Splendour

The 55-foot yacht "Splendour," belonging to actor Robert Wagner and his wife, actress 

Natalie Wood, sits in the waters off Catalina (photo by Harrington, AP)

Splendour

by Taylor Roberts 

Boats swell and slap against their wooden docks

Only a cool breeze caught

In the pretty sails off Catalina

The luff-puff billows

Our island sails – the boats stand still

Our anchor’s in the sky

Where is the girl?

Boats knock about their sleeves in their long sheathes

Off Catalina

Drown for us child, feet off the grass

Shake loose your mama

Splendour’s at the mast

How it towers and swoons like a palm,

Sways like a gypsy

Clack! Stack the Russian dolls

Smack the Splendour

Splash the bottle

Scream the darkness

Where is the girl?

Where is the siren?

[©Taylor Roberts 2012]

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Aqui Te Amo

allan grant

Aqui Te Amo

by Pablo Neruda


Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.
The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.
Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.
Aqui te amo.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.
The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.


[copyright w.s.merwin, 1969]

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A City Winter

alfred eisenstaedt

A City Winter (excerpt)
Frank O'Hara

The snow drifts low

and yet neglects to cover me, and I
dance just ahead to keep my heart in sight.
How like a queen, to seek with jealous eye
the face that flees you, hidden city, white
swan. There's no art to free me, blinded so.


[copyright Frank O'Hara, 1951]

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