Musee des Beaux Arts
by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

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Diving into the Wreck
(excerpt) by Adrienne Rich

....We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

(for the full text of this poem, click here)

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Naming of Parts
by Henry Reed

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
     And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
     Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
     Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
     They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
     For today we have naming of parts.

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A Thousand Years
by Sting

A thousand years, a thousand more,
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face

A million roads, a million fears
A million suns, ten million years of uncertainty
I could speak a million lies, a million songs,
A million rights, a million wrongs in this balance of time
But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point , this single flame,
The single haunted memory of your face

I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head

I may be numberless, I may be innocent
I may know many things, I may be ignorant
Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands
Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands
I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times
Reborn as fortune's child to judge another's crimes
Or wear this pilgrim's cloak, or be a common thief
I've kept this single faith, I have but one belief

I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head
On and on the mysteries unwind themselves
Eternities still unsaid
'Til you love me

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Solstice
by Babette Deutsch

Here in the lap of summer, in the silence
Sharpening every voice:
The bird's,
The boy's spiralling laughter,
Stillness folds
Itself upon itself, like the blunt hills
And grows,
No more mysterious than a flower states
Its color to the sun.
Here's a boy's joy
In the arrow that finds its mark,
But man learns
Houndlike devotion to a universe
Whose evil is not measured, and whose careless
Unhoped-for love
Only dark patience earns.

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Bright Kiss of Insanity
by Aberjhani

With intellect and beauty locked away
inside liquid chapels of candle-lit madness,
yours remain the eyes that fed Solomon
his wisdom. And the celestial garden of your face
the same for which a thousand moons buried
their crumbled hearts beneath a trembling sea.

Like the satin flower scent of a coffin your gaze
thickens before the danger of swords. Or love.
And like the obscene image of a demon’s corpse
sniffing its crotch for fresh food
you stalk joy’s temple with malicious fatal sorrow.

Who can prove this is punishment from God?
Who would want to? Why hang so many signs
claiming Jesus was preoccupied the day paradise
died in your smile and turned your springtime lips
into a land oppressed by cruel endless winter?

To slaughter beauty and suckle hypocrisy––
sport for maniacs and apocalyptic ghouls.
What hell condemned, let heaven now heal.
A girl like you: your platinum heart ground up like beef,
devoured and shat by the canines of bigotry and hate.

Nevermore the furious glory of your mind at work
stitching luminous tapestries of revelation and grace.
Laugh loud, my summer-poem darling, and sing now too,
for insanity’s bright kiss shines blessings divine
upon angels so wondrous and tortured as you.

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Return to Me
October Project

you rise like a wave in the ocean
and you fall gently back to the sea
now I want to know how to hold you
return to me
return to me

you shine like the moon over water
and you darken the sky when you leave
now I want to know how to keep you
return to me
return to me
turn to me
return to me

everything I tell you has been spoken
and everything I say was said before
but everything I feel is for the first time
and everything I feel I feel for you

I am here calling the wind
I am here calling your name
I am here calling you back
return to me
return to me

I know what it means to be lonely
and I know what it means to be free
now I want to know how to love you
return to me
return to me

I am here calling the wind
I am here calling your name
I am here calling you back
return to me
return to me

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Self Portrait
by David Whyte

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong ­ or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying "this is where I stand."
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.

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The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

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The Truth the Dead Know
by Anne Sexton

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

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To my quick ear the leaves conferred;
by Emily Dickenson

To my quick ear the leaves conferred;
The bushes they were bells;
I could not find a privacy
From Nature's sentinels.

In cave if I presumed to hide,
The walls began to tell;
Creation seemed a mighty crack
To make me visible.

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The Seer
by George William Russell

Oh, if my spirit may foretell
Or earlier impart,
It is because I always dwell
With morning in my heart.

I feel the keen embrace of light
Ere dawning on the view
It sprays the chilly fold of night
With iridescent dew.

The robe of dust around it cast
Hides not the earth below,
Its heart of ruby flame, the vast
Mysterious gloom and glow.

Something beneath yon coward gaze
Betrays the royal line;
Its lust and hate, but errant rays,
Are at their root divine.

I hail the light of elder years
Behind the niggard mould,
The fiery kings, the seraph seers,
As in the age of gold.

And all about and through the gloom
Breaths from the golden clime
Are wafted like a sweet perfume
From some most ancient time.