William Carlos Williams

Between Walls

by William Carlos Williams

the back wings

of the

hospital where

nothing

will grow lie

cinders

in which shine

the broken

pieces of a green

bottle

William Carlos Williams and Geneva Lorrain

Blizzard
By WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down-

Winter Times
By GENEVA LORRAIN

Winter times:
skeletons reinstated
on the landscape
for another year,
gray skies, the default,
and many behind horizontal lines
yearn for azure climes
that exist only in cyberspace,
eyes close,
minds grind out the coffee beans
and television screens blare out fantasies
being watched on eyelids.

Geneva Lorrain

Don't Tell Me Too Much
BY GENEVA LORRAIN

Don't tell me that Spring is coming
or that things will change.
Show me the swelling on the bare limbs
of the pregnant trees.

My heart will not see it today
with the rain that is falling
on unsung blue violets
under the oak trees
nor the roses that have only
the thorns.

The old woman will walk alone
under skeletons waving in the winds,
gray and sullen stones will lie cold,
letters erased by age
and books will mold and become
unreadable.

There is a thin line on the horizon
and that is all I need.

Shel Silverstein

About the Bloath

By Shel Silverstein

In the undergrowth

There dwells the Bloath

Who feeds upon poets and tea.

Luckily I know this about him,

While he knows almost nothing of me.

Geneva Lorrain

She was just a child
BY GENEVA LORRAIN

She was just a child

then

sitting
standing
waiting
looking at the trees and mountains
trying to see her escape
and
what she should be...

Not there.

Why not?

Not there, my child. Not there.

She saw the hawks floating on wind currents
and looked at them so free.
She looked at their wings
and yearned to fly up into the air...

Not there.

Why not?

Not there, my child. Not there.

She watched the streams flow down,
its clear and crystal breath bubbled
and she looked for her truths within
so she could follow with the silver and golden trouts...

Not there.

Why not?

Not there, my child. Not there.



Mountains turn into deserts
deserts into oceans
youth into old age
life into death

Seek your place in
An alchemy of many worlds
with hymnals of energy that exists within.



That world will never fail you, child, never.

Dogen

The world? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane's bill.

- Dogen
Zen Poems of China and Japan, p. 81
Translated by Lucien Stryk