survival or surrender?: by anonymous 20th century poet

classified ad might read:
plain-spoken, weathered tree needed to secure labyrinthine sand castle to this earth for another fifteen years.

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To hear more poems by anonymous 20th century poet, click HERE.
To read more poetry by anonymous 20th century poet, click HERE.

COMME UN CHARME: by Gilles-Marie Chenot

Danser sur la brume
En cercle et pointillé
L’étreinte de l’écume
Comme un déshabillé

Le sel s’écarte
Sur le passage d’un vent
Aux textures incolores
Qui scintillent gaiement

Sur les touches d’un piano
Une voix s’écartèle
Dans l’incendie d’un contralto
Au rythme fou qui s’ensorcèle

Une mousseline de lave
Irradie ses faveurs
Dentelle d’éclairs
Qui balise la plaine

Charme des forêts
Quand elles soulèvent
L’or de leurs jupons
Sur une odeur de source

Danser sur l’écume
En point de cécité
Etendre cette brume
Et la déshabiller

Dancing on the mist
In circles and points
The embrace of the foam
Like a lingerie lace

Salt discards itself
On the passing breeze
Colorless textures
Sparkling gleefully

A voice breaks across
The piano’s keys
Within a contralto fire’s
Enchantingly mad rhythm

Lava-flow of muslin
radiates her favors
Lightning lace
beacons across the plain

Charm of the forests
When they arise
Their gold slips
over the scent of springs

Dancing on the foam
Into blindness’ vanishing point
Expand this mist
And undress it

To read more work by GMC, click HERE.
To find other poems by GMC on this blog click HERE.

In Vocation of the Muse II: by Bonnie McClellan

In my map of things you are confounded with
……….grey-green clouds
……….pressing against
……….bright ground,
……….like Shiva’s foot.
……….Creating – uncreating
……………………………………………………spring.

Though properly your colours belong
……….to summer of golden
……….gulf-beach sand and
……….blazing,
……….hephaestian-hemitite sweat
……….against the cuffs and
……….collar of
……….field, cotton white and
……….August sky or shallow
……….water running over
……………………………………………………stones.

Water running over stones - copyright Matthew Broussard 2006

Don’t Count on Heaven: by Liliane Richman

“Don’t count on Heaven, or on Hell.
You’re dead. That’s it. Adieu. Farewell.” – Sherwin Stephen

In that heady perseverance of the renascent day
she worshipped every morning of the world
outlawing death and the untenable eclipse of the sun

Until midlife struck and she began entertaining
the inevitable sojourn into nothingness
dreaming its space and shape and speed
for a perfect exit out of the world

She thought without fear
comfortable as a woman who has taken
her clothes off for her lover a thousand and one nights
narrowed her selection to eight felicitous departures
each an epiphany as rich as dark chocolate

Falling in her flower bed as she pulls a last weed
Wrapped in the big screen of a movie theater
On the phone during long dissertations
with that one prized friend

In a restaurant among clatter and laughter
At a table set with sparkling china
With Merlot served in Baccarat

On an overstuffed sofa with this or that brother
and their wives reminiscing about our intertwined lives
Sipping a Proustian sentence and a cup of tea

Stretched out on thick green St. Augustine grass
Contemplating two lovely loved daughters

Making love in the crook of his bed

Copyright 2013 Liliane Richman, all rights reserved

To hear more poems by Liliane Richman, click HERE.

Jasmine : by Gilles-Marie Chenot

Le vent s’assoit
Sur un espar
Que le temps charge
De caresses
Sans qu’un instant
La nuit ne voile
Un zeste ému
Dans la respiration
Qui s’abandonne
Fragile et claire
Fleur d’ouragan
Larme tranquille

The wind sits upon
A spar, which
Weathers’ charge
With caresses
As not even for an instant
Does the night not veil
A touching zest
In the breath
Abandoning itself
Fragile and light
Hurricane’s flower
Tranquil drop

To read more work by GMC, click HERE.
To find other poems by GMC on this blog click HERE.

In Vocation of the Muse: by Bonnie McClellan

This poem has disappeared from this website. To hear a reading click on the audio player below:

To read more poetry by Bonnie McClellan, click HERE.

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