Quotes about cupped, page 7
Bullocky
Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used his road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
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poem by Judith Wright
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Mermaid
Yet, there it as-
An image composed of droplets mustering into focus
Reversible. Itself of itself the watery isomer.
Idea given substance, however tenuous and fading-
Tail, head, tail, tail, head.
An ancient enigma, certainly not pretty
But in sum, bewitching.
Had it power over flesh, could it see me?
Only indirectly, I recalled, as in the water's mirror,
And I must desire it first.
'Choose', said the hologram, sternly, from its higher station.
It was as if a hand had suddenly cupped my head.
But what part of the mermaid was I?
The muscular tail that could knock a man clear
Across a quarterdeck, against the rail?
A treacherous tail with a fornix?
Dumbly pummeling the floorboards, waterborne no more,
Spectral hues revived with a bucket of sea-water
Sparkled like a Roman grotto?
Judgement recoiled from the notion.
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Cockroach
Roach, foulest of creatures,
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes,
you are lumps of coal that are mechanized
and when I turn on the light you scuttle
into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.
Yet I know you are only the common angel
turned into, by way of enchantment, the ugliest.
Your uncle was made into an apple.
Your aunt was made into a Siamese cat,
all the rest were made into butterflies
but because you lied to God outrightly-
told him that all things on earth were in order-
He turned his wrath upon you and said,
I will make you the most loathsome,
I will make you into God's lie,
and never will a little girl fondle you
or hold your dark wings cupped in her palm.
But that was not true. Once in New Orleans
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poem by Anne Sexton
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Drought
Midsummer noon: and the timbered walls
start in the heat;
and the children sag listlessly over the desks,
with bloodless faces oozing sweat
sipped by the stinging flies.
Outside, the tall sun fades the shabby mallee
and drives the ants deep underground;
the stony driftsand shrivels
the drab, sparse plants;
there's not a cloud in all the sky to cast
a shadow on the tremulous plain.
Stirless the windmills; thirsty cattle, standing despondently about the empty tanks;
stamping and tossing their heads,
in torment of the flies from dawn to dark.
For ten parched days it has been like this
and, although I love the desert I
have found myself
dreaming
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poem by Flexmore Hudson
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It Failed To Be
And it came to pass…
The last drops
Drip, drip, dripping
Like rain off the rusty barn roof
No bowl to catch or capture
No hands cupped in an effort
So distant from me
Love hangs on the horizon
Blowing like sheets on the clothesline
Waving from that faraway roost
Safe and unyielding
Never close enough to touch
For fear that it might be touched in return
Yes, that’s just how it is
It’s how it’s always been
It cannot be moved, swayed
Or lured to the shore
So beautiful in its simplicity
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poem by Leria Hawkins
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0016 Fathers, Sons, and Families
and next to the world of heavenly gods,
the world of ancestors…
when ageing Indian fathers heard the call
that spoke some other world, they called their son
and put to him three propositions, to which
he might then make three promises:
‘You are all things - you are God in everything ' –
this the first, to call the open mind
to gain the widest knowledge of all things;
‘You are sacrifice, surrender – you are universal law,
tradition, responsibility…’: this the second; then
‘You are the world – you are humanity itself—
find this and live by it..’
the father’s mind now freed; and for the son,
continuity; and constancy; the good passed on;
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poem by Michael Shepherd
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On the banks of a river...! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Incense sticks, a match box;
And an earthen diya with wick
In a bowl made of dry leaves
Held together by twigs;
I stood at the banks
Of mother Ganges in Haridwar,
After paying change
To the young boy
Who put it together for me
At that morning hour.
I lit the wick and incense stick,
And holding it in both hands
Walked towards the river bank
And put it in the lap
Of the river, watching it
Join other such offerings,
Made by devotees and kin
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poem by Mamta Agarwal
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Bottled At The Source
Approaching the oasis this thirsty pairing
A ragged beggar and a snake charmer
Noticed an oddly shaped ominous cloud
Which seemed to be hovering overhead__
Ready for a much needed refreshing drink
They cupped their hands and took aim at the water's surface
But before they could break the tension of the mirror like pond
Their eyes beheld what appeared to be the reflection
Of an utterly demonic yet spiritual creature....
Fearing to take a drink as the water may be poisoned
The beggar behooves and begs pardon for his intrusion
While the snake charmer drinks because he had seen
The devil's face before and had charmed many serpents
The snake charmers thirst was uncontrollable and so it was
He scooped up all his hands could hold and drank fully
Within seconds of quenching his parched throat
He grabbed at it and as if to be strangling himself
He fell face down in the liquid dose and did not move
The beggar fearful and pleading for his life to be spared
Fell on his back petitioning God to deliver him from a similar fate
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poem by Ted Sheridan
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0034 Going to school to Rilke
We could not have counted on it,
those days when we were children young in years
but rich with a thousand hopes
jostling, pushed aside, forgotten in a day,
turned over in the mind in those few savoured moments
before a happy-tired sleep
nor did we think even to hope for it
or think how it would be to squeeze the honey of it
between our palms into our ready mouths
leaving the wax upon our hands and laughing
together or alone, in rainbow solitude
but now it’s here, we can savour the honey of it,
the future which we could not have had before
the days and years had closed like inexorable cupped petals,
into a summer evening’s sun-hazed past –
we could not have hoped or counted on nor dreamed -
these days when, all required work now done,
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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Lambaste Unto Your Shattered Reflection
Softly, the mist came with its trifle attention
lackadaisically promenading in the silver stillness
but nothing in this quiescence is intimate enough
to quell the raving flames of your furnace
shorn openly to desecrate the lacings of faith
I picked up the debris of your blaring tirade,
I cupped the ashes of your sterile lambaste,
I reckoned the vicarious pirouettes with death -
our hands are both tarnished but my soul stifles
under the condemns of your querulous parasol
The godly hands eloquently wove webs with you
until your fulminating repose was a perfect ensnare -
a wreck gnawing on your seams, sifting your dreams
shifting the crooked hands of your maladroit petals
Not now, but little by little, you'll know what I mean
When you catch a glimpse of horror by accident
and your mirrors unveil its light to the effluence
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poem by Norman Santos
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