The Genesis of Butterflies by Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885)

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind’s playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies.

Image courtesy of mel!nka via Flickr

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The lyrics are below.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

Minimalism by Jeff Smith-Luedke aka azrienoch

I looked at a picture painted white with a dot
White, with that black dot and I thought
Why bother painting that black dot in the middle
With the white all around it, makes it so little
Just a little black dot all surrounded by white
And I look at this painting and think that I might
Punch a hole through that painting with the fist of my hand
And show that white painting that I was a man
And it looked like it was made by a child
Who was given a paintbrush and told to go wild
But the child was retarded, only managed to poke
The canvass with the brush with the black with a stroke.

And I was going to do it when the artist walked by
Looked at my fist, the painting, asked why
I would want to destroy the black dot made of paint
Saying, “It’s so essential, an essentially quaint
Expression of essential potential in all
Of the people who have a potentially small
Dot of their own painted on their soul;
You see, in the white, there was a small hole
So I covered the hole with paint that was black.”
And then he turned away while I turned back.

I stared, stared, stared til the janitor came ‘long
He saw me, stopped mopping, stopped whistling a song
Stopped to ask me, “Hey sonny, been here long, you okay?”
“This is rubbish, this painting, just rubbish, I say!
I talked to the artist. Didn’t help in the least.
So I stared for a while but my anger increased.
This isn’t art, this white paint and black dot
Oh, it’s a picture of a dot, but art, it is not.”
The janitor nodded his head up and down
And cleared his throat and uttered a sound
That was like an agreement, but more like a laugh
And said, “Sonny, you’ve looked at this more than I have
But whenever I look, I don’t see the white
And with that he leaned over and turned off the light.

And with the light off, the dot grew and grew
Til it covered the canvass and he said, “Who knew
That in the dark every painting looks exactly the same,
Same portrait, same landscape, same romance, same shame,
Could be reddish or yellowed or purpley or blue
Or anything, ’cause, sonny, that’s what the dot turns into.”
He went off and he mopped and he whistled his tune
And I left and walked out and looked up at the moon
Which looked vaguely and oddly familiar that night,
So familiar—a black canvass with a dot that is white.

Thoughts? Leave your comment below!

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Keep reading for the lyrics to the poem.

X vs. O by Azrienoch aka Jeff Smith-Luedke

“XOXO” the letter concluded
and left us confused as to which letter alluded
to hugs and which letter alluded to kisses
To know which was which in letters from misses
My arms make an O, but our arms make an X
And my lips make an O, especially in sex
But X is nowhere, except for my eyes
When I shut my eyes tight and prepare for surprise
So it seems pretty clear that X is embrace
And O is for when I make my O-face.
But some people just won’t put X in that spot
They think the reverse, which is likewise, but not.

Back when the Tic-Tac-Toe Battle began
It was on ONN and all over X-SPAN
The X’s revolted, took over the O’s
Sx xxdles xf wxrds lxxked glxxmy, mxrxse
because O is what eyes do when they’re alive
and X is what eyes do when they have died.
It was then that the battle got out of hand
As they raced to replace all O’s of the land
But there were so many, they could only edge in
By the time that the O’s took o’er religion.
Praying “O Lord,” and “O God” they cried
long after the X’s had God crucified.

So the X’s moved on to movies of sexes
having sex with all sexes, marked by triple X’s
So whenever they played everybody would see
This movie with letters three letters from Z.
They conquered a nation with X generation
An X and another for feminization.
Yet, still so far from defeating the O’s
Who had taken to numbers, becoming zeros
The X’s had their backs to the wall
And in vain, X became any number at all.

The O’s campaigned in disinformation
Giving the X’s a bad reputation
Disfortuned assortments of connotation
Were forced to perform self-immolation
bearing the mark of an Aryan nation
The X, an abominant alliteration!
You can see the direction the battle did go
This great battle, the Battle of Tic-Tac-Toe.
The X’s defeat was as fatal as lethal
To be thought of as malice, as poison, as evil,

O is wherever good things reside
(To be good, you need two O’s inside.)
O is for “open,” while X is to shun.
X’s are toxic. O, oxygen.
O is for marriage, while X, for divorce.
We become both spoils and follies of wars
Joining the O’s in X’s persecution.
We forget X is the sign of revolution.
So say what you will, and come what may,
You just might end up needing X’s some day.

The Girl with Vomit Eyes (written & performed by Oscar S. Cisneros)

The Girl with Vomit Eyes
By Oscar S. Cisneros

A snapshot, a picture: tell me what do you see?
A photographed woman smiles prettily.
She is supple and thin with an elegant sway
Like a flower stem bends when clutched midway.

The sun is to blame for the tone of her skin;
A bronze tincture to flesh that was white to begin.
And what better to match than a sandy-blonde mane?
Hair blown wild yet healthy and tame.

Most of her sweetness is found in her eyes,
Delicate orbs where innocence thrives.
This picture does show a fragile young girl;
Sweet femininity still lives in this world.

And, aye, that’s the point: this woman succeeds,
Bending and fighting with the strength of the reed.
A career down the road and education in hand,
Our dainty little nymph has skills in demand.

Looks and seduction, promise and smarts:
A well-rounded girl with a good heart.
So what’s wrong with this picture? What do you see?
Our still-captured nymph seems to smile nervously.

When picture turns to mirror, one before her face,
Her gorgeous colored eyes soon begin to trace
Imperfections and flaws, skinniness and fat;
Dissatisfaction with self, nothing else but that.

Seen in her reflection, this girl is not as strong
As the woman we have known who fought her way along
Through school and through life and past uncaring men.
I can feel the anger rising in my pen.

What shackles are these who dare to take their hold?
Demons whisper lies; their poison has been told:
On billboards and television, in magazines and in books;
The image of perfection is suggested by those crooks.

It’s no wonder she shies away from her reflection
When the sweetest pair of eyes burn in cruel inspection.
She thinks they’re like vomit, the color of bile,
Even as those orbs bring joy all the while.

More than once in her life men have gently written
About her gorgeous eyes and how she left them smitten.
That these words mean so little is really no surprise;
Praise goes unheard by the girl with vomit eyes.

Image courtesy of Eugenio Recuenco. Spoken Poetry courtesy of Oscar S. Cisneros.

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng.

And tulips, children love to stretch
Their fingers down, to feel in each
Its beauty’s sweet nearer. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Image courtesy of Flickr

The peonies are hung-over again,
dew-drunk from loitering in the moonlight,
after taunting the crab apples and redbuds
for having bloomed too soon after the snow.

Lashing out at the daylilies for their dysfunctional
shriveling from a single day of romance with sunlight,
and castigating those whores, the crocus, for being teased
into blossom by a few warm February rays, has become a ritual.

The mornings are now beautiful sermons.
On a manger of mulch, the peonies seem
to be sleeping. Through the sip and swallow of my hot coffee
I thought I heard a hiss or whisper.

It may have been the dogwood,
perhaps the hydrangea, saying to the lilac,
“Look at those pink dumb-asses.
That’s what happens when you get a big head.”

Poem titled The Morning After ©2007 by Steve Meador.

Image courtesy of tollen @ Flickr.

]]> http://dorkmuffin.com/2008/09/pink-peonies/feed/ 2 http://dorkmuffin.com/2008/09/poem-the-road-not-taken/ http://dorkmuffin.com/2008/09/poem-the-road-not-taken/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:14:16 +0000 April http://dorkmuffin.com/?p=315 The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is one of the greats by a wonderful poet and playwright. It's definitely one of my favorites. It has a special place in my heart as it has helped me through some hard times.]]> The poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is one of the greats by a wonderful poet and playwright. It’s definitely one of my favorites. It has a special place in my heart as it has helped me through some hard times. I included a beautiful photo I found on stock.xchng that I thought would compliment it beautifully.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

I remember the first time I saw her-
she stood out in the crowd with her delicate golden hair.
How it shined in the sunlight!
I adored watching the light pass through the strands,
glistening as she swayed to and fro.

I loved that dance.

Then one day I noticed her hair was no longer golden, but white.
Had I not noticed the change?
Had time cheated me of relishing in her beauty and scent?
Or had all the long hours
seemed diminished to a few fond memories?

Even though she was now much more fragile and her scent had changed,
she was still my girl.

Until one day as I looked out my window I saw a mere child pluck her up and blow into her luminous hair,
and I watched as it scattered into the breeze and all that was left was her lifeless body,
thrown aside like a weed.
A tear flowed down my cheek as I stood there watching her demise.

Oh, how I had loved her.

But where there is death, there is birth
and now I count the days until I can watch her beautiful children grow.

Poem titled Dandelion. Photos courtesy of Stock Xchng.

Copyright © 2008 April Nanney