Hours in Oxford

This is my first attempt at a “found poem,” in which every phrase was taken from another article or articles.  In this case, it was a single article from the New York Times that can be found here.

It starts with learning centuries.

The lodging houses comfort

on any day brilliant students that sought

sustenance and traditional pubs—

it’s always precisely

half the price to remember them better.

Watch the clock, though:

it’s a darkish den that attracts

coffins and mummies before

the prize museum was rebuilt

(with significantly less success).

Wonderland?

The “devil’s toast” at dinner for two

asked the same question in 1645,

buried away on a back road—

but no worries, they’ve been upgraded

since then. Bike down the path

and the river will lead you back to town

if you pretend you’re tired

outside under the willow tree.

thewordsbehindtheface asked: Your poetry is so raw and beautiful. Certain lines had me bawling my eyes out with the emotion they evoked. Amazing work.

That is the deepest of compliments after reading some of your poetry. Your strawberries post made me feel like we’ve met before (we should have) because our hearts seem to cry the same things.  So thank you, lovely.

(Source: nevver, via yelyahwilliams)

(Source: crystilogic, via goodbyefarewell)

I’d trade eloquence for simple courage, any day.

"You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting."

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Saturn in Summer

Freckles are

the snowflakes of summer,

the reason I like this season best,

the reason I love you most.

Sunny days and a sprinkler

showering my bare arm

is the way you make me feel;

sunscreen and freshly mowed lawns

are the way you smell to me;

and if you ever kissed me,

the taste would be

lemonade after a concert,

the marshmallow

I almost dropped into the fire,

the air at the top

of that mountain we climbed.

If you were autumn,

I could leave you behind—

winter, I could forget—

spring, and we could both

grow into new someones

and be content with what

we once had when

the cherry blossoms still

clung to the trees and smelled

like new.

But we are both summer.

We are summer and air

and red kites in the blue

Colorado sky and songs

around dusky campfires

while the stars and galaxies

collide overhead and we

revolve like rings around Saturn

never touching but gravity

holds us together;

we are a box full of homegrown

peaches and a mailbox

of handwritten letters sealed

in tries and failures;

we are the answer

on the tip of a tongue

while the fireworks

go off on the Fourth of July;

we dance the songs

of the big brass band

in pinstripe suits

but I never took the hand

that invited me

into the music.

And I hope that someday

you feel this same way.

I hope that the bold colors

of summer paint in me

twenty seconds of insane courage

so that I can tell you

about the way I see the sky—

but until then,

I’ll write you a poem

for every freckle on your cheek.

(Source: vivalaqueefa)

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
(47,249 plays)

languagemagic:

Tom Hiddleston reading Shakespeare Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

   As any she belied with false compare.

(via kamero-gomez)

I listened to this at least a half dozen times before I realized I couldn’t NOT reblog it.  So here is the best Shakespeare reader on earth, for your ears.

-cityoflove:

Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany via Periegese © [stop for a while]

This is almost too charming to be real.  But not quite.

-cityoflove:

Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany via Periegese © [stop for a while]

This is almost too charming to be real.  But not quite.

stardusts.: before the storm.

burningmuse:

Editor’s Note:

Nominated by: itsallthereisleft 

Their words: This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I love the line “her last breath was taken away/by the kiss from the car’s exhausted lips”. Amazing.

______________

unsaidunknown:

There must have been a moment, he thought, a moment where the car might have slowed down, sounded a warning, and she might have jumped out of the way just in time. But there’s always a calm before the storm.

As it happened there was such a moment, but her bare feet were glued to the pavement, her eyes were pointed upwards toward the stars, and her ears were perfectly deaf. As the car sped towards her, the following thoughts flashed in her mind:

3.0 seconds—
The beauty of the stars, 
the possibility of life on another planet, 
a plane passing overhead across
a cloud obscuring the moon.

2.5 seconds—
Places and things to see:
Prague, Manila, Jamaica,
Castel Sant’Angelo, Holland,
the beach, Big Ben and
that boy she liked.

1.5 seconds—
She should have stayed;
maybe the doors
didn’t have to be locked
so tightly last night.

1.0 seconds—
did the boy she liked
think of her when
the head lights
and the screeching tire burns
bled into his mind?

0.5 seconds—
death is strange;
it plays with others,
chasing them in their veins
or filling it up with oozing goo
and flushes out their last breath
from the sighing lungs.
for some, it’s an honorable death;
death by the pleasant sleep,
death from the bullet that shot through
with enough air from their punctured lungs
to breathe out
their last words or two. 

but for her, it wasn’t a fairytale;
her last breath was taken away
by the kiss from the car’s exhausted lips -
she saw the boy she liked, the Big ben,
Jamaica, Prague, Holland, the beach, everything.

is it possible to be in such euphoria, a tragic delirium
moments before those tires burn through her skin? 

0.0 seconds—
[blank] 

No one rushed to her bed side until it was too late but the doctor told him that she had the bravest smile; one that was even brighter than the blazing sun.

-

italics: unsaidunknown
regular text: wolves-xiii

This is stunning.

damnithasook:

hannasedai:

makorralicious:

emilianadarling:

tayloki:

hannahyesss:

This connection has probably already been made by everybody and their dog, but whatever…

obviously Loki needs to go on a quest for his honour or something

OH MY GOD
THIS IS THE BEST THING.
THE. BEST. THING.

Zuko and Loki would have an angst party.

Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip. 

Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip. 
Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip.
Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip. 

damnithasook:

hannasedai:

makorralicious:

emilianadarling:

tayloki:

hannahyesss:

This connection has probably already been made by everybody and their dog, but whatever…

obviously Loki needs to go on a quest for his honour or something

OH MY GOD

THIS IS THE BEST THING.

THE. BEST. THING.

Zuko and Loki would have an angst party.

Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip. 

Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip. 

Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip.

Zuko will take Loki on a life-changing field trip. 

(via my-sexy-english-lord)

Trying to teach myself how to draw this summer, and this is my first attempt.  Gotta start somewhere, right?  :]

Trying to teach myself how to draw this summer, and this is my first attempt.  Gotta start somewhere, right?  :]

Women's Poetry in Afghanistan