Is Coffee.

Pebble by Zbigniew Herbert

The pebble
is a perfect creature

equal to itself
mindful of its limits

filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning

with a scent that does not remind one of anything
does not ( Read more... )

Second Nature

I must be enjoying my sixth of seventh life by now,
watching the orange, early morning sun
gleam thickly through the fabric of an evergreen

as the smoke churns dark and sap-like up,
then wafts away from the chimneyspout.
In the past , when I heard people talk about

how a place becomes a part of you,
I always thought that they were being ( Read more... )

Problems with Hurricanes   by Victor Hernández Cruz

A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it's not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I'll tell you he said:
it's the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.

How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The ( Read more... )

A Hundred Voices

She sings to the sky
hands reaching to raise the ceiling
chin as high as her smile
shaking her head
swaying her hips
bringing her voice
up and  down pressing
the soles of her feet
into the ground
saying " I am here
for you, I am all
my voice can grasp"
praying to God
as loud as her lepard print shirt
as loud as the clack of her red heels
with her ( Read more... )

http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com/jesse.html

Jesse*
(*Edited for brevity, clarity and privacy)

JESSE WROTE:

Dear Rives,
My name is Jesse and I am a student at _______ High School. I just wanted to tell you that you are my favorite poet. I especially like your poem ( Read more... )

Buying Stock

"...The use of condoms offers substantial protection, but does not
guarantee total protection and that while
there is no evidence that deep kissing has resulted in
transfer of the virus, no one can say that such transmission
would be absolutely impossible."

--The Surgeon General, 1987

I know you won't mind if I ask you to put ( Read more... )

So I have not posted anything of my own for a while. So here you are some things of my own:

Shock
    “you cannot unglaze an eye” Emily Dickinson

No smoke signal
No message
    in the sand
        in a bottle

No message-
    fingered into the fog
        in your bathroom mirror

No Blinker
    to echo - right - right -
        to point out the way

No ( Read more... )

Wallace Stevens

Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu

That would be waving and that would be crying,
Crying and shouting and meaning farewell,
Farewell in the eyes and farewell at the centre,
Just to stand still without moving a hand.

In a world without heaven to follow, the stops
Would be endings, more poignant than partings, profounder,
And that would be ( Read more... )

Full Moon

The door is open,
the cricket is singing.
Are you going around naked
in the fields?

Like an immortal water,
going in and out of everything.
Are you going around naked
in the air?

The basil is not asleep,
the ant is busy.
Are you going around naked
in the house?

I took off petal after petal

I took off petal after petal, as if you were a rose,
( Read more... )