Everything that Acts is Actual by Denise Levertov
From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me
into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over
new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?
The flawed moon
acts on the truth, and makes
an autumn of tentative
silences.
You lived, but somewhere else,
your presence touched others, ring upon ring,
and changed. Did you think
I would not change?
The black moon
turns away, its work done. A tenderness,
unspoken autumn.
We are faithful
only to the imagination. What the
imagination
seizes
as beauty must be truth. What holds you
to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.
(via bookmania)
THE OCEAN: Not a chance. No comparison.
GOD: I made you. I could tame you.
THE OCEAN: At one time, maybe. But not now.
GOD: I will come to you, freeze you, break you.
THE OCEAN: I will spread myself like wings. I am a billion tiny feathers. You have no idea what’s happened to me.
Sailor by Vicente Huidobro
That bird flying for the first time
Leaves his nest looking back
With a finger to my lips
I called to you
I invented waterfalls
In the tops of trees
I make you the most beautiful woman
So beautiful that you blushed in the evenings
The moon drifts off
And plants a wreath around the pole
I made rivers run
where none had been before
With a shout I made a mountain rise
And now we do a new dance around it
I cut all the roses
from the clouds of the East
And I taught a snowbird how to sing
Let’s depart upon the floating months
I’m the old sailor
who mends torn horizons.
The Opposite of Ornate and Rhetorical Poetry by Jose Marti
The opposite of ornate and rhetorical poetry
is natural poetry. Here a torrent,
There an arid stone, here a golden
Bird that gleams among the verdant branches
Like a nasturtium among emeralds.
There the fetid viscous traces
Of a worm, its eyes two bubbles
Of mire, its belly brownish, gross and filthy.
Above the tree, far higher and alone
In a steel-grey sky, a constant
Star; and down below the star a furnace,
A furnace in whose fires the earth is cooking-
And flames, the flames that struggle, with open
Holes for eyes, their tongues like arms,
Their sap like a man’s blood, their sharpened
Points like swords: the swords of life that finally,
From fire to fire, acquire the earth!
The fire that climbs, comes from within; it howls, aborts.
Man starts in fire and stops in wings.
At his triumphant step the sullied
And vile, the cowards, the defeated-
Like snakes or mongrels, like
Crocodiles with powerful teeth,
From here, from there, from trees that shelter him,
From lands that hold him, the brooks
That slake his thirst, the very anvil
Where his bread is forged- they bark at him,
Nip at his feet, throw mud and dust in his face,
And all that blinds him on his journey.
But beating his wings he sweeps the world
And rises through the fiery air
Dead as a man, but like a sun serene.
This is what noble poetry should be:
Just as life: both star and mongrel:
A cave serrated by fire,
A pine tree in whose fragrant branches
A nest of birds sings in the moonlight:
Birds singing in the moonlight.
