A poem
A day
Keeps
The Blues
Away.

Organic

Not just the size
the shape
the form
the feel
the colour
the smell
the texture
the taste
the contours

all -
matter

Earthshake

Earth, you are killing
unreasonably
not where you should
but where you want
Have you also turned
human like us?
Please return
to your goddess-ness

It hurts me

It hurts me
only when I think of you
trapped in a body
wordless

Maybe it hurts me more than it does you?

The tears fall from my eyes
like torrential rain
thinking of how
when I go away
you cannot express -
I cannot ever know -
what you feel, then
and when I return
you cannot express -
I cannot ever know -
what you feel, again
and then, thinking of that one day
when one goes away to stay
my chest constricts more
my tears fall faster
even as I pray
that I will not be the one to, first
or you
or she or them
but it may all happen together
though I know such prayers are not answered
so I hope again, that it may happen the other way
you first, then she and then I
but if it  goes the way of nature
then I know it will go thus
I first, then she, then you

Thinking of that
I get upset
but do not know what to do
except to wipe my eyes
go on
as if
there is a choice
when there never was one.

War Plane

War is over
but it is never "Happy Christmas"
anymore, on earth
Copters still fly overhead
Border skirmishes continue
Last night a bomber flew overhead
loud and thunderous
penetrating into my sleep
so deeply
that war seemed  real, its price as steep
as ever, and night its only natural keep.

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/35396.gif

Reuel

Can you understand God?
Do you need to? No
For to you He is not the Word.
Is He the Image?
You do not need to understand God
You "live and move and have
your being in Him."
He is for you beyond word and image
in love, in deed and being.

Earth, make me move, under my feet

As earthquakes have an epicentre
so are you mine

Wild, the tremors rip through me
in increasing magnitude
The last one was 7.6
on the Richter scale

The bed was shaking
the lights swaying
though the time was day
and the windows, closed

I wondered if it was Exorcist
and you had come to possess me
lovely in your disheveled state

You are my earthquake
but I cannot stay away
anymore
though the panes are rattling
the pots and pans
haunted by your sway

Whether the tremors subside
or you kill me
I want you there, to make us quake
I want  you, to stay.

Breaking the Rules

When I said she should pay
she went away.

Paul Eluard

I do not know French. I have read only a few of Eluard's poems, primarily from Beckett's translations and then probably from a pdf I downloaded that was for free from poem hunter or some such place, That had some of the same poems done by a different translator and new ones. It was basically more of the same stuff. Eluard has been called a Surrealist but he is more Romantic and lyrical, according to me. I find his poems bittersweet,especially if one is in the shock of going through a time of experiencing the trauma of a love that goes very deep which one does not yet know the end of. You both fear and anticipate it because it can turn out well or ill. http://rosannadelpiano.perso.sfr.fr/Images/Paul%20Eluard.jpg That is what he looked like. The poem that comes to mind is L’amoureuse She is standing on my lids And her hair is in my hair She has the colour of my eye She has the body of my hand In my shade she is engulfed As a stone against the sky She will never close her eyes And she does not let me sleep And her dreams in the bright day Make the suns evaporate And me laugh cry and laugh Speak when I have nothing to say [translated by Samuel Beckett] This is so simple and lyrical that it needs no explication except perhaps to say that one is reminded of Neruda. But Scarcely Disfigured goes deeper. Scarcely Disfigured Farewell Sadness / Greeting Sadness / Thou art inscribed in the lines of the ceiling / Thou art inscribed in the eyes that I love / Thou art not altogether want / For the poorest of lips denounce thee / Smiling / Greeting sadness / Love of the bodies that are lovable / Mightiness of the bodies that arelovable / Starts up a bodiless beast / Head of hope defeated / Sadness countenance of beauty Paul Eluard / Translated by Samuel Beckett This is great poetry , of course in a line like "the poorest of lips denounce thee." I do not write here as a critic but as a poet and a lover, in this post. Why I remembered Eluard and sit here writing this post, when I should be going to work is because he inspires me, though I have only read him haltingly in French, and in these translations. This is my tribute poem to two fine poets Eluard and Beckett inspired by my own experiences of love and sadness. The first two lines are taken directly from Eluard into my own poem. Hello sadness Good day to you You are not caused by anyone outside In this matter I have been a paltry God I make you appear in the eyes of the ones I love As a poet I praise you, falsely You come from inside me as talons of love And leave scratches on the bodies of the ones I love They are more than scarcely disfigured now I could say they too created sorrow for me, or for themselves, but won't. Now we drown in the un-bridged planets of grief But sadness, I only wanted to stop hurting others and bid you what you so richly deserve The spirit of farewell and then I'd stay with my love.