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Tag Archives: poetry

To my love on Valentine’s Day

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Betty Zhang in Poems

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Tags

books, f scott fitzgerald, literature, love, poem, poet, poetry, romance, valentines day, writer, writing

Fitzgeralds-Passport.jpg

Hair: blonde
Eyes: green
Height: 5”8’

Signed in your cursive hand,
Each letter a musical note
So soft and so lovely,
How befitting an ode.

But darling you’re black and white
And try as I might,
I can’t seem to get it right:

Blonde hair but how blonde?
Green eyes but what green?

5”8’ I can see in the mirror,
‘Kinda short for a fella,’ I’d say
If I didn’t already know ya;
We’d stand shoulder to shoulder, but
For you I’d make an exception:
A song by Leonard Cohen.

And to be perfectly practical,
I don’t have to stand on your books
To kiss you though that’d be cute—
Catch me if I fall, though maybe I would fall
Just to fall into you.
Then we’d both be on the floor,
I’d land on your chest,
Crease that three-piece suit,
Tousle your hair, loosen that tie,
Tease till finally you pin me down,
Messed-up hair falling in your eyes
Pale gold and baby emerald, diamond-bright.

Blonde but how blonde?
A darkish blonde I imagine, the prettiest kind Save for Marilyn’s.
Green but what green?
The clear bright green of a river at the height of summer I imagine, the kind doomed Lovers would like if I’m Wright.

You’d make a dashing actor Love,
Actually they cast those to play you and your characters:
Leo and Tom and Brad and Matt,
Million dollar men, young and beautiful,
Blessed with beauty and rage.

Hollywood’s love bloomed late,
Poor fate, you thought
Broke and broken, maybe long forgotten
—Never more false! Love,
You’re alive again, risen from the debt
They owe to you.
Your name, your books,
You’re Lazarus wearing Adonis’ face;
Boy, the shows and movies they make
You have to see to believe.

Your timeless quintet and more,
In jackets of turquoise I adore,
Crazy in love, j’adore
F. Scott Fitzgerald in elegant font,
Honestly I’ve never been so fond—

Oh! Tender was
Your heart till it fell apart,
Broken instrument I fancy
Mending into art!

Still art thou black and white,
Long ago departed from life.
Love thee true I do
Yet be thy wife
I never could—
All I can do is write.

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Soft whispers

21 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Notes

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Tags

Beauty, feelings, literature, poetry, prose, sentence, writer, writing

roses tumblr

“So this is how I came to lament sadness—in my very own garden, where I weep in shades of blue, amid roses blooming. To wit, to wilt. Adieu.”

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The millennial’s guide to contemporary poetry

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Poems

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Tags

blogger, blogging, gen y, internet, millenial, online, parody, poem, poet, poetry, satire, social media, tumblr, twitter

tumblrwrite enter

a sentence enter

keep hitting

enter

 

post Tumblr trite, Continue reading →

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Max Errman, “Desperata: Prose for a Way Out of Life”

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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Tags

anxiety, desiderata, escape, life, max ehrmann, modernity, poet, poetry, prose, writer, writing

bear illustration.jpgWent to bed last night with the realisation that all the world’s a sham, except maybe the art of bread-making. Supplying fresh wholesome handmade loaves to the local community, donating what’s left at the end of the day to charity. Betty’s Bakery. No! That means Continue reading →

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Prose arrest

12 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Notes

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

literature, poem, poet, poetry, prose, writer, writing

calliope muse poetry greek

I wrote

a poem

and sentenced

myself

to prose

arrest.

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Vincent

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Notes

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Tags

art, artist, culture, literature, love, painting, poem, poetry, vincent van gogh, writer, writing

vincent van gogh.jpg

Orange ‘n’ blue / Van Gogh my boo

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Leonard Cohen is dead

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Uncategorized

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Tags

arts, culture, death, leonard cohen, music, musician, poetry, prose, singer, writer, writing

leonard cohen.jpg

I heard it on the radio this afternoon so it must be true. When I got home social media confirmed the news, but unprecedented election outcomes in the States stunted the outpouring of grief for this legend of modern music and poetry. Much of the world is still reeling after Continue reading →

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Summertime Sadness

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Beauty, Petit Passages

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Tags

lana del rey, literature, music, musician, poem, poet, poetry, summer, writer, writing

carmen-lana-del-rey-roses-vintage-Favim.com-1725863.gif

Listening to Lana Del Rey on summer nights: a wearable mood / like slipping on a cloak of indulgent sadness / a shift of persona, swift as Mystique / a sinking and falling into place, like being swallowed into the depths of a dark rose, petals spiralling into infinity / memories unfolding, genuine or embellished, shrinking and blooming like youth on rewind / FIN.

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In the mood for Ophelia

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Beauty

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

aesthetics, art, Beauty, colors, hamlet, history, literature, love, mood, mood board, ophelia, poem, poetry, romanticism, shakespeare, tragedy

ophelia painting.jpg

Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-2, oil on canvas

A mood board inspired by Shakespeare’s tragic heroine Ophelia (Hamlet). Her madness-led demise by drowning was deemed one of the Bard’s most breathtaking death announcements and, with the aid of this ethereal depiction on canvas by Victorian painter Sir John Everett Millais, her death lives to this day, immortalised by Romantics then and now.

background-forest-free-landscape-Favim.com-2064025.jpg

ophelia tumblr.jpg

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

tumblr flower girl.jpg

 

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Who said demise was for the fall, and death winter?

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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Tags

death, nature, poet, poetry, prose, romanticism, summer, writer, writing

flower girl tumblr.jpegI should like to die on a splendid day at the height of summer, under a radiant blue sky on a bed of flowers. If it were not for my morbid longing for the picturesque, I should not mind expiring as wildlife do, Continue reading →

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