empty orchestra

The Orange Bears - Kenneth Patchen

The Orange bears with soft friendly eyes
Who played with me when I was ten,
Christ, before I'd left home they'd had
Their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs
Seared by hot slag, their soft trusting
Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped
Out, and I went down through the woods
To the smelly crick with Whitman
In the Haldeman-Julius edition,
And I just sat there worrying my thumbnail
Into the cover---What did he know about
Orange bears with their coats all stunk up with soft coal
And the National Guard coming over
From Wheeling to stand in front of the millgates
With drawn bayonets jeering at the strikers?

I remember you would put daisies
On the windowsill at night and in
The morning they'd be so covered with soot
You couldn't tell what they were anymore.

A hell of a fat chance my orange bears had!

Dream

A sudden beam of light Shone through all the skirts Round her bodys dark core. She threw them off hastily. They rose like poppy petals flew over the bed like white bells. The man grabbed at them buried his mouth in their cool submissiveness dipped his face in their fleeting scent. But she stood stripped forgotten by the bed.

Solveig Von Schoultz

One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough.

Hafiz

be still my child, there is nothing

all is as you see: forest, smoke

and the flight of the railroad tracks.

somewhere far away in a distant land

there is a bluer sky, a wall with roses

or a palm tree and a warmer wind-

and that is all.

Madrigal

I inherited a dark wood where I seldom go. But a day will come when the dead and the living trade places. The wood will be set in motion. We are not without hope. The most serious crimes will remain unsolved in spite of the efforts of many policemen. In the same way there is somewhere in our lives a great unsolved love. I inherited a dark wood, but today I’m walking in the other wood, the light one. All the living creatures that sing, wriggle, wag, and crawl! It’s spring and the air is very strong. I have graduated from the university of oblivion and am as empty-handed as the shirt on the clothesline.

Tomas Tranströmer

On foot my path wound through the solar systems

On foot
my path wound through the solar systems,
until at last I found my red robe’s first thread.
I already have a sense of who I am.
Somewhere in space my heart’s suspended,
sparks flowing from it, quavering the air,
reaching out to other speechless hearts.

Edith Södergran

beauty