Lightning
The oaks shone
Gaunt gold
On the lip
Of the storm before
The wind rose,
The shapeless mouth
Opened and began
Its five-hour howl;
The lights
Went out fast, branches
Sidled over
The pitch of the roof, bounced
Into the year
That grew black
Within minutes, except
For the lightening – the landscape
Bulging forth like a quick
Lesson in creating, then
Thudding away. Inside,
As always,
It was hard to tell
Fear from excitement:
How sensual
The lightning’s
Poured stroke! and still,
What a fire and a risk!
As always the body
Wants to hide,
Wants to flow toward it – strives
To balance while
Fear shouts,
Excitement shouts, back
And forth – each
Bolt a burning river
Tearing like escape through the dark
Field of the other.





Related poetry:
- Picnic, Lightning It is possible to be struck by a Meteor or a single-engine plane while Reading in a chair at home. […]...
- The Shepherd's Brow, Fronting Forked Lightning, Owns The shepherd’s brow, fronting forked lightning, owns The horror and the havoc and the glory Of it. Angels fall, they […]...
- Ithaka As you set out for Ithaka Hope your road is a long one, Full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, […]...
- Yin Yang At the edge of winter In crisp early March A dull thud of numbness Delays joy and sadness That will […]...
- The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds; The leaden thunders crashed. A worshipper raised his arm. “Hearken! Hearken! The voice […]...
- The Great Fires Love is apart from all things. Desire and excitement are nothing beside it. It is not the body that finds […]...
- Dangerous Things Said Myrtias (a Syrian student In Alexandria; in the reign of Augustus Constans and Augustus Constantius; In part a pagan, […]...
- With Due Respect To Thor The dog has shrunk between the brake and clutch. His shaking shakes a two-ton truck. From a God So furious, […]...
- The Lightning is a yellow Fork The Lightning is a yellow Fork From Tables in the sky By inadvertent fingers dropt The awful Cutlery Of mansions […]...
- The Lightning playeth all the while The Lightning playeth all the while But when He singeth then Ourselves are conscious He exist And we approach Him […]...
- Struck, was I, not yet by Lightning Struck, was I, not yet by Lightning Lightning lets away Power to perceive His Process With Vitality. Maimed was I […]...
- 523. Song-The Cooper o' Cuddy Chorus-We’ll hide the Cooper behint the door, Behint the door, behint the door, We’ll hide the Cooper behint the door, […]...
- Not Fear Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere, The possibility of fear; the wall That might tumble down, because it’s for sure […]...
- The moon when the body of a woman dissolves Within are the three feared faces The man who dares to trace them […]...
- My Favoured Fare Some poets sing of scenery; Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet. A fig for love and greenery, Be mine […]...
- Very Seldom He’s an old man. Used up and bent, Crippled by time and indulgence, He slowly walks along the narrow street. […]...
- We don't cry Tim and I We don’t cry Tim and I, We are far too grand But we bolt the door tight To prevent a […]...
- Last Words to Miriam Yours is the shame and sorrow, But the disgrace is mine; Your love was dark and thorough, Mine was the […]...
- Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom) Speaking to you This hour These days when I have lost the feather of poetry And the rains Of separation […]...
- THE PEARL FISHERMAN This evening and part of the night I sank again into the dense sea Where we beings and things float. […]...
- Modern Love VI: It Chanced His Lips Did Meet It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. Shamed nature, […]...
- The Zeroes taught us Phosphorous The Zeroes taught us Phosphorous We learned to like the Fire By playing Glaciers when a Boy And Tinder guessed […]...
- The Only Son She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire anew For she heard a whimper under the […]...
- Blossom In April The ponds open Like black blossoms, The moon Swims in every one; There’s fire Everywhere: frogs shouting Their […]...
- Question Body my house My horse my hound What will I do When you are fallen Where will I sleep How […]...
- Fire's Reflection Perhaps it’s no more than the fire’s reflection On some piece of gleaming furniture That the child remembers so much […]...
- The Truth is stirless The Truth is stirless Other force may be presumed to move This then is best for confidence When oldest Cedars […]...
- Snowdrops Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know What despair is; then Winter should have meaning for […]...
- A Poet at Twenty Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes Brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough, […]...
- Madrigal (To Miss May Forshall.) HE shouts amain, he shouts again, (Her brother, fierce, as bluff King Hal), “I tell you […]...
- Twenty-Four Years Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in […]...
- Introspection If you go deep Into the heart What do you find there? Fear, fear, Fear of the jaws of the […]...
- Paradise Seed Where is the seed Of the tree felled, Of the forest burned, Or living root Under ash and cinders? From […]...
- Farewell To Verse In youth when oft my muse was dumb, My fancy nighly dead, To make my inspiration come I stood upon […]...
- Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is Beyond the limits of birth and death, […]...
- Verses Observe this Piece, which to our Sight does bring The fittest Posture for the Swedish King; (Encompass’d, as we think, […]...
- Paper Men To Air Hopes And Fears The first speaker said Fear fire. Fear furnaces Incinerators, the city dump The faint scratch of a match. The second […]...
- Since Nine O'Clock Half past twelve. Time has gone by quickly Since nine o’clock when I lit the lamp And sat down here. […]...
- The Demon In Me The demon in me’s not dead, He’s living, and well. In the body as in a hold, In the self […]...
- Song and dance do you think an old heart can’t sing Do you think an old heart can’t dance With a love that […]...