"In Praise of My Sister" by Wisława Szymborska

My sister doesn’t write poems.
and it’s unlikely that she’ll suddenly start writing poems.
She takes after her mother, who didn’t write poems,
and also her father, who likewise didn’t write poems.
I feel safe beneath my sister’s roof:
my sister’s husband would rather die than write poems.
And, even though this is starting to sound as repetitive as
Peter Piper,
the truth is, none of my relatives write poems.
My sister’s desk drawers don’t hold old poems,
and her handbag doesn’t hold new ones,
When my sister asks me over for lunch,
I know she doesn’t want to read me her poems.
Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives.
Her coffee doesn’t spill on manuscripts.
There are many families in which nobody writes poems,
but once it starts up it’s hard to quarantine.
Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations,
creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder.
My sister has tackled oral prose with some success.
but her entire written opus consists of postcards from
vacations
whose text is only the same promise every year:
when she gets back, she’ll have
so much
much
much to tell.

Baby love

This world is full of very young mamas. From the very beginning, since we are just a baby girl, we are trained to take care of babies, even when we are still one. We want them for Christmas, that’s what we tell Santa. And he brings us one, sometimes even two. We wash their plastic bodies, brush and comb, their blond artificial hair –if they happen to have some-, pretend to feed them and pretend they stained their diapers. We talk to them just like our parents and relatives and some random person in the street used to talk to us, with that patronizing tone reserved for puppies –animal or human. We love them because they never grow up and they never will. And once they do, we get bored and leave them hidden somewhere. They starve, they get dirty, and they die. Just at the same time we discover dolls. We go shopping, clean the house, bake cookies for the boys. And then someone buys us a husband for our doll. We make love with our absent genitals and meanwhile, our baby dies, the one in the deepest part of the wardrobe and the one inside us.

 Text by the author of the blog

 Photo by Stanley Kubrik

"Mort Dieu" by Karen McCarthy Woolf

Our son

dear God

is dead

and gone.

His tomb

was red

with blood

and warm

as tears.

He was

born still.

Was this

dear God

your will?

(Photo by Mary Lou, photoshopped by me)

Happy Bday...to Me (LOL)

 

This is me being immensely happy with my boyfriend's birthday presents: one book on African American poetry and the collection of Langston Hughes' poems (more than 700 pages, I'm in ecstasys).

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Holocaust Poem by Elie Wiesel

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live
as long as God Himself.

Never.

(Poster by Stephen Morris)

Poem and Photo to celebrate the end! (The end is sometimes positive)

I'M BACK! And I'm gonna stay! My personal inferno has almost finished and now I have time to write my useless stuff. Today I come with one of my own poems and my photography so I hope you like them (you'd better...) Sorry, I'm just violent because of the shitty academic year that is now coming to its end. Enjoy!

 

 I read in the past

And realize the ignorance of youngsters

That blinds our eyes to the interpretation

Of what we just decipher.

He loved me and I did not see it.

The day I saw it I never saw him again.

And just to remind you, Andrea is preparring a HUGE GIVEAWAY in her blog "The Art of Staying Up All Night" so DO NOT MISS IT!

"To my Dear and Loving Husband"

I'm not married but sometimes I feel just like that, being that a possitive thing. In the book Heaven on Earth I previously told you about, I found this magnificent ode to marriage and I wanted to share it with you, as well as a beautiful portrait Neima Pidal took of the two of us a while ago. Hope you like it as much as I do. (In future posts you'll know who else wore this magnificent No.Li.Ta dress)

"To My Dear and Loving Husband"

by Anne Bradstreet 

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; 
If ever wife was happy in a man, 
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold 
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. 
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

A fine poem for a great girl

I just finished reading "Heaven on Earth: 101 Happy Poems", as I told you before. I wanted to share with you some of the best parts or maybe the best poem I read here, or the one that made me feel happiest, as it was suppossed to be the purpose of the book. However, I preferred to pay a homage to one of my best friends and one of the weirdest girls I've ever met (if we bear in mind that being weird for me it's the top of virtues,). So here you have a poem about Mary Lou, by Kit Wright. If you read it aloud you'll find it really musical, just like her. Let's see if this forces Lou to write more posts. 

Red Boots On

Way down Geneva,

All along Vine,

Deeper than the snow drift

Love’s eyes shine:

Mary Lou’s walking

In the winter time.

She’s got

Red boots on, she’s got

Red boots on,

Kicking up the winter,

Till the winter’s gone.

So

Go by Ontario,

Look down Main,

If you can’t find Mary Lou,

Come back again:

Sweet light burning

In winter’s flame.

She’s got

Snow in her eyes, got

A tingle in her toes

And new red boots on

Wherever she goes

So

All around Lake Street,

Up by St. Paul,

Quicker than the white wind

Love takes all:

Mary Lou’s walking

In the big snow fall.

She’s got

Red boots on, she’s got

Red boots on

Kicking up the winter

Till the winter’s gone.

"Heaven on Earth: 101 Happy Poems"

First of all, sorry for my abscence for so long, but I was (and still am) very busy.
As you already know, one of my passions (among cinema, black arts and my boy) is poetry and a few days ago I discovered a beautiful book and I felt the urge to share it with you. To be honest, I always preferred sadder and darker poems but this little compilation edited by Wendy Cope is the perfect medicine for a bad day. So, if you have the chance, buy it ( just 1 pound at amazon.co.uk) and enjoy it, because these ones were not made to break your heart or your brains but to cheer your soul up.

"What a delight it is
When, after a hundred days
Of racking my brains,
That verse that wouldn't come
Suddenly turns out well."

From Tachibana Akemi's "Poems of Solitary Delights"

Unveiled memories

Once I had an analogic camera

I tried to capture every single important moment.

But I did something wrong and

The film was suddenly...unveiled.

I realized that I had put so much effort

On trying to remember pictures

That I had no real memories.

If you die today (Poem)

If you die today
Tomorrow I will be hollow
Because you and me are one
Now and forever.
That is why I feel incomplete here:
My other half is miles away.




Every now and then I think about what I lived last year in Nottingham and feel blue I just have to think "What did I miss there?" And the first thing that comes to my mind is him. I wrote this poem one of those sad days, while staring at this picture taken from a fashion magazine which everybody thought was us (saving the distance). Then, happiness comes back because nobody knows how happy I am, how happy I've been for the last 7 years. This is me being tired of writing essays: I turn into sickly sweet.

"Skin" by Philip Larkin

Sorry about my absence but I'm quite busy these days, making some essays for my masters and (I should also be) revising. But I can't stop thinking about you and my blog so I leave here a short poem by Philip Larkin I'm sure you'll like as much as I did. Enjoy it (and comment on it, please). Photo by me.

Skin   

Obedient daily dress,
You cannot always keep
That unfakable young surface.
You must learn your lines -
Anger, amusement, sleep;
Those few forbidding signs

Of the continuous coarse
Sand-laden wind, time;
You must thicken, work loose
Into an old bag
Carrying a soiled name.
Parch then; be roughened; sag;

And pardon me, that
I Could find, when you were new,
No brash festivity
To wear you at, such as
Clothes are entitled to
Till the fashion changes.

Bricks of the wall of my art

Well, I think today is time to show you some of my "art". Come on, I know it sounds pretentious, but if some people can call a shark in a box Art, why not my stuff? So here you can read a minimal poem with a photo, all by me. The model is Teresa.

She came from the country
and suddenly
found herself
diving in an ocean of bricks.

First post

I think the most appropriate way to begin with something is by means of explaining why you do so. So why do I write a blog? Well, the answer is quite easy: because I love writing and you could say that, in a way, I'm a bit of an exhibitionist. So in this blog I'm doing something easy and difficult at the same time, that is telling you what comes to my mind, no matter if it's poems, music, photos, film or literature reviews, recipes or just my thoughts. I'd like to share all this with you 'cause you deserve it, at least only because you read me.
Secondly, probably you're asking yourself about the name of the blog. Well, it comes from my favourite poem. It's not the one I consider the very best I've ever read, but it's important to me 'cause it was the one who put the seed of poetry to grow inside me. This poem, by Stephen Crane, may not be beautiful, sensitive, romantic...but it's raw and cruel as life is. And here it is where the dessert part comes, 'cause I also think (and hope) that life is sweet and full of beauty. Our best gift is the ability to find it.
To close this, my first post, I just have to tell you "Try it, taste it, and if you like it, REPEAT"

Stephen Crane

In the Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."