"Two Figures In Dense Violet Night," by Wallace Stevens

"Dusk I," by Michael Swallow

Two Figures In Dense Violet Night
by Wallace Stevens

I had as lief be embraced by the portier of the hotel
As to get no more from the moonlight
Than your moist hand.

Be the voice of the night and Florida in my ear.
Use dusky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.

Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,

As the night conceives the sea-sound in silence,
And out of the droning sibilants makes
A serenade.

Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole
and sleep with one eye watching the stars fall
Beyond Key West.

Say that the palms are clear in the total blue.
Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;
That the moon shines.

[Image above by Michael Swallow]

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I have always loved this poem by Wallace Stevens...it really gets cooking after the first stanza. I was reminded of it this week, and had to share it with you.

Recent Earworm: "Two of Us on the Run," Lucius

"Two of Us on the Run," by Lucius, a song that has been living in my head on repeat. And here's their Tiny Desk Concert...

A very happy weekend, friends!

Bharat Sikka, "One Afternoon Years Later"

Image above by Bharat Sikka, from the project "One Afternoon Years Later." See the whole project here.

Patio

"la tourbière," by Alexandra Levasseur

Patio

If I were a bird this might be nest assembly
but instead I am moving out
which requires building and removing
piles of sticks and leaves from the patio

The pieces of the past year must be cleared
for the birds-to-come

In one way this is a happy task but
spider corpses and dreadful alive daddy longlegs
are inevitable

Make yourself up a cheering song
I coach myself
of how potato bugs practice compliance
as a form of self defense

Sing about the spider bodies gone over to tiny twigs
and leaves gone over to lace
All cannot stay

[Image above by Alexandra Levasseur]

  

Archipelago

"Letter to the Ones We've Lost," 2009, Catalina Viejo Lopez De Roda

Archipelago

Instead of letterforms
our correspondence will be made
from the surviving islands of nail polish
eroding on my fingers

or in the green flowers made from stem
called purslane or moss rose
that assert themselves as weeds in the seam
between house and drive

There are endless ways to speak
when speaking is impossible

The lit up windows of neighbors
in blue night Clothesline with yellow
handkerchiefs Pennants made from rooms
crafted against the darkness

[Image above by Catalina Viejo Lopez De Roda]