“Design for November” by William Carlos Williams

“Design for November”

Let confusion be the design
and all my thoughts go,
swallowed by desire: recess
from promises in
the November of your arms.
Release from the rose: broken
reeds, strawpale,
through which, from easy
branches that mock the blood
a few leaves fall. There
the mind is cradled,
stripped also and returned
to the ground, a trivial
and momentary clatter. Sleep
and be brought down, and so
condone the world, eased of
the jagged sky and all
its petty imageries, flying
birds, its fogs and windy
phalanxes . . .

–William Carlos Williams

Basho

“When I speak
My lips feel cold -
The autumn wind.”

-   Basho

Yellow light of November…

“The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of.  The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.”

-   Henry David Thoreau  

“The Region November” by Wallace Stevens

“It is hard to hear the north wind again,
And to watch the treetops, as they sway.

They sway, deeply and loudly, in an effort,
So much less than feeling, so much less than speech,

Saying and saying, the way things say
On the level of that which is not yet knowledge:

A revelation not yet intended.
It is like a critic of God, the world

And human nature, pensively seated
On the waste throne of his own wilderness.

Deeplier, deeplier, loudlier, loudlier,
The trees are swaying, swaying, swaying.”

-   Wallace Stevens, The Region November

 

Tipton Poetry Journal

A big THANK YOU! to Barry Harris, Editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal, for using my photo on the cover of the Fall 2009 issue.  I’m also honored to have a poem appear in this issue.

Published four times per year, subscriptions are a steal at just $16 a year… and you can order online:  http://www.tiptonpoetryjournal.com/

On Saturday, November 7th from 10am – 4 pm, Barry will be at the CLMP Midwest Lit Mag Fair to be held as part of the Kenyon Review Literary Festival. If you are near Gambier, Ohio on Saturday, come by and find the Tipton Poetry Journal booth (Peirce Hall, Borden Atrium).

“Bright Star”

Be sure to catch the movie, Bright Star… based on the 3-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne – cut short by his untimely death at the age of 25.

Sunrise: burning off the fog

What a glorious sunrise this morning… on this first day of November…which is also the one-year anniversary of “featherheart.”  Thank you to all who visit here.

On Halloween…

The Witches’ Spell

Act IV, Scene 1 from Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d. 2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d. 3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time! 1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw.— Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights has thirty-one; Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot! ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,— For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,— Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingrediants of our caldron. ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.

It’s the birthday of John Keats (1795-1821)

Bright star!  would I were steadfast as thou art -

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

by John Keats (from The Last Sonnet)

It’s the birthday of Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

In a Station of the Metro

by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet black bough.