Early In The Morning


While the long grain is softening
in the water,
gurgling over a low stove flame,
before the salted Winter Vegetable
is sliced for breakfast,
before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair,
heavy and black as calligrapher's ink.

She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches,
listens for the music of comb
against hair.

My... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (rlraybon) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2566 Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:21:41 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2565/t/The-Gift-by-Li-Young-Lee.html

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

I can't remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (rlraybon) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2565 Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:14:15 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2564/t/You-Are-Loved-Lyrics.html
"
Don't give up
It's just the weight of the world
When you're heart's heavy
I...I will lift it for you

Don't give up
Because you want to be heard
If silence keeps you
I...I will break it... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (Macabre) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2564 Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:44:20 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2568/t/The-Cask-of-Amontillado-Poe.html feeds@yuku.com (Macabre) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2568 Thu, 26 Oct 2006 06:02:57 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2569/t/The-Lady-or-the-Tiger.html and found it most intriguing.

In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (Macabre) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2569 Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:44:46 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2567/t/Delay-by-Elizabeth-Joan-Jennings-1926-2001.html
Was shining years ago. The light that now

Glitters up there my eyes may never see,

And so the time lag teases me with how



Love that loves now may not reach me until

Its first desire is spent. The star's impulse

Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful

And love arrived may find us somewhere else."

feeds@yuku.com (RestlessBeauty) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2567 Sun, 09 Jul 2006 16:12:45 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2561/t/Love-s-Alchemy-by-John-Donne-1572-1631.html Love's Alchemy

Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;
I have lov'd, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery.
Oh, 'tis imposture all!
And as no chemic yet th'elixir got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (RestlessBeauty) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2561 Sun, 09 Jul 2006 16:09:22 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2570/t/Two-Lovers-And-A-Beachcomber-By-The-Real-Sea.html Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea

by Sylvia Plath
1932-1963


Cold and final, the imagination
Shuts down its fabled summer house;
Blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacation
Dwindles in the hour-glass.

Thoughts that found a maze of mermaid hair
Tangling in the tide's green fall
Now fold their wings like bats and disappear
Into the attic of the skull.

We are not what we might be; what we are
Outlaws all... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (RestlessBeauty) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2570 Sun, 09 Jul 2006 16:06:22 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2558/t/Encomium-by-Stefan-George.html

Encomium

You are my Lord! When on my path you loom
In many changing shapes and yet familiar
And beautiful, I bend my neck before you.
No longer have you garments, wings or weapons,
You wear but one adornment: in your hair
The clustered wreath. You touch - a fragrant draught
Of frenzy sways the mind that feels your breath,
And every fibre quivers... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (blaketheme) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2558 Sat, 03 Jun 2006 14:30:38 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2575/t/Tam-O-Shanter-A-Tale-by-Rabbie-Burns.html
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (RestlessBeauty) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2575 Tue, 09 May 2006 08:47:14 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2562/t/Arthur-Rimbaud-Dance-of-the-hanged-men.html The paladins are dancing, dancing
The lean, the devil's paladins
The skeletons of Saladins.

Sir Beelzebub pulls by the scruff
His little black puppets who grin at the sky,
And with a backhander in the head like a kick,
Makes them dance, dance, to an old Carol-tune !

And the puppets, shaken about, entwine their thin arms :
Their breasts pierced with light, like black organ-pipes
Which once gentle ladies pressed to... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (Deathletter) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2562 Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:04:12 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2574/t/Philip-Larkin-This-be-the-verse-contains-strong-language-.html They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fxxxxd up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
]]> feeds@yuku.com (Deathletter) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2574 Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:01:58 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2579/t/joan.html


Chimes of Freedom Flashing

Of all the American musical genres, the most boring was the so-called folk scene centered in Greenwhich Village coffeehouses during the 1950s and early 1960s. Anyone who has ever been subjected to the self-righteousness of the politics is undoubtedly grateful that 'it's all over now, baby blue.' The day the (folk) music died was the day that made every non-folkie soar 8 miles high. Most pundits point to the 1964 Newport Folk Festival as the... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (Amanitoba) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2579 Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:13:58 GMT http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2582/t/Querying-the-Dead.html
-25 December 1553; near the fort of Tucapel



We could have taken this, too,

as we did all the rest, Pozo, with

our ears poured full of silver, our

throats lacquered with gold, our

arms and legs hollowed out and cast

like armor. Look how easily you come



apart, how much room is left behind

the nose, in the hollow of the shoulder,

between the ribs, in the small, dark

chambers of your... ]]> feeds@yuku.com (Sheri Soda) http://friendlymusings.yuku.com/topic/2582 Thu, 12 Jan 2006 01:46:06 GMT