1dianeham
This is a topic to: post poems, discuss poetry books you are reading, read poetry together, whatever we want poetry-wise.
2dianeham
One of my favorite poems. I saw the isle when I was there. It was very small in a lake.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
A Note from the Editor
W.B. Yeats won the Nobel Prize in December of 1923. The prize citation read, “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
A Note from the Editor
W.B. Yeats won the Nobel Prize in December of 1923. The prize citation read, “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”
4WelshBookworm
>2 dianeham: It seems to me I've sung a musical arrangement of at least part of that poem...
7dianeham
>6 WelshBookworm: Lovely!
8BLBera
I'm reading a collection by Jane Kenyon right now. So many wonderful poems, but this one caught my eye yesterday.
Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day.
But one day, I know
it will be otherwise.
Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day.
But one day, I know
it will be otherwise.
9dianeham
>8 BLBera: gave me goosebumps.
10dianeham
Sounds of Yes by W. S. Merwin Paris Review ISSUE 157, WINTER 2000
With the birds I suppose there is
small comparison no holding
up of what may be remembered
of another year through the one
that is here
so to the cuckoo
calling now through rain in cold May
and to the oriole coming near
as the young leaves of the hawthorn
darken and to the robin on
the slender branch this must all be
what they recognize as though it
had always been just as it is
and they call it by their own names
With the birds I suppose there is
small comparison no holding
up of what may be remembered
of another year through the one
that is here
so to the cuckoo
calling now through rain in cold May
and to the oriole coming near
as the young leaves of the hawthorn
darken and to the robin on
the slender branch this must all be
what they recognize as though it
had always been just as it is
and they call it by their own names
11dianeham
Little Songs by Rowan Ricardo Phillips
I write my little song. And you call it
Guitar noodle. You write without you here.
And I call it the poem with you here in it.
We have entered each other’s atmosphere
In isolation, the way a bee knows
The deep shadows in the folds of a flower
But doesn’t know what a bouquet is, those
Rows of spectrumed tulips in Holland are
Work to it, bees in empty thought noodling
Over lavender and ocher and quince,
A thing, not something, but a true thing,
Like the difference between crisis and Chris,
The difference between time and a Timex,
The difference between a bed and a desk.
From Paris Review issue no. 218 (Fall 2016)
I write my little song. And you call it
Guitar noodle. You write without you here.
And I call it the poem with you here in it.
We have entered each other’s atmosphere
In isolation, the way a bee knows
The deep shadows in the folds of a flower
But doesn’t know what a bouquet is, those
Rows of spectrumed tulips in Holland are
Work to it, bees in empty thought noodling
Over lavender and ocher and quince,
A thing, not something, but a true thing,
Like the difference between crisis and Chris,
The difference between time and a Timex,
The difference between a bed and a desk.
From Paris Review issue no. 218 (Fall 2016)
12Caroline_McElwee
>1 dianeham: Love the quote.
>2 dianeham: One of my favourites as well.
>8 BLBera: A good one Beth. I should get her volume off the shelf again, its been a while.
>10 dianeham: >11 dianeham: both beautiful in different ways.
Happy New Year everyone.
>2 dianeham: One of my favourites as well.
>8 BLBera: A good one Beth. I should get her volume off the shelf again, its been a while.
>10 dianeham: >11 dianeham: both beautiful in different ways.
Happy New Year everyone.
13Caroline_McElwee
A wonderful debut volume which I will be reading again over the next few days. It includes poems about neurodiversity.
From Octopus Mind (Rachel Carney) (24/12/23) ****1/2
(Seren books)
14dianeham
>13 Caroline_McElwee: thanks for stopping by and dropping that lovely poem.
15dianeham
You guys might think I’m crazy but I’m very excited. I’m getting an individual subscription to Granger’s Poetry Index for only $50. I tried to find a way to do this 2 years ago but gave up. I don’t think they had the individual option then or I couldn’t find it. I tried to get it through any of the colleges I went to but had no success. Went looking for it earlier this week and there it was. I used it years ago and it had lots of full text so hope it still does.
So if anyone here remembers an opening line of a poem - or any line - and wants to find the poem - then we’ll have the solution. I should be able to post many more poems and follow a theme, a school of poetry or a specific poet. Our access to poems will be almost endless - I hope.
So if anyone here remembers an opening line of a poem - or any line - and wants to find the poem - then we’ll have the solution. I should be able to post many more poems and follow a theme, a school of poetry or a specific poet. Our access to poems will be almost endless - I hope.
17dianeham
About The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry®
The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry contains 300,000 poems in full text and 450,000 citations, numbers that will continually expand with each update. The poems in full text are the most widely-read in the English language, as well as in Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Included also is poetry in Portuguese, Polish, Yiddish, Welsh, Gaelic, and other Celtic languages, as well as poems in the ancient languages: Anglo-Saxon, Provencal and Latin. Scholars in each of these languages have reviewed and guided the selection of poems, so that the poetry on Granger’s is also the poetry encountered in the classroom.
The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry offers complete coverage of the works of several individual great poets, including the complete poems of Shelley, Blake, Burns, Keats, Marvell, Poe, Unamuno, Heine, Baudelaire, and other major poets.
In addition users will find a wealth of current poetry from some of the best poetry periodicals, such as Poetry Magazine, The Southern Review, and Poetry Northwest.
The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry contains 300,000 poems in full text and 450,000 citations, numbers that will continually expand with each update. The poems in full text are the most widely-read in the English language, as well as in Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Included also is poetry in Portuguese, Polish, Yiddish, Welsh, Gaelic, and other Celtic languages, as well as poems in the ancient languages: Anglo-Saxon, Provencal and Latin. Scholars in each of these languages have reviewed and guided the selection of poems, so that the poetry on Granger’s is also the poetry encountered in the classroom.
The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry offers complete coverage of the works of several individual great poets, including the complete poems of Shelley, Blake, Burns, Keats, Marvell, Poe, Unamuno, Heine, Baudelaire, and other major poets.
In addition users will find a wealth of current poetry from some of the best poetry periodicals, such as Poetry Magazine, The Southern Review, and Poetry Northwest.
18dchaikin
What a fantastic resource. Thanks for bringing it up. And share your thoughts on your subscription!
19dianeham
>18 dchaikin: I’m more than willing to look things up for people. I am a librarian after all.
20ayushibs
>13 Caroline_McElwee: gosh!! Such a lovely poem it is! Well I would say debut books can be on more publishing platforms for variety of readers!!
21lisapeet
>17 dianeham: Cool resource! Have you been playing around with it?
22dianeham
>21 lisapeet: years ago we had it at my library and I played around with it then. But It didn’t get used much - except for me - and the library discontinued it.
23dianeham
Jane Flanders
Ma Goose: The Interrogation
Who killed Cock Robin?
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
What’s in the cupboard?
Have you any wool?
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
Where have you been?
Have you any wool?
How many hairs to make a wig?
Where have you been?
How many miles to Babylon?
How many hairs to make a wig?
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?
How many miles to Babylon?
How many were going to St. Ives?
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?
Whose dog art thou?
How many were going to St. Ives?
How does your garden grow?
Whose dog art thou?
Are the children in their beds?
How does your garden grow?
What’s in the cupboard?
Are the children in their beds?
Who killed Cock Robin?
From Paris Review issue no. 134 (Spring 1995)
Ma Goose: The Interrogation
Who killed Cock Robin?
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
What’s in the cupboard?
Have you any wool?
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
Where have you been?
Have you any wool?
How many hairs to make a wig?
Where have you been?
How many miles to Babylon?
How many hairs to make a wig?
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?
How many miles to Babylon?
How many were going to St. Ives?
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?
Whose dog art thou?
How many were going to St. Ives?
How does your garden grow?
Whose dog art thou?
Are the children in their beds?
How does your garden grow?
What’s in the cupboard?
Are the children in their beds?
Who killed Cock Robin?
From Paris Review issue no. 134 (Spring 1995)
24dchaikin
>23 dianeham: sometimes parenthood felt that way.
25dianeham
>24 dchaikin: i’m not familiar with the "how many hairs to make a wig" one.
26dchaikin
https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1669 🙂 Whose dog art thou? Doesn’t ring a bell either.
27dianeham
>26 dchaikin: thank you Dan. I’ve been dieting to lose weight since March and it seems to have thinned out my hair. But can’t imagine myself in a wig- certainly need more than 4 and twenty hairs.
28dianeham
Ballad of Birmingham BY DUDLEY RANDALL
(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)
“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”
“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”
A Note from the Editor
Dudley Randall was born on this day 110 years ago.
30msf59
When I Was a Little Cuban Boy
O Jose can you see... that's how I sang it, when I was
a cubanito in Miami, and America was some country
in the glossy pages of my history book, someplace
way north, everyone white, cold, perfect. This Land
is my Land, so why didn't I live there, in a brick house
with a fireplace, a chimney with curlicues of smoke.
I wanted to wear breeches and stockings to my chins,
those black pilgrim shoes with shiny gold buckles.
I wanted to eat yams with the Indians, shake hands
with los negros, and dash through snow I'd never seen
in a one-horse hope-n-say? I wanted to speak in British,
say really smart stuff like fours core and seven years ago
or one country under God, in the visible. I wanted to see
that land with no palm trees, only the strange sounds
of flowers like petunias, peonies, impatience, waiting
to walk through a door someday, somewhere in God
Bless America and say, Lucy, I'm home, honey, I'm home.
-by Richard Blanco
from my current poetry collection Homeland of My Body.
O Jose can you see... that's how I sang it, when I was
a cubanito in Miami, and America was some country
in the glossy pages of my history book, someplace
way north, everyone white, cold, perfect. This Land
is my Land, so why didn't I live there, in a brick house
with a fireplace, a chimney with curlicues of smoke.
I wanted to wear breeches and stockings to my chins,
those black pilgrim shoes with shiny gold buckles.
I wanted to eat yams with the Indians, shake hands
with los negros, and dash through snow I'd never seen
in a one-horse hope-n-say? I wanted to speak in British,
say really smart stuff like fours core and seven years ago
or one country under God, in the visible. I wanted to see
that land with no palm trees, only the strange sounds
of flowers like petunias, peonies, impatience, waiting
to walk through a door someday, somewhere in God
Bless America and say, Lucy, I'm home, honey, I'm home.
-by Richard Blanco
from my current poetry collection Homeland of My Body.
32FlorenceArt
>30 msf59: Love it.
33dchaikin
>30 msf59: i love that!
34msf59
Seventeen Funerals
Seventeen suns rising in seventeen bedroom windows. Thirty-four eyes blooming open with the light of one more morning. Seventeen reflections in the bathroom mirror. Seventeen backpacks or briefcases stuffed with textbooks or lesson plans. Seventeen good mornings at kitchen breakfasts and seventeen goodbyes at front doors. Seventeen drives through palm-lined streets and miles of crammed highways to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at 5901 Pine Island Road. The first bell ringing-in one last school day on February fourteenth, 2018. Seventeen echoes of footsteps down hallways for five class periods: algebra, poetry, biology, art, history. Seventeen hands writing on whiteboards or taking notes at their desks until the first gunshot at 2:21pm. One AR-15 rifle in the hands of a nineteen year old mind turning hate for himself into hate for others, into one-hundred fifty bullets fired in six minutes through building number twelve. Seventeen dead carried down hallways they walked, past cases of trophies they won, flyers for clubs they belonged to, lockers they won’t open again. Seventeen Valentine’s Day dates broken and cards unopened. Seventeen bodies to identify, dozens of photo albums to page through and remember their lives. Seventeen caskets and burial garments to choose for them. Seventeen funerals to attend in twelve days. Seventeen graves dug and headstones placed—all marked with the same date of death. Seventeen names: Alyssa. Helena. Scott. Martin—seventeen absentees forever—Nicholas. Aaron. Jamie. Luke—seventeen closets to clear out—Christopher. Cara. Gina. Joaquin—seventeen empty beds—Alaina. Meadow. Alex. Carmen. Peter—seventeen reasons to rebel with the hope these will be the last seventeen to be taken by one of three-hundred-ninety-three-million guns in America.
-Richard Blanco
from the poetry collection Homeland of My Body.
Seventeen suns rising in seventeen bedroom windows. Thirty-four eyes blooming open with the light of one more morning. Seventeen reflections in the bathroom mirror. Seventeen backpacks or briefcases stuffed with textbooks or lesson plans. Seventeen good mornings at kitchen breakfasts and seventeen goodbyes at front doors. Seventeen drives through palm-lined streets and miles of crammed highways to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at 5901 Pine Island Road. The first bell ringing-in one last school day on February fourteenth, 2018. Seventeen echoes of footsteps down hallways for five class periods: algebra, poetry, biology, art, history. Seventeen hands writing on whiteboards or taking notes at their desks until the first gunshot at 2:21pm. One AR-15 rifle in the hands of a nineteen year old mind turning hate for himself into hate for others, into one-hundred fifty bullets fired in six minutes through building number twelve. Seventeen dead carried down hallways they walked, past cases of trophies they won, flyers for clubs they belonged to, lockers they won’t open again. Seventeen Valentine’s Day dates broken and cards unopened. Seventeen bodies to identify, dozens of photo albums to page through and remember their lives. Seventeen caskets and burial garments to choose for them. Seventeen funerals to attend in twelve days. Seventeen graves dug and headstones placed—all marked with the same date of death. Seventeen names: Alyssa. Helena. Scott. Martin—seventeen absentees forever—Nicholas. Aaron. Jamie. Luke—seventeen closets to clear out—Christopher. Cara. Gina. Joaquin—seventeen empty beds—Alaina. Meadow. Alex. Carmen. Peter—seventeen reasons to rebel with the hope these will be the last seventeen to be taken by one of three-hundred-ninety-three-million guns in America.
-Richard Blanco
from the poetry collection Homeland of My Body.
35dchaikin
>34 msf59: that was tough. My own high school classmates had their kids in the school, which isn’t that far from where i went to high school. I was in Jerusalem that day, alone after a conference, and put a prayer in the wall.
36msf59
The Lost Breath of Trees
1.
in the days before urban sprawl this town
remained no more than cow pastures
logs skidding down to the harbor
gulls riding them like surfboards
a green belt embraced the one road north
a hundred years they say until the lease expired
in those days trees lining each side threw shade over
hippies and geese bound to the same direction
this was the rainforest and we took
for granted the trees that sheltered the sun
in shimmering light the music of wind
and leaves that left air breathable
we thought the developers would never come
that Eden would last forever
2.
if I remember well the first to go
was the old growth Ponderosa near the school
what a racket all that sawing and sawing
no sapling that one stubborn tough
from thick outer ring to the core
on overhead wires larks crows and common wrens
lined up like jurors surveying a crime scene
chortling and cackling a chorus of what’s
this what’s this come see come see
every so often one broke rank
and swooped toward the cantilevered trunk
as if they could bring back to life those limbs
where each night they had fought to gain purchase
circling as if remembering the canopy
before the thieving ravens evicted them
swirling in all directions birds
leaves one and the same into a vortex until
the tree shivered one last time and fell
still I listen for the rustle of leaves
sweeping clean the air
3.
among the shadows of WWII bombers crashed
on test flights old growth forests thrive
in the deep waters of Lake Washington
know that the ghosts of forests reside in every city
now and again a crack in the pavement
yields to a sprig with one leaf unfurling
to what might have been the lush undergrowth
of rainforest or village green
stumps of roots fingering toward the sky
remnants knuckled in a path
stubborn as the gnarled toes of an old man
struggling across the road
bark tough as leather peeled and frayed
the banyan the elm the oak and spruce
the cypress the pine the redwood and willow
a sigh a whisper a breath of fresh air
4.
one morning on the sun-drenched asphalt
a blue feather lay as if fallen by magic
from some child’s dream of angels
was there ever a bird so blue so
cobalt perfect from downy barbs to vanes
to fall undamaged by progress
among the squalor of high-rises and noise
of backhoes awakening each morning
was this an omen an augury a straw in the wind
to land here where few trees thrive
you look up at the birdless sky think:
this is a city this a mountain
this a remnant of the rainforest.
-Colleen J. McElroy From Poem-A-Day
1.
in the days before urban sprawl this town
remained no more than cow pastures
logs skidding down to the harbor
gulls riding them like surfboards
a green belt embraced the one road north
a hundred years they say until the lease expired
in those days trees lining each side threw shade over
hippies and geese bound to the same direction
this was the rainforest and we took
for granted the trees that sheltered the sun
in shimmering light the music of wind
and leaves that left air breathable
we thought the developers would never come
that Eden would last forever
2.
if I remember well the first to go
was the old growth Ponderosa near the school
what a racket all that sawing and sawing
no sapling that one stubborn tough
from thick outer ring to the core
on overhead wires larks crows and common wrens
lined up like jurors surveying a crime scene
chortling and cackling a chorus of what’s
this what’s this come see come see
every so often one broke rank
and swooped toward the cantilevered trunk
as if they could bring back to life those limbs
where each night they had fought to gain purchase
circling as if remembering the canopy
before the thieving ravens evicted them
swirling in all directions birds
leaves one and the same into a vortex until
the tree shivered one last time and fell
still I listen for the rustle of leaves
sweeping clean the air
3.
among the shadows of WWII bombers crashed
on test flights old growth forests thrive
in the deep waters of Lake Washington
know that the ghosts of forests reside in every city
now and again a crack in the pavement
yields to a sprig with one leaf unfurling
to what might have been the lush undergrowth
of rainforest or village green
stumps of roots fingering toward the sky
remnants knuckled in a path
stubborn as the gnarled toes of an old man
struggling across the road
bark tough as leather peeled and frayed
the banyan the elm the oak and spruce
the cypress the pine the redwood and willow
a sigh a whisper a breath of fresh air
4.
one morning on the sun-drenched asphalt
a blue feather lay as if fallen by magic
from some child’s dream of angels
was there ever a bird so blue so
cobalt perfect from downy barbs to vanes
to fall undamaged by progress
among the squalor of high-rises and noise
of backhoes awakening each morning
was this an omen an augury a straw in the wind
to land here where few trees thrive
you look up at the birdless sky think:
this is a city this a mountain
this a remnant of the rainforest.
-Colleen J. McElroy From Poem-A-Day
37msf59
>35 dchaikin: Sorry, that touched so close to home, Daniel. What an awful tragedy.
38dchaikin
>36 msf59: guess that’s true about everywhere, including my part of the world these past 25 yrs. Massive development
39dianeham
My Doggy Ate My Essay BY DARREN SARDELLI
My doggy ate my essay.
He picked up all my mail.
He cleaned my dirty closet
and dusted with his tail.
He straightened out my posters
and swept my wooden floor.
My parents almost fainted
when he fixed my bedroom door.
I did not try to stop him.
He made my windows shine.
My room looked like a palace,
and my dresser smelled like pine.
He fluffed up every pillow.
He folded all my clothes.
He even cleaned my fish tank
with a toothbrush and a hose.
I thought it was amazing
to see him use a broom.
I’m glad he ate my essay
on “How to Clean My Room.”
40msf59
>39 dianeham: That sounds like the perfect doggy. I WANT one!! 😁
41markon
>40 msf59: Me too!
42BLBera
>39 dianeham: LOVE the doggy poem!
43Julie_in_the_Library
>39 dianeham: Excellent! What a great poem to start the day!
44Caroline_McElwee
>34 msf59: >39 dianeham: Wonderful poems in very different ways, tragedy and comedy.
45dianeham
1/25 is Burns’ birthday
To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church
Robert Burns
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gawze and lace;
Tho’ faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn’d, by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
On some poor body.
Swith, in some beggar’s haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle,
Your thick plantations.
Now haud you there, ye’re out o’ sight,
Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight,
Na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,
Till ye’ve got on it,
The vera topmost, towrin height
O’ Miss’s bonnet.
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an’ gray as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
Wad dress your droddum!
I wad na been surpriz’d to spy
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On ’s wylecoat;
But Miss’s fine Lunardi, fye!
How daur ye do ’t?
O Jenny dinna toss your head,
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie’s makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
And ev’n Devotion!
To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church
Robert Burns
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gawze and lace;
Tho’ faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn’d, by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
On some poor body.
Swith, in some beggar’s haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle,
Your thick plantations.
Now haud you there, ye’re out o’ sight,
Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight,
Na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,
Till ye’ve got on it,
The vera topmost, towrin height
O’ Miss’s bonnet.
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an’ gray as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
Wad dress your droddum!
I wad na been surpriz’d to spy
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On ’s wylecoat;
But Miss’s fine Lunardi, fye!
How daur ye do ’t?
O Jenny dinna toss your head,
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie’s makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
And ev’n Devotion!
46dchaikin
Timely. I didn’t understand much but still enjoyed that. Goes well with my Chaucer reading.
47dianeham
>46 dchaikin: That’s funny. I thought of you when I posted it. When I was looking it up last night I saw "an English translation" listed. It was late and I ignored it. Think I’ll look at it now. The last stanza is my favorite.
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
48dianeham
Translation
To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church
Robert Burns
Ha! Where are you going, you crawling wonder?
Your impudence protects you sorely,
I can not say but you swagger rarely
Over gauze and lace,
Though faith! I fear you dine but sparingly
On such a place
You ugly, creeping, blasted wonder,
Detested, shunned by saint and sinner,
How dare you set your foot upon her -
Such fine a lady!
Go somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body
Off! in some beggar's temples squat:
There you may creep, and sprawl, and scramble,
With other kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Where horn nor bone never dare unsettle
Your thick plantations
Now hold you there! you are out of sight,
Below the falderals, snug and tight;
No, faith you yet! you will not be right,
Until you have got on it ---
The very topmost, towering height
Of misses bonnet.
My sooth! right bold you set your nose out,
As plump and gray as any gooseberry:
O for some rank, mercurial resin,
Or deadly, red powder,
I would give you such a hearty dose of it,
Would dress your breech!
I would not have been surprised to spy
You on an old wife's flannel cap:
Or maybe some small ragged boy,
On his undervest;
But Miss's fine balloon bonnet! fye!
How dare you do it.
O Jenny do not toss your head,
And set your beauties all abroad!
You little know what cursed speed
The blastie's making!
Those winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takiing!
O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!
To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church
Robert Burns
Ha! Where are you going, you crawling wonder?
Your impudence protects you sorely,
I can not say but you swagger rarely
Over gauze and lace,
Though faith! I fear you dine but sparingly
On such a place
You ugly, creeping, blasted wonder,
Detested, shunned by saint and sinner,
How dare you set your foot upon her -
Such fine a lady!
Go somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body
Off! in some beggar's temples squat:
There you may creep, and sprawl, and scramble,
With other kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Where horn nor bone never dare unsettle
Your thick plantations
Now hold you there! you are out of sight,
Below the falderals, snug and tight;
No, faith you yet! you will not be right,
Until you have got on it ---
The very topmost, towering height
Of misses bonnet.
My sooth! right bold you set your nose out,
As plump and gray as any gooseberry:
O for some rank, mercurial resin,
Or deadly, red powder,
I would give you such a hearty dose of it,
Would dress your breech!
I would not have been surprised to spy
You on an old wife's flannel cap:
Or maybe some small ragged boy,
On his undervest;
But Miss's fine balloon bonnet! fye!
How dare you do it.
O Jenny do not toss your head,
And set your beauties all abroad!
You little know what cursed speed
The blastie's making!
Those winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takiing!
O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!
49dchaikin
That helps! Thanks! (Even if I feel i need a translation of the translation. falderals? dress your breech?)
50dianeham
Today is Yeats death day.
When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
51rv1988
>50 dianeham: Lovely. One of my favourites by Yeats.
52dianeham
>51 rv1988: mine too! :)
53arubabookwoman
>48 dianeham: But what is it? A flea? A cockroach? (Do they have cockroaches in Scotland?) A bee?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Inquiring minds want to know.
54dchaikin
>50 dianeham: I enjoyed that (even if my brain failed to process “the glowing bars”)
55dianeham
>53 arubabookwoman: it’s a louse - plural lice.
"either of two small wingless parasitic insects that live on the skin of mammals and birds."
"either of two small wingless parasitic insects that live on the skin of mammals and birds."
56dianeham
>54 dchaikin: I found this online
Question: What does "glowing bars"mean in the poem "When You Are Old"?
Answer: The reference is to the bars of an old fashioned electric fire, which glow red when they become hot.
Question: What does "glowing bars"mean in the poem "When You Are Old"?
Answer: The reference is to the bars of an old fashioned electric fire, which glow red when they become hot.
57dchaikin
>56 dianeham: thanks! 🙂
58BLBera
>50 dianeham: I love it.
59rv1988
Taking a leaf from Diane's book, today is the birth anniversary of Augusta Webster, an extraordinary 19th writer, translator, poet, and dramatist (her wiki page ). Sometime back The Guardian featured a bit of her poem, Medea in Athens. The poem is part of a series of monologues she wrote, titled Portraits, and Carol Rumens has a nice essay on how complex, and adept, her psychological portrait of Medea is. Here's a bit that I liked very much, of Medea slowly coming to terms with the news of Jason's death. For those unfamiliar; Medea married Jason, who was unfaithful; in rage, she slays his new bride, as well as the two sons she had with Jason. In this account, she is remarried to Aegeas, and has another son.
He should still pine and wine,
hungry for his old lost strong food of life
vanished with me, hungry for children's love,
hungry for me. Ever to think of me —
with love, with hate, what care I? hate is love —
Ever to think and long. Oh it was well!
Yea, my new marriage hope has been achieved :
for he did count me happy, picture me
happy with Aegeus; he did dream of me
as all to Aegeus that I was to him,
and to him nothing; and did yearn for me
and know me lost — we two so far apart
as dead and living, I an envied wife
and he alone and childless. Jason, Jason,
come back to earth; live, live for my revenge.
But lo the man is dead: I am forgotten.
Forgotten; something goes from life in that —
as if oneself had died, when the half self
of one's true living time has slipped away
from reach of memories, has ceased to know
that such a woman is.
A wondrous thing
to be so separate having been so near —
near by hate last and once by so strong love.
Would love have kept us near if he had died
in the good days? Tush, I should have died too:
we should have gone together, hand in hand,
and made dusk Hades glorious each to each.
He should still pine and wine,
hungry for his old lost strong food of life
vanished with me, hungry for children's love,
hungry for me. Ever to think of me —
with love, with hate, what care I? hate is love —
Ever to think and long. Oh it was well!
Yea, my new marriage hope has been achieved :
for he did count me happy, picture me
happy with Aegeus; he did dream of me
as all to Aegeus that I was to him,
and to him nothing; and did yearn for me
and know me lost — we two so far apart
as dead and living, I an envied wife
and he alone and childless. Jason, Jason,
come back to earth; live, live for my revenge.
But lo the man is dead: I am forgotten.
Forgotten; something goes from life in that —
as if oneself had died, when the half self
of one's true living time has slipped away
from reach of memories, has ceased to know
that such a woman is.
A wondrous thing
to be so separate having been so near —
near by hate last and once by so strong love.
Would love have kept us near if he had died
in the good days? Tush, I should have died too:
we should have gone together, hand in hand,
and made dusk Hades glorious each to each.
60dchaikin
Good stuff. I had fun reading the Classic Greek plays, and Euripides’ Medea was one that hangs around.
62savisnothere_1234
Lost
There is a lot that has been said,
Too much that has been done
Have I turned the lights out,
Have you ever seen me in the light
Could you even
It is a table that gets turned
Not the person
So, do not lie because I will be able to tell
It hurts to look your direction
Because I know it will only kill me slowly
I know you enough to see that
I do not want to kill the killer
But it must be done
Or it will kill me
It will kill the host
The soul of the prey
Is his not yours
Always
Savannah Huff
There is a lot that has been said,
Too much that has been done
Have I turned the lights out,
Have you ever seen me in the light
Could you even
It is a table that gets turned
Not the person
So, do not lie because I will be able to tell
It hurts to look your direction
Because I know it will only kill me slowly
I know you enough to see that
I do not want to kill the killer
But it must be done
Or it will kill me
It will kill the host
The soul of the prey
Is his not yours
Always
Savannah Huff
63dianeham
This made me smile!
Sunsets by Blaise Cendrars
Everybody talks about sunsets
All travelers agree about talking about sunsets in these latitudes
There are books filled with nothing but descriptions of sunsets
The tropical sunsets
Yes it’s true they’re splendid
But I really prefer the sunrises
Dawn
I never miss one
I’m always on the bridge
Jumping up and down
And I’m always alone admiring them
But I’m not going to describe them the dawns
I’m going to keep them for me alone
—Translated from the French by Ron Padgett
From Paris Review issue no. 37 (Spring 1966)
Sunsets by Blaise Cendrars
Everybody talks about sunsets
All travelers agree about talking about sunsets in these latitudes
There are books filled with nothing but descriptions of sunsets
The tropical sunsets
Yes it’s true they’re splendid
But I really prefer the sunrises
Dawn
I never miss one
I’m always on the bridge
Jumping up and down
And I’m always alone admiring them
But I’m not going to describe them the dawns
I’m going to keep them for me alone
—Translated from the French by Ron Padgett
From Paris Review issue no. 37 (Spring 1966)
65lisapeet
From The Slowdown:
The Lifeline
By Pádraig Ó Tuama
Here is what I know: when
that bell tolls again, I
need to go and make something,
anything: a poem, a pie, a terrible
scarf with my terrible knitting, I
need to write a letter, remind myself
of any little lifeline around me.
When death sounds, I forget most
of what I learnt before. I go below.
I compare my echoes with other people’s
happiness. I carve that hole in my own
chest again, pull out all my organs once
again, wonder if they’ll ever work again
stuff them back again. Begin. Again.
The Lifeline
By Pádraig Ó Tuama
Here is what I know: when
that bell tolls again, I
need to go and make something,
anything: a poem, a pie, a terrible
scarf with my terrible knitting, I
need to write a letter, remind myself
of any little lifeline around me.
When death sounds, I forget most
of what I learnt before. I go below.
I compare my echoes with other people’s
happiness. I carve that hole in my own
chest again, pull out all my organs once
again, wonder if they’ll ever work again
stuff them back again. Begin. Again.
66lisapeet
Also from The Slowdown (I'm looking for a poem to copy into a Valentine's card for a dear mutual support friend, and these two are both contenders... yeah, I'm not a Hallmark holiday person really, but these resonate):
To The Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall
By Kim Addonizio
If you ever woke in your dress at 4am ever
closed your legs to someone you loved opened
them for someone you didn’t moved against
a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach
seaweed clinging to your ankles paid
good money for a bad haircut backed away
from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled
into the back seat for lack of a tampon
if you swam across a river under rain sang
using a dildo for a microphone stayed up
to watch the moon eat the sun entire
ripped out the stitches in your heart
because why not if you think nothing &
no one can / listen I love you joy is coming
To The Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall
By Kim Addonizio
If you ever woke in your dress at 4am ever
closed your legs to someone you loved opened
them for someone you didn’t moved against
a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach
seaweed clinging to your ankles paid
good money for a bad haircut backed away
from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled
into the back seat for lack of a tampon
if you swam across a river under rain sang
using a dildo for a microphone stayed up
to watch the moon eat the sun entire
ripped out the stitches in your heart
because why not if you think nothing &
no one can / listen I love you joy is coming
68dianeham
They are great, Lisa. I still think the past tense of learn is learnt (as in the first poem) but I was told it sounds uneducated. I think it was all the Irish nuns I had in school or from reading English poetry. I also say dreamt.
ETA: what’s the Slowdown?
ETA: what’s the Slowdown?
69msf59
Ode to a Dolly Parton Drag Queen
She lip-syncs “Hello God,” then “9 to 5.”
She struts. Or does she fly? Like the soul,
a rhinestone, she tells us, will never die.
She’s a blush-pink Bible. Patched together,
she’s a cosmic doll. Mirror of a mirror,
she winks, her face the only face. Anchors
of abundance, her breasts are the news—
more is more is more. A baptismal font,
a witch-walk down the last dirt road,
she’s hillbilly blood on a silk bandana. Marilyn
or Medusa? Caked lipstick on a flatbed truck.
She’s Styrofoam in a cowgirl case. Starlight
on a stage. She’s all eyeliner. She will not scare.
She’s the endless tease of her acrylic hair.
by Bruce Snider
She lip-syncs “Hello God,” then “9 to 5.”
She struts. Or does she fly? Like the soul,
a rhinestone, she tells us, will never die.
She’s a blush-pink Bible. Patched together,
she’s a cosmic doll. Mirror of a mirror,
she winks, her face the only face. Anchors
of abundance, her breasts are the news—
more is more is more. A baptismal font,
a witch-walk down the last dirt road,
she’s hillbilly blood on a silk bandana. Marilyn
or Medusa? Caked lipstick on a flatbed truck.
She’s Styrofoam in a cowgirl case. Starlight
on a stage. She’s all eyeliner. She will not scare.
She’s the endless tease of her acrylic hair.
by Bruce Snider
70msf59
>62 savisnothere_1234: I like the "Lost" poem.
>63 dianeham: This made me smile too. 😁
>66 lisapeet: I really like this one. Thanks for sharing.
>63 dianeham: This made me smile too. 😁
>66 lisapeet: I really like this one. Thanks for sharing.
71lisapeet
>68 dianeham: The Slowdown is a poetry podcast, plus you can sign up to get a poem a day in your inbox (which is how I mostly use it).
I sent my friend the Kim Addonizio poem. She'll like it.
I sent my friend the Kim Addonizio poem. She'll like it.
72dchaikin
>65 lisapeet: my first thought was, that’s one way to handle entropy. Maybe I should feel a little cold for thinking that.
Enjoyed all these poems, all.
Enjoyed all these poems, all.
73dianeham
>69 msf59: "she’s hillbilly blood on a silk bandana" interesting turn of phrase. Love it.
>68 dianeham: I subscribed to Slowdown but must have stopped. Just resubscribed. Thanks.
>68 dianeham: I subscribed to Slowdown but must have stopped. Just resubscribed. Thanks.
74msf59
Sport
Life
For him
Must be
The shivering of
A great drum
Beaten with swift sticks
Then at the closing hour
The lights go out
And there is no music at all
And death becomes
An empty cabaret
And eternity an unblown saxophone
And yesterday
A glass of gin
Drunk long
Ago
-Langston Hughes From Poem-A-Day
Life
For him
Must be
The shivering of
A great drum
Beaten with swift sticks
Then at the closing hour
The lights go out
And there is no music at all
And death becomes
An empty cabaret
And eternity an unblown saxophone
And yesterday
A glass of gin
Drunk long
Ago
-Langston Hughes From Poem-A-Day
77markon
the earth is a living thing
is a black shambling bear
ruffling its wild back and tossing
mountains into the sea
is a black hawk circling
the burying ground circling the bones
picked clean and discarded
is a fish black blind in the belly of water
is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal
is a black and living thing
is a favorite child of the universe
feel her rolling her hand
in its kinky hair
feel her brushing it clean
Lucille Clifton from The book of light & as an epigraph in Wild girls by Tiya Miles which I just started reading.
is a black shambling bear
ruffling its wild back and tossing
mountains into the sea
is a black hawk circling
the burying ground circling the bones
picked clean and discarded
is a fish black blind in the belly of water
is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal
is a black and living thing
is a favorite child of the universe
feel her rolling her hand
in its kinky hair
feel her brushing it clean
Lucille Clifton from The book of light & as an epigraph in Wild girls by Tiya Miles which I just started reading.
78Caroline_McElwee
Thank you all, some lovely poems.
79Julie_in_the_Library
The Cremation of Sam McGee
By Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
By Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
80Treebeard_404
>13 Caroline_McElwee: the link you have associated with "Octopus Mind" is incorrect, in case you wish to modify it.
81Treebeard_404
2023 will go down in my memory as the year I finally began to truly appreciate poetry. I am so happy to have tumbled on this discussion group.
82BLBera
I always smile when I see "The Cremation of Sam McGee." It's my father's favorite poem.
I am reading Richard Blanco's new collection and it is wonderful, but his poems are really long, so I haven't copied any.
I am reading Richard Blanco's new collection and it is wonderful, but his poems are really long, so I haven't copied any.
83dianeham
>81 Treebeard_404: Welcome. Feel free to post your favorite poems.
84dianeham
New York Poem by Terrance Hayes
In New York from a rooftop in Chinatown
one can see the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of buildings where there are more miles
of shortcuts and alternative takes than
there are Miles Davis alternative takes.
There is a white girl who looks hi-
jacked with feeling in her glittering jacket
and her boots that look made of dinosaur
skin and R is saying to her I love you
again and again. On a Chinatown rooftop
in New York anything can happen.
Someone says “abattoir” is such a pretty word
for “slaughterhouse.” Some one says
mermaids are just fish ladies. I am so
fucking vain I cannot believe anyone
is threatened by me. In New York
not everyone is forgiven. Dear New York,
dear girl with a barcode tattooed
on the side of your face, and everyone
writing poems about and inside and outside
the subways, dear people underground
in New York, on the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of New York, on the rooftops of Chinatown
where Miles Davis is pumping in,
and someone is telling me about contranymns,
how “cleave” and “cleave” are the same word
looking in opposite directions, I now know
“bolt” is to lock and “bolt” is to run away.
That’s how I think of New York. Someone
jonesing for Grace Jones at the party,
and someone jonesing for grace.
In New York from a rooftop in Chinatown
one can see the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of buildings where there are more miles
of shortcuts and alternative takes than
there are Miles Davis alternative takes.
There is a white girl who looks hi-
jacked with feeling in her glittering jacket
and her boots that look made of dinosaur
skin and R is saying to her I love you
again and again. On a Chinatown rooftop
in New York anything can happen.
Someone says “abattoir” is such a pretty word
for “slaughterhouse.” Some one says
mermaids are just fish ladies. I am so
fucking vain I cannot believe anyone
is threatened by me. In New York
not everyone is forgiven. Dear New York,
dear girl with a barcode tattooed
on the side of your face, and everyone
writing poems about and inside and outside
the subways, dear people underground
in New York, on the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of New York, on the rooftops of Chinatown
where Miles Davis is pumping in,
and someone is telling me about contranymns,
how “cleave” and “cleave” are the same word
looking in opposite directions, I now know
“bolt” is to lock and “bolt” is to run away.
That’s how I think of New York. Someone
jonesing for Grace Jones at the party,
and someone jonesing for grace.
85dchaikin
>79 Julie_in_the_Library: new to me. Fun stuff.
>81 Treebeard_404: welcome
>85 dchaikin: loved this one. Abattoir is an oddly pretty word.
>81 Treebeard_404: welcome
>85 dchaikin: loved this one. Abattoir is an oddly pretty word.
86dianeham
Paul Binding. The university of oblivion: Sweden’s leading postwar poet. Review of: THE BLUE HOUSE: Collected works of Tomas Tranströmer / translated by Patty Crane; introduction by Yusef Komunyakaa.
87Julie_in_the_Library
My Country by Dorothea Mackellar
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Image is from AllPoetry.com, which also features a recording of the poet reading her poem.
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Image is from AllPoetry.com, which also features a recording of the poet reading her poem.88Julie_in_the_Library
Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. “Poor young chap,”
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. “Poor young chap,”
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
89msf59
>77 markon: I love the Clifton poem. 👍
>79 Julie_in_the_Library: The Sam McGee poem is a classic!
>84 dianeham: I really like the Hayes poem. 👍
>79 Julie_in_the_Library: The Sam McGee poem is a classic!
>84 dianeham: I really like the Hayes poem. 👍
90msf59
Asked for a Happy Memory of Her Father, She Recalls Wrigley Field
His drinking was different in sunshine,
as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,
he swung into a laugh, bought me
two ice creams, said One for each hand.
Half the hot inning I licked Good Humor
running down wrists. My bird-mother
earlier, packing my pockets with sun block,
had hopped her warning: Be careful.
So, pinned between his knees, I held
his Old Style in both hands
while he streaked the sun block on my cheeks
and slurred My little Indian princess.
Home run: the hairy necks of the men in front
jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers
to join the violent scramble. Father
held me close and said Be careful,
be careful. But why should I be full of care
with his thick arm circling my shoulders,
with a high smiling sun, like a home run,
in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?
-Beth Ann Fennelly
His drinking was different in sunshine,
as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,
he swung into a laugh, bought me
two ice creams, said One for each hand.
Half the hot inning I licked Good Humor
running down wrists. My bird-mother
earlier, packing my pockets with sun block,
had hopped her warning: Be careful.
So, pinned between his knees, I held
his Old Style in both hands
while he streaked the sun block on my cheeks
and slurred My little Indian princess.
Home run: the hairy necks of the men in front
jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers
to join the violent scramble. Father
held me close and said Be careful,
be careful. But why should I be full of care
with his thick arm circling my shoulders,
with a high smiling sun, like a home run,
in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?
-Beth Ann Fennelly
92Treebeard_404
Heartwood, by Robert Macfarlane, from The Lost Spells
Would you hew me to the heartwood, cutter?
Would you leave me open-hearted?
Put an ear to my bark, hear my sap's mutter,
Mark my heartwood's beat, my leaves' flutter.
Would you turn me to timber, cutter?
Leave me nothing but a heap of logs, a pile of brash?
I am a world, cutter, I am a maker of life -
Drinker of rain, breaker of rocks, caster of shade, eater of sun,
I am a timekeeper, breath-giver, deep-thinker;
I am a city of butterflies, a country of creatures.
But my world takes years to grow and seconds to crash;
Your saw can fell me, your axe can bring me low.
Do you hear these words I utter? I ask this -
Have you heartwood, cutter? Have those who sent you?
Would you hew me to the heartwood, cutter?
Would you leave me open-hearted?
Put an ear to my bark, hear my sap's mutter,
Mark my heartwood's beat, my leaves' flutter.
Would you turn me to timber, cutter?
Leave me nothing but a heap of logs, a pile of brash?
I am a world, cutter, I am a maker of life -
Drinker of rain, breaker of rocks, caster of shade, eater of sun,
I am a timekeeper, breath-giver, deep-thinker;
I am a city of butterflies, a country of creatures.
But my world takes years to grow and seconds to crash;
Your saw can fell me, your axe can bring me low.
Do you hear these words I utter? I ask this -
Have you heartwood, cutter? Have those who sent you?
93msf59
>92 Treebeard_404: I love this. I am a big fan of Macfarlane. I didn't realize he wrote poetry.
94dianeham
>92 Treebeard_404: great poem. Thanks. Glad you joined us here.
95Treebeard_404
>93 msf59: Even better, there's a collection of musicians who have taken the Lost Spells poems and interpreted them as songs. MacFarlane was involved in the process. Search your favorite streamer for "The Lost Spells". The song version of "Heartwood" gives me chills every single time.
96Julie_in_the_Library
Sestina: Like
by A.E. Stallings
With a nod to Jonah Winter
Now we’re all “friends,” there is no love but Like,
A semi-demi goddess, something like
A reality-TV star look-alike,
Named Simile or Me Two. So we like
In order to be liked. It isn’t like
There’s Love or Hate now. Even plain “dislike”
Is frowned on: there’s no button for it. Like
Is something you can quantify: each “like”
You gather’s almost something money-like,
Token of virtual support. “Please like
This page to stamp out hunger.” And you’d like
To end hunger and climate change alike,
But it’s unlikely Like does diddly. Like
Just twiddles its unopposing thumbs-ups, like-
Wise props up scarecrow silences. “I’m like,
So OVER him,” I overhear. “But, like,
He doesn’t get it. Like, you know? He’s like
It’s all OK. Like I don’t even LIKE
Him anymore. Whatever. I’m all like ... ”
Take “like” out of our chat, we’d all alike
Flounder, agape, gesticulating like
A foreign film sans subtitles, fall like
Dumb phones to mooted desuetude. Unlike
With other crutches, um, when we use “like,”
We’re not just buying time on credit: Like
Displaces other words; crowds, cuckoo-like,
Endangered hatchlings from the nest. (Click “like”
If you’re against extinction!) Like is like
Invasive zebra mussels, or it’s like
Those nutria-things, or kudzu, or belike
Redundant fast food franchises, each like
(More like) the next. Those poets who dislike
Inversions, archaisms, who just like
Plain English as she’s spoke — why isn’t “like”
Their (literally) every other word? I’d like
Us just to admit that’s what real speech is like.
But as you like, my friend. Yes, we’re alike,
How we pronounce, say, lichen, and dislike
Cancer and war. So like this page. Click Like.
by A.E. Stallings
With a nod to Jonah Winter
Now we’re all “friends,” there is no love but Like,
A semi-demi goddess, something like
A reality-TV star look-alike,
Named Simile or Me Two. So we like
In order to be liked. It isn’t like
There’s Love or Hate now. Even plain “dislike”
Is frowned on: there’s no button for it. Like
Is something you can quantify: each “like”
You gather’s almost something money-like,
Token of virtual support. “Please like
This page to stamp out hunger.” And you’d like
To end hunger and climate change alike,
But it’s unlikely Like does diddly. Like
Just twiddles its unopposing thumbs-ups, like-
Wise props up scarecrow silences. “I’m like,
So OVER him,” I overhear. “But, like,
He doesn’t get it. Like, you know? He’s like
It’s all OK. Like I don’t even LIKE
Him anymore. Whatever. I’m all like ... ”
Take “like” out of our chat, we’d all alike
Flounder, agape, gesticulating like
A foreign film sans subtitles, fall like
Dumb phones to mooted desuetude. Unlike
With other crutches, um, when we use “like,”
We’re not just buying time on credit: Like
Displaces other words; crowds, cuckoo-like,
Endangered hatchlings from the nest. (Click “like”
If you’re against extinction!) Like is like
Invasive zebra mussels, or it’s like
Those nutria-things, or kudzu, or belike
Redundant fast food franchises, each like
(More like) the next. Those poets who dislike
Inversions, archaisms, who just like
Plain English as she’s spoke — why isn’t “like”
Their (literally) every other word? I’d like
Us just to admit that’s what real speech is like.
But as you like, my friend. Yes, we’re alike,
How we pronounce, say, lichen, and dislike
Cancer and war. So like this page. Click Like.
99Crypto-Willobie
>23 dianeham:
I am His Majesty's dog at Kew --
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Alexander Pope, on a royal dog-collar
I am His Majesty's dog at Kew --
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Alexander Pope, on a royal dog-collar
100Crypto-Willobie
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
James Wright
101msf59
>100 Crypto-Willobie: I really like the Wright poem. Thanks for sharing.
102msf59
The Dead
The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.
-Billy Collins
From my current collection The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing
The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.
-Billy Collins
From my current collection The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing
103BLBera
And here is a lovely morning poem from Richard Blanco's new collection Homeland of My Body.
No More than This, Provincetown
Today, home is a cottage with morning
in the yawn of an open window. I watch
the crescent moon, like a wind-blown sail,
vanish. Blue slowly fills the sky and light
regains the trust of wildflowers blooming
with fresh spiderwebs spun stem to stem.
The room rises with the toasting of bread,
a stick of butter puddling in a dish, a knife
at rest, burgundy apples ready to be halved,
a pint of blueberries bleeding on the counter,
and little more than this. A nail in the wall
with a pair of disembodied jeans, a red jersey,
and shoes embossed by the bones of my feet
and years of walking. I sit down to breakfast
over the nicks of a pinewood table and I am,
for a moment, not afraid of being no more
than what I hear and see, no more than this;
the echo of bird songs filling an empty vase,
the shadow of a sparrow moving through
the shadow of a tree, disturbing nothing.
I love "the yawn of an open window."
No More than This, Provincetown
Today, home is a cottage with morning
in the yawn of an open window. I watch
the crescent moon, like a wind-blown sail,
vanish. Blue slowly fills the sky and light
regains the trust of wildflowers blooming
with fresh spiderwebs spun stem to stem.
The room rises with the toasting of bread,
a stick of butter puddling in a dish, a knife
at rest, burgundy apples ready to be halved,
a pint of blueberries bleeding on the counter,
and little more than this. A nail in the wall
with a pair of disembodied jeans, a red jersey,
and shoes embossed by the bones of my feet
and years of walking. I sit down to breakfast
over the nicks of a pinewood table and I am,
for a moment, not afraid of being no more
than what I hear and see, no more than this;
the echo of bird songs filling an empty vase,
the shadow of a sparrow moving through
the shadow of a tree, disturbing nothing.
I love "the yawn of an open window."
104Treebeard_404
>100 Crypto-Willobie: _A Blessing_ is aptly named. That was breathtaking.
105dianeham
>100 Crypto-Willobie: welcome Bill and great poem. I also appreciate the Pope lines. Thanks for joining us.
106dianeham
>102 msf59: - good one!
>103 BLBera: stunning poem - I have to read more of him!
I love how active this thread is getting.
>103 BLBera: stunning poem - I have to read more of him!
I love how active this thread is getting.
107Crypto-Willobie
>105 dianeham:
Thanks for having me...
Thanks for having me...
108msf59
>103 BLBera: I really like the Blanco poem, Beth and I loved this collection.
109Crypto-Willobie
Maundy Thursday
Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)
Wilfred Owen
Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)
Wilfred Owen
110dianeham
Poem for Shrove Tuesday by Christina Rossetti:
Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake—
Catch it if you can.
Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake—
Catch it if you can.
111markon
Thanks all. Good finds/contributions.
I attempted to reproduce the spacing on the page of the poem below, but LT doesn't like to allow for extra spaces in lines . . .
Clearing
all night the wind blows & my mind
my mind is like the hawthorn that loses
limbs they litter the ground crush
black-eyed susan scatter buds
over rows of lettuce bean sprouts
whose greens are clusters of worry
in raised beds blown leaves & cracked limbs
threaten our foundation water backs up
in gutters seeps into the house's walls
but my mind my mind is not in the house
in the yard's far corner the eye of my mind rests
on a hawthorn branch shaken snapping
hectic then still the day dawns
without anger the blue jay I've looked for
pushes sky off his crest how splendid
his wings & tail it's not so much
that before this he'd hidden himself
it's only he favored a roost
I could not see until the storm thinned the tree
Camille T. Dungy in Soil: the story of a black mother's garden
edited to modify spacing
I attempted to reproduce the spacing on the page of the poem below, but LT doesn't like to allow for extra spaces in lines . . .
Clearing
all night the wind blows & my mind
my mind is like the hawthorn that loses
limbs they litter the ground crush
black-eyed susan scatter buds
over rows of lettuce bean sprouts
whose greens are clusters of worry
in raised beds blown leaves & cracked limbs
threaten our foundation water backs up
in gutters seeps into the house's walls
but my mind my mind is not in the house
in the yard's far corner the eye of my mind rests
on a hawthorn branch shaken snapping
hectic then still the day dawns
without anger the blue jay I've looked for
pushes sky off his crest how splendid
his wings & tail it's not so much
that before this he'd hidden himself
it's only he favored a roost
I could not see until the storm thinned the tree
Camille T. Dungy in Soil: the story of a black mother's garden
edited to modify spacing
112dchaikin
Catching my own breath. Terrific from >100 Crypto-Willobie: down. Those ponies are lovely. Billy Collins is Billy Collins. The open window. Wildred Owen… and so on…
113rv1988
>96 Julie_in_the_Library: Wonderful. Stallings is probably one of my most favourite contemporary poets.
114rv1988
"At nights birds hammered my unborn"
by Ishion Hutchinson
At nights birds hammered my unborn
child’s heart to strength, each strike bringing
bones and spine to glow, her lungs pestled
loud as the sea I was raised a sea anemone
among women who cursed their hearts
out, soured themselves, never-brides,
into veranda shades, talcum and tea moistened
their quivering jaws, prophetic without prophecy.
Anvil-black, gleaming garlic nubs, the pageant arrived with sails unfurled
from Colchis and I rejoiced like a broken
asylum to see burning sand grains, skittering ice;
shekels clapped in my chest, I smashed my head against a lightbulb
and light sprinkled my hair; I rejoiced, a poui
tree hit by the sun in the room, a man, a man.
_______
Ishion Hutchinson is a Jamaican poet. If you've never seen a poui tree in bloom, in the sun. here's a picture by Stephen Cadiz for Newsday. They grow up to 37 meters in height, and bloom madly. In Malaysia, we have a cousin of the poui which blooms in pink, much like a cherry tree.
by Ishion Hutchinson
At nights birds hammered my unborn
child’s heart to strength, each strike bringing
bones and spine to glow, her lungs pestled
loud as the sea I was raised a sea anemone
among women who cursed their hearts
out, soured themselves, never-brides,
into veranda shades, talcum and tea moistened
their quivering jaws, prophetic without prophecy.
Anvil-black, gleaming garlic nubs, the pageant arrived with sails unfurled
from Colchis and I rejoiced like a broken
asylum to see burning sand grains, skittering ice;
shekels clapped in my chest, I smashed my head against a lightbulb
and light sprinkled my hair; I rejoiced, a poui
tree hit by the sun in the room, a man, a man.
_______
Ishion Hutchinson is a Jamaican poet. If you've never seen a poui tree in bloom, in the sun. here's a picture by Stephen Cadiz for Newsday. They grow up to 37 meters in height, and bloom madly. In Malaysia, we have a cousin of the poui which blooms in pink, much like a cherry tree.
115dianeham
>114 rv1988: I’m lost reading this one.
116dchaikin
>114 rv1988: has me curious. Colchis may imply Jason
117Julie_in_the_Library
Black Oaks
by Mary Oliver
Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,
or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort.
Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.
But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen
and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage
of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.
Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain.
Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another -- why don't you get going?
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,
I don't even want to come in out of the rain.
by Mary Oliver
Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,
or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort.
Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.
But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen
and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage
of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.
Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain.
Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another -- why don't you get going?
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,
I don't even want to come in out of the rain.
118Treebeard_404
>117 Julie_in_the_Library: I love Mary Oliver's work. That poem was an excellent example of why. Thank you so much for sharing it.
119dianeham
Second Story by Elizabeth Spires
How strange to be sitting in this room,
to be noticing the windows—clearer than air—
how they let in everything, the leaves,
the bright-colored leaves, hanging like bits
of paper from the trees, and the thin woman
across the street sweeping her porch—
though she swept it yesterday and the day before
and will, most likely, sweep it tomorrow—
and how strange to be thinking of you, always
of you, as the room changes imperceptibly, easily
moving from moment to moment, like a lover
whose infidelities are purely imaginary,
imagined by you, just as you’re sure
the house might betray you, accommodating shadows
in your absence, sure that the room only
pretends to be your room, light climbing the stairs—
like an intruder or friend who left a long time ago—
pausing, changing its mind, going back down again,
as if the door were open and it could
come back anytime. Strange after so much time
to feel the same feelings, only stronger,
as the dust settles thickly on the tables,
and the afternoon shadows, unsure of themselves,
shrink into corners or lie on the floor,
and no letters arrive and the phone doesn’t ring,
and the woman sweeping her porch casts
a cold eye up at you—the face in the second story
window, the whorled face staring at the view—
goes into her house and shuts the door.
From Paris Review issue no. 89 (Fall 1983)
120msf59
>117 Julie_in_the_Library: Love me some Oliver!!
121msf59
The Last Lophodytes
My love loves hooded mergansers, absurd
dives into wry arcana. He sees farther than I can
fake and fakes nothing within my gaze.
Vagrants in the wetland, we forest for
the modern. We ebb and flow the winter, forbid
the easy estuaries. So what if a day
in the life of the mind evolves in brackish waters?
A joke about an overrated film, a scoop
of lime moqueca, the sloppy second
before God opts to starve the shore of starlight?
Take it. Take me. This empty beach, endangered
sun, the hungry gulls, all ours.
-Eillen G' Sell
P.S. A lophodyte is a hooded merganser
My love loves hooded mergansers, absurd
dives into wry arcana. He sees farther than I can
fake and fakes nothing within my gaze.
Vagrants in the wetland, we forest for
the modern. We ebb and flow the winter, forbid
the easy estuaries. So what if a day
in the life of the mind evolves in brackish waters?
A joke about an overrated film, a scoop
of lime moqueca, the sloppy second
before God opts to starve the shore of starlight?
Take it. Take me. This empty beach, endangered
sun, the hungry gulls, all ours.
-Eillen G' Sell
P.S. A lophodyte is a hooded merganser
122msf59
Alzheimer’s
He sits, silent,
no longer mistaking the cable
news for company—
and when he talks, he talks of childhood,
remembering some slight or conundrum
as if it is a score to be retailed
and settled after seventy-five years.
Rare, the sudden lucidity
that acknowledges this thing
that has happened
to me…
More often, he recounts
his father’s cruelty
or a chance deprived
to him, a Negro
under Jim Crow.
Five minutes ago escapes him
as he chases 1934, unaware
of the present beauty out the window,
the banks of windswept snow—
or his wife, humming in the kitchen,
or the twilit battles in Korea, or me
when he remembers that I am his son.
This condition—with a name that implies
the proprietary,
possession,
spiritual
and otherwise—
as if it owns him,
which it does.
-Anthony Walton
From Poem-A-Day
He sits, silent,
no longer mistaking the cable
news for company—
and when he talks, he talks of childhood,
remembering some slight or conundrum
as if it is a score to be retailed
and settled after seventy-five years.
Rare, the sudden lucidity
that acknowledges this thing
that has happened
to me…
More often, he recounts
his father’s cruelty
or a chance deprived
to him, a Negro
under Jim Crow.
Five minutes ago escapes him
as he chases 1934, unaware
of the present beauty out the window,
the banks of windswept snow—
or his wife, humming in the kitchen,
or the twilit battles in Korea, or me
when he remembers that I am his son.
This condition—with a name that implies
the proprietary,
possession,
spiritual
and otherwise—
as if it owns him,
which it does.
-Anthony Walton
From Poem-A-Day
124Crypto-Willobie
The Book of Lies
I’d like to have a word
with you. Could we be alone
for a minute? I have been lying
until now. Do you believe
I believe myself? Do you believe
yourself when you believe me? Lying
is natural. Forgive me. Could we be alone
forever? Forgive us all. The word is
my enemy. I have never been alone;
bribes, betrayals. I am lying
even now. Can you believe
that? I give you my word.
The Late Great James Tate, still miss him
125dchaikin
>124 Crypto-Willobie: humor or reality? Or both? 🙂
129Treebeard_404
>126 dianeham: Suddenly, there's a lot of extra pollen in this room. That's why my eyes are watery. No other reason. Move along.
130baswood
>128 dianeham: Any poem that mentions Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane's A love Supreme is worth a read.
131rv1988
Love Song
by Rainer Maria Rilke
3 translations:
Translated by Jessie Lemont:
When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
How shall I tune it then to other things?
O! That some spot in darkness could be found
That does not vibrate whene'er your depth sound.
But everything that touches you and me
Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
O! Sweet song—
Translated by David Shapiro:
How could I stop myself
from meeting you? Should I rise
up over you to some other things?
I could happily make a roof
with someone abandoned in the dark
in some dumb distant spot
that never shakes, as you are trembling now.
Yet everything that grazes you and me
ties us together like a violin bow
stroking two strings into one sound.
But on what instrument have we been bound?
And what musician has us in his hand?
Oh sweet song.
Translated by SA Kline:
How shall I hold my soul so it does not
touch on yours. How shall I lift it
over you to other things?
Ah, willingly I’d store it away
with some lost thing in the dark,
in some strange still place, that
does not tremble when your depths tremble.
But all that touches us, you and me,
takes us, together, like the stroke of a bow,
that draws one chord out of the two strings.
On what instrument are we strung?
And what artist has us in their hand?
O sweet song.
by Rainer Maria Rilke
3 translations:
Translated by Jessie Lemont:
When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
How shall I tune it then to other things?
O! That some spot in darkness could be found
That does not vibrate whene'er your depth sound.
But everything that touches you and me
Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
O! Sweet song—
Translated by David Shapiro:
How could I stop myself
from meeting you? Should I rise
up over you to some other things?
I could happily make a roof
with someone abandoned in the dark
in some dumb distant spot
that never shakes, as you are trembling now.
Yet everything that grazes you and me
ties us together like a violin bow
stroking two strings into one sound.
But on what instrument have we been bound?
And what musician has us in his hand?
Oh sweet song.
Translated by SA Kline:
How shall I hold my soul so it does not
touch on yours. How shall I lift it
over you to other things?
Ah, willingly I’d store it away
with some lost thing in the dark,
in some strange still place, that
does not tremble when your depths tremble.
But all that touches us, you and me,
takes us, together, like the stroke of a bow,
that draws one chord out of the two strings.
On what instrument are we strung?
And what artist has us in their hand?
O sweet song.
132Julie_in_the_Library
The Lesson Of The Moth
by Don Marquis
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
by Don Marquis
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
133dchaikin
>132 Julie_in_the_Library: i was watching the Alpinist last night and this moth has me thinking of that climber.
134dchaikin
>131 rv1988: my post didn’t post 🙁
Anyway, it’s very strange that a German poem can generate three such wildly different translations. I like the first, but I’m guessing it’s the least literal of translations.
Anyway, it’s very strange that a German poem can generate three such wildly different translations. I like the first, but I’m guessing it’s the least literal of translations.
135dianeham
>134 dchaikin: the third is my favorite.
136rv1988
> I agree with you, on both counts: I like the first one, but I suspect some poetic license was employed. It is a curious thing about the way poetry is translated. There is a very interesting project here which collects English translations of Fernando Pessoa's poem, "Autopsicografia" which was written in Portuguese. This page has 16 (!) translations, two of which are different versions by one translator. Each one is completely distinct. https://www.disquiet.com/thirteen.html
140Treebeard_404
>138 dianeham: OMG, that is brilliant!
141Treebeard_404
"...the natural world has always been the great warehouse of symbolic imagery. Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. Also, it began through the process of seeing, and feeling, and hearing, and smelling, and touching, and then remembering - I mean remembering in words - what these perceptual experiences were like, while trying to describe the endless invisible fears and desires of our inner lives."
--Mary Oliver
from A Poetry Handbook
--Mary Oliver
from A Poetry Handbook
142dchaikin
>141 Treebeard_404: good stuff. i guess Oliver couldn’t say “maybe”. I was looking for “memory” from where she states “poetry…began”. She put a lot of stuff before that. 🙂
143KeithChaffee
Hello, all. I'm new to this topic. I'm not someone who reads a lot of poetry, though I usually check out the annual "Best American Poetry" volume from the library, and I subscribe to the "Poem-a-Day" newsletter. But I do occasionally stumble across poems that I like, and over the years have built a sort of personal anthology of favorites saved in a big Word document. It's up to about 150 entries now, and a few new ones find their way in every year.
A couple of favorites:
GLORY
Most were married teenagers
Working knockout shifts daybreak
To sunset six days a week –
Already old men playing ball
In a field between a row of shotgun houses
& the Magazine Lumber Company.
They were all Jackie Robinson
& Willie Mays, a touch of
Josh Gibson & Satchel Paige
In each stance & swing, a promise
Like a hesitation pitch always
At the edge of their lives,
Arms sharp as rifles.
The Sunday afternoon heat
Flared like thin flowered skirts
As children & wives cheered.
The men were like cats
Running backwards to snag
Pop-ups & high-flies off
Fences, stealing each other's glory.
The old deacons & raconteurs
Who umpired made an Out or Safe
Into a song & dance routine.
Runners hit the dirt
& slid into homeplate,
Cleats catching light,
As they conjured escapes, outfoxing
Double plays. In the few seconds
It took a man to eye a woman
Upon the makeshift bleachers,
A stolen base or homerun
Would help another man
Survive the new week.
--Yusef Komunyakaa
(This one always makes me think of my father, a hard-working farmer who played for many years on the town softball team.)
----
THREE FOR THE MONA LISA
1
It is not what she did
at 10 o'clock
last evening
accounts for the smile
It is
that she plans
to do it again
tonight.
2
Only the mouth
all those years
ever
letting on.
3
It's not the mouth
exactly
it's not the eyes
exactly either
it's not even
exactly a smile
But, whatever,
I second the motion.
-- John Stone
A couple of favorites:
GLORY
Most were married teenagers
Working knockout shifts daybreak
To sunset six days a week –
Already old men playing ball
In a field between a row of shotgun houses
& the Magazine Lumber Company.
They were all Jackie Robinson
& Willie Mays, a touch of
Josh Gibson & Satchel Paige
In each stance & swing, a promise
Like a hesitation pitch always
At the edge of their lives,
Arms sharp as rifles.
The Sunday afternoon heat
Flared like thin flowered skirts
As children & wives cheered.
The men were like cats
Running backwards to snag
Pop-ups & high-flies off
Fences, stealing each other's glory.
The old deacons & raconteurs
Who umpired made an Out or Safe
Into a song & dance routine.
Runners hit the dirt
& slid into homeplate,
Cleats catching light,
As they conjured escapes, outfoxing
Double plays. In the few seconds
It took a man to eye a woman
Upon the makeshift bleachers,
A stolen base or homerun
Would help another man
Survive the new week.
--Yusef Komunyakaa
(This one always makes me think of my father, a hard-working farmer who played for many years on the town softball team.)
----
THREE FOR THE MONA LISA
1
It is not what she did
at 10 o'clock
last evening
accounts for the smile
It is
that she plans
to do it again
tonight.
2
Only the mouth
all those years
ever
letting on.
3
It's not the mouth
exactly
it's not the eyes
exactly either
it's not even
exactly a smile
But, whatever,
I second the motion.
-- John Stone
144Crypto-Willobie
Fuck the Astronauts
I
Eventually we must combine nightmares
an angel smoking a cigarette on the steps
of the last national bank, said to me.
I put her out with my thumb. I don’t need that
cheap talk I’ve got my own problems.
It was sad, exciting, and horrible.
It was exciting, horrible, and sad.
It was horrible, sad, and exciting.
It was inviting, mad, and deplorable.
It was adorable, glad, and enticing.
Eventually we must smoke a thumb
cheap talk I’ve got my own angel
on the steps of the problems the bank
said to me I don’t need that.
I will take this one window
with its sooty maps and scratches
so that my dreams will remember
one another and so that my eyes will not
become blinded by the new world.
II
The flames don’t dance or slither.
They have painted the room green.
Beautiful and naked, the wives
are sleeping before the fire.
Now it is out. The men have
returned to the shacks,
slaved creatures from the forest
floor across their white
stationwagons. That just about
does it, says the other,
dumping her bucket
over her head. Well, I guess
we got everything, says one,
feeling around in the mud,
as if for a child.
Now they remember they want
that mud, who can’t remember
what they got up for.
They parcel it out: when
they are drunk enough
they go into town with
a bucket of mud, saying
we can slice it up into
windmills like a bloated cow.
Later, they paint the insides
of the shack black,
and sit sucking eggs all night,
they want something real, useful,
but there isn’t anything.
III
I will engineer the sunrise
they have disassembled our shadows
our echoes are erased from the walls
your nipples are the skeletons of olives
your nipples are an oriental delight
your nipples blow away like cigarette papers
your nipples are the mouths of mutes
so I am not here any longer
skein of lightning
memory’s dark ink in your last smile
where the stars have swallowed their train schedule
where the stars have drowned in their dark petticoats
like a sock of hamburger
receiving the lightning
into his clitoris
red on red the prisoner
confesses his waltz
through the corkscrew lightning
nevermind the lightning
in your teeth let’s waltz
I am the hashish pinball machine
that rapes a piano.
James Tate
(I particularly like his "dada"side)
145dianeham
>144 Crypto-Willobie: crazy good.
146Crypto-Willobie
Aquest missatge ha estat suprimit pel seu autor.
147Julie_in_the_Library
>143 KeithChaffee: Hello, all. I'm new to this topic. I'm not someone who reads a lot of poetry, though I usually check out the annual "Best American Poetry" volume from the library, and I subscribe to the "Poem-a-Day" newsletter. But I do occasionally stumble across poems that I like, and over the years have built a sort of personal anthology of favorites saved in a big Word document. It's up to about 150 entries now, and a few new ones find their way in every year.
Welcome! Good to have you! That's where I was when this topic was first started last year. I still don't read much poetry compared to a lot of the people who post in this topic. I definitely read more than I ever used to. I keep my favorites in a OneNote notebook, and, more recently, I've been printing them out and gluing them into a fancy journal that I got at B&N for the purpose.
Welcome! Good to have you! That's where I was when this topic was first started last year. I still don't read much poetry compared to a lot of the people who post in this topic. I definitely read more than I ever used to. I keep my favorites in a OneNote notebook, and, more recently, I've been printing them out and gluing them into a fancy journal that I got at B&N for the purpose.
149msf59
And Yet The Books
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
-Czeslaw Milosz
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
-Czeslaw Milosz
150msf59
>128 dianeham: The Miller poem is fantastic!
>139 dianeham: I really like Boxing Lessons.
>143 KeithChaffee: Good one!
>139 dianeham: I really like Boxing Lessons.
>143 KeithChaffee: Good one!
151msf59
The Trees
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
-Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
-Philip Larkin
152Julie_in_the_Library
Differences of Opinion by Wendy Cope
He tells her that the earth is flat –
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.
He tells her that the earth is flat –
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.
153msf59
At the Feeder
First the Chickadees take
their share, then fly
to the bittersweet vine,
where they crack open the seeds,
excited, like poets
opening the day’s mail.
And the Evening Grosbeaks—
those large and prosperous
finches—resemble skiers
with the latest equipment, bright
yellow goggles on their faces.
Now the Bluejay comes in
for a landing, like a SAC bomber
returning to Plattsburgh
after a day of patrolling the ozone.
Every teacup in the pantry rattles.
The solid and graceful bodies
of Nuthatches, perpetually
upside down, like Yogis…
and Slate-Colored Juncoes, feeding
on the ground, taking only
what falls to them.
The cats watch, one
from the lid of the breadbox,
another from the piano. A third
flexes its claws in sleep, dreaming
perhaps, of a chicken neck,
or of being worshiped as a god
at Bubastis, during
the XXIII dynasty.
-Jane Kenyon
^Yes, I love birds and nature. ❤️
First the Chickadees take
their share, then fly
to the bittersweet vine,
where they crack open the seeds,
excited, like poets
opening the day’s mail.
And the Evening Grosbeaks—
those large and prosperous
finches—resemble skiers
with the latest equipment, bright
yellow goggles on their faces.
Now the Bluejay comes in
for a landing, like a SAC bomber
returning to Plattsburgh
after a day of patrolling the ozone.
Every teacup in the pantry rattles.
The solid and graceful bodies
of Nuthatches, perpetually
upside down, like Yogis…
and Slate-Colored Juncoes, feeding
on the ground, taking only
what falls to them.
The cats watch, one
from the lid of the breadbox,
another from the piano. A third
flexes its claws in sleep, dreaming
perhaps, of a chicken neck,
or of being worshiped as a god
at Bubastis, during
the XXIII dynasty.
-Jane Kenyon
^Yes, I love birds and nature. ❤️
155dianeham
On Venus by Tom Clark
I like breathing better than work
but strange is the meat
when it is yanked out of the sky
and arrows are shot into it
Nothing is personal then
and everything is true
including both love’s great circumambience
and the hideous skull-glare in the mirror
which pulses and glows
like some videotape of the future
From Paris Review issue no. 54 (Summer 1972)
157dianeham
>156 dchaikin: I sometimes think my face looks like a skull lately. Mostly because I lost weight (intentionally) so my face is thinner. And I’m paler because my blood pressure is lower.
160rv1988
Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from the Russian in two ways:
“Where does such tenderness come from?”
by Marina Tsvetaeva
translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine
Where does such tenderness come from?
These aren’t the first curls
I’ve wound around my finger—
I’ve kissed lips darker than yours.
The sky is washed and dark
(Where does such tenderness come from?)
Other eyes have known
and shifted away from my eyes.
But I’ve never heard words like this
in the night
(Where does such tenderness come from?)
with my head on your chest, rest.
Where does this tenderness come from?
And what will I do with it? Young
stranger, poet, wandering through town,
you and your eyelashes—longer than anyone’s.
Untitled Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Marina Tsvetaeva
translated from the Russian by Robin Kemball
Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Those curls—they are not the first ones
I’ve smoothened, and I’ve already
Known lips—that were darker than yours.
The stars have risen and faded,
—Whence cometh such tender rapture?—
And eyes have risen and faded
In face of these eyes of mine
I’d never yet hearkened unto
Such songs in the depths of darkness,
—Whence cometh such tender rapture?—
My head on the bard’s own breast
Whence cometh such tender rapture?
And what’s to be done with it, artful
Young vagabound, passing minstrel
With lashes—too long to say.
“Where does such tenderness come from?”
by Marina Tsvetaeva
translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine
Where does such tenderness come from?
These aren’t the first curls
I’ve wound around my finger—
I’ve kissed lips darker than yours.
The sky is washed and dark
(Where does such tenderness come from?)
Other eyes have known
and shifted away from my eyes.
But I’ve never heard words like this
in the night
(Where does such tenderness come from?)
with my head on your chest, rest.
Where does this tenderness come from?
And what will I do with it? Young
stranger, poet, wandering through town,
you and your eyelashes—longer than anyone’s.
Untitled Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Marina Tsvetaeva
translated from the Russian by Robin Kemball
Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Those curls—they are not the first ones
I’ve smoothened, and I’ve already
Known lips—that were darker than yours.
The stars have risen and faded,
—Whence cometh such tender rapture?—
And eyes have risen and faded
In face of these eyes of mine
I’d never yet hearkened unto
Such songs in the depths of darkness,
—Whence cometh such tender rapture?—
My head on the bard’s own breast
Whence cometh such tender rapture?
And what’s to be done with it, artful
Young vagabound, passing minstrel
With lashes—too long to say.
161Treebeard_404
>158 dianeham: "I think I should not be encouraged to grow tomatoes." I'm right there with ya, Louise.
162KeithChaffee
SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE
If starship travel from our
Earth to some far
star and back again
at velocities approaching the speed
of light made you younger than me
due to the relativistic effects
of time dilation,
I'd show up on your doorstep hoping
you'd developed a thing for older men,
and I'd ask you to show me everything you
learned to pass the time
out there in the endless void
of night.
If we were the sole survivors
of a zombie apocalypse
and you were bitten and transformed
into a walking corpse
I wouldn't even pick up my
assault shotgun,
I'd just let you take a bite
out of me, because I'd rather be
undead forever
with you
than alive alone
without you.
If I had a time machine, I'd go back
to the days of your youth
to see how you became the someone
I love so much today, and then
I'd return to the moment we first met
just so I could see my own face
when I saw your face
for the first time,
and okay,
I'd probably travel to the time
when we were a young couple
and try to get a three-way
going. I never understood
why more time travelers don't do
that sort of thing.
If the alien invaders come
and hover in stern judgment
over our cities, trying to decide
whether to invite us to the Galactic
Federation of Confederated
Galaxies or if instead
a little genocide is called for,
I think our love could be a powerful
argument for the continued preservation
of humanity in general, or at least,
of you and me
in particular.
If we were captives together
in an alien zoo, I'd try to make
the best of it, cultivate a streak
of xeno-exhibitionism,
waggle my eyebrows, and make jokes
about breeding in captivity.
If I became lost in
the multiverse, exploring
infinite parallel dimensions, my
only criterion for settling
down somewhere would be
whether or not I could find you:
and once I did, I'd stay there even
if it was a world ruled by giant spider-
priests, or one where killer
robots won the Civil War, or even
a world where sandwiches
were never invented, because
you'd make it the best
of all possible worlds anyway,
and plus
we could get rich
off inventing sandwiches.
If the Singularity comes
and we upload our minds into a vast
computer simulation of near-infinite
complexity and perfect resolution,
and become capable of experiencing any
fantasy, exploring worlds bound only
by our enhanced imaginations,
I'd still spend at least 1021 processing
cycles a month just sitting
on a virtual couch with you,
watching virtual TV,
eating virtual fajitas,
holding virtual hands,
and wishing
for the real thing.
-- Tim Pratt
(I love the use of tropes from a genre that is often thought of as cold and unemotional to express love so playfully.)
If starship travel from our
Earth to some far
star and back again
at velocities approaching the speed
of light made you younger than me
due to the relativistic effects
of time dilation,
I'd show up on your doorstep hoping
you'd developed a thing for older men,
and I'd ask you to show me everything you
learned to pass the time
out there in the endless void
of night.
If we were the sole survivors
of a zombie apocalypse
and you were bitten and transformed
into a walking corpse
I wouldn't even pick up my
assault shotgun,
I'd just let you take a bite
out of me, because I'd rather be
undead forever
with you
than alive alone
without you.
If I had a time machine, I'd go back
to the days of your youth
to see how you became the someone
I love so much today, and then
I'd return to the moment we first met
just so I could see my own face
when I saw your face
for the first time,
and okay,
I'd probably travel to the time
when we were a young couple
and try to get a three-way
going. I never understood
why more time travelers don't do
that sort of thing.
If the alien invaders come
and hover in stern judgment
over our cities, trying to decide
whether to invite us to the Galactic
Federation of Confederated
Galaxies or if instead
a little genocide is called for,
I think our love could be a powerful
argument for the continued preservation
of humanity in general, or at least,
of you and me
in particular.
If we were captives together
in an alien zoo, I'd try to make
the best of it, cultivate a streak
of xeno-exhibitionism,
waggle my eyebrows, and make jokes
about breeding in captivity.
If I became lost in
the multiverse, exploring
infinite parallel dimensions, my
only criterion for settling
down somewhere would be
whether or not I could find you:
and once I did, I'd stay there even
if it was a world ruled by giant spider-
priests, or one where killer
robots won the Civil War, or even
a world where sandwiches
were never invented, because
you'd make it the best
of all possible worlds anyway,
and plus
we could get rich
off inventing sandwiches.
If the Singularity comes
and we upload our minds into a vast
computer simulation of near-infinite
complexity and perfect resolution,
and become capable of experiencing any
fantasy, exploring worlds bound only
by our enhanced imaginations,
I'd still spend at least 1021 processing
cycles a month just sitting
on a virtual couch with you,
watching virtual TV,
eating virtual fajitas,
holding virtual hands,
and wishing
for the real thing.
-- Tim Pratt
(I love the use of tropes from a genre that is often thought of as cold and unemotional to express love so playfully.)
163dianeham
>162 KeithChaffee: That’s great. I’ve written some scifi poetry. The last stanza is my favorite, I think.
165Julie_in_the_Library
>162 KeithChaffee: Oh, that's fun. It kind of reminds me of The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman
166Julie_in_the_Library
I believe I already posted this, but I can't find it in this thread, so it must have been in a previous thread from 2023. Reposting, because >162 KeithChaffee: made me think of it, and we have some new people now who might not have seen it last year.
The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman
That Day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and
stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed, to find out what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn’t notice because
That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because
On the saucer day, which was zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
A ship built of dead-men’s nails, a serpent, a wolf,
All bigger than the mind could hold,
and the cameraman could
Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
But you did not see them coming because
On the saucer-zombie-battling-gods
day the floodgates broke
And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
And charm and cleverness and true
brave hearts and pots of gold
While giants feefofummed across
the land and killer bees,
But you had no idea of any of this because
That day, the saucer day, the zombie day
The Ragnarok and fairies day,
the day the great winds came
And snows and the cities turned to crystal, the day
All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
Computers turned, the screens telling
us we would obey, the day
Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
And all the bells of London were sounded, the day
Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
The fluttering capes and arrival of
the Time Machine day,
You didn’t notice any of this because
you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not even reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,
wondering if I was going to call.
The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman
That Day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and
stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed, to find out what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn’t notice because
That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because
On the saucer day, which was zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
A ship built of dead-men’s nails, a serpent, a wolf,
All bigger than the mind could hold,
and the cameraman could
Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
But you did not see them coming because
On the saucer-zombie-battling-gods
day the floodgates broke
And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
And charm and cleverness and true
brave hearts and pots of gold
While giants feefofummed across
the land and killer bees,
But you had no idea of any of this because
That day, the saucer day, the zombie day
The Ragnarok and fairies day,
the day the great winds came
And snows and the cities turned to crystal, the day
All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
Computers turned, the screens telling
us we would obey, the day
Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
And all the bells of London were sounded, the day
Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
The fluttering capes and arrival of
the Time Machine day,
You didn’t notice any of this because
you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not even reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,
wondering if I was going to call.
167KeithChaffee
>166 Julie_in_the_Library: Oh, I like that. And yes, the two poems go together nicely.
168dianeham
.
Not Waving but Drowning BY STEVIE SMITH
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
A Note from the Editor
Stevie Smith died on this day in 1971
Not Waving but Drowning BY STEVIE SMITH
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
A Note from the Editor
Stevie Smith died on this day in 1971
169Crypto-Willobie
The Horses
Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
"They'll molder away and be like other loam."
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.
Edwin Muir
Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
"They'll molder away and be like other loam."
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.
Edwin Muir
170dianeham
>169 Crypto-Willobie: That’s great!
171Crypto-Willobie
>170 dianeham: translator of Kafka
172dianeham
>171 Crypto-Willobie: or married to the translator of Kafka. ;) I just looked him up. That blank verse poem seems very modern for when he lived. I’ve heard of him but now I need to read more.
173Julie_in_the_Library
Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast
by Charles Causley
Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast
Bought an old castle complete with a ghost,
But someone or other forgot to declare
To Colonel Fazak that the spectre was there.
On the very first evening, while waiting to dine,
The Colonel was taking a fine sherry wine,
When the ghost, with a furious flash and a flare,
Shot out of the chimney and shivered, 'Beware!'
Colonel Fazackerley put down his glass
And said, 'My dear fellow, that's really first class!
I just can't conceive how you do it at all.
I imagine you're going to a Fancy Dress Ball?'
At this, the dread ghost made a withering cry.
Said the Colonel (his monocle firm in his eye),
'Now just how you do it, I wish I could think.
Do sit down and tell me, and please have a drink.'
The ghost in his phosphorous cloak gave a roar
And floated about between ceiling and floor.
He walked through a wall and returned through a pane
And backed up the chimney and came down again.
Said the Colonel, 'With laughter I'm feeling quite weak!'
(As trickles of merriment ran down his cheek).
'My house-warming party I hope you won't spurn.
You MUST say you'll come and you'll give us a turn!'
At this, the poor spectre - quite out of his wits -
Proceeded to shake himself almost to bits.
He rattled his chains and he clattered his bones
And he filled the whole castle with mumbles and moans.
But Colonel Fazackerley, just as before,
Was simply delighted and called out, 'Encore!'
At which the ghost vanished, his efforts in vain,
And never was seen at the castle again.
'Oh dear, what a pity!' said Colonel Fazak.
'I don't know his name, so I can't call him back.'
And then with a smile that was hard to define,
Colonel Fazackerley went in to dine.
by Charles Causley
Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast
Bought an old castle complete with a ghost,
But someone or other forgot to declare
To Colonel Fazak that the spectre was there.
On the very first evening, while waiting to dine,
The Colonel was taking a fine sherry wine,
When the ghost, with a furious flash and a flare,
Shot out of the chimney and shivered, 'Beware!'
Colonel Fazackerley put down his glass
And said, 'My dear fellow, that's really first class!
I just can't conceive how you do it at all.
I imagine you're going to a Fancy Dress Ball?'
At this, the dread ghost made a withering cry.
Said the Colonel (his monocle firm in his eye),
'Now just how you do it, I wish I could think.
Do sit down and tell me, and please have a drink.'
The ghost in his phosphorous cloak gave a roar
And floated about between ceiling and floor.
He walked through a wall and returned through a pane
And backed up the chimney and came down again.
Said the Colonel, 'With laughter I'm feeling quite weak!'
(As trickles of merriment ran down his cheek).
'My house-warming party I hope you won't spurn.
You MUST say you'll come and you'll give us a turn!'
At this, the poor spectre - quite out of his wits -
Proceeded to shake himself almost to bits.
He rattled his chains and he clattered his bones
And he filled the whole castle with mumbles and moans.
But Colonel Fazackerley, just as before,
Was simply delighted and called out, 'Encore!'
At which the ghost vanished, his efforts in vain,
And never was seen at the castle again.
'Oh dear, what a pity!' said Colonel Fazak.
'I don't know his name, so I can't call him back.'
And then with a smile that was hard to define,
Colonel Fazackerley went in to dine.
174Julie_in_the_Library
The Gruffalo
by Julie Donaldson
A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have lunch in my underground house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no –
I'm going to have lunch with a gruffalo."
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws,
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by these rocks,
And his favourite food is roasted fox."
"Roasted fox! I'm off!" Fox said.
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away he sped.
"Silly old Fox! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
An owl saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have tea in my treetop house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Owl, but no –
I'm going to have tea with a gruffalo."
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes,
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by this stream,
And his favourite food is owl ice cream."
"Owl ice cream! Toowhit toowhoo!"
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away Owl flew.
"Silly old Owl! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
A snake saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come for a feast in my logpile house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Snake, but no –
I'm having a feast with a gruffalo."
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?
His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,
He has purple prickles all over his back."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by this lake,
And his favourite food is scrambled snake."
"Scrambled snake! It's time I hid!"
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away Snake slid.
"Silly old Snake! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffal...?"
...OH!"
But who is this creature with terrible claws
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws?
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes,
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.
His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,
He has purple prickles all over his back.
"Oh help! Oh no!
It's a gruffalo!"
"My favourite food!" the Gruffalo said.
"You'll taste good on a slice of bread!"
"Good?" said the mouse. "Don't call me good!
I'm the scariest creature in this wood.
Just walk behind me and soon you'll see,
Everyone is afraid of me."
"All right," said the Gruffalo, bursting with laughter.
"You go ahead and I'll follow after."
They walked and walked till the Gruffalo said,
"I hear a hiss in the leaves ahead."
"It's Snake," said the mouse. "Why, Snake, hello!"
Snake took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh crumbs!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he slid to his logpile house.
"You see?" said the mouse. "I told you so."
"Amazing!" said the Gruffalo.
They walked some more till the Gruffalo said,
"I hear a hoot in the trees ahead."
"It's Owl," said the mouse. "Why, Owl, hello!"
Owl took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh dear!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he flew to his treetop house.
"You see?" said the mouse. "I told you so."
"Astounding!" said the Gruffalo.
They walked some more till the Gruffalo said,
"I can hear feet on the path ahead."
"It's Fox," said the mouse. "Why, Fox, hello!"
Fox took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh help!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he ran to his underground house.
"Well, Gruffalo," said the mouse. "You see?
Everyone is afraid of me!
But now my tummy's beginning to rumble.
My favourite food is – gruffalo crumble!"
"Gruffalo crumble!" the Gruffalo said,
And quick as the wind he turned and fled.
All was quiet in the deep dark wood.
The mouse found a nut and the nut was good.
by Julie Donaldson
A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have lunch in my underground house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no –
I'm going to have lunch with a gruffalo."
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws,
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by these rocks,
And his favourite food is roasted fox."
"Roasted fox! I'm off!" Fox said.
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away he sped.
"Silly old Fox! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
An owl saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have tea in my treetop house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Owl, but no –
I'm going to have tea with a gruffalo."
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes,
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by this stream,
And his favourite food is owl ice cream."
"Owl ice cream! Toowhit toowhoo!"
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away Owl flew.
"Silly old Owl! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
A snake saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come for a feast in my logpile house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Snake, but no –
I'm having a feast with a gruffalo."
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?
His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,
He has purple prickles all over his back."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by this lake,
And his favourite food is scrambled snake."
"Scrambled snake! It's time I hid!"
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away Snake slid.
"Silly old Snake! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffal...?"
...OH!"
But who is this creature with terrible claws
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws?
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes,
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.
His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,
He has purple prickles all over his back.
"Oh help! Oh no!
It's a gruffalo!"
"My favourite food!" the Gruffalo said.
"You'll taste good on a slice of bread!"
"Good?" said the mouse. "Don't call me good!
I'm the scariest creature in this wood.
Just walk behind me and soon you'll see,
Everyone is afraid of me."
"All right," said the Gruffalo, bursting with laughter.
"You go ahead and I'll follow after."
They walked and walked till the Gruffalo said,
"I hear a hiss in the leaves ahead."
"It's Snake," said the mouse. "Why, Snake, hello!"
Snake took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh crumbs!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he slid to his logpile house.
"You see?" said the mouse. "I told you so."
"Amazing!" said the Gruffalo.
They walked some more till the Gruffalo said,
"I hear a hoot in the trees ahead."
"It's Owl," said the mouse. "Why, Owl, hello!"
Owl took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh dear!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he flew to his treetop house.
"You see?" said the mouse. "I told you so."
"Astounding!" said the Gruffalo.
They walked some more till the Gruffalo said,
"I can hear feet on the path ahead."
"It's Fox," said the mouse. "Why, Fox, hello!"
Fox took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh help!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he ran to his underground house.
"Well, Gruffalo," said the mouse. "You see?
Everyone is afraid of me!
But now my tummy's beginning to rumble.
My favourite food is – gruffalo crumble!"
"Gruffalo crumble!" the Gruffalo said,
And quick as the wind he turned and fled.
All was quiet in the deep dark wood.
The mouse found a nut and the nut was good.
175Crypto-Willobie
The Purist
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
O. Nash
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
O. Nash
176dianeham
I Am Waiting BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
177Crypto-Willobie
love it
178Julie_in_the_Library
Eurydice
by Carol Ann Duffy
Girls, I was dead and down
in the Underworld, a shade,
a shadow of my former self, nowhen.
It was a place where language stopped,
a black full stop, a black hole
Where the words had to come to an end.
And end they did there,
last words,
famous or not.
It suited me down to the ground.
So imagine me there,
unavailable,
out of this world,
then picture my face in that place
of Eternal Repose,
in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe
from the kind of a man
who follows her round
writing poems,
hovers about
while she reads them,
calls her His Muse,
and once sulked for a night and a day
because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns.
Just picture my face
when I heard –
Ye Gods –
a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door.
Him.
Big O.
Larger than life.
With his lyre
and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.
Things were different back then.
For the men, verse-wise,
Big O was the boy. Legendary.
The blurb on the back of his books claimed
that animals,
aardvark to zebra,
flocked to his side when he sang,
fish leapt in their shoals
at the sound of his voice,
even the mute, sullen stones at his feet
wept wee, silver tears.
Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself,
I should know.)
And given my time all over again,
rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself
than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc.
In fact girls, I’d rather be dead.
But the Gods are like publishers,
usually male,
and what you doubtless know of my tale
is the deal.
Orpheus strutted his stuff.
The bloodless ghosts were in tears.
Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years.
Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers.
The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.
Like it or not,
I must follow him back to our life –
Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife –
to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes,
octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets,
elegies, limericks, villanelles,
histories, myths…
He’d been told that he mustn’t look back
or turn round,
but walk steadily upwards,
myself right behind him,
out of the Underworld
into the upper air that for me was the past.
He’d been warned
that one look would lose me
for ever and ever.
So we walked, we walked.
Nobody talked.
Girls, forget what you’ve read.
It happened like this –
I did everything in my power
to make him look back.
What did I have to do, I said,
to make him see we were through?
I was dead. Deceased.
I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late.
Past my sell-by date…
I stretched out my hand
to touch him once
on the back of the neck.
Please let me stay.
But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.
It was an uphill schlep
from death to life
and with every step
I willed him to turn.
I was thinking of filching the poem
out of his cloak,
when inspiration finally struck.
I stopped, thrilled.
He was a yard in front.
My voice shook when I spoke –
Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece.
I’d love to hear it again…
He was smiling modestly,
when he turned,
when he turned and he looked at me.
What else?
I noticed he hadn’t shaved.
I waved once and was gone.
The dead are so talented.
The living walk by the edge of a vast lake
near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.
by Carol Ann Duffy
Girls, I was dead and down
in the Underworld, a shade,
a shadow of my former self, nowhen.
It was a place where language stopped,
a black full stop, a black hole
Where the words had to come to an end.
And end they did there,
last words,
famous or not.
It suited me down to the ground.
So imagine me there,
unavailable,
out of this world,
then picture my face in that place
of Eternal Repose,
in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe
from the kind of a man
who follows her round
writing poems,
hovers about
while she reads them,
calls her His Muse,
and once sulked for a night and a day
because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns.
Just picture my face
when I heard –
Ye Gods –
a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door.
Him.
Big O.
Larger than life.
With his lyre
and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.
Things were different back then.
For the men, verse-wise,
Big O was the boy. Legendary.
The blurb on the back of his books claimed
that animals,
aardvark to zebra,
flocked to his side when he sang,
fish leapt in their shoals
at the sound of his voice,
even the mute, sullen stones at his feet
wept wee, silver tears.
Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself,
I should know.)
And given my time all over again,
rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself
than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc.
In fact girls, I’d rather be dead.
But the Gods are like publishers,
usually male,
and what you doubtless know of my tale
is the deal.
Orpheus strutted his stuff.
The bloodless ghosts were in tears.
Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years.
Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers.
The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.
Like it or not,
I must follow him back to our life –
Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife –
to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes,
octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets,
elegies, limericks, villanelles,
histories, myths…
He’d been told that he mustn’t look back
or turn round,
but walk steadily upwards,
myself right behind him,
out of the Underworld
into the upper air that for me was the past.
He’d been warned
that one look would lose me
for ever and ever.
So we walked, we walked.
Nobody talked.
Girls, forget what you’ve read.
It happened like this –
I did everything in my power
to make him look back.
What did I have to do, I said,
to make him see we were through?
I was dead. Deceased.
I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late.
Past my sell-by date…
I stretched out my hand
to touch him once
on the back of the neck.
Please let me stay.
But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.
It was an uphill schlep
from death to life
and with every step
I willed him to turn.
I was thinking of filching the poem
out of his cloak,
when inspiration finally struck.
I stopped, thrilled.
He was a yard in front.
My voice shook when I spoke –
Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece.
I’d love to hear it again…
He was smiling modestly,
when he turned,
when he turned and he looked at me.
What else?
I noticed he hadn’t shaved.
I waved once and was gone.
The dead are so talented.
The living walk by the edge of a vast lake
near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.
179Crypto-Willobie
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.
Christopher Smart
from Jubilate Agno, c 1758-1763
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.
Christopher Smart
from Jubilate Agno, c 1758-1763
181rv1988
>176 dianeham: One of my favourites. I love it. Especially those lst few lines:
"and I am awaiting
Perpetually and forever
a renaissance and wonder"
"and I am awaiting
Perpetually and forever
a renaissance and wonder"
182dianeham
>180 dchaikin: >181 rv1988: Back in my early 20s, I had it memorized.
183msf59
Emesis
From her perch on the docent’s gloved wrist, she
watches us with the eyes of any creature handled too
much: featherless head a closed door, body a mask of
silence. In the steep twilight descending like the
backwards count of a nurse’s voice leading a patient
into unconsciousness, the handler explains to our
circle the generalities of the species—the turkey
vulture’s primary form of self-defense is the
regurgitation of semi-digested meat that is then
vomited onto a predator’s face—and the
particularities of this one, who had come to them with
a broken wing. I, too, have places on my body knitted
back together by unseen hands, scars laid while I slept
the sleep of the unknowing: one above the belly
button, and another below where two fingers must
have parted the dark hair before shaving a path. Does
she remember the first faces to peer toward her as she
surfaced? Every time I try to write what those hands
did, I end up plunging my own fingers deep inside
until I pull up the voice of the surgeon in post-op: I
usually have to pay women to take their clothes off for
me. Oh, the shudder of her black-feathered shoulders.
Oh, the bile rising in her throat
-Keetje Kuipers From Poem-A-Day
From her perch on the docent’s gloved wrist, she
watches us with the eyes of any creature handled too
much: featherless head a closed door, body a mask of
silence. In the steep twilight descending like the
backwards count of a nurse’s voice leading a patient
into unconsciousness, the handler explains to our
circle the generalities of the species—the turkey
vulture’s primary form of self-defense is the
regurgitation of semi-digested meat that is then
vomited onto a predator’s face—and the
particularities of this one, who had come to them with
a broken wing. I, too, have places on my body knitted
back together by unseen hands, scars laid while I slept
the sleep of the unknowing: one above the belly
button, and another below where two fingers must
have parted the dark hair before shaving a path. Does
she remember the first faces to peer toward her as she
surfaced? Every time I try to write what those hands
did, I end up plunging my own fingers deep inside
until I pull up the voice of the surgeon in post-op: I
usually have to pay women to take their clothes off for
me. Oh, the shudder of her black-feathered shoulders.
Oh, the bile rising in her throat
-Keetje Kuipers From Poem-A-Day
184msf59
>176 dianeham: "I Am Waiting" is an excellent poem. Thanks for sharing. I requested 2 collections of his from the library.
185Julie_in_the_Library
Phenomenal Woman
By Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
By Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
186Julie_in_the_Library
>183 msf59: Very arresting. Thanks for sharing.
187dianeham
>183 msf59: I get a little lost at he end of that poem.
188mabith
I just finished the collection Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, here are two of my favorites from it:
Broken Reverie – Daniel Simpson
I am not going to write a political poem,
but in my neighborhood, a truck is in reverse.
It has been backing up for a long time.
It beeps incessantly.
It has ruined my reverie.
When they were rebuilding the train station,
trucks backed up all night long.
Some people wrote the newspaper.
Get rid of those beepers, they said.
It's not good to write political poems.
They are so obvious.
That's why, any minute now,
I'm going to get back to my imagination.
But my blind friend made a simple decision one day—
simple as, shall I wear the knit dress
or wool pants to work?
She was just going to buy a sandwich;
she would leave her dog in the office
and take her white cane.
The truck had no beeper.
It was hard to know
in all that city noise
whether to stand still
or keep moving.
Soon I will be able
to stop writing polemics
and start writing poetry.
People want something fresh.
They don't need me
to repeat the obvious.
Untitled -- Jennifer Bartlett
to be crippled means to have a window
into the insanity of the able-bodied
to be crippled means to
see the world slowly and manically
to translate
to record
to adapt
to be crippled means to have
access to people's fear
of their own eroding
Broken Reverie – Daniel Simpson
I am not going to write a political poem,
but in my neighborhood, a truck is in reverse.
It has been backing up for a long time.
It beeps incessantly.
It has ruined my reverie.
When they were rebuilding the train station,
trucks backed up all night long.
Some people wrote the newspaper.
Get rid of those beepers, they said.
It's not good to write political poems.
They are so obvious.
That's why, any minute now,
I'm going to get back to my imagination.
But my blind friend made a simple decision one day—
simple as, shall I wear the knit dress
or wool pants to work?
She was just going to buy a sandwich;
she would leave her dog in the office
and take her white cane.
The truck had no beeper.
It was hard to know
in all that city noise
whether to stand still
or keep moving.
Soon I will be able
to stop writing polemics
and start writing poetry.
People want something fresh.
They don't need me
to repeat the obvious.
Untitled -- Jennifer Bartlett
to be crippled means to have a window
into the insanity of the able-bodied
to be crippled means to
see the world slowly and manically
to translate
to record
to adapt
to be crippled means to have
access to people's fear
of their own eroding
189dianeham
>188 mabith: Good ones!
190msf59
This Too Shall Pass
was no consolation to the woman
whose husband was strung out on opioids.
Gone to a better place: useless and suspect intel
for the couple at their daughter’s funeral
though there are better places to be
than a freezing church in February, standing
before a casket with a princess motif.
Some moments can’t be eased
and it’s no good offering clichés like stale
meat to a tiger with a taste for human suffering.
When I hear the word miracle I want to throw up
on a platter of deviled eggs. Everything happens
for a reason: more good tidings someone will try
to trepan your skull to insert. When fire
inhales your house, you don’t care what the haiku says
about seeing the rising moon. You want
an avalanche to bury you. You want to lie down
under a slab of snow, dumb as a jarred
sideshow embryo. What a circus.
-Kim Addonizio From Poem-A-Day
was no consolation to the woman
whose husband was strung out on opioids.
Gone to a better place: useless and suspect intel
for the couple at their daughter’s funeral
though there are better places to be
than a freezing church in February, standing
before a casket with a princess motif.
Some moments can’t be eased
and it’s no good offering clichés like stale
meat to a tiger with a taste for human suffering.
When I hear the word miracle I want to throw up
on a platter of deviled eggs. Everything happens
for a reason: more good tidings someone will try
to trepan your skull to insert. When fire
inhales your house, you don’t care what the haiku says
about seeing the rising moon. You want
an avalanche to bury you. You want to lie down
under a slab of snow, dumb as a jarred
sideshow embryo. What a circus.
-Kim Addonizio From Poem-A-Day
191Crypto-Willobie
Saint Judas
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
James Wright
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
James Wright
192dianeham
>191 Crypto-Willobie: another great one!
193Crypto-Willobie
Two Hangovers
Number One
I slouch in bed.
Beyond the streaked trees of my window,
All groves are bare.
Locusts and poplars change to unmarried women
Sorting slate from anthracite
Between railroad ties:
The yellow-bearded winter of the depression
Is still alive somewhere, an old man
Counting his collection of bottle caps
In a tarpaper shack under the cold trees
Of my grave.
I still feel half drunk,
And all those old women beyond my window
Are hunching toward the graveyard.
Drunk, mumbling Hungarian,
The sun staggers in,
And his big stupid face pitches
Into the stove.
For two hours I have been dreaming
Of green butterflies searching for diamonds
In coal seams;
And children chasing each other for a game
Through the hills of fresh graves.
But the sun has come home drunk from the sea,
And a sparrow outside
Sings of the Hanna Coal Co. and the dead moon.
The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble
In music like delicate birds.
Ah, turn it off.
Number Two:
I Try to Waken and Greet the World Once Again
In a pine tree,
A few yards away from my window sill,
A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,
On a branch.
I laugh, as I see him abandon himself
To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do
That the branch will not break.
James Wright
Number One
I slouch in bed.
Beyond the streaked trees of my window,
All groves are bare.
Locusts and poplars change to unmarried women
Sorting slate from anthracite
Between railroad ties:
The yellow-bearded winter of the depression
Is still alive somewhere, an old man
Counting his collection of bottle caps
In a tarpaper shack under the cold trees
Of my grave.
I still feel half drunk,
And all those old women beyond my window
Are hunching toward the graveyard.
Drunk, mumbling Hungarian,
The sun staggers in,
And his big stupid face pitches
Into the stove.
For two hours I have been dreaming
Of green butterflies searching for diamonds
In coal seams;
And children chasing each other for a game
Through the hills of fresh graves.
But the sun has come home drunk from the sea,
And a sparrow outside
Sings of the Hanna Coal Co. and the dead moon.
The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble
In music like delicate birds.
Ah, turn it off.
Number Two:
I Try to Waken and Greet the World Once Again
In a pine tree,
A few yards away from my window sill,
A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,
On a branch.
I laugh, as I see him abandon himself
To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do
That the branch will not break.
James Wright
197jnwelch
Thanks for this thread, Diane. So many good ones. I’m a fan of the later poems of James Wright, and enjoyed the posted ones.
Here’s one of my favorites of his. What a last line.
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
BY JAMES WRIGHT
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
********************
Here’s a more upbeat one.
A Blessing
BY JAMES WRIGHT
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
Here’s one of my favorites of his. What a last line.
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
BY JAMES WRIGHT
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
********************
Here’s a more upbeat one.
A Blessing
BY JAMES WRIGHT
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
198rv1988
>196 dianeham: Warshan Shire is fabulous - I read her collection Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems last year and it was very moving. Thanks for sharing these.
199rv1988
I saw Jane Kenyon discussed in another thread today, so posting this one by her:
Happiness
By Jane Kenyon
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Jane Kenyon, “Happiness” from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems.
Happiness
By Jane Kenyon
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Jane Kenyon, “Happiness” from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems.
200rv1988
Resurrection of the Wild
by Wendell Berry
The country where he lives
is haunted
by the ghost of an old forest.
In the cleared fields
where he gardens
and pastures his horses
it stood once,
and will return. There will be
a resurrection of the wild.
Already it stands in wait
at the pasture fences.
It is rising up
in the waste places of the cities.
When the fools of the capitals
have devoured each other
in righteousness,
and the machines have eaten
the rest of us, then
there will be the second coming
of the trees. They will come
straggling over the fences
slowly, but soon enough.
The highways will sound
with the feet of the wild herds,
returning. Beaver will ascend
the streams as the trees
close over them.
The wolf and the panther
will find their old ways
through the nights. Water
and air will flow clear.
Certain calamities
will have passed,
and certain pleasures.
The wind will do without
corners. How difficult
to think of it: miles and miles
and no window.
by Wendell Berry, from Poetic Outlaws
__________
Remember during the pandemic, when everyone was indoors and we saw the wild animals come out?
by Wendell Berry
The country where he lives
is haunted
by the ghost of an old forest.
In the cleared fields
where he gardens
and pastures his horses
it stood once,
and will return. There will be
a resurrection of the wild.
Already it stands in wait
at the pasture fences.
It is rising up
in the waste places of the cities.
When the fools of the capitals
have devoured each other
in righteousness,
and the machines have eaten
the rest of us, then
there will be the second coming
of the trees. They will come
straggling over the fences
slowly, but soon enough.
The highways will sound
with the feet of the wild herds,
returning. Beaver will ascend
the streams as the trees
close over them.
The wolf and the panther
will find their old ways
through the nights. Water
and air will flow clear.
Certain calamities
will have passed,
and certain pleasures.
The wind will do without
corners. How difficult
to think of it: miles and miles
and no window.
by Wendell Berry, from Poetic Outlaws
__________
Remember during the pandemic, when everyone was indoors and we saw the wild animals come out?
201dianeham
>198 rv1988: Glad you liked them and thanks for the two you posted.
202AlisonY
From Sarah Russell's I Lost Summer Somewhere:
Another one:
If I Had Three Lives
After "Melbourne" by the Whitlams
If I had three lives, I'd marry you in two.
And the other? That life over there
at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing -- a memoir,
maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably,
a small apartment with a view of the river,
and books -- lots of books and time to read.
Friends to laugh with; a man sometimes,
for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like
when it's alive. I'm thinner in that life, vegan,
practice yoga. I go to art films, farmers markets,
drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry.
I vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt
weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat
and aftershave more than I do him. I walk the beach
at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks
water makes in sand. And I wonder sometimes
if I'll ever find you.
Another one:
After the Fact
There's the Fact
and After the Fact -
the silence of a new apartment,
hugging the kids too hard,
watching them manipulate.
It's his telling friends you took him
to the cleaners, cold stares
at soccer games.
After the fact is buying hundred dollar jeans,
then eating ramen for a week,
lying about your age,
your weight.
It's wondering if they're mama's boys
or gays still in the closet,
what to do with small talk,
stretch marks. It's settling
for a 6 because you're horny.
The Fact's a piece of cake.
203dianeham
>202 AlisonY: thank you. I especially like the first one.
204AlisonY
>203 dianeham: I love the first one too.
205dianeham
Exhaustion by Saadi Youssef
Like two horses
we bolted toward the limits of the earth.
Then fell
without knowing,
the way the shadow of the sun falls
in the corner of the room.
—Translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
From Paris Review issue no. 154 (Spring 2000)
206msf59
>193 Crypto-Willobie: I really like "Two Hangovers". A lot going on there. I am currently sampling Wright's big collection Above the River.
>194 dianeham: Thanks for sharing the Shire poems. I will have to seek out more of this poet's work.
>197 jnwelch: Hi, Joe. I am glad you found your way over here. I love this thread and I hope to see more of you over here. I really liked the Wright poems you shared. I am currently jumping around in Above the River.
>200 rv1988: Barry can be hit or miss for me but I liked that one.
>194 dianeham: Thanks for sharing the Shire poems. I will have to seek out more of this poet's work.
>197 jnwelch: Hi, Joe. I am glad you found your way over here. I love this thread and I hope to see more of you over here. I really liked the Wright poems you shared. I am currently jumping around in Above the River.
>200 rv1988: Barry can be hit or miss for me but I liked that one.
207msf59
To the Saguaro Cactus Tree in the Desert Rain
I had no idea the elf owl
Crept into you in the secret
Of night.
I have torn myself out of many bitter places
In America, that seemed
Tall and green-rooted in mid-noon.
I wish I were the spare shadow
Of the roadrunner, I wish I were
The honest lover of the diamondback
And the tear the tarantula weeps.
I had no idea you were so tall
And blond in moonlight.
I got thirsty in the factories,
And I hated the brutal dry suns there,
So I quit.
You were the shadow
Of a hallway
In me.
I have never gone through that door,
But the elf owl's face
Is inside me.
Saguaro,
You are not one of the gods.
Your green arms lower and gather me.
I am an elf owl's shadow, a secret
Member of your family.
-James Wright
^My contribution. I have seen an elf owl in both Arizona and Texas.
I had no idea the elf owl
Crept into you in the secret
Of night.
I have torn myself out of many bitter places
In America, that seemed
Tall and green-rooted in mid-noon.
I wish I were the spare shadow
Of the roadrunner, I wish I were
The honest lover of the diamondback
And the tear the tarantula weeps.
I had no idea you were so tall
And blond in moonlight.
I got thirsty in the factories,
And I hated the brutal dry suns there,
So I quit.
You were the shadow
Of a hallway
In me.
I have never gone through that door,
But the elf owl's face
Is inside me.
Saguaro,
You are not one of the gods.
Your green arms lower and gather me.
I am an elf owl's shadow, a secret
Member of your family.
-James Wright
^My contribution. I have seen an elf owl in both Arizona and Texas.
208BLBera
I thought people might enjoy this:
https://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/one-driver-is-missing-a-blessing-along-t...
https://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/one-driver-is-missing-a-blessing-along-t...
209dianeham
>208 BLBera: Thanks Beth. Very interesting.
210Julie_in_the_Library
Song of the Worm
by Eliza Cook
THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain
In the field that is stored with its millions of slain ;
The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong,
With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong.
The tower of ages in fragments is laid,
Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade ;
And the hand of the giant and heart of the brave
Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave.
Daughters of earth, if I happen to meet
Your bloom-plucking fingers and sod-treading feet—
Oh ! turn not away with the shriek of disgust
From the thing you must mate with in darkness and dust.
Your eyes may be flashing in pleasure and pride,
'Neath the crown of a Queen or the wreath of a bride ;
Your lips may be fresh and your cheeks may be fair—
Let a few years pass over, and I shall be there.
Cities of splendour, where palace and gate,
Where the marble of strength and the purple of state ;
Where the mart and arena, the olive and vine,
Once flourished in glory ; oh ! are ye not mine ?
Go look for famed Carthage, and I shall be found
In the desolate ruin and weed-covered mound ;
And the slime of my trailing discovers my home,
'Mid the pillars of Tyre and the temples of Rome.
I am sacredly sheltered and daintily fed
Where the velvet bedecks, and the white lawn is spread ;
I may feast undisturbed, I may dwell and carouse
On the sweetest of lips and the smoothest of brows.
The voice of the sexton, the chink of the spade,
Sound merrily under the willow's dank shade.
They are carnival notes, and I travel with glee
To learn what the churchyard has given to me.
Oh ! the worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain,
For where monarchs are voiceless I revel and reign ;
I delve at my ease and regale where I may ;
None dispute with the worm in his will or his way.
The high and the bright for my feasting must fall—
Youth, Beauty, and Manhood, I prey on ye all :
The Prince and the peasant, the despot and slave ;
All, all must bow down to the worm and the grave.
by Eliza Cook
THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain
In the field that is stored with its millions of slain ;
The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong,
With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong.
The tower of ages in fragments is laid,
Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade ;
And the hand of the giant and heart of the brave
Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave.
Daughters of earth, if I happen to meet
Your bloom-plucking fingers and sod-treading feet—
Oh ! turn not away with the shriek of disgust
From the thing you must mate with in darkness and dust.
Your eyes may be flashing in pleasure and pride,
'Neath the crown of a Queen or the wreath of a bride ;
Your lips may be fresh and your cheeks may be fair—
Let a few years pass over, and I shall be there.
Cities of splendour, where palace and gate,
Where the marble of strength and the purple of state ;
Where the mart and arena, the olive and vine,
Once flourished in glory ; oh ! are ye not mine ?
Go look for famed Carthage, and I shall be found
In the desolate ruin and weed-covered mound ;
And the slime of my trailing discovers my home,
'Mid the pillars of Tyre and the temples of Rome.
I am sacredly sheltered and daintily fed
Where the velvet bedecks, and the white lawn is spread ;
I may feast undisturbed, I may dwell and carouse
On the sweetest of lips and the smoothest of brows.
The voice of the sexton, the chink of the spade,
Sound merrily under the willow's dank shade.
They are carnival notes, and I travel with glee
To learn what the churchyard has given to me.
Oh ! the worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain,
For where monarchs are voiceless I revel and reign ;
I delve at my ease and regale where I may ;
None dispute with the worm in his will or his way.
The high and the bright for my feasting must fall—
Youth, Beauty, and Manhood, I prey on ye all :
The Prince and the peasant, the despot and slave ;
All, all must bow down to the worm and the grave.
211dianeham
Erica Funkhouser
The Blue in Beets
The blue in beets
comes and goes
sometimes a shadow
of the weeds
where beets grew
or of their towering leaves
other times a suggestion
of what the beets
might have been:
blue birds
blue stones
blue fish
blue whales
blue water.
If blue isn’t here
it’s there
if it’s not there
it’s coming
if you have just seen it
it will be back
if you have never seen it
you will.
From Paris Review issue no. 70 (Summer 1977)
The Blue in Beets
The blue in beets
comes and goes
sometimes a shadow
of the weeds
where beets grew
or of their towering leaves
other times a suggestion
of what the beets
might have been:
blue birds
blue stones
blue fish
blue whales
blue water.
If blue isn’t here
it’s there
if it’s not there
it’s coming
if you have just seen it
it will be back
if you have never seen it
you will.
From Paris Review issue no. 70 (Summer 1977)
212msf59
Pity The Nation
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
213Crypto-Willobie
Salutation
O generation of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.
Ezra Pound
O generation of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.
Ezra Pound
214msf59
Untitled
December 30, 2023
And a day goes by, and tanks, and the sky a festival of kids flying kites, and blood
flowed behind a panting car.
And a day goes by, and the planes, and the tent of the displaced makes a bet
with time: winter is late.
And a day goes by, and the snipers, and the market itself has no salt: so I said:
No worries, the merchants have plenty of sadness.
And a day goes by, and artillery, but my neighbor’s funeral passes along
slowly, why rush at a time like this!
And a day goes by, and the newscasts, and when evening came, it was a bit
joyous to find us all there with none missing, except the house.
By Nasser Rabah
December 30, 2023
And a day goes by, and tanks, and the sky a festival of kids flying kites, and blood
flowed behind a panting car.
And a day goes by, and the planes, and the tent of the displaced makes a bet
with time: winter is late.
And a day goes by, and the snipers, and the market itself has no salt: so I said:
No worries, the merchants have plenty of sadness.
And a day goes by, and artillery, but my neighbor’s funeral passes along
slowly, why rush at a time like this!
And a day goes by, and the newscasts, and when evening came, it was a bit
joyous to find us all there with none missing, except the house.
By Nasser Rabah
215dianeham
Jericho Brown
The Trees
In my front yard live three crepe myrtles, crying trees
We once called them, not the shadiest but soothing
During a break from work in the heat, their cool sweat
Falling into us. I don’t want to make more of it.
I’d like to let these spindly things be
Since my gift for transformation here proves
Useless now that I know everyone moves the same
Whether moving in tears or moving
To punch my face. A crepe myrtle is
A crepe myrtle. Three is a family. It is winter. They are bare.
It’s not that I love them
Every day. It’s that I love them anyway.
From issue no. 226 (Fall 2018)
The Trees
In my front yard live three crepe myrtles, crying trees
We once called them, not the shadiest but soothing
During a break from work in the heat, their cool sweat
Falling into us. I don’t want to make more of it.
I’d like to let these spindly things be
Since my gift for transformation here proves
Useless now that I know everyone moves the same
Whether moving in tears or moving
To punch my face. A crepe myrtle is
A crepe myrtle. Three is a family. It is winter. They are bare.
It’s not that I love them
Every day. It’s that I love them anyway.
From issue no. 226 (Fall 2018)
216Treebeard_404
>214 msf59: Oof! That is powerful.
217msf59
>215 dianeham: I like this one, Diane.
218msf59
The World is a Beautiful Place
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1919 -2021
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1919 -2021
219dianeham
Today is Tennesee Williams’ birthday . He was born in 1911
We Have Not Long to Love
BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day....
We Have Not Long to Love
BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day....
220Julie_in_the_Library
KATHERINE WITH THE LAZY EYE. SHORT. AND NOT A GOOD POET.
by Francine J. Harris
This morning, I heard you were found in your McDonald’s uniform.
I heard it while I was visiting a lake town, where empty woodsy highways
turn into waterside drives. I’d forgot
my toothbrush and was brushing with my finger, when a friend
who didn’t know you said he heard it like this: You know Katherine. Short.
with a lazy eye. Poet. Not a very good one. Yeah, well she died. the blue
on that lake fogs off into the horizon like styrofoam. The picnic tables
full of white people. I ask them where the coffee is. They say at Meijer.
I wonder if you thought about getting out of Detroit. When you read at the open mike
you’d point across the street at McDonald’s and told us to come see you.
Katherine with the lazy eye. short and not a good poet, I guess I almost cried.
I don’t know why, because I didn’t like you. This is the first time I remembered your name.
I didn’t like how you followed around a married man. That your poems sucked
and that I figured they were all about the married man.
That sometimes you reminded me of myself, boy crazy. That sometimes
I think people just don’t tell me that I’m kind of, well…slow.
Katherine with the lazy eye, short. and not a good poet.
I didn’t like your lazy eye always looking at me. That you called me
by my name. I didn’t
like you, since the first time I saw you at McDonald’s.
You had a mop. And you were letting some homeless dude
flirt with you. I wondered then, if you thought that was the best
you could do. I wondered then if it was.
Katherine with the lazy eye, short, and not a good poet.
You were too silly to wind up dead in an abandoned building.
I didn’t like you because, what was I supposed to tell you. What.
Don’t let them look at you like that, Katherine. Don’t let them get you alone.
You don’t get to laugh like that, like nothing’s gonna get you. Not everyone
will forgive the slow girl. Katherine
with the fucked up eye, short. Poetry sucked, musta’ knew better. I avoided you
in the hallway. I avoided you in lunch line. I avoided you in the lake.
I avoided you. My lazy eye. Katherine with one hideous eye, shit.
Poetry for boys again, you should have been immune. you were supposed
to be a cartoon. your body was supposed to be as twisted as
it was gonna get. Short. and not a good poet. Katherine
with no eye no more. I avoided you, hated it, when you said my name. I
really want to leave Detroit. Katherine the lazy short.
not a good poet. and shit. Somewhere someone has already asked
what was she like, and a woman has brought out her wallet and said
This is her. This is my beautiful baby.
by Francine J. Harris
This morning, I heard you were found in your McDonald’s uniform.
I heard it while I was visiting a lake town, where empty woodsy highways
turn into waterside drives. I’d forgot
my toothbrush and was brushing with my finger, when a friend
who didn’t know you said he heard it like this: You know Katherine. Short.
with a lazy eye. Poet. Not a very good one. Yeah, well she died. the blue
on that lake fogs off into the horizon like styrofoam. The picnic tables
full of white people. I ask them where the coffee is. They say at Meijer.
I wonder if you thought about getting out of Detroit. When you read at the open mike
you’d point across the street at McDonald’s and told us to come see you.
Katherine with the lazy eye. short and not a good poet, I guess I almost cried.
I don’t know why, because I didn’t like you. This is the first time I remembered your name.
I didn’t like how you followed around a married man. That your poems sucked
and that I figured they were all about the married man.
That sometimes you reminded me of myself, boy crazy. That sometimes
I think people just don’t tell me that I’m kind of, well…slow.
Katherine with the lazy eye, short. and not a good poet.
I didn’t like your lazy eye always looking at me. That you called me
by my name. I didn’t
like you, since the first time I saw you at McDonald’s.
You had a mop. And you were letting some homeless dude
flirt with you. I wondered then, if you thought that was the best
you could do. I wondered then if it was.
Katherine with the lazy eye, short, and not a good poet.
You were too silly to wind up dead in an abandoned building.
I didn’t like you because, what was I supposed to tell you. What.
Don’t let them look at you like that, Katherine. Don’t let them get you alone.
You don’t get to laugh like that, like nothing’s gonna get you. Not everyone
will forgive the slow girl. Katherine
with the fucked up eye, short. Poetry sucked, musta’ knew better. I avoided you
in the hallway. I avoided you in lunch line. I avoided you in the lake.
I avoided you. My lazy eye. Katherine with one hideous eye, shit.
Poetry for boys again, you should have been immune. you were supposed
to be a cartoon. your body was supposed to be as twisted as
it was gonna get. Short. and not a good poet. Katherine
with no eye no more. I avoided you, hated it, when you said my name. I
really want to leave Detroit. Katherine the lazy short.
not a good poet. and shit. Somewhere someone has already asked
what was she like, and a woman has brought out her wallet and said
This is her. This is my beautiful baby.
221msf59
>220 Julie_in_the_Library: That is an excellent poem, Julie. Wow! Where did you find it?
222msf59
The Last Hummingbird of Summer...
reveals itself in retrospect. Unlike the first,
whose March arrival bade you gasp, hands clasped,
like a child actor instructed to show joy, when the last
departs for points south, there’s no telling,
and no tell. Well, so what? You know their cycle.
In August, they swarm the feeder, all swagger,
greedy tussle for sugar water. Suddenly,
September. Chill tickles your ankles. You reach
for long sleeves and you fret. They’ve left? Not yet.
Ear cocked for the symphony’s shrinking strings.
Then comes a day without a ruby flash. Next day,
they’re back. Next day, there’s one. Then none.
Or maybe one? From porches, pumpkins grin.
Your last had left, and left you uninformed.
Kinda? Sorta? Can I say it?—like menstrual blood,
again, between your legs. Your last, perhaps,
or next-to-last, your no-longer-very-monthly
monthly. So unlike your first crimson, at twelve,
its “Yes-You-Are-There-God” annunciation.
Well, so what? You know the cycle. Your body’s
eggy miracle, unneeded now for years.
And you hate waste. Why fill and dump
and fill again the undrunk sugar water?
Enough. Let’s progress to whatever season’s next.
But still, a farewell ritual wouldn’t be amiss.
The last hummingbird of summer, zinging
from the feeder—to others, a smooth departure—
to you, alone, unmistakably, dipping its wing.
-Beth Ann Fennelly
reveals itself in retrospect. Unlike the first,
whose March arrival bade you gasp, hands clasped,
like a child actor instructed to show joy, when the last
departs for points south, there’s no telling,
and no tell. Well, so what? You know their cycle.
In August, they swarm the feeder, all swagger,
greedy tussle for sugar water. Suddenly,
September. Chill tickles your ankles. You reach
for long sleeves and you fret. They’ve left? Not yet.
Ear cocked for the symphony’s shrinking strings.
Then comes a day without a ruby flash. Next day,
they’re back. Next day, there’s one. Then none.
Or maybe one? From porches, pumpkins grin.
Your last had left, and left you uninformed.
Kinda? Sorta? Can I say it?—like menstrual blood,
again, between your legs. Your last, perhaps,
or next-to-last, your no-longer-very-monthly
monthly. So unlike your first crimson, at twelve,
its “Yes-You-Are-There-God” annunciation.
Well, so what? You know the cycle. Your body’s
eggy miracle, unneeded now for years.
And you hate waste. Why fill and dump
and fill again the undrunk sugar water?
Enough. Let’s progress to whatever season’s next.
But still, a farewell ritual wouldn’t be amiss.
The last hummingbird of summer, zinging
from the feeder—to others, a smooth departure—
to you, alone, unmistakably, dipping its wing.
-Beth Ann Fennelly
223Treebeard_404
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Ciona Rouse
We met in the middle of the street only to discuss
the Buteo lineatus, but we simply said hawk
because we knew nothing of Latin. We knew nothing
of red in the shoulder, of true hawks versus buzzards,
or what time they started their mornings,
what type of snake they stooped low
and swift to eat. We knew nothing.
Or, I should say, at least I knew nothing,
and he said nothing of what he knew that day
except one thing he said he thought, but now I say
he knew: I’m going to die soon, my neighbor said to me
and assured he had no diagnosis, just a thought. He said it
just two weeks before he died outdoors just
twenty steps away from where we stood that day—
he and I between the porch I returned to and twisted
the key to my door to cross the threshold into my familiar
like always I do and the garage he returned to
and twisted some wrench probably on a knob of the
El Camino like always he did every day when usually
I’d wave briefly en route from carport to door
sometimes saying “how’s it going,” expecting
only the “fine” I had time to digest. Except today
when I stepped out of my car, he waved me over to see
what I now know to call the Buteo. When first I read its
Latin name, I pronounced it boo-TAY-oh
before learning it’s more like saying beauty (oh!).
I can’t believe I booed when it’s always carrying awe.
Like on this day, the buzzard—red-shouldered and
usually nesting in the white pine—cast a shadow
upon my lawn just as I parked, and stared back at us—
my mesmerized neighbor and me—perched, probably hunting,
in the leaning eastern hemlock in my yard. Though
back then I think I only called it a tree because I knew nothing
about distinguishing evergreens because I don’t think I ever asked
or wondered or searched yet. I knew nothing about how they thrive
in the understory. Their cones, tiny. And when they think
they’re dying, they make more cones than ever before. How did he
know? Who did he ask and what did he search to find
the date that he might die, and how did he know
to say soon to me and only me and then, right there
in that garage with his wrench and the some other parts
unknown for the El Camino and the radio loud as always
it was, stoop down, his pledge hand anxious against his chest,
and never rise again? And now the hemlock, which also goes
by Tsuga canadensis, which is part Latin, part Japanese,
still leans, still looks like it might fall any day now, weighed
down by its ever-increasing tiny fists. And the Buteo returns
each winter to reclaim the white pine before spring.
Most hawks die by accident—collision, predation, disease.
But when it survives long enough to know it’s dying, it may
find a familiar tree and let its breath weaken in a dark cranny.
And my neighbor’s wife and I now meet in the middle,
sometimes even discussing birds but never discussing
that day. And I brought her roses on that first anniversary
without him because we sometimes discuss a little more
than birds. And the Buteo often soar in twos, sometimes solo.
So high I cannot see their shoulders, but I know their voices
now and can name them even when I don’t see them. No matter
how high they fly, they see me, though I don’t concern them.
They watch a cottonmouth, slender and sliding
silent in tall grass. And the cardinals don’t sing.
They don’t go mute, either. They tink.
Close to their nests and in their favorite trees, they know
when the hawk looms. And their voices turn
metallic: tink, tink, tink.
Copyright © 2024 by Ciona Rouse. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 28, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
Ciona Rouse
We met in the middle of the street only to discuss
the Buteo lineatus, but we simply said hawk
because we knew nothing of Latin. We knew nothing
of red in the shoulder, of true hawks versus buzzards,
or what time they started their mornings,
what type of snake they stooped low
and swift to eat. We knew nothing.
Or, I should say, at least I knew nothing,
and he said nothing of what he knew that day
except one thing he said he thought, but now I say
he knew: I’m going to die soon, my neighbor said to me
and assured he had no diagnosis, just a thought. He said it
just two weeks before he died outdoors just
twenty steps away from where we stood that day—
he and I between the porch I returned to and twisted
the key to my door to cross the threshold into my familiar
like always I do and the garage he returned to
and twisted some wrench probably on a knob of the
El Camino like always he did every day when usually
I’d wave briefly en route from carport to door
sometimes saying “how’s it going,” expecting
only the “fine” I had time to digest. Except today
when I stepped out of my car, he waved me over to see
what I now know to call the Buteo. When first I read its
Latin name, I pronounced it boo-TAY-oh
before learning it’s more like saying beauty (oh!).
I can’t believe I booed when it’s always carrying awe.
Like on this day, the buzzard—red-shouldered and
usually nesting in the white pine—cast a shadow
upon my lawn just as I parked, and stared back at us—
my mesmerized neighbor and me—perched, probably hunting,
in the leaning eastern hemlock in my yard. Though
back then I think I only called it a tree because I knew nothing
about distinguishing evergreens because I don’t think I ever asked
or wondered or searched yet. I knew nothing about how they thrive
in the understory. Their cones, tiny. And when they think
they’re dying, they make more cones than ever before. How did he
know? Who did he ask and what did he search to find
the date that he might die, and how did he know
to say soon to me and only me and then, right there
in that garage with his wrench and the some other parts
unknown for the El Camino and the radio loud as always
it was, stoop down, his pledge hand anxious against his chest,
and never rise again? And now the hemlock, which also goes
by Tsuga canadensis, which is part Latin, part Japanese,
still leans, still looks like it might fall any day now, weighed
down by its ever-increasing tiny fists. And the Buteo returns
each winter to reclaim the white pine before spring.
Most hawks die by accident—collision, predation, disease.
But when it survives long enough to know it’s dying, it may
find a familiar tree and let its breath weaken in a dark cranny.
And my neighbor’s wife and I now meet in the middle,
sometimes even discussing birds but never discussing
that day. And I brought her roses on that first anniversary
without him because we sometimes discuss a little more
than birds. And the Buteo often soar in twos, sometimes solo.
So high I cannot see their shoulders, but I know their voices
now and can name them even when I don’t see them. No matter
how high they fly, they see me, though I don’t concern them.
They watch a cottonmouth, slender and sliding
silent in tall grass. And the cardinals don’t sing.
They don’t go mute, either. They tink.
Close to their nests and in their favorite trees, they know
when the hawk looms. And their voices turn
metallic: tink, tink, tink.
Copyright © 2024 by Ciona Rouse. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 28, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
225Julie_in_the_Library
>221 msf59: here's the link. I was directed there by a Have You Read This Poem poll blog on Tumblr.
226dianeham
Divorce 1 by Tove Ditlevsen
He would
in case of divorce
lay claim to half
of everything
he said.
Half a sofa,
half a TV,
half a summerhouse
half a pound of butter
half a child.
The apartment was his
he said
because it was in his name.
The thing was
he loved her.
She loved another
whose wife would
lay claim to half
of everything.
So the marriage act stated.
As clearly as
two and two makes four.
The solicitor
said so too.
She broke half of everything
and ripped the tax bill apart.
Then she left for
the women’s shelter on Jagtvej
with half a child.
The child was teased at school
because he only had
one ear.
Other than that,
this life too
was bearable
since things couldn’t be
any different.
—Translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
From Paris Review issue no. 238 (Winter 2021)
227msf59
The Hymn
It began as an almost inaudible hum,
low and long for the solar winds
and far dim galaxies,
a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun,
a song without words for the snow falling,
for snow conceiving snow
conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame,
the hum turning again higher—into a riff of ridges,
peaks hard as consonants,
summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices
then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows,
the lakes’ skittery surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking
waves, the salt-deep: the warm bodies moving within it:
the cold deep: the deep underneath gleaming, some of us rising
as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down
as it turned into dark; as each of us rested—another woke, standing
among the cast-off cartons and automobiles;
we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,
left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices,
in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields,
in the mud of the shantytowns, breaking into
harmonies we’d not known possible, finding the chords as we
found our true place singing in a million
million keys the human hymn of praise for every
something else there is and ever was and will be:
the song growing louder and rising.
(Listen, I, too, believed it was a dream.)
-Marie Howe
It began as an almost inaudible hum,
low and long for the solar winds
and far dim galaxies,
a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun,
a song without words for the snow falling,
for snow conceiving snow
conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame,
the hum turning again higher—into a riff of ridges,
peaks hard as consonants,
summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices
then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows,
the lakes’ skittery surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking
waves, the salt-deep: the warm bodies moving within it:
the cold deep: the deep underneath gleaming, some of us rising
as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down
as it turned into dark; as each of us rested—another woke, standing
among the cast-off cartons and automobiles;
we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,
left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices,
in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields,
in the mud of the shantytowns, breaking into
harmonies we’d not known possible, finding the chords as we
found our true place singing in a million
million keys the human hymn of praise for every
something else there is and ever was and will be:
the song growing louder and rising.
(Listen, I, too, believed it was a dream.)
-Marie Howe
228Julie_in_the_Library
So This Is Nebraska
by Ted Kooser
The gravel road rides with a slow gallop
over the fields, the telephone lines
streaming behind, its billow of dust
full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.
On either side, those dear old ladies,
the loosening barns, their little windows
dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs
hide broken tractors under their skirts.
So this is Nebraska. A Sunday
afternoon; July. Driving along
with your hand out squeezing the air,
a meadowlark waiting on every post.
Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,
top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,
a pickup kicks its fenders off
and settles back to read the clouds.
You feel like that; you feel like letting
your tires go flat, like letting the mice
build a nest in your muffler, like being
no more than a truck in the weeds,
clucking with chickens or sticky with honey
or holding a skinny old man in your lap
while he watches the road, waiting
for someone to wave to. You feel like
waving. You feel like stopping the car
and dancing around on the road. You wave
instead and leave your hand out gliding
larklike over the wheat, over the houses.
by Ted Kooser
The gravel road rides with a slow gallop
over the fields, the telephone lines
streaming behind, its billow of dust
full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.
On either side, those dear old ladies,
the loosening barns, their little windows
dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs
hide broken tractors under their skirts.
So this is Nebraska. A Sunday
afternoon; July. Driving along
with your hand out squeezing the air,
a meadowlark waiting on every post.
Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,
top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,
a pickup kicks its fenders off
and settles back to read the clouds.
You feel like that; you feel like letting
your tires go flat, like letting the mice
build a nest in your muffler, like being
no more than a truck in the weeds,
clucking with chickens or sticky with honey
or holding a skinny old man in your lap
while he watches the road, waiting
for someone to wave to. You feel like
waving. You feel like stopping the car
and dancing around on the road. You wave
instead and leave your hand out gliding
larklike over the wheat, over the houses.
229Julie_in_the_Library
>227 msf59: Oh, I love the use of language in that one. The consonance and assonance and other poetic language devices. Very nice.
230rv1988
Don't Do That
by Stephen Dunn
It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything
hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red
along with some resentment I’d held in
for a few weeks, which was not helped
by the sight of little nameless things
pierced with toothpicks on the tables,
or by talk that promised to be nothing
if not small. But I’d consented to come,
and I knew what part of the house
their animals would be sequestered,
whose company I loved. What else can I say,
except that old retainer of slights and wrongs,
that bad boy I hadn’t quite outgrown—
I’d brought him along, too. I was out
to cultivate a mood. My hosts greeted me,
but did not ask about my soul, which was when
I was invited by Johnnie Walker Red
to find the right kind of glass, and pour.
I toasted the air. I said hello to the wall,
then walked past a group of women
dressed to be seen, undressing them
one by one, and went up the stairs to where
the Rottweilers were, Rosie and Tom,
and got down with them on all fours.
They licked the face I offered them,
and I proceeded to slick back my hair
with their saliva, and before long
I felt like a wild thing, ready to mess up
the party, scarf the hors d’oeuvres.
But the dogs said, No, don’t do that,
calm down, after a while they open the door
and let you out, they pet your head, and everything
you might have held against them is gone,
and you’re good friends again. Stay, they said
by Stephen Dunn
It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything
hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red
along with some resentment I’d held in
for a few weeks, which was not helped
by the sight of little nameless things
pierced with toothpicks on the tables,
or by talk that promised to be nothing
if not small. But I’d consented to come,
and I knew what part of the house
their animals would be sequestered,
whose company I loved. What else can I say,
except that old retainer of slights and wrongs,
that bad boy I hadn’t quite outgrown—
I’d brought him along, too. I was out
to cultivate a mood. My hosts greeted me,
but did not ask about my soul, which was when
I was invited by Johnnie Walker Red
to find the right kind of glass, and pour.
I toasted the air. I said hello to the wall,
then walked past a group of women
dressed to be seen, undressing them
one by one, and went up the stairs to where
the Rottweilers were, Rosie and Tom,
and got down with them on all fours.
They licked the face I offered them,
and I proceeded to slick back my hair
with their saliva, and before long
I felt like a wild thing, ready to mess up
the party, scarf the hors d’oeuvres.
But the dogs said, No, don’t do that,
calm down, after a while they open the door
and let you out, they pet your head, and everything
you might have held against them is gone,
and you’re good friends again. Stay, they said
231Julie_in_the_Library
Happy National Poetry Month to everyone in the US!
232msf59
>230 rv1988: I like that poem. Thanks for sharing.
233msf59
Today
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
by Billy Collins
234Julie_in_the_Library
Casey at the Bat
by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that—
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
235rv1988
An Offer Received in this Morning's Mail:
(On misreading an ad for a set of CDs entitled "Beethoven's Complete Symphonies.")
by Amy Gerstler
The Musical Heritage Society
invites you to accept
Beethoven's Complete Sympathies.
A full $80.00 value, yours for $49.95.
The brooding composer
of "Ode to Joy" now delighting
audiences in paradise nightly
knows your sorrows. Just look
at his furrowed brow, his thin
lipped grimace. Your sweaty
2 A.M. writhings have touched
his great Teutonic heart. Peering
invisibly over your shoulder
he reads those poems you scribble
on memo pads at the office,
containing lines like o lethal blossom,
I am your marionette forever,
and a compassionate smile trembles
at the corners of his formerly stern
mouth. (He'd be thrilled to set
your poems to music.) This immortal
master, gathered to the bosom of his ancestors over a century ago
has not forgotten those left behind
to endure gridlock and mind-ache,
wearily crosshatching the earth's surface
with our miseries, or belching complaints
into grimy skies, further besmirching
the firmament. But just how relevant
is Beethoven these days, you may ask.
Wouldn't the symphonies of a modern
composer provide a more up-to-date
form of solace? Well, process this info-byte,
21st century skeptic. A single lock
of Beethoven's hair fetched over $7,000
last week at auction. The hairs were then
divided into lots of two or three and resold
at astronomical prices. That's how significant
he remains today. Beethoven the great-hearted,
who used to sign letters ever thine,
the unhappiest of men, want you
to know how deeply sorry he is
that you're having such a rough time.
Prone to illness, self-criticism
and squandered affections—
Ludwig (he'd like you to call him that,
if you'd do him the honor,)
son of a drunk and a depressive,
was beaten, cheated, and eventually
went stone deaf. He too had to content
himself with clutching his beloved's
toothmarked yellow pencils
(at the tortured scrawls in his notebooks
show) to sketch out symphonies, concerti,
chamber music, etcetera—works
that still brim, as does your disconsolate
soul, with unquenched fire and brilliance.
Give Beethoven a chance to show
how much he cares. Easy financing
available. And remember:
a century in heaven has not calmed
the maestro's celebrated temper, so act now.
For god's sake don't make him wait.
(On misreading an ad for a set of CDs entitled "Beethoven's Complete Symphonies.")
by Amy Gerstler
The Musical Heritage Society
invites you to accept
Beethoven's Complete Sympathies.
A full $80.00 value, yours for $49.95.
The brooding composer
of "Ode to Joy" now delighting
audiences in paradise nightly
knows your sorrows. Just look
at his furrowed brow, his thin
lipped grimace. Your sweaty
2 A.M. writhings have touched
his great Teutonic heart. Peering
invisibly over your shoulder
he reads those poems you scribble
on memo pads at the office,
containing lines like o lethal blossom,
I am your marionette forever,
and a compassionate smile trembles
at the corners of his formerly stern
mouth. (He'd be thrilled to set
your poems to music.) This immortal
master, gathered to the bosom of his ancestors over a century ago
has not forgotten those left behind
to endure gridlock and mind-ache,
wearily crosshatching the earth's surface
with our miseries, or belching complaints
into grimy skies, further besmirching
the firmament. But just how relevant
is Beethoven these days, you may ask.
Wouldn't the symphonies of a modern
composer provide a more up-to-date
form of solace? Well, process this info-byte,
21st century skeptic. A single lock
of Beethoven's hair fetched over $7,000
last week at auction. The hairs were then
divided into lots of two or three and resold
at astronomical prices. That's how significant
he remains today. Beethoven the great-hearted,
who used to sign letters ever thine,
the unhappiest of men, want you
to know how deeply sorry he is
that you're having such a rough time.
Prone to illness, self-criticism
and squandered affections—
Ludwig (he'd like you to call him that,
if you'd do him the honor,)
son of a drunk and a depressive,
was beaten, cheated, and eventually
went stone deaf. He too had to content
himself with clutching his beloved's
toothmarked yellow pencils
(at the tortured scrawls in his notebooks
show) to sketch out symphonies, concerti,
chamber music, etcetera—works
that still brim, as does your disconsolate
soul, with unquenched fire and brilliance.
Give Beethoven a chance to show
how much he cares. Easy financing
available. And remember:
a century in heaven has not calmed
the maestro's celebrated temper, so act now.
For god's sake don't make him wait.
236Treebeard_404
>235 rv1988: OMG, that is brilliant!
237Crypto-Willobie
But wait.... there's more!
238baswood
>235 rv1988: That was fun
239dianeham
I had some fun plans for poetry month here but unexpected life events - like the sky falling - have demanded my attention. Sorry.
240Julie_in_the_Library
Untitled This is what was bequeathed us
by Gregory Orr
This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.
No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.
No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.
No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.
That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.
241kidzdoc
>235 rv1988: Wow! I loved this poem. Amy Gerstler is now on my radar screen.
242rv1988
>241 kidzdoc: I love Amy Gerstler's work. Here's one more I liked.
In Perpetual Spring
By Amy Gerstler
Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies
and trip over the roots
of a sweet gum tree,
in search of medieval
plants whose leaves,
when they drop off
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they
plop into water.
Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.
In Perpetual Spring
By Amy Gerstler
Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies
and trip over the roots
of a sweet gum tree,
in search of medieval
plants whose leaves,
when they drop off
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they
plop into water.
Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.
244kidzdoc
>242 rv1988: That poem is also great, Diane! Thanks for sharing it. I'll have to request at least one of her collections from one of the two library systems I'm a member of this week.
>243 dianeham: Truth, indeed!
>243 dianeham: Truth, indeed!
245msf59
>242 rv1988: I also like this poem, RV. I will have to seek out more of Amy Gerstler's work.
246msf59
Prayer for 2018
Surely there was a river, once, but there is no river here. Only a sound of drowning in the dark between the trees. The sound of wet, and only that. Surely there was a country that I called my country, once. Before the thief who would be king made other countries of us all. Before the bright screens everywhere in which another country lives. But what is it, anyway, to live—to breathe, to act, to love, to eat? Surely there was a real earth, wild and green, here, blossoming. Land of milk and honey, once. Land of wind-swept plains and blood, then of shackles and of iron. And then the black smoke of its cities and the laying down of laws. Under which some flourished—if you call that flourishing—and from which others would have fled had there been anywhere to flee. My country, which is cruel, and which is beautiful and lost. Surely, there were notes that made a song, a pledge of birds. And not a child in any cage, no man or woman in a ditch. Surely, what we meant was to anoint some other god. One made of wind and starlight, pulsing, heart that matched the human heart. Surely that god watches us, now, one eye in the river, one eye where the river was.
-Cecilia Woloch
From Poem-A-Day
Surely there was a river, once, but there is no river here. Only a sound of drowning in the dark between the trees. The sound of wet, and only that. Surely there was a country that I called my country, once. Before the thief who would be king made other countries of us all. Before the bright screens everywhere in which another country lives. But what is it, anyway, to live—to breathe, to act, to love, to eat? Surely there was a real earth, wild and green, here, blossoming. Land of milk and honey, once. Land of wind-swept plains and blood, then of shackles and of iron. And then the black smoke of its cities and the laying down of laws. Under which some flourished—if you call that flourishing—and from which others would have fled had there been anywhere to flee. My country, which is cruel, and which is beautiful and lost. Surely, there were notes that made a song, a pledge of birds. And not a child in any cage, no man or woman in a ditch. Surely, what we meant was to anoint some other god. One made of wind and starlight, pulsing, heart that matched the human heart. Surely that god watches us, now, one eye in the river, one eye where the river was.
-Cecilia Woloch
From Poem-A-Day
247msf59
Backwards
The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.
He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life;
that’s how we bring Dad back.
I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole.
We grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear,
your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums.
I can make us loved, just say the word.
Give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,
I can write the poem and make it disappear.
Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass,
Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,
maybe she keeps the baby.
Maybe we’re okay kid?
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love,
you won’t be able to see beyond it.
You won’t be able to see beyond it,
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love.
Maybe we’re okay kid,
maybe she keeps the baby.
Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,
Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass.
I can write the poem and make it disappear,
give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,
I can make us loved, just say the word.
Your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums
we grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear.
I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole,
that’s how we bring Dad back.
He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life.
The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.
by Warsan Shire
The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.
He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life;
that’s how we bring Dad back.
I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole.
We grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear,
your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums.
I can make us loved, just say the word.
Give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,
I can write the poem and make it disappear.
Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass,
Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,
maybe she keeps the baby.
Maybe we’re okay kid?
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love,
you won’t be able to see beyond it.
You won’t be able to see beyond it,
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love.
Maybe we’re okay kid,
maybe she keeps the baby.
Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,
Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass.
I can write the poem and make it disappear,
give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,
I can make us loved, just say the word.
Your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums
we grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear.
I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole,
that’s how we bring Dad back.
He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life.
The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.
by Warsan Shire
248rv1988
>247 msf59: Warsan Shire is so good. She really is very skilled - apart from her powerful material, her technique is impeccable. I like how this poem curls in on itself, with the repetition going backwards.
249rv1988
Small Kindnesses
by Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
by Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
250Julie_in_the_Library
>249 rv1988: I like that one. Very sweet.
251msf59
>249 rv1988: I really like this one too! Spot on.
252rv1988
The Watch
Danusha Laméris
At night, my husband takes it off
puts it on the dresser beside his wallet and keys
laying down, for a moment, the accoutrements of manhood.
Sometimes, when he’s not looking, I pick it up
savor the weight, the dark face, ticked with silver
the brown, ostrich leather band with its little goosebumps
raised as the flesh is raised in pleasure.
He had wanted a watch and was pleased when I gave it to him.
And since we’ve been together ten years
it seemed like the occasion for the gift of a watch
a recognition of the intricate achievements
of marriage, its many negotiations and nameless triumphs.
But tonight, when I saw it lying there among
his crumpled receipts and scattered pennies
I thought of my brother’s wife coming home
from the coroner carrying his rings, his watch
in a clear, ziplock bag, and how we sat at the table
and emptied them into our palms
their slight pressure all that remained of him.
How odd the way a watch keeps going
even after the heart has stopped. My grandfather
was a watchmaker and spent his life in Holland
leaning over a clean, well-lit table, a surgeon of time
attending to the inner workings: spring,
escapement, balance wheel. I can’t take it back,
the way the man I love is already disappearing
into this mechanism of metal and hide,
this accountant of hours
that holds, with such precise indifference,
all the minutes of his life.
Danusha Laméris
At night, my husband takes it off
puts it on the dresser beside his wallet and keys
laying down, for a moment, the accoutrements of manhood.
Sometimes, when he’s not looking, I pick it up
savor the weight, the dark face, ticked with silver
the brown, ostrich leather band with its little goosebumps
raised as the flesh is raised in pleasure.
He had wanted a watch and was pleased when I gave it to him.
And since we’ve been together ten years
it seemed like the occasion for the gift of a watch
a recognition of the intricate achievements
of marriage, its many negotiations and nameless triumphs.
But tonight, when I saw it lying there among
his crumpled receipts and scattered pennies
I thought of my brother’s wife coming home
from the coroner carrying his rings, his watch
in a clear, ziplock bag, and how we sat at the table
and emptied them into our palms
their slight pressure all that remained of him.
How odd the way a watch keeps going
even after the heart has stopped. My grandfather
was a watchmaker and spent his life in Holland
leaning over a clean, well-lit table, a surgeon of time
attending to the inner workings: spring,
escapement, balance wheel. I can’t take it back,
the way the man I love is already disappearing
into this mechanism of metal and hide,
this accountant of hours
that holds, with such precise indifference,
all the minutes of his life.
253Treebeard_404
>252 rv1988: Very touching and thought-provoking, which are (to my mind) the hallmarks of good poems. I now wonder what items of mine my wife and kids might view as somewhat totemic after I pass.
254mabith
Here is an ancient work for you all!
I think I’ll go home and lie very still,
feigning terminal illness.
Then the neighbors will all troop over to stare,
my love, perhaps, among them.
How she’ll smile while the specialists
snarl in their teeth! –
she perfectly well knows what ails me.
–Egyptian poem, circa 1292-1070 BC
Found in Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology.
I think I’ll go home and lie very still,
feigning terminal illness.
Then the neighbors will all troop over to stare,
my love, perhaps, among them.
How she’ll smile while the specialists
snarl in their teeth! –
she perfectly well knows what ails me.
–Egyptian poem, circa 1292-1070 BC
Found in Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology.
255BLBera
>243 dianeham: I love this, Diane! It's my first laugh of the day.
256rv1988
>254 mabith: Wonderful!
257rv1988
Morning
Frank O’Hara
I’ve got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death
in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe
chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow
At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes
I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine
although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you’d be proud of
the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle
what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it
is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone
Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I’ll not be cordial
there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is
when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go
Frank O’Hara
I’ve got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death
in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe
chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow
At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes
I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine
although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you’d be proud of
the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle
what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it
is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone
Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I’ll not be cordial
there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is
when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go
258FlorenceArt
>257 rv1988: Sweet and sad.
259FlorenceArt
Plum
It is a dark and captivating fruit. Sour when it should be sweet. Oddly fleshy inside. Sensuous. Like an object conjured in a dream I would be reluctant to discuss. Like those sins that still feel so good, ripening at the edges of the mind. I travel to a province where they grow. It takes two days. I arrive at night and check into a neon motel. I wake before dawn and walk out to the orchards where the migrants have already begun to pick. I watch them on their tripod ladders. Their children playing below, speaking a language I do not understand. One of the workers gestures toward me. Another pivots around. I nod and wave like a comrade. From high in the tree someone tosses me a plum.
David Shumate
From AGNI
It is a dark and captivating fruit. Sour when it should be sweet. Oddly fleshy inside. Sensuous. Like an object conjured in a dream I would be reluctant to discuss. Like those sins that still feel so good, ripening at the edges of the mind. I travel to a province where they grow. It takes two days. I arrive at night and check into a neon motel. I wake before dawn and walk out to the orchards where the migrants have already begun to pick. I watch them on their tripod ladders. Their children playing below, speaking a language I do not understand. One of the workers gestures toward me. Another pivots around. I nod and wave like a comrade. From high in the tree someone tosses me a plum.
David Shumate
From AGNI
260msf59
Reading Yeats I Do Not Think
Reading Yeats I do not think
of Ireland
but of midsummer New York
and of myself back then
reading that copy I found
on the Thirdavenue El
the El
with its flyhung fans
and its signs reading
SPITTING IS FORBIDDEN
the El
careening thru its thirdstory world
with its thirdstory people
in their thirdstory doors
looking as if they had never heard
of the ground
an old dame
watering her plant
or a joker in a straw
putting a stickpin in his peppermint tie
and looking just like he had nowhere to go
but coneyisland
or an undershirted guy
rocking in his rocker—watching the El pass by
as if he expected it to be different
each time
Reading Yeats I do not think
of Arcady
and of its woods which Yeats thought dead
I think instead
of all the gone faces
getting off
at midtown places
with their hats and their jobs
and of that lost book I had
with its blue cover and its white inside
—where a pencilhand had written
HORSEMAN, PASS BY!
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I just finished These Are My Rivers.
Reading Yeats I do not think
of Ireland
but of midsummer New York
and of myself back then
reading that copy I found
on the Thirdavenue El
the El
with its flyhung fans
and its signs reading
SPITTING IS FORBIDDEN
the El
careening thru its thirdstory world
with its thirdstory people
in their thirdstory doors
looking as if they had never heard
of the ground
an old dame
watering her plant
or a joker in a straw
putting a stickpin in his peppermint tie
and looking just like he had nowhere to go
but coneyisland
or an undershirted guy
rocking in his rocker—watching the El pass by
as if he expected it to be different
each time
Reading Yeats I do not think
of Arcady
and of its woods which Yeats thought dead
I think instead
of all the gone faces
getting off
at midtown places
with their hats and their jobs
and of that lost book I had
with its blue cover and its white inside
—where a pencilhand had written
HORSEMAN, PASS BY!
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I just finished These Are My Rivers.
262lisapeet
I love that sweet sad O'Hara poem. I've probably said this a hundred times here, but I always envision him as he might have been had he not died so young—in his 70s or 80s, wearing that wonderful profile, and all the poetry he would have written. I've been a huge fan of his poetry since I got his Selected Poems in my early teens... he'd be gone now, no doubt—he'd have been 98 this year—but there's always a ghost of O'Hara as a fabulous elder in my mind.
263FlorenceArt
>260 msf59: I like it!
264rv1988
>262 lisapeet: >261 msf59: I love O'Hara too. I remember getting a copy of his Lunch Poems and reading it over and over. I particularly like that line from 'Meditations in an Emergency' - "I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love."
265rv1988
>260 msf59: Lovely.
266icepatton
In my attempt to read more classics this year, I'm delving more into the Romantic poetry of England and thereabouts, starting with Keats (though there is no particular order). Now that I think of it, Shelley's "Ozymandias" comes to mind. I've liked this poem ever since I first read it in high school:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
267dianeham
Tom Clark
Water
The fog comes in, flatter
than ever. The air, apparently
is blue somewhere, not here.
Flat and linear. The women
can’t escape except through speech
so they go to the beach.
I know. I’ll talk to
the wall and for once, tell all.
I’ll be its friend
as it bends, and fall with it.
From Paris Review issue no. 54 (Summer 1972)
Water
The fog comes in, flatter
than ever. The air, apparently
is blue somewhere, not here.
Flat and linear. The women
can’t escape except through speech
so they go to the beach.
I know. I’ll talk to
the wall and for once, tell all.
I’ll be its friend
as it bends, and fall with it.
From Paris Review issue no. 54 (Summer 1972)
268FlorenceArt
>267 dianeham: Very mysterious. I like.
269rv1988
>267 dianeham: Lovely!
270rv1988
“Asphodel” by A.E. Stallings
(after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)
Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
“You ride now through a field of asphodel,
The flower that grows on the plains of hell.
Across just such a field the pale shade came
Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
And short life to a long life without fame,
And summoned by Odysseus he gave
This wisdom, ‘Better by far to be a slave
Among the living, than great among the grave.
I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
Become associated with the tomb?
Then one evening, walking through the gloom,
I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
Like honey—but with hints of rotting meat.
An army of them bristled at my feet.”
________
AE Stallings is a classicist and translator; in 2023, she became Oxford's Professor of Poetry.
(after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)
Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
“You ride now through a field of asphodel,
The flower that grows on the plains of hell.
Across just such a field the pale shade came
Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
And short life to a long life without fame,
And summoned by Odysseus he gave
This wisdom, ‘Better by far to be a slave
Among the living, than great among the grave.
I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
Become associated with the tomb?
Then one evening, walking through the gloom,
I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
Like honey—but with hints of rotting meat.
An army of them bristled at my feet.”
________
AE Stallings is a classicist and translator; in 2023, she became Oxford's Professor of Poetry.
