poetry (96)

curated poems with ai-generated illustrations by jujube monster

Jujube

Autumn Shade

Awakened by some fear, I watch the sky. Compelled as though by purposes they know, The stars, in the blue distance, still affirm The bond of heaven and earth, the ancient way. This old assurance haunts small creatures, dazed In icy mud, though cold may…

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Jujube

Country Stars

The nearsighted child has taken off her glasses and come downstairs to be kissed goodnight. She blows on a black windowpane until it’s white. Over the apple trees a great bear passes but she puts her own construction on the night. Two cities, a chemical…

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Jujube

Rabbit

Droll and erratic, a jackass rabbit jumps From form to field, or wallows in the sand Grotesquely serious, pop-eyed, waggle-eared, Fit for the prairie, born of it, beloved: A Yankee critter, sinewy, strong, and tough, To laugh at, wonder at – but not to catch.

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Jujube

Reading Myself

Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just, struck matches that brought my blood to a boil; I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire— somehow never wrote something to go back to. Can I suppose I am finished with wax…

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Jujube

Tapestry

It hangs from heaven to earth. There are trees in it, cities, rivers, small pigs and moons. In one corner the snow falling over a charging cavalry, in another women are planting rice. You can also see: a chicken carried off by a fox, a…

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Jujube

California Hills in August

… … And hate the bright stillness of the noon without wind, without motion, the only other living thing a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended in the blinding, sunlit blue. And yet how gentle it seems to someone raised in a landscape short of rain—…

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Jujube

Summer, Afternoon

This this will it always be, and why To ever argue for: here walking In its life, or sprawled, or loitering Down shallow valleys of the lawn: The trees that are there The pigeon bobbing through Its fallowgray ellipse of ground— The comfort of this…

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Jujube

A Cat/ A Future

A cat can draw the blinds behind her eyes whenever she decides. Nothing alters in the stare itself but she’s not there. Likewise a future can occlude: still sitting there, doing nothing rude. — by Kay Ryan

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Jujube

To Mrs K

For magic surely lurks in this, A cake that tells of vanished bliss; A cake that conjures up to view The early scenes, when life was new; When memory knew no sorrows past, And hope believed in joys that last! – Helen Maria Williams “To…

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Jujube

The River

These trees and stones are audible to me, These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind, I understand their faery syllables, And all their sad significance. – R. W. Emerson “The River”

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Jujube

Christabel

The night is chill, the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady’s cheek — There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf,…

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Jujube

Stanzas for Music

And the midnight moon is weaving Her bright chain o’er the deep; Whose breast is gently heaving, As an infant’s asleep: So the spirit bows before thee, To listen and adore thee; With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer’s ocean. –…

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Jujube

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

“For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.” – William Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as…

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