Robab Moheb: “God’s Small Beings (8)”

GOD’S SMALL BEINGS (8)
Once
        they set the sails of their
                                         imagination
the seas
       looked surprised
                     as they stared into the tender breeze of storms.

–Robab Moheb

Translation from Farsi by Sam Vaseghi, 1996

Medieval Tech Support

This should come in handy for those parents (like me) whose kids need some extra urging to tackle their summer stacks.  Kudos to nrk (Norwegian TV).

Paul Muldoon: “Tea”

TEA
I was rooting through tea-chest after tea-chest
as they drifted in along Key West

when I chanced on ‘Pythagoras in America’:
the book had fallen open at a book-mark

of tea; a tassel
of black watered silk from a Missal;

of a tea-bird’s black tail-feather.
All I have in the house is some left-over

squid cooked in its own ink
and this unfortunate cup of tea. Take it. Drink.

–Paul Muldoon  (b. 20 June 1951)

Paul Muldoon read this poem (a favorite of mine) on Stephen Colbert’s show last night.  Watch it.  Delight.

Image: detail from old tea in a pot by harry harris

Notice: “Takoma Mosaic Project”

Mona Van Duyn: “Near Changes”

 

Leda au Cygne (Cezanne)
 

NEAR CHANGES
            from “The Year’s Top Trivia,”
            Sanford Teller Information Please Almanac, 1978

“Bob Holt, a 20-year old Seattle man,
was quietly walking on a downtown street,
disguised as a mallard duck,
when he was–for no apparent reason–
attacked by a husky, 6-foot tall
bearded stranger.
The perpetrator spun him around by one wing,
tore off his duck bill,
hit him over the head with it,
and ran away.
Holt, who was dressed as a duck
to promote a local radio station,
had no explanation for the incident.
He told police,
‘I didn’t speak to him,
I didn’t flap my wings
or do anything like that.’”