New England Writers

Poems in our Pockets

 

"Love's Too Familiar a Word"

I stepped into the room late last night

because late is the time I keep

you were sleeping warm as coal

in a pocket of comfort and white sheets

but you don't startle anymore when I step into the room

though the hour is later than midnight and neither window can place a moon.

"I missed you," you say

and it sounds like a promise

when whispered half asleep

your skin still damp with sweat

from thoughts your dreams refused to keep

I follow my memory to a switch on a light

"Shut your eyes" my voice cut short

when darkness turns bright

"Do you love me?" you say

but love is too familiar a word

for in this bed 10,000 times a phrase already heard

but, "Yes, I love you" speaks my reply

though I know I failed myself and you for not

matching how I feel with words of higher wealth

I know its lonely in the world tonight

because here is more than what's deserved

and the imbalance can't be summed in black and white

cause "love's" too familiar a word.

Ellis Paul

 

 

In the sun

the butterfly wings

Like a church window

Jack Kerouac

 

Swinging on delicate hinges

the Autumn Leaf

Almost off the stem

Jack Kerouac

Rainy night,

the top leaves wave

In the grey sky

Jack Kerouac

 

The sun keeps getting

dimmer---foghorns

began to blow in the bay

Jack Kerouac

The purple wee flower

should be reflected

In that low water

Jack Kerouac

Rain's over, hammer on wood

---this cobweb

Rides the sun shine

Jack Kerouac

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

not fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

 

Beautiful

is the

unmea

ning

of(sil

ently)fal

ling(e

ver

yw

here)s

Now

ee cummings

 

 

when god decided to invent

everything he took one

breath bigger than a circustent

and everything began

when man determined to destroy

himself he picked the was

of shall and finding only why

smashed it into because

ee cummings

 

NATURE rarer uses yellow

Than another hue;

Saves she all of that for sunsets,

- Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,

Yellow she affords

Only scantly and selectly,

Like a lover's words.

Emily Dickinson

 

NATURE, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest or the waywardest,

- Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveller is heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon,-

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles

Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps;

Then, bending from the sky,

With infinite affection

And infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

Emily D.

 

FROM cocoon forth a butterfly

As lady from her door

Emerged-a summer afternoon-

Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace,

Except to stray abroad

On miscellaneous enterprise

The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen

Contracting in a field

Where men made hay,

then struggling hard

With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself,

To Nowhere seemed to go

In purposeless circumference,

As 't were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked,

And flower that zealous blew,

This audience of idleness

Disdained them, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide,

And men that made the hay,

And afternoon, and butterfly,

Extinguished in its sea.

Emily Dickinson