Jon's Website

Giftverse

giftverse -- the best kind of poetry is the kind that you get

These are verses that other people have written for me, or in reaction to one of my poems.

Poetry pages:

Contents:

| < Back to main index > |

[------------------------------------------------------------]

Boy

by Garran

The little boy -
Stretched face grinning
Eyes like pebbles
On the riverbank
Then in his pocket
Grinning like a young man
Old, like the young
With swords and sticks
Who dance through the shallows -

The little boy -

Who ducks his head
Under the overhanging
Bridge, who steps steps steps
In rhythm one two three
Bird's rhythm, hop rhythm
Sing-to-yourself rhythm
Never-speak-just-grin rhythm
Pause to find a pebble rhythm -

The black faced boy
Who's been swimming in soot -
Still cheerful as ever
The scamp, the young man
Dancing, long and flapping
Jumping and running
And watching the sky -
Eyes in the top of his
Head, river-pebble eyes
Singing, shy, secret eyes
Goofy eyes with love and
Never-speak-just-grin and
Put them in my pocket and
Carry on down

 

Herein Garran does one of those "I'll catch someone's soul and trap it on paper" pieces. It never ceases to make me smile, since it captures pretty well some of the best things about me while utterly ignoring the bad parts. I mean, how much more flattering can you get than that? And it's really good poetry to boot.

[------------------------------------------------------------]

Beautiful 1-3

by Garran

Reactions to "Eyes like the movies"

 

Beautiful 1

"You're beautiful,"
I said
and then I realized I hadn't
because her breath puffed out
and steamed
and dissolved
and she said, "What?"
(to my look
not my statement
because I never said it)
and I didn't say,
"I am deeply afraid of you."
After a moment of this
(which I didn't say fiercely)
she flushed, confused, and
cast her eyes downward.

 

 

Beautiful 2

"I've always been skeptical
of heroes in movies
when they look at the love interest
and say "you're beautiful"

well duh

isn't that the reason they're there?"

It might be the reason she's here, too.

Imagine:

All of this,
just to look at a doubtful, yearning,
broken self like hers and say

"here is something beautiful".

Because she is ever, ever-so-beautiful.

 

 

Beautiful 3

"   and kissed you hard and well and long
    and lived happily ever after
right there
that instant"

		On her 93rd birthday
		I brought her a cake
		kissed her weathered
		cheek and said, "you
		know it's still that
		night when we kissed
		in the cold and dark
		(dark 'cept for eyes
		like yours) and when
		we open our eyes, we
		will still be there"
		and she smiled at me
		clasped my aged hand
		and kept them closed
		for now

 

| < Back to main index > |