failing and flying

by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Mayan Cosmology

Mayan cosmology is based in the rhombo, a diamond shape which represents the four corners of the universe. Each point is associated with one of the four natural colors of maize (red, white, black, and yellow), which are also connected to the four human races. As my K’iche’ teacher explained it to me, two beings came together to design the earth and give it life: Tza’qol and Bi’tol. They began by trying to build people out of mud, but they fell apart. Next, they tried making people out of wood, but they were soulless. Finally, the creators made people out of maize, and this time they were successful, filling the world with people of many different colors.

O bien ni siquiera lo intentes, o bien lanzate por completo a hacerlo.

I’m never proud of my command
Of rhyme, mode or meter,
But from time to time, I’ll take a stand
and entertain my reader

My mum and pop, though faulted be
Are outrageous, fun and nice
but somehow, inexplicably
They’ve seeded me with vice

I never ever saw it coming,
My daily cunning guile
My drink and dance is unbecoming 
My rummy soot and vile

My rebuttal has faltered, I didn’t expect
My poem, so ever inspired
To sound so dark and suspect
Of the parents God had hired

Could it be that this is right?
Sir Larkin’s central thesis
That we should abandon any slight
Desire in making wee-kids?


I beg to differ, I shan’t be denied
This sacred right to which all are entitled:
To have some babies, and sew deep inside
Sweet vice and hedonism unbridled

somewhere i have never travelled

omewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

E E Cummings

This be the verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.

April Rise

If ever I saw blessing in the air 
I see it now in this still early day 
Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips 
Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye. 

Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round 
Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod 
Splutters with soapy green, and all the world 
Sweats with the bead of summer in its bud. 

If ever I heard blessing it is there 
Where birds in trees that shoals and shadows are 
Splash with their hidden wings and drops of sound 
Break on my ears their crests of throbbing air. 

Pure in the haze the emerald sun dilates, 
The lips of sparrows milk the mossy stones, 
While white as water by the lake a girl 
Swims her green hand among the gathered swans. 

Now, as the almond burns its smoking wick, 
Dropping small flames to light the candled grass; 
Now, as my low blood scales its second chance, 
If ever world were blessed, now it is. 


Laurie Lee

no olvides que un sueno sin accion es una ilusion.

aquel que tiene buen corazon nunca es tonto.