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Rabindranath Tagore
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell -
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Rabindranath Tagore
The Summer Day
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
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