Han Shan (fl. 9th Century)

 

In the mountains it's cold.

Always been cold, not just this year.

Jagged scarps forever snowed in

Woods in the dark ravines spitting mist.

Grass is still sprouting at the end of June,

Leaves begin to fall in early August.

And here I am, high on mountains,

Peering and peering, but I can't even see the sky.

E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)

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 the 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) e e cummings

Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)

 

"And every stone and every star a tongue,
And every gale of wind a curious song.
The Heavens were an oracle, and spoke
Divinity: the Earth did undertake
The office of a priest; and I being dumb
(Nothing besides was dumb) all things did come
With voices and instructions..."-   Thomas Traherne, Dumbness, 17th Century 

Annie Dillard

 

"Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow;
you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall."-   Annie Dillard

Ivan Aivazovsky

Annie Lennox

“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.”  

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

“Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451    

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927)

There are many ideas which intoxicate man, many feelings there are which act upon the soul as wine, but there is no stronger wine than the wine of selflessness. It is a might and it is a pride that no worldly rank can give. To become something is a limitation, whatever one may become. Even if a person were to be called the king of the world, he would still not be emperor of the universe. If he were the master of earth, he would still be the slave of Heaven. It is the person who is no one, who is no one and yet all.

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

A cicada shell

A cicada shell;
it sang itself
utterly away.


Translated by R.H. Blyth

Matsuo Basho :

Ivan Aivazovsky

Tina Turner

“Physical strength in a Woman... that's what I am”  

Bob Marley (1945-1981)

“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!”
― Bob Marley

 

Jaroslaw Jasnikowski

Ishyndar

Ryokan (1758-1831)

“The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away,and the weather is clear again. If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure... Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way”
― Ryokan, One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan    

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

“If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.”  

"you will hardly know who I am or what I mean."

"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged

...I've stopped somewhere waiting for you."

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)

A painting is not about an experience. It is an experience.

 

Jaroslaw Jasnikowski

Hsieh Ling-yun (385-433)

Dwelling in the Mountains #6

Here where I live,
lakes on the left, rivers on the right,
you leave islands, follow shores back

to mountains out front, ridges behind.
Looming east and toppling aside west,

they harbor ebb and flow of breath,
arch across and snake beyond, devious

churning and roiling into distances,
clifftop ridgelines hewn flat and true.

 

 

Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000)

“In reality, though, the first thing to ask of history is that it should point
out to us the paths of liberty. The great lesson to draw from revolutions is
not that they devour humanity but rather that tyranny never fails to generate
them.”
― Pierre Trudeau

Leonard Cohen

“And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.”
― Leonard Cohen, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs    

Vegetable Root Discourses

Watch things move when you are still. 
Watch people busy toiling while you are relaxed. 
Then you can realize the fun of being out of this world. 
Knowing how to be at ease when busy. 
Knowing how to quiet down amidst noise. 
That is the discipline to keep you healthy and long-lived.  

 

Larry Carlson

Margaret Atwood

Night Poem

There is nothing to be afraid of,
it is only the wind
changing to the east, it is only
your father the thunder
your mother the rain

In this country of water
with its beige moon damp as a mushroom,
its drowned stumps and long birds
that swim, where the moss grows
on all sides of the trees
and your shadow is not your shadow
but your reflection,

your true parents disappear
when the curtain covers your door.
We are the others,
the ones from under the lake
who stand silently beside your bed
with our heads of darkness.
We have come to cover you
with red wool,
with our tears and distant whipers.

You rock in the rain's arms
the chilly ark of your sleep,
while we wait, your night
father and mother
with our cold hands and dead flashlight,
knowing we are only
the wavering shadows thrown
by one candle, in this echo
you will hear twenty years later.

 

Margaret Atwood :

Sherman Alexie

Crow Testament

1
Cain lifts Crow, that heavy black bird
and strikes down Abel.

Damn, says Crow, I guess
this is just the beginning.

2
The white man, disguised
as a falcon, swoops in
and yet again steals a salmon
from Crow's talons.

Damn, says Crow, if I could swim
I would have fled this country years ago.

3
The Crow God as depicted
in all of the reliable Crow bibles
looks exactly like a Crow.

Damn, says Crow, this makes it
so much easier to worship myself.

4
Among the ashes of Jericho,
Crow sacrifices his firstborn son.

Damn, says Crow, a million nests
are soaked with blood.

5
When Crows fight Crows
the sky fills with beaks and talons.

Damn, says Crow, it's raining feathers.

6
Crow flies around the reservation
and collects empty beer bottles

but they are so heavy
he can only carry one at a time.

So, one by one, he returns them
but gets only five cents a bottle.

Damn, says Crow, redemption
is not easy.

7
Crow rides a pale horse
into a crowded powwow
but none of the Indian panic.

Damn, says Crow, I guess
they already live near the end of the world.

Sherman Alexie :

Wang Wei (701-761)

Green-Water Stream To reach the Yellow-Flowered River Go by the Green-Water Stream. A thousand twists and turns of mountain But the way there can’t be many miles. The sound of water falling over rocks And deep colour among pines. Gently green floating water-plants. Bright the mirrored reeds and rushes. I am a lover of true quietness. Watching the flow of clear water I dream of sitting on the uncarved rock casting a line on the endless stream. Note: The uncarved rock is the Tao. The endless stream is the Tao.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land    

 

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

A strangely intriguing collection of poems that capture the mood of the late '80s/early '90s perfectly. Reminds me of Sharon Olds' mid-career in terms of theme; spirituality, politics, war, death, sex. Every piece in here has such precise focus.

“There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.”
― André Gide, Autumn Leaves    

Andre Gide (1869-1951)

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― André Gide, Autumn Leaves

Alleys

Tibet

Gerhard Richter

Po Chu-I (772-846)

HEARING THE EARLY ORIOLE
(WRITTEN IN EXILE)

BY PO CHÜ-I

THE sun rose while I slept. I had not yet risen ¹³²
When I heard an early oriole above the roof of my house.
Suddenly it was like the Royal Park at dawn,
With birds calling from the branches of the ten-thousand-year trees.
I thought of my time as a Court Official
When I was meticulous with my pencil in the Audience Hall.
At the height of Spring, in occasional moments of leisure,
I would look at the grass and growing things,
And at dawn and at dusk I would hear this sound.
Where do I hear it now?
In the lonely solitude of the City of Hsün Yang.
The bird's song is certainly the same,
The change is in the emotions of the man.
If I could only stop thinking that I am at the ends of the earth,
I wonder, would it be so different from the Palace after all?

Anne Sexton (1928-1974)

A Curse Against Elegies Oh, love, why do we argue like this? I am tired of all your pious talk. Also, I am tired of all the dead. They refuse to listen, so leave them alone. Take your foot out of the graveyard, they are busy being dead. Everyone was always to blame: the last empty fifth of booze, the rusty nails and chicken feathers that stuck in the mud on the back doorstep, the worms that lived under the cat's ear and the thin-lipped preacher who refused to call except once on a flea-ridden day when he came scuffing in through the yard looking for a scapegoat. I hid in the kitchen under the ragbag. I refuse to remember the dead. And the dead are bored with the whole thing. But you - you go ahead, go on, go on back down into the graveyard, lie down where you think their faces are; talk back to your old bad dreams. Anne Sexton :

Wang Wei (701-761)

Drifting on the Lake Autumn is crisp and the firmament far, especially far from where people live. I look at cranes on the sand and am immersed in joy when I see mountains beyond the clouds. Dusk inks the crystal ripples. Leisurely the white moon comes out. Tonight I am with my oar, alone, and can do everything, yet waver, not willing to return.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Futurity

AND, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich
The poor world with the sense of love, and witch,
The heart out of things evil,--I am strong,
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among

The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty,--glorified
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning :

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927)

When an ordinary or an illiterate person meets a poet, he sees the man-part and not the poet-part. But if he is told that this person is a poet he may see the poet-part when he meets him. He now sees that he is a poet in his actions and in his words; in everything about him he sees the poet, whereas otherwise he would not have been able to see this. Thus a great poet may go among a crowd and the people will only see the man in him; they do not see the poet, and they do not know how profound his thoughts are. So once a person begins to recognize God in man he does not see the man any more but God. The man is the surface, while God is deep within him. Such recognition brings a person into touch with everyone's innermost being, and then he knows more about people than they know themselves. ...

 

Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

Rainer Maria Rilke :

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Every man's pursuit is according to his state of evolution, and so each soul is in pursuit of something but he does not know where it leads him. The first sign of realization is tolerance towards others. There are the words of Christ: 'In the house of my father are many mansions' and those of the Prophet: 'Each soul has its own religion' This means that according to his evolution so man knows the truth and the more a man knows, the more he finds there is to learn.

Jim Carroll (1949-2009)

Praying Mantis

Poem by Jim Carroll, from Fear of Dreaming
Photo by Tamela Glenn, from Praying Mantis
1991

Look at it
It's all blank
The face in the photograph
Too dark for features
But the praying mantis
Just so clear
Its forelegs fingering my hair
And it's there in focus on my shoulder
It teaches me my true name
It gives me this message:

Do not strike the low chord,
Lest its vibration awaken the halls of Maya.
It instructs me on the ways when need be to hide
It awakens the serpent inside to throb, to burn
It pulls the arrow from my ear
And it whispers, whispers, whispers a last word
What seems the last vapors of a long dream
Like Baraka wrote, like James Brown sings
Whispers, "please, please, please."