Uploads from virginiapoet, with geodata

Red Lips

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:07:58 -0700

Your lips are like a southern lily red,
Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,
In which the brown bee buries deep its head,
When still the dawn's a silver sea of light.

Your lips betray the secret of your soul,
The dark delicious essence that is you,
A mystery of life, the flaming goal
I seek through mazy pathways strange and new.

Your lips are the red symbol of a dream,
What visions of warm lilies they impart,
That line the green bank of a fair blue stream,
With butterflies and bees close to each heart!

Brown bees that murmur sounds of music rare,
That softly fall upon the langourous breeze,
Wafting them gently on the quiet air
Among untended avenues of trees.

O were I hovering, a bee, to probe
Deep down within your scented heart, fair flower,
Enfolded by your soft vermilion robe,
Amorous of sweets, for but one perfect hour!

A Red Flower
Claude McKay
Jamaica (1889-1948)

Oranges on Blue

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:56:46 -0700

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Now see the beautiful sunset ore the ocean blue
Fiery colors due abound of poems there are a few
I wish that I could write one, about that perfect hue
But nothing rhymes with Orange

Orchards stretch for miles, they never seem to stop
There nectar baring fruit is one that’s hard to top
A fruit that justifies a sonnet, but might as well be rock
But nothing rhymes with Orange

How do I describe a basketball?
Or the bricks within my garden wall
The autumn leaves before they fall
But nothing rhymes with Orange

So the hardest line you’ll ever write
One to keep you up all night
So please tell if you might
What the hell rhymes with ORANGE?

Orange
Jeff Opperman
Source: Orange, Humorous Poems

Budding Twigs

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 02:38:44 -0700

virginiapoet posted a photo:

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

Lines Written In Early Spring
William Wordsworth

Empty Farmhouse

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 05:40:47 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

WHENEVER I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

The House With Nobody In It
Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

Distance Sets

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:12:53 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens,
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens,
In numerous leafage bosomed close;
Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer,
Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere
On cloudy archipelagos.

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion,
Their unimagined shapes accord:
Under their waves at intervals flame a pale levin through,
As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew
A sudden elemental sword.

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold;
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold,
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance;
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze;
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze,
Great moveless meres of radiance.

from: A Sunset
Victor Hugo
(1802-1885)

Crystal Rain

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:20:22 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Appearing on The Roof for one day only

Innocent blades hang centre stage

Diamond sharp in the Sun’s spotlight-

Dazzling.

Each tip a silver nib pooling drops of clear ink which quiver and tremble

Before shedding their tragic tears to the ground below.

From my seat in the Balcony Stalls

I marvel as the smallest cling, in their desperate attempt to star in this frozen tableau

Whilst others proudly point stiff daggers of glass,

Defying the watery rays.

Sheer beauty, so cruelly snapped by an outstretched hand

Thinner Thespians now threatened, shrink too rapidly-

Their memorable matinee over

To the applause of a pigeon’s wings.

Poem 281 - Icicles
by The Royal Berkshire Poetry Competition
Monday, 27 September 2010
poet unidentified

November Woods

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:14:04 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

...Streams the new day through boughs whose leafy pride
Scarce ray of sun could pierce or starlight keen:
Behold Heaven's glory through the shattered screen!
Red piled leaves, your leavening dust shall bide,
The rare mould of that Spring for which you died,
That unimaginable world of green.

Thomas Sharp
Autumn Woods
1918

Stairway to Rhodes

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:25:24 -0700

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Stairs fly as straight as hawks;
Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing
At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching.
Stairs sway at the height of their flight
Like a melody in Tristan;
Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers
Before they close them.

They curiously investigate
The shells of buildings,
A hollow core,
Shell in a shell.

Useless to produce their path to infinity
Or turn it to a moral symbol,
For their flight is ambiguous, upwards or downwards as you please;
Their fountain is frozen,
Their concertina is silent.

Flight of Stairs
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (1902-1962)

Maramara Corridor

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:28:48 -0700

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Ah! at last alone, love!
Now the band may play
Till its sweetest tone, love,
Swoons and dies away!
They who most will miss us
We're not caring for--
Who of them could kiss us
In the corridor?
Had we only known, dear,
Ere this long delay,
Just how all alone, dear,
We might waltz away,
Then for hours, like this, love,
We are longing for,
We'd have still to kiss, love,
In the corridor!
Nestle in my heart, love;
Hug and hold me close--
Time will come to part, love,
Ere a fellow knows;
There! the Strauss is ended--
Whirl across the floor:
Isn't waltzing splendid
In the corridor?

In The Corridor
James Whitcomb Riley
(1849-1916)

Temple of Athena

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 23:32:31 -0700

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Athena leads Odysseus home to Ithaka, and says:

Two of a kind, we are, contrivers, both. Of all the men alive you are the best in plots and story telling. My own fame is for wisdom among the gods - deceptions too. Would even you have guessed that I am Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, I that am always with you in times of trial, a shield to you in battle"
Odyssey 240
Homer

Bin Laden Is Dead

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 01 May 2011 21:02:52 -0700

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Snow Bending

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 02:33:04 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Advice is like snow
the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon,
and the deeper it sinks into the mind.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Snow Filligree

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 07:28:42 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

Snow beneath whose chilly softness
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee

Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?

Snow beneath whose chilly softness
Emily Dickinson

Dust of Snow

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 07:14:37 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Dust of Snow
Robert Frost
(1874-1963)

Between The Woods

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:22:45 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

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 downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
(1923)

A Winter Sunset

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:10:37 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

The frosty sky, like a furnace burning,
The keen air, crisp and cold,
And a sunset that splashes the clouds with gold
But my heart to summer turning.

Come back, sweet summer ! come back again !
I hate the snow,
And the icy winds that the north lands blow,
And the fall of the frozen rain.

I hate the iron ground,
And the Christmas roses,
And the sickly day that dies when it closes,
With never a song or a sound.

Come back ! come back ! with your passionate heat
And glowing hazes,
And your sun that shines as a lover gazes,
And your day with the tired feet.

A Winter Sunset
Lord Alfred Douglas
(1870-1945)

In Formation

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 02:43:23 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
to take a walk on that long beach
Everything was withdrawn as far as possible,
indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.

from: The End of March
Elizabeth Bishop

Three Trees

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:31:56 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

The aqua green goes with the pink
in a way no one knows what will happen.
Every step is a dangerous taking.
Amazing the time span of a trunk
(a door opens in it and suddenly,
someone is asking how this came to be).
The green curtain is a pressed chime
which when rung rings in a dogwood
white as if a storm were approaching
its green extreme.

Brick crumbles into living pond particle
while a bent hook holds back
the last dissolve.
An uneasy leap over a sharky sea.
Gravity plays its little emotive role.
It’s Elm Street all over
again, ragged walkways lead to Toon Town.
Hello kids. Hello Jimmy Neutron.
The blanket rises, and under it,
a fetishistic pompadour

green, greener and paler than bluebird.
But hush, the nuclear power plant
is about to blow unless
Jimmy can locate the elusive button.
A siren and standing-by fire truck.
It looks like a lost cause until presto,
a messenger. A racketing aside.
The day is dragged here and there but still
can’t be saved. BAM. Immediately
the next second clicks into the skyscape
apocalypse. In the dust, a celluloid woman
mows a multilayered lawn.
The arch overhead reads, O Art
Still Has Truth Take Refuge. Where? There.
There, there, says someone.

Three Trees
Mary Jo Bang

An Icicle of Moon

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:30:14 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

...Railings of the moon
through which the water rumbles.
...Leaving a trail of teardrops.
Tin bell vines
were trembling on the roofs.
A thousand crystal tambourines
struck at the dawn light...

From Romance Sonambulo
Gabriel Garcia Lorca

Winter Festoon

nobody@flickr.com (virginiapoet) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 03:38:56 -0800

virginiapoet posted a photo:

The icicles wreathing
On trees in festoon
Swing, swayed to our breathing:
They’re made of the moon.

She’s a pale, waxen taper;
And these seem to drip
Transparent as paper
From the flame of her tip.

Molten, smoking a little,
Into crystal they pass;
Falling, freezing, to brittle
And delicate glass.

Each a sharp-pointed flower,
Each a brief stalactite
Which hangs for an hour
In the blue cave of night.

Silver Filigree
Elinor Wylie (1885 – 1928).