POETRY PAGE
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I have an extensive collection of poetry & dance, most sent to me by good friends, some I found myself. Most of the poetry below is by Hafiz and Rumi. They are marked otherwise, if not. I would like to share some of them with you. Some of the poems below have nothing to do with dance, but they are beautiful anyway, please read and enjoy....
For poetry sent to me
written by other dancers, please click
here!
Now
That
All your worry
Has proved such an
Unlucrative
Business,
Why
Not
Find a better
Job.
O flute,
You have no tongue, yet you wail all day?
For whom do you cry?
The flute said:
They took me from His sweet lips.
What else can I do but cry?
Every Movement
I rarely let the word "No" escape
from my mouth
Because it is so plain to my soul
That God has shouted, "Yes! Yes!
Yes"
To every luminous movement in Existence.
There is a place where words are born of
silence,
A place where voices sing your beauty,
A place where every breath
carves your image
in my soul.
Dance where you can break yourself to pieces
and totally abandon your worldly passions.
Real men dance and whirl on the battlefield,
They dance in their own blood.
When they give themselves up, they clap their hands.
When they leave behind the imperfections of the self, they dance.
Their minstrels play music from within;
and whole oceans of passion foam
on the crest of their waves.
MOVEMENT
Dancing is not getting up
Anytime
Painlessly like a speck
Of dust blown around on the wind.
Dancing is when you rise above
both worlds
Tearing your heart to pieces
And giving up your soul,
Rumi
BELLY DANCER,
by Diane Wakoski, b.1937
Can these movements which move themselves
be the substance of my attraction?
Where does this thin green silk come from that covers my body?
Surely any woman wearing such fabrics
would move her body just to feel them touching every part of her.
Yet most of the women frown, or look
away, or laugh stiffly.
They are afraid of these materials and these movements in some way.
The psychologists would say they are afraid of themselves, somehow.
Perhaps awakening too much desire----
that their men could never satisfy?
So they keep themselves laced and
buttoned and made up
in hopes that the framework will keep them stiff enough not to feel
the whole register.
In hopes that they will not have to experience that unquenchable desire
for rhythm and contact.
If a snake glided across this floor
most of them would faint or shrink away.
Yet that movement could be their own.
That smooth movement frightens them---
awakening ancestors and relatives to the tips of the arms and toes.
So my bare feet
and my thin green silks
my bells and finger cymbals
offend them---frighten their old-young bodies.
While the men simper and leer---
glad for the vicarious experience and exercise.
They do not realize how I scorn them:
or how I dance for their frightened,
unawakened, sweet
women.
sent in by my good friend, Bobby Avstreih
The Women of Dan Dance with Swords in Their
Hands to Mark the Time When They Were Warriors
Audre Lorde
I did not fall from the sky
I
nor descend like a plague of locusts
to drink color and strength from the earth
and I do not come like rain
as a tribute or symbol for earth's becoming
I come as a woman
dark and open
some times I fall like night
softly
and terrible
only when I must die
in order to rise again.
I do not come like a secret warrior
with an unsheathed sword in my mouth
hidden behind my tongue
slicing my throat to ribbons
of service with a smile
while the blood runs
down and out
through holes in the two sacred mounds
on my chest.
I come like a woman
who I am
spreading out through nights
laughter and promise
and dark heat
warming whatever I touch
that is living
consuming
only
what is already dead.
Below are some other poems, in no particular order: Please enjoy....
i thank You God for most this
amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive
again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching
hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake
and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e.cummings
Our family's perennial favorite:
Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda
|
Maru Mori brought me Outrageous socks,
|
Nevertheless, And the moral of my ode
|
A Kanshi by Ryokan,
translation by Larry Smith & Mei Hui Huang
A new day dawns
to play with the children.
In my sleeve some bouncing balls,
it's what I do best.
TOO SMALL TO KEEP
Amy Dryansky, Conway, MA
Lately I've wanted to kiss my husband
as if he were a handsome stranger,
which he is, when his face clouds up
and I here the distant thunder
of a foot stomp.
I'd like to kiss that foot, with joy,
with total inattention.
I'd like to amputate my own wooden anger,
clear my lap of its dumb ventriloquist's doll
and invite my handsome stranger to sit.
We'd eat an enormous breakfast,
unplug our appliances,
pull the shades and pretend
no one lives here, has ever lived here,
with an opinion or social security number.
She's been replaced by a flamenco dancer,
he by her lover, Thor, and they are very busy
eating breakfast with no clothes on,
and they are not cold
in their nakedness, not ashamed, they love
all the places on each other
others do not, especially the overabundance
of loam, backwash, riprap.
They believe in the rain.
They've set up camp with nothing
but breakfast and black sheets
and a windup alarm clock set at midnight.
At midnight they can see in the dark.
At midnight he hides his spurs in the sweet hay.
At midnight she finally stops grooming.
At midnight they remember everything
they forgot about each other,
forget everything they knew.
She throws an invisible net in the air,
he makes himself a silver-bellied fish;
they take turns catching
and being caught, throwing back,
easing the barbed hook from their mouths.
At midnight they eat, and the clock
keeps not striking twelve.
© by Amy Dryansky
Amy's book of poetry, HOW I GOT LOST SO CLOSE TO HOME, by Amy Dryansky is
available from Amazon.com click& type in
book & author under search.
Pour Commencer
Jon Stallworthy
Take 1 green pepper and 2 tomatoes
and cut them into rings and hearts. Mix those
with olives, black olives, and go for a swin
in a green sea with her (or him).
Then serve your salad on two bellies. Pour
a little sun-warmed olive oil in your
salt navel, some vinegar in hers
(or his), and eat slowly with your fingers.
Empty the bottle. Open a second. Then
lick your plates. You will need them again.
"I
stop worrying about anything
I give up activities
I'm full of my life.
I
no longer
go to the temple
evening and morning
If
they ask me
"What are you doing
in your old age"
I
smile and tell them
"I'm letting my white hair
fall free."
- Soseki
sent to my husband by my dear friend, Bobby Avstreih
A poem by the 17th century Indian Saint, Tukaram:
"I
was invited
to a fancy event and when
I got there one of the guests said,
'Tukaram, your shirt
is on backwards
and so are your
pants,
and it looks like your hair never heard
the word comb, and your shoes
don't match.'
I replied,
'Thanks.
I noticed that before leaving
but why try to fool
anyone.' "
sent to me by my dear friend, Bobby Avstreih
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