Darkness Song

Remedios Varo

Spirit of the Night

from Darkness Song

We wait in the darkness!
Come, all ye who listen,
Help in our night journey:
Now no sun is shining;
Now no star is glowing;
Come show us the pathway:
The night is not friendly;
She closes her eyelids;
The moon has forgot us,
We wait in the darkness!

~ Iroquois Initiation Song ~

A Book of Verse

George Wesley Bellows

Romance of Autumn

A Book of Verse

A book of verse, underneath the bough,

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness -

Ah, wilderness were paradise now!

~ Omar Khayyam ~

Archibald Motley, Jr.
Sunday in the Park


Fernando Botero
Lovers


Sergei Sudeiken
Lovers in the Field


George Wesley Bellows
The Picnic

Rain

Mario A. Robinson
Rainwater

Rain

A man stood in the rain outside his house.
Pretty soon, the rain soaked through
his jacket and shirt. He might have
gone in, but he wanted to be wet, to be
really wet, so that it finally got through
his skin and began raining on the rooftops
of the small city that the man always carried
inside him, a city where it hadn’t rained
for thirty years, only now the sky darkened
and tremendous drops fell in the thick dust
of the streets. The man’s wife knocked
on the window, trying to call him in.
she twirled one finger around her ear
to sign that he was crazy, that he’d
get sick again, standing in street clothes
in a downpour. She put the finger in her mouth
like a thermometer. She formed the word idiot
with her lips, and, always, when she said that
he would give in. But now he stood there.
His whole life he’d wanted to give something,
to sacrifice. At times he’d felt like coming up
to people on the street, offering his blood.
Here, you look like you need blood. Take mine.
Now he could feel the people of his city
waking as if from a long drought. He could feel
them leaving their houses and jobs, standing
with their heads up and their mouths open,
and the little kids taking their clothes off
and lying on their bellies in the streams
and puddles formed by the new rain that the man
made himself, not by doing anything, but standing
there while the rain soaked through his clothes.
He could see his wife and his own kids
staring from the window, the younger kid
laughing at his crazy father, the older one
sad, almost in tears, and the dog, Ossian—
but the man wanted to drown the city in rain.
He wanted the small crowded apartments
and the sleazy taverns to empty their people
into the streets. He wanted a single man with
an umbrella to break out dancing to same way
Gene Kelly danced in Singing in the Rain,
then another man, and more, until the whole
city was doing turns and pirouettes with their
canes or umbrellas, first alone, then taking
each other by the arm and waist, forming a larger
and larger circle in the square, and not
to any music but to the percussion of the rain
on the roof of his own house. And if there were
a woman among the dancers, a woman in a flowery
print skirt, a woman wetter and happier and more
beautiful than the rest, may this man be
forgiven for falling in love on a spring
morning in the democracy of the rain, may
he be forgiven for letting his family think
this is just what to expect from someone who
is every day older and more eccentric, may he
be forgiven for evading his responsibilities,
for growing simple in the middle of his life, for
ruining his best pants and his one decent tie.

~ William Carpenter ~

One Man’s Wife

Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Unmasked Woman

One Man’s Wife

Not that he promised not to windowshop,

or refuse free samples; but he gave up

exploring warehouse bargains, and forgot

the trial offers he used to mail away for.

After, that is, she laid on the counter what

she'd long kept hidden under the penny-candy,

and demonstrated (one up-country Sunday)

the total inventory of one wife's general store.

~ Philip Booth ~

Any Human to Another

Gerard David

Christ Nailed to the Cross

Any Human to Another

The ills I sorrow at

Not me alone

Like an arrow,

Pierce to the marrow,

Through the fat,

And past the bone.

Your grief and mine

Must intertwine

Like sea and river,

Be fused and mingle,

Diverse yet single,

Forever and forever.

Let no man be so proud

And confident,

To think he is allowed

A little tent

Pitched in a meadow

Of sun and shadow

All his little own.

Joy may be shy, unique,

Friendly to a few,

Sorrow never scorned to speak

To any who

Were false or true.

Your every grief

Like a blade

Shining and unsheathed

Must strike me down.

Of bitter aloes wreathed,

My sorrow must be laid

On your head like a crown.

~ Countee Cullen ~

Egocentric

Hans Memling

The Universal Judgement

Egocentric

What care I if good God be
If he be not good to me,
If he will not hear my cry
Nor heed my melancholy midnight sigh?
What care I if he created Lamb,
And golden Lion, and mud-delighting Clam?
And Tiger stepping out on padded toe,
And the fecund earth the Blindworms know?
He made the Sun, the Moon and every Star,
He made the infant Owl and the Baboon,
He made the ruby-orbed Pelican,
He made all silent inhumanity,
Nescient and quiescent to his will,
Unquickened by the questing conscious flame
That is my glory and my bitter bane.
What care I if Skies are blue,
If God created Gnat and Gnu,
What care I if good God be
If he be no good to me?

~ Stevie Smith ~

Lucas Cranach the Elder

Old Man and Young Woman

Lucas Cranach the Elder

Amorous Old Woman and Young Man

love is more thicker than forget

Colette Calascione

Lovers in Leaves

love is more thicker than forget

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

~ e. e. cummings ~

Like You

Baron Arild Rosenkrantz

A Group Soul

Like You

Like you I

love love, life, the sweet smell

of things, the sky-blue

landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up

and I laugh through eyes

that have known the buds of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful

and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me

but in the unanimous blood

of those who struggle for life,

love,

little things,

landscape and bread,

the poetry of everyone.

~ Roque Dalton ~

(Translated by Jack Hirschman)

To James

Max Weber
Prueba Atletica

To James

Do you remember

how you won

that last race...?

how you flung your body

at the start...

how your spikes

ripped the cinders

in the stretch...

how you catapulted

through the tape...

do you remember?

Don’t you think

I lurched with you

out of those starting holes...?

Don’t you think

my sinews tightened

at those firstfew strides...

and when you flew into the

stretch

was not all my thrill

of a thousand races

in your blood...?

At your final drive

through the finish line

did not my shout

tell of the
triumphant ecstasy

of victory...?
Live

as I have taught you

to run, Boy -

it’s a short dash.

Dig your starting holes

deep and firm

lurch out of them

into the straightaway

with all the power

that is in you

look straight ahead

to the finish line

think only of the goal

run straight

run high

run hard

save nothing

and finish

with an ecstatic burst

that carries you

hurtling

through the tape

to victory...

~ Frank Horne ~

Blind Men

Pieter Bruegel

The Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind

Blind Men

Consider them, my soul: how hideous!

Eerie as sleepwalkers, vaguely absurd

as dummies are - dummies that can walk,

blinking their useless lids at nothingness.
Their eyes are quenched, and yet they seem to stare

at something, somewhere, questioning the sky

and never bending their benighted heads

in reverie toward the cobblestones.
What difference between their infinite dark

and the eternal silence? Round us all,

meanwhile, the city sings, and laughs, and screams,
man in pursuit of pleasure, whereas I ...

I too drag by, but wonder, duller still,

what Heaven holds for them, all these blind men?

~ Charles Baudelaire ~
(tr. Richard Howard)

The Sea

René Magritte

Collective Invention

The Sea

Stroke by

stroke my

body remembers that life and cries for

the lost parts of itself----

fins, gills

opening like flowers into

the flesh----my legs

want to lock and become

one muscle, I swear I know

just what the blue-gray scales

shingling

the rest of me would

feel like!

paradise! Sprawled

in that motherlap,

in that dreamhouse

of salt and exercise,

what a spillage of nostalgia pleads

from the very bones! how

they long to give up the long trek

inland, the brittle

beauty of understanding,

and dive,

and simply

become again a flaming body

of blind feeling

sleeking along

in the luminous roughage of the sea's body,

vanished

like victory inside that

insucking genesis, that

roaring flamboyance, that

perfect

beginning and

conclusion of our own.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Disabled

Jeff Hugart

War Wounded

Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,

- In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim

Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,

All of them touch him like some queer disease.
There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now he is old; his back will never brace;

He's lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,

After the matches carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,

He thought he'd better join. He wonders why...

Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,

He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears

Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

To-night he noticed how the women's eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don't they come

And put him into bed? Why don't they come?

~ Wilfred Owen ~

The Street

Remedios Varo

Fenômeno

The Street

A long silent street.

I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall

and rise, and I walk blind, my feet

stepping on silent stones and dry leaves.

Someone behind me also stepping on stones, leaves:

if I slow down, he slows;

if I run, he runs. I turn: nobody.

Everything dark and doorless.

Turning and turning among these corners

which lead forever to the street

where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,

where I pursue a man who stumbles

and rises and says when he sees me: nobody.

~ Octavio Paz ~

Barbie Doll

Barbara Pratt

Silly Barbie Doll

Barbie Doll

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

~ Marge Piercy ~

Smart

Quentin Massys

The Moneylender and His Wife

Smart

My dad gave me one dollar bill

'Cause I'm his smartest son,

And I swapped it for two shiny quarters

'Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters

And traded them to Lou

For three dimes-I guess he don't know

that three is more than two!

Just them, along came old blind Bates

And just 'cause he can't see

He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,

And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs

Down at the seed-feed store,

and the fool gave me five pennies for them,

And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,

and he go red in the cheeks

And closed his eyes and shook his head-

Too proud of me to speak!

~ Shel Silverstein ~

Facing It

Lee Teter

Vietnam Reflections

Facing It

My black face fades,

hiding inside the black granite.

I said I wouldn't,

dammit: No tears.

I'm stone. I'm flesh.

My clouded reflection eyes me

like a bird of prey, the profile of night

slanted against morning. I turn

this way--the stone lets me go.

I turn that way--I'm inside

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

again, depending on the light

to make a difference.

I go down the 58,022 names,

half-expecting to find

my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson;

I see the booby trap's white flash.

Names shimmer on a woman's blouse

but when she walks away

the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's

wings cutting across my stare.

The sky. A plane in the sky.

A white vet's image floats

closer to me, then his pale eyes

look through mine. I'm a window.

He's lost his right arm

inside the stone. In the black mirror

a woman's trying to erase names:

No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~ Yusef Komunyakaa ~

Georgia O’Keeffe

Black Cross, New Mexico

Georgia O’Keeffe

Ram’s Head White Hollycock and Little Hills

As I Grow Older

Beauford Delaney

Can Fire in the Park

As I Grow Older

It was a long time ago.

I have almost forgotten my dream.

But it was there then,

In front of me,

Bright like a sun--

My dream.

And then the wall rose,

Rose slowly,

Slowly,

Between me and my dream.

Rose until it touched the sky--

The wall.

Shadow.

I am black.

I lie down in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me,

Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow.

My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness,

To smash this night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

~ Langston Hughes ~

A Red Flower

Dorothea Tanning

The Black Rose

A Red Flower

Your lips are like a southern lily red,

Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,

In which the brown bee buries deep its head,

When still the dawn's a silver sea of light.

Your lips betray the secret of your soul,

The dark delicious essence that is you,

A mystery of life, the flaming goal

I seek through mazy pathways strange and new.

Your lips are the red symbol of a dream,

What visions of warm lilies they impart,

That line the green bank of a fair blue stream,

With butterflies and bees close to each heart!

Brown bees that murmur sounds of music rare,

That softly fall upon the langourous breeze,

Wafting them gently on the quiet air

Among untended avenues of trees.

O were I hovering, a bee, to probe

Deep down within your scented heart, fair flower,

Enfolded by your soft vermilion robe,

Amorous of sweets, for but one perfect hour!

~ Claude McKay ~

A Song of Enchantment

Fernand Khnopff

Still Water

A Song of Enchantment

A song of Enchantment I sang me there,

In a green-green wood, by waters fair,

Just as the words came up to me

I sang it under the wild wood tree.

Widdershins turned I, singing it low,

Watching the wild birds come and go;

No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen

Under the thick-thatched branches green.

Twilight came: silence came:

The planet of Evening's silver flame;

By darkening paths I wandered through

Thickets trembling with drops of dew.

But the music is lost and the words are gone

Of the song I sang as I sat alone,

Ages and ages have fallen on me -

On the wood and the pool and the elder tree.

~ Walter de la Mare ~

John 3:16

Antonella da Messina

Crucifixion

John 3:16

For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish,

but have everlasting life.

Brotherhood

Felix Vallotton

Landscape at Sunset

Brotherhood

Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells:

Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells

In quietness reïmage heaven within their blooms,

Sapphire and gold and mystery. What strange perfumes,

Out of what deeps arising, all the flower-bells fling,

Unknowing the enchanted odorous song they sing!

Oh, never was an eve so living yet: the wood

Stirs not but breathes enraptured quietude.

Here in these shades the ancient knows itself, the soul,

And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal.

What bright companions nod and go along with it!

Out of the teeming dark what dusky creatures flit,

That through the long leagues of the island night above

Come by me, wandering, whispering, beseeching love;

As in the twilight children gather close and press

Nigh and more nigh with shadowy tenderness,

Feeling they know not what, with noiseless footsteps glide

Seeking familiar lips or hearts to dream beside.

O voices, I would go with you, with you, away,

Facing once more the radiant gateways of the day;

With you, with you, what memories arise, and nigh

Trampling the crowded figures of the dawn go by

Dread deities, the giant powers that warred on men

Grow tender brothers and gay children once again;

Fades every hate away before the Mother’s breast

Where all the exiles of the heart return to rest.

~ George William Russell ~

Albert Pinkham Ryder

Sundown

Casper David Friedrich

Woman in Front of the Setting Sun

The Dark Hour

Miguel Padura

The Recurrent Dream

The Dark Hour

And now, when merry winds do blow,

And rain makes trees look fresh,

An overpowering staleness holds

This mortal flesh.

Though well I love to feel the rain,

And be by winds well blown --

The mystery of mortal life

Doth press me down.

And, In this mood, come now what will,

Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call;

There is no thing in Heaven or Earth

Can lift my soul.

I know not where this state comes from --

No cause for grief I know;

The Earth around is fresh and green,

Flowers near me grow.

I sit between two fair rose trees;

Red roses on my right,

And on my left side roses are

A lovely white.

The little birds are full of joy,

Lambs bleating all the day;

The colt runs after the old mare,

And children play.

And still there comes this dark, dark hour --

Which is not borne of Care;

Into my heart it creeps before

I am aware.

~ William Henry Davies ~

We grow accustomed to the Dark

Rob Gonsalves

Astral Projections

We grow accustomed to the Dark

We grow accustomed to the Dark --

When light is put away --

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step

For newness of the night --

Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --

And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darkness --

Those Evenings of the Brain --

When not a Moon disclose a sign --

Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead --

But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight --

And Life steps almost straight.

~ Emily Dickinson ~

Rembrandt

The Sampling Officials of the Clothmakers Guild

Peter Paul Reubens

Self Portrait in a Circle of Friends from Mantua

Albrecht Durer

Self Portrait

Raphael

Self Portrait

The Lesson

Joan Miro

Carnival of Harlequins
Matta

A Grave Situation

The Lesson

Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
hid voice was lost in the din

"The theme for today is violence
and homework will be set
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget"

He picked on a boy who was shouting
and throttled him then and there
then garrotted the girl behind him
(the one with grotty hair)

Then sword in hand he hacked his way
between the chattering rows
"First come, first severed" he declared
"fingers, feet or toes"

He threw the sword at a latecomer
it struck with deadly aim
then pulling out a shotgun
he continued with his game

The first blast cleared the backrow
(where those who skive hang out)
they collapsed like rubber dinghies
when the plug's pulled out

"Please may I leave the room sir?"
a trembling vandal enquired
"Of course you may" said teacher
put the gun to his temple and fired

The Head popped a head round the doorway
to see why a din was being made
nodded understandingly
then tossed in a grenade

And when the ammo was well spent
with blood on every chair
Silence shuffled forward
with its hands up in the air

The teacher surveyed the carnage
the dying and the dead
He waggled a finger severely
"Now let that be a lesson" he said

~ Roger McGough ~

Lovesong

Edvard Munch

Man and Woman

Lovesong

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

~ Ted Hughes ~

Forgetfulness

Lovis Corinth

Grandmother and Granddaughter

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

~ Billy Collins ~

Cinderella

Roy Lichtenstein

Crying Girl

Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

~ Sylvia Plath ~

I Sit and Think

Jared French

Seated Man

I Sit and Think

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall never see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

~ J. R. R. Tolkien ~

Lady Lazarus

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Seated Girl

Lady Lazarus

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

~ Sylvia Plath ~

Fallen Angel

Odilon Redon

The Winged Man (Fallen Angel)

Fallen Angel

I have fallen from sky,
Fallen to the ground,
I am the angel of sadness,
Angel of lost hopes,
Angel of lost dreams,
I am the fallen angel,
Fear me not,
I am here for reason,
That reason is to have a second chance in life,
That life I was given for a reason,
They took my wings,
They took me apart made me human,
I was the fallen angel,
But that fallen angel had one chance in life that she was given,
This angel won’t make the same mistakes she made before,
This angel will go down the right path that has been chosen for her,
This fallen angel know what she has to do to be forgiven.

~ Jennifer Rondeau ~

Love After Love

Thomas Eakins

Study of a Young Woman

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott ~

I Am in Need of Music

Ben Sahn

Still Music

I Am in Need of Music

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

~ Elizabeth Bishop ~