salt flower flush

08 Thursday Jan 2015

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ocean poetry, poem, Point Reyes, salt flower flush

silent wan worn low
tide everything mutters
moans in sediment
long-legged wading
bird stingray leaden-eye
shark kelp ever drifting
drifting drifting then high
tide low-reverberating
ocean all around lethargic
idiot pointed headland
mystic tethered moon
mirror that thralls that
mazes of kelp or trees of
fog in trees tasting of
salt flower flush
change summoning
moon surge longing
is to be everything
longing is to be nothing

cachalot

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by babylon crashing in Poetry

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Amy Lowell, cachalot, ocean's outrage, poem, sea poetry, sperm whale, trance

a darkness and a gleam,
and the blurred reflections of the willows on the opposite bank
received it.
– Amy Lowell, The Pike

Open your
mouth. Gape.
In it I put
cachalot, big
head, sacred
fish, though
cachalot is
neither,
moving streaks
of iridescence
trance, drifting
oar won from
the wave.
Swallow. Kiss
the curve of
my spotty
spine my fins
broad, rose,
black, silver.
Translucent.
Come hold
the sun in
your jaw, glow.

][][

Note:
Cachalot is simply the French term for sperm whale.

marjorie agosín’s “peces”

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by babylon crashing in Poetry, Spanish, Translation

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Marjorie Agosín, Peces, poem, Poetry, Spanish translation, ZJC

Saludo a los peces del mar
respetando su milenaria
genealogía,
sus danzas fugaces y suaves,
los colores que delatan
otros colores,
sus colas iridiscentes
parecidas a los cristales
de las adivinanzas.

Brindo un vaso
de agua
por todos los peces
todavia libres
por su elegante sangre fria
y sus simetrias perfectas.

][][

I greet the fish of the sea
respecting their ancient
tribes,
their fleeting and smooth dances,
colors that reveal
other colors
their iridescent tails
like a fortune teller’s
crystal ball.

I drink a glass
water
for all fish
still free
their elegant coolness
and perfect symmetries.

Marjorie Agosín, “Fish”
– translated by ZJC

the receiver

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by babylon crashing in Poetry, sonnet

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morning star, nameless vapor, poem, Poetry, receiver, road-signs, sonnet

Be vast beyond the trees. Be transparent.
The dusk was good. You cavort. I am shy.

Give the sky a backward glance, whose crescent
eyes all these road-signs miss but don’t know why.

So what? – a phone will start ringing, humming
about the rain. Word! you say, the devil

will die – but not like this. There’s a graying
vapor, nameless, across the water; dull

with no words left. For how long will you go
without luggage, shoes, road-signs? You can see

through me. I love symbols, signs. Rise. Again,
press your face to mine under the sky. Glow.

Call me Morning Star. In the receiver
you can just hear a busy-sound, like rain.

pogue the hone

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Poetry

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clapperdepouch, houghmagandy, night physic, poem, Poetry, pogue the hone, princum-prancum, pyrdewy pistil, rainlight, rantum-scantum, rumpscuttle

burning to give
a green gown my
fingers smoke

aspen branches
play nug-a-nug
reed voices

slow bee searching in
the pyrdewy pistil
tomorrow will frost

quail in the valley’s
pasture flirt
of underbelly

one
last ride below
the crupper sky

rainlight, houghmagandy
suddenly
winter sun

cricket singing
in the dark night
physic

kiss me
rantum-scantum princum-prancum
call from dreams

blow off the groundsills
Barnaby
dances the Paphian jig

whiskey sours play at tray
trip of dice and shot twixt
wind and water

tonight
giblets tomorrow
hey gammer cook

in my left
rumpscuttle in my
right clapperdepouch

last poem of 2014 ~

dawn
rides a dragon
upon St. George

a moth, a scythe, a shadow

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Erotic, Poetry

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Cypriote fountain, moth, Mrs. Fubbs, poem, Poetry, Robin Goodfellow, scythe, shadow

fire-weed, drake-root,
belle-chose, a geography
without names

oyster clouds over
an altar of Venus, jasper
moss still warm after sunset

Netherlands chick
weed, split petals in
the daring-down hollow

a witch and a crow and
placket-lace in the high
mountains

things forgotten phoenix
nest wrong answer moonlit
tongue

all the Latin that I
know contrapunctum and
cinaede and cunnilinctus

through tall upland
grass Aphrodisiacal
sport among the rushes

high in the east lady’s
low postiche clouds
over with lightning

birds hidden on the mount
pleasant dreams among
the boughs

butterflies petticoats
lane flecks moving
up and down

early venerable monosyllable
heralding first rain
then flood

storybook Mrs. Fubbs’
parlor a broken
china cup

kitchen fire
thatched
cottage smoke

burbling
Cypriote fountain
someone is happy

][][

nuthatch atop
a maypole first
flower

thistledown Master
Robin Goodfellow
in the thicket

a moth, a scythe,
a shadow not
moving

washed air, Eve’s
dropper, song
in the gutter

flying through the dark
woods Cyprian scepter
in ghostly hands

long August night
Don Cypriano cat
screams grow louder

red woods and rule
of three slowly
emerging

morning, noon,
evening silent flute
breeze in the field

mist
in the valley arbor
vitae twilight

impudent
mountain rising
empty sky

wetted

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Erotic, haiku, Illustration and art, Poetry

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art, come drown, dust devil, haiku, mountain river, poem, Poetry, rain squall, wetted

dust devils on the high seas

walking blessed and rude
out from the long surf
green winds blowing
up a wild
sea I’m a full fathom
five lover come
drown

let’s be poor dirt friends
I live on a high hill with
a priceless view of the sea

a windless morning how
many souls drowned last
night with the sinking sun?

rain squall breathing
deeply the waves I
go down on
you one last
time

you and me, mountain
stream, we dream of
a mother we never knew
but keep trying to reach

][][

note: I drew this picture about ten years ago when I was trying to make an ocean tarot deck. It’s the selkie myth, the seal lover who comes ashore to seduce those who are in love with the sea.