Boris, how was your fate unravelled? It is late and I am no Russky or
communist  or even travelled. It is another century, another war
and I so non-specific, neither a pucker poet nor a novelist
nor worker, nor retired, prolific, aristo nor poor; an anti-genderist,

for generalities are all I ask in general. Still, I shout in fright,
I can respond to bookish tasks, these feats that must diminish under distant
light
where serfs, dearth, duels, haunt gigantic steppes beyond
our flaunted ignorance. What would we expect of antique words like >fond<,

<warmth<, >fire< or >hope<? A poem that carries fire and hope I hope yet
frees
--Sally

Sally, a fine work, a bit long but broken into bites like the above a good
read.

I took me years to read Doctor Zhivago.  I couldn't get past Chapter 1, so
about 12 years after I first tried, I skipped to Chapter 3 and things went
smoothingly.  I'm not sure what you read, but that is not important.  The
poem feels a bit Russian.

Below my sig, a poem by BP I picked off the internet.

Thanks.

Gary


Oct Michael Dean and poems for peace at:
http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html

*New*  Wild/Eliot  Hyperpoem at:  http://wildhyper.homestead.com/front.html

Poets for Peace.  ¡Poemas sí, balas no!


Without a Title

So aloof, so meek in your ways,
Now you're fire, you're pure combustion.
Only let me lock up your beauty
Deep, deep down in a poem's dungeon.

See how wholly transformed they are
By the fire in the glowing lampshade;
Edge of wall, edge of window-pane,
Our own figures and our own shadows.

There you sit on cushions, apart,
Legs tucked under you, Turkish fashion.
In the light or in the shadow,
Childlike, always, the way you reason.

Dreaming, now  you thread on a string
Beads that lie on your lap in profusion.
Far too sad is your mien, too artless
Is the drift of your conversation.

Yes, love's truly a vulgar word.
I'll invent something else to supplant it,
Just for you, the whole world, all words
I will gladly rename, if you want it.

Can your sorrowful mien convey
All your hidden orebearing richness,
All that radiant seam of your heart?
Why d'you fill your eyes with such sadness?

1956
                      Translated by Alex Miller