The Noun

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

We have been downright atrocious about updating this site lately. And for that, loyal fan(s), we apologize. Do expect postings in the near future, though. Promise. Don’t abandon us. Please.

In the meantime, we thought we’d tide you over with one of our favorite poems of all time — the heart-breakingly beautiful “Birches” by Robert Frost. Enjoy.

Birches

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

-Robert Frost

Year on to yesteryear,
and with a mouthful of toothpaste
the youth-burned old chap
rehashes summer memories
to a wishful soundtrack of storefront nostalgia.

Dog-wagged tails, downstairs,
at the coffee house, and in sensationalist photojournalism
are no different than touchscreen starlets
or a boy in a crowd
with a head full of empathogens
and crossword thoughts
like the self affirmations
of the brainchild, lovechild
of a sad genius
in the auburn hills of Spain.

A road flies by, with neck risked games
and now-stale music, neglected caramels
and defeated companions, their belt crossed faces
But an aura of such beauty
that the sunset cliché approaches, but falls short of
like hand grenades and atom bombs.

-Spencer Mandel

it was on a Friday the day before yesterday

when we broke into a forest clearing and took a long look goodbye

this Tuesday we have a nice new appointment at the bank  

the bank had all

the money we had needed

to answer the case presented unto us

that was all we needed we had no payments

for the longest time

and it came to our attention that we were

to ourselves at any rate

on our own  

we found this out in a manner of speaking

when we wrote down this note  

and all of a sudden there was like some birds do

a downpouring onto the lagoon  

and all the birds sang and cawed and croaked

on the surface and dove down for the fish

with a lot of clatter and fuss of feathers

that was the downpouring of them

and we went then into the forest again  

Wandering aloud

mind of an escapist

Ruminations on deep incalculable feats

Shadowy webs upon a face of naivety

The plight of continents

exposed to veiled unity

Tasks to imagine

no thought of destinations

Describe without thinking

land held underwater

Fields of vision caught with lesions

that adhere to false senses

Organize avenues of confusion

into parallel aisles

A street map locked in a fireproof box

The ultimate guide to spells of red passion

This liquid is meant to cool skin

as if to say abandon fortunes lost

Embark on travels of light

fastening aims to the sky

In waves unpronounced to kept time

-Adam Russell

Don’t tread on the frog
It won’t be a pleasant sight
To watch the frog croak 

-Jill Gray

Sweet summer brings my feet to white sand
The thick mask of soon melted cream covers my bareness.
Intense fumes of salty sweat, smeared with peanut butter
begin to take over the air.
Red Hot stinging begins to pierce and poke.
My now juicy peach fuzz skin blushes reds and pinks
as it’s peeled away with the bronze sand.
Soothing Banana Boat soaks into my inflamed back

My skin breathes for moisture
Late noon hits
Coating my body like a warm flannel blanket
freshly applied on a tired twin bed
Feelings of belonging
Raw Toes, beat red cheeks
Late noon strikes like a poisonous snake
Victim to the heat I escape to the nearest umbrella

Relieved, I am shaded
covered, out of reach from my predator
lemonade soothes as water soaks and relieves.

-Katie Glickman

Do not ask
the lion tamer
to swing that cat
from the trapeze.
        He would not
        catch paws with hardy
        hands, flip and twirl,
        so high above.

No giraffes
are contortionists.
Do not ask to
have them stacked in
        pyramid
        with laced necks lifting
        elephants who
        wear unitards.

Don’t ask to see all at once,
        trades apart,
secrets unfathomable,
        parts and wholes.

Three rings set
on the circus floor
enclosed within
the circling tent
        set upon
        a spiral spun globe.
        What can we know?

A circumference locks in
        finite space.
Piled to the brim,
        infinite points to count.
        What can we know?

A settled place,
golden rings wound in
the posy of
the next, the next, the next,
        including
        one such final hoop
        engulfed in flames
        with heat untamed.

And behind, the cracking whip
        punctuates
cheerful screams from children in
        the bleachers.

-Peter Carlson

“Please come quickly,” she calls from
the bathroom-
           head bowed,
frown full of diamonds and dust.

 
I find her
balanced before the
mirror, exploring her scalp with a
        childish hand.
She’s like some kind of
     magician – my sister, in autumn -
     pulling my heart from a hat.

A comb parts and she brings my hand into the
warm, thin brown.

“Can you see it?” she asks,
guiding me to the spot, size of a
          quarter, cool as an egg.

 
“It’s nothing,” I say,
      focused on
the sink stained
with
Mom’s hair dye- the
faucet dripping like a
     heartbeat.

“What do you mean nothing?” she asks,
            “Feel it.”

Her walnut eyes, fixed and firm-
Her fingers on mine, quick and small-
    still searching and straining,
        she’s sawing me in half.

Outside it’s almost dark,
            though I swear it’s still early.
She shakes my hand away, and
it hangs-
a dead branch at my side.
Eyes on her, stomach full of
knots.

 
So resolute-
she rakes strands across
     to cover.
Sick like a tree-stump,
     I watch,
         wordless.

Suddenly I see her as a baby-
head bald and
pure as a pinecone,
     beautiful and strange.

 
Now her forest face is still-
Somehow I hear a bird
            singing.

A barrette bites through,
and all is
hidden,
roots beneath the earth.

 
It’s clear those treehouse eyes
could crack, so-
     “It’s nothing,”
I say again,
aware of my own hair,
     still
     tickling my neck.

-Laura Laurent

The residue of a day’s labor
will have no slumbering wash tonight.
The clock routines are left like
crusting sauce on a plate in the sink.
Creature comforts like unconsciousness-
I resist them,
transist them.
Diligently switching the biorhythmic radio knob
from classic to new wave,
I turn a dry eye from dreamland.
Often what was given is not enough.
I claim more hours for the present.
Like a Cortez or a Desoto, I rename moments
I’ve discovered with monikers in my own tongue.
I use signifiers I can understand.
In sleep we exhibit child-like faith
that the sun will rise.
Awake, I hold vigil for the loss of light.

-Peter Carlson

There is a man that sits near the coast

He doesn’t care for the warmth today;

He sits to listen to what matters most

This coast is wide and is home with gray

He looks through his green bottle worn from the tide

With muscles and pictures that live inside

Nothing to lose, for the sea is full with hope

The mans eyes are hopeful for the sign with the tide

His daughter left him, her life was new

She started a new beginning before he was through

Her father told her he’d be waiting by the salty side

For when she would come to brighten his blue eyes

The days are heavy

The tide has nothing new to show,

But the man will wait until he sees his sign

The good ol’ days when she used to like to twirl in his arms

Daddy’s arms are getting old

He has a worry in his eye

This man that sits near the coast

He sits to listen to what matters most.

-Katie Glickman