Poetry 365

One day, I promise! School and work are super crazy right now and if questions were dated, you’d see the evidence of that. I love poetry, and sharing my personal tastes with it, which is why I want to be able to dedicate more time than I currently have to this, and also why I’m reluctant to bring someone else on.

I’ve also been debating what I should do with all the wonderful submissions I receive of poetry written by readers, as I feel they do deserve to be shared. If anyone has suggestions (I’ve considered a separate blog already), feel free to let me know!

I don’t get permission in advance. Occasionally I’ve had people contact me about taking down a poem, or adding additional information about copyright or where it was originally published. I haven’t generally had any trouble, though, as the authors and publishers are at least polite. I’m sure it helps that I never have and likely never will make money off of this venture.

I hope so too. I’m sorry to all my followers about the apparently false promise of starting daily posting again.

I know for sure I’m going to have TONS of free time starting the 12th, so definitely expect (real! honest!) daily posts then!

I placed my dream in a ship
and the ship on top of the sea;
—and then parted the sea with my hands
to sink my dream in the deep.

My hands still drip with water
from the blue of the waves thus parted
and the color that runs from my fingers
colors the sands, now deserted.

The wind is approaching from afar,
the night in the cold submits;
under the waves lies dying
my dream, in the hold of a ship…

I will weep as much as needed,
so that I might the sea increase
and that my ship might come to the bottom
and that my dream might cease.

And then, all will be perfect:
the beach smooth, the waters ordered,
my eyes, dry as stones
my two hands, shattered.

Read More

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights
that anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Wow! It’s been over two years now (I think) and you’re the first one to point that out. Thanks for the tip! And the compliment!

I really hope to keep it up consistently this year. As for the tons of other questions and submission in my ask box, I’ll get to them in due time, I promise. I’ll have a month for reader-submitted poetry and may even try to find another solution to the sheer volume I’ve received over the past months. It there is any particular way you would like to see these, dear readers, please feel free to contact me and let me know!

I have a lot of poetry books of all different types, by tons of different authors. I also worked at a poetry library for over a year and was a writing major in high school which provided me with more than enough handouts from teachers to supplement this blog. Also, I try to post reader-written poetry one month of every year.

As you can see, I take (often unplanned) time off, though, so I haven’t necessarily posted as many poems as you might think. But basically I just read, read, read!

I’m glad to be posting here again too! Posts will still be a little sporadic for the next few days while I get used to posting daily again and my classes finish up for the semester. Otherwise you should expect (mostly) regular posts!

First, I emptied the closets of your clothes,
threw out the bowl of fruit, bruised
rom your touch, left empty the jars

you bought for preserves. The next morning,
birds rustled the fruit trees, and later
when I twisted a ripe fig loose from its stem,

I found it half eaten, the other side
already rotting, or—like another I plucked
and split open—being taken rom the inside:

a swarm of insects hollowing it. I’m too late,
again, another space emptied by loss.
Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill.