Poets

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.
~Eli Khamarov

For Sale

For Sale 

Sixty hectares of empty sky 
No coyotes hiding behind cirrus clouds 
No black angus bulls disguised as cumulonimbus 
(there's real thunder out there -- and lightning 
great for Ides of March celebration) 
It's range land of the heavens 

perhaps better for viewing than ranching 
that herd coming is nothing but clouds 
View is almost perfect 
Remaining trees on mountains 
won't block your view 
Will not consider subdividing 
Property has been in the hands of man 
for centuries 
Needs cleanup 
Make offer 

--Carlos Reyes, Portland 
From "Pomegranate, Sister of the Heart"

I want your hands on my eyes

Sonnet 89

When I die, I want your hands on my eyes: 
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands 
to pass their freshness over me once more: 
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep. 
I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you 
to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together, 
to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.

I want what I love to continue to live, 
and you whom I love and sang above everything else 
to continue to flourish, full-flowered:

so that you can reach everything my love directs you to, 
so that my shadow can travel along in your hair, 
so that everything can learn the reason for my song. 

Pablo Neruda

Jonathan Franzen

My family lived in La Grange, IL the town adjacent to the east of Western Springs where this author grew up.  He was born the same year as our oldest son.

From the Writer's Almanac

It's the birthday [8/17/1959] of Jonathan Franzen (books by this author), born in Western Springs, Illinois (1959). He's the author of the acclaimed novels Freedom (2010) and The Corrections (2001), and has also written a memoir and two essay collections. His latest book is one of those essay collections; it's called Farther Away (2012).

Jonathan Franzen said: "I come from a kind of old-fashioned Midwest, and I live in a technocorporate, postironic, cool, late-late-late Eastern world. The two worlds hardly ever talk to each other, but they're completely, constantly talking to one another inside me. [...] I have my parents talking to me in my head and then other parts of myself talking back. I think this is potentially an interesting conversation."

Truth

What is the nature of the border 
between truth and lies? 
It is permeable and blurred 
because it is planted thick 
with rumour, confabulation, 
misunderstandings and twisted tales. 
Truth can break the gates down, 
truth can howl in the streets; 
unless truth is pleasing, 
personable and easy to like, 
she is condemned to stay 
whimpering at the back door.

from Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

A Drone Scans the Wreckage

A Drone Scans the Wreckage

Smoke gets in my eyes,

My fifteen eyes.

Glass insulation smolders.

Pink tongues get stuck on it.

Charred cotton candy.

Did I do that?

Palm tree shorn of its head.

Cathedral ceilings, opened up

To the stars, to the stark.

What did they worship in there?

The overhead fans?

The bolsters? The naked bedspread?

I spy.

They cried O God to the pillows.

Now ripped and fluttering,

Angel feathers.

These hover, slower than me.

See raw finger paint. Red.

Wet still crawling.

Must have missed something.

Better home in again.

Do some stuttering.

Attapat. Attatat. Attastasis. Attaboom.

Accurate this time. Rah.

Anything saved equals failure.

Was I bad?

Teardrops fall and fall.

The rain shower’s broken.

      --Margaret Atwood

The New Yorker

August 13 & 20, 2012

Lifting
by Ouyang Yu


For years
I have been dreaming
of turning
writing into a sport
in the Olympic Games
that is called, tentatively
Wordlifting
in which I'd give
my simplest performance
by lifting
the lightest and the liveliest
word: Love
till it flies
lifting me, weightless
into a sky
of loving
eyes