I heard thee laugh,
And in this merriment
I defined the measure of my pain;
I knew that I was alone,
Alone with love,
Poor shivering love,
And he, little sprite,
Came to watch with me,
And at midnight
We were like two creatures by a dead camp-fire.
The days of riches are now behind.
I think I thought I lost my mind --
It fell into a deep, dark hole
When my severed head took a roll
Up to the lip, over the edge,
Falling -- I took a solemn pledge:
That my skull drop so straight and true
To hit bottom and rip straight through
To the other side.
A screen of cloud veils the mountain,
And cold monkeys squawk from green pines.
Fungi abound, but seeds dormant,
Searching for sprouts -- alas, in vain.
Somewhere near there's a fairy cave
Where flutes and lutes are often played.
Its Way is overgrown with moss,
And the old stone gate yields no clue.
Where have all the fairy folk gone?
Looking back, there's an endless plain
Where flowers fall like streaming tears.
It's easy to grow old; Where is
the messenger to bring some news?
To tell who the Golden Phoenix charms?
Waking from a deep, restless dream
What remains are blooms on the stream.
I
In my room, the world is beyond my
understanding;
But when I walk I see that it consists of three or
four
hills and a cloud.
II
From my balcony, I survey the yellow air,
Reading where I have written,
"The spring is like a belle undressing."
III
The gold tree is blue,
The singer has pulled his cloak over his head.
The moon is in the folds of the cloak.
Right-side-up or upside-down?
The flooded country becomes
a mirror world.
I spin in float
on a coracle boat --
mind fuzzy,
orientation unclear.
I feel I could flip,
and not take a dip,
but be righted
upside-down,
in the world beyond.
The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane
It's dark. But the neon burns, and bright signs color the night, and that color shines against wet surfaces. The color seems to float, and when I walk past it shifts, morphs, and flows, becoming alive. And it -- those bright primary colors -- might just be creeping towards me like a killer kindergarten clown. I turn to see the colors swirling, swirling but not advancing. I stare into the color paisleys as they dance yin-yang do-si-do's around the puddle. I'm entranced & soothed, and no longer fear the colors will attack, turning me vibrant.
a solid, black silhouette sinks submerge! submerge! it struggles to plunge & not be kicked back up -- to not bob like a wine cork in the dark sea but it seems to have no mass to sink but the right mass to fly
Tiger Riding for Beginners 