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Maxwell Bodenheim, silence, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeMaxwell Bodenheim

Minna IX

Sedate and archaic, a twilight-frilled haze Walks over the meadows like rolled-out centuries Quivering in sprightly welcome. Trees pushed down by silence; Trees lolling in comely abandon; Trees pungently flamboyant, Their leaves spinning in the wind’s golden elusiveness. Trees probing the shrilly sensitive sunset Like little, laced nightmares leaning Upon a scarlet breast; Trees sprinkling their stifled mockery Upon the blue tomb of the air; Trees, are you silenced beings Whitening into the winding paradise Of old loves seeking a second death? And has this archaic, twilight-frilled haze
DreamyMaxwell Bodenheim

Minna VII

You have a morning-glory face Whose edges are sensitive to light And curl in beneath the burden of a smile. Remembered silence returns to the morning-glory And lattices its curves With shades of golden reverberations. Then the morning-glory’s heart careens to loves Whose scent beats on the sky-walls of your soul.
ContemplativeMaxwell Bodenheim

Interlude

Sun-light recedes on the mountains, in long gold shafts, Like the falling pillars of a temple. Then singing silence almost too nimble for ears: The mountain-tenors fling their broad voices Into the blue hall of the sky, And through a rigid column of these voices Night dumbly walks. Night, crushing sound between his fingers Until it forms a lightly frozen couch On which he dreams.
ContemplativeMaxwell Bodenheim

Intrusion

The lilies sag with rain-drops: Their petals hold fire that does not break out. (As though it slept between vapor-silk It could not burn). And a young breeze stumbles upon the lilies And strokes them with his spinning hands.... The lilies and the young breeze are not unlike Your silence and the rush of soft words breaking it.
DreamyMaxwell Bodenheim

Minna IV

Moonlight bends over black silence, Making it bloom to wild-flowers of sound That only green things can hear. A wind sprawls over an orchard, Frightening its silent litany to sound. A thread of star-light has fallen to this tree And curls among its leaves, tangling them to silence.... Standing amidst these things, Beloved, We feel the words our hearts cannot form.
ContemplativeMaxwell Bodenheim

Minna XXIV

We blew a luminous confusion of thoughts Upon the silence of our souls, Staining it to little, weeping tints. Our hands pressed serpentine pain into each other And stroked it away to twilights of relief. Our lips shook before the tread of coming words, But closed again, finding no need for them.
RomanticMaxwell Bodenheim

Minna XI

Your body was puzzling, like a half-made figure Till the final shaping of your voice came And riotous secrets of lines curved out And trembled upon your limbs. Then silence touched your body to motion: Your limbs released fleeing andantes of pain And your heart flung little crescents of budding caresses Into the waiting hunger of your eyes.
SadMaxwell Bodenheim

Minna I

Twilight pushes down your eyes With shimmering, pregnant fingers That leave you covered with still-born touch. With little whips of dead words Silence cuts your lips to a keener red. Your heart strikes its bed of dark mirth, in death, And your hands lie over it, guarding the corpse. Night will soon whisk away this room But you are already invisible.

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