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Favorite Quote“Everything in moderation, including the extreme. ” |
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Sex | male | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite Poets | Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite Authors | Salmon Rushdie, John Le Carre, Michael Ondaatje | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Greatest Influence | My lovely Olya | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About me | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Recent Work
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Welcome…. Love Michael
Welcome…. Love Michael Ondaatje, esp. English Patient & his poem The Cinnamon Peeler & you do know the NEOPOET t-shirt sports a famous Rushdie quote, eh?
~A
“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.” Rumi
Hello Kailashana,
I have started to make my way though your very formidable poetry. You have wonderful turns of phrase and I shall make individual comments on poems as I reach them and time allows. I have not read the Cinnamon Peeler but have read the English Patient, which seems to me like a novel written in poetry. I am just reading Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence” (which I read to Olya a little bit each night).
Adieu,
bjp
THE CINNAMON PEELER by
THE CINNAMON PEELER by Michael Ondaatje
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.
I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
– your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers…
When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner’s daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler’s wife. Smell me.
“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.” Rumi
This is exquisite, (Forgive
This is exquisite, (Forgive me bjp, since I want to put at least one exclamation mark, & at least a sigh… oh & that ellipsis, but that is all I can do now)!
Anni ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“…We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
… Your playing small doesn’t serve the world…”
Kailashana,
Wow. With a simple period. That is a great love poem. It will be a stern instrument for measure.
What a kindness for you to send it!
And I only just caught the “eh”.
bjp
Brian
I dont often add people as friends and I try not to be a pushy person but would you mind very much if i add you to my friends list … lol It just makes it easier to see when your poems are being posted …
Much Love and regard
Jayne x
Dear Jayne-Chloe,
Oh, please do. I didn’t really know the etiquette was to ask. That being the case, perhaps you will consent to me reciprocating?
Affectionately,
Brian
I dont know what the
I dont know what the etiquette is Brian , my mother brought me up not to expect anything from life that you dont have the breath or courage to ask for … And I always ask , I am nothing if not polite lol hahaha … Seriously though add me I love your work and since I’ve been ill I always look for a handful of poets to raise my spirits and your one of them :)
Much Love and regard
Jayne-Chloe x
Brian
Was wondering why I hadn’t been receiving poem updates from you; could have sworn I had added your name to my friends list. Apparently I did not. I apologize for this gross oversight, and have rectified the situation post haste.
Thanks again - for everything….
~Jess K.
———————–
“So I open my door to my enemies,
and ask could we wipe the slate clean?
But they tell me to please go fu** myself;
you know you just can’t win” - Pink Floyd
Dear Brain,
Dear Brain,
Love definitely is a wonderful experience, word become poem & sound become rhythm. I meant vein,in my Poem ‘I am falling’ & changes done. Thank you for your rating & inspirations. Looking forward for your comments.
Shepra
Toi aussi mon ami
Brian the bjp of our clan
he’s the man
with juxtapositions
he tends the transitions
and winds through the mind of our brain
words of love and of pain
chocked and shocked
even mocked
are the words he ascribes
we love his fine flow
of rhetoric you know
its so erudite
in the light of the day
but hay! Watch it
when night holds her sway
it may blow your head off one day!
Love from Margaret Ann
Dear Brian And Olya
You and Olya have always been wonderful friends to me .. and always supportive … this poem was partly inspired by you and well I thought … this is the one to give to you both
Fragments
Pouring into night
heat and cool rest
to blend
A smell
abstruing sense,
wearing of day,
sliding into an envelope
sent to shadow-lands,
I submerge to rest
in jasmine,
glimmered to dream
slung in a hammock,
bedazzled in the fire of illusion,
I lay in wonder of the cross
A lone cicada
trilled,
a twilight anthem settling
to a cadence of love,
drifting and distracted
by darken descendants,
phantoms of Grey
with no light’s knife,
they twix the mix
of palate,
Ocher hues spread,
merging to black
swallowed,upended,
in the soft line
of the horizons dome,
mixing paradise
with the stars
A spruce air seduces taste,
to find,
this voids seduction
is to breath in heaven,
teasing to gasp
in this beauty,
and suckling to taste
in the delectable Grey,
becoming a twin to moon,
I am struck,
as half-light bewitches me
and swings my hammock,
to the milky way,
the southern cross
cradles my head,
and jasmine visions
are overcome,
listing in an untouchable bliss
I lay down,
abed of light
embraced by a universe
of my own making,
dream knitting
fibrils of saffron time
The only way I know to say thank you
love and biggest hugs to you both Jayne x x x
Dear Jayne-Chloe,
We got home late and had a scotch or two before we saw your quite wonderful salutation. I read it out loud to Olya. But you will have to wait the evening (ours, that is) for a reply in keeping with the generosity of the gesture, so that the scotch is out of the system and Olya is not fatigued. But I wanted to give you this partial reply to say how much we think of you, include you in our discussions and want you to know of our interested thoughts. Thank you so much for your accolade of verse. I shall write again in the late morning - early afternoon.
Best hugs,
Brian and Olya
Dear Jayne-Chloe,
This poem has the extra seriousness of rhymes’ absence. It is not your comfort place and is the more special for it. There are great phrases littering this poem, among them:
A smell
abstruing sense,
wearing of day
I lay in wonder of the cross
a twilight anthem settling
to a cadence of love
with no light’s knife,
they twix the mix
of palate
A spruce air seduces taste
becoming a twin to moon,
I am struck
Your priorities must be on personal comfort. Remembering times of illness, I cannot imaging writing at all.
Yes, Jayne-Chloe, how formidable the who of you is.
Thank you for this work of tenderness,
Olya and Brian
Dear Brian and Olya
Personal Comfort has been a second for a while … I am just glad you both liked it .. sorry it couldnt have been better but I am just not up to form lately … you both take care of each other and I will email you in the next couple of days I am going to have a bit more time up my sleave (hugs)
and love to you both Jayne x x x
Dearest lovely Jayne, I
Dearest lovely Jayne,
I sneaked in here and am in total admiration of this poem.
It is stunningly wonderful and heart-warmingly good.
It is made of stardust by the goddess of time and beauty,
it is swung like the breeze rocked gossamer in the early morning grasses,
it is blazed like the bewitched symbol of the cross,
it is perfumed by moonbeams,
bedazzled by ochres, blacks and saffrons,
flowered with jasmine and knitted into
a dream.
Oh Olya and Brian, what a tribute to your kind hearts?
Ann of Norway.
Dearest Ann
I nearly missed your comment … thank you for those kind words (hugs) and I forgot to say theres one line in that poem thats distinctly Aussie … ‘I lay in wonder of the cross’ .. every night I lay on my lawn in the cool of the night and I do lol I ahve dogs you gotta get grubby with them … I lay in wonder of the southern cross … an on a clear night it blazes … like tonight
love and hugs Jayne
I can see you lying there under the stars wondering too
Oh Jayne I didn’t realise not was that cross, how wonderful and beautiful
and I can see you lying there under the stars wondering too, just as I did
for hours when all the other children had gone to sleep in my dormitory
at boarding school (4yrs) I watched and watched, not meditating, and yet
it was a kind of meditation wasn’t it, WONDERFUL.
And whenever you wish, wherever you are you can do that in your imagination
and see such wonders, so we as poetic people can travel at other levels of
consciousness and see what others fail to, don’t we dear Jayne. So wherever
you are now whenever you wish, you are there, wherever you want to be?
My love and kisses as aye for dearest you from Ann
Dear Brian,
congratulations on the launch of the new blog. We cannot thank you enough that you have taken the time - and are still taking it - to do this. It is exactly what we need here on Neopoet.
Yours,
~Nina
Dear Brian
Nudge Nudge lol I know how hard your working on the curated blog .. but please tell Olya I said POEMSSSSSSSS from both of you ? I’m starting to get withdrawals lol love you both very happy new year
Jayne-Chloe x x x
Seems i am always nudging
Seems i am always nudging you both for poetry lol
I sound like an addict lol
I know your both very busy but I wanted you to know that your presense is much missed
love and hugs Jayne-Chloe x x x x x
Dear Brian and Olya
Yep its just that annoying Aussie again … I am missing the hell out of you both … hurry back to us soon … hope your both well and life hasnt been to hectic
love and higgliest bugs jayne-Chloe x x x
(http://www.neopoet.com/forum/36627-meet-n-greet-live-chat-thurs-apr-15th-9-11-pm-ny-est-host-poewriter58-welcome-new-member#comment-175177) … Be there ~!~!~!
Hi Brian,
I hope all is ok on your side.
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood… T.S Eliot