— by Charles Wright
“Portrait of the Artist by Li Shang-Yin”
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Author Archives: Jujube Monster
“Traveler”
青山交叠如画
我的目光泼墨而过，完成一轴山水
— 乃生 《行者》
Hills and mountains fold as in a painting
My gaze, pouring over like ink, completes a scroll of landscape
— by Nai Sheng
Halloween
The apples are thumping, winter is coming.
The lips of the pumpkin soon will be humming.
By the caw of the crow on the first of the year,
Something will die, something appear.
— from Maurice Kilwein Guevara “A Rhyme for Halloween”
We are the kindly ones
And we feed them
Their annual meal, a handful
Of sugar the shape of corn,
Apples, a rope of black candy.
……
The apples are full of knives.
We will never return.
— from John N. Morris “Halloween”
“Arrival at Santos”
Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery;
impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,
with a little church on top of one. And warehouses,
some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue,
and some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,
is this how this country is going to answer you
…….
— by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
“Gulf View”
Between the striped walls of the canyon
Burns a crescent of blue water, arresting, poignant:
Jewel-blue,
soul of opals and sapphires;
Feather-blue,
stain of indigo on the peacock’s breast;
Flame-blue,
color that hovers above the copper-saturated drift-
wood in the beach-fire.
And the tall white poppy down the canyon
Sways against the blaze
Like a ship.
— by Grace Hazard Conkling (1878-1958)
“Rabbit in the Moonlight”
Moonlight is sharp until I see
A rabbit sitting quietly.
Then wall and fence and tree and burr
Grow soft and touch the night with fur.
— by Frank Mitalsky
“Autumn Shade”
Awakened by some fear, I watch the sky.
Compelled as though by purposes they know,
The stars, in the blue distance, still affirm
The bond of heaven and earth, the ancient way.
This old assurance haunts small creatures, dazed
In icy mud, though cold may freeze them there
And leave them as they are all summer long.
— by Edgar Bowers
“Country Stars”
The nearsighted child has taken off her glasses
and come downstairs to be kissed goodnight.
She blows on a black windowpane until it’s white.
Over the apple trees a great bear passes
but she puts her own construction on the night.
Two cities, a chemical plant, and clotted cars
breathe our distrust of darkness on the air,
clouding the pane between us and the stars.
But have no fear, or only proper fear:
the bright watchers are still there.
— by William Meredith
“Rabbit”
Droll and erratic, a jackass rabbit jumps
From form to field, or wallows in the sand
Grotesquely serious, pop-eyed, waggle-eared,
Fit for the prairie, born of it, beloved:
A Yankee critter, sinewy, strong, and tough,
To laugh at, wonder at – but not to catch.
—by Stanley Vestal
(Couldn’t decide which one fits better, :))
“Reading Myself”
Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just,
struck matches that brought my blood to a boil;
I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire—
somehow never wrote something to go back to.
Can I suppose I am finished with wax flowers
and have earned my grass on the minor slopes of Parnassus . . .
No honeycomb is built without a bee
adding circle to circle, cell to cell,
the wax and. honey of a mausoleum— .
this round dome proves its maker is alive;
the corpse of the insect lives embalmed in honey,
prays that its perishable work live long
enough for the sweet-tooth bear to desecrate—
this open book . . . my open coffin.
–by Robert Lowell
Unusual Colors - Digital and AI art 