POETRY

BACK OFTEN AND TAKE ME     Return often and take me. Back and get me, or feel loved, if the memory of the body awakens, and the old pang passes into the blood, then the lips and skin from rising, and yet it seems that the hands touch. Return often and take me at night, then the lips and …

WHEN YOU SET OUT FOR ITHACA When you set out for Ithaka, you hope your road is long, full of adventure, full of discovery. The Lestrigoni or Cyclops, the angry Neptune do not worry: it will not be this kind of meetings if your thoughts remain lofty, and a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Cyclops or Lestrigoni …

PRAYER Our baby’s heart, on the sixteen-week scan, was a fluttering bird, held in cupped hands. I thought of St Kevin, hands opened in prayer, and a bird of the hedgerow nesting there, and how he’d borne it, until the young had flown, and I prayed: this new heart must outlive my own. (Kathleen Jamie) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Findings-Kathleen-Jamie/dp/0954221745/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

AS THE MIST LEAVES NO SCAR On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor ever will. When wind and hawk encounter, What remains to keep? So you and I encounter, Then turn, then fall to sleep. As many nights endure, without a moon or star. So will we endure, when one is gone and …

FANTASY Leave always wandering imagination, the pleasure is always somewhere else, and it melts, only to touch sweet, like the bubbles when rain hits. Let her then wander, her, the winged, for the thought that even in front of it lies. Opens the door to the cage of the mind, and you’ll see, it will launch flying into the sky. …

CLOTHING You take off, we take off, we remove coats, jackets, waistcoats, blouses of wool, cotton, terylene, skirts, pants, socks, underwear, laying, hanging, throwing on backs of chairs, doors screens. For now, he says the doctor, nothing serious; you put on, rest, take a trip, take the case, after lunch, in the evening; come back in three months, six a …

THE ORANGE An orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and in my bed, sweet present of the present, freshness of the night, heat of my life. (Jacques Prévert) http://www.amazon.com/Paroles-French-Edition-Jacques-Prevert/dp/2070367622

FIRES BURN Fires burn in my heart. Do not smoke rises. Nobody knows. (Marichiko)

ROCKING HORSE Back and forth without going anywhere raising a child this is like rocking horse time that you gave to me. (Tawari Machi)

WHEN YOU WILL BE OLD When you’re old, wavering between fire and waking take this book, read it unhurriedly and dreams of the sweetness of your eyes for a time, and their shadows. How many loved your sweet grace of that time, and the beauty of a true or false love. But one only loved your soul pilgrim, and the …