My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
William Shakespeare
At the Tea Garden
by Margaret Hasse
My friend and I mull over the teas
displayed in square jars
with beveled glass labeled by type.
Each name seems part of a haiku:
"After the Snow Sprouting." "Moon Palace."
"Mist Over the Gorges."
I'm drawn to green teas
with unoxidized leaves that don't wither,
hold their grassy fragrance
like willow under snow in winter.
The proprietor offers real china for the Chinese tea.
Animal bones, fine ground, give whiteness,
translucency and strength
to the porcelain that appears delicate,
resists chipping.
The rim of the cup is warm and thin.
My friend's lips are plush: her lovely
mouth opens to give advice I ask for.
We talk about memory of threshold events,
like a first kiss or a poem published.
She can't remember...
I tell her about my brother-in-law's
chemotherapy—his third bout of cancer.
He wants his family to put a pinch
of his ashes in things he liked:
his banjo, the top drawer of his desk, the garden.
I wouldn't mind becoming part
of a set of bone china that serves tea
in a cozy teahouse smelling of incense,
cinnamon, musk, and carved teak.
I'd like to be brought to a small table,
sit between friends' quiet words,
held in hands so close that breath
on the surface of warm drink
makes mist rise over their faces.
"At the Tea Garden" by Margaret Hasse,
from Earth's Appetite. © Nodin Press, 2013.
I just discovered this wryly ironic poem about Kew Gardens which carries a subtle, but potent, historical and topical message. I truly admire David Malouf's poetic dexterity and quiet dignity -- notwithstanding being quite vexed and perplexed by seeing a British monarch "squatting in urinous bronze".
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/malouf-david/at-kew-gardens-0226032#
$2 AUS to download
Originally posted by NoEarthlyReasonRead it a smile. Some of the phrasing is exquisite. Thanks.
I just discovered this wryly ironic poem about Kew Gardens which carries a subtle, but potent, historical and topical message. I truly admire David Malouf's poetic dexterity and quiet dignity -- notwithstanding being quite vexed and perplexed by seeing a British monarch "squatting in urinous bronze".
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/malouf-david/at-kew-gardens-0226032#
$2 AUS to download
You're the Top
Of all the people that I've ever known
I think my grandmother Bernice
would be best qualified to be beside me now
driving north of Boston in a rented car
while Cole Porter warbles on the radio;
Only she would be trivial and un-
politically correct enough to totally enjoy
the rhyming of Mahatma Ghandi
with Napoleon brandy;
and she would understand, from 1948,
the miracle that once was cellophane,
which Porter rhymes with night in Spain.
She loved that image of the high gay life
where people dressed by servants
turned every night into the Ritz:
dancing through a shower of just
uncorked champagne
into the shelter of a dry martini.
When she was 70 and I was young
I hated how a life of privilege
had kept her ignorance intact
about the world beneath her pretty feet,
how she believed that people with good manners
naturally had yachts, knew how to waltz
and dribbled French into their sentences
like salad dressing. My liberal adolescent rage
was like a righteous fist back then
that wouldn't let me rest,
but I've come far enough from who I was
to see her as she saw herself:
a tipsy debutante in 1938,
kicking off a party with her shoes;
launching the lipstick-red high heel
from her elegant big toe
into the orbit of a chandelier
suspended in a lyric by Cole Porter,
bright and beautiful and useless.
"You're the Top" by Tony Hoagland, from Sweet Ruin.
© The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992
(Writers Almanac/August 22, 2014)
Postscript
by Seamus Heaney
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
"Postscript" by Seamus Heaney, from The Spirit Level.
© Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996. (for Pianoman1)
Originally posted by Pianoman1This is my favorite sonnet by The Bard! Thank you for posting it.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mist ...[text shortened]... think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
William Shakespeare
Originally posted by texasnewt"FYI: I don't like babbling wa*kers, so no gibber jabber. I'm here to play chess, not to listen to your life story nor tell you mine -- no in-game dialogue, just make your moves. If you have questions, RTFM and posit WWBD. Don't bore me with your stupid chess strategy plan, everyone has a plan ... until they first get punched in the mouth. After game thoughts ... I'm okay with that, fine. Oh yeah, good luck!" @texasnewt
Thanks for weighing in with your multiple post opinion. By the way, I enjoyed the acerbic conclusion of your site profile.