Light-years (Hester Knibbe)

It’s a beautiful world, you said,
with these trees, marshes, deserts,
grasses, rivers and seas

and so on. And the moon is really something
in its circuits
of relative radiance. Include

the wingèd M, voluptuous
Venus, hotheaded Mars, that lucky devil
J and cranky Saturn, of course, plus

U and N and the wanderer P, in short
the whole solar family, complete with its
Milky Way, and count up all the other

systems with dots and spots and in
that endless emptiness what you’ve got
is a commotion of you-know-what. It’s a beautiful

universe, you said, just take a good look
through the desert’s dark glasses
for instance or on your back

in seas of grass, take a good look
at the deluge of that Rorschach—we’re standing out there
somewhere, together.

Translated by Jacquelyn Pope

Source: http://is.gd/dR2li

Dandelions (Peter Campion)

After the cling of roots and then the “pock”
when they gave way
                                     the recoil up the hand
               was a small shock
of emptiness beginning to expand.

Milk frothing from the stems. Leaves inky green
and spiked.
                      Like blissed-out childhood play
              turned mean
they snarled in tangled curls on our driveway.

It happens still. That desolating falling
shudder inside
                            and then our neighborhood
                seems only sprawling
loops...like the patterns eaten on driftwood:

even the home where I grew up (its smell
of lingering
                      wood-smoke and bacon grease)
             seems just a shell
of lathe and paper. But this strange release

follows: this tinge like silver and I feel
the pull of dirt
                            again, sense mist uncurling
               to reveal
no architecture hidden behind the world

except the stories that we make unfolding:
as if our sole real power
                                                    were the power
             of children holding
this flower that is a weed that is a flower.

Source: http://is.gd/dR2cT

Bienvenue

La nuit, le matin
On recommence
Le même destin
Décollant
La même piste d’atterrissage
En espérant
Un bon vol
Une fois
Il n’y aura pas
Ni pluie ni brouillard
Seulement le ciel
Seulement le ciel
Un soleil aimable
Tout en disant
Bienvenue.

(Penned July 6, 2010)

Sunrise

Mornings such

Sparkling

A little brazen

Little off the edge

Almost

Downhill

Into the ravine

Quickly evaporating

(Penned July 1, 2010)