I love poetry. I love all that is says, all that it can mean, I love the multitude of forms it takes and that no matter how you write it you aren’t wrong because it is an expression of you. In honor of the day, here are some of my favorite pieces, as well as a few of my own works.
Of Modern Poetry by Wallace Stevens
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and to meet
The women of the time. It has to think about war
And it has to find what will suffice. It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and
With meditation, speak words that in the ear,
In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,
Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound
Of which, an invisible audience listens,
Not to the play, but to itself, expressed
In an emotion as of two people, as of two
Emotions becoming one. The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly
Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,
Beyond which it has no will to rise.
It must
Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may
Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman
Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.
***
Here I Love You by Pablo Neruda
Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.
The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.
Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.
Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.
The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
***
Brighter Shone The Golden Shadows
by Louisa May Alcott
Brighter shone the golden shadows;
On the cool wind softly came
The low, sweet tones of happy flowers,
Singing little Violet’s name.
‘Mong the green trees was it whispered,
And the bright waves bore it on
To the lonely forest flowers,
Where the glad news had not gone.
Thus the Frost-King lost his kingdom,
And his power to harm and blight.
Violet conquered, and his cold heart
Warmed with music, love, and light;
And his fair home, once so dreary,
Gay with lovely Elves and flowers,
Brought a joy that never faded
Through the long bright summer hours.
Thus, by Violet’s magic power,
All dark shadows passed away,
And o’er the home of happy flowers
The golden light for ever lay.
Thus the Fairy mission ended,
And all Flower-Land was taught
The “Power of Love,” by gentle deeds
That little Violet wrought.
***
Mother’s Stories
By Nicole Kapise Perkins
I warned you about Mother telling her stories.
I warned you,
but you wouldn’t listen.
*
I warned you about the magic
of golem and djinn,
about lilac walks
and mysterious circuses.
Stranded mice,
abandoned mice,
runaway mice,
unexceptional princesses,
all fodder for the worst sort of daydreaming.
I warned you,
but you wouldn’t listen.
*
Sisters telling stories in bird language
as they browse bookstores in Paris
and tapestries of tales
told by women who are unicorns
invite all sorts of imaginings,
nothing practical,
all frivolous flights of fancy.
I warned you,
but you wouldn’t listen.
*
Leave Avalon to lie in the mist,
allow the city of chains
to fall into the abyss,
let wolf-women run
through Rome’s seven hills alone.
Close your ears to Mother’s stories,
cover your eyes so you aren’t ensnared
by the magic of gesture.
Let the story end,
leave the queen encased in crystal
and the flower-maiden weeping
in underground halls;
don’t send the children out
to peek under toadstool and
fern forests for wee wicked folk.
I warned you,
but you wouldn’t listen.
*
Tell them no,
you’ll not hear the hoofbeats
as the horseman stalks the village,
rabbits don’t wear watches,
mermaids don’t dance,
fillies don’t fly.
Tell the children no,
abandoned princesses don’t wear crowns of stars,
maids don’t marry monsters
in return for a single rose,
they don’t marry the north wind,
they don’t spin dynasties
on outlawed spinning wheels.
I warned you,
but you wouldn’t listen.
*
See what comes of Mother’s stories:
the children run wild through the wood
seeking musical menageries,
they wade into seaside caves
singing for selkies.
They ask for tales told
by orphaned princesses
hiding in palace gardens
and songs sung by shieldmaidens.
They want stories
of women made of glass
and sagas sung by lionesses,
princesses who save miners’ sons
and princesses who save themselves.
I warned you,
but you wouldn’t listen.
*
No good will come of Mother’s stories,
I said,
and now all is topsy-turvy
and the children have run off
to the goblin market.
***
carnations write their crimson autobiographies
By Nicole Kapise Perkins
*
He gave me carnations,
spicy-sweet and ruffled. I asked him to write
me a poem, a song, a dirge, their
words fluttering like birds in my heart, a crimson
flush on my cheeks. One day our
children will be our autobiographies.
***
Do I love you?
By Nicole Kapise Perkins
*
When you asked me do
I love you, I
smiled and asked you what is love,
and how could I possibly offer it to anyone but you?
This is the Mask 