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Living

If this is Wednesday, write Lazartigues, return library books, pick up passport form, cancel the paper. If this is Wednesday, mail B her flyers and K her shirts. Last thing I asked as I walked K to her car, “You sure you have everything?” “Oh yes,” she smiled, as she squalled off. Whole wardrobe in front closet. Go to Morrison’s for paint samples, that’s where housepainter has account (near Pier One), swing by Gano St. for another bunch of hydroponic lettuce. Stop at cleaners if there’s parking. Pap smear at 4. After last month with B’s ear infections, can’t bear sitting in damn doctor’s office. Never a magazine or picture on the wall worth looking at. Pack a book. Ever since B born, nothing comes clear. My mind like a mirror that’s been in a fire. Does this happen to the others. If this is Wednesday, meet Moss at the house at noon. Pick B up first, call sitter about Friday evening. If she prefers, can bring B to her (hope she keeps the apartment warmer this year). Need coat hooks and picture hangers for office. Should take car in for air filter, oil change. F said one of back tires low. Don’t forget car payment, late last two months in a row. If this is Wednesday, there’s a demo on the green at 11. Took B to his first down at Quonset Point in August. Blue skies. Boston collective provided good grub for all. Long column of denims and flannel shirts. Smell of patchouli made me so wistful, wanted to buy a woodstove, prop my feet up, share a J and a pot of Constant Comment with a friend. Maybe some zucchini bread. Meet with honors students from 1 to 4. At the community college I tried to incite them to poetry. Convince them this line of work, beat the bejesus out of a gig as gizzard splitter at the processing plant or cleaning up after a leak at the germ warfare center. Be all you can be, wrap rubber band around your trigger finger until it drops off. Swim at 10:00 before picking up B, before demo on the green, and before meeting moss, if it isn’t too crowded. Only three old women talking about their daughters-in-law last Wednesday at 10:00. Phone hardware to see if radon test arrived. Keep an eye out for a new yellow blanket. Left B’s on the plane, though he seems over it already. Left most recent issue of Z in the seat. That will make a few businessmen boil. I liked the man who sat next to me, he was sweet to B. Hated flying, said he never let all of his weight down. Need to get books in the mail today. Make time pass in line at the P.O. imagining man in front of me butt naked. Fellow in the good-preacher-blue-suit, probably has a cold, hard bottom. Call N for green tomato recipe. Have to get used to the Yankee growing season. If this is Wednesday, N goes in hospital today. Find out how long after marrow transplant before can visit. Mother said she read in paper that Pete was granted a divorce. His third. My highschool boyfriend. Meanest thing I could have done, I did to him, returning a long-saved-for engagement ring in a Band-Aid box, while he was stationed in Da Nang. Meant to tell F this morning about dream of eating grasshoppers, fried but happy. Our love a difficult instrument we are learning to play. Practice, practice. No matter where I call home anymore, feel like a boat under the trees. Living is strange. This week only; bargain on laid paper at East Side Copy Shop. Woman picking her nose at the stoplight. Shouldn’t look, only privacy we have anymore in the car. Isn’t that the woman from the colloquium last fall, who told me she was a stand-up environmentalist. What a wonderful trade, I said, because the evidence of planetary wrongdoing is overwhelming. Because because because of the horrible things we do. If this is Wednesday, meet F at Health Department at 10:45 for AIDS test. If this is Wednesday, it’s trash night.

C. D. Wright

Living,Health & Illness,The Body,Activities,Jobs & Working,School & Learning,Relationships,Home Life,Nature,Social Commentaries,History & Politics

Lake Echo, Dear

Is the woman in the pool of light really reading or just staring at what is written Is the man walking in the soft rain naked or is it the rain that makes his shirt transparent The boy in the iron cot is he asleep or still fingering the springs underneath Did you honestly believe three lives could be complete The bottle of green liquid on the sill is it real The bottle on the peeling sill is it filled with green Or is the liquid an illusion of fullness How summer’s children turn into fish and rain softens men How the elements of summer nights bid us to get down with each other on the unplaned floor And this feels painfully beautiful whether or not it will change the world one drop

C. D. Wright

Nature,Summer

Requiem for the First Half of Split

An early sadness for the future (as in dreams of myself young and sad) accompanies my departure towards a conventional story: a town of girls a New York City dormitory. And so a trail proceeds from our house on the top of the hill down the back way of former army barracks and past the borrowed church (ours had no tank) where I was baptized reasoning “it must be true” out of the love I had for my mother. And Tony’s house there across the street from it absolutely in the Mexican gully in dreams of which he and I still fight armed enemies he stepped on a land mine in Nam when I remind my brother, twenty years after his face contorts he knows the look of that death a week before he himself dies blood-tinged ruddy-winged, but that’s another dream-site the Needles Cemetery inelegant unbeautiful and dear and dry. See how many loves, how much thus sadness in the future begins to haunt that walk down that hill towards the highway away to the dormitory as I go to New York to sever love’s connections and make the “real ones” generated by actual mating by beauty and clothes the black wool suit with its three button jacket the oddly puffed-sleeved orange sweater and an orange and midnight- blue paisley waistless dress. New trail there, Brett knows my future love though I don’t hitchhikes with him to California years before I catch up to the poets in Iowa City that will be in ’69, my brother hasn’t yet signed up for Nam then when he gives me rattles off a rattler which I keep in my wooden India box I still have until they stink. I can’t keep track of the track there’s nothing but sidetrails of love and sadness so love is all that makes my people act they go to war for love you know, of who and what you are like I was baptized by the cruellest-lipped prissiest-mouthed man in the world for love, but I could just have gone swimming walked back up love’s hill back up at the house you can get to the pool barefoot if you can find enough bush or telephone-pole shadows. We’d all swim together I’d tread water dreaming of the future but a wilder larger eye birdlike distant holds the pool in its pupil anyone’s that too, and hold the enlarging water sad how not be why don’t the smart girls in New York know this why don’t you or I know what we know the eye and the water both enlarge still why don’t smart girls in Paris, yes larger but will never flood the containing eye, but why not and sometimes it does when you or your own are the news.

Alice Notley

Living,Separation & Divorce,Philosophy,Social Commentaries,War & Conflict

Luna Moth

No eye that sees could fail to remark you: like any leaf the rain leaves fixed to and flat against the barn’s gray shingle. But what leaf, this time of year, is so pale, the pale of leaves when they’ve lost just enough green to become the green that means loss and more loss, approaching? Give up the flesh enough times, and whatever is lost gets forgotten: that was the thought that I woke to, those words in my head. I rose, I did not dress, I left no particular body sleeping and, stepping into the hour, I saw you, strange sign, at once transparent and impossible to entirely see through. and how still: the still of being unmoved, and then the still of no longer being able to be moved. If I think of a heart, his, as I’ve found it.... If I think of, increasingly, my own.... If I look at you now, as from above, and see the diva when she is caught in mid- triumph, arms half-raised, the body as if set at last free of the green sheath that has— how many nights?—held her, it is not without remembering another I once saw: like you, except that something, a bird, some wild and necessary hunger, had gotten to it; and like the diva, but now broken, splayed and torn, the green torn piecemeal from her. I remember the hands, and—how small they seemed, bringing the small ripped thing to me.

Carl Phillips

The Body,Love,Realistic & Complicated,Relationships,Gay, Lesbian, Queer,Nature,Animals

Somewhere Holy

for Erin, for others There are places in this world where you can stand somewhere holy and be thinking If it’s holy then why don’t I feel it, something, and while waiting, like it will any moment happen and maybe this is it, a man accosts you, half in his tongue, half in yours, he asks if maybe you are wanting to get high, all the time his damaged finger twitching idly like on purpose at a leash that holds an animal you can’t quite put your finger on at first, until you ask him, ask the man, and then he tells you it’s a weasel and, of course, it is, you’ve seen them, you remember now, you say Of course, a weasel. There are men inside the world who, never mind how much they tell you that they’re trying, can’t persuade you that it isn’t you, it’s life, it’s life in general where it hurts, a fear, of everything, of nothing, when if only they would name it maybe then you’d stay, you all the time aware it’s you that’s talking, so who’s going anywhere but here, beside them, otherwise why come, why keep on coming, when you can’t get to believing what they tell you any more than you believed the drugs the other man was offering wouldn’t harm you. Still, you think, you took them and you’re still alive, enough to take the hand, that wants, that promises to take you to where damage is a word, that’s all, like yes, so Yes you say, I’ll come, you tell him Show me.

Carl Phillips

Religion,Faith & Doubt

A Kind of Meadow

—shored by trees at its far ending, as is the way in moral tales: whether trees as trees actually, for their shadow and what inside of it hides, threatens, calls to; or as ever-wavering conscience, cloaked now, and called Chorus; or, between these, whatever falls upon the rippling and measurable, but none to measure it, thin fabric of this stands for. A kind of meadow, and then trees—many, assembled, a wood therefore. Through the wood the worn path, emblematic of Much Trespass: Halt. Who goes there? A kind of meadow, where it ends begin trees, from whose twinning of late light and the already underway darkness you were expecting perhaps the stag to step forward, to make of its twelve-pointed antlers the branching foreground to a backdrop all branches; or you wanted the usual bird to break cover at that angle at which wings catch entirely what light’s left, so that for once the bird isn’t miracle at all, but the simplicity of patience and a good hand assembling: first the thin bones, now in careful rows the feathers, like fretwork, now the brush, for the laying-on of sheen.... As is always the way, you tell yourself, inpoems—Yes, always, until you have gone there, and gone there, “into the field,” vowing Only until there’s nothing moreI want—thinking it, wrongly, a thing attainable, any real end to wanting, and that it is close, and that it is likely, how will you not this time catch hold of it: flashing, flesh at once lit and lightless, a way out, the one dappled way, back—

Carl Phillips

Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

Hymn

Less the shadow than you a stag, sudden, through it. Less the stag breaking cover than the antlers, with which crowned. Less the antlers as trees leafless, to either side of the stag’s head, than— between them—the vision that must mean, surely, rescue. Less the rescue. More, always, the ache toward it. When I think of death, the gleam of the world darkening, dark, gathering me now in, it is lately as one more of many other nights figured with the inevitably black car, again the stranger’s strange room entered not for prayer but for striking prayer’s attitude, the body kneeling, bending, until it finds the muscled patterns that predictably, given strain and release, flesh assumes. When I think of desire, it is in the same way that I do God: as parable, any steep and blue water, things that are always there, they only wait to be sounded. And I a stone that, a little bit, perhaps should ask pardon. My fears—when I have fears— are of how long I shall be, falling, and in my at last resting how indistinguishable, inasmuch as they are countless, sire, all the unglittering other dropped stones.

Carl Phillips

The Body,Love,Relationships,Nature,Animals,Religion,God & the Divine

The Sign in My Father’s Hands

—for Frank Espada The beer company did not hire Blacks or Puerto Ricans, so my father joined the picket line at the Schaefer Beer Pavilion, New York World’s Fair, amid the crowds glaring with canine hostility. But the cops brandished nightsticks and handcuffs to protect the beer, and my father disappeared. In 1964, I had never tasted beer, and no one told me about the picket signs torn in two by the cops of brewery. I knew what dead was: dead was a cat overrun with parasites and dumped in the hallway incinerator. I knew my father was dead. I went mute and filmy-eyed, the slow boy who did not hear the question in school. I sat studying his framed photograph like a mirror, my darker face. Days later, he appeared in the doorway grinning with his gilded tooth. Not dead, though I would come to learn that sometimes Puerto Ricans die in jail, with bruises no one can explain swelling their eyes shut. I would learn too that “boycott” is not a boy’s haircut, that I could sketch a picket line on the blank side of a leaflet. That day my father returned from the netherworld easily as riding the elevator to apartment 14-F, and the brewery cops could only watch in drunken disappointment. I searched my father’s hands for a sign of the miracle.

Martín Espada

Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Social Commentaries,Class,Crime & Punishment,Money & Economics,Race & Ethnicity

The Meaning of the Shovel

—Barrio René Cisneros Managua, Nicaragua, June-July 1982 This was the dictator’s land before the revolution. Now the dictator is exiled to necropolis, his army brooding in camps on the border, and the congregation of the landless stipples the earth with a thousand shacks, every weatherbeaten carpenter planting a fistful of nails. Here I dig latrines. I dig because last week I saw a funeral in the streets of Managua, the coffin swaddled in a red and black flag, hoisted by a procession so silent that even their feet seemed to leave no sound on the gravel. He was eighteen, with the border patrol, when a sharpshooter from the dictator’s army took aim at the back of his head. I dig because yesterday I saw four walls of photographs: the faces of volunteers in high school uniforms who taught campesinos to read, bringing an alphabet sandwiched in notebooks to places where the mist never rises from the trees. All dead, by malaria or the greedy river or the dictator’s army swarming the illiterate villages like a sky full of corn-plundering birds. I dig because today, in this barrio without plumbing, I saw a woman wearing a yellow dress climb into a barrel of water to wash herself and the dress at the same time, her cupped hands spilling. I dig because today I stopped digging to drink an orange soda. In a country with no glass, the boy kept the treasured bottle and poured the liquid into a plastic bag full of ice, then poked a hole with a straw. I dig because today my shovel struck a clay bowl centuries old, the art of ancient fingers moist with this same earth, perfect but for one crack in the lip. I dig because I have hauled garbage and pumped gas and cut paper and sold encyclopedias door to door. I dig, digging until the passport in my back pocket saturates with dirt, because here I work for nothing and for everything.

Martín Espada

Living,Death,Activities,Jobs & Working,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,History & Politics,War & Conflict

Madam’s Past History

My name is Johnson— Madam Alberta K. The Madam stands for business. I’m smart that way. I had a HAIR-DRESSING PARLOR Before The depression put The prices lower. Then I had a BARBECUE STAND Till I got mixed up With a no-good man. Cause I had a insurance The WPA Said, We can’t use you Wealthy that way. I said, DON’T WORRY ’BOUT ME! Just like the song, You WPA folks take care of yourself— And I’ll get along. I do cooking, Day’s work, too! Alberta K. Johnson—Madam to you.

Langston Hughes

Activities,Jobs & Working,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,Money & Economics,Race & Ethnicity

Morning After

I was so sick last night I Didn’t hardly know my mind. So sick last night I Didn’t know my mind. I drunk some bad licker that Almost made me blind. Had a dream last night I Thought I was in hell. I drempt last night I Thought I was in hell. Woke up and looked around me— Babe, your mouth was open like a well. I said, Baby! Baby! Please don’t snore so loud. Baby! Please! Please don’t snore so loud. You jest a little bit o’ woman but you Sound like a great big crowd.

Langston Hughes

Living,Health & Illness,Marriage & Companionship,Activities,Eating & Drinking

Theme for English B

The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true.

Langston Hughes

Living,Coming of Age,Activities,School & Learning,Philosophy,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,Race & Ethnicity

Lepanto

White founts falling in the courts of the sun, And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross, The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun. Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall, The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, That once went singing southward when all the world was young, In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war, Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold, Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes. Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. Love-light of Spain—hurrah! Death-light of Africa! Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea. Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees, His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas. He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease, And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees, And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing. Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye, Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king. They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn; They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be; On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,— They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west. We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done, But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate! It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.” For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) Sudden and still—hurrah! Bolt from Iberia! Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar. St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift. He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone; The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria! Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships. King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed— Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah! Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade. The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.) The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear. He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark; And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs, Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon. And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign— (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!

G. K. Chesterton

Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Religion,Christianity,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,War & Conflict,Heroes & Patriotism

Modern Elfland

I cut a staff in a churchyard copse, I clad myself in ragged things, I set a feather in my cap That fell out of an angel’s wings. I filled my wallet with white stones, I took three foxgloves in my hand, I slung my shoes across my back, And so I went to fairyland. But lo, within that ancient place Science had reared her iron crown, And the great cloud of steam went up That telleth where she takes a town. But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps, That strange land’s light was still its own; The word that witched the woods and hills Spoke in the iron and the stone. Not Nature’s hand had ever curved That mute unearthly porter’s spine. Like sleeping dragon’s sudden eyes The signals leered along the line. The chimneys thronging crooked or straight Were fingers signalling the sky; The dog that strayed across the street Seemed four-legged by monstrosity. ‘In vain,’ I cried, ‘though you too touch The new time’s desecrating hand, Through all the noises of a town I hear the heart of fairyland.’ I read the name above a door, Then through my spirit pealed and passed: ‘This is the town of thine own home, And thou hast looked on it at last.’

G. K. Chesterton

Religion,Faith & Doubt,Arts & Sciences,Sciences,Mythology & Folklore,Ghosts & the Supernatural

Light and Dark

Lady, take care; for in the diamond eyes Of old old men is figured your undoing; Love is turned in behind the wrinkled lids To nurse their fear and scorn at their near going. Flesh hangs like the curtains in a house Long unused, damp as cellars without wine; They are the future of us all, when we Will be dried-leaf-thin, the sour whine Of a siren’s diminuendo. They have no past But egg husks shattered to a rubbish heap By memory’s looting. Do not follow them To their camp pitched in a cranny, do not keep To the road for them, a weary weary yard Will bring you in; that beckoning host ahead, Inn-keeper Death, has but to lift his hat To topple the oldster in the dust. Read, Poor old man, the sensual moral; sleep Narrow in your bed, wear no More so bright a rose in your lapel; The spell of the world is loosed, it is time to go.

Barbara Howes

Living,Growing Old,Time & Brevity

The Lonely Pipefish

Up, up, slender As an eel’s Child, weaving Through water, our lonely Pipefish seeks out his dinner, Scanty at best; he blinks Cut-diamond eyes—snap—he Grabs morsels so small Only a lens pinpoints them, But he ranges all over That plastic preserve—dorsal Fin tremulous—snap—and Another çedilla Of brine shrimp’s gone ... We talk on of poetry, of love, Of grammar; he looks At a living comma— Snap—sizzling about In his two-gallon Caribbean And grazes on umlauts for breakfast. His pug nosed, yellow Mate, aproned in gloom, Fed rarely, slumped, Went deadwhite, as we argued on; That rudder fin, round as a Pizza cutter, at the End of his two inch Fluent stick self, lets his eyes Pilot his mouth—snap ... Does his kind remember? Can our kind forget?

Barbara Howes

Relationships,Pets,Nature

Oystering

“Messieurs, l’huitre étoit bonne. Adieu. Vivez en paix.” —Boileau Secret they are, sealed, annealed, and brainless And solitary as Dickens said, but They have something to say: that there is more Than one way to yield. The first—and the hardest. The most nearly hindered—is when you pull Them off the rocks, a stinking, sawing sedge Sucking them back under the black mud, full Of hermit crabs and their borrowed snailshells, Minnows scattering like superstitions, The surf dragging, and every power Life permits them holding out, holding on For dear life. Sometimes the stones give way first. Before they will, but still we gather them, Even if our hands are bloody as meat, For a lunch Queen Victoria preferred: “A barrel of Wellfleet oysters, points down” Could last across the ocean, all the way To Windsor, wakening a widow’s taste. We ate them this afternoon, out of their Armor that was formidably grooved, though It proved our own reversal wiser still: Keep the bones and stones inside, or never Leave the sea. “He was a brave man,” Swift said, “Who first eat one.” Even now, precedent Of centuries is not always enough. Driving the knife into muscles that mould The valves so close to being impartial. Surrender, when it comes—and it must come: Lavish after that first grudging release Back there in the sea, the giving over Of despair, this time—makes me speculate. Like Oscar and oysters, I feel “always Slightly immortal when in the sea”: what Happens now we are out? Is the risk worth While for a potential pearl? No, what we’re Really after is the moment of release, The turn and tear of the blade that tightens, Tortures, ultimately tells. When you spread The shells, something always sticks to the wrong One, and a few drops of liquor dribble Into the sand. Scrape it off: in the full Half, as well as a Fautrier, a Zen Garden, and the smell of herring brine that Ferenczi said we remember from the womb, Lunch is served, in shiny stoneware sockets, Blue milk in the sea’s filthiest cup. More Easily an emblem for the inner man Than dinner, sundered, for the stomach. We Take them queasily, wonder as we gulp When it is—then, now, tomorrow—they’re dead.

Richard Howard

Activities,Eating & Drinking,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams

South Carolina Morning

Her red dress & hat tease the sky’s level- headed blue. Outside a country depot, she could be a harlot or saint on Sunday morning. We know Hopper could slant light till it falls on our faces. She waits for a tall blues singer whose twelve-string is hours out of hock, for a pullman porter with a pigskin wallet bulging with greenbacks, who stepped out of Porgy at intermission. This is paradise made of pigment & tissue, where apples ripen into rage & lust. In a quick glance, beyond skincolor, she’s his muse, his wife— the same curves to her stance, the same breasts beneath summer cloth.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Love,Desire,Realistic & Complicated,Relationships,Men & Women

Urban Renewal

The sun slides down behind brick dust, today’s angle of life. Everything melts, even when backbones are I-beams braced for impact. Sequential sledgehammers fall, stone shaped into dry air white soundsystem of loose metal under every footstep. Wrecking crews, men unable to catch sparrows without breaking wings into splinters. Blues-horn mercy. Bloodlines. Nothing but the white odor of absence. The big iron ball swings, keeping time to pigeons cooing in eaves as black feathers float on to blueprint parking lots.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life

Poetics

Beauty, I’ve seen you pressed hard against the windowpane. But the ugliness was unsolved in the heart & mouth. I’ve seen the quick-draw artist crouch among the chrysanthemums. Do I need to say more? Everything isn’t ha-ha in this valley. The striptease on stage at the Blue Movie is your sweet little Sara Lee. An argument of eyes cut through the metaphor, & I hear someone crying among crystal trees & confetti. The sack of bones in the magnolia, What’s more true than that? Before you can see her long pretty legs, look into her unlit eyes. A song of B-flat breath staggers on death row. Real men, voices that limp behind the one-way glass wall. I’ve seen the legless beggar chopped down to his four wheels.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Arts & Sciences,Poetry & Poets

Reflections

In the day’s mirror you see a tall black man. Fingers of gold cattail tremble, then you witness the rope dangling from a limb of white oak. It’s come to this. You yell his direction, the wind taking your voice away. You holler his mama’s name & he glances up at the red sky. You can almost touch what he’s thinking, reaching for his hand across the river. The noose pendulous over his head, you can feel him grow inside you, straining to hoist himself, climbing a ladder of air, your feet in his shoes.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Living,Death,Sorrow & Grieving,Race & Ethnicity

Instructions for Building Straw Huts

First you must have unbelievable faith in water, in women dancing like hands playing harps for straw to grow stalks of fire. You must understand the year that begins with your hands tied behind your back, worship of dark totems weighed down with night birds that shift their weight & leave holes in the sky. You must know what’s behind the shadow of a treadmill— its window the moon’s reflection & silent season reaching into red sunlight hills. You must know the hard science of building walls that sway with summer storms. Locking arms to a frame of air, frame of oak rooted to ancient ground where the door’s constructed last, just wide enough for two lovers to enter on hands & knees. You must dance the weaverbird’s song for mending water & light with straw, earth, mind, bright loom of grain untortured by bushels of thorns.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Toys in a Field

Using the gun mounts for monkey bars, children skin the cat, pulling themselves through, suspended in doorways of abandoned helicopters in graveyards. With arms spread-eagled they imitate vultures landing in fields. Their play is silent as distant rain, the volume turned down on the 6 o’clock news, except for the boy with American eyes who keeps singing rat-a-tat-tat, hugging a broken machine gun.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Living,Philosophy,Social Commentaries,War & Conflict

Please

Forgive me, soldier. Forgive my right hand for pointing you to the flawless tree line now outlined in my brain. There was so much bloodsky at daybreak in Pleiku, but I won’t say those infernal guns blinded me on that hill. Mistakes piled up men like clouds pushed to the dark side. Sometimes I try to retrace them, running fingers down the map telling less than a woman’s body— we followed the grid coordinates in some battalion commander’s mind. If I could make my mouth unsay those orders, I’d holler: Don’t move a muscle. Stay put, keep your fucking head down, soldier. Ambush. Gutsmoke. Last night while making love I cried out, Hit the dirt! I’ve tried to swallow my tongue. You were a greenhorn, so fearless, even foolish, & when I said go, Henry, you went dancing on a red string of bullets from that tree line as it moved from a low cloud.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Relationships,Friends & Enemies,Social Commentaries,War & Conflict

Moonshine

Drunken laughter escapes Behind the fence woven With honeysuckle, up to where I stand. Daddy’s running-buddy, Carson, is beside him. In the time It takes to turn & watch a woman Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off The clothesline, to see her sun-lit Dress ride up peasant legs Like the last image of mercy, three Are drinking from the Mason jar. That’s the oak we planted The day before I left town, As if father & son Needed staking down to earth. If anything could now plumb Distance, that tree comes close, Recounting lost friends As they turn into mist. The woman stands in a kitchen Folding a man’s trousers— Her chin tucked to hold The cuffs straight. I’m lonely as those storytellers In my father’s backyard I shall join soon. Alone As they are, tilting back heads To let the burning ease down. The names of women melt In their mouths like hot mints, As if we didn’t know Old Man Pagget’s Stoopdown is doctored with Slivers of Red Devil Lye.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Living,Coming of Age,Love,Realistic & Complicated,Activities,Eating & Drinking,Relationships,Family & Ancestors

Signs

All night I dreamed of my home, of the roads that are so long and straight they die in the middle— among the spines of elderly weeds on either side, among the dead cats, the ants who are all eyes, the suitcase thrown open, sprouting failures. 2. And this evening in the garden I find the winter inside a snail shell, rigid and cool, a little stubborn temple, its one visitor gone. 3. If there were messages or signs, I might hear now a voice tell me to walk forever, to ask the mold for pardon, and one by one I would hear out my sins, hear they are not important—that I am part of this rain drumming its long fingers, and of the roadside stone refusing to blink, and of the coyote nailed to the fence with its long grin. And when there are no messages the dead lie still— their hands crossed so strangely like knives and forks after supper. 4. I stay up late listening. My feet tap the floor, they begin a tiny dance which will outlive me. They turn away from this poem. It is almost Spring.

Larry Levis

Nature,Winter

The Map

Applying to Heavy Equipment School I marched farther into the Great Plains And refused to come out. I threw up a few scaffolds of disinterest. Around me in the fields, the hogs grunted And lay on their sides. You came with a little water and went away. The glass is still on the table, And the paper, And the burned scaffolds. * You were bent over the sink, washing your stockings. I came up behind you like the night sky behind the town. You stood frowning at your knuckles And did not speak. * At night I lie still, like Bolivia. My furnaces turn blue. My forests go dark. You are a low range of hills, a Paraguay. Now the clouds cover us both. It is raining and the movie houses are open.

Larry Levis

Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Men & Women,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

The Poet at Seventeen

My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleying Echoes of billiards in the pool halls where I spent it all, extravagantly, believing My delicate touch on a cue would last for years. Outside the vineyards vanished under rain, And the trees held still or seemed to hold their breath When the men I worked with, pruning orchards, sang Their lost songs: Amapola; La Paloma;Jalisco, No Te Rajes—the corny tunes Their sons would just as soon forget, at recess, Where they lounged apart in small groups of their own. Still, even when they laughed, they laughed in Spanish. I hated high school then, & on weekends drove A tractor through the widowed fields. It was so boring I memorized poems above the engine’s monotone. Sometimes whole days slipped past without my noticing, And birds of all kinds flew in front of me then. I learned to tell them apart by their empty squabblings, The slightest change in plumage, or the inflection Of a call. And why not admit it? I was happy Then. I believed in no one. I had the kind Of solitude the world usually allows Only to kings & criminals who are extinct, Who disdain this world, & who rot, corrupt & shallow As fields I disced: I turned up the same gray Earth for years. Still, the land made a glum raisin Each autumn, & made that little hell of days— The vines must have seemed like cages to the Mexicans Who were paid seven cents a tray for the grapes They picked. Inside the vines it was hot, & spiders Strummed their emptiness. Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs. The vine canes whipped our faces. None of us cared. And the girls I tried to talk to after class Sailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed, With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment. Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky & the road. A life like that? It seemed to go on forever— Reading poems in school, then driving a stuttering tractor Warm afternoons, then billiards on blue October Nights. The thick stars. But mostly now I remember The trees, wearing their mysterious yellow sullenness Like party dresses. And parties I didn’t attend. And then the first ice hung like spider lattices Or the embroideries of Great Aunt No One, And then the first dark entering the trees— And inside, the adults with their cocktails before dinner, The way they always seemed afraid of something, And sat so rigidly, although the land was theirs.

Larry Levis

Living,Coming of Age,Activities,Jobs & Working,School & Learning,Arts & Sciences,Poetry & Poets

To a Wren on Calvary

“Prince Jesus, crush those bastards ...” —Francois Villon, Grand Testament It is the unremarkable that will last, As in Brueghel’s camouflage, where the wren’s withheld, While elsewhere on a hill, small hawks (or are they other birds?) Are busily unraveling eyelashes & pupils From sunburned thieves outstretched on scaffolds, Their last vision obscured by wings, then broken, entered. I cannot tell whether their blood spurts, or just spills, Their faces are wings, & their bodies are uncovered. The twittering they hear is the final trespass. ~ And all later luxuries—the half-dressed neighbor couple Shouting insults at each other just beyond Her bra on a cluttered windowsill, then ceasing it when A door was slammed to emphasize, like trouble, The quiet flowing into things then, spreading its wake From the child’s toy left out on a lawn To the broken treatise of jet-trails drifting above—seem Keel scrapes on the shores of some enlarging mistake, A wrong so wide no one can speak of it now in the town That once had seemed, like its supporting factories That manufactured poems & weaponry, Like such a good idea. And wasn’t it everyone’s? Wasn’t the sad pleasure of assembly lines a replica Of the wren’s perfect, camouflaged self-sufficiency, And of its refusal even to be pretty, Surviving in a plumage dull enough to blend in with A hemline of smoke, sky, & a serene indifference? ~ The dead wren I found on a gravel drive One morning, all beige above and off-white Underneath, the body lighter, no more than a vacant tent Of oily feathers stretched, blent, & lacquered shut Against the world—was a world I couldn’t touch. And in its skull a snow of lice had set up such An altar, the congregation spreading from the tongue To round, bare sills that had been its eyes, I let It drop, my hand changed for a moment By a thing so common it was never once distracted from The nothing all wrens meant, the one feather on the road. No feeding in the wake of cavalry or kings changed it. Even in the end it swerved away, & made the abrupt Riddle all things come to seem ... irrelevant: The tucked claws clutched emptiness like a stick. And if Death whispered as always in the language of curling Leaves, or a later one that makes us stranger, “Don’t you come near me motherfucker”; If the tang of metal in slang made the New World fertile, Still ... as they resumed their quarrel in the quiet air, I could hear the species cheep in what they said ... Until their voices rose. Until the sound of a slap erased A world, & the woman, in a music stripped of all prayer, Began sobbing, & the man become bystander cried O Jesus. In the sky, the first stars were already faint And timeless, but what could they matter to that boy, blent To no choir, who saw at last the clean wings of indifferent Hunger, & despair? Around him the other petty thieves, With arms outstretched, & eyes pecked out by birds, reclined, Fastened forever to scaffolds which gradually would cover An Empire’s hills & line its roads as far As anyone escaping in a cart could see, his swerving mind On the dark brimming up in everything, the reins Going slack in his hand as the cart slows, & stops, And the horse sees its own breath go out Onto the cold air, & gazes after the off-white plume, And seems amazed by it, by its breath, by everything. But the man slumped behind it, dangling a lost nail Between his lips, only stares at the swishing tail, At each white breath going out, thinning, & then vanishing, For he has grown tired of amazing things.

Larry Levis

Living,Death,Relationships,Home Life,Men & Women,Nature,Animals,Religion

The Man with the Hoe

Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him. —Genesis. Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land; To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity? Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this— More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed— More filled with signs and portents for the soul— More fraught with danger to the universe. What gulfs between him and the seraphim! Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? What the long reaches of the peaks of song, The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop; Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, Plundered, profaned and disinherited, Cries protest to the Judges of the World, A protest that is also prophecy. O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ? How will you ever straighten up this shape; Touch it again with immortality; Give back the upward looking and the light; Rebuild in it the music and the dream; Make right the immemorial infamies, Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes? O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, How will the Future reckon with this Man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings— With those who shaped him to the thing he is— When this dumb Terror shall reply to God After the silence of the centuries?

Edwin Markham

Living,Time & Brevity,Activities,Jobs & Working,Religion,God & the Divine,Social Commentaries

A Lyric of the Dawn

Alone I list In the leafy tryst; Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep— Silent the phantom wood in waters deep: No footfall of a wind along the pass Startles a harebell—stirs a blade of grass. Yonder the wandering weeds, Enchanted in the light, Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white; Yonder are plumy reeds, Dusking the border of the clear lagoon; Far off the silver clifts Hang in ethereal light below the moon; Far off the ocean lifts, Tossing its billows in the misty beam, And shore-lines whiten, silent as a dream: I hark for the bird, and all the hushed hills harken: This is the valley: here the branches darken The silver-lighted stream. Hark— That rapture in the leafy dark! Who is it shouts upon the bough aswing, Waking the upland and the valley under? What carols, like the blazon of a king, Fill all the dawn with wonder? Oh, hush, It is the thrush, In the deep and woody glen! Ah, thus the gladness of the gods was sung, When the old Earth was young; That rapture rang, When the first morning on the mountains sprang: And now he shouts, and the world is young again! Carol, my king, On your bough aswing! Thou art not of these evil days— Thou art a voice of the world’s lost youth: Oh, tell me what is duty—what is truth— How to find God upon these hungry ways; Tell of the golden prime, When bird and beast could make a man their friend ; When men beheld swift deities descend, Before the race was left alone with Time, Homesick on Earth, and homeless to the end; Before great Pan was dead, Before the naiads fled; When maidens white with dark eyes shy and bold, With peals of laughter on the peaks of gold, Startled the still dawn— Shone in upon the mountains and were gone, Their voices fading silverly in depths of forests old. Sing of the wonders of their woodland ways, Before the weird earth-hunger of these days, When there was rippling mirth, When justice was on Earth, And light and grandeur of the Golden Age; When never a heart was sad, When all from king to herdsman had A penny for a wage. Ah, that old time has faded to a dream— The moon’s fair face is broken in the stream; Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and let The exiled race not utterly forget; Publish thy revelation on the lawns— Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns; Sometime, in some sweet year, These stormy souls, these men of Earth may hear. But hark again, From the secret glen, That voice of rapture and ethereal youth Now laden with despair. Forbear, O bird, forbear: Is life not terrible enough forsooth? Cease, cease the mystic song— No more, no more, the passion and the pain: It wakes my life to fret against the chain; It makes me think of all the agéd wrong— Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all— Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall. Ah, ah, that voice again! It makes me think of all these restless men Called into time—their progress and their goal; And now, oh now, it sends into my soul Dreams of a love that might have been for me— That might have been—and now can never be. Tell me no more of these— Tell me of trancéd trees; (The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare) Show me the leafy home of the wild bees; Show me the snowy summits dim in air; Tell me of things afar In valleys silent under moon and star: Dim hollows hushed with night, The lofty cedars misty in the light, Wild clusters of the vine, Wild odors of the pine, The eagle’s eyrie lifted to the moon— High places where on quiet afternoon A shadow swiftens by, a thrilling scream Startles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a dream. Ha, now He springs from the bough, It flickers—he is lost! Out of the copse he sprang; This is the floating briar where he tossed: The leaves are yet atremble where he sang Here a long vista opens—look! This is the way he took, Through the pale poplars by the pond: Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond. Ho, there he goes Through the alder close! He leaves me here behind him in his flight, And yet my heart goes with him out of sight! What whispered spell Of Faëry calls me on from dell to dell? I hear the voice—it wanders in a dream— Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream. Lead on—you know the way Lead on to Arcady, O’er fields asleep; by river bank abrim; Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim; By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome, Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam. I follow where you lead, Down winding paths, across the flowery mead, Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows, Up water-courses scented by the rose. I follow the wandering voice— I follow, I rejoice, I fade away into the Age of Gold— We two together lost in forest old.- O ferny and thymy paths, 0 fields of Aidenn, Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod! O souls that are weary and are heavy laden, Here is the peace of God ! Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way: Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray; From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run, With sudden apprehension of the sun; A light wind stirs The filmy tops of delicate dim firs, And on the river border blows, Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose. Sing out, O throstle, sing: I follow on, my king: Lead me forever through the crimson dawn— Till the world ends, lead me on! Ho there! he shouts again—he sways—and now, Upspringing from the bough, Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground, Without a sound He drops into a valley and is gone!

Edwin Markham

Living,Time & Brevity,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

In Death Valley

There came gray stretches of volcanic plains, Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw. Around were heaps of ruins piled between The Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care; And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls One pillar rose up dark against the moon. There was a nameless Presence everywhere; In the gray soil there was a purple stain, And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood— Blood of a vast unknown Calamity. It was the mark of some ancestral grief— Grief that began before the ancient Flood.

Edwin Markham

Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

A Workman to the Gods

Once Phidias stood, with hammer in his hand, Carving Minerva from the breathing stone, Tracing with love the winding of a hair, A single hair upon her head, whereon A youth of Athens cried, “O Phidias, Why do you dally on a hidden hair? When she is lifted to the lofty front Of the Parthenon, no human eye will see.” And Phidias thundered on him: “Silence, slave: Men will not see, but the Immortals will!”

Edwin Markham

Arts & Sciences,Painting & Sculpture

Preparedness

For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike: When you are the anvil, bear— When you are the hammer, strike.

Edwin Markham

The Panther

The moon shears up on Tahoe now: A panther leaps to a tamarack bough. She crouches, hugging the crooked limb: She hears the nearing steps of him Who sent the little puff of smoke That stretched her mate beneath the oak. Her eyes burn beryl, two yellow balls, As Fate counts out his last footfalls. A sudden spring, a demon cry, Carnivorous laughter to the sky. Her teeth are fastened in his throat (The moon rides in her silver boat.) And now one scream of long delight Across the caverns of the night!

Edwin Markham

Living,Death,Relationships,Pets,Nature

New

We knew. Anne to come. Anne to come. Be new. Be new too. Anne to come Anne to come Be new Be new too. And anew. Anne to come. Anne anew. Anne do come. Anne do come too, to come and to come not to come and as to and new, and new too. Anne do come. Anne knew. Anne to come. Anne anew. Anne to come. And as new. Anne to come to come too. Half of it. Was she Windows Was she Or mine Was she Or as she For she or she or sure. Enable her to say. And enable her to say. Or half way. Sitting down. Half sitting down. And another way. Their ships And please. As the other side. And another side Incoming Favorable and be fought. Adds to it. In half. Take the place of take the place of take the place of taking place. Take the place of in places. Take the place of taken in place of places. Take the place of it, she takes it in the place of it. In the way of arches architecture. Who has seen shown You do. Hoodoo. If can in countenance to countenance a countenance as in as seen. Change it. Not nearly so much. He had. She had. Had she. He had nearly very nearly as much. She had very nearly as much as had had. Had she. She had. Loose loosen, Loose losten to losten, to lose. Many. If a little if as little if as little as that. If as little as that, if it is as little as that that is if it is very nearly all of it, her dear her dear does not mention a ball at all. Actually. As to this. Actually as to this. High or do you do it. Actually as to this high or do you do it. Not how do you do it. Actually as to this. Not having been or not having been nor having been or not having been. Interrupted. All of this makes it unanxiously. Feel so. Add to it. As add to it. He. He. As add to it. As add to it. As he As he as add to it. He. As he Add to it. Not so far. Constantly as seen. Not as far as to mean. I mean I mean. Constantly. As far. So far. Forbore. He forbore. To forbear. Their forbears. Plainly. In so far. Instance. For instance. In so far.

Gertrude Stein

Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

Study Nature

I do. Victim. Sales Met Wipe Her Less. Was a disappointment We say it. Study nature. Or Who Towering. Mispronounced Spelling. She Was Astonishing To No One For Fun Study from nature. I Am Pleased Thoroughly I Am Thoroughly Pleased. By. It. It is very likely. They said so. Oh. I want. To do. What Is Later To Be Refined. By Turning. Of turning around. I will wait.

Gertrude Stein

Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza  1

I caught a bird which made a ball And they thought better of it. But it is all of which they taught That they were in a hurry yet In a kind of a way they meant it best That they should change in and on account But they must not stare when they manage Whatever they are occasionally liable to do It is often easy to pursue them once in a while And in a way there is no repose They like it as well as they ever did But it is very often just by the time That they are able to separate In which case in effect they could Not only be very often present perfectly In each way whichever they chose. All of this never matters in authority But this which they need as they are alike Or in an especial case they will fulfill Not only what they have at their instigation Made for it as a decision in its entirety Made that they minded as well as blinded Lengthened for them welcome in repose But which they open as a chance But made it be perfectly their allowance All which they antagonise as once for all Kindly have it joined as they mind

Gertrude Stein

Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza  5

Why can pansies be their aid or paths. He said paths she had said paths All like to do their best with half of the time A sweeter sweetener came and came in time Tell him what happened then only to go He nervous as you add only not only as they angry were Be kind to half the time that they shall say It is undoubtedly of them for them for every one any one They thought quietly that Sunday any day she might not come In half a way of coining that they wish it Let it be only known as please which they can underrate They try once to destroy once to destroy as often Better have it changed to pigeons now if the room smokes Not only if it does but happens to happens to have the room smoke all the time. In their way not in their way it can be all arranged Not now we are waiting. I have read that they wish if land is there Land is there if they wish land is there Yes hardly if they wish land is there It is no thought of enterprise there trying Might they claim as well as reclaim. Did she mean that she had nothing. We say he and I that we do not cry Because we have just seen him and called him back He meant to go away Once now I will tell all which they tell lightly. How were we when we met. All of which nobody not we know But it is so. They cannot be allied They can be close and chosen. Once in a while they wait. He likes it that there is no chance to misunderstand pansies.

Gertrude Stein

Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza 14

She need not be selfish but he may add They like my way it is partly mine In which case for them to foil or not please Come which they may they may in June. Not having all made plenty by their wish In their array all which they plan Should they be called covered by which It is fortunately their stay that they may In which and because it suits them to fan Not only not with clover but with may it matter That not only at a distance and with nearly That they ran for which they will not only plan But may be rain can be caught by the hills Just as well as they can with what they have And they may have it not only because of this But because they may be here. Or is it at all likely that they arrange what they like. Nohody knows just why they are or are not anxious While they sit and watch the horse which rests Not because he is tired but because they are waiting To say will they wait with them in their way Only to say it relieves them that they go away This is what they feel when they like it Most of them do or which It is very often their need not to be either Just why they are after all made quickly faster Just as they might do. It is what they did say when they mentioned it Or this. It is very well to go up and down and look more Than they could please that they see where It is better that they are there

Gertrude Stein

Relationships,Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza 15

Should they may be they might if they delight In why they must see it be there not only necessarily But which they might in which they might For which they might delight if they look there And they see there that they look there To see it be there which it is if it is Which may be where where it is If they do not occasion it to be different From what it is. In one direction there is the sun and the moon In the other direction there are cumulus clouds and the sky In the other direction there is why They look at what they see They look very long while they talk along And they may be said to see that at which they look Whenever there is no chance of its not being warmer Than if they wish which they were. They see that they have what is there may there Be there also what is to be there if they may care They care for it of course they care for it. Now only think three times roses green and blue And vegetables and pumpkins and pansies too Which they like as they are very likely not to be Reminded that it is more than ever necessary That they should never be surprised at any one time At just what they have been given by taking what they have Which they are very careful not to add with As they may easily indulge in the fragrance Not only of which but by which they know That they tell them so.

Gertrude Stein

Relationships,Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza  2

I think very well of Susan but I do not know her name I think very well of Ellen but which is not the same I think very well of Paul I tell him not to do so I think very well of Francis Charles but do I do so I think very well of Thomas but I do not not do so I think very well of not very well of William I think very well of any very well of him I think very well of him. It is remarkable how quickly they learn But if they learn and it is very remarkable how quickly they learn It makes not only but by and by And they may not only be not here But not there Which after all makes no difference After all this does not make any does not make any difference I add added it to it. I could rather be rather be here.

Gertrude Stein

Relationships,Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza 13

There may be pink with white or white with rose Or there may be white with rose and pink with mauve Or even there may be white with yellow and yellow with blue Or even if even it is rose with white and blue And so there is no yellow there but by accident.

Gertrude Stein

Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics

Suzanna Socked Me Sunday

Suzanna socked me Sunday, she socked me Monday, too, she also socked me Tuesday, I was turning black and blue. She socked me double Wednesday, and Thursday even more, but when she socked me Friday, she began to get me sore. “Enough’s enough,” I yelled at her, “I hate it when you hit me!” “Well, then I won’t” Suzanna said— that Saturday, she bit me.

Jack Prelutsky

Living,Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Friends & Enemies,Home Life,Philosophy

I Found a Four-Leaf Clover

I found a four-leaf clover and was happy with my find, but with time to think it over, I’ve entirely changed my mind. I concealed it in my pocket, safe inside a paper pad, soon, much swifter than a rocket, my good fortune turned to bad. I smashed my fingers in a door, I dropped a dozen eggs, I slipped and tumbled to the floor, a dog nipped both my legs, my ring slid down the bathtub drain, my pen leaked on my shirt, I barked my shin, I missed my train, I sat on my dessert. I broke my brand-new glasses, and I couldn’t find my keys, I stepped in spilled molasses, and was stung by angry bees. When the kitten ripped the curtain, and the toast burst into flame, I was absolutely certain that the clover was to blame. I buried it discreetly in the middle of a field, now my luck has changed completely, and my wounds have almost healed. If I ever find another, I will simply let it be, or I’ll give it to my brother— he deserves it more than me.

Jack Prelutsky

Living,Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Home Life,Philosophy,St. Patrick's Day

Twickham Tweer

Shed a tear for Twickham Tweer who ate uncommon meals, who often peeled bananas and then only ate the peels, who emptied jars of marmalade and only ate the jars, and only ate the wrappers off of chocolate candy bars. When Twickham cooked a chicken he would only eat the bones, he discarded scoops of ice cream though he always ate the cones, he’d boil a small potato but he’d only eat the skin, and pass up canned asparagus to gobble down the tin. He sometimes dined on apple cores and bags of peanut shells, on cottage cheese containers, cellophane from caramels, but Twickham Tweer passed on last year, that odd and novel man, when he fried an egg one morning and then ate the frying pan.

Jack Prelutsky

Living,Activities,Eating & Drinking,Philosophy

This Can’t Be

the place of consequence, the station of his embrace. Or else I’m not son enough to see the innocence and the spiritual fiddlings in the uneven floorboards and joists, in the guttural speech of the pipes, in the limp and the lack of heat. All we need, all we really need is light! And let there be a roof with no leaks. Oh father landlord, fill up all our breaches. He gives himself to the cracks; into the chinks my father lowers his bone, the do-it-yourself funeral. He holds the wires in his teeth. He strips the insulation back. If it’s black, it’s juiceless; if it’s red, elegiac.

Bruce Smith

Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Father's Day

Laundry

Not even the cops who can do anything could do this— work on Sunday picking up dirty and delivering clean laundry in Philadelphia. Rambling with my father, get this, in a truck that wasn’t even our own, part ambulance, part bullet, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do. Sheets of stigmata, macula of love, vomit and shit and the stains of pissing another week’s salary away, we picked up and drove to the stick men in shirt sleeves, the thin Bolshevik Jews who laughed out the sheets like the empty speech in cartoons. They smelled better than sin, better than decadent capitalism. And oh, we could deliver, couldn’t we, the lawless bags through the city that said in his yawn, get money, get money, get money.

Bruce Smith

Living,Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Philosophy,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,Money & Economics

Silver and Information

An obituary has more news than this day, brilliant, acid yellow and silver off the water at land’s end. The disparate prismatic things blind you as they fin their way across the surface of the water. This light cannot inform you of your dying. Fish of lustrous nothing, fish of desire, fish whose push and syllable can make things happen, fish whose ecstatic hunger is no longer news, and fish whose mouth zeroes the multitudes, the hosts who wait for their analogies and something nice to eat, the billions the waves commemorate in their breaking down to their knees on the shore, their cloacal sound. Now how can I stay singular? How can even ore part die when I split and split like the smallest animal in the ocean until I’m famous in my dismemberment, splendid in my hunger, and anonymous— so that naming one is like naming one runnel the sea, or one drop of blood the intoxicating passion? I keep the multitudes in mind when I hear daily that one has murdered another. A news more silver than given, more light than anything captured. And I hold them all in mind—the fulgence, the data, and the death, or else I lose it, that package of slippery fish, that don’t die exactly but smell in a heaven so low we can hear the moans and feel the circles and bite in each cell.

Bruce Smith

Immortality Ode

Miss Bliss, once I thought I was endless since father was perpetual in his grade school of seedlings in cups, the overly loved pets, and recess while mother was the lipsticked dancing girl on the Steel Pier who would outstep Hitler. I was insufferable when I rolled the Volkswagen bus two times and lived with the snow chains like costumed jewels slung over me and the spare rolled away as in a folktale. The pact I made in the spinning instant said in my language of American boy, Put up or shut up, to God, the State Trooper who was kind and spoke of service and punishment and giving yourself away. Now, I’m alive through the agency of iron and contract work and appeals to the fallen—angel and dusk— but wet-winged and still without you, Miss Bliss, who took me inside where there was an ocean before which we were children. That calm, that fear, that witness of the two-thirds of everything else.

Bruce Smith

Living,Death,Time & Brevity,Philosophy

To the Executive Director of the Actual:

Is this the world, Miss Bliss? Stacks of ingots on the docks where my brother works? Work and things on the threshold of raw and radiated. Bananas gassed in shacks to ripen by the forklifts. Ships of foreign port. Ships of car parts and dyes. The beef-stripping business. Things, Miss Bliss, and work. Flavors translated from Costa Rica, volatile oils, seized cargoes, incensed loads, cracked coal. After a week the exposed skin around his wrists was blue, vein color, the color of the world. Labor, and the union of the senses to deliver us from our geography. Everywhere is here. When the stevedores break for lunch, one is responsible for the pot-luck of cold meats, the deep dish, leftovers from the wedding, while one is responsible for inviting the office women. These men set the table with the pomp of the late Elizabeth: linen, gilt plates, a taster, and a trumpeted summons. They force the choice bits on each other. They talk about blood and Solomon’s operation. They talk about Lily’s kids and the dead as they come hack to speak to Lonnie in his sleep. And they talk about food they could not eat, the boss, and a dream of playing lead before they switch on the TV with its loud prophecies of soap. They eat deeply in gratitude. The pot scraped with a spoon, that sound. The world’s a word, and a lever. The ghosts at the banquet want something, Miss Bliss. From one world I come to you with two blue wrists, my brother’s rage against the living the world owes, and everything I do that’s duplicate. My cells split. They can’t be true. I smoke. I turn out a little verse. I make a small sacrifice. I throw what cannot be eaten away. I throw it on the ground. Here, some things you can’t eat.

Bruce Smith

Living,Death,Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Social Commentaries,Money & Economics

A Pathological Case in Pliny

Hirto corde gigni quosdam homines proditur, neque alios fortioris esse industriae, sicut Aristomenen Messenium qui trecentos occidit Lacedaemonios ... —Plinii, Naturalis Historia XI. Ixx. The guards sleep they breathe uneven Conversation with the Trees the sharp cicadas And knots of pine the flames Have stirred to talk: their light Shows him rolling in his bonds As if he dragged his bones Again beyond a tall And ghosted mist of blood; He took three hundred lives And will not give his own for capture Even. The smell of searing Hemp and flesh startles As the scream of birds— Should wake the guards of men Or dead. The fire flares and frames A running giant his wrists Caught between his thighs; A burned and awkward god. Once he tried the foxes’ Paths out of the shattered quarry. No way now. One may Kill his hundreds; still No way. How can he live Without his heart. Throw him To the ground and prepare knives! Do they by their hate Or wonder break the breast He shut to fear? Mock Or pray as they cut flesh Crush ribs and lay all open To the alien chill of air? No scream tears From him; the tiny veins Along his eyelid swell And pools of sweat gather at its corners. But they do not see his Slowly swinging eyes. They watch his heart; its brown Hair is whorled and dry.

John Logan

Arts & Sciences,Reading & Books,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,War & Conflict

The Monument and the Shrine

1 At focus in the national Park’s ellipse a marker Draws tight the guys of Miles, opposite the national Obelisk with its restless oval Peoples who shall be Deeply drawn to its Austerities: or For a moment try the mystery Of the god-like eye, before Our long climb down past relic Schoolboy names and states And one foolish man Climbs up, his death high In his elliptic face. 2 A double highway little Used in early spring Goes to the end of the land Where Washington’s chandeliers Are kept, his beds and chairs, His roped-off relic kitchen Spits, his pans; his floors Are worn underneath the dead Pilgrims’ feet; outside The not-so-visited tomb; And over the field and fence His legendary river: And so I walk although The day is cold for this; I eat a thin slice Of bread and one remarkable Egg perfectly shaped, A perfect oriental por- Celain sheen of white. Suddenly the lost Ghosts of his life Broke from the trees and from the cold Mud pools where he played A boy and set as a man The sand glint of his boot, The flick of his coat on the weeds; His wheels click in the single road.

John Logan

Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Heroes & Patriotism

Shore Scene

There were bees about. From the start I thought The day was apt to hurt. There is a high Hill of sand behind the sea and the kids Were dropping from the top of it like schools Of fish over falls, cracking skulls on skulls. I knew the holiday was hot. I saw The August sun teeming in the bodies Logged along the beach and felt the yearning In the brightly covered parts turning each To each. For lunch I bit the olive meat: A yellow jacket stung me on the tongue. I knelt to spoon and suck the healing sea ... A little girl was digging up canals With her toes, her arm hanging in a cast As white as the belly of a dead fish Whose dead eye looked at her with me, as she Opened her grotesque system to the sea ... I walked away; now quietly I heard A child moaning from a low mound of sand, Abandoned by his friend. The child was tricked, Trapped upon his knees in a shallow pit. (The older ones will say you can get out.) I dug him up. His legs would not unbend. I lifted him and held him in my arms As he wept. Oh I was gnarled as a witch Or warlock by his naked weight, was slowed In the sand to a thief’s gait. When his strength Flowed, he ran, and I rested by the sea ... A girl was there. I saw her drop her hair, Let it fall from the doffed cap to her breasts Tanned and swollen over wine red woolen. A boy, his body blackened by the sun, Rose out of the sand stripping down his limbs With graceful hands. He took his gear and walked Toward the girl in the brown hair and wine And then past me; he brushed her with the soft, Brilliant monster he lugged into the sea ... By this tide I raised a small cairn of stone Light and smooth and clean, and cast the shadow Of a stick in a perfect line along The sand. My own shadow followed then, until I felt the cold swirling at the groin.

John Logan

Living,Midlife,Activities,Sports & Outdoor Activities,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Philosophy

Lines on Locks (or Jail and the Erie Canal)

1 Against the low, New York State mountain background, a smokestack sticks up and gives out its snakelike wisp. Thin, stripped win- ter birches pick up the vertical lines. Last night we five watched the white, painted upright bars of steel in an ancient, New York jail called Herkimer (named for a general who lost an arm). Cops threw us against the car. Their marks grow gaudy over me. They burgeon beneath my clothes. I know I give my wound too much thought and time. Gallows loomed outside our sorry solitary cells. “You are in the oldest of our New York jails,” they said. “And we’ve been in books. It’s here they had one of Dreiser’s characters arraigned.” The last one of our company to be hanged we found had chopped her husband up and fed him to the hungry swine. They nudged the wan- ing warmth of his flesh. Each gave him a rooting touch, translating his dregs into the hopes of pigs. And now with their spirited wish and with his round, astonished face, her changed soul still floats about over their small farm near this little New York town. 2 The door bangs shut in the absolute dark. Toilets flush with a great force, and I can hear the old, gentle drunk, my neighbor in the tank, hawk his phlegm and fart. In the early day we line up easily as a cliché for our bread and bowls of gruel. We listen, timeless, for the courthouse bell, play rummy the whole day long and “shoot the moon,” go to bed and jack off to calm down, and scowl harshly, unmanned, at those who were once our friends. The prison of our skins now rises outside and drops in vertical lines before our very eyes. 3 Outdoors again, now we can walk to the Erie Locks (“Highest Lift Locks in the World!”) The old iron bridge has a good bed— cobbles made of wood. Things pass through this town everywhere for it was built in opposite tiers. Two levels of roads on either side the Canal, then two terraces of tracks and higher ranks of beds: roads where trucks lumber awkwardly above the town— like those heavy golden cherubim that try to wing about in the old, Baroque church. The little town—with its Gothic brick bank, Victorian homes with gingerbread frieze and its blasted factories (collapsed, roofs roll- ing back from walls like the lids of eyes)— has died and given up its substance like a hollow duct, smokestack or a pen through which the living stuff flows on. 4 So we walk the long, dead-end track along the shallow, frozen lake where the canal forms a fork (this time of year the locks don’t work). And now and again we look back, for the troopers haunt the five of us out the ledges toward The Locks. (We know they want to hose our bellies and our backs. Or—as they said— “Play the Mambo” on our heads.) We do not yet feel quite free— though the blue and yellow, newly painted posts for ships bloom gaily in the cold, and the bulbs about their bases bulge for spring. Soon the great, iron gates will open out and the first woman-shaped ship, mammoth, silent, will float toward us like a god come back to make us feel only half afraid. Until then, though my friends will be gone from this dry channel of snow and stone, I’ll stay here among the monuments of sheer, brown and gray rock where you can read the names of lovers, sailors and of kids etched in chalk, and in this winter air still keep one hand over my aching ear.Buffalo, March 1967

John Logan

Relationships,Friends & Enemies,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Social Commentaries,Crime & Punishment

My First Best Friend

My first best friend is Awful Ann— she socked me in the eye. My second best is Sneaky Sam— he tried to swipe my pie. My third best friend is Max the Rat— he trampled on my toes. My fourth best friend is Nasty Nell— She almost broke my nose. My fifth best friend is Ted the Toad— he kicked me in the knee. My sixth best friend is Grumpy Gail— she's always mean to me. My seventh best is Monster Moe— he often plays too rough. That's all the friends I've got right now— I think I've got enough.

Jack Prelutsky

Relationships,Friends & Enemies

Noisy Noisy

It's noisy, noisy overhead, the birds are winging south, and every bird is opening a noisy, noisy mouth. They fill the air with loud complaint, they honk and quack and squawk— they do not feel like flying, but it's much too far to walk.

Jack Prelutsky

Nature,Animals

I’m Fond of Frogs

I’m fond of frogs, and every day I treat them with affection. I join them at the FROG CAFE— We love the Croaking Section.

Jack Prelutsky

Nature,Animals,Arts & Sciences,Humor & Satire

A Wolf Is at the Laundromat

A wolf is at the Laundromat, it's not a wary stare-wolf, it's short and fat, it tips its hat, unlike a scary glare-wolf. It combs its hair, it clips its toes, it is a fairly rare wolf, that's only there to clean its clothes— it is a wash-and-wear-wolf.

Jack Prelutsky

Nature,Animals,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life

I Wave Good-bye When Butter Flies

I wave good-bye when butter flies and cheer a boxing match, I've often watched my pillow fight, I've sewn a cabbage patch, I like to dance at basket balls or lead a rubber band, I've marvelled at a spelling bee, I've helped a peanut stand. It's possible a pencil points, but does a lemon drop? Does coffee break or chocolate kiss, and will a soda pop? I share my milk with drinking straws, my meals with chewing gum, and should I see my pocket change, I'll hear my kettle drum. It makes me sad when lettuce leaves, I laugh when dinner rolls, I wonder if the kitchen sinks and if a salad bowls, I've listened to a diamond ring, I've waved a football fan, and if a chimney sweeps the floor, I'm sure the garbage can.

Jack Prelutsky

Activities,Eating & Drinking

My Frog Is a Frog

My frog is a frog that is hopelessly hoarse, my frog is a frog with a reason, of course, my frog is a frog that cannot croak a note, my frog is a frog with a frog in its throat.

Jack Prelutsky

Nature,Animals

If Not for the Cat

If not for the cat, And the scarcity of cheese, I could be content.

Jack Prelutsky

Activities,Eating & Drinking,Relationships,Pets

Long Story Short

One marriage, three children, the usual hero-to-hump tale of jobs in alternating altitudes, stories of unrequited joy. Fresh identities, dramas unseen. Too much of dawn going dark, making for a rich meal of dread, when contemplating love above the brim. You also should talk about dealings with heavy weather and one-night agonies, as if descending permanently into a single distinction. It boils to skin and plain whim, or any fabrication sufficient to implicate the act. Just then, something glimpsed from a taxi careening through Paris, afterimages of a lost father’s face becomes a tree in the park, tall, rustling with allusions, or was it simply cool air stealing across your face— that isolation again?

G. E. Murray

Living,Disappointment & Failure,Midlife

The Unsung Song of Harry Duffy

Pure veins of bogus blue-blood and such fancy hungers ~ In the end no surprise of reports of you dying younger than your gods ~ Kicked back in the classic toilet scene ~ With a spike in your arm and twelve large in pocket ~ Thanks to a lucky day scamming the dumb Social Services folks ~ It’s a human thing, pants at your ankles, leaving unclean ~ Because life’s road is only one night in a bad motel ~ Harry, you could play basketball in your bare feet, and win ~ You could name all the provinces of Canada ~ And simultaneously scour the Social Register ~ For the names of those sad and silly girls you wanted to get right ~ You relished autumn leaves and ignited inglorious schemes ~ Deconstructing the idea of prep-school Friday sunsets ~ In lavish October, stealing among faculty hors d’oeuvres and sherry ~ All the while creating your own hooligan oeuvre ~ With your others off to Yale, Colgate, Brown ~ Night after night, alone in L.A. ~ Seeking better quotas, vistas, cushion, heroin ~ And that last tricky exit to the Santa Monica Freeway ~ In one more borrowed car with one more borrowed fiction ~ Oh yes, you must have been laughing ~ And spitting back at the boldface of Pacific wind ~ Cruising the left coast on sheer gall ~ But mostly, at 3 a.m., in the local playground, Harry ~ You played solitary ball ~ And dreamed of final seconds in a distant game ~ You drove to the sacred bucket with a fury ~ Slick crossover dribble, and then burst to the pull-up jumper ~ No harm, no foul, nothing but net. ~ But all alone, in the heart of West Hollywood, Harry, ~ You jerk, you bricked the last shot.

G. E. Murray

Living,Death,Activities,School & Learning,Sports & Outdoor Activities,Relationships,Friends & Enemies

The Squaw Trade

According to local belief, Squaw Island—which is situated in the midst of the Niagara River near Buffalo, New York—was home for a band of prostitutes who serviced workers from the Erie Canal, circa 1840. Today, Squaw Island is a municipal refuse dump for the city of Buffalo. 1 Slime burlap on timbers riverside, yea More captive berths to consider: boundaries Set by familar propositions Of comfort and flatbottom mud. We men Haul up some miracle of a ditch To what’s called Squaw Island. And such remains the canalman’s trade At last. Harsh ways, we tell you, Woman, your eyes and rapture averted To the long boats pulled in tandem To your door. How could we see then How it was always us alone— Unknown stations in need of poor launch? 2 If they could sing or even listen A little, we’d be lost deep in the pitch And rumble of real lives, primed To unload a pledge or two of return. One day, under the shadow of hawks, We locked in the long grass As if slugs. The aftermath was quick Parting, forever maybe, then back To our stories of the packet boat Whacking through tangle reeds And the stoop-backed Irish turning mythic In this, a speechless country, Almost mysterious as perfume itself. 3 Captivated at Little Falls, gone clean By Weedsport, pressing toward Those vainglorious times up in Lowertown Where we’d stroll the day, liquor In hand, waiting a turn at the Locks. It should be allowed as how girls Were not forgotten, either. Sure In any faint light setting off-island, You see the hair’s worn from their legs By woolen trousers. Odd why Such standard gossip keeps us Huddled around cigar smoke and fun, Ever shuffling, ready again to move soon. 4 After miles of stumps and clear-cut skies, More stumps. And the deadly matter Of building country in the calm of summer Burdens like a search for much worse. Thinking through a warm afternoon rain, Thinking of getting there, downwater Toward neglect for glory’s sake And other never-lasting bounty, A blessing, it seems, becomes this— All passages so unworldly hot As to be bitter, our own massive bones Sweating. O Motherly touch and need, What have we to do with thee? 5 Just nervous, and the skirtless brides Seem just the same. At the taking Of shore, there’s care for the prize Portraiture of a girl at sixteen in your vest, Driving you mad, and on. It’s a gravity In the blood, unchangeable as the waif You are, a dwarf among dwarfs, no force. They tell you they understand. So half The time so drunk as to see, you wear Your life like a bandanna. That’s all Nobody’s business. That’s all the secret There is. But to any woman’s edges, Rubbed soft as landscape, you are less. 6 Kissing that last sure drop of sweat From a heavy lip, tongues wag easy In this good composted land Amid mire and flesh, a threat of snow. We rise from a hut born To game and holiday, knowing barely Ourselves. None of us escape The terrible progress we make Suffering yet another pleasure. Sad, say, the ways we loved like stones— No courting dance, no feathers Or gesture. But then nobody asked For more than favors or strange luck. 7 They watch for clouds. Any muster Could ruin business, however damp Already the shining caves that bristle Like pearl in moonlight. Beneath their belts The sources of circumstance and invention Turn nightfall to a wash. Lacking A westerly push toward Erie, the hide Tingles for a pressure, a sign, If only the whine of a full day’s water Lost to Niagara. In fair time, The swell might thicken and warm As soup in the casual hands Of a visitor aging to unwelcome weathers. 8 So it’s Buffalo: gutspill and sideshow, Crusade of rascals swaggering Up Front Street. Lovey, it all passes forth— The heart’s infirmities, our grinding Labors .... Who hasn’t spent a life Making civilization right and not Gone wrong? Soon there’ll be other empires, Then farther west, further refinements Of the breed. We conclude here, A rainy frontier, end of a pity. What’s more? Ah, dreaming, we’d scheme of strangers Above our sorry place, wise builders erecting Able love some hundred years hence! 9 Like a hatch of horseflies streaming Into gray light, we’ve grown free to cross The flushing river on abundant piping Of sludge. Where’s the barrelhouse, The waste of laughter and bile that releases? Instead there’s a world piled on bedrock, A history failing its horizons, Properties of muck increased by modern Wealth. We’re where the lost bodies Of unshared spheres intertwine As a distant rescue from style and form, From tales left squalid in the telling: Now just a vigilance, faith’s fallen banner ....

G. E. Murray

Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Men & Women,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Social Commentaries,History & Politics

Leap Year Poem

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting February alone, And that has twenty-eight days clear And twenty-nine in each leap year.

Mother Goose

Living,Time & Brevity

The Saint and the Crab

Along the campo, Manin’s bronze winged lion prowled among the tanned intruders, licking their hands. Pools of iridescent shellfish lay open in the restaurant window, a shop of otherworldly opals, the mussels’ sheen the skies of a closed heaven, crabs flat on their backs, their armor intricate trapped plates and escapements. The squid slumped in its own ink, the octopus appalled in its slime. Many and ingenious are the postures of death. But look! There, in a corner, beneath a willowware plate, a lone crab clicked its claws, creeping over a casket of walleyed fish, through a valley of oysters keeping their counsel, only to shift warily under the shadow of a wine bottle. Which saint, O saints, watches over the saintly crab? The man of forks and spears, the man of arrows? In the Ca’ d’Oro, the stiffened Sebastian takes each arrow through his flesh like a skewer. He wears a little napkin around his middle. Saint, watch over the fragile boat of the runaway crab. Let him steal his way back to the green lagoon, go floating down the Grand Canal on his own motoscafo. Let him take second life, a later martyrdom. Let him wave his bent claws in a mockery of farewell, lest we eat in his hollow shell his captive meat.

William Logan

Nature,Animals,Seas, Rivers, & Streams

Narcolepsy

Comes sarcastic November in mummy garb, hauling,same old same old what laid bare what totaled. Sees thru the estimated costs, stench collisions, inanimate dregs, remembers the bruised figures, their numerology as stars. Up up, down down is how she counts as the hunters begin to hunt. This is the plot of erasure, this the lavender bath. Truth be known, the dark won by a landslide. Yet friends in far January await news of the front, cycling up the snow-clad hills. They are to be exhumed from the grail of the keeper, he who heralds what’s here. To them, send dreams that pop open when breathed on and ask them to complete this sentence:If God is in the details, then ... But in the end there was only a chair covered in velvet and the sibling, dark as a forest, turned into words. There were the stamps with monsters and the stamps with flowers, there was a dumpster of old paint. Even the egalitarian whimsy of the gold rush is in partial view: harbor’s sleek hulls, willow disintegrating in drapery and nonce. What others did taking us to task in the field, into archival maps along a bank. What is it they wanted? Among strangers, beyond the stamina of pictures —the dancer on stage, his ruined feet, as they would flail crops when the spring comes, and flood, and tassels rise, as my head—

Ann Lauterbach

Living,Time & Brevity,Nature,Fall,Spring,Winter

Not That It Could Be Finished

She holds a conversation with her ornaments, stray or contingent, heaped in patches darkly and then loosened onto the table to be consumed. Collect me, they seem to ask, into an assembly; construe us like any morning onto any day. Bring us forward notch by notch into a paradigm of comfort to be clasped: any cup will do. Any dance? Take a seed and blow it toward the curtain which, like a bright shield hugging breasts into radiance, is seen and spoken of and desired. Will any silence fit? So many columns of air are held upright in inebriated passage, so many paper stacks brittle under the weight of what was news to attentive readers as zones of holy strangers feed through tunnels their imported cares. Stare at us, they seem to say, we are windows propped up against the sky, quotations of light waiting to sail into your aperture, calling because because and now now now. And the good body is pulled over the original rapacious body like a huge sock, its cornucopia of sour wind and dust emptied into the firmament.

Ann Lauterbach

Living,Coming of Age,The Body,Activities,Nature

Wash of Cold River

Wash of cold riverin a glacial land,Ionian water,chill, snow-ribbed sand,drift of rare flowers,clear, with delicate shell-like leaf enclosingfrozen lily-leaf,camellia texture,colder than a rose;wind-flowerthat keeps the breathof the north-wind—these and none other;intimate thoughts and kindreach out to sharethe treasure of my mind,intimate hands and deardrawn garden-ward and sea-wardall the sheer rapturethat I would taketo mould a clearand frigid statue;rare, of pure texture,beautiful space and line,marble to graceyour inaccessible shrine.

H. D.

Relationships,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Trees & Flowers,Winter,Arts & Sciences,Painting & Sculpture

Subway Seethe

What could have been the big to-do that caused him to push me aside on that platform? Was a woman who knew there must be some good even inside an ass like him on board that train? Charity? Frances? His last chance in a ratty string of last chances? Jane? Surely in all of us is some good. Better love thy neighbor, buddy, lest she shove back. Maybe I should. It's probably just a cruddy downtown interview leading to some cheap-tie, careerist, dull cul-de-sac he's speeding to. Can he catch up with his soul? Really, what was the freaking crisis? Did he need to know before me if the lights searching the crowd's eyes were those of our train, or maybe the train of who he might have been, the person his own-heart-numbing, me-shoving anxiety about being prevents him from ever becoming? How has his thoughtlessness defiled who I was before he shoved me? How might I be smiling now if he'd smiled, hanging back, as though he might have loved me?

J. Allyn Rosser

Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Friends & Enemies,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,Gender & Sexuality

The Other Place

The leaves had fallen in that sullen place, but none around him knew just where they were. The sky revealed no sun. A ragged blur remained where each man's face had been a face. Two angels soon crept forth with trays of bread, circling among the lost like prison guards. Love is not love, unless its will affords forgiveness for the words that are not said. Still he could not believe that this was Hell, that others sent before him did not know; yet, once his name and memory grew faint, it was no worse, perhaps, than a cheap motel. It is the love of failure makes a saint. He stood up then, but did not try to go.

William Logan

Living,Death,Religion,Christianity,Faith & Doubt

Symphony of a Mexican Garden

1. THE GARDEN Poco sostenuto in A major The laving tide of inarticulate air. Vivace in A major The iris people dance. 2. THE POOL Allegretto in A minor Cool-hearted dim familiar of the dove. 3. THE BIRDS Presto in F major I keep a frequent tryst. Presto meno assai The blossom-powdered orangeitree. 4. TO THE MOON Allegro con brio in A major Moon that shone on Babylon. TO MOZART What junipers are these, inlaid With flame of the pomegranate tree? The god of gardens must have made This still unrumored place for thee To rest from immortality, And dream within the splendid shade Some more elusive symphony Than orchestra has ever played.

Grace Hazard Conkling

Activities,Gardening,Nature,Animals,Trees & Flowers,Arts & Sciences,Music

To One Unknown

I have seen the proudest stars That wander on through space, Even the sun and moon, But not your face. I have heard the violin, The winds and waves rejoice in endless minstrelsy, Yet not your voice. I have touched the trillium, Pale flower of the land, Coral, anemone, And not your hand. I have kissed the shining feet Of Twilight lover-wise, Opened the gates of Dawn— Oh not your eyes! I have dreamed unwonted things, Visions that witches brew, Spoken with images, Never with you.

Helen Dudley

Living,Disappointment & Failure,Love,Infatuation & Crushes,Romantic Love,Unrequited Love,Relationships

I Am the Woman

I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker,Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek,Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek,Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker,Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek,Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak.I am she that is terribly fashioned, the creatureWrought in God's perilous mood, in His unsafe hour.The morning star was mute, beholding my feature,Seeing the rapture I was, the shame, and the power,Scared at my manifold meaning; he heard me call"O fairest among ten thousand, acceptable brother!"And he answered not, for doubt; till he saw me crawlAnd whisper down to the secret worm, "O mother,Be not wroth in the ancient house; thy daughter forgets not at all!"I am the Woman, flëer away,Soft withdrawer back from the maddened mate,Lurer inward and down to the gates of dayAnd crier there in the gate,"What shall I give for thee, wild one, say!The long, slow rapture and patient anguish of life,Or art thou minded a swifter way?Ask if thou canst, the gold, but oh if thou must,Good is the shining dross, lovely the dust!Look at me, I am the Woman, harlot and heavenly wife;Tell me thy price, be unashamed; I will assuredly pay!"I am also the Mother: of two that I boreI comfort and feed the slayer, feed and comfort the slain.Did they number my daughters and sons? I am mother of more!Many a head they marked not, here in my bosom has lain,Babbling with unborn lips in a tongue to be,Far, incredible matters, all familiar to me.Still would the man come whispering, "Wife!" but many a time my breastTook him not as a husband: I soothed him and laid him to restEven as the babe of my body, and knew him for such.My mouth is open to speak, that was dumb too much!I say to you I am the Mother; and under the swordWhich flamed each way to harry us forth from the Lord,I saw Him young at the portal, weeping and staying the rod,And I, even I was His mother, and I yearned as the mother of God.I am also the Spirit. The Sisters laughedWhen I sat with them dumb in the portals, over my lamp,Half asleep in the doors: for my gown was raughtOff at the shoulder to shield from the wind and the rainThe wick I tended against the mysterious hourWhen the Silent City of Being should ring with song,As the Lord came in with Life to the marriage bower."Look!" laughed the elder Sisters; and crimson with shameI hid my breast away from the rosy flame."Ah!" cried the leaning Sisters, pointing, doing me wrong,"Do you see?" laughed the wanton Sisters, "She will get her lover ere long!"And it was but a little while till unto my needHe was given indeed,And we walked where waxing world after world went by;And I said to my lover, "Let us begone,"Oh, let us begone, and try"Which of them all the fairest to dwell in is,"Which is the place for us, our desirable clime!"But he said, "They are only the huts and the little villages,Pleasant to go and lodge in rudely over the vintage—time!"Scornfully spake he, being unwise,Being flushed at heart because of our walking together.But I was mute with passionate prophecies;My heart went veiled and faint in the golden weather,While universe drifted by after still universe.Then I cried, "Alas, we must hasten and lodge therein,One after one, and in every star that they shed!A dark and a weary thing is come on our head—To search obedience out in the bosom of sin,To listen deep for love when thunders the curse;For O my love, behold where the Lord hath plantedIn every star in the midst His dangerous Tree!Still I must pluck thereof and bring unto thee,Saying, "The coolness for which all night we have panted;Taste of the goodly thing, I have tasted first!"Bringing us noway coolness, but burning thirst,Giving us noway peace, but implacable strife,Loosing upon us the wounding joy and the wasting sorrow of life!I am the Woman, ark of the Law and sacred arm to upbear it,Heathen trumpet to overthrow and idolatrous sword to shear it:Yea, she whose arm was round the neck of the morning star at song,Is she who kneeleth now in the dust and cries at the secret door,"Open to me, 0 sleeping mother! The gate is heavy and strong."Open to me, I am come at last; be wroth with thy child no more."Let me lie down with thee there in the dark, and be slothful with thee as before!"

William Vaughn Moody

Nature,Religion,Social Commentaries,Gender & Sexuality

To Whistler, American

On the loan exhibit of his paintings at the Tate Gallery. You also, our first great, Had tried all ways; Tested and pried and worked in many fashions, And this much gives me heart to play the game. Here is a part that's slight, and part gone wrong, And much of little moment, and some few Perfect as Dürer! "In the Studio" and these two portraits,* if I had my choice I And then these sketches in the mood of Greece? You had your searches, your uncertainties, And this is good to know—for us, I mean, Who bear the brunt of our America And try to wrench her impulse into art. You were not always sure, not always set To hiding night or tuning "symphonies"; Had not one style from birth, but tried and pried And stretched and tampered with the media. You and Abe Lincoln from that mass of dolts Show us there's chance at least of winning through. * "Brown and Gold—de Race." "Grenat et Or—Le Pettt Cardinal."

Ezra Pound

Arts & Sciences,Painting & Sculpture,Poetry & Poets,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Popular Culture

Middle-Aged: A Study in an Emotion

A STUDY IN AN EMOTION "'Tis but a vague, invarious delight. As gold that rains about some buried king. As the fine flakes, When tourists frolicking Stamp on his roof or in the glazing light Try photographs, wolf down their ale and cakes And start to inspect some further pyramid; As the fine dust, in the hid cell beneath Their transitory step and merriment, Drifts through the air, and the sarcophagus Gains yet another crust Of useless riches for the occupant, So I, the fires that lit once dreams Now over and spent, Lie dead within four walls And so now love Rains down and so enriches some stiff case, And strews a mind with precious metaphors, And so the space Of my still consciousness Is full of gilded snow, The which, no cat has eyes enough To see the brightness of."

Ezra Pound

Living,Growing Old,Midlife

ΧΟΡΙΚΣ

The ancient songs Pass deathward mournfully. Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths, Regretful eyes, and drooping breasts and wings— Symbols of ancient songs Mournfully passing Down to the great white surges, Watched of none - - Save the frail sea-birds And the lithe pale girls, Daughters of Okeanos. And the songs pass From the green land Which lies upon the waves as a leaf On the flowers of hyacinth; And they pass from the waters, The manifold winds and the dim moon, And they come, Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk, To the quiet level lands That she keeps for us all, That she wrought for us all for sleep In the silver days of the earth's dawning— Proserpine, daughter of Zeus. And we turn from the Kuprian's breasts, And we turn from thee, Phoibos Apollon, And we turn from the music of old And the hills that we loved and the meads, And we turn from the fiery day, And the lips that were over-sweet; For silently Brushing the fields with red-shod feet, With purple robe Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame, Death, Thou hast come upon us. And of all the ancient songs Passing to the swallow-blue halls By the dark streams of Persephone, This only remains: That in the end we turn to thee, Death, That we turn to thee, singing One last song. O Death, Thou art an healing wind That blowest over white flowers A-tremble with dew; Thou art a wind flowing Over long leagues of lonely sea; Thou art the dusk and the fragrance; Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling; Thou art the pale peace of one Satiate with old desires; Thou art the silence of beauty, And we look no more for the morning; We yearn no more for the sun, Since with thy white hands, Death, Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets, The slim colorless poppies Which in thy garden alone Softly thou gatherest. And silently; And with slow feet approaching; And with bowed head and unlit eyes, We kneel before thee: And thou, leaning towards us, Caressingly layest upon us Flowers from thy thin cold hands, And, smiling as a chaste woman Knowing love in her heart, Thou sealest our eyes And the illimitable quietude Comes gently upon us.

Richard Aldington

Living,Death,The Body,The Mind,Nature,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Mythology & Folklore,Greek & Roman Mythology,Heroes & Patriotism

To a Greek Marble

Pótuia, pótuia White grave goddess, Pity my sadness, O silence of Paros. I am not of these about thy feet, These garments and decorum; I am thy brother, Thy lover of aforetime crying to thee, And thou hearest me not. I have whispered thee in thy solitudes Of our loves in Phrygia, The far ecstasy of burning noons When the fragile pipes Ceased in the cypress shade, And the brown fingers of the shepherd Moved over slim shoulders; And only the cicada sang. I have told thee of the hills And the lisp of reeds And the sun upon thy breasts, And thou hearest me not, Pótuia, pótuia Thou hearest me not.

Richard Aldington

Living,Disappointment & Failure,Love,Infatuation & Crushes,Romantic Love,Unrequited Love,Relationships,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals,Arts & Sciences,Painting & Sculpture,Mythology & Folklore

Au Vieux Jardin

I have sat here happy in the gardens, Watching the still pool and the reeds And the dark clouds Which the wind of the upper air Tore like the green leafy boughs Of the divers-hued trees of late summer; But though I greatly delight In these and the water-lilies, That which sets me nighest to weeping Is the rose and white color of the smooth flag-stones, And the pale yellow grasses Among them.

Richard Aldington

Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals,Summer

Immured

Within this narrow cell that I call "me", I was imprisoned ere the worlds began, And all the worlds must run, as first they ran, In silver star-dust, ere I shall be free. I beat my hands against the walls and find It is my breast I beat, O bond and blind!

Lily A. Long

The Body,Nature

Nogi

Great soldier of the fighting clan, Across Port Arthur's frowning face of stone You drew the battle sword of old Japan, And struck the White Tsar from his Asian throne. Once more the samurai sword Struck to the carved hilt in your loyal hand, That not alone your heaven-descended lord Should meanly wander in the spirit land. Your own proud way, O eastern star, Grandly at last you followed. Out it leads To that high heaven where all the heroes are, Lovers of death for causes and for creeds.

Harriet Monroe

Living,Death,Religion,Other Religions,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,War & Conflict

Beyond the Stars

Three days I heard them grieve when I lay dead, (It was so strange to me that they should weep!) Tall candles burned about me in the dark, And a great crucifix was on my breast, And a great silence filled the lonesome room. I heard one whisper, "Lo! the dawn is breaking, And he has lost the wonder of the day." Another came whom I had loved on earth, And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair. Softly she spoke: "Oh that he should not see The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds Are singing in the orchard, and the grass That soon will cover him is growing green. The daisies whiten on the emerald hills, And the immortal magic that he loved Wakens again—and he has fallen asleep." Another said: "Last night I saw the moon Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven, And I could only think of him-and sob. For I remembered evenings wonderful When he was faint with Life's sad loveliness, And watched the silver ribbons wandering far Along the shore, and out upon the sea. Oh, I remembered how he loved the world, The sighing ocean and the flaming stars, The everlasting glamour God has given— -His tapestries that wrap the earth's wide room. I minded me of mornings filled with rain When he would sit and listen to the sound As if it were lost music from the spheres. He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge, He loved the shining gold of buttercups, And the low droning of the drowsy bees That boomed across the meadows. He was glad At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came With her worn livery and scarlet crown, And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest. Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young, And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing With green inscriptions of the old delight." I heard them whisper in the quiet room. I longed to open then my sealèd eyes, And tell them of the glory that was mine. There was no darkness where my spirit flew, There was no night beyond the teeming world. Their April was like winter where I roamed; Their flowers were like stones where now I fared. Earth's day! it was as if I had not known What sunlight meant! . . Yea, even as they grieved For all that I had lost in their pale place, I swung beyond the borders of the sky, And floated through the clouds, myself the air, Myself the ether, yet a matchless being Whom God had snatched from penury and pain To draw across the barricades of heaven. I clomb beyond the sun, beyond the moon; In flight on flight I touched the highest star; I plunged to regions where the Spring is born, Myself (I asked not how) the April wind, Myself the elements that are of God. Up flowery stairways of eternity I whirled in wonder and untrammeled joy, An atom, yet a portion of His dream— His dream that knows no end. . . . I was the rain, I was the dawn, I was the purple east, I was the moonlight on enchanted nights, (Yet time was lost to me); I was a flower For one to pluck who loved me; I was bliss, And rapture, splendid moments of delight; And I was prayer, and solitude, and hope; And always, always, always I was love. I tore asunder flimsy doors of time, And through the windows of my soul's new sight I saw beyond the ultimate bounds of space. I was all things that I had loved on earth— The very moonbeam in that quiet room, The very sunlight one had dreamed I lost, The soul of the returning April grass, The spirit of the evening and the dawn, The perfume in unnumbered hawthorn-blooms. There was no shadow on my perfect peace, No knowledge that was hidden from my heart. I learned what music meant; I read the years; I found where rainbows hide, where tears begin; I trod the precincts of things yet unborn. Yea, while I found all wisdom (being dead), They grieved for me. . I should have grieved for them!

Charles Hanson Towne

Living,Death,Sorrow & Grieving,Funerals

Under Two Windows

I. AUBADE The dawn is here—and the long night through I have never seen thy face, Though my feet have worn the patient grass at the gate of thy dwelling-place. While the white moon sailed till, red in the west, it found the far world edge, No leaflet stirred of the leaves that climb to garland thy window ledge. Yet the vine had quivered from root to tip, and opened its flowers again, If only the low moon's light had glanced on a moving casement pane. Warm was the wind that entered in where the barrier stood ajar, And the curtain shook with its gentle breath, white as young lilies are; But there came no hand all the slow night through to draw the folds aside, (I longed as the moon and the vine-leaves longed!) or to set the casement wide. Three times in a low-hung nest there dreamed his five sweet notes a bird, And thrice my heart leaped up at the sound I thought thou hadst surely heard. But now that thy praise is caroled aloud by a thousand throats awake, Shall I watch from afar and silently, as under the moon, for thy sake? Nay—bold in the sun I speak thy name, I too, and I wait no more Thy hand, thy face, in the window niche, but thy kiss at the open door! II. NOCTURNE My darling, come!—The wings of the dark have wafted the sunset away, And there's room for much in a summer night, but no room for delay. A still moon looketh down from the sky, and a wavering moon looks up From every hollow in the green hills that holds a pool in its cup. The woodland borders are wreathed with bloom—elder, viburnum, rose; The young trees yearn on the breast of the wind that sighs of love as it goes. The small stars drown in the moon-washed blue but the greater ones abide, With Vega high in the midmost place, Altair not far aside. The glades are dusk, and soft the grass, where the flower of the elder gleams, Mist-white, moth-like, a spirit awake in the dark of forest dreams. Arcturus beckons into the east, Antares toward the south, That sendeth a zephyr sweet with thyme to seek for thy sweeter mouth. Shall the blossom wake, the star look down, all night and have naught to see? Shall the reeds that sing by the wind-brushed pool say nothing of thee and me? —My darling comes! My arms are content, my feet are guiding her way; There is room for much in a summer night, but no room for delay!

Schuyler Van Rensselaer

Love,Desire,Infatuation & Crushes,Romantic Love,Unrequited Love,Relationships,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

The Jester

I have known great gold Sorrows: Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully Through the slow-pacing morrows: I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing Dim endless voices cried of suffering Vibrant and far in broken litany: Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air-— All things most tragical, most fair, Have still encompassed me . . . I dance where in the screaming market-place The dusty world that watches buys and sells, With painted merriment upon my face, Whirling my bells, Thrusting my sad soul to its mockery. I have known great gold Sorrows . . . Shall they not mock me, these pain-haunted ones, If it shall make them merry, and forget That grief shall rise and set With the unchanging, unforgetting suns Of their relentless morrows?

Margaret Widdemer

Living,Sorrow & Grieving

The Beggars

The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces, Begging of Life for Joy! I saw the little daughters of the poor, Tense from the long day's working, strident, gay, Hurrying to the picture-place. There curled A hideous flushed beggar at the door, Trading upon his horror, eyeless, maimed, Complacent in his profitable mask. They mocked his horror, but they gave to him From the brief wealth of pay-night, and went in To the cheap laughter and the tawdry thoughts Thrown on the screen; in to the seeking hand Covered by darkness, to the luring voice Of Horror, boy-masked, whispering of rings, Of silks, of feathers, bought—so cheap!—with just Their slender starved child-bodies, palpitant For Beauty, Laughter, Passion, that is Life: (A frock of satin for an hour's shame, A coat of fur for two days' servitude; “And the clothes last,” the thought runs on, within The poor warped girl-minds drugged with changeless days; “Who cares or knows after the hour is done?”) —Poor little beggars at Life's door for Joy! The old man crouched there, eyeless, horrible, Complacent in the marketable mask That earned his comforts—and they gave to him! But ah, the little painted, wistful faces Questioning Life for Joy!

Margaret Widdemer

Living,Coming of Age,Activities,Jobs & Working,Philosophy,Social Commentaries,Class,Gender & Sexuality

To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing

Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor bred, with one Who were it proved he lies Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbors' eyes; Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing string Whereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone, Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.

William Butler Yeats

Relationships,Friends & Enemies,Arts & Sciences,Poetry & Poets

The Magi

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied, The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

William Butler Yeats

Religion,Faith & Doubt

Venus Transiens

Tell me, Was Venus more beautiful Than you are, When she topped The crinkled waves, Drifting shoreward On her plaited shell? Was Botticelli’s vision Fairer than mine; And were the painted rosebuds He tossed his lady Of better worth Than the words I blow about you To cover your too great loveliness As with a gauze Of misted silver? For me, You stand poised In the blue and buoyant air, Cinctured by bright winds, Treading the sunlight. And the waves which precede you Ripple and stir The sands at my feet.

Amy Lowell

Love,Romantic Love,Relationships,Gay, Lesbian, Queer,Arts & Sciences,Painting & Sculpture

Magic

We passed old farmer Boothby in the field. Rugged and straight he stood; his body steeled With stubbornness and age. We met his eyes That never flinched or turned to compromise, And “Luck,” he cried, “good luck!”—and waved an arm, Knotted and sailor-like, such as no farm In all of Maine could boast of; and away He turned again to pitch his new-cut hay... We walked on leisurely until a bend Showed him once more, now working toward the end Of one great path; wearing his eighty years Like banners lifted in a wind of cheers. Then we turned off abruptly—took the road Cutting the village, the one with the commanding View of the river. And we strode More briskly now to the long pier that showed Where the frail boats were kept at Indian Landing. In the canoe we stepped; our paddles dipped Leisurely downwards, and the slim bark slipped More on than in the water. Smoothly then We shot its nose against the rippling current, Feeling the rising river’s half-deterrent Pull on the paddle as we turned the blade To keep from swerving round; while we delayed To watch the curious wave-eaten locks; Or pass, with lazy turns, the picnic-rocks.... Blue eels flew under us, and fishes darted A thousand ways; the once broad channel shrunk. And over us the wise and noble-hearted Twilight leaned down; the sunset mists were parted,— And we, with thoughts on tiptoe, slunk Down the green, twisting alleys of the Kennebunk,Motionless in the meadows The trees, the rocks, the cows... And quiet dripped from the shadows Like rain from heavy boughs. The tree-toads started ringing Their ceaseless silver bells; A land-locked breeze came swinging Its censer of earthy smells. The river’s tiny cañon Stretched into dusky lands; Like a dark and silent companion Evening held out her hands. Hushed were the dawn’s bravados; Loud noon was a silenced cry— And quiet slipped from the shadows As stars slip out of the sky...

Louis Untermeyer

Activities,Travels & Journeys,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Mythology & Folklore

People

The great gold apples of night Hang from the street's long bough Dripping their light On the faces that drift below, On the faces that drift and blow Down the night-time, out of sight In the wind's sad sough. The ripeness of these apples of night Distilling over me Makes sickening the white Ghost-flux of faces that hie Them endlessly, endlessly by Without meaning or reason why They ever should be.

D. H. Lawrence

Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life

A Prayer for My Daughter

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's Wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour, And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come Dancing to a frenzied drum Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty, and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass; for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness, and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen, being chosen, found life flat and dull, And later had much trouble from a fool; While that great Queen that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless, could have her way, Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful. Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise; And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree, That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound; Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. Oh, may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place. My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind? Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is heaven's will, She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still. And may her bridegroom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

William Butler Yeats

Living,Parenthood,Relationships,Men & Women,Birth

O Carib Isle!

O Carib Isle! The tarantula rattling at the lily’s foot Across the feet of the dead, laid in white sand Near the coral beach—nor zigzag fiddle crabs Side-stilting from the path (that shift, subvert And anagrammatize your name)—No, nothing here Below the palsy that one eucalyptus lifts In wrinkled shadows—mourns. And yet suppose I count these nacreous frames of tropic death, Brutal necklaces of shells around each grave Squared off so carefully. Then To the white sand I may speak a name, fertile Albeit in a stranger tongue. Tree names, flower names Deliberate, gainsay death’s brittle crypt. Meanwhile The wind that knots itself in one great death— Coils and withdraws. So syllables want breath. But where is the Captain of this doubloon isle Without a turnstile? Who but catchword crabs Patrols the dry groins of the underbrush? What man, or What Is Commissioner of mildew throughout the ambushed senses? His Carib mathematics web the eyes’ baked lenses! Under the poinciana, of a noon or afternoon Let fiery blossoms clot the light, render my ghost Sieved upward, white and black along the air Until it meets the blue’s comedian host. Let not the pilgrim see himself again For slow evisceration bound like those huge terrapin Each daybreak on the wharf, their brine-caked eyes; —Spiked, overturned; such thunder in their strain! And clenched beaks coughing for the surge again! Slagged of the hurricane—I, cast within its flow, Congeal by afternoons here, satin and vacant. You have given me the shell, Satan,—carbonic amulet Sere of the sun exploded in the sea.

Hart Crane

Activities,Travels & Journeys,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

On Inhabiting an Orange

All our roads go nowhere. Maps are curled To keep the pavement definitely On the world. All our footsteps, set to make Metric advance, Lapse into arcs in deference To circumstance. All our journeys nearing Space Skirt it with care, Shying at the distances Present in air. Blithely travel-stained and worn, Erect and sure, All our travels go forth, Making down the roads of Earth Endless detour.

Josephine Miles

Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals,Arts & Sciences,Philosophy

A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts

The difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur— There was the cat slopping its milk all day, Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk And August the most peaceful month. To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time, Without that monument of cat, The cat forgotten in the moon; And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light, In which everything is meant for you And nothing need be explained; Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself; And east rushes west and west rushes down, No matter. The grass is full And full of yourself. The trees around are for you, The whole of the wideness of night is for you, A self that touches all edges, You become a self that fills the four corners of night. The red cat hides away in the fur-light And there you are humped high, humped up, You are humped higher and higher, black as stone— You sit with your head like a carving in space And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

Wallace Stevens

Relationships,Pets,Mythology & Folklore,Ghosts & the Supernatural

University

To hurt the Negro and avoid the Jew Is the curriculum. In mid-September The entering boys, identified by hats, Wander in a maze of mannered brick Where boxwood and magnolia brood And columns with imperious stance Like rows of ante-bellum girls Eye them, outlanders. In whited cells, on lawns equipped for peace, Under the arch, and lofty banister, Equals shake hands, unequals blankly pass; The exemplary weather whispers, “Quiet, quiet” And visitors on tiptoe leave For the raw North, the unfinished West, As the young, detecting an advantage, Practice a face. Where, on their separate hill, the colleges, Like manor houses of an older law, Gaze down embankments on a land in fee, The Deans, dry spinsters over family plate, Ring out the English name like coin, Humor the snob and lure the lout. Within the precincts of this world Poise is a club. But on the neighboring range, misty and high, The past is absolute: some luckless race Dull with inbreeding and conformity Wears out its heart, and comes barefoot and bad For charity or jail. The scholar Sanctions their obsolete disease; The gentleman revolts with shame At his ancestor. And the true nobleman, once a democrat, Sleeps on his private mountain. He was one Whose thought was shapely and whose dream was broad; This school he held his art and epitaph. But now it takes from him his name, Falls open like a dishonest look, And shows us, rotted and endowed, Its senile pleasure.

Karl Shapiro

Activities,School & Learning,Arts & Sciences,Humor & Satire,Social Commentaries

Night of Battle

Europe: 1944 as regarded from a great distance Impersonal the aim Where giant movements tend; Each man appears the same; Friend vanishes from friend. In the long path of lead That changes place like light No shape of hand or head Means anything tonight. Only the common will For which explosion spoke; And stiff on field and hill The dark blood of the folk.

Yvor Winters

Social Commentaries,War & Conflict,Memorial Day

In the Cold Country

We came so trustingly, for love, but these Lowlands, flatlands, near beneath the sea Point with their cautionary bones of sand To exorcize, submerge us; we stay free Only as mermaids glittering in the waves: Mermaids of the imagination, young A spring ago, who know our loveliness Banished, like fireflies at winter’s breath, Because none saw; these vines about our necks We placed in welcome once, but now as wreath Against the scalpel cold; still cold creeps in To grow like ivy over our chilling bodies Into our blood. Now in our diamond dress We wive only the sequins of the sea. The lowlands have rejected us. They lie Athwart the whispering waters like a scar On a mirage of glass; the dooming land, Where nothing can take root but frost, has won. And what of warmth and what of joy? They are Sequestered elsewhere, southward, where the sun Speaks. For all our mermaid vigilance And balance, all goes under; underneath The land’s gray wave we falter and fall back To hibernate within the caves of death.

Barbara Howes

Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Weather,Mythology & Folklore,Fairy-tales & Legends

The Nuns Assist at Childbirth

Robed in dungeon black, in mourning For themselves they pass, repace The dark linoleum corridors Of humid wards, sure in the grace Of self-denial. Blown by duty, Jet sails borne by a high wind, Only the face and hands creep through The shapeless clothing, to remind One that a woman lives within The wrappings of this strange cocoon. Her hands reach from these veils of death To harvest a child from the raw womb. The metal scales of paradox Tip here then there. What can the nun Think of the butchery of birth, Mastery of the flesh, this one Vigorous mystery? Rude life From the volcano rolls and pours, Tragic, regenerate, wild. Sad, The unborn wait behind closed doors.

Barbara Howes

Living,The Body,Nature,Religion,Christianity

Hypocrite Auteur

mon semblable, mon frère (1) Our epoch takes a voluptuous satisfaction In that perspective of the action Which pictures us inhabiting the end Of everything with death for only friend. Not that we love death, Not truly, not the fluttering breath, The obscene shudder of the finished act— What the doe feels when the ultimate fact Tears at her bowels with its jaws. Our taste is for the opulent pause Before the end comes. If the end is certain All of us are players at the final curtain: All of us, silence for a time deferred, Find time before us for one sad last word. Victim, rebel, convert, stoic— Every role but the heroic— We turn our tragic faces to the stalls To wince our moment till the curtain falls. (2) A world ends when its metaphor has died. An age becomes an age, all else beside, When sensuous poets in their pride invent Emblems for the soul’s consent That speak the meanings men will never know But man-imagined images can show: It perishes when those images, though seen, No longer mean. (3) A world was ended when the womb Where girl held God became the tomb Where God lies buried in a man: Botticelli’s image neither speaks nor can To our kind. His star-guided stranger Teaches no longer, by the child, the manger, The meaning of the beckoning skies. Sophocles, when his reverent actors rise To play the king with bleeding eyes, No longer shows us on the stage advance God’s purpose in the terrible fatality of chance. No woman living, when the girl and swan Embrace in verses, feels upon Her breast the awful thunder of that breast Where God, made beast, is by the blood confessed. Empty as conch shell by the waters cast The metaphor still sounds but cannot tell, And we, like parasite crabs, put on the shell And drag it at the sea’s edge up and down. This is the destiny we say we own. (4) But are we sure The age that dies upon its metaphor Among these Roman heads, these mediaeval towers, Is ours?— Or ours the ending of that story? The meanings in a man that quarry Images from blinded eyes And white birds and the turning skies To make a world of were not spent with these Abandoned presences. The journey of our history has not ceased: Earth turns us still toward the rising east, The metaphor still struggles in the stone, The allegory of the flesh and bone Still stares into the summer grass That is its glass, The ignorant blood Still knocks at silence to be understood. Poets, deserted by the world before, Turn round into the actual air: Invent the age! Invent the metaphor!

Archibald MacLeish

Living,Death,Arts & Sciences,Poetry & Poets,Social Commentaries