WANDERER'S NOOK

Bag (a revision) by DjWhite

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Sun, 16 May 2010 11:43:00 +0000

When it's done,

all that's left is what

I've carried

I'm an over looked

forgotten brown

oh selfish hedonist

you need me

and will find me

somewhere

Krogers

a State Store

hidden
at the end of check-out lines

smooth and flat.

My progenitors have been

gone for hundreds of years,

but, I'm still here

wasteful wasted

dead as they are

dead as you

You won't remember me
and don't want too

So, cruel

your lessons learned,

narcissistic madness

such bankrupt morality
unfolds

my creases looking

for God

yet you

stuff the Y
of my thighs

with fifths of E & J

or sweaty cans of 211s

then leave
parts of me

under a Canal street bridge

tenting

men in the middle of winter

or

emptied

crumbled

flapped up

against a neighbor's fence.

Wiring Home by Rita Dove

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:59:00 +0000

RITA DOVE

Lest the wolves loose their whistles
and shopkeepers inquire,
keep moving, though your knees flush
red as two chapped apples,
keep moving, head up,
past the beggar's cold cup,
past the kiosk's
trumpet tales of
odyssey and heartbreak-
until, turning a corner, you stand,
staring: ambushed
by a window of canaries
bright as a thousand
golden narcissi.

**Rita Dove is a former US Poet Laureate**

Modern American Poetry

Possibilities written by DjWhite

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:19:00 +0000

It's possible that I'll find

you stewing

on the stove

layered between bubbles

of beef and sour cream;

or maybe I'll see you

gripped frantically

at the end of the cat's tail

desperately holding

to self-preservation.

Often, I'll catch

you swagger through

the door

just behind my smarter half

around dinner time at 6PM

listen to you

snickering at the heated debate

between him and his zipper

over the frailty

of restraint's constitution.

But, normally, it'll be

on a rainy afternoon --

while I sit beside the window

in this oak rocker

creaking back and forth
to muse's rhythm

and listening to the pat, pat, pat

of double-paned complaints,

-- that you'll peek

at me from Picasso's

or Monet's brush stokes

or flutter from Baudelaire's

bound thoughts

reminding me

that they too,

were inspired

by someone else's

inspiration.

Selecting a Reader by Ted Kooser

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:03:00 +0000

First, I would have her be beautiful,

and walking carefully up on my poetry

at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,

her hair still damp at the neck

from washing it. She should be wearing

a raincoat, an old one, dirty

from not having money enough for the cleaners.

She will take out her glasses, and there

in the bookstore, she will thumb

over my poems, then put the book back

up on its shelf.

She will say to herself,

"For that kind of money, I can get

my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

-- Ted Kooser

[Ted Kooser is the 13th U.S. Poet Laureate. This poem is included in "Poetry I 80 -- A Turning Back To Poetry" an Anthology complied by Billy Collins. There are many wonderful contemporary poets within this book. Billy did a stand up job in compiling such wonderful poetry and prose.]

Picnic, Lightning by Billy Collins

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:22:00 +0000

It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of the comics,

but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.

And we know the message can be delivered from within.
The heart, no valentine, decides
to quit after lunch, the power shut off like a switch,
or a tiny dark ship is unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore.

This is what I think about when I shovel compost
into a wheelbarrow, and when I fill
the long flower boxes, then press
into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then

the soil is full of marvels, bits of leaf
like flakes off a fresco, red-brown
pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the clouds
a brighter white, and all I hear

is the rasp of the steel edge against
a round stone, the small plants
singing with lifted faces, and the click
of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next.

[I've said this before and I will reiterate -- I ADORE Billy Collins. His poetry is so fresh and alive. Vivid images pop, pop, pop like hot footed kettle corn in front of my eyes -- when reading his poetry. This poem is from his book "Picnic Lightning" If you don't have it go out and buy a copy. It truly is a wonderful addition to any library.]

poetry, creative writing, collins billy

Promises by DjWhite

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:04:00 +0000

What I saw
in your eyes

was the lilt
of a wordless

psalm,a silent
cantata

Mesmerized

I rocked

swayed

to rhythms,

of your whisper

and sultry promises
wafting along the heady

scent of old spice

and pipe-smoked
swirl of cherry civet.

Purring, I arced

for the moment

the moment.

**I usually don't write love poems but this was one time I did** --Dee

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe [My Commentary]

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:43:00 +0000

Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849

Let me start off by saying, I refuse to post this poem.

Yes, this is a poetry site, and I do post poems but this poem The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe just pisses me off!

Why you may ask.

Well, I hate noise.

I hate all kinds of noise -- even the noise chasing its tail behind my forehead. It's all still noise!

When I first read The Bells, I had to put the book down and walk away. In fact I put it down several times. By the time I finished reading The Bells I went looking for a hammer. Sledge hammer, ball ping hammer, MALLET -- anything that I could use to smash any bell I could find.

I wanted to smash the hell out of Poe's bells.

After thinking about my reaction to this noisy poem, I realized that Poe did what an extraordinary writer/poet is suppose to do. They are suppose to invoke emotion from their readers.

Poe did exactly that -- he brought out such strong emotion in me that I had the urge to crush, kill, destroy any bell I could get my hands on.

Then I understood, that's what a great Poet does.

It's not that The Bells isn't a great poem, it's the fact that it is so great that it rung in my ears for days and days.

Let's forget about the Literary purist who lives to dissect the corpse of a poem. The ones who look to see if the meter is off or the rhyme is forced or the metaphors are cliche. Let them eat the poem or poet if they want.

Poetry is truly a painting that is felt rather than seen.

I felt this poem and wanted to do serious damage to anything that rang, rung, tingled, chimed, etc...

*damn bells I hate noise*

So, if you want to read The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe have at it =====> The Bells

Rhapsody on a Windy Night -- by T.S.Eliot

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:20:00 +0000

T.S. Eliot 1888 - 1965

TWELVE o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter."
So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain."
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
"Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."

The last twist of the knife.

Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Elizabeth Alexander

A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues. 

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, 
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
 
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, 

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, 
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

I'd say that Elizabeth is one of my favorite up and coming poets. It was quite an honor for her to write and perform this for President Obama.

Haiku

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:01:00 +0000

Original Haiku is: A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five morae, usually containing a season word.
Western Haiku has changed this lovely form from its origins.

the dragonfly's tail, too
day by day
grows old
-Issa, 1807

More about Haiku

Forms of Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:32:00 +0000

There are many different forms of poetry.

Personally I write and only write what's called "Free Verse" poetry. Many people don't understand Free Verse because it doesn't rhyme or they don't understand the metaphors used.

Popular forms of poetry

Rhyme -- A rhyming poem has the repetition of the same or similar sounds of two or more words, often at the end of the line.

Ballad -- A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tail or legend which often has a repeated refrain.
Couplets -- A couplet has rhyming stanzas made up of two lines.

READ MORE FORMS OF POETRY

Just to name a few.

Regardless of your preference, poetry is the art of the heart and best read with an open mind.

A poet is painting a picture and one reading a poem should try and visualize what that picture is.

So, go find a book of poems then, sit back and enjoy the wordscape! You won't regret it.

You Take My Hand -- by Margaret Atwood

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:55:00 +0000

Margaret Atwood -- Canadian Poet

You take my hand and
I'm suddenly in a bad movie,
it goes on and on and
why am I fascinated

We waltz in slow motion
through an air stale with aphrodisms
we meet behind the endless ptted palms
you climb through the wrong windows

Other people are leaving
but I always stay till the end
I paid my money, I
want to see what happens.

In chance bathtubs I have to
peel you off me
in the form of smoke and melted
celluloid

Have to face it I'm
finally an addict,
the smell of popcorn and worn plush
lingers for weeks

A Virginal by Ezra Pound

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:09:00 +0000

Ezra Pound

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of �ther;
As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white as their bark, so white this lady's hours.

Alone With Everybody by Charles Bukowski

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:57:00 +0000

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

Bukowski, like many writers, had his ups and downs. He was first published in the 1940s. Soon after, he gave up writing and joined the work force and bars. Myth says he didn't write or publish anything for nearly 20 years. READ MORE

poet, poems, bukowski

Wilson by Deborah White

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:34:00 +0000

His smile was
dawn's slip
into a darkened room.

The hat he wore
(syrup sticky
from the dumpster
outside the local Waffle-House)

sat cocked to the left
on his head,

the mimic of Pisa
a dream never seen.

His hands slick as a greased
hairless feline, rummaged

my purse with hope
that its void could spare
a dollar or two.

His voice purred, hypnotic
baritone, sensuous as Flack's croon
of promised sunrises.

But, it was the speak
of his eyes that engaged me,
telling a story of way when.

Portals to swirled
Coffee-House yesterdays,
highs of maryjane,
taps of beatnik pads,
delusions of petal power.

Cool Cat Wilson
gorged with peace,
love and happiness.

He's boarded here
and now's bus, taking rides
that fray his pants,
tatter his hat,
gray his beard,

ride man, ride
there's no getting off.

poetry

What is Poetry.

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:38:00 +0000

There are two basic types of poetry.

Traditional - follows standard rules of grammar and syntax with a regular rhythm and rhyme scheme.
Modern - avoids rhyme and standard grammatical organization and seeks new ways of expression.

One Rule!

Read a poem several times. That way you can "hear" the piece and feel its emotion.

The poetry here on WANDERER'S NOOK is mainly the "modern" form of poetry.

I consider myself a modern writer of poetry.

I refuse to really call myself a "Poet" because I haven't matured enough in writing in order to have the honor to sit at a desk next to Billy Collins, Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, etc. So, I tap, tap, tap on, at this key board until the Poet in me breaths life.

Basics of Poetry: READ MORE

poetry, writing

The Truth the Dead Know by Anne Sexton

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Anne Sexton 1928-1974

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings i like an iron gate
and we touch.. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the white-hearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knuckle bone.

Read About Anne Sexton

Personal Note: Anne Sexton is so Plath-like with her writing. The sadness in her life mirrors Plaths too.

Daddy by Sylvia Plath

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:43:00 +0000

Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been sacred of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Personal Note: I haven't posted a poem by Sylvia Plath in quite a while. She's another of my favorite poets. She paints her depression in a vivid and moving way.

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice" by Billy Collins

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:30:00 +0000

Billy Collins former U.S. Poet Laureate

And I start wondering how they come to be blind.
If it was congenital, they would be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?

If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,

how did thy ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?

And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.

Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass

or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.

By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"

which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.

[Personal Note: I absolutely ADORE this poet. I had the pleasure of seeing Billy read this poem in person up at Kent State. It was then I fell in love with his poetry. It was then I fell in love with poetry period.]

A Lemon by Pablo Neruda

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:59:00 +0000

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) born in Chile. His real name was Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. His poems have been translated into English. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. You can tell Mr. Neruda was a lover. His poems are of love, love, love. Read More

and so... by Deborah White

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:40:00 +0000

I wait for this evening
then I will blanket
you with my flesh;

and remove each breast
to tuck under you,
one under your head,
another stuffed under your feet,

to make you comfortable
as you absorb the moon's
push and pull
pull and push

Much later within
blindness of sky

I will crack open my rib cage
remove my heart
place it upon
the nightstand
then you can watch its walls
pulsate,

thump thump,
as it morphs to predominant blue;

(not pretty periwinkle
or poetic indigo)

insidious blue,
the color slovenly
hovering over ash’s hue.

and so,
I will wait--

till then

for your consumation
with this peeve that's
taken over me;

night within night,
night within day,

perversion's permeation

assimilation
again and again. . .

I Want to Die While You Love Me by Georgia Douglas Johnson

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Georgia Douglas Johnson
September 10, 1880 -- May 14, 1966

I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While Laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me
And bear to that still bed
Your kisses turbulent, unspent
To warm me when I’m dead.

I want to die while you love me;
Oh, who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give?

I want to die while you love me,
And never, never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim, or cease to be!

Mrs. Johnson was one of the many little known poets, meaning her name was not as well known as Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer and the like. She was well known with her peers. Although she wrote many poems, plays and newspaper articles I believe she wasn't give the acclaim to the likes of the fore mentioned writers.

Georgia Douglas Johnson, harlem renaissance, poet, writer

double-dutch, boston creme and hell

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:24:00 +0000

by Deborah White

it's in the crochet
of night when
he's at his worst.

understand,

it's his scent
that makes
my mouth water

aromas velcro
his progeny
beneath my arms,

saddle-bag my hips

spice-trails seep
through holes of
temperance
and control

saccharine comfort
is the burlesque of a man's
blue-balled dream

can tap a woman's
"g" time and time again

satisfaction

deadly is sin's
third son

he wakes me
coerces a quiet
slip downstairs

to pillage sanctity's
double-dutch fudge
no brainer

plunder purity's
boston creme circled
and dumped
promises

yet, gluttony
never once
mentions

-- this immorality against
myself --

in hell,

I'd be force-fed
rats, toads, and snakes

Yet I Do Marvel by Countee Cullen

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:08:00 +0000

Countee Cullen
1903-1946

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,

Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare

If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune

To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

harlem renaissance poetry

People [by Jean Toomer -- Harlem Renaissance Poet/Writer]

noreply@blogger.com (djWhite) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:31:00 +0000

from The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer (Poet of the Harlem Renaissance)

To those fixed on white,

White is white,

To those fixed on black,

It is the same,

And red is red,

Yellow, yellow-

Surely there are such sights

In the many colored world,

Or in the mind.

The strange thing is that

These people never see themselves

Or you, or me.

Are they not in their minds?

Are we not in the world?

This is a curious blindness

For those that are color blind.

What queer beliefs

That men who believe in sights

Disbelieve in seers.

O people, if you but used

Your other eyes

You would see beings.