Anais Nin

what a peculiar brand of madness;

your electric lips –

unspoken,

like a poem, perversed,

these exquisite, feral dreams

"Perhaps every single fair is no more than a dissociated fragment of one single, great, original fair which was inexplicably scattered long ago in a diaspora of the amazing."

Angela Carter, Fireworks

Last night the sky lit up; violent longing of the lonely gods.

"But I swear the nights the nights are too much

Nights when poems are made and unmade

Nights when she is too tempted

to leave the substance for the shadow"

Andre Breton, My Heart Through Which Her Heart Has Passed

Angela

Repent now,

your collar bone winging;

don't need no chariot

to take you home

“You are the only beauty in this

Celestial torture that I will call my own.”

Lucie Brock-Broido

"Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed."

Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

a long southern summer when I could conjure your touch

Lee Miller

Where's the witch hazel for my heart?

soot and shame

secrets and sin

likely, or not

Wallowing, a strange sadness,

shaking under a passed over

gaze of you.

“Tender butcher,”

I cried

for the closeness,

coming near to seeing

poetry in the curve of your jaw-line,

wild hair and tired eyes,

held still in soft flickering darkness.

Time folding backward like a closed fan,

I was foolish to pretend

a future all from one

slow burn.

altar of the marsh

composed,

save for his wild hair,

he leans

forward and back,

words rolling,

dredging up, somewhat shyly,

his recent regrets, while I,

unsure, in my southern summer dress,

traced with scarlet, curl

into the cushions,

wide awake and fluttering

child's smile electric smile smeared smile

sweet night, rushed and running,

full steam

through false faints and feigns of feeling

-- if not,

every move of unbalanced blood,

unconscious

flush, drags

down the horizon

a storm,

our own

long foreseen

desertion

Nusch Eluard

Scared of both loss and affection

Dangerous

Your open eyes and honest confessions




My soul sighs against your teeth, your all-American smile.

My Last Lieutenant

Empty cage

from where you never—

came and cleaned me out

Dry riverbed bereft

Hot sand could turn your eyes to glass

No more

two mountain lakes

Like me

lovers of the sky

Life below

the Mason Dixon line,

a cat called Moonshine,

time

slowed down,

sultry

summer of weeping

willow trees,

bores and bees (Can you

see the difference? Twice

bitten now

shy)

Once,

back in the woods,

grandfather and granddaughter

drawing dreams,

rusting

metal tractor parts,

broken

twigs dipped in water,

then,

watch,

castles ponies princes dragons ladies

disappear

into the hot heavy air