SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: CAROLYN FORCHE

 

Poem For Maya

Dipping our bread in oil tins
we talked of morning peeling
open our rooms to a moment
of almonds, olives and wind
when we did not yet know what we were.
The days in Mallorca were alike:
footprints down goat-paths
from the beds we had left,
at night the stars locked to darkness.
At that time we were learning
to dance, take our clothes
in our fingers and open
ourselves to their hands.
The veranera was with us.
For a month the almond trees bloomed,
their droppings the delicate silks
we removed when each time a touch
took us closer to the window where
we whispered yes, there on the intricate
balconies of breath, overlooking
the rest of our lives.

Author : Olivia Lewit

02/17/2012
Category: / GENERAL, / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: WALLACE STEVENS

 
The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream

Author : Olivia Lewit

02/10/2012
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA : J R FAUSET

Lolotte, Who Attires My Hair by Jessie Redmon Fauset

Lolotte, who attires my hair,
Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps;
Trails her hand before her eyes;
Hangs her head and mopes and sighs,
Mutters of the pangs of hell.
Fills the circumambient air
With her plaints and her despair.
Looks at me:
‘May you never know, Mam’selle
Love’s harsh cruelty.’

Author : Olivia Lewit

02/03/2012
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

 

The Cat

Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart;
Hold back the talons of your paws,
Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes
Of metal and agate.

When my fingers leisurely caress you,
Your head and your elastic back,
And when my hand tingles with the pleasure
Of feeling your electric body,

In spirit I see my woman. Her gaze
Like your own, amiable beast,
Profound and cold, cuts and cleaves like a dart,

And, from her head down to her feet,
A subtle air, a dangerous perfume
Floats about her dusky body.

Author : Olivia Lewit

01/27/2012
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: ARNA BONTEMPS

Length of Moon by Arna Bontemps
Then the golden hour
Will tick its last
And the flame will go down in the flower.
A briefer length of moon
Will mark the sea-line and the yellow dune.
Then we may think of this, yet
There will be something forgotten
And something we should forget.
It will be like all things we know: .
A stone will fail; a rose is sure to go.
It will be quiet then and we may stay Long at the picket gate
But there will be less to say.

Author : Olivia Lewit

01/23/2012
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: THOMAS HARDY

 

“Between Us Now” 

Between us now and here -

Two thrown together

Who are not wont to wear

Life’s flushest feather -

Who see the scenes slide past,

The daytimes dimming fast,

Let there be truth at last,

Even if despair.

So thoroughly and long

Have you now known me,

So real in faith and strong

Have I now shown me,

That nothing needs disguise

Further in any wise,

Or asks or justifies

A guarded tongue.

 Face unto face, then, say,

Eyes mine own meeting,

Is your heart far away,

Or with mine beating?

When false things are brought low,

And swift things have grown slow,

Feigning like froth shall go,

Faith be for aye.

 

 

Author : Olivia Lewit

01/13/2012
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: SHEL SILVERSTEIN

Rain by Shel Silverstein
I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can’t do a handstand–
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said–
I’m just not the same since there’s rain in my head.

Author : Olivia Lewit

12/23/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: J. V. CUNNINGHAM

From A Century of Epigrams

 29

History of ideas

 God is love. Then by conversion

Love is God, and sex conversion.

 33

On a cold night I came through the cold rain

And false snow to the wind shrill on your pane

With no hope and no anger and no fear.

Who are you? And with whom do you sleep here? 

55

I had gone broke, and got set to come back,

And lost, on a hot day and a fast track,

On a long shot at long odds, a black mare

By Hatred out of Envy by Despair. 

62

You ask me how Contempt who claims to sleep

With every woman that has ever been

Can still maintain that women are skin deep?

They never let him any deeper in

76

Good Fortune, when I hailed her recently,

Passed by me with the intimacy of shame

As one that in the dark had handled me

And could no longer recollect my name.

Author : Olivia Lewit

12/16/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA : SHAUN SHANE

All To Fast

all at last
and then too
fast
she set about
to quibble

but too full
her throat
now from
the rush
of words
it
choked

and what
started out
as
a chewing out
became then
but
a
nibble

Author : Olivia Lewit

12/08/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: ODGEN NASH

A Drink With Something In It   

There is something about a Martini,

A tingle remarkably pleasant;

A yellow, a mellow Martini;

I wish I had one at present.

There is something about a Martini,

Ere the dining and dancing begin,

And to tell you the truth,

It is not the vermouth–

I think that perhaps it’s the gin.

Author : Olivia Lewit

12/02/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: EMILY DICKINSON

               

 After great pain, a formal feeling comes

After great pain, a formal feeling comes

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow

First–Chill–then Stupor–then the letting go

Author : Olivia Lewit

11/25/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: CATHERINE ANDERSON

Before Sleep

I was in love with anatomy
the symmetry of my body
poised for flight,
the heights it would take
over parents, lovers, a keen
riding over truth and detail.
I thought growing up would be
this rising from everything
old and earthly,
not these faltering steps out the door
every day, then back again.

Author : Olivia Lewit

11/18/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: JACK PRELUTSKY

Bleezer’s Ice Cream
I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER’S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT
COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD
CAULIFLOWER COLA MUSTARD
ONION DUMPLING DOUBLE DIP
TURNIP TRUFFLE TRIPLE FLIP
GARLIC GUMBO GRAVY GUAVA
LENTIL LEMON LIVER LAVA
ORANGE OLIVE BAGEL BEET
WATERMELON WAFFLE WHEAT

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER’S ICE CREAM STORE,
taste a flavor from my freezer,
you will surely ask for more.

Author : Olivia Lewit

11/11/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: AUDRE LORDE

Time collapses between the lips of strangers
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
my eyes are blocked with rubble
a smear of perspectives
blurring each horizon
in the breathless precision of silence
One word is made.

Once the renegade flesh was gone
fall air lay against my face
sharp and blue as a needle
but the rain fell through October
and death lay a condemnation
within my blood.

The smell of your neck in August
a fine gold wire bejeweling war
all the rest lies
illusive as a farmhouse
on the other side of a valley
vanishing in the afternoon.

Day three day four day ten
the seventh step
a veiled door leading to my golden
anniversary
flameproofed free-paper shredded
in the teeth of a pillaging dog
never to dream of spiders
and when they turned the hoses upon me
a burst of light.

Author : Olivia Lewit

10/28/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: JAMES A. EMANUEL

Wishes, For Alix

Always searching, may you find;
if you run-down,
may you wind;
every year
may you grow
reaping only
what you sow
sowing only in the seed
what will ripen into need
what will sweeten to the touch
seeming little, being much.

May your playmates be a song,
may your friends just skip along
laughing you into their game
letting you remain the same
in their hearts and on their lips
even when their fingertips
have to let you go your way—
glad they saw Alix today.

Author : Olivia Lewit

10/21/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: SARONIJI NAIDU

Ecstasy

Cover mine eyes, O my Love!
Mine eyes that are weary of bliss
As of light that is poignant and strong
O silence my lips with a kiss,
My lips that are weary of song!
Shelter my soul, O my love!
My soul is bent low with the pain
And the burden of love, like the grace
Of a flower that is smitten with rain:
O shelter my soul from thy face!

Author : Olivia Lewit

10/15/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: DENISE LEVERTOV

 

Aware

When I found the door

I found the vine leaves

speaking among themselves in abundant

whispers.

My presence made them

hush their green breath,

embarrassed, the way

humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,

acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if

the conversation had ended

just before you arrived.

I liked

the glimpse I had, though,

of their obscure

gestures. I liked the sound

of such private voices. Next time

I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open

the door by fractions, eavesdrop

peacefully.

Author : Olivia Lewit

10/07/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: MARGARET ATWOOD

  

 A Visit 

Gone are the days

when you could walk on water.

When you could walk.

The days are gone.

Only one day remains,

the one you’re in.

The memory is no friend.

It can only tell you

what you no longer have:

a left hand you can use,

two feet that walk.

All the brain’s gadgets.

Hello, hello.

The one hand that still works

grips, won’t let go.

That is not a train.

There is no cricket.

Let’s not panic.

Let’s talk about axes,

which kinds are good,

the many names of wood.

This is how to build

a house, a boat, a tent.

No use; the toolbox

refuses to reveal its verbs;

the rasp, the plane, the awl,

revert to sullen metal.

Do you recognize anything? I said.

Anything familiar?

Yes, you said. The bed.

Better to watch the stream

that flows across the floor

and is made of sunlight,

the forest made of shadows;

better to watch the fireplace

which is now a beach.

 

Author : Olivia Lewit

09/30/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA : CLAUE MC KAY

Song of the Moon by Claude McKay
The moonlight breaks upon the city’s domes,
And falls along cemented steel and stone,
Upon the grayness of a million homes,
Lugubrious in unchanging monotone.
Upon the clothes behind the tenement,
That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines,
Linking each flat to each indifferent,
Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

There is no magic from your presence here,
Ho, moon, sad moon, tuck up your trailing robe,
Whose silver seems antique and so severe
Against the glow of one electric globe.

Go spill your beauty on the laughing faces
Of happy flowers that bloom a thousand hues,
Waiting on tiptoe in the wilding spaces,
To drink your wine mixed with sweet drafts of dews.

Author : Olivia Lewit

09/24/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA : ALICE WALKER

Before you knew you owned it
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

Author : Olivia Lewit

09/16/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: PHILLIS WHEATLEY

 

An Hymn To The Evening

Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main

The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;

Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,

Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.

Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,

And through the air their mingled music floats.

Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!

But the west glories in the deepest red:

So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,

The living temples of our God below!

 Fill’d with the praise of him who gives the light,

And draws the sable curtains of the night,

Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,

At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d;

So shall the labours of the day begin

More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.

Night’s leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,

Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.

Author : Olivia Lewit

09/09/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: ROBINSON JEFFERS

Return
A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk’s food and noble is the mountain, Oh noble
Pico Blanco, steep sea-wave of marble.

Author : Olivia Lewit

09/03/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

Potions

The old woman made mint

Candy for the children
Who’d bolt through her front door,
Silhouettes of the great blue
 
Heron. She sold ten-dollar potions
From a half-lit kitchen. Chinese boxes
Furnished with fliers & sinkers. Sassafras
& lizard tongues. They’d walk out
 
Of the woods or drive in from cities,
Clutching lovesick dollar bills
At a side door that opened beside
A chinaberry tree. Did their eyes
 
Doubt under Orion as voices
Of the dead spoke? They carried
Photos, locks of hair, nail clippings,
& the first three words of a wish.

Author : Olivia Lewit

08/12/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

A HOLIDAY
 
The Wife
The house is like a garden,
The children are the flowers,
The gardener should come methinks
And walk among his bowers,
Oh! lock the door on worry
And shut your cares away,
Not time of year, but love and cheer,
Will make a holiday.

The Husband
Impossible! You women do not know
The toil it takes to make a business grow.
I cannot join you until very late,
So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait.

The Wife
The feast will be like Hamlet
Without a Hamlet part:
The home is but a house, dear,
Till you supply the heart.
The Xmas gift I long for
You need not toil to buy;
Oh! give me back one thing I lack –
The love-light in your eye.

The Husband
Of course I love you, and the children too.
Be sensible, my dear, it is for you
I work so hard to make my business pay.
There, now, run home, enjoy your holiday.

The Wife (turning)
He does not mean to wound me,
I know his heart is kind.
Alas! that man can love us
And be so blind, so blind.
A little time for pleasure,
A little time for play;
A word to prove the life of love
And frighten care away!
Tho’ poor my lot in some small cot
That were a holiday.

The Husband (musing)
She has not meant to wound me, nor to vex –
Zounds! but ‘tis difficult to please the sex.
I’ve housed and gowned her like a very queen
Yet there she goes, with discontented mien.
I gave her diamonds only yesterday:
Some women are like that, do what you may.

Author : Olivia Lewit

07/29/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: ROBERT HAYDEN

Those Winter Sundays

 Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

 I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

 Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Author : Olivia Lewit

07/23/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: YEHUDA AMICHAI

THE FIRST RAIN

The first rain reminds me
Of the rising summer dust.
The rain doesn’t remember the rain of yesteryear.
A year is a trained beast with no memories.
Soon you will again wear your harnesses,
Beautiful and embroidered, to hold
Sheer stockings: you
Mare and harnesser in one body.

The white panic of soft flesh
In the panic of a sudden vision
Of ancient saints.

Author : Olivia Lewit

07/17/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: DELMIRA AGUSTINI

I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown

I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green

Thus I suffer love’s inconstancies
And when I think the pain is most intense
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when I feel my joys certain
And my hour of greatest delight arrived
I find my pain beginning all over once again.

 

Author : Olivia Lewit

07/06/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: LUCILLE CLIFTON

SISTERS

me and you be sisters.
we be the same.

me and you
coming from the same place.

me and you
be greasing our legs
touching up our edges.

me and you
be scared of rats
be stepping on roaches.

me and you
come running high down purdy street one time
and mama laugh and shake her head at
me and you.

me and you
got babies
got thirty-five
got black
let our hair go back
be loving ourselves
be loving ourselves
be sisters.

only where you sing,
I poet.

Author : Olivia Lewit

06/24/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: EDNA ST.VINCENT MILLAY

 

I know I am but summer to your heart

I know I am but summer to your heart,

And not the full four seasons of the year;

And you must welcome from another part

Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.

No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell

Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;

And I have loved you all too long and well

To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,

I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,

That you may hail anew the bird and rose

When I come back to you, as summer comes.

Else will you seek, at some not distant time,

Even your summer in another clime.

 

Author : Olivia Lewit

06/07/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH

SUGGESTED BY OLIVIA: FORREST HAMER

GRACE

This air is flooded with her. I am a boy again, and my mother

and I lie on wet grass, laughing. She startles, turns to

marigolds at my side, saying beautiful, and I can see the red

there is in them.

When she would fall into her thoughts, we’d look for what

distracted her from us.

 My mother’s gone again as suddenly as ever and, seven months

after the funeral, I go dancing. I am becoming grateful.

Breathing, thinking, marigolds.

Author : Olivia Lewit

05/27/2011
Category: / POETRY BENCH