Category: Poetry

“The Dead” by Billy Collins (and special announcement)

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,

which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

— Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room, Random House, 2001.

***

and a special announcement:

Words for the Weekend is back this weekend with another installment in our Apocalypse series. I’m excited because I wrote a piece (as Christy Anna Beguins) just for the series titled, “Just Another Day: Signs, Memories, and Bob Marleys.”

From my intro:

This is a story of survival: how memory and music can sustain us, nourish us, and keep us alive; how undying love can light up the darkness. All you have to do is believe. Do you believe like I believe in magic?

For friends and readers here who may not follow that site (it has been quiet for a while), please drop by to visit. I’d love your thoughts and feedback on my story. Look around and hit the follow button while you’re over there; we’ll have another installment very (very very) soon.  Thanks! ~ Christy

“Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

 

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

 

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

 

Mark Strand, “Keeping Things Whole” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand.

“Vermeer” by Tomas Tranströmer

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

It’s not a sheltered world. The noise begins over there, on the other side of the wall
where the alehouse is
with its laughter and quarrels, its rows of teeth, its tears, its chiming of clocks,
and the psychotic brother-in-law, the murderer, in whose presence
everyone feels fear.

The huge explosion and the emergency crew arriving late,
boats showing off on the canals, money slipping down into pockets
— the wrong man’s —
ultimatum piled on the ultimatum,
widemouthed red flowers who sweat reminds us of approaching war.

And then straight through the wall — from there — straight into the airy studio
in the seconds that have got permission to live for centuries.
Paintings that choose the name: “The Music Lesson”
or ” A Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.”
She is eight months pregnant, two hearts beating inside her.
The wall behind her holds a crinkly map of Terra Incognita.

Just breathe. An unidentifiable blue fabric has been tacked to the chairs.
Gold-headed tacks flew in with astronomical speed
and stopped smack there
as if there had always been stillness and nothing else.

The ears experience a buzz, perhaps it’s depth or perhaps height.
It’s the pressure from the other side of the wall,
the pressure that makes each fact float
and makes the brushstroke firm.

Passing through walls hurts human beings, they get sick from it,
but we have no choice.
It’s all one world. Now to the walls.
The walls are a part of you.
One either knows that, or one doesn’t; but it’s the same for everyone
except for small children. There aren’t any walls for them.

The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.
It is like a prayer to what is empty.
And what is empty turns its face to us
and whispers:
“I am not empty, I am open.”

Tomas Tranströmer
trans. by Robert Bly
in The Winged Energy of Desire (2004)

“In the Library” by Charles Simic

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

There’s a book called
A Dictionary of Angels.
No one had opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She’s very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

 

“In the Library” by Charles Simic from The Voice at 3:00am. © Harcourt, 2006

“The Summer You Read Proust” by Philip Terman

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

Remember the summer you read Proust?
In the hammock tied to the apple trees
your daughters climbed, their shadows
merging with the shadows of the leaves
spilling onto those long arduous sentences,
all afternoon and into the evening-robins,
jays, the distant dog, the occasional swaying,
the way the hours rocked back and forth,
that gigantic book holding you in its woven nest-
you couldn’t get enough pages, you wished
that with every turning a thousand were added,
the words falling you into sleep, the sleep
waking you into words, the summer you read
Proust, which lasted the rest of your life.


“The Summer You Read Proust” by Philip Terman from Our Portion. © Autumn House Press, 2015.