A Paradise of Poems

Try to accept this fat red hurt is your starting point, in the way a pen must be put to paper      in one particular spot, then move beyond the globby flap of blame      and past           the mono-sulk                of pain...

I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. I prefer the color green. I prefer not to maintain that reason is to blame for everything. I prefer exceptions. I prefer to leave early. I prefer talking to doctors about something els...

I ne’er was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet, Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart away complete. My face turned pale as deadly pale, My legs refused to walk away, And when she looked, what could I ail? My life and all seemed turned to clay. And then my blood rushed to my face And took my eyesight quite away, The trees and bushes round the place Seemed...

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-bl...

I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, Eyes — I wonder if It weighs like Mine — Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long — Or did it just begin — I could not tell the Date of Mine — It feels so old a pain — I wonder if it hurts to live — And if They have to try — And whether — could They choose between — It would not be — to die — I note that Some — gone patient long — At l...

1. To find the many in the one he sweated under foreign skies to see the stars behind the sun. So space and time were now undone reality was undisguised. We found the many in the one. There is no photograph, not one, that shows the mind behind the eyes. He saw the stars behind the sun. Not with a sword, or knife, or gun, a simple picture severed ties. He found the many in the one. Light bends arou...

And in the end, all that is really left Is a feeling—strong and unavoidable— That somehow we deserved something better. That somewhere along the line things Got fouled up. And that letter from whoever’s In charge, which certainly would have set Everything straight between us and the world, Never reached us. Got lost somewhere. Possibly mislaid in some provincial station. Or sent by mistake to an o...

Sometimes as an antidote To fear of death, I eat the stars. Those nights, lying on my back, I suck them from the quenching dark Til they are all, all inside me, Pepper hot and sharp. Sometimes, instead, I stir myself Into a universe still young, Still warm as blood: No outer space, just space, The light of all the not yet stars Drifting like a bright mist, And all of us, and everything Already the...

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people's feet Still going past me in the street. And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day? Twitter：...

The light of the day is gone without a trace, Wealth and fame are like clouds passing by. I am a simple person living a life outside of the material world, And I have studied Zen from the journey within. Yin and Yang harmonise and purify my emotions,  Moving and meditating cultivated my mind. The essence of the spirit is my inner guard, The universe and I unified in one. ​ 《静坐吟》 作者：祁...

I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents: A honeymoon delight, A joy of love at sight, That ages in an hour My song be like a flower!. I have loved airs that die Before their charm is writ Along a liquid sky Trembling to welcome it. Notes, that with pulse of fire Proclaim the spirit's desire, Then die, and are nowhere My son...

Dedicate this special episode to my Indian listeners.  Stay safe and take care xx. English Translation: Where do you search me? I am with you Not in pilgrimage, nor in icons Neither in solitudes Not in temples, nor in mosques Neither in Kaba nor in Kailash I am with you O man I am with you Not in prayers, nor in meditation Neither in fasting Not in yogic exercises Neither in renunciation Neit...

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full     hands; How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it     is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful     green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, B...

Time says “Let there be” every moment and instantly there is space and the radiance of each bright galaxy. And eyes beholding radiance. And the gnats’ flickering dance. And the seas’ expanse. And death, and chance. Time makes room for going and coming home and in time’s womb begins all ending. Time is being and being time, it is all one thing, the shining, the seeing, the dark abounding. Twitter：...

we had the goldfish and they went around and around in the bowl on the table near the purple drapes across our front picture window and my mother, poor fish, always smiling, wanting to appear happy, she always told me, "be happy, Henry," and she was right: it's better to be happy if you can be but my father beat her two or three times a week while raging through his 6 foot two frame because he cou...

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shal...

The low lands call I am tempted to answer They are offering me a free dwelling Without having to conquer The massive mountain makes its move Beckoning me to ascend A much more difficult path To get up the slippery bend I cannot choose both I have a choice to make I must be wise This will determine my fate I choose, I choose the mountain With all its stress and strain Because only by climbing Can I...

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and d...

Holding the spring of life in my hands. I only feel that it comes fresh  and It is an intense wine, fresh and frothy Into my ambition, my toil, my adventure. It was as if a garden that no one had ever visited before As if it was about to be revealed to me. But now, suddenly facing the grave I look coldly back at my past I see its twists and turns of irrigated sorrow and joy All disappeared in...

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare o...

I would, to compose my eclogues chastely, Lie down close to the sky like an astrologer, And, near the church towers, listen while I dream To their solemn anthems borne to me by the wind. My chin cupped in both hands, high up in my garret I shall see the workshops where they chatter and sing, The chimneys, the belfries, those masts of the city, And the skies that make one dream of eternity. It is s...

Wise up, Sorrow. Calm down. You always lay claim to twilight. Well, here it is, brother, It descends. Obscurity settles over the town, bringing peace to one, worry to another. The restless crowd, whipped on by pleasure— our dogged torturer—carry their hearts’ raw remorse with them as they serve their vapid leisure, while you, my Sorrow, drop by here, take my hand, and draw me apart from them. We w...

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches partly because of the secrecy...

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!...

Her mighty skin is basked in wisdom, bones soaked in wondrous prestige. She’s like the essence of love: delicate like a fresh patch of snow and strong like an arctic fox whose pale fur is winter-kissed, a mess of snow and light. She swiftly glides through the night, tail swaying in the wind, her piercing eyes ready for the hunt. Oh, how to find a love so hidden? She glides through the day, her gai...