From Human Wishes by Robert Hass

"Privilege Of Being"

... clutching each other with old, invented
forms of grace and clumsy gratitude, ready
to be alone again, or dissatisfied, or merely
companionable like the couples on the summer beach
reading magazine articles about intimacy between the sexes
to themselves, and to each other,
and to the immense, illiterate, consoling angels.

"Santa Barbara Road"

Household verses: "Who are you?"
the rubber duck in my hand asked Kristin
once, while she was bathing, three years old.
"Kristin," she said, laughing, her delicious
name, delicious self. "That's just your name,"
the duck said. "Who are you?" "Kristin,"
she said. "Kristin's a name. Who are you?"
the duck asked. She said, shrugging,
"Mommy, Daddy, Leif."

FROM the Voyeur: Poem: COMING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN:

... You restrain me to the bed.
I would go there willingly, open
myself to you,
but the bonding is exponential to reality,
as if my mind could be changed from this course.
It cannot.
The blindfold lowers itself to my eyes,
a vital sense stilled,
conscious gentled.
Vulnerability is the midwife of control,
subtlety the offspring,
waiting, the dilation of anxiety,
measured breathing
as the will is given up, delivered.
You lose focus,
lesser senses become major,
alert sentinels of anticipation,
gentle stroking here, probing there,
hungry teeth gnawing a nipple.
Then nothing....
until the miniature glacier
begins its journey down the valley...

By Bill Cowee (enslaveme4life@aol.com)

DEATH


Why did you vanish

into the empty sky?

Even the fragile snow,

when it falls,

falls in this world.

Izumi Shikibu
From Open Mind - by Diane Mariechild

Izumi's poem portrays the sorrow of a

mother mourning the death of her daughter.

The pain is palpable. There is no disguise.

There is no attempt to cover the pain

with intellectualization. We can watch to

see where the snow lands as it falls. We

can't see what happens after death. Any thoughts

we have about what might happen are just that,

thoughts. It is only our ability to directly

experience this world, the sorrow and the joy,

that brings us to a space between intellect

and emotion, beyond hope and sorrow.

el - C. Little, no less, who has a great blog of photographs, poetry, her life and sometimes politics, had this. I was out with some people the other day and the conversation turned to haikus and short image poems like this that looked so easy but weren't.