A POEM BY WALLACE STEVENS

bird in space

constantin brancusi

               OF MERE BEING


          The palm at the end of the mind,

          Beyond the last thought, rises

          In the bronze decor,


          A gold-feathered bird

          Sings in the palm, without human meaning,

          Without human feeling, a foreign song.


          You know then that it is not the reason

          That makes us happy or unhappy.

          The bird sings. Its feathers shine.


          The palm stands on the edge of space.

          The wind moves slowly in the branches.

          The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle 
                                                              down. 


                                        ---Wallace Stevens
                                            1879-1955

blue feather

alexander calder

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A POEM BY WALLACE STEVENS

neil jenney

 

 

 
THE POEM THAT TOOK THE PLACE OF A MOUNTAIN
 
 
There it was, word for word,
 
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
 
 
He breathed its oxygen,
 
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
 
 
It reminded him how he had needed
 
A place to go to in his own direction,
 
 
How he had recomposed the pines,
 
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among the clouds,
 
 
For the outlook that would be right,
 
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:
 
 
The exact rock where his inexactnesses

Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,


Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,

Recognize his unique and solitary home.


                              ---Wallace Stevens
 

neil jenney

 

 

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A POEM BY TJ WORTHINGTON

 

 

             PARROT SEES THE UNIVERSE

             Finger toes grip the cage's wire,

             a pink small fist closes

             on the next rung to keep

             the body's weight in place.

             The other foot loosens;
 \
                   letting go, stretches to take

             the next wire, careful, feels

             the move to make it right,

             selects the correct moment.

             Wings straight back, pulling

             with the stronger bill,

             green feathered head

             pushes through the roof bars,

             black intelligent eyes

             feel a shock in their roots.



                       ---TJ Worthington

 

 

 

 

 

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A CAT POEM BY TJ WORTHINGTON

black cat by  t-a steinlen

     CAT CHASING THE FLY

Without a move, he's four feet in the air.
Nijinsky's elevation! Hunter's claws
Go wild to catch the housefly puppeteer
That pulls him into loops, pirouettes
and sets of grand jetes across the floor.

Excited open, yellow eyes ring
the tensile pupil holes, like sun explosions
Dancing on the moon's eclipsing rim.

In one long frenzied leap he's on the screen
And has the spirit fly. Stuck, he clutches
There, his eyes gone thin again, and waits
To be unhooked from his triumphant pose.


                           ---TJ Worthington

cat by t-a steinlen

A POEM BY LUCAS CARPENTER

           Ellsworth Kelly

   AT THE MOON-LIT DRIVE IN
                           for TJ Worthington


   Dead for years,

   the last show forgotten,

   the Moon-Lit Drive In

   is three-feet deep in grass and broomstraw,

   speakers gone from their askew posts,

   refreshment stand with plywood projection

              booth on top,

   caved in, burnt out,

   floor covered with broken glass and grainy

             asphalt shingles.

   But the four-story screen

   this bright night

   has not a black gap on it,

   moon-covered it glows blank,

   stands impassive, strong:

   Ahab's white, Bartleby's wall,

   leaning on the warm hood of your pickup,

   me finishing the last of the wine,

   you weaving up at the titanic square of  

              moon.


                         ----Lucas Carpenter



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A POEM BY TJ WORTHINGTON

          DRINKING IN THE MOUNTAINS


          I am caught in the hold of this hammock,

          drunk on a bottle and a half of wine,

          stretched between two pines

          high in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

          The sky is blurred in the pool

          by hundreds of water-spider wakes,

          the trees' reflections cut the mirror in two.

          There, in the shade, the goldfish

          wave their tails and disappear into light

          like the face in dreams

          I forget the instant I see it.

          The clouds unravel on one side,
 
          the fish swim through trees on the other.

          I hoist my bottle to full sail;

          the glass mouth is warm on my lips,
            
          our tongues play,

          bubbles rise from my head,

          in them I see myself and the world vanish.



                                 ----TJ Worthington

 

 

 

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A POEM BY JAPANESE POET YOSHIMOTO TAKAAKI

yoshimoto takaaki

 

 

 

                         POSSESSION

 

 

                     Our words are charming.

 

                    "Flesh," once said;

 

                    we immediately cling to the earth.

 

                    "Spirit," if spoken;

 

                    we are already flying.

 

 

                    Our souls belong

 

                    to gravity and buoyancy,

 

                    to suspicion and aspiration.

 

                   The world is made of coercion,

 

                   causes and mistakes,

 

                   but surely, a blue the same as the sky

 

                   hangs deep in our skulls.

 

 

                   Otherwise,

 

                   standing on fragile legs,

 

                   how could we ride the image of wings

 

                   to possess endlessly higher places.

 

 

 

                                 ---Yoshimoto Takaaki

                                                (1924-2012)

                                        tr Kijima Hajime

                                        and Nagatomo Shigenori



 

 

A POEM BY RYOKAN

              the air bellows outdoor museum of art

 

 

 

 

             DRINKING WINE WITH YOSHIYUKI

             AND BEING VERY HAPPY

 

 

 

             Older and younger brother meet---

 

             both with white eyebrows drooping down.

 

             And what delight in this time of peace,

 

             day after day getting drunk as fools!

 

 

 

 

                               ---RYOKAN  (1758-1831)

                                      tr by Burton Watson

 

 

 

 

 

STREET DOGS AND THE BLACK BLIND MAN --- A POEM

stray dog by daido moriyama

The hair on the eartips of one dog turns back.

He looks like a wind god standing in his element.

Another dog, whose head sags under its own weight,

is so covered with mange and crusted dirt

it seems a chunk of earth rose and walked away.

The others are slow street dogs too weak

to run with the furious packs at night.

They push along behind the blind man who sells brooms,

nosing the sidewalks charted in his brain.

His old broad-knuckled hand grips patiently the cane's handle

as the point waves heart-beat taps all day on the concrete.

He shuffles rigid as stone feeling each step for the void.

The dogs follow with the same assurance as the cane that leads.

They know the darkness in his eyes is lonelier

than eating from a garbage can or running from a flying rock.

No one kicks them when they walk with him.

They prowl in the light under the black moon of his face.


                                                   ---TJ Worthington

IT MAY BE by MAX JACOB

 

     eva hesse, untitled

          IT MAY BE

        
          It may be that a strange dream

          Seized you tonight,

          You thought you saw an angel

          And it was your mirror.


          In her flight Eleonore

          Undid her long hair

          To rob the dawn

          Of the sweet object of my desire.


          You should think no longer

          Of some faithful husband.

          I am the lover, I have wings

          I will teach you to fly.


          May the muse of falseness

          Bring to the end of your fingers

          That scorn which is but a dream

          Of the shepherd prouder than a king.



                             --- Max Jacob (1876-1944)
                            
                            tr by Wallace Fowlie, 1955



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MORGAN'S STORY: A POEM

          I am a frog. I live in a well.

          It's damp down here, but that's all right.

          My skin's built for it. So are my organs.

          When I go croak I'm a tongue in a bell,

          and when I dive, my splashes ignite

          a long series of echoes. But more than

          anything else oh I love to expel

          a deep deep blast of joy and excite

          the still air with my name, with, "Morgan,

          Morgan," again and again, and I yell

          it so loud the frogs above me light

          up their voices, "Morgan, Morgan."

          After a minute it sounds like a spell.

          And when I stop it's dark. The night

          brings bugs and I hunt them with my snorkle

          eyeballs alert for their eyes. For a cell

          my walls are paradise despite

          the cold, staring look in the morning,

          when right at first it gives me a hell

          of a fright. It's the way the light

          reflects off the pool, black as a gorgon's

          eye, and still. It will dwell

          on empty space as a pupil might,

          fixed on a white spot. I say, "Morgan,

          wells are not for frogs!"  I tell

          myself it isn't worth the fright

          to hide wedged in my niche every morning.

          It passes. By noon I can smell

    

          the yellow sun. The walls turn white.

          My green skin is an emerald pouring

          facets of color from every cell.

          I'm blazing: I'm the source of light,

          a frog crazy with joy, I'm Morgan

*

---by TJ Worthington, c 1973

                                 

     

JACQUES PREVERT -- I AM AS I AM

carla luvviness

            I AM AS I AM


            I am as I am

            I'm made like that

            When I want to laugh

                 Yes, I roar with laughter

            I love him who loves me

                 Is it my fault

            If it's not the same one

                 I love each time

                 I am as I am

                 I'm made like that

                 What more do you want

                 What do you want of me

                 I am made to please

                 And can't do anything about it

            My heels are too high

                 My shape too curved

            My breasts much too hard

                 And my eyes too sunken

                      And so what

            What's it to you

                 I am as I am

                 I please whomever I please

           
            What's it to you

                           What happened to me

                      Yes I loved someone

                 Yes someone loved me

            Like children who love one another

                 Simply know how to love

                           To love, to love...
           
                 Why question me

            I am there to please you

                 And can't do anything about it.


                                  ---Jacques Prevert
                                      tr: Anthony Hartley

NIGHT CROW BY THEODORE ROETHKE

diane burns, row of crows

             NIGHT CROW

            When I see that clumsy crow

            Flap from a wasted tree,

            A shape in the mind rose up:

            Over the gulfs of dream

            Flew a tremendous bird

            Further and further away

            Into a moonless black,

            Deep in the brain, far back.

                    ---Theodore Roethke

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A POEM BY RYOKAN

anne truitt, twining court 1, 2001

     


     PAYING RESPECTS AT THE GRAVE
     OF MY TEACHER SHIYO


     Old grave on the side of a deserted hill

     where year after year the sad grasses grow;

     no one attending to sprinkle and sweep it,

     only a reed-cutter at times passing by.

     I remember long ago, hair in boy's braids,

     going to school by the Seba River.

     Then one morning we flew off in different directions;

     after that no word from one another.

     Now I've come home and you've departed---

     how can I face your spirit?

     I pour a dipper of water over the stone,

     a small gesture of respect for my teacher.

     The bright sun suddenly sinks in the west;

     in mountain fields, only the sound of pines.

     Wandering back and forth, I can't bear to leave,

     tears continually wetting my robe.


                                         ----Ryokan
                                        tr Burton Watson


                *

    

THE WOODPECKER A POEM

THE WOODPECKER

The woodpecker

look at

the woodpecker

pecking the wood.

                                  

                         --TJ Worthington

*

RIDERLESS HORSES BY ROBERT BLY

horses in the snow

               RIDERLESS HORSES

     An owl on the dark waters

     And so many torches smoking

     By mossy stone

     And horses that are seen riderless on moonlit

     nights

     A candle that flutters as a black hand

     Reaches out

     All of these mean

     A man with coins on his eyes

     The vast waters

     The cry of seagulls

                          ---Robert Bly

     from The Light Around The Body, 1967

*

POEM BY EDWARD FIELD

        agnes martin, stars


                           ANT


      An ant walks on the window screen

      Looking for a hole big enough to get through.


      He walks for what must seem miles

      looking at the endless holes. He goes back and forth


      convinced that one of the holes

      must be bigger than the others


      but the screen is new

      and all the holes are the same size.

                          
                                 ---Edward Field





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