Les plus lus ▸
Dave Bonta
The seven deadly elements fight
like nestlings for our worms.
Death is without end
and therefore never as shapely
as my morning eggs.
Don’t misconstrue the ouroboros:
it’s not consuming but giving birth,
having just crawled out of
its own mouth.
I wake every day of the week thinking
it’s enough to follow
the warm curves of the earth
wherever they lead, though I know
it’s nowhere good.
And each day I dress
as if to the funeral of a blackbird
i love you
what words
can say it
forget it soon
the body disposes
banalities
comfortless as angels
& violent
the reposed granite
swinging for ages
the tone
the river edge stunned
by curtains of blackbirds
my eye my tongue
stop confused
nursing these trees
singing its heart out
to no one in particular
morning blackbird
The way
Blackbird
swallows
the silver
phial of
morning —
Her voice,
a water
-drop
Maiden, these are sacred tears,
Let me not disturb your grief!
Had I but your bosom's fears
I should weep, nor seek relief.
My woe is a silent woe
'Til I give it measured rhyme,
When the blackbird's flute is low
In my heart at singing time.
A blackbird singing
On a moss upholstered stone,
Bluebells swinging,
Shadows wildly blown,
A song in the wood,
A ship on the sea.
The song was for you
And the ship was for me.
A blackbird singing
I hear in my troubled mind,
Bluebells swinging
I see in a distant wind.
But sorrow and silence
Are the wood's threnody,
The silence for you
And the sorrow for me.
There was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.
And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.
The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.
The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.
Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always — I never knew it any other way —
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
My house is damp as damp can be,
It stands on London clay.
And if I move unthinkingly
It shakes in a most alarming way.
Mayhap it will all come down on me
One day.
But through the window I can see
The most enchanting apple-tree.
In spring-time, there are daffodils
And primroses on little hills,
And high within my apple-tree
A blackbird comes and sings to me;
On the black branch he sits and sings
Of birds and nests and eggs and things.
I can't remember, as I hear,
That old grey London lies so near.