The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/20/07

[BlueIris]

"Divorce"

As we slow dance into indifference
I dream you divorce me.
We divide the children
a bloodless slicing.

Beds, sofas and chairs
are sucked out of the windows
and we are left with our books.
I choose the Thesaurus

you take Camus.
I take Shakespeare you Dickens
and shelf by shelf book
by book, our lives empty.

The anesthetic of long division
continues till I wake
you are there
I don't understand why.

—Helen Padway

[UndertheOcean]

1. The World , my love

To be disenchanted with the world,
is to know it for the first time.
A moment of imperfect epiphany,
a recollection of what has always been,
yet is no more.

To be enchanted with the world,
is to swim between its waves,
drowning under every crest,
yet still coming up for air.

To be outside the world yet still within it,
that my love,
is another world ,
which may save this one.

~UnderTheOcean

[UndertheOcean]

2. What Jesus Yearns For

A speck in her eyes he lies,
A drop between her thighs .

Her womb , a God's abode, he suckles,
point of light,
Christ's first plight.

Her hair , his coffin,
within its waves he drowns,
for our father who is in heaven.

On her nipples ,
a phallic cross he does erect,
For he does not want to resurrect,
just dissolve into the milky wells,
into that beating heart,
to rest between its ripples.

~UnderTheOcean

[UndertheOcean]

3. One by Moshe bin Aroch : "Upon hearing that Mahmoud Darwish was ill"

and I hear that you are in a hospital near Paris
and I hear that you are very ill
and I feel my hair chilling
and I say no I cant write a poem about Darwish
he is my enemy
but I know He is not my enemy
I am just afraid of what the others will say
It's one thing to say that
Darwish is the best Israeli poet
just to see their half smiles
saying that I am crazy
and another to write about you
and I have loved you poems
you, like me,
an exile in the world
when the world is all exile
when the words are all aliens
and I loved when you said in an interview
that
had you known your poems would be translated
to so many European languages
you would have written them differently
with less symbolism and clearer
I loved you when you said that a poet has to
write his poems clear
I loved when you wrote about El Andalus
and making love in the afternoon.
May god be with you, Mahmoud,
my friend not my enemy
my fighter with words
stronger than weapons
may Allah be your healer
may you live many years to come
and may you rest when the time has come
in the gardens of Eden.

by Moshe ben Aroch

[BlueIris]

7. I LOVE Moshe bin Aroch!

:-)

[UndertheOcean]

9. Me too!

what is your favourite by him ?

[UndertheOcean]

4. beautiful!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My dear BlueIris...

How lovely!

The puzzle of divorce, and some of its pain...

Graceful, and lovely...

Thank you!

:hug:

[BlueIris]

6. Awwww. Thanks, C-Peg.

I thought this one would be declared "too dark" for you.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Funny how that is...

I never know what will strike me as dark...

This one certainly is not...

[Westegg]

10. "Growing Up" by William Stafford

One of my wings beat faster,
I couldn't help it--
the one away from the light.

It hurt to be told all the time
how I loved that terrible flame.

[BlueIris]

11. Thanks, Westegg.

We love our William Stafford here.

[Westegg]

12. Really? I'm pleased to hear that...

...Because most people I know have never heard of him. I might never have myself, except that my late mom was a Stafford fan, and she gave me one of his books "Stories That Could Be True," for Christmas one year (1984, to be exact). Here's what she wrote on the inside cover: "To Josh-- That you may share in our love for this very fine 'minor' poet (whatever that is)---Mom and Dad"

Indeed, it's a book I treasure to this day.

[BlueIris]

13. Kick.

[RetroLounge]

14. Damn

As we slow dance into indifference
I dream you divorce me.


RL

[BlueIris]

15. Yeah. Pretty harsh. nt