As One Listens To The Rain by Octavio Paz

Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,
it is the mist, wandering in the night,
it is the night, asleep in your bed,
it is the surge of waves in your breath,
your fingers of water dampen my forehead,
your fingers of flame burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open eyelids of time,
a spring of visions and resurrections,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,
your shadow covers this page.

Lullaby by Mike Puican

A line of angels will appear above you as a night light,
as the darkness moves slowly in your direction.
thoughts will arrive without your consent; let them go.

Soon you will be standing in onion fields staring at the stars,
your dogs wet from chasing field rats. A chorus of fruit flies
will bore everyone with its small details. Go to sleep.

Tonight, the house's secrets will burst with confidence;
squirrels will rage from behind the drywall. In a few minutes,
the gun under our pillow will lose its meaning. Go to sleep.

The morning will be graced by the scents of flowers
and the sounds of a few notes of music above the sirens
which, like us, are about to become nothing.

Cywydd y Cedor "Ode to the Pubic Hair" by Madam Gwerful Mechain ~1450

Every foolish drunken poet,
boorish vanity without ceasing,
(never may I warrant it,
I of great noble stock,)
has always declaimed fruitless praise
in song of the girls of the lands
all day long, certain gift,
most incompletely, by God the Father:
praising the hair, gown of fine love,
and every such living girl,
and lower down praising merrily
the brows above the eyes;
praising also, lovely shape,
the smoothness of the soft breasts,
and the beauty's arms, bright drape,
she deserved honour, and the girl's hands.

Then with his finest wizardry
before night he did sing,
he pays homage to God's greatness,
fruitless eulogy with his tongue:
leaving the middle without praise
and the place where children are conceived,
and the warm quim, clear excellence,
tender and fat, bright fervent broken circle,
where I loved, in perfect health,
the quim below the smock.

You are a body of boundless strength,
a faultless court of fat's plumage.
I declare, the quim is fair,
circle of broad-edged lips,
it is a valley longer than a spoon or a hand,
a ditch to hold a penis two hands long;
cunt there by the swelling arse,
song's table with its double in red.
And the bright saints, men of the church,
when they get the chance, perfect gift,
don't fail, highest blessing,
by Beuno, to give it a good feel.

For this reason, thorough rebuke,
all you proud poets,
let songs to the quim circulate
without fail to gain reward.
Sultan of an ode, it is silk,
little seam, curtain on a fine bright cunt,
flaps in a place of greeting,
the sour grove, it is full of love,
very proud forest, faultless gift,
tender frieze, fur of a fine pair of testicles,
a girl's thick grove, circle of precious greeting,
lovely bush, God save it.

Unwise Purchases by George Bilgere

They sit around the house
Not doing much of anything: the boxed set
Of the complete works of Verdi, unopened.
The complete Proust, unread:

The French-cut silk shirts
Which hang like expensive ghosts in the closet
And make me look exactly
Like the kind of middle-aged man
Who would wear a French-cut silk shirt:

The reflector telescope I thought would unlock
The mysteries of the heavens
But which I only used once or twice
To try to find something heavenly
In the window of the high-rise down the road,
And which now stares disconsolately at the ceiling
When it could be examining the Crab Nebula:

The 30-day course in Spanish
Whose text I never opened,
Whose dozen cassette tapes remain unplayed,

Save for Tape One, where I never learned
Whether the suave American
Conversing with a sultry-sounding desk clerk
At a Madrid hotel about the possibility
Of obtaining a room,
Actually managed to check in.

I like to think
That one thing led to another between them
And that by Tape Six or so
They’re happily married
And raising a bilingual child in Seville or Terra Haute.

But I’ll never know.

Suddenly I realize
I have constructed the perfect home
For a sexy, Spanish-speaking astronomer
Who reads Proust while listening to Italian arias,

And I wonder if somewhere in this teeming city
There lives a woman with, say,
A fencing foil gathering dust in the corner
Near her unused easel, a rainbow of oil paints
Drying in their tubes

On the table where the violin
She bought on a whim
Lies entombed in the permanent darkness
Of its locked case
Next to the abandoned chess set,

A woman who has always dreamed of becoming
The kind of woman the man I’ve always dreamed of becoming
Has always dreamed of meeting,

And while the two of them discuss star clusters
And Cézanne, while they fence delicately
In Castilian Spanish to the strains of Rigoletto,

She and I will stand in the steamy kitchen,
Fixing up a little risotto,
Enjoying a modest cabernet,
While talking over a day so ordinary
As to seem miraculous.

by Atsuo Ouki

Do not say farewell, my friend,
Nor talk of everyday things,
Nor of life and death.
What will there be to say
At the farthermost ends of the sea?
Strike the great breast of one who offers his ardent blood,
Hold the full moon in your wine cup,
Drink and take strength for a while.
I am bound for Batavia,
You to conquer Bandung.
Though we part this evening,
Together let us see
The shining Southern Cross again some night.
Do not say farewell, my friend.
See how the clouds pass,
The clouds meet silently,
Where sky and water meet.

by Hakuin

At the north window, icy draughts whistle through the cracks,
At the south pond, wild geese huddle in snowy reeds.
Above, the mountain moon is pinched thin with cold,
Freezing clouds threaten to plunge from the sky.
Buddhas might descend to this world by the thousands,
They couldn't add or subtract one thing.

The Daydream by Alfred Tennyson

The Sleeping Palace

The varying year with blade and sheaf
    Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;
Here rests the sap within the leaf,
    Here stays the blood along the veins.
Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd,
    Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
Like hints and echoes of the world
    To spirits folded in the womb.

Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
    On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns
    Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on the tower,
    On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower,
    The parrot in his gilded wires.

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:
    In these, in those the life is stay'd.
The mantles from the golden pegs
    Droop sleepily: no sound is made,
Not even of a gnat that sings.
    More like a picture seemeth all
Than those old portraits of old kings,
    That watch the sleepers from the wall.

Here sits the Butler with a flask
    Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there
The wrinkled steward at his task,
    The maid-of-honor blooming fair:
The page has caught her hand in his:
    Her lips are sever'd as to speak:
His own are pouted to a kiss:
    The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.

Till all the hundred summers pass,
    The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine,
Make prisms in every carven glass,
    And beaker brimm'd with noble wine.
Each baron at the banquet sleeps,
    Grave faces gather'd in a ring.
His state the king reposing keeps.
    He must have been a jolly king.

All round a hedge upshoots and shows
    At distance like a little wood;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,
    And grapes with bunches red as blood;
All creeping plants, a wall of green
    Close-matted, bur and brake and briar,
And glimpsing over these, just seen,
    High up, the topmost palace-spire.

When will the hundred summers die,
    And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
    Bring truth that sways the soul of men?
Here all things in their place remain,
    As all were order'd ages since.
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,
    And bring the fated fairy Prince.


The Sleeping Beauty

Year after year unto her feet,
    She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purpled coverlet,
    The maiden's jet-black hair has grown,
On either side her tranced form
    Forthstreaming from a braid of perl:
The slumbrous light is rich and warm,
    And moves not on the rounded curl.

The silk star-broider'd coverlid
    Unto her limbs itself doth mould
Languidly ever; and, amid
    Her full black ringlets downward roll'd,
Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm
    With bracelets of the diamond bright:
Her constant beauty doth inform
    Stillness with love, and day with light.

She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
    In palace chambers far apart.
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd
    That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps: on either hand upswells
    The gold-fringed pillow lightly pressed:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
    A perfect form in perfect rest.



The Arrival

All precious things, discover'd late,
    To those that seek them issue forth;
For love in sequel works with fate,
    And draws the veil from hidden worth.
He travels far from other skies--
    His mantle glitters on the rocks--
A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes,
    And lighter-footed than the fox.

The bodies and the bones of those
    That strove in other days to pass,
Are wither'd in the thorny close,
    Or scatter'd blanching in the grass.
He gazes on the silent dead:
    "They perish'd in their daring deeds."
This proverb flashes thro' his head,
    "The many fail: the one succeeds."

He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks:
    He breaks the hedge: he enters there:
The colour flies into his cheeks:
    He trusts to light on something fair;
For all his life the charm did talk
    About his path, and hover near
With words of promise in his walk,
    And wisper'd voices in his ear.

More close and close his footsteps wind;
    The magic music in his heart
Beats quick and quicker, till he find
    The quiet chamber far apart.
His spirit flutters like a lark,
    He stoops--to kiss her--on his knee.
"Love, if thy tresses be so dark,
    How dark those hidden eyes must be!"


The Revival

A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.
    There rose a noise of striking clocks,
And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,
    And barking dogs, and crowing cocks.
A fuller light illumined all,
    A breeze thro' all the garden swept,
A sudden hubbub shook the hall,
    And sixty feet the fountain lept.

The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
    The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd,
The fire shot up, the martin flew,
    The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd,
The maid and page renew'd their strife,
    The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt,
And all the long pent stream of life
    Dash'd downward in a cataract.

And last of all the king awoke,
    And in his chair himself uprear'd,
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke,
    "By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you? we have slept, my lords.
    My beard has grown into my lap."
The barons swore, with many words,
    "Twas but an after-dinner's nap."

"Pardy," return'd the king, "but still
    My joints are something stiff or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
    I mention'd half an hour ago?"
The chancellor, sedate and vain,
    In courteous words return'd reply;
But dallied with his golden chain,
    And, smiling, put the question by.


The Departure

And on her lover's arm she leant,
    And round her waist she felt it fold.
And far across the hills they went
    In that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away
    Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
    The happy princess follow'd him.

"I'd sleep another hundred years,
    O love, for such another kiss;"
"O wake forever, love," she hears,
    "O love, 'twas such as this and this."
And o'er them many a sliding star,
    And many a merry wind was borne,
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar,
    The twilight melted into morn.

"Oh eyes long laid in happy sleep!"
    "O happy sleep, that lightly fled!"
"O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!"
    "O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!"
And o'er them many a flowing range
    Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark,
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change,
    The twilight died into the dark.

"A hundred summers! can it be?
    And whither goest thou, tell me where?"
"O seek my father's court with me,
    For there are greater wonders there."
And o'er the hills, and far away
    Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
    Thro' all the world she follow'd him.