Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Alive...moving in grace and liberty...floating lighter than a feather...dancing in the morning light


Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,

lonely and wanting. Or
stay and be early:
next to deep woods

inhabit old orchards.
All clearings promise.
Sunrise is good,

and fog before sun.
Expect nothing always;
find your luck slowly.

Wait out the windfall.
Take your good time
to learn to read ferns;

make like a turtle:
downhill toward slow water.
Instructed by heron,

drink the pure silence.
Be compassed by wind.
If you quiver like aspen

trust your quick nature:
let your ear teach you
which way to listen.

You've come to assume
protective color; now
colors reform to

new shapes in your eye.
You've learned by now
to wait without waiting;

as if it were dusk
look into light falling:
in deep relief

things even out. Be
careless of nothing. See
what you see.

How to See Deer
(Philip Booth)

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Poetry


doisneau_kiss
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Amor

quando os instantes de amanhã se acumulam nas
paredes da casa, eu rasgo as páginas onde te escrevo,
porque sei que tudo será desnecessário, tudo será
frágil. quando imagino o sol que não sei se poderei ver,
esqueço as paredes e,

com tanta força,

quero que sejas feliz.

(José Luís Peixoto - A Casa, a Escuridão)

Sunday, March 08, 2009

The Heart of a Woman


The Pear
Upload feito originalmente por christinemarieart

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.

by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Monday, December 22, 2008

Merry Christmas!


Óbidos Vila Natal 2007
Upload feito originalmente por tiguh

[...] Then wherefore in these merry days
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelays
To make our mirth the fuller.
And whilst we thus inspired sing,
Let all the streets with echoes ring;
Woods, and hills, and everything
Bear witness we are merry.

A Christmas Carol (excerpt)
by George Wither

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Postino


postino
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Os milagres acontecem
a horas incertas
e nunca estou em casa
quando o carteiro passa.
Hoje, abriu a primeira flor
e eu disse é um sinal.
Olho em volta: estou só
trago esta sombra comigo.


Ana Paula Inácio (2000)
From: Vago Pressentimento Azul por Cima

Coffee Cup




Coffee Cup
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Déjeuner du matin

Déjeuner du matin

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler

Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder

Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder

Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré

Jacques Prévert

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Inanimate Objects

Spring Coffee Poem

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Reading Poetry


Mechanical poetry
Upload feito originalmente por Lumase

"We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are
members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law,
business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty,
romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”


A quote by Professor John Keating from the movie Dead Poets Society.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Jacques Prévert

Le cheval rouge

Dans les manèges du mensonge
Le cheval rouge de ton sourire
Tourne
Et je suis là debout planté
Avec le triste fouet de la réalité
Et je n'ai rien à dire
Ton sourire est aussi vrai
Que mes quatre vérités.


Saturday, March 08, 2008

Doubt

Doubt Thou the Stars Are Fire

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.


Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Another Portuguese Favourite

Portugal
by Alexandre O'Neill

If only, Portugal, you were just three syllables,
a beautiful view of the sea,
the green Minho, the whitewashed Algarve,
a tiny, tranquil donkey
trotting along the mountain ridge,
a mill swinging its arms at a wind as stubborn
as a bull but with padded horns and after all friendly,
if only you were just salt, sun, the south,
the shrewd sparrow,
the meek colloquial ox,
the sizzling sardine,
the waddling fishwife,
the scribbler bundled up in pretty adjectives,
the silent, almondish complaint
of sharp eyes with black lashes,
if only you were just the buzzing of summer, the buzz of fashion,
the decrepit asthmatic dog of beaches,
the caged cricket, the cagey customer,
the calendar on the wall, the pin on a lapel,
if only, Portugal, you were just three syllables
made of plastic, which would be cheaper!

*
Confectioners of Amarante, potters from Barcelos,
lace-makers of Viana, bullfighters from Golegã,
your celebrated sweets don’t hit my fancy,
no clay cock sings in color on my shelf,
no lacy whiteness trims my daydreams,
and no banderilla adorns my neck.


Portugal: an ongoing discussion with myself,
a soreness to the bone, an unrelenting hunger,
an attentive bloodhound with no nose and no ducks,
a spruced-up nag,
a dingy fair,
my regret,
my regret for us all . . .


Monday, February 18, 2008

A Portuguese Favourite


Acrobacias

sentados em Trafalgar Square
no intervalo de amigos
com o tempo entre as mãos
treinávamos o nosso inglês
num inquérito de revista
com Francis Bacon na capa
que perguntava:
qual dos membros
- superiores ou inferiores -
preferíamos perder
(esta ablação em língua estrangeira
tornava-se indolor, quase anestesiada)
respondeste: os braços
as pernas conservá-las-ias
como a liberdade de poder andar
respondi: as pernas
não queria ver-me
impedida de abraçar.
Assim juntando as nossas
perdas
eu abraço-me a ti
e peço-te anda, mostra-me o mundo
e quando nos cansarmos
abraçar-me-ás, então, com as pernas
e eu
andarei com os braços.


Ana Paula Inácio


In revista Telhados de Vidro, nº3


A Poem with leaves




Trees
by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
in www.poets.org

Friday, July 28, 2006

A poem







A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Robert Frost

Sunday, June 04, 2006

The School Boy

I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn.
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour,
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learnings bower,
Worn thro' with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy,
Sit in a cage and sing.
How can a child when fears annoy.
But droop his tender wing.
And forget his youthful spring.

O! father & mother if buds are nip'd,
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'd
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay.

How shall the summer arise in joy.
Or the summer fruits appear.
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy
Or bless the mellowing year.
When the blasts of winter appear.

William Blake

Monday, February 20, 2006

From a College Window


THE GLIMMER of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,
Goes trembling past me up the College wall.
Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,
The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.

Beyond the leaves that overhang the street,
Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white,
Passes the world with shadows at their feet
Going left and right.

Remote, although I hear the beggar’s cough,
See the woman’s twinkling fingers tend him a coin,
I sit absolved, assured I am better off
Beyond a world I never want to join.

D. H. Lawrence

Friday, February 10, 2006

How do I love thee?


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


Elizabeth Barrett Browning