Poem of the Day

[Tillamook]

 

 

Eye Of The Tiger by Survivor

 

Rising up, back on the street

Did my time, took my chances

Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet

Just a man and his will to survive

 

So many times it happens too fast

You change your passion for glory

Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past

You must fight just to keep them alive

 

It's the eye of the tiger

It's the thrill of the fight

Rising up to the challenge of our rival

And the last known survivor

Stalks his prey in the night

And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger

 

Face to face, out in the heat

Hanging tough, staying hungry

They stack the odds 'til we take to the street

For the kill with the skill to survive

 

It's the eye of the tiger

It's the thrill of the fight

Rising up to the challenge of our rival

And the last known survivor

Stalks his prey in the night

And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger

 

Rising up, straight to the top

Had the guts, got the glory

Went the distance, now I'm not going to stop

Just a man and his will to survive

 

It's the eye of the tiger

It's the thrill of the fight

Rising up to the challenge of our rival

And the last known survivor

Stalks his prey in the night

And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger

 

The eye of the tiger

The eye of the tiger

The eye of the tiger

The eye of the tiger

[Tillamook]

I Wish in the City of Your heart by Robley Wilson

 

I wish in the city of your heart

you would let me be the street

where you walk when you are most

yourself. I imagine the houses:

It has been raining, but the rain

is done and the children kept home

have begun opening their doors.

[Tillamook]

Afraid So by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

 

Is it starting to rain?

Did the check bounce?

Are we out of coffee?

Is this going to hurt?

Could you lose your job?

Did the glass break?

Was the baggage misrouted?

Will this go on my record?

Are you missing much money?

Was anyone injured?

Is the traffic heavy?

Do I have to remove my clothes?

Will it leave a scar?

Must you go?

Will this be in the papers?

Is my time up already?

Are we seeing the understudy?

Will it affect my eyesight?

Did all the books burn?

Are you still smoking?

Is the bone broken?

Will I have to put him to sleep?

Was the car totaled?

Am I responsible for these charges?

Are you contagious?

Will we have to wait long?

Is the runway icy?

Was the gun loaded?

Could this cause side effects?

Do you know who betrayed you?

Is the wound infected?

Are we lost?

Will it get any worse?

[Tillamook]

 

Acquainted with the Night By Robert Frost

 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

 

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

 

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

 

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

 

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night

[Tillamook]

The Ideal Star-Fighter by J.H Prynne

 

1.

Now a slight meniscus floats on the moral

pigment of these times, producing

displacement of the body image, the politic

albino. The faded bird droops in his

cage called fear and yet flight into

his pectoral shed makes for comic

hysteria, visible hope converted to the

switchboard of organic providence

at the tiny rate of say 0.25 per cent

"for the earth as a whole" . And why

go on reducing and failing like metal: the

condition is man and the total crop yield

of fear, from the fixation of danger; in

how we are gripped in the dark, the

flashes of where we are. It pays to be

simple, for screaming out, the eye

converts the news image to fear enzyme,

we are immune to disbelief."If there

is danger there ought to be fear ", trans-

location of the self to focal alert, "but

if fear is an evil why should there be

danger?" The meniscus tilts the

water table, the stable end-product is dark

motion, glints of terror the final inert

residue. Oriental human beings throw off

their leafy canopies, expire; it is

the unpastured sea hungering for calm.

 

 

 

2.

And so we hear daily of the backward

glance at the planet, the reaction of

sentiment. Exhaust washes tidal flux

at the crust, the fierce acceleration

of mawkish regard. To be perceived with

such bounty! To put the ring-main of

fear into printed circuit, so that from the

distant loop of the hate system the

whole object is lovable, delicious, ingested

by heroic absorption! We should

shrink from that lethal cupidity; moral

stand-by is no substitute for 24-inch

reinforced concrete, for the blind certain

backlash. Yet how can we dream of

the hope to continue, how can the vectors

of digression not swing into that curve

bounding the translocal, and slip over, so

that the image of suffered love is

scaled off, shattered to a granulated pathos

like the dotted pigments of cygnus?

 

3.

What more can be done. We walk

in beauty down the street, we tread

the dust of our wasted fields. The

photochemical dispatch is im-

minent, order-paper prepared. We

cannot support that total of dis-

placed fear, we have already induced

moral mutation in the species. The

permeated spectra of hatred dominate

all the wavebands, algal to hominid.

Do not take this as metaphor; thinking to

finish off the last half-pint of milk,

look at the plants, the entire dark dream outside.

[SomaliPhilosopher]

You Want Me Pale- Alfonsina Storni

 

You want me pale,

Made of sea foam,

A mother of pearl.

Made of white lily,

Untouched among the others.

Made of thinning perfume.

Petals sealed.

 

Not touched by moonbeams,

Not called ‘sister’ by the daisies.

You want me like snow,

You want me white,

You want me pale.

 

You have had all

The cups in your hands,

Flowing fruit and honey,

Staining your lips dark.

You have been in the banquet

Laced with grapevines,

Relinquishing your meat,

Reveling in Bacchus.

You have been in the gardens,

Black with deception,

Wearing red and

Running into ruin.

 

You have kept your

Skeleton intact, and by

Miracles I do not know,

Still expect me to be white

(God forgive you for it),

Still expect me to be spotless

(God forgive you for it),

Still expect me to be pale.

 

So flee into the woods,

Run into the mountains;

Clean your mouth;

Live in a cottage;

Touch the damp earth

With your hands;

Nourish your body with

The bitter root;

Drink, like Moses,

From the rocks;

Sleep upon the frost;

Rejuvenate your flesh

With saltpetre and water;

Speak with the birds,

Rise with the sun.

And when your body

Has returned to you,

When it’s become entangled

In the bedroom of your soul,

Only then, good man,

Can you expect me to be pale,

Expect me to be snow,

Expect me to be untouched.

 

Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Fletcher

top

 

Tú Me Quieres Blanca

 

Tú me quieres alba,

Me quieres de espumas,

Me quieres de nácar.

Que sea azucena

Sobre todas, casta.

 

De perfume tenue.

Corola cerrada

Ni un rayo de luna

Filtrado me haya.

Ni una margarita

Se diga mi hermana.

 

Tú me quieres nívea,

Tú me quieres blanca,

Tú me quieres alba.

Tú que hubiste todas

Las copas a mano,

De frutos y mieles

Los labios morados.

Tú que en el banquete

Cubierto de pámpanos

Dejaste las carnes

Festejando a Baco.

Tú que en los jardines

Negros del Engaño

Vestido de rojo

Corriste al Estrago.

 

Tú que el esqueleto

Conservas intacto

No sé todavía

Por cuáles milagros,

Me pretendes blanca

(Dios te lo perdone),

Me pretendes casta

(Dios te lo perdone),

¡Me pretendes alba!

 

Huye hacia los bosques,

Vete a la montaña;

Límpiate la boca;

Vive en las cabañas;

Toca con las manos

La tierra mojada;

Alimenta el cuerpo

Con raíz amarga;

Bebe de las rocas;

Duerme sobre escarcha;

Renueva tejidos

Con salitre y agua;

Habla con los pájaros

Y lévate al alba.

Y cuando las carnes

Te sean tornadas,

Y cuando hayas puesto

En ellas el alma

Que por las alcobas

Se quedó enredada,

Entonces, buen hombre,

Preténdeme blanca,

Preténdeme nívea,

Preténdeme casta.

[Tillamook]

 

What the Heart Cannot Forget by Joyce Sutphen

 

Everything remembers something. The rock, its fiery bed,

cooling and fissuring into cracked pieces, the rub

of watery fingers along its edge.

 

The cloud remembers being elephant, camel, giraffe,

remembers being a veil over the face of the sun,

gathering itself together for the fall.

 

The turtle remembers the sea, sliding over and under

its belly, remembers legs like wings, escaping down

the sand under the beaks of savage birds.

 

The tree remembers the story of each ring, the years

of drought, the floods, the way things came

walking slowly towards it long ago.

 

And the skin remembers its scars, and the bone aches

where it was broken. The feet remember the dance,

and the arms remember lifting up the child.

 

The heart remembers everything it loved and gave away,

everything it lost and found again, and everyone

it loved, the heart cannot forget

[Tillamook]

 

Heshiiya by Yurub Yuusuf Ciise

 

Aduunyadu waa ayaan, habeenba har bay degtaa.

Himilo cusub bay gashaa, horaa loo talaabsadaa.

Caqlaa lagu howl galaa.

cilmi baa lagu hormaraa.

Muxuu hayb iyo qabiil--Adigu reer hebel ma tihid-- habsaan iyo ciil nabadday.

 

Dagaal Hanad kuma dhasho.

Halyay baa kaa dhintee

Intii hore, samirka hooy, samirka hooy.

Hubkiyo iyo baruuda dhiga,

 

Heshiiya!

Dadyoo dhamaantiin,

Heshiiya.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tillamook]

Macbeth( The three witches, casting a spell) by William Shakespeare

 

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights hast thirty one

Swelter’d venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

 

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

 

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,

Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,

For the ingredients of our cauldron.

 

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

[Tillamook]

 

Twilights, V by Conrad Aiken,

 

Now the great wheel of darkness and low clouds

Whirs and whirls in the heavens with dipping rim;

Against the ice-white wall of light in the west

Skeleton trees bow down in a stream of air.

Leaves, black leaves and smoke, are blown on the wind;

Mount upward past my window; swoop again;

In a sharp silence, loudly, loudly falls

The first cold drop, striking a shriveled leaf . . .

Doom and dusk for the earth! Upward I reach

To draw chill curtains and shut out the dark,

Pausing an instant, with uplifted hand,

To watch, between black ruined portals of cloud,

One star,—the tottering portals fall and crush it.

Here are a thousand books! here is the wisdom

Alembicked out of dust, or out of nothing;

Choose now the weightiest word, most golden page,

Most somberly musicked line; hold up these lanterns,—

These paltry lanterns, wisdoms, philosophies,—

Above your eyes, against this wall of darkness;

And you'll see—what? One hanging strand of cobweb,

A window-sill a half-inch deep in dust . . .

Speak out, old wise-men! Now, if ever, we need you.

Cry loudly, lift shrill voices like magicians

Against this baleful dusk, this wail of rain . . .

But you are nothing! Your pages turn to water

Under my fingers: cold, cold and gleaming,

Arrowy in the darkness, rippling, dripping—

All things are rain . . . Myself, this lighted room,

What are we but a murmurous pool of rain? . . .

The slow arpeggios of it, liquid, sibilant,

Thrill and thrill in the dark. World-deep I lie

Under a sky of rain. Thus lies the sea-shell

Under the rustling twilight of the sea;

No gods remember it, no understanding

Cleaves the long darkness with a sword of light.

[Tillamook]

The Race's Splendor by William Faulkner

 

The race's splendor lifts her lip, exposes

Amid her scarlet smile her little teeth;

The years are sand the wind plays with; beneath

The prisoned music of her deathless roses.

 

Within frostbitten rock she's fixed and glassed;

Now man may look upon her without fear.

But her contemptuous eyes back through him stare

And shear his fatuous sheep when he has passed.

 

Lilith she is dead and safely tombed

And man may plant and prune with naught to bruit

Hie heired and ancient lot to which he's doomed,

For quiet drowse the flocks when wolf is mute—

Ay, Lilith she is dead, and she is wombed,

And break his vine, and slowly eats the fruit.

 

 

[Tillamook]

Night Piece by William Faulkner

 

Trumpets of sun to silence fall

On house and barn and stack and wall.

Within the cottage, slowly wheeling,

The lamplight's gold turns on the ceiling.

Beneath the stake and windless vane

Cattle stamp and munch their grain;

Below the starry apple bough

Leans the warped and clotted plow.

The moon rolls up, while far away

And thin with sorrow, the sheepdog's bay

Fills the valley with lonely sound.

Slow leaves of darkness steal around.

The watch the watchman, Death will keep

And man in amnesty may sleep.

 

The world is still, for she is old

And many's the bead of a life she's told.

Her gossip there, the watching moon

View hill and stream and wave and dune

And many 's the fair one she's seen wither:

The pass and pass, she cares not whither—

Lovers' vows by her made bright,

The outcast cursing at her light;

Mazed within her lambence lies

All the strife of flesh that dies.

Then through the darkened room with whispers speaking

There comes to man the sleep that all are seeking.

 

The lurking thief, in sharp regret

Watches the far world, waking yet,

But which in sleep will soon be still;

While he upon his misty hill

Hears a dark bird briefly cry

From its thicket on the sky,

And curses the moon because her light

Marks every outcast under night.

 

Still swings the murderer, bent of knees

In a slightly strained repose,

Nor feels the faint hand of the breeze:

He now with Solomon all things knows:

That, lastly, breath is to a man

But to want and fret a span.

 

 

[Tillamook]

Grey the Day by William Faulkner

 

Gray the day, all the year is cold,

Across the empty land the swallows' cry

Marks the southflown spring. Naught is bowled

Save winter, in the sky.

 

O sorry earth, when this bleak bitter sleep

Stirs and turns and time once more is green,

In empty path and lane and grass will creep

With none to tread it clean.

 

April and May and June, and all the dearth

Of heart to green it for, to hurt and wake;

What good is budding, gray November earth?

No need to break your sleep for greening's sake.

 

The hushed plaint of wind in stricken trees

Shivers the grass in path and lane

And Grief and Time are tideless golden seas—

Hush, hush! He's home again.

 

 

[Tillamook]

Over the World's Rim by William Faulkner

 

Over the world's rim, drawing bland November

Reluctant behind them, drawing the moons of cold:

What do their lonely voices wake to remember

In this dust ere 'twas flesh? what restless old

 

Dream a thousand years was safely sleeping

Wakes my blood to sharp unease? what horn

Rings out to them? Was I free once, sweeping

Their Ewild and lonely skies ere I was born?

 

The hand that shaped my body, that gave me vision,

Made me a slave to clay for a fee of breath.

Sweep on, O wild and lonely: mine the derision,

Then the splendor and speed, the cleanness of death.

 

Over the world's rim, out of some splendid noon,

Seeking some high desire, and not in vain,

They fill and empty the red and dying moon

And, crying, cross the rim of the world again.

[Tillamook]

 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] By E. E. Cummings

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)