spampost with kingfishers, medallions and sand-castles
Figures that the one day I bring an umbrella, it doesn't actually rain. Being right next to the Fourth of July, work was incredibly slow today. And as such, I spent a coupla hours surfing poetry archives instead. These were a few I liked best (enough to re-post here, at least):
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,
Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
who, minter of medallions,
casting or striking, caused me so
to speak with double voice in bronze,
I may not help and cannot know.
but I am Pallas, and I bear
the mask of war by wisdom; you
shall spin my olives to despair:
all my reverse will say is true.
(Turn me, and read that other side;
you must return: for, mask and coin,
I give no rest unless you ride
the felloe where my faces join.)
My face is Aphrodite's - she
that rules by myrtle and by dove;
I loose my zone to let you see
the end of reasoning by love.
Nothing my obverse tells is true:
turn till you read me as it was;
turn till you know me, and renew
my helpless paradox - because
--Terence Tiller
All her hours were yellow sands,
Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
Slipping warmly through her hands;
Patted into little castles.
Shiny day on shiny day
Tumbled in a rainbow clutter,
As she flipped them all away,
Sent them spinning down the gutter.
Leave for her a red young rose,
Go your way, and save your pity;
She is happy, for she knows
That her dust is very pretty.
--Dorothy Parker
This last one was my favorite of those posted.
I saw my first ice cream truck speed by in the city today! Good sign of summer, that.
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,
Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
who, minter of medallions,
casting or striking, caused me so
to speak with double voice in bronze,
I may not help and cannot know.
but I am Pallas, and I bear
the mask of war by wisdom; you
shall spin my olives to despair:
all my reverse will say is true.
(Turn me, and read that other side;
you must return: for, mask and coin,
I give no rest unless you ride
the felloe where my faces join.)
My face is Aphrodite's - she
that rules by myrtle and by dove;
I loose my zone to let you see
the end of reasoning by love.
Nothing my obverse tells is true:
turn till you read me as it was;
turn till you know me, and renew
my helpless paradox - because
--Terence Tiller
All her hours were yellow sands,
Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
Slipping warmly through her hands;
Patted into little castles.
Shiny day on shiny day
Tumbled in a rainbow clutter,
As she flipped them all away,
Sent them spinning down the gutter.
Leave for her a red young rose,
Go your way, and save your pity;
She is happy, for she knows
That her dust is very pretty.
--Dorothy Parker
This last one was my favorite of those posted.
I saw my first ice cream truck speed by in the city today! Good sign of summer, that.