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By day the bat is cousin to the mouse. He likes the attic of an aging house. His fingers make a hat about his head. His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead. He loops in crazy figures half the night Among the trees that face the corner light. But when he brushes [...]
Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading I want you to listen: to this frail Voice like that of letters eaten by grass. Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names. It flits between two sprays of leaves, Carrying the sound of branches that are real [...]
This is the field where the battle did not happen, where the unknown soldier did not die. This is the field where grass joined hands, where no monument stands, and the only heroic thing is the sky. Birds fly here without any sound, unfolding their wings across the open. No people killed — or were [...]
I used to lie on the floor for hours after school with the phone cradled between my shoulder and my ear, a plate of cold rice to my left, my school books to my right. Twirling the cord between my fingers I spoke to friends who recognized the language of our realm. Throats and lungs [...]
I like the generosity of numbers. The way, for example, they are willing to count anything or anyone: two pickles, one door to the room, eight dancers dressed as swans. I like the domesticity of addition– add two cups of milk and stir– the sense of plenty: six plums on the ground, three more falling [...]
Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave your house or apartment. Go out into the world. It’s all right to carry a notebook but a cheap one is best, with pages the color of weak tea and on the front a kitten or a space ship. Avoid any enclosed space where more than three [...]
This house, pitched now The dark wide stretch Of plains and ocean To these hills over The night-filled river, Billows with night, Swells with the rooms Of sleeping children, pulls Slowly from this bed, Slowly returns, pulls and holds, Is held where we Lock all distances! Ah, how the distances Spiral from that Secrecy: Room, [...]
Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance between the lines is fine but don’t turn corners, cross, cut in, go over or out, between two points of no return’s a line of flight, between two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought [...]
Like primitives we buried the cat with his bowl. Bare-handed we scraped sand and gravel back into the hole. They fell with a hiss and thud on his side, on his long red fur, the white feathers between his toes, and his long, not to say aquiline, nose. We stood and brushed each other off. [...]
The turquoise pool rose up to meet us, its slide a silver afterthought down which we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles. We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy. Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated, we [...]
They were never handsome and often came with a hormone imbalance manifested by corpulence, a yodel of a voice or ears big as kidneys. But each was brave. More than once a sidekick has thrown himself in front of our hero in order to receive the bullet or blow meant for that perfect face and [...]
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I [...]
The Zeroes taught us Phosphorous We learned to like the Fire By playing Glaciers when a Boy And Tinder guessed by power Of Opposite to balance Odd If White a Red must be! Paralysis our Primer dumb Unto Vitality! Zeroes taught us Phosphorous Emily Dickinson
If thou hast squander’d years to grave a gem Commission’d by thy absent Lord, and while ‘Tis incomplete, Others would bribe thy needy skill to them Dismiss them to the street! Should’st thou at last discover Beauty’s grove, At last be panting on the fragrant verge, But in the track, Drunk with divine possession, thou [...]
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water’d shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me. Raise [...]
Today I had a burial of my dead. There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall, No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed I only turned a picture to the wall. A picture that had hung within my room For years and years; a relic of my youth. It kept the rose [...]
The gallows in my garden, people say, Is new and neat and adequately tall; I tie the noose on in a knowing way As one that knots his necktie for a ball; But just as all the neighbours on the wall Are drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!” The strangest whim has seized me. [...]
LOVE THIS FEEL IT’S GREATEST FEEL OF ALL TIME LIFE IN YOU’RE HEART WALK IN YOU’RE MIND AND STAND IN YOU’RE SOUL AND LIVING IN YOU’RE BLOOD THIS FEEL ALWAYS YOU’RE CRY IF YOU SAD THIS FEEL ALWAYS SMILE IF YOU’RE HAPPY THIS FEEL ALWAYS PAIN, IF YOU’RE CRY THIS FEEL THIS GREATEST FEEL OF [...]
Love is blind Love is eyed Love is sweet Love is bitter Love is care Love is hesitation Love is bare Love is dare Love is peace Love is violent Love is clear Love is dirty Love is prominent Love is contaminate Love is heaven Love is hell Love is crashing Love is sticky Love [...]
*Love*…….*Love* *Love*…..*Love* *Love*…*Love* *Love**Love* *Love*…*Love* *Love*…..*Love* *Love*…….*Love* *Love*………*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ……..*Love* ………*Love* …*Love*…*Love* .*Love*…….*Love* …*Love*……*Love* ……*Love* ………..*Kiss* *Love*……*Love* .*Love*…….*Love* …*Love*…*Love* ………*Love* ………*Love* …*Love*…*Love* .*Love*…….*Love* …*Love*……*Love* ……*Love* ………..*Kiss* *Love*……*Love* .*Love*…….*Love* …*Love*…*Love* ………*Love* A.J Smith