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.
...
The state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrave roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters,
...
But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
...
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.
...
It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales,
...
Does it matter? -losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When others come in after hunting
...
The badger grunting on his woodland track
With shaggy hide and sharp nose scrowed with black
Roots in the bushes and the woods, and makes
A great high burrow in the ferns and brakes.
...
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
...
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
...
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
...
So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?---
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?
...
This crowded life of God's good giving
No man has relished more than I;
I've been so goldarned busy living
I've never had the time to die.
...
Coming out of home I see some land and much water all around
Full with wonderful animals, plants, myriad of natural objects
Some I can name and some I can't, some near and some are so far
Some open, some covered, some sweet again some are so bitter,
...
The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front the roaring wave of the brush-fire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
...
The bows glided down, and the coast
Blackened with birds took a last look
At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye;
The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck.
...
Dew wets the grass
I am the hunter
I walk a deadly path
I am hunting
...
Exiled on the isle of passion and shackled in the prison of craving.
Bottled up emotion - screaming and shouting and searching for an escape.
Like a dehydrated deer tracking water -Like a desert hunting an oasis.
Deluge of flames enrapture my being with the fervor of a thousand fire.
...
Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
...
Only on me, the lonely one,
The unending stars of the night shine,
The stone fountain whispers its magic song,
...
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
...
To purses of leather
one lost its skin
One lost its feather
to hats and decors
...
Kasinath the new young singer fills the hall with sound:
The seven notes dance in his throat like seven tame birds.
His voice is a sharp sword slicing and thrusting everywhere,
It darts like lightening - no knowing where it will go when.
...
O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
...
The last of last words spoken is, Good-bye -
The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge,
The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing,
The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye.
...
Fit the First
THE LANDING
'Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried,
...
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear,
...
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town.
Far off
Everybody loved her.
So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold
...
(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)
Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
...
The sea is never still.
It pounds on the shore
Restless as a young heart,
Hunting.
...
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
...
The Archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue
An Arrow is lying.
...
Dirty game
Blaring voice and strong signal came
Message from boy aging 9 for playing game
...
A modern wilderness ensures all modern faculties
Of the utmost ferociousness with atrocious training
Supplying with poisonous and dreadful nails and tools
Of hunting, killing, dissecting, tearing, smashing;
...
Grilled roasted or smoked chicken
Desire or money— which is more significant
Isn't important— if demand is sought
Putting food on tongue in imagination
...
There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
...
Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,
...
~ LINGERIE- IG* ~
Ms. NIVEDITA
UK
28.10.09.
...
To A Friend
NO! those days are gone away,
And their hours are old and gray,
...
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the
town.
...
Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.
...
King Dushyant in a chariot, pursuing an antelope, with a bow and quiver, attended by his Charioteer.
...
I was only a young man
In those days. On that evening
The cold was so God damned
Bitter there was nothing.
...
Now as Heaven is my Lot, they're the Pests of the Nation!
Wherever they can come
With clankum and blankum
'Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation,
With fun, jeering
...
I said to my friend, , , , , , , , , ,
Have you ever visited a Charity Shop,
It really is worth a lengthy stop,
To search amongst rails of second- hand clothes,
...
I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
...
My masters twain made me a bed
Of pine-boughs resinous, and cedar;
Of moss, a soft and gentle breeder
Of dreams of rest; and me they spread
...
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
...
I am a poem hunter,
The world's eighth wonder.
A man of word and letter,
...
A poet is a grown-up child, anyhow,
He couldn’t compose, otherwise…
A poet is an adorer of queerness,
A bit - willful, a bit - precise…
...
'Tis eight o'clock,--a clear March night,
The moon is up,--the sky is blue,
The owlet, in the moonlight air,
Shouts from nobody knows where;
...
Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well - remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.
...
(Another version of "A Terre".)
To Siegfried Sassoon
...
The Vanishing
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
...
The mountain held the town as in a shadow
I saw so much before I slept there once:
I noticed that I missed stars in the west,
...
Glory to you, inescapable pain!
The gray-eyed king died yesterday.
...
The tall camels of the spirit
Steer for their deserts, passing the last groves loud
With the sawmill shrill of the locust, to the whole honey of the
arid
...
I
A traveller on the skirt of Sarum's Plain
Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare;
...
Nudes -- stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
...
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
...
They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
...
A Pastorall Elegie vpon the death of the most Noble and valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney.
Dedicated To the most beautifull and vertuous Ladie, the Countesse of Essex.
...
After dark
Near the South Dakota border,
The moon is out hunting, everywhere,
Delivering fire,
...
The fierce musical cries of a couple of sparrowhawks hunting
on the headland,
Hovering and darting, their heads northwestward,
...
Sit on the bed. I'm blind, and three parts shell.
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me,-brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.
...
My fancied escape on a time lone,
When the wind has refrained from its moan
To become at night, the sleepy drone.
...
White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
...
Sometime after mid night, it had rained
Putting out summer’s sultry heat
The sky had its face washed clean
And wiped the grime off Earth’s soiled feet
...
The Beaver's Lesson
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
...
The Landing
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
...
I.
You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
...
O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
...
OF bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
...
The Bellman's Speech
The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
...
I AM weary of lying within the chase
When the knights are meeting in market-place.
...
HE was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night
...
I am weary of lying within the chase
When the knights are meeting in market-place.
Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town
...
And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
But all the Tartar camp along the stream
Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;
...
.
At approximately 3 a.m. I toodled into the bathroom.
(Yes, I actually toodle... you know, like a groggy poodle)
While sitting there- -
...
Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
...
As one who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused
Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
...
CANINE FELINE FRIENDSHIP – PART I
Once our tom-cat brought to our house,
As honoured guest, his feline spouse.
...
Little Cowboy, what have you heard,
Up on the lonely rath's green mound?
Only the plaintive yellow bird
Sighing in sultry fields around,
...
Two good friends had Hiawatha,
Singled out from all the others,
Bound to him in closest union,
...
S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.
...
You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!
...
Thousands of words or applause,
Complete silence or mere a pause,
Will do nothing or serve the purpose,
When people not react and suppose,
...
You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
...
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
...
O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next!
...
You shape my bones into your hunting coat.
Rain slants like needles through the falling air.
The field is vast with the old blood of leaves.
Fire in the windows warms my eyes to sleep.
...
Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
...
The Hunting
The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
...
Through thick Arcadian woods a hunter went,
Following the beasts upon a fresh spring day;
But since his horn-tipped bow but seldom bent,
Now at the noontide nought had happed to slay,
...
DEDICATION
Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
...
Captive! Is there a hell to him like this?
A taunt more galling than the Huron's hiss?
He--proud and scornful, he--who laughed at law,
He--scion of the deadly Iroquois,
...
Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,
...
In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
...
Out of childhood into manhood
Now had grown my Hiawatha,
Skilled in all the craft of hunters,
...