Poems By Others
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Within this section of my website – I showcase pieces of poetry that are written by others, which I find to be particularly worthy of further reflection and sharing.
Glacier Speaks
Humans – hear me!
I speak for the glacier beings:
ice and gravel, crevasse, snowbridge,
rushing water.
Watch how we move. May watching bring you peace.
Think of the making of mountains, gorges,
ponds, rivers without end.
That is how we move.
Bonded together, turning over time,
great and lasting forms.
Our glacier ways are the old ways.
We are kin to the dew on the grass, the icicles
hanging from your gutters, the irrigation for your”
farmlands, the bubbles in your fountains.
Crystal and vapor are beautiful ways
we touch the face of the earth.
Two-legged beings, frantic and sad ones,
follow my path downstream from the mountains,
cascade and river current, flowing through marshes
and out to sea. Taking that journey over and over
I pass by you as cloud and rain and snow.
You are the frozen ones, believing yourselves
apart from each other and other life forms.
With your hearts, listen for the voices
deep inside the glacier. They will teach you songs of
the power of melting.
– Anne Wescott
Failing and Flying
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
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 Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
– Jack Gilbert
Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads
Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads,
a woman who feels too much,
a woman who writes…
Don’t fall in love with an educated, magical, delusional, crazy woman.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who thinks,
who knows what she knows
and also knows how to fly;
a woman sure of herself.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who
laughs or cries making love,
knows how to turn her spirit into flesh;
let alone one that loves poetry (these are the most dangerous),
or spends half an hour contemplating a painting
and isn’t able to live without music.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who is interested
in politics and is rebellious and
feels a huge horror from injustice.
One who does not like to watch television at all
Or a woman who is beautiful
no matter the features of her face or her body.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who is intense,
entertaining, lucid and irreverent.
Don’t wish to fall in love with a woman like that.
Because when you fall in lov
with a woman like that,
whether she stays with you or not,
whether she loves you or not,
from a woman like that, you never come back.
~Martha Rivera-Garrido
my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
my brain and
heart divorced
a decade ago
over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become
eventually,
they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other
now my head and heart
share custody of me
I stay with my brain
during the week
and my heart
gets me on weekends
they never speak to one another
– instead, they give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week
and the notes they
send to one another always
say the same thing:
“This is all your fault”
on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past
and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future
they blame each
other for the
state of my life
there’s been a lot
of yelling – and crying
so,
lately, I’ve been
spending a lot of
time with my gut
who serves as my
unofficial therapist
most nights, I sneak out of the
window in my ribcage
and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut’s plush leather chair
that’s always open for me
~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up
last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head
I nodded
I said I didn’t know
if I could live with
either of them anymore
“my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,”
I lamented
my gut squeezed my hand
“I just can’t live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,”
I sighed
my gut smiled and said:
“in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,”
I was confused
the look on my face gave it away
“if you are exhausted about
your heart’s obsession with
the fixed past and your mind’s focus
on the uncertain future
your lungs are the perfect place for you
there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either
there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment
there is only breath
and in that breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out.”
this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves
and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs
I packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs
before I could even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said
“what took you so long?”
Alone – Jack Gilbert
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody’s dalmatian. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on their lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other’s eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
the mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
Behold this view of “The Four Noble Truths” – Jake Agnew
Life is suffering:
The first of the teachings explains
a world of hurt, beleaguered with pain.
It says that life is suffering
and full of strife and struggling.
From birth until death, in human form –
we can certainly expect to be consumed by the forlorn.
Within this incarnation which we reside
there will be sin and tarnation held inside.
Suffering has a reason:
The second of these meaningful teachings
expresses why there is pain and its reasons.
From the days before, until tomorrow and after
this dismay is important, with its sorrowful disaster.
The tragedy which we must endure and feel
with sadness and grief are from something sure and real.
The chaos of life has cause and effect,
where dismay, loss and strife have obvious connections.
The reason for suffering is attachement:
The third of these truths states the following:
the absurdity and abuse are related to wallowing
in desire, needs and attachments of want,
with a fire that feeds, combats our senses and taunts.
The vexing hate and confusion we sustain
are connected, related to the delusions entertained.
When we long for an outcome to be consistently granted,
we feel wronged with doubt – succumbing to differences from what was demanded.
Disconnecting from attachment brings the cessation of suffering:
The fourth jewel of wisdom that is taught and shared
is an important tool of precision in thought and cares.
Liberation from suffering can be truthfully attained,
with a situation of less struggling, and fewer pains.
By practicing detachment and ceasing desire –
with these tactics we can combat the grief, and fire.
Enlightenment is within our reach and potential
when using this insight intense, of these teachings so influential.
Written by Jake Onami Agnew, 2009
Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
death asked me to join him for dinner
so I slipped into my favorite black dress
that I had been saving for a special occasion
and let him walk me to our candlelit tryst.
He ordered a ribeye, extra rare
I ordered two desserts and red wine
and then I sipped
and wondered
why he looked so familiar
and smelled like earth and memory.
He felt like a place both faraway
and deep within my body
A place that whispers to me
on the crisp autumn breeze
along the liminal edges of dusk and dawn
somewhere between dancing
and stillness.
He looked at me
with the endless night sky in his eyes
and asked
‘Did you live your life, my love?’
As I swirled my wine in its glass
I wondered If I understood the thread I wove into the greater fabric
If I loved in a way that was deep and freeing
If I let pain and grief carve me into something more grateful
If I made enough space to be in awe that flowers exist
and take the time to watch the honeybees
drink their sweet nectar
I wondered what the riddles of regret and longing
had taught me
and if I realized just how
beautiful and insignificant and monstrous and small we are
for the brief moment that we are here
before we all melt back down
into ancestors of the land.
Death watched me lick buttercream from my fingers
As he leaned in close and said
‘My darling, it’s time.’
So I slipped my hand into his
as he slowly walked me home.
I took a deep breath as he leaned in close
for the long kiss goodnight
and I felt a soft laugh leave my lips
as his mouth met mine
because I never could resist a man
with the lust for my soul in his eyes
and a kiss that makes my heart stop.
