Fingermaske

Perhaps to love is to learn
 to walk through this world.
 To learn to be silent
 like the oak and the linden of the fable.
 To learn to see.
 Your glance scattered seeds.
 It planted a tree.
      I talk
 because you shake its leaves.

(paz)

Way Out West

 I don't know what it is,
 but I distrust myself
 when I start to like a girl
 a lot.

 It makes me nervous.
 I don't say the right things
 or perhaps I start
 to examine,
 evaluate,
 compute
 what I am saying.

 If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
 and she says, "I don't know,"
 I start thinking: Does she really like me?

 In other words
 I get a little creepy.

 A friend of mine once said,
 "It's twenty times better to be friends
 with someone
 than it is to be in love with them."

 I think he's right and besides,
 it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
 and keeping snails happy.
 That's all taken care of.

 BUT

 if a girl likes me a lot
 and starts getting real nervous
 and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
 and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
 and she says things like,
 "Do you think it's going to rain?"
 and I say, "It beats me,"
 and she says, "Oh,"
 and looks a little sad
 at the clear blue California sky,
 I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
 instead of me.

(brautigan)

Vintervind

 In the spring I asked the daisies
  If his words were true,
 And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
  Always knew.

 Now the fields are brown and barren,
  Bitter autumn blows,
 And of all the stupid asters
  Not one knows.

(teasdale)

Banditter i Berlin

 

The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
You follow the idea, no doubt?
It’s to keep the lightning out.

But what these unobservant birds
Have never thought of, is that herds
Of wandering bears might come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

(Isherwood)

Across the dimly lighted room
 The violin drew wefts of sound,
 Airily they wove and wound
 And glimmered gold against the gloom.

 I watched the music turn to light,
 But at the pausing of the bow,
 The web was broken and the glow
 Was drowned within the wave of night

(teasdale)

 

When I was three, I had a friend
 Who asked me why bananas bend,
 I told him why, but now I'm four
 I'm not so sure...

(edwards)

 Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
 That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
 But on earth indifference is the least
 We have to dread from man or beast.

 How should we like it were stars to burn
 With a passion for us we could not return?
 If equal affection cannot be,
 Let the more loving one be me.

 Admirer as I think I am
 Of stars that do not give a damn,
 I cannot, now I see them, say
 I missed one terribly all day.

 Were all stars to disappear or die,
 I should learn to look at an empty sky
 And feel its total dark sublime,
 Though this might take me a little time.

(auden)