Title,Poem,Poet,Emotion
Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time,"When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go,Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsakeAnd die as fast as they see others grow;    And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence   Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.",William Shakespeare,Fear
"Speech: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”","(from Henry V, spoken by King Henry)Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'",William Shakespeare,Joy
"Song: “Take, oh take those lips away”","(from Measure for Measure)Take, oh take those lips away,       That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes: the breake of day,       Lights that do mislead the Morn; But my kisses bring again, bring again, Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.",William Shakespeare,Sadness
Song: “Who is Silvia? what is she”,"(from Two Gentlemen of Verona)Who is Silvia? what is she,     That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she;     The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admirèd be. Is she kind as she is fair?     For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair,     To help him of his blindness; And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing,     That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing     Upon the dull earth dwelling;  To her let us garlands bring",William Shakespeare,Sadness
Speech: “The raven himself is hoarse”,"(from Macbeth, spoken by Lady Macbeth)The raven himself is hoarseThat croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements. Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-fullOf direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,Wherever in your sightless substancesYou wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,To cry ""Hold, hold!""",William Shakespeare,Fear
Speech: Bottom's Dream,"(from A Midsummer Night's Dream, spoken by Bottom)When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.” Heigh-ho! Peter Quince? Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling? God’s my life, stol'n hence, and left me asleep? I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream—past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream” because it hath no bottom. And I will sing it in the latter end of a play before the duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.",William Shakespeare,Surprise
"Sonnet 123: No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change","No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:Thy pyramids built up with newer mightTo me are nothing novel, nothing strange;They are but dressings of a former sight.Our dates are brief, and therefore we admireWhat thou dost foist upon us that is old,And rather make them born to our desireThan think that we before have heard them told.Thy registers and thee I both defy,Not wondering at the present nor the past;For thy records and what we see doth lie,Made more or less by that continual haste.   This I do vow, and this shall ever be:   I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.",William Shakespeare,Fear
Sonnet 125: Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,"Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,With my extern the outward honouring,Or laid great bases for eternity,Which proves more short than waste or ruining;Have I not seen dwellers on form and favourLose all, and more, by paying too much rent,For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?No;—let me be obsequious in thy heart,And take thou my oblation, poor but free,Which is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art,But mutual render, only me for thee.   Hence, thou suborn’d informer! a true soul,   When most impeach’d, stands least in thy control.",William Shakespeare,Sadness
Speech: “Is this a dagger which I see before me”,"(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There's no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace. With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives: Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.                                     [a bell rings] I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.",William Shakespeare,Sadness
Song: “Full fathom five thy father lies”,(from The Tempest)Full fathom five thy father lies;,William Shakespeare,Fear
"Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all","Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.Then if for my love thou my love receivest,I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivestBy wilful taste of what thyself refusest.I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,Although thou steal thee all my poverty;And yet love knows it is a greater griefTo bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,    Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.",William Shakespeare,Love
Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,"Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,And make me travel forth without my cloak,To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,For no man well of such a salve can speakThat heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:The offender’s sorrow lends but weak reliefTo him that bears the strong offence’s cross.   Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,   And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.",William Shakespeare,Sadness
"Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made","What is your substance, whereof are you made,That millions of strange shadows on you tend?Since every one hath, every one, one shade,And you, but one, can every shadow lend.Describe Adonis, and the counterfeitIs poorly imitated after you;On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,And you in Grecian tires are painted new.Speak of the spring and foison of the year:The one doth shadow of your beauty show,The other as your bounty doth appear;And you in every blessèd shape we know.    In all external grace you have some part,    But you like none, none you, for constant heart.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?,"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Song: “It was a lover and his lass”,"(from As You Like It)It was a lover and his lass,    With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o’er the green cornfield did pass,    In springtime, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring",William Shakespeare,Love
Speech: “All the world’s a stage”,"(from As You Like It, spoken by Jaques)                                        All the world’s a stage,",William Shakespeare,Fear
Song: “Orpheus with his lute made trees”,"(from Henry VIII)Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves when he did sing:To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.",William Shakespeare,Love
"Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble”","(from Macbeth)Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.Cool it with a baboon's blood,Then the charm is firm and good.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Speech: “No matter where; of comfort no man speak”,"(from Richard II, spoken by King Richard)No matter where; of comfort no man speak:Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;Make dust our paper and with rainy eyesWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth,Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:And yet not so, for what can we bequeathSave our deposed bodies to the ground?Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,And nothing can we call our own but deathAnd that small model of the barren earthWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones.For God’s sake, let us sit upon the groundAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings;How some have been deposed; some slain in war,Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;All murder’d: for within the hollow crownThat rounds the mortal temples of a kingKeeps Death his court and there the antic sits,Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,Allowing him a breath, a little scene,To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,Infusing him with self and vain conceit,As if this flesh which walls about our life,Were brass impregnable, and humor’d thusComes at the last and with a little pinBores through his castle wall, and farewell king!Cover your heads and mock not flesh and bloodWith solemn reverence: throw away respect,Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,For you have but mistook me all this while:I live with bread like you, feel want,Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,How can you say to me, I am a king?",William Shakespeare,Sadness
"Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea","Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless seaBut sad mortality o’er-sways their power,How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,Whose action is no stronger than a flower?O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold outAgainst the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,When rocks impregnable are not so stout,Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?O fearful meditation! where, alack,Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?   O, none, unless this miracle have might,   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.",William Shakespeare,Fear
Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd,"When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'dThe rich proud cost of outworn buried age;When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'dAnd brass eternal slave to mortal rage;When I have seen the hungry ocean gainAdvantage on the kingdom of the shore,And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,Increasing store with loss and loss with store;When I have seen such interchange of state,Or state itself confounded to decay;Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,That Time will come and take my love away.This thought is as a death, which cannot chooseBut weep to have that which it fears to lose.",William Shakespeare,Surprise
"Song: “Blow, blow, thou winter wind”","Blow, blow, thou winter wind,    Thou art not so unkind       As man’s ingratitude;    Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen,       Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:    Then, heigh-ho, the holly!       This life is most jolly.",William Shakespeare,Joy
"Song: “Where the bee sucks, there suck I”","(from The Tempest)Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip’s bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily.   Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been,"How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!What old December's bareness everywhere!And yet this time remov'd was summer's time,The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:Yet this abundant issue seem'd to meBut hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,And thou away, the very birds are mute;Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheerThat leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead,"No longer mourn for me when I am deadThan you shall hear the surly sullen bellGive warning to the world that I am fledFrom this vile world with vilest worms to dwell; Nay, if you read this line, remember notThe hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.O, if (I say) you look upon this verse, When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,But let your love even with my life decay,Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.",William Shakespeare,Love
Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride,"Why is my verse so barren of new pride,So far from variation or quick change?Why with the time do I not glance asideTo new-found methods, and to compounds strange?Why write I still all one, ever the same,And keep invention in a noted weed,That every word doth almost tell my name,Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?O know, sweet love, I always write of you,And you and love are still my argument,So all my best is dressing old words new,Spending again what is already spent:   For as the sun is daily new and old,   So is my love still telling what is told.",William Shakespeare,Love
"Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes","When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,I all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,(Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;       For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds,"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.",William Shakespeare,Fear
"Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old","To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.",William Shakespeare,Love
"Speech: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”","(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.",William Shakespeare,Anger
"Speech: “Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back”","(from Troilus and Cressida, spoken by Ulysses)Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'dAs fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord,Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hangQuite out of fashion, like a rusty mailIn monumental mockery. Take the instant way;For honour travels in a strait so narrow,Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;For emulation hath a thousand sonsThat one by one pursue: if you give way,Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush byAnd leave you hindmost;Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable hostThat slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seekRemuneration for the thing it was;For beauty, wit,High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,Though they are made and moulded of things past,And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.The present eye praises the present object.Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;Since things in motion sooner catch the eye Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,And still it might, and yet it may again,If thou wouldst not entomb thyself aliveAnd case thy reputation in thy tent;Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselvesAnd drave great Mars to faction.",William Shakespeare,Joy
Song: “Who is Silvia? what is she”,"(from Two Gentlemen of Verona)Who is Silvia? what is she,     That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she;     The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admirèd be. Is she kind as she is fair?     For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair,     To help him of his blindness; And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing,     That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing     Upon the dull earth dwelling;  To her let us garlands bring",William Shakespeare,Sadness
The Haunted Palace,"In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted,Once a fair and stately palace— Radiant palace—reared its head.In the monarch Thought’s dominion, It stood there!Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair!Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow(This—all this—was in the olden Time long ago)And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day,Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A wingèd odor went away.Wanderers in that happy valley, Through two luminous windows, sawSpirits moving musically To a lute’s well-tunèd law,Round about a throne where, sitting, Porphyrogene!In state his glory well befitting, The ruler of the realm was seen.And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door,Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing And sparkling evermore,A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing,In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king.But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch’s high estate;(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomedIs but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.And travellers, now, within that valley, Through the red-litten windows seeVast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody;While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale doorA hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh—but smile no more.",Edgar Allan Poe,Love
Annabel Lee,"It was many and many a year ago,    In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know    By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought    Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child,    In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love—    I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven    Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago,    In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling    My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came    And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre    In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,    Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,    In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night,    Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love    Of those who were older than we—    Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above    Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side    Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,    In her sepulchre there by the sea—    In her tomb by the sounding sea.",Edgar Allan Poe,Love
A Dream,"In visions of the dark night    I have dreamed of joy departed—But a waking dream of life and light    Hath left me broken-hearted.Ah! what is not a dream by day    To him whose eyes are castOn things around him with a ray    Turned back upon the past?That holy dream—that holy dream,    While all the world were chiding,Hath cheered me as a lovely beam    A lonely spirit guiding.What though that light, thro' storm and night,    So trembled from afar—What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star?",Edgar Allan Poe,Sadness
Dream-Land,"By a route obscure and lonely,   Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,   On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly   From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,        Out of SPACE—Out of TIME. Bottomless vales and boundless floods,   And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,   With forms that no man can discover   For the tears that drip all over;   Mountains toppling evermore   Into seas without a shore;   Seas that restlessly aspire,   Surging, unto skies of fire;   Lakes that endlessly outspread   Their lone waters—lone and dead,—   Their still waters—still and chilly   With the snows of the lolling lily. By the lakes that thus outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead,— Their sad waters, sad and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily,— By the mountains—near the river   Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—   By the grey woods,—by the swamp   Where the toad and the newt encamp,—   By the dismal tarns and pools    Where dwell the Ghouls,—   By each spot the most unholy—   In each nook most melancholy,—   There the traveller meets, aghast,   Sheeted Memories of the Past—   Shrouded forms that start and sigh   As they pass the wanderer by—   White-robed forms of friends long given,   In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven. For the heart whose woes are legion   ’T is a peaceful, soothing region—   For the spirit that walks in shadow   ’T is—oh, ’t is an Eldorado! But the traveller, travelling through it,   May not—dare not openly view it;   Never its mysteries are exposed   To the weak human eye unclosed;   So wills its King, who hath forbid   The uplifting of the fring'd lid;   And thus the sad Soul that here passes   Beholds it but through darkened glasses. By a route obscure and lonely,   Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright,   I have wandered home but newly   From this ultimate dim Thule.",Edgar Allan Poe,Surprise
“Alone”,"From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still— From the torrent, or the fountain— From the red cliff of the mountain— From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by— From the thunder, and the storm— And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view—",Edgar Allan Poe,Fear
Israfel,"And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures. —KORANIn Heaven a spirit doth dwell   “Whose heart-strings are a lute”;   None sing so wildly wellAs the angel Israfel,And the giddy stars (so legends tell),   Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell      Of his voice, all mute.Tottering above   In her highest noon,   The enamoured moonBlushes with love,   While, to listen, the red levin      (With the rapid Pleiads, even,      Which were seven,)   Pauses in Heaven.And they say (the starry choir      And the other listening things)   That Israfeli’s fireIs owing to that lyre   By which he sits and sings—   The trembling living wire   Of those unusual strings.But the skies that angel trod,   Where deep thoughts are a duty,   Where Love’s a grown-up God,   Where the Houri glances are   Imbued with all the beauty   Which we worship in a star.Therefore, thou art not wrong,      Israfeli, who despisestAn unimpassioned song;To thee the laurels belong,   Best bard, because the wisest!   Merrily live, and long!The ecstasies above   With thy burning measures suit—   Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,   With the fervour of thy lute—   Well may the stars be mute!Yes, Heaven is thine; but this   Is a world of sweets and sours;   Our flowers are merely—flowers,   And the shadow of thy perfect bliss   Is the sunshine of ours.If I could dwellWhere Israfel   Hath dwelt, and he where I,He might not sing so wildly well   A mortal melody,While a bolder note than this might swell      From my lyre within the sky.",Edgar Allan Poe,Surprise
A Dream Within a Dream,"Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow —You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?  All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand —How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep — while I weep!O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?",Edgar Allan Poe,Fear
Fairy-Land,"Dim vales—and shadowy floods— And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can’t discover For the tears that drip all over: Huge moons there wax and wane— Again—again—again— Every moment of the night— Forever changing places— And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial, One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down—still down—and down With its centre on the crown Of a mountain’s eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be— O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea— Over spirits on the wing— Over every drowsy thing— And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light— And then, how, deep! —O, deep, Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like—almost any thing— Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before, Videlicet, a tent— Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings.",Edgar Allan Poe,Fear
To My Mother,"Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,The angels, whispering to one another,Can find, among their burning terms of love,None so devotional as that of “Mother,”Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—You who are more than mother unto me,And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed youIn setting my Virginia's spirit free.My mother—my own mother, who died early,Was but the mother of myself; but youAre mother to the one I loved so dearly,And thus are dearer than the mother I knewBy that infinity with which my wifeWas dearer to my soul than its soul-life.",Edgar Allan Poe,Love
The Raven,"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—            Only this and nothing more.”    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.    Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow    From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—            Nameless here for evermore.    And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtainThrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating    “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—            This it is and nothing more.”    Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;    But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—            Darkness there and nothing more.    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—            Merely this and nothing more.    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.    “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;      Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—            ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;    Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—            Perched, and sat, and nothing more.Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,            With such name as “Nevermore.”    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke onlyThat one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”    Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store    Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore            Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;    Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressingTo the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,            She shall press, ah, nevermore!    Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censerSwung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee    Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—    On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”    “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!    Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sittingOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor            Shall be lifted—nevermore!",Edgar Allan Poe,Sadness
The Conqueror Worm,"Lo! ’t is a gala night    Within the lonesome latter years!   An angel throng, bewinged, bedight    In veils, and drowned in tears,   Sit in a theatre, to see    A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully      The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high,      Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly—    Mere puppets they, who come and go   At bidding of vast formless things    That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their Condor wings    Invisible Wo! That motley drama—oh, be sure      It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore      By a crowd that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in      To the self-same spot, And much of Madness, and more of Sin,      And Horror the soul of the plot. But see, amid the mimic rout,    A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out      The scenic solitude! It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs   The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs    In human gore imbued. Out—out are the lights—out all!      And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall,    Comes down with the rush of a storm,   While the angels, all pallid and wan,      Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”      And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.",Edgar Allan Poe,Fear
The Valley of Unrest,"Once it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay. Now each visitor shall confess The sad valley’s restlessness. Nothing there is motionless— Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye— Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:—from out their fragrant tops External dews come down in drops. They weep:—from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.",Edgar Allan Poe,Sadness
To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad,"The skies they were ashen and sober;       The leaves they were crispéd and sere—       The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October       Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,       In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,       In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic,       Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—       Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic       As the scoriac rivers that roll—       As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek       In the ultimate climes of the pole— That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek       In the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober,       But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—       Our memories were treacherous and sere— For we knew not the month was October,       And we marked not the night of the year—       (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber—       (Though once we had journeyed down here)— We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,       Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent       And star-dials pointed to morn—       As the star-dials hinted of morn— At the end of our path a liquescent       And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent       Arose with a duplicate horn— Astarte's bediamonded crescent       Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said—""She is warmer than Dian:       She rolls through an ether of sighs—       She revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on       These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion       To point us the path to the skies—       To the Lethean peace of the skies— Come up, in despite of the Lion,       To shine on us with her bright eyes— Come up through the lair of the Lion,       With love in her luminous eyes."" But Psyche, uplifting her finger,       Said—""Sadly this star I mistrust—       Her pallor I strangely mistrust:— Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!       Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must."" In terror she spoke, letting sink her       Wings till they trailed in the dust— In agony sobbed, letting sink her       Plumes till they trailed in the dust—       Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. I replied—""This is nothing but dreaming:       Let us on by this tremulous light!       Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming       With Hope and in Beauty to-night:—       See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,       And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming       That cannot but guide us aright,       Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."" Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,       And tempted her out of her gloom—       And conquered her scruples and gloom: And we passed to the end of the vista,       But were stopped by the door of a tomb—       By the door of a legended tomb; And I said—""What is written, sweet sister,       On the door of this legended tomb?""       She replied—""Ulalume—Ulalume—       'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"" Then my heart it grew ashen and sober       As the leaves that were crispèd and sere—       As the leaves that were withering and sere, And I cried—""It was surely October       On this very night of last year       That I journeyed—I journeyed down here—       That I brought a dread burden down here—       On this night of all nights in the year,       Oh, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—       This misty mid region of Weir— Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber—       In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."" Said we, then—the two, then—""Ah, can it       Have been that the woodlandish ghouls—       The pitiful, the merciful ghouls— To bar up our way and to ban it       From the secret that lies in these wolds—       From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds— Had drawn up the spectre of a planet       From the limbo of lunary souls— This sinfully scintillant planet       From the Hell of the planetary souls?""",Edgar Allan Poe,Fear
Sonnet—To Science,"Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!    Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,    Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,    Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,    Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,    And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star?    Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?",Edgar Allan Poe,Sadness
Grief,"I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;  That only men incredulous of despair,  Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air  Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access  Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,  In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare  Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare  Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express  Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—  Most like a monumental statue set  In everlasting watch and moveless woe  Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.  Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:  If it could weep, it could arise and go.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Fear
"Sonnets from the Portuguese  7: The face of all the world is changed, I think","The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear. The names of country, heaven, are changed away For where thou art or shalt be, there or here; And this ... this lute and song ... loved yesterday, (The singing angels know) are only dear, Because thy name moves right in what they say.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Joy
Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.Poetry Out Loud Note: In the print anthology, this poem is titled simply ""How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."" The student may give either title during their recitation.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Joy
"from Aurora Leigh, First Book","In those days, though, I never analysedMyself even. All analysis comes late.You catch a sight of Nature, earliest,In full front sun-face, and your eyelids winkAnd drop before the wonder of ‘t; you missThe form, through seeing the light. I lived, those days,And wrote because I lived–unlicensed else:My heart beat in my brain. Life’s violent floodAbolished bounds,–and, which my neighbour’s field,Which mine, what mattered? It is so in youth.We play at leap-frog over the god Term;The love within us and the love withoutAre mixed, confounded; if we are loved or love,We scarce distinguish. So, with other power.Being acted on and acting seem the same:In that first onrush of life’s chariot-wheels,We know not if the forests move or we.And so, like most young poets, in a flushOf individual life, I poured myselfAlong the veins of others, and achievedMere lifeless imitations of life verse,And made the living answer for the dead,Profaning nature. ‘Touch not, do not taste,Nor handle,’–we’re too legal, who write young:We beat the phorminx till we hurt our thumbs,As if still ignorant of counterpoint;We call the Muse ... ‘O Muse, benignant Muse!’–As if we had seen her purple-braided head.With the eyes in it start between the boughsAs often as a stag’s. What make-believe,With so much earnest! what effete results,From virile efforts! what cold wire-drawn odesFrom such white heats!–bucolics, where the cowsWould scare the writer if they splashed the mudIn lashing off the flies,–didactics, drivenAgainst the heels of what the master said;And counterfeiting epics, shrill with trumpsA babe might blow between two straining cheeksOf bubbled rose, to make his mother laugh;And elegiac griefs, and songs of love,Like cast-off nosegays picked up on the road,The worse for being warm: all these things, writOn happy mornings, with a morning heart,That leaps for love, is active for resolve,Weak for art only. Oft, the ancient formsWill thrill, indeed, in carrying the young blood.The wine-skins, now and then, a little warped,Will crack even, as the new wine gurgles in.Spare the old bottles!–spill not the new wine.By Keats’s soul, the man who never steppedIn gradual progress like another man,But, turning grandly on his central self,Ensphered himself in twenty perfect yearsAnd died, not young,–(the life of a long life,Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tearUpon the world’s cold cheek to make it burnFor ever;) by that strong excepted soul,I count it strange, and hard to understand,That nearly all young poets should write old;That Pope was sexagenarian at sixteen,And beardless Byron academical,And so with others. It may be, perhaps,Such have not settled long and deep enoughIn trance, to attain to clairvoyance,–and stillThe memory mixes with the vision, spoils,And works it turbid.                  Or perhaps, again,In order to discover the Muse-Sphinx,The melancholy desert must sweep round,Behind you, as before.–For me, I wroteFalse poems, like the rest, and thought them true.Because myself was true in writing them.I, peradventure, have writ true ones sinceWith less complacence.                    But I could not hideMy quickening inner life from those at watch.They saw a light at a window now and then,They had not set there. Who had set it there?My father’s sister started when she caughtMy soul agaze in my eyes. She could not sayI had no business with a sort of soul,But plainly she objected,–and demurred,That souls were dangerous things to carry straightThrough all the spilt saltpetre of the world.She said sometimes, ‘Aurora, have you doneYour task this morning?–have you read that book?And are you ready for the crochet here?’–As if she said, ‘I know there’s something wrong,I know I have not ground you down enoughTo flatten and bake you to a wholesome crustFor household uses and proprieties,Before the rain has got into my barnAnd set the grains a-sprouting. What, you’re greenWith out-door impudence? you almost grow?’To which I answered, ‘Would she hear my task,And verify my abstract of the book?And should I sit down to the crochet work?Was such her pleasure?’ ... Then I sate and teasedThe patient needle til it split the thread,Which oozed off from it in meandering laceFrom hour to hour. I was not, therefore, sad;My soul was singing at a work apartBehind the wall of sense, as safe from harmAs sings the lark when sucked up out of sight,In vortices of glory and blue air.And so, through forced work and spontaneous work,The inner life informed the outer life,Reduced the irregular blood to settled rhythms,Made cool the forehead with fresh-sprinkling dreams,And, rounding to the spheric soul the thinPined body, struck a colour up the cheeks,Though somewhat faint. I clenched my brows acrossMy blue eyes greatening in the looking-glass,And said, ‘We’ll live, Aurora! we’ll be strong.The dogs are on us–but we will not die.’",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Anger
"Sonnets from the Portuguese 38: First time he kissed me, he but only kissed","First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, And ever since it grew more clean and white,... Slow to world-greetings...quick with its “Oh, list,” When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown, With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. The third, upon my lips, was folded down In perfect, purple state! since when, indeed, I have been proud and said, “My Love, my own.”",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Sadness
Sonnets from the Portuguese 22: When our two souls stand up erect and strong,"When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curvéd point, — what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented ? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us, and aspire To drop some golden orb of perfect song Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay Rather on earth, Belovèd, — where the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away And isolate pure spirits, and permit A place to stand and love in for a day, With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Love
Love,"We cannot live, except thus mutuallyWe alternate, aware or unaware,The reflex act of life: and when we bearOur virtue onward most impulsively,Most full of invocation, and to beMost instantly compellant, certes, thereWe live most life, whoever breathes most airAnd counts his dying years by sun and sea.But when a soul, by choice and conscience, dothThrow out her full force on another soul,The conscience and the concentration bothMake mere life, Love. For Life in perfect wholeAnd aim consummated, is Love in sooth,As nature’s magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Joy
Sonnets from the Portuguese  6: Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand,"Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forbore, .. Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Sadness
A Musical Instrument,"I. WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,     Down in the reeds by the river ? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat     With the dragon-fly on the river. II. He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,     From the deep cool bed of the river : The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dying lay, And the dragon-fly had fled away,     Ere he brought it out of the river. III. High on the shore sate the great god Pan,     While turbidly flowed the river ; And hacked and hewed as a great god can, With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed     To prove it fresh from the river. IV. He cut it short, did the great god Pan,     (How tall it stood in the river !) Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, Steadily from the outside ring, And notched the poor dry empty thing     In holes, as he sate by the river. V.  This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan,     Laughed while he sate by the river,)  The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed.' Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,     He blew in power by the river. VI. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan !     Piercing sweet by the river ! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! The sun on the hill forgot to die, And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly     Came back to dream on the river. VII. Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,     To laugh as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man : The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, — For the reed which grows nevermore again     As a reed with the reeds in the river.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Fear
The Cry of the Children,"""Pheu pheu, ti prosderkesthe m ommasin, tekna;"" [[Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children.]]—Medea.Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,       Ere the sorrow comes with years ? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —       And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;    The young birds are chirping in the nest ; The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;    The young flowers are blowing toward the west— But the young, young children, O my brothers,       They are weeping bitterly ! They are weeping in the playtime of the others,       In the country of the free. Do you question the young children in the sorrow,       Why their tears are falling so ? The old man may weep for his to-morrow       Which is lost in Long Ago — The old tree is leafless in the forest —    The old year is ending in the frost — The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —    The old hope is hardest to be lost : But the young, young children, O my brothers,       Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,       In our happy Fatherland ? They look up with their pale and sunken faces,       And their looks are sad to see, For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses       Down the cheeks of infancy — ""Your old earth,"" they say, ""is very dreary;""    ""Our young feet,"" they say, ""are very weak !"" Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—    Our grave-rest is very far to seek ! Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,       For the outside earth is cold — And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,       And the graves are for the old !"" ""True,"" say the children, ""it may happen       That we die before our time ! Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen       Like a snowball, in the rime. We looked into the pit prepared to take her —    Was no room for any work in the close clay : From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,    Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.' If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,    With your ear down, little Alice never cries ; Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,    For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,— And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in       The shroud, by the kirk-chime ! It is good when it happens,"" say the children,       ""That we die before our time !"" Alas, the wretched children ! they are seeking       Death in life, as best to have ! They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,       With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city —    Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do — Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty    Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through ! But they answer, "" Are your cowslips of the meadows       Like our weeds anear the mine ? Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,       From your pleasures fair and fine! ""For oh,"" say the children, ""we are weary,       And we cannot run or leap — If we cared for any meadows, it were merely       To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping —    We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,    The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,       Through the coal-dark, underground — Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron       In the factories, round and round. ""For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, —       Their wind comes in our faces, — Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning,       And the walls turn in their places Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling —    Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, — Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling —    All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! — And all day, the iron wheels are droning ;       And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)       'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' "" Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing       For a moment, mouth to mouth — Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing       Of their tender human youth ! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion    Is not all the life God fashions or reveals — Let them prove their inward souls against the notion    That they live in you, or under you, O wheels ! — Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,       As if Fate in each were stark ; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,       Spin on blindly in the dark. Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,       To look up to Him and pray — So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,       Will bless them another day. They answer, "" Who is God that He should hear us,    While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us    Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word ! And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)       Strangers speaking at the door : Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,       Hears our weeping any more ? "" Two words, indeed, of praying we remember ;       And at midnight's hour of harm, — 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,       We say softly for a charm. We know no other words, except 'Our Father,'    And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,    And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 'Our Father !' If He heard us, He would surely       (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,       'Come and rest with me, my child.' ""But, no !"" say the children, weeping faster,       "" He is speechless as a stone ; And they tell us, of His image is the master       Who commands us to work on. Go to ! "" say the children,—""up in Heaven,    Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find ! Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving —    We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."" Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,       O my brothers, what ye preach ? For God's possible is taught by His world's loving —       And the children doubt of each. And well may the children weep before you ;       They are weary ere they run ; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory       Which is brighter than the sun : They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ;    They sink in the despair, without its calm — Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, —    Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, — Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly       No dear remembrance keep,— Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly :       Let them weep ! let them weep ! They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,       And their look is dread to see, For they think you see their angels in their places,       With eyes meant for Deity ;— ""How long,"" they say, ""how long, O cruel nation,    Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, — Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,    And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,       And your purple shews your path ; But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence       Than the strong man in his wrath !""",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Sadness
"Sonnets from the Portuguese 20: Beloved, my Beloved, when I think","Beloved, my Beloved, when I think That thou wast in the world a year ago, What time I sate alone here in the snow And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink No moment at thy voice ... but, link by link, Went counting all my chains, as if that so They never could fall off at any blow Struck by thy possible hand ... why, thus I drink Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful, Never to feel thee thrill the day or night With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull, Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Joy
Mother and Poet,"I. Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,  And one of them shot in the west by the sea.Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast  And are wanting a great song for Italy free,     Let none look at me ! II. Yet I was a poetess only last year,  And good at my art, for a woman, men said ;But this woman, this, who is agonized here,  — The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head     For ever instead.III. What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain !  What art is she good at, but hurting her breastWith the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ?  Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,     And I proud, by that test.IV. What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees  Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees  And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;     To dream and to doat.V. To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed  Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,That a country's a thing men should die for at need.I prated of liberty, rights, and about     The tyrant cast out.VI. And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes ! ...I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheelsOf the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise  When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels !     God, how the house feels !VII. At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled  With my kisses, — of camp-life and glory, and howThey both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled  In return would fan off every fly from my brow     With their green laurel-bough.VIII. Then was triumph at Turin : Ancona was free !'  And some one came out of the cheers in the street,With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.  My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet,     While they cheered in the street.IX. I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime  As the ransom of Italy. One boy remainedTo be leant on and walked with, recalling the time  When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained     To the height he had gained.X. And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,  Writ now but in one hand, I was not to faint, —One loved me for two — would be with me ere long :  And Viva l' Italia ! — he died for, our saint,     Who forbids our complaint.""XI. My Nanni would add, he was safe, and aware  Of a presence that turned off the balls, — was imprestIt was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,  And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,     To live on for the rest.""XII. On which, without pause, up the telegraph line  Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : — Shot.Tell his mother. Ah, ah,  his, '  their ' mother, — not  mine, '  No voice says ""My mother"" again to me. What !     You think Guido forgot ?XIII. Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,  They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe ?I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven  Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so     The Above and Below.XIV. O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark  To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray,How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,  Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,     And no last word to say !XV. Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all  Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;  And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done     If we have not a son ?XVI. Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ?  When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sportOf the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ?  When the guns of Cavalli with final retort     Have cut the game short ?XVII. When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,  When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,When you have your country from mountain to sea,  When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,     (And I have my Dead) —XVIII. What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,  And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there,Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow :  My Italy 's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,     To disfranchise despair !XIX. Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,  And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ;But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length  Into wail such as this — and we sit on forlorn     When the man-child is born.XX. Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,  And one of them shot in the west by the sea.Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast  You want a great song for your Italy free,     Let none look at me !",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Sadness
"Sonnets from the Portuguese 35: If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange","If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors ... another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more ... as all things prove; For grief indeed is love and grief beside. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Love
My Heart and I,"I. ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.  We sit beside the headstone thus,  And wish that name were carved for us.The moss reprints more tenderly  The hard types of the mason's knife,  As heaven's sweet life renews earth's lifeWith which we're tired, my heart and I.II. You see we're tired, my heart and I.  We dealt with books, we trusted men,  And in our own blood drenched the pen,As if such colours could not fly.  We walked too straight for fortune's end,  We loved too true to keep a friend ;At last we're tired, my heart and I.III. How tired we feel, my heart and I !  We seem of no use in the world ;  Our fancies hang grey and uncurledAbout men's eyes indifferently ;  Our voice which thrilled you so, will let  You sleep; our tears are only wet :What do we here, my heart and I ?IV. So tired, so tired, my heart and I !  It was not thus in that old time  When Ralph sat with me 'neath the limeTo watch the sunset from the sky.  Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said;  I, smiling at him, shook my head :'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.V. So tired, so tired, my heart and I !  Though now none takes me on his arm  To fold me close and kiss me warmTill each quick breath end in a sigh  Of happy languor. Now, alone,  We lean upon this graveyard stone,Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.VI. Tired out we are, my heart and I.  Suppose the world brought diadems  To tempt us, crusted with loose gemsOf powers and pleasures ? Let it try.  We scarcely care to look at even  A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,We feel so tired, my heart and I.VII. Yet who complains ? My heart and I ?  In this abundant earth no doubt  Is little room for things worn out :Disdain them, break them, throw them by  And if before the days grew rough  We once were loved, used, — well enough,I think, we've fared, my heart and I.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Joy
Past and Future,"MY future will not copy fair my pastOn any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done,Supernal Will ! I would not fain be oneWho, satisfying thirst and breaking fastUpon the fulness of the heart, at lastSaith no grace after meat. My wine hath runIndeed out of my cup, and there is noneTo gather up the bread of my repastScattered and trampled ! Yet I find some goodIn earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble upClear from the darkling ground, — content untilI sit with angels before better food.Dear Christ ! when thy new vintage fills my cup,This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Joy
"Sonnets from the Portuguese 28: My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white !","My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white ! —And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the stringAnd let them drop down on my knee to-night.This said, ... he wished to have me in his sightOnce, as a friend: this fixed a day in springTo come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,Yet I wept for it! — this, ... the paper's light ...Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailedAs if God's future thundered on my past.This said, I am thine — and so its ink has paledWith lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed,If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Sadness
To My Father on His Birthday,"Amidst the days of pleasant mirth,That throw their halo round our earth;Amidst the tender thoughts that riseTo call bright tears to happy eyes;Amidst the silken words that moveTo syllable the names we love;There glides no day of gentle blissMore soothing to the heart than this!No thoughts of fondness e'er appearMore fond, than those I write of here!No name can e'er on tablet shine,My father! more beloved than thine!'Tis sweet, adown the shady past,A lingering look of love to cast—Back th' enchanted world to call,That beamed around us first of all;And walk with Memory fondly o'erThe paths where Hope had been before—Sweet to receive the sylphic soundThat breathes in tenderness around,Repeating to the listening earThe names that made our childhood dear—For parted Joy, like Echo, kind,Will leave her dulcet voice behind,To tell, amidst the magic air,How oft she smiled and lingered there.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Love
Sonnets from the Portuguese 26: I lived with visions for my company,"I lived with visions for my company, Instead of men and women, years ago, And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know A sweeter music than they played to me. But soon their trailing purple was not free Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent grow, And I myself grew faint and blind below Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come ... to be, Belovèd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts, Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same, As river-water hallowed into fonts) Met in thee, and from out thee overcame My soul with satisfaction of all wants — Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Love
"from Aurora Leigh, Third Book","Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,–A mere, mere woman,–a mere flaccid nerve,-A kerchief left out all night in the rain,Turned soft so,–overtasked and overstrainedAnd overlived in this close London life!And yet I should be stronger.                          Never burnYour letters, poor Aurora! for they stareWith red seals from the table, saying each,'Here's something that you know not.'",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Anger
"from Aurora Leigh, Second Book","There it is!–You play beside a death-bed like a child,Yet measure to yourself a prophet's placeTo teach the living. None of all these things,Can women understand. You generalise,Oh, nothing!–not even grief! Your quick-breathed hearts,So sympathetic to the personal pang,Close on each separate knife-stroke, yielding upA whole life at each wound; incapableOf deepening, widening a large lap of lifeTo hold the world-full woe. The human raceTo you means, such a child, or such a man,You saw one morning waiting in the cold,Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather upA few such cases, and, when strong, sometimesWill write of factories and of slaves, as ifYour father were a negro, and your sonA spinner in the mills. All's yours and you,–All, coloured with your blood, or otherwiseJust nothing to you. Why, I call you hardTo general suffering. Here's the world half blindWith intellectual light, half brutalisedWith civilization, having caught the plagueIn silks from Tarsus, shrieking east and westAlong a thousand railroads, mad with painAnd sin too! ... does one woman of you all,(You who weep easily) grow pale to seeThis tiger shake his cage?–does one of youStand still from dancing, stop from stringing pearlsAnd pine and die, because of the great sumOf universal anguish?–Show me a tearWet as Cordelia's, in eyes bright as yours,Because the world is mad? You cannot count,That you should weep for this account, not you!You weep for what you know. A red-haired childSick in a fever, if you touch him once,Though but so little as with a finger-tip,Will set you weeping! but a million sick . .You could as soon weep for the rule of three,Or compound fractions. Therefore, this same worldUncomprehended by you must remainUninfluenced by you. Women as you are,Mere women, personal and passionate,You give us doating mothers, and chaste wives.Sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints!We get no Christ from you,–and verilyWe shall not get a poet, in my mind.''With which conclusion you conclude' . .                                    'But this–That you, Aurora, with the large live browAnd steady eyelids, cannot condescendTo play at art, as children play at swords,To show a pretty spirit, chiefly admiredBecause true action is impossible.You never can be satisfied with praiseWhich men give women when they judge a bookNot as mere work, but as mere woman's work,Expressing the comparative respectWhich means the absolute scorn. 'Oh, excellent!'What grace! what facile turns! what fluent sweeps!'What delicate discernment ... almost thought!'The book does honour to the sex, we hold.'Among our female authors we make room'For this fair writer, and congratulate'The country that produces in these times'Such women, competent to ... spell.''                                'Stop there!'I answered–burning through his thread of talkWith a quick flame of emotion,–'You have readMy soul, if not my book, and argue wellI would not condescend ... we will not sayTo such a kind of praise, (a worthless endIs praise of all kinds) but to such a useOf holy art and golden life. I am young,And peradventure weak–you tell me so–Through being a woman. And, for all the rest,Take thanks for justice. I would rather danceAt fairs on tight-rope, till the babies droppedTheir gingerbread for joy,–than shift the typesFor tolerable verse, intolerableTo men who act and suffer. Better far,Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means,Than a sublime art frivolously.'*Then I spoke.'I have not stood long on the strand of life,And these salt waters have had scarcely timeTo creep so high up as to wet my feet.I cannot judge these tides–I shall, perhaps.A woman's always younger than a manAt equal years, because she is disallowedMaturing by the outdoor sun and air,And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk.Ah well, I know you men judge otherwise!You think a woman ripens as a peach,–In the cheeks, chiefly. Pass it to me now;I'm young in age, and younger still, I think,As a woman. But a child may say amenTo a bishop's prayer and see the way it goes;And I, incapable to loose the knotOf social questions, can approve, applaudAugust compassion, christian thoughts that shootBeyond the vulgar white of personal aims.Accept my reverence.'                  There he glowed on meWith all his face and eyes. 'No other help?'Said he–'no more than so?'                    'What help?' I asked.'You'd scorn my help,–as Nature's self, you say,Has scorned to put her music in my mouth,Because a woman's. Do you now turn roundAnd ask for what a woman cannot give?''For what she only can, I turn and ask,'He answered, catching up my hands in his,And dropping on me from his high-eaved browThe full weight of his soul,–'I ask for love,And that, she can; for life in fellowshipThrough bitter duties–that, I know she can;For wifehood ... will she?'                      'Now,' I said, 'may GodBe witness 'twixt us two!' and with the word,Meseemed I floated into a sudden lightAbove his stature,–'am I proved too weakTo stand alone, yet strong enough to bearSuch leaners on my shoulder? poor to think,Yet rich enough to sympathise with thought?Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can,Yet competent to love, like HIM?'                            I paused:Perhaps I darkened, as the lighthouse willThat turns upon the sea. 'It's always so!Anything does for a wife.'                      'Aurora, dear,And dearly honoured' ... he pressed in at onceWith eager utterance,–'you translate me ill.I do not contradict my thought of youWhich is most reverent, with another thoughtFound less so. If your sex is weak for art,(And I who said so, did but honour youBy using truth in courtship) it is strongFor life and duty. Place your fecund heartIn mine, and let us blossom for the worldThat wants love's colour in the grey of time.With all my talk I can but set you whereYou look down coldly on the arena-heapsOf headless bodies, shapeless, indistinct!The Judgment-Angel scarce would find his wayThrough such a heap of generalised distress,To the individual man with lips and eyes–Much less Aurora. Ah, my sweet, come down,And, hand in hand, we'll go where yours shall touchThese victims, one by one! till one by one,The formless, nameless trunk of every manShall seem to wear a head, with hair you know,And every woman catch your mother's faceTo melt you into passion.'                      'I am a girl,'I answered slowly; 'you do well to nameMy mother's face. Though far too early, alas,God's hand did interpose 'twixt it and me,I know so much of love, as used to shineIn that face and another. Just so much;No more indeed at all. I have not seenSo much love since, I pray you pardon me,As answers even to make a marriage with,In this cold land of England. What you love,Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause:You want a helpmate, not a mistress, sir,–A wife to help your ends ... in her no end!Your cause is noble, your ends excellent,But I, being most unworthy of these and that,Do otherwise conceive of love. Farewell.''Farewell, Aurora, you reject me thus?'He said.        'Why, sir, you are married long ago.You have a wife already whom you love,Your social theory. Bless you both, I say.For my part, I am scarcely meek enoughTo be the handmaid of a lawful spouse.Do I look a Hagar, think you?'                          'So, you jest!''Nay so, I speak in earnest,' I replied.'You treat of marriage too much like, at least,A chief apostle; you would bear with youA wife ... a sister ... shall we speak it out?A sister of charity.'                 'Then, must it beIndeed farewell? And was I so far wrongIn hope and in illusion, when I tookThe woman to be nobler than the man,Yourself the noblest woman,–in the useAnd comprehension of what love is,–love,That generates the likeness of itselfThrough all heroic duties? so far wrongIn saying bluntly, venturing truth on love,'Come, human creature, love and work with me,'–Instead of, 'Lady, thou art wondrous fair,'And, where the Graces walk before, the Muse'Will follow at the lighting of the eyes,'And where the Muse walks, lovers need to creep'Turn round and love me, or I die of love.''With quiet indignation I broke in.'You misconceive the question like a man,Who sees a woman as the complementOf his sex merely. You forget too muchThat every creature, female as the male,Stands single in responsible act and thoughtAs also in birth and death. Whoever saysTo a loyal woman, 'Love and work with me,'Will get fair answers, if the work and loveBeing good themselves, are good for her–the bestShe was born for. Women of a softer mood,Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life,Will sometimes only hear the first word, love,And catch up with it any kind of work,Indifferent, so that dear love go with it:I do not blame such women, though, for love,They pick much oakum; earth's fanatics makeToo frequently heaven's saints. But me, your workIs not the best for,–nor your love the best,Nor able to commend the kind of workFor love's sake merely. Ah, you force me, sir,To be over-bold in speaking of myself,–I, too, have my vocation,–work to do,The heavens and earth have set me, since I changedMy father's face for theirs,–and though your worldWere twice as wretched as you representMost serious work, most necessary work,As any of the economists'. Reform,Make trade a Christian possibility,And individual right no general wrong;Wipe out earth's furrows of the Thine and Mine,And leave one green, for men to play at bowls;With innings for them all! ... what then, indeed,If mortals were not greater by the headThan any of their prosperities? what then,Unless the artist keep up open roadsBetwixt the seen and unseen,–bursting throughThe best of your conventions with his bestThe unspeakable, imaginable bestGod bids him speak, to prove what lies beyondBoth speech and imagination? A starved manExceeds a fat beast: we'll not barter, sir,The beautiful for barley.–And, even so,I hold you will not compass your poor endsOf barley-feeding and material ease,Without a poet's individualismTo work your universal. It takes a soul,To move a body: it takes a high-souled man,To move the masses ... even to a cleaner stye:It takes the ideal, to blow a hair's breadth offThe dust of the actual.–ah, your Fouriers failed,Because not poets enough to understandThat life develops from within.–For me,Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say,Of work like this! ... perhaps a woman's soulAspires, and not creates! yet we aspire,And yet I'll try out your perhapses, sir;And if I fail ... why, burn me up my strawLike other false works–I'll not ask for grace,Your scorn is better, cousin Romney. IWho love my art, would never wish it lowerTo suit my stature. I may love my art,You'll grant that even a woman may love art,Seeing that to waste true love on anything,Is womanly, past question.'",Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Love
Actaeon,"The hounds, you know them all by name. You fostered them from purblind whelps At their dam’s teats, and you have come To know the music of their yelps: High-strung Anthee, the brindled bitch, The blue-tick coated Philomel, And freckled Chloe, who would fetch A pretty price if you would sell— All fleet of foot, and swift to scent, Inexorable once on the track, Like angry words you might have meant, But do not mean, and can’t take back. There was a time when you would brag How they would bay and rend apart The hopeless belling from a stag. You falter now for the foundered hart. Desires you nursed of a winter night— Did you know then why you bred them— Whose needling milk-teeth used to bite The master’s hand that leashed and fed them?",A. E. Stallings,Anger
Recitative,"Every night, we couldn’t sleep. Our upstairs neighbors had to keep Dropping something down the hall— A barbell or a bowling ball, And from the window by the bed, Echoing inside my head, Alley cats expended breath In arias of love and death. Dawn again, across the street, Jackhammers began to beat Like hangovers, and you would frown— That well-built house, why tear it down? Noon, the radiator grill Groaned, gave off a lesser chill So that we could take off our coats. The pipes coughed to clear their throats. Our nerves were frayed like ravelled sleeves, We cherished each our minor griefs To keep them warm until the night, When it was time again to fight; But we were young, did not need much To make us laugh instead, and touch, And could not hear ourselves above The arias of death and love.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
"Written on the eve of my 20th high school reunion, which I was not able to attend","For the Briarcliff High School class of 1986Just what I needed, Just when the dreams had almost totally receded, The dreams of roles for which I learned no lines and knew no cues, Dreams of pop quizzes with no pants on and no shoes, Just when I understood I was no longer among Those ephemeral immortals, the gauche and pitiable young, Suddenly come phone calls, messages sift out of the air To ask who will be there: Names I haven't given a thought to in a score (A score!) of years, and names I used to think about but don't much anymore, And those I think of all the time and yet Have lost somehow like keys to doors I've closed, and some I have tried to forget— And some who will never arrive at this date Here in the distant future where we wait Still surprised at how We carry with us the omnipresent and ever-changing now. We wince at what we used to wear, Fashion has made ridiculous the high hubris of our hair. Heartbreak, looked at through the wrong end of distance's glasses, Is trivial, and quickly passes, Its purity embarrasses us, its lust, The way we wept because it was unjust. Why should we travel back, who've come so far— We know who we are. How can we be the same As those quaint ancestors we have left behind, who share our name— Why have we inherited their shame?",A. E. Stallings,Joy
Sublunary,"Mid-sentence, we remembered the eclipse, Arguing home through our scant patch of park Still warm with barrel wine, when none too soon We checked the hour by glancing at the moon, Unphased at first by that old ruined marble Looming like a monument over the hill, So brimmed with light it seemed about to spill, Then, there! We watched the thin edge disappear— The obvious stole over us like awe, That it was our own silhouette we saw, Slow perhaps to us moon-gazing here (Reaching for each other's fingertips) But sweeping like a wing across that stark Alien surface at the speed of dark. The crickets stirred from winter sleep to warble Something out of time, confused and brief, The roosting birds sang out in disbelief, The neighborhood's stray dogs began to bark. And then the moon was gone, and in its place, A dim red planet hung just out of reach, As real as a bitter orange or ripened peach In the penumbra of a tree. At last We rose and strolled at a reflective pace Past the taverna crammed with light and smoke And people drinking, laughing at a joke, Unaware that anything had passed Outside in the night where we delayed Sheltering in the shadow we had made.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
Containment,"So long I have been carrying myself Carefully, carefully, like a small child With too much water in a real glass Clasped in two hands, across a space as vast As living rooms, while gazes watch the waves That start to rile the little inland sea And slap against its cliffs' transparency, Revise and meet, double their amplitude, Harmonizing doubt from many ifs. Distant frowns like clouds begin to brood. Soon there is overbrimming. Soon the child Looks up to find a face to match the scolding, And just as he does, the vessel he was holding Is almost set down safely on the bookshelf.",A. E. Stallings,Joy
Failure,"You humble in. It's just as you remember: The sallow walls, formica counter top, The circular argument of time beneath Fluorescent flickering—doubt, faith, and doubt. She knows you've been to see the gilded girl Who's always promising and walking out With someone else. She knew that you'd return, With nothing in your pockets but your fists. Why do you resist? When will you learn That this is what your weary dreams are of— Succumbing to Her unconditional love?",A. E. Stallings,Sadness
The Mother’s Loathing of Balloons,"I hate you,How the children pleadAt first sight—",A. E. Stallings,Anger
Arrowhead Hunting,"The land is full of what was lost. What's hidden Rises to the surface after rain In new-ploughed fields, and fields stubbled again: The clay shards, foot and lip, that heaped the midden, And here and there a blade or flakes of blade, A patient art, knapped from a core of flint, Most broken, few as coins new from the mint, Perfect, shot through time as through a glade. You cannot help but think how they were lost: The quarry, fletched shaft in its flank, the blood Whose trail soon vanished in the antlered wood, Not just the meat, but what the weapon cost— O hapless hunter, though your aim was true— The wounded hart, spooked, fleeting in its fear— And the sharpness honed with longing, year by year Buried deeper, found someday, but not by you.",A. E. Stallings,Sadness
The Companions of Odysseus in Hades,"After SeferisSince we still had a littleOf the rusk left, what foolsTo eat, against the rules,The Sun’s slow-moving cattle,Each ox huge as a tank — A wall you’d have to siegeFor forty years to reachA star, a hero’s rank.We starved on the back of the earth,But when we’d stuffed ourselves,We tumbled to these delves,Numbskulls, fed up with dearth.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
Fairy-tale Logic,"Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,Select the prince from a row of identical masks,Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basksAnd snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,Or learn the phone directory by rote.Always it’s impossible what someone asks—You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believeThat you have something impossible up your sleeve,The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,The will to do whatever must be done:Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.",A. E. Stallings,Surprise
Fear of Happiness,"Looking back, it’s something I’ve always had:As a kid, it was a glass-floored elevatorI crouched at the bottom of, my eyes squinched tight,Or staircase whose gaps I was afraid I’d slip through,Though someone always said I’d be all right—Just don’t look down or See, it’s not so bad(The nothing rising underfoot). Then laterThe high-dive at the pool, the tree-house perch,Ferris wheels, balconies, cliffs, a penthouse view,The merest thought of airplanes. You can callIt a fear of heights, a horror of the deep;But it isn’t the unfathomable fallThat makes me giddy, makes my stomach lurch,It’s that the ledge itself invents the leap.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
Two Violins,"One was fire red,   Hand carved and new— The local maker pried the wood From a torn-down church's pew, The Devil's instrument Wrenched from the house of God. It answered merrily and clear Though my fingering was flawed; Bright and sharp as a young wine, They said, but it would mellow, And that I would grow into it. The other one was yellow And nicked down at the chin, A varnish of Baltic amber, A one-piece back of tiger maple And a low, dark timbre. A century old, they said, Its sound will never change. Rich and deep on G and D, Thin on the upper range, And how it came from the Old World Was anybody's guess— Light as an exile's suitcase, A belly of emptiness: That was the one I chose (Not the one of flame)   And teachers would turn in their practiced hands To see whence the sad notes came.",A. E. Stallings,Joy
Momentary,"I never glimpse her but she goesWho had been basking in the sun,Her links of chain mail one by oneAglint with pewter, bronze and rose.I never see her lying coiledAtop the garden step, or underA dark leaf, unless I blunderAnd by some motion she is foiled.Too late I notice as she passesZither of chromatic scale—I only ever see her tailQuicksilver into tall grasses.I know her only by her flowing,By her glamour disappearingInto shadow as I’m nearing—I only recognize her going.",A. E. Stallings,Surprise
Whethering,"The rain is haunted;I had forgotten.My children are two hours abedAnd yet I riseHearing behind the typing of the rain,Its abacus and digits,A voice calling me again,Softer, clearer.The kids lie buried under duvets, soundAsleep. It isn’t them I hear, it’sSomething formless that fidgetsBeyond the window’s benighted mirror,Where a negative develops, where reflectionHolds up a glass of spirits.White noisePrecipitates.Rain is a kind of recollection.Much has been shed,Hissing indignantly into the ground.It is the listeningBelates,Haunted by these fingertaps and sighsBehind the beaded-curtain glistening,As though by choices that we didn’t make and never wanted,As though by the dead and misbegotten.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
Tulips,"The tulips make me want to paint,Something about the way they dropTheir petals on the tabletopAnd do not wilt so much as faint,Something about their burnt-out hearts,Something about their pallid stemsWearing decay like diadems,Parading finishes like starts,Something about the way they twistAs if to catch the last applause,And drink the moment through long straws,And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.The way they’re somehow getting clearer,The tulips make me want to",A. E. Stallings,Sadness
The Barnacle,"The barnacle is rather odd —It’s not related to the clamOr limpet. It’s an arthropod,Though one that doesn’t give a damn.Cousin to the crab and shrimp,When larval, it can twitch and swim,And make decisions — tiny impThat flits according to its whim.Once grown, with nothing more to proveIt hunkers down, and will remainStuck fast. And once it does not move,Has no more purpose for a brain.Its one boast is, it will not budge,Cemented where it chanced to sink,Sclerotic, stubborn as a grudge.Settled, it does not need to think.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
Extinction of Silence,"That it was shy when alive goes without saying.We know it vanished at the sound of voicesOr footsteps. It took wing at the slightest noises,Though it could be approached by someone praying.We have no recordings of it, though of courseIn the basement of the Museum, we have some stuffedMoth-eaten specimens—the Lesser RuffedAnd Yellow Spotted—filed in narrow drawers.But its song is lost. If it was related toA species of Quiet, or of another feather,No researcher can know. Not even whetherA breeding pair still nests deep in the bayou,Where legend has it some once common birdDecades ago was first not seen, not heard.",A. E. Stallings,Fear
Blackbird Etude,"For CraigThe blackbird sings atthe frontier of his music.The branch where he satmarks the brink of doubt,is the outpost of his realm,edge from which to routencroachers with trillsand melismatic runs sur-passing earthbound skills.It sounds like ardor,it sounds like joy. We are gladhere at the borderwhere he signs the airwith his invisible staves,“Trespassers beware”—Song as survival—a kind of pure music whichwe cannot rival.",A. E. Stallings,Joy
Publication – is the Auction (788),Publication – is the AuctionOf the Mind of Man –Poverty – be justifyingFor so foul a thingPossibly – but We – would ratherFrom Our Garret goWhite – unto the White Creator –Than invest – Our Snow –Thought belong to Him who gave it –Then – to Him Who bearIt's Corporeal illustration – sellThe Royal Air –In the Parcel – Be the MerchantOf the Heavenly Grace –But reduce no Human SpiritTo Disgrace of Price –,Emily Dickinson,Anger
I started Early – Took my Dog – (656),"Highlight ActionsEnable or disable annotationsI started Early – Took my Dog –And visited the Sea –The Mermaids in the BasementBasement i.e., the bottom of the oceanCame out to look at me –And FrigatesFrigates fast and highly maneuverable warships of the 18th and 19th centuries, used to escort other larger ships, or to patrol the coast and blockade harbors – in the Upper FloorExtended Hempen HandsHempen Hands strong, thick ropes made of hemp, used on ships –Presuming Me to be a Mouse –Aground – oponopon upon the Sands –But no Man moved Me – till the TideWent past my simple Shoe –And past my Apron – and my BeltAnd past my BoddiceBoddice bodice; an upper part of a woman’s dress, or a rigid, laced corset worn underneath clothing, covering the upper part of a woman’s body – too –And made as He would eat me up –As wholly as a DewOpon a Dandelion's Sleeve –And then – I started – too –And He – He followed – close behind –I felt His Silver HeelOpon my Ancle – Then My ShoesWould overflow with Pearl –Until We met the Solid Town –No One He seemed to know –And bowing – with a Mighty look –At me – The Sea withdrew –",Emily Dickinson,Fear
"There's a certain Slant of light, (320)","There's a certain Slant of light,Winter Afternoons –That oppresses, like the HeftOf Cathedral Tunes –Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –We can find no scar,But internal difference –Where the Meanings, are –None may teach it – Any –'Tis the seal Despair –An imperial afflictionSent us of the Air –When it comes, the Landscape listens –Shadows – hold their breath –When it goes, 'tis like the DistanceOn the look of Death –",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
Now I knew I lost her — (1274),"Now I knew I lost her —Not that she was gone —But Remoteness travelledOn her Face and Tongue.Alien, though adjoiningAs a Foreign Race —Traversed she though pausingLatitudeless Place.Elements Unaltered —Universe the sameBut Love's transmigration —Somehow this had come —Henceforth to rememberNature took the DayI had paid so much for —His is PenuryNot who toils for FreedomOr for FamilyBut the RestitutionOf Idolatry.",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
A not admitting of the wound (1188),A not admitting of the woundUntil it grew so wideThat all my Life had entered itAnd there were troughs beside -A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sunUntil the tender CarpenterPerpetual nail it down -,Emily Dickinson,Love
Crumbling is not an instant's Act (1010),"Crumbling is not an instant's ActA fundamental pauseDilapidation's processesAre organized Decays —'Tis first a Cobweb on the SoulA Cuticle of DustA Borer in the AxisAn Elemental Rust —Ruin is formal — Devil's workConsecutive and slow —Fail in an instant, no man didSlipping — is Crashe's law —",Emily Dickinson,Fear
Success is counted sweetest (112),Success is counted sweetestBy those who ne'er succeed.To comprehend a nectarRequires sorest need.Not one of all the purple HostWho took the Flag todayCan tell the definitionSo clear of victoryAs he defeated – dying –On whose forbidden earThe distant strains of triumphBurst agonized and clear!,Emily Dickinson,Sadness
"A Route of Evanescence, (1489)","A Route of Evanescence,With a revolving Wheel –A Resonance of EmeraldA Rush of Cochineal –And every Blossom on the BushAdjusts it’s tumbled Head –The Mail from Tunis – probably,An easy Morning’s Ride –",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
I never hear the word “Escape” (144),"I never hear the word “Escape”Without a quicker blood,A sudden expectation –A flying attitude!I never hear of prisons broadBy soldiers battered down,But I tug childish at my barsOnly to fail again!",Emily Dickinson,Fear
I dwell in Possibility – (466),I dwell in Possibility –A fairer House than Prose –More numerous of Windows –Superior – for Doors –Of Chambers as the Cedars –Impregnable of eye –And for an everlasting RoofThe Gambrels of the Sky –Of Visitors – the fairest –For Occupation – This –The spreading wide my narrow HandsTo gather Paradise –,Emily Dickinson,Sadness
Banish Air from Air - (963),Banish Air from Air -Divide Light if you dare -They'll meetWhile Cubes in a DropOr Pellets of ShapeFit -Films cannot annulOdors return wholeForce FlameAnd with a Blonde pushOver your impotenceFlits Steam.,Emily Dickinson,Surprise
Before I got my eye put out – (336),"Before I got my eye put out –I liked as well to seeAs other creatures, that have eyes –And know no other way –But were it told to me, Today,That I might have the SkyFor mine, I tell you that my HeartWould split, for size of me –The Meadows – mine –The Mountains – mine –All Forests – Stintless stars –As much of noon, as I could take –Between my finite eyes –The Motions of the Dipping Birds –The Morning’s Amber Road –For mine – to look at when I liked,The news would strike me dead –So safer – guess – with just my soulOpon the window paneWhere other creatures put their eyes –Incautious – of the Sun –",Emily Dickinson,Love
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096),"A narrow Fellow in the GrassOccasionally rides -You may have met him? Did you notHis notice instant is -The Grass divides as with a Comb,A spotted Shaft is seen,And then it closes at your FeetAnd opens further on -He likes a Boggy Acre -  A Floor too cool for Corn -But when a Boy and BarefootI more than once at NoonHave passed I thought a Whip LashUnbraiding in the SunWhen stooping to secure itIt wrinkled And was gone -Several of Nature’s PeopleI know, and they know meI feel for them a transportOf CordialityBut never met this FellowAttended or aloneWithout a tighter BreathingAnd Zero at the Bone.",Emily Dickinson,Joy
Surgeons must be very careful (156),Surgeons must be very carefulWhen they take the knife!Underneath their fine incisionsStirs the Culprit - Life!,Emily Dickinson,Anger
The Soul has Bandaged moments - (360),"The Soul has Bandaged moments -When too appalled to stir -She feels some ghastly Fright come upAnd stop to look at her -Salute her, with long fingers -Caress her freezing hair -Sip, Goblin, from the very lipsThe Lover - hovered - o'er -Unworthy, that a thought so meanAccost a Theme - so - fair -The soul has moments of escape -When bursting all the doors -She dances like a Bomb, abroad,And swings opon the Hours,As do the Bee - delirious borne -Long Dungeoned from his Rose -Touch Liberty - then know no more -But Noon, and ParadiseThe Soul's retaken moments -When, Felon led along,With shackles on the plumed feet,And staples, in the song,The Horror welcomes her, again,These, are not brayed of Tongue -",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
"It was not Death, for I stood up, (355)","Highlight ActionsEnable or disable annotationsIt was not Death, for I stood up,And all the Dead, lie down -It was not Night, for all the BellsPut out their TonguesTongues The clappers inside of the bells, for Noon.It was not Frost, for on my FleshI felt SiroccosSiroccos Hot winds. The Emily Dickinson Lexicon includes definitions from the American Dictionary of the English Language (1844): “A pernicious wind that blows from the south-east in Italy, called the Syrian wind. It is said to resemble the steam from the mouth of an oven.” - crawl -Nor Fire - for just my marble feetCould keep a Chancel,Chancel The section near the altar of a church cool -And yet, it tasted, like them all,The Figures I have seenSet orderly, for BurialReminded me, of mine -As if my life were shaven,And fitted to a frame,And could not breathe without a key,And ’twas like Midnight, some -When everything that ticked - has stopped -And space stares - all around -Or Grisly frosts - first Autumn morns,Repeal the Beating Ground -But most, like Chaos - Stopless - cool -Without a Chance, or sparspar The top mast of a ship  -Or even a Report of Land -To justify - Despair.",Emily Dickinson,Love
The Moon is distant from the Sea – (387),"The Moon is distant from the Sea –And yet, with Amber Hands –She leads Him – docile as a Boy –Along appointed Sands –He never misses a Degree –Obedient to Her eye –He comes just so far – toward the Town –Just so far – goes away –Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand –And mine – the distant Sea –Obedient to the least commandThine eye impose on me –",Emily Dickinson,Joy
Much Madness is divinest Sense - (620),"Much Madness is divinest Sense -To a discerning Eye -Much Sense - the starkest Madness -’Tis the MajorityIn this, as all, prevail -Assent - and you are sane -Demur - you’re straightway dangerous -And handled with a Chain -",Emily Dickinson,Anger
The Bustle in a House (1108),The Bustle in a HouseThe Morning after DeathIs solemnest of industriesEnacted opon Earth –The Sweeping up the HeartAnd putting Love awayWe shall not want to use againUntil Eternity –,Emily Dickinson,Fear
Fame is the one that does not stay — (1507),Fame is the one that does not stay —It's occupant must dieOr out of sight of estimateAscend incessantly —Or be that most insolvent thingA Lightning in the Germ —Electrical the embryoBut we demand the Flame,Emily Dickinson,Fear
I know that He exists. (365),I know that He exists.Somewhere – in silence –He has hid his rare lifeFrom our gross eyes.’Tis an instant’s play –’Tis a fond Ambush –Just to make BlissEarn her own surprise!But – should the playProve piercing earnest –Should the glee – glaze –In Death’s – stiff – stare –Would not the funLook too expensive!Would not the jest –Have crawled too far!,Emily Dickinson,Love
In this short Life that only lasts an hour (1292),In this short Life that only lasts an hourHow much - how little - is within our power,Emily Dickinson,Fear
This World is not Conclusion (373),"This World is not Conclusion.A Species stands beyond - Invisible, as Music -But positive, as Sound -It beckons, and it baffles - Philosophy, dont know - And through a Riddle, at the last - Sagacity, must go -To guess it, puzzles scholars -To gain it, Men have borneContempt of GenerationsAnd Crucifixion, shown -Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies - Blushes, if any see - Plucks at a twig of Evidence - And asks a Vane, the way - Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -Strong Hallelujahs roll - Narcotics cannot still the ToothThat nibbles at the soul -",Emily Dickinson,Fear
Let me not thirst with this Hock at my Lip,"Let me not thirst with this Hock at my Lip, Nor beg, with domains in my pocket—",Emily Dickinson,Anger
Of Glory not a Beam is left (1685),"Of Glory not a Beam is leftBut her Eternal House –The Asterisk is for the Dead,The Living, for the Stars –",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
To fight aloud is very brave - (138),"To fight aloud, is very brave - But gallanter, I knowWho charge within the bosomThe Calvalry of Wo - Who win, and nations do not see - Who fall - and none observe - Whose dying eyes, no CountryRegards with patriot love - We trust, in plumed processionFor such, the Angels go -Rank after Rank, with even feet -And Uniforms of snow.",Emily Dickinson,Joy
I never hear that one is dead (1325),"I never hear that one is deadWithout the chance of LifeAfresh annihilating meThat mightiest Belief,Too mighty for the Daily mindThat tilling it’s abyss,Had Madness, had it once or, TwiceThe yawning Consciousness,Beliefs are Bandaged, like the TongueWhen Terror were it toldIn any Tone commensurateWould strike us instant Dead -I do not know the man so boldHe dare in lonely PlaceThat awful stranger - ConsciousnessDeliberately face -",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
It sifts from Leaden Sieves - (291),"It sifts from Leaden Sieves -It powders all the Wood.It fills with Alabaster WoolThe Wrinkles of the Road -It makes an even FaceOf Mountain, and of Plain -Unbroken Forehead from the EastUnto the East again -It reaches to the Fence -It wraps it Rail by RailTill it is lost in Fleeces -It deals Celestial VailTo Stump, and Stack - and Stem -A Summer’s empty Room -Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,Recordless, but for them -It Ruffles Wrists of PostsAs Ankles of a Queen -Then stills it’s Artisans - like Ghosts -Denying they have been -",Emily Dickinson,Sadness
Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril (1518),Glass was the Street - in Tinsel PerilTree and Traveller stood.Filled was the Air with merry ventureHearty with Boys the Road.Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrationsEmphacized and goneIt is the Past’s supreme italicMakes the Present mean -,Emily Dickinson,Joy
The morns are meeker than they were - (32),The morns are meeker than they were -  The nuts are getting brown - The berry’s cheek is plumper - The rose is out of town.    The maple wears a gayer scarf - The field a scarlet gown - Lest I sh'd be old-fashioned  I’ll put a trinket on.,Emily Dickinson,Joy
I would not paint — a picture — (348),"I would not paint — a picture —I'd rather be the OneIt's bright impossibilityTo dwell — delicious — on —And wonder how the fingers feelWhose rare — celestial — stir —Evokes so sweet a torment —Such sumptuous — Despair —I would not talk, like Cornets —I'd rather be the OneRaised softly to the Ceilings —And out, and easy on —Through Villages of Ether —Myself endued BalloonBy but a lip of Metal —The pier to my Pontoon —Nor would I be a Poet —It's finer — Own the Ear —Enamored — impotent — content —The License to revere,A privilege so awfulWhat would the Dower be,Had I the Art to stun myselfWith Bolts — of Melody!",Emily Dickinson,Joy
The Props assist the House (729),"The Props assist the HouseUntil the House is builtAnd then the Props withdrawAnd adequate, erect,The House support itselfAnd cease to recollectThe Augur and the Carpenter –Just such a retrospectHath the perfected Life –A Past of Plank and NailAnd slowness – then the scaffolds dropAffirming it a Soul –",Emily Dickinson,Joy
"After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)","After great pain, a formal feeling comes –The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?The Feet, mechanical, go round –A Wooden wayOf Ground, or Air, or Ought –Regardless grown,A Quartz contentment, like a stone –This is the Hour of Lead –Remembered, if outlived,As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –",Emily Dickinson,Surprise
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church – (236),"Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –I keep it, staying at Home –With a Bobolink for a Chorister –And an Orchard, for a Dome –Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –I, just wear my Wings –And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,Our little Sexton – sings.God preaches, a noted Clergyman –And the sermon is never long,So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –I’m going, all along.",Emily Dickinson,Joy
"A Bird, came down the Walk - (359)","A Bird, came down the Walk -  He did not know I saw - He bit an Angle Worm in halves  And ate the fellow, raw,    And then, he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass - And then hopped sidewise to the Wall  To let a Beetle pass -   He glanced with rapid eyes, That hurried all abroad - They looked like frightened Beads, I thought, He stirred his Velvet Head. -    Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb, And he unrolled his feathers,  And rowed him softer Home -   Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,  Leap, plashless as they swim.",Emily Dickinson,Fear
"All overgrown by cunning moss, (146)","All overgrown by cunning moss,All interspersed with weed,The little cage of “Currer Bell”In quiet “Haworth” laid.This Bird – observing othersWhen frosts too sharp becameRetire to other latitudes –Quietly did the same –But differed in returning –Since Yorkshire hills are green –Yet not in all the nests I meet –Can Nightingale be seen –",Emily Dickinson,Fear
Because I could not stop for Death – (479),"Because I could not stop for Death –He kindly stopped for me –The Carriage held but just Ourselves –And Immortality.We slowly drove – He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility –We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess – in the Ring –We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –We passed the Setting Sun –Or rather – He passed Us –The Dews drew quivering and Chill –For only Gossamer, my Gown –My Tippet – only Tulle –We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground –The Roof was scarcely visible –The Cornice – in the Ground –Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses' HeadsWere toward Eternity –",Emily Dickinson,Fear
How many times these low feet staggered (238),How many times these low feet staggered -Only the soldered mouth can tell -Try - can you stir the awful rivet -Try - can you lift the hasps of steel!Stroke the cool forehead - hot so often -Lift - if you care - the listless hair -Handle the adamantine fingersNever a thimble - more - shall wear -Buzz the dull flies - on the chamber window -Brave - shines the sun through the freckled pane -Fearless - the cobweb swings from the ceiling -Indolent Housewife - in Daisies - lain!,Emily Dickinson,Joy
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263),Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth's superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind —,Emily Dickinson,Surprise
[All in green went my love riding],All in green went my love ridingon a great horse of goldinto the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smilingthe merry deer ran before. Fleeter be they than dappled dreamsthe swift sweet deerthe red rare deer. Four red roebuck at a white waterthe cruel bugle sang before. Horn at hip went my love ridingriding the echo downinto the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smilingthe level meadows ran before. Softer be they than slippered sleepthe lean lithe deerthe fleet flown deer. Four fleet does at a gold valleythe famished arrow sang before. Bow at belt went my love ridingriding the mountain downinto the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smilingthe sheer peaks ran before. Paler be they than daunting deaththe sleek slim deerthe tall tense deer. Four tall stags at a green mountainthe lucky hunter sang before. All in green went my love ridingon a great horse of goldinto the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smilingmy heart fell dead before.,E. E. Cummings,Anger
[love is more thicker than forget],love is more thicker than forgetmore thinner than recallmore seldom than a wave is wetmore frequent than to failit is most mad and moonlyand less it shall unbethan all the sea which onlyis deeper than the sealove is less always than to winless never than aliveless bigger than the least beginless littler than forgiveit is most sane and sunlyand more it cannot diethan all the sky which onlyis higher than the sky,E. E. Cummings,Fear
[as freedom is a breakfastfood],as freedom is a breakfastfoodor truth can live with right and wrongor molehills are from mountains made—long enough and just so longwill being pay the rent of seemand genius please the talentgangand water most encourage flameas hatracks into peachtrees growor hopes dance best on bald men’s hairand every finger is a toeand any courage is a fear—long enough and just so longwill the impure think all things pureand hornets wail by children stungor as the seeing are the blindand robins never welcome springnor flatfolk prove their world is roundnor dingsters die at break of dongand common’s rare and millstones float—long enough and just so longtomorrow will not be too lateworms are the words but joy’s the voicedown shall go which and up come whobreasts will be breasts thighs will be thighsdeeds cannot dream what dreams can do—time is a tree(this life one leaf)but love is the sky and i am for youjust so long and long enough,E. E. Cummings,Joy
[into the strenuous briefness],"into the strenuous briefnessLife:handorgans and Aprildarkness,friends i charge laughing.Into the hair-thin tintsof yellow dawn,into the women-coloured twilight i smilinglyglide.  Iinto the big vermilion departureswim,sayingly; (Do you think?)thei do,worldis probably madeof roses & hello: (of solongs and,ashes)",E. E. Cummings,Joy
[Buffalo Bill 's],Buffalo Bill ’sdefunct               who used to               ride a watersmooth-silver                                                                  stallionand break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat                                                                                                     Jesushe was a handsome man                                                   and what i want to know ishow do you like your blue-eyed boyMister Death,E. E. Cummings,Joy
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls,"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds (also, with the church's protestant blessings daughters,unscented shapeless spirited) they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead, are invariably interested in so many things— at the present writing one still finds delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles? perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D .... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy",E. E. Cummings,Joy
[in Just-],in Just- spring          when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles          far          and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far          and             wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and          the                   goat-footed balloonMan          whistles far and wee,E. E. Cummings,Surprise
Bean Spasms,"for George SchneemanNew York’s lovely weather                                                    hurts my forehead                                                   in praise of thee                                                                               the? white dead                                                                               whose eyes know:                           what are they    of the tiny cloud my brain:The City’s tough red buttons:                                                                   O Mars, red, angry planet, candy                                                                                 bar, with sky on top,                             “why, it’s young Leander hurrying to his death”                 what? what time is it in New York            in these here alps        City of lovely tender hate                                                             and beauty making beautiful                                                                                                   old rhymes?  I ran away from youwhen you needed something strong                   then I leand against the toilet bowl (ack)         Malcolm X                             I love my brain         it all mine now is         saved not knowing                      that &                      that (happily)                      being that:                      “wee kill our selves to propagate our kinde”                                                                                                 John Donne    yes, that’s true                          the hair on yr nuts & my                                      big blood-filled cock are a part in that                               too                                                PART 2                                     Mister Robert Dylan doesn’t feel well today                                    That’s bad                                    This picture doesn’t show that                                    It’s not bad, too                                    it’s very ritzy in fact                                    here I stand I can’t stand                                    to be thing                                    I don’t use                            atop                                                          the empire state                                                          building                                                          & so sauntered out that doorThat reminds me of the timeI wrote that long piece about a gangster name of “Jr.”O Harry James! had eyes to wander but lacked tongue to praise                                                             so later peed under his art                 paused only to lay a sneeze                                                                                      on Jack Dempsey                                                                      asleep with his favorite Horse                                                       That reminds me of I buzz                                           on & off Miró pop                                           in & out a Castro convertible           minute by minute                                           GENEROSITY!                    Yes now that the seasons totter in their walk          I do a lot of wondering about Life      in praise of ladies dead of& Time plaza(s), Bryant Park by the Public                     eye of browLibrary, Smith Bros. black boxes, Times                                                 Square                                             Pirogi Houses                                                                       with long skinny rivers thru them                                                      they lead the weary away                                                                   off! hey!                                                                                  I’m no sailor                                                                                off a ship                                                                                                         at sea   I’M HERE                                                                                                  & “The living is easy”It’s “HIGH TIME”                                                     & I’m in shapes                                                     of shadow, they                                                     certainly can warm, can’t they?                 Have you ever seen one?                                                NO!                                                            of those long skinny Rivers                                                                 So well hung, in New York City                                          NO!          in fact                                                                        I’m the Wonderer& as yr train goes by                               forgive me, René!              ‘just oncet’I woke up in Heaven                                        He woke, and wondered more, how many angels      on this train huh?                      snore                                                                    for there she lay                                   on sheets that mock lust                  done that 7 times                                                                                                  been caught                                                                           and brought back                                                              to a peach nobody.                                         To Continue:                                         Ron Padgett & Ted Berrigan                                                  hates yr brain                                                                my dears                                                            amidst the many other little buzzes                                       & like, Today, as Ron Padgett might say                                                               is                                                  “A tub of vodka”                                                                                “in the morning”                         she might replyand that keeps it up          past icy poles                                           where angels beg fr doom then zip                                                    ping in-and-out, joining the army                      wondering about Life                             by the Public Library of                                                                        Life                                                                                       No Greater Thrill!                                                             (I wonder)Now that the earth is changing I wonder what time it’s getting to be                  sitting on the New York Times Square          that actually very ritzy, Lauren    it’s made of yellow wood or                                                     I don’t know something               maybe                                  This man was my                       it’s been fluffed up                                       friend                                                          He had a sense for the                                                                 vast                               doesn’t he?                                                                                              Awake my Angel! give thyself                                                          to the lovely hours        Don’t cheat                                      The victory is not always to the sweet.                                                         I mean that.Now this picture is pretty good hereThough it once got demerits from the lunatic Arthur CravanHe wasn’t feeling good that dayMaybe because he had nothing on                                                                    paint-wise I mean                                                         PART 3                                                        I wrote that                                                               about what is                                             this empty room            without a heart                                                          now in three parts                                                   a white flower                                                  came home wet & drunk                2 Pepsis                                                  and smashed my fist thru her window                                                                                               in the nude            As the hand zips you see                                      Old Masters, you can see                               well hung in New York              they grow fast here                                    Conflicting, yet purposeful                                              yet with outcry vain!                                                        PART 4                                                      Praising, that’s it!you string a sonnet around yr fat gut          and falling on your knees                                                        you invent the shoe                                                        for a horse. It brings you luck                                              while sleeping                                                        “You have it seems a workshop nature”Have you                                              “Good Lord!”                                                                                        Some folks is woodseen them?                                          Ron Padgett wd say                                                                    amidst the many other little buzzes                                                                past the neon on & off                                                                     night & day     STEAK SANDWICH                                                             Have you ever tried one Anne?          SURE!                   “I wonder what time ‘its’?”                        as I sit on this new DoctorNO             I only look at buildings they’re inas you and he, I mean he & you & I buzz past                                                              in yellow ties      I call that gold                                         THE HOTEL BUCKINGHAM                        (facade) is black, and taller than last timeis looming over lunch         naked        high time        poem       & I, equal in                                                                                   perfection & desire                 is looming         two eyes         over coffee-cup (white) nature                                             and man:         both hell on poetry.                                                   Art is art and life is                                                         “A monograph on infidelity”                                   Oh. Forgive me stench of sandwich                                    O pneumonia in American Poetry                  Do we have time?                           well look at Burroughs                          7 times been caught and brought back to Mars                                                       & eaten.“Art is art & Lifeis home,” Fairfield Porter said that                                                    turning himself in                                                                Tonight arrives again in redsome go on            even in Colorado                                 on the run                                                                the forests shake                                  meaning:                                                   coffee            the cheerfulness of this poor                                                                          fellow is terrible, hidden in                                                                          the fringes of the eyelids’                                                   blue mysteries          (I’M THE SKY)                    The sky is bleeding now                                             onto 57th Street                                        of the 20th Century &                                                                HORN & HARDART’S                                          Right here. That’s PART 5                                                           I’m not some sailor off a ship at seaI’m the wanderer                                                                (age 4)                                                   & now everyone is dead                            sinking bewildered of hand, of foot, of lip     nude, thinkinglaughter burnished brighter than hate                                                                                                    Goodbye.                                    André Breton said that                                                                                  what a shit!Now he’s gone!                                    up bubbles all his amorous breath                              & Monograph on Infidelity entitled                                                                                         The Living DreamI never again played                                             I dreamt that December 27th, 1965                                   all in the blazon of sweet beauty’s breast                   I mean           “a rose”           Do you understand that?                                                             Do you?The rock&roll songs of this earthcommingling absolute joy ANDincontrovertible joy of intelligence                                                                      certainly can warm                                                                   can’t they?        YES!                                                 and they do                           Keeping eternal whisperings around                                                                       (Mr. MacAdams writes in                                                                       the nude: no that’s not(we want to take the underground         me that: then zips in &           revolution to Harvard!)                 out the boring taxis, re-                                                                      fusing to join the army                  and yet this girl has                asleep “on the springs”                         so much grace                   of red GENEROSITY)                                 I wonder!                      Were all their praises simply prophecies           of this                           the time!           NO GREATER THRILL                                                                      my friends           But I quickly forget them, those other times, for what are they   but parts in the silver lining of the tiny cloud my braindrifting up into smoke the city’s tough blue top:                                          I think a picture always                                         leads you gently to someone elseDon’t you? like when you ask to leave the room                                         & go to the moon.",Ted Berrigan,Love
"Song: Sweetest love, I do not go","Sweetest love, I do not go,          For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show          A fitter love for me;                 But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best To use myself in jest          Thus by feign'd deaths to die. Yesternight the sun went hence,          And yet is here today; He hath no desire nor sense,          Nor half so short a way:                 Then fear not me, But believe that I shall make Speedier journeys, since I take          More wings and spurs than he. O how feeble is man's power,          That if good fortune fall, Cannot add another hour,          Nor a lost hour recall!                 But come bad chance, And we join to'it our strength, And we teach it art and length,          Itself o'er us to'advance. When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,          But sigh'st my soul away; When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,          My life's blood doth decay.                 It cannot be That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st, If in thine my life thou waste,          That art the best of me. Let not thy divining heart          Forethink me any ill; Destiny may take thy part,          And may thy fears fulfil;                 But think that we Are but turn'd aside to sleep; They who one another keep          Alive, ne'er parted be.",John Donne,Fear
The Canonization,"For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,          Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,          With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,                 Take you a course, get you a place,                 Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or his stampèd face          Contemplate; what you will, approve,          So you will let me love. Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?          What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned? Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?          When did my colds a forward spring remove?                 When did the heats which my veins fill                 Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still          Litigious men, which quarrels move,          Though she and I do love. Call us what you will, we are made such by love;          Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,          And we in us find the eagle and the dove.                 The phœnix riddle hath more wit                 By us; we two being one, are it.So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.         We die and rise the same, and prove         Mysterious by this love.We can die by it, if not live by love,         And if unfit for tombs and hearseOur legend be, it will be fit for verse;         And if no piece of chronicle we prove,                We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;                As well a well-wrought urn becomesThe greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,         And by these hymns, all shall approve         Us canonized for Love.And thus invoke us: ""You, whom reverend love         Made one another's hermitage;You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;         Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove                Into the glasses of your eyes                (So made such mirrors, and such spies,That they did all to you epitomize)         Countries, towns, courts: beg from above         A pattern of your love!""",John Donne,Sadness
Elegy V:  His Picture,"Here take my picture; though I bid farewell Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. 'Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more When we are shadows both, than 'twas before. When weather-beaten I come back, my hand Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun beams tann'd, My face and breast of haircloth, and my head With care's rash sudden storms being o'erspread, My body'a sack of bones, broken within, And powder's blue stains scatter'd on my skin; If rival fools tax thee to'have lov'd a man So foul and coarse as, oh, I may seem then, This shall say what I was, and thou shalt say, ""Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay? Or do they reach his judging mind, that he Should now love less, what he did love to see? That which in him was fair and delicate, Was but the milk which in love's childish state Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough To feed on that, which to disus'd tastes seems tough.""",John Donne,Anger
The Flea,"Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   How little that which thou deniest me is;   It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   Thou know’st that this cannot be saidA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,    Yet this enjoys before it woo,    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,    And this, alas, is more than we would do.Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,Where we almost, nay more than married are.   This flea is you and I, and thisOur marriage bed, and marriage temple is;   Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,   And cloistered in these living walls of jet.    Though use make you apt to kill me,    Let not to that, self-murder added be,    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.Cruel and sudden, hast thou sincePurpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?   Wherein could this flea guilty be,Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?   Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou   Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;    ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:    Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.",John Donne,Joy
The Indifferent,"I can love both fair and brown, Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays, Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays, Her whom the country formed, and whom the town, Her who believes, and her who tries, Her who still weeps with spongy eyes, And her who is dry cork, and never cries; I can love her, and her, and you, and you, I can love any, so she be not true. Will no other vice content you? Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers? Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others? Or doth a fear that men are true torment you? O we are not, be not you so; Let me, and do you, twenty know. Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go. Must I, who came to travail thorough you, Grow your fixed subject, because you are true? Venus heard me sigh this song, And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore, She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more. She went, examined, and returned ere long, And said, Alas! some two or three Poor heretics in love there be, Which think to ’stablish dangerous constancy. But I have told them, Since you will be true, You shall be true to them who are false to you.",John Donne,Joy
Love's Alchemy,"Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I, Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;          I have lov'd, and got, and told, But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, I should not find that hidden mystery.          Oh, 'tis imposture all! And as no chemic yet th'elixir got,          But glorifies his pregnant pot          If by the way to him befall Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,          So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,          But get a winter-seeming summer's night. Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day, Shall we for this vain bubble's shadow pay?          Ends love in this, that my man Can be as happy'as I can, if he can Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play?          That loving wretch that swears 'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,          Which he in her angelic finds,          Would swear as justly that he hears, In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.          Hope not for mind in women; at their best          Sweetness and wit, they'are but mummy, possess'd.",John Donne,Joy
Break of Day,"‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise because ‘tis light? Did we lie down because ‘twas night? Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither, Should in despite of light keep us together. Light hath no tongue, but is all eye; If it could speak as well as spy, This were the worst that it could say, That being well I fain would stay, And that I loved my heart and honour so, That I would not from him, that had them, go. Must business thee from hence remove? Oh, that’s the worst disease of love, The poor, the foul, the false, love can Admit, but not the busied man. He which hath business, and makes love, doth do Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.",John Donne,Love
Air and Angels,"Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee, Before I knew thy face or name; So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be;          Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.          But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,          More subtle than the parent is Love must not be, but take a body too;          And therefore what thou wert, and who,                 I bid Love ask, and now That it assume thy body, I allow, And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow. Whilst thus to ballast love I thought, And so more steadily to have gone, With wares which would sink admiration, I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;          Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;          For, nor in nothing, nor in things Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;          Then, as an angel, face, and wings Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,          So thy love may be my love's sphere;                 Just such disparity As is 'twixt air and angels' purity, 'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.",John Donne,Joy
The Apparition,"When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead          And that thou think'st thee free From all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, And thee, feign'd vestal, in worse arms shall see; Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, And he, whose thou art then, being tir'd before, Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think          Thou call'st for more, And in false sleep will from thee shrink; And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie          A verier ghost than I. What I will say, I will not tell thee now, Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent, I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent, Than by my threat'nings rest still innocent.",John Donne,Sadness
Woman's Constancy,"Now thou has loved me one whole day, Tomorrow when you leav’st, what wilt thou say? Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?             Or say that now We are not just those persons which we were? Or, that oaths made in reverential fear Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear? Or, as true deaths true marriages untie, So lovers’ contracts, images of those, Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose?             Or, your own end to justify, For having purposed change and falsehood, you Can have no way but falsehood to be true? Vain lunatic, against these ‘scapes I could             Dispute and conquer, if I would,             Which I abstain to do, For by tomorrow, I may think so too.",John Donne,Sadness
Song: Go and catch a falling star,"Go and catch a falling star,    Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,    Or who cleft the devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy's stinging,            And find            What windServes to advance an honest mind.If thou be'st born to strange sights,    Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,    Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,            And swear,            No whereLives a woman true, and fair.If thou find'st one, let me know,    Such a pilgrimage were sweet;Yet do not, I would not go,    Though at next door we might meet;Though she were true, when you met her,And last, till you write your letter,            Yet she            Will beFalse, ere I come, to two, or three.Poetry Out Loud Note: In the print anthology, this poem is titled simply ""Song."" The student may give either title during the recitation.",John Donne,Surprise
The Dream,"Dear love, for nothing less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream;             It was a theme For reason, much too strong for fantasy, Therefore thou wak'd'st me wisely; yet My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it. Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreams truths, and fables histories; Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best, Not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest.    As lightning, or a taper's light, Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak'd me;             Yet I thought thee (For thou lovest truth) an angel, at first sight; But when I saw thou sawest my heart, And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an angel's art, When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when Excess of joy would wake me, and cam'st then, I must confess, it could not choose but be Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.    Coming and staying show'd thee, thee, But rising makes me doubt, that now             Thou art not thou. That love is weak where fear's as strong as he; 'Tis not all spirit, pure and brave, If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have; Perchance as torches, which must ready be, Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me; Thou cam'st to kindle, goest to come; then I Will dream that hope again, but else would die.",John Donne,Joy
The Ecstasy,"Where, like a pillow on a bed          A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest The violet's reclining head,          Sat we two, one another's best. Our hands were firmly cemented          With a fast balm, which thence did spring; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread          Our eyes upon one double string; So to'intergraft our hands, as yet          Was all the means to make us one, And pictures in our eyes to get          Was all our propagation. As 'twixt two equal armies fate          Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls (which to advance their state          Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me. And whilst our souls negotiate there,          We like sepulchral statues lay; All day, the same our postures were,          And we said nothing, all the day. If any, so by love refin'd          That he soul's language understood, And by good love were grown all mind,          Within convenient distance stood, He (though he knew not which soul spake,          Because both meant, both spake the same) Might thence a new concoction take          And part far purer than he came. This ecstasy doth unperplex,          We said, and tell us what we love; We see by this it was not sex,          We see we saw not what did move; But as all several souls contain          Mixture of things, they know not what, Love these mix'd souls doth mix again          And makes both one, each this and that. A single violet transplant,          The strength, the colour, and the size, (All which before was poor and scant)          Redoubles still, and multiplies. When love with one another so          Interinanimates two souls, That abler soul, which thence doth flow,          Defects of loneliness controls. We then, who are this new soul, know          Of what we are compos'd and made, For th' atomies of which we grow          Are souls, whom no change can invade. But oh alas, so long, so far,          Our bodies why do we forbear? They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are          The intelligences, they the spheres. We owe them thanks, because they thus          Did us, to us, at first convey, Yielded their senses' force to us,          Nor are dross to us, but allay. On man heaven's influence works not so,          But that it first imprints the air; So soul into the soul may flow,             Though it to body first repair. As our blood labors to beget          Spirits, as like souls as it can, Because such fingers need to knit          That subtle knot which makes us man, So must pure lovers' souls descend          T' affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend,          Else a great prince in prison lies. To'our bodies turn we then, that so          Weak men on love reveal'd may look; Love's mysteries in souls do grow,          But yet the body is his book. And if some lover, such as we,          Have heard this dialogue of one, Let him still mark us, he shall see          Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.",John Donne,Fear
A Lecture upon the Shadow,"Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.          These three hours that we have spent,          Walking here, two shadows went Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd. But, now the sun is just above our head,          We do those shadows tread,          And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd. So whilst our infant loves did grow, Disguises did, and shadows, flow From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so. That love has not attain'd the high'st degree, Which is still diligent lest others see. Except our loves at this noon stay, We shall new shadows make the other way.          As the first were made to blind          Others, these which come behind Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes. If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,          To me thou, falsely, thine,          And I to thee mine actions shall disguise. The morning shadows wear away, But these grow longer all the day; But oh, love's day is short, if love decay. Love is a growing, or full constant light, And his first minute, after noon, is night.",John Donne,Joy
The Sun Rising,"Highlight ActionsEnable or disable annotations               Busy old fool, unruly sun,               Why dost thou thus,Through windows, and through curtains call on us?Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?               Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide               Late school boys and sour prenticesprentices apprentices,         Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,the king will ride James I, the king of England at the time of Donne’s writing, had a known passion for riding horses and hunting.         Call country ants to harvest offices,Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.rags of time a figure of speech meaning that such things are passing and immaterial. Donne uses this phrase in one of his sermons.               Thy beams, so reverendreverend worthy of high respect and strong               Why shouldst thou think?I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,But that I would not lose her sight so long;               If her eyes have not blinded thine,               Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,         Whether both th' Indias of spice and mineboth th’ Indias of spice and mine the East Indies for spices and the West Indies for gold. In a 1623 letter to Sir Robert Ker, Donne wrote: “Your way into Spain was Eastward, and that is the way to the land of Perfumes and Spices; their way hither is Westward, and that is the way to the land of Gold, and of Mynes.” [John Donne: Selected Prose. Edited by Helen Gardner and Timothy Healy, p. 155]         Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.               She's all states, and all princes, I,               Nothing else is.Princes do but play us; compared to this,All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemyalchemy figuratively, not the real thing. The speculative practice of alchemy involved a search for chemically turning base metals, such as iron, into highly valuable metals, such as gold..               Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,               In that the world's contracted thus.         Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be         To warm the world, that's done in warming us.Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.",John Donne,Love
Satire III,"Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids; I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise; Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies? Is not our mistress, fair Religion, As worthy of all our souls' devotion As virtue was in the first blinded age? Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas, As we do them in means, shall they surpass Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear Thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou dar'st, fear this; This fear great courage and high valour is. Dar'st thou aid mutinous Dutch, and dar'st thou lay Thee in ships' wooden sepulchres, a prey To leaders' rage, to storms, to shot, to dearth? Dar'st thou dive seas, and dungeons of the earth? Hast thou courageous fire to thaw the ice Of frozen North discoveries? and thrice Colder than salamanders, like divine Children in th' oven, fires of Spain and the Line, Whose countries limbecs to our bodies be, Canst thou for gain bear? and must every he Which cries not, ""Goddess,"" to thy mistress, draw Or eat thy poisonous words? Courage of straw! O desperate coward, wilt thou seem bold, and To thy foes and his, who made thee to stand Sentinel in his world's garrison, thus yield, And for forbidden wars leave th' appointed field? Know thy foes: the foul devil, whom thou Strivest to please, for hate, not love, would allow Thee fain his whole realm to be quit; and as The world's all parts wither away and pass, So the world's self, thy other lov'd foe, is In her decrepit wane, and thou loving this, Dost love a wither'd and worn strumpet; last, Flesh (itself's death) and joys which flesh can taste, Thou lovest, and thy fair goodly soul, which doth Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe. Seek true religion. O where? Mirreus, Thinking her unhous'd here, and fled from us, Seeks her at Rome; there, because he doth know That she was there a thousand years ago, He loves her rags so, as we here obey The statecloth where the prince sate yesterday. Crantz to such brave loves will not be enthrall'd, But loves her only, who at Geneva is call'd Religion, plain, simple, sullen, young, Contemptuous, yet unhandsome; as among Lecherous humours, there is one that judges No wenches wholesome, but coarse country drudges. Graius stays still at home here, and because Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws, Still new like fashions, bid him think that she Which dwells with us is only perfect, he Embraceth her whom his godfathers will Tender to him, being tender, as wards still Take such wives as their guardians offer, or Pay values. Careless Phrygius doth abhor All, because all cannot be good, as one Knowing some women whores, dares marry none. Graccus loves all as one, and thinks that so As women do in divers countries go In divers habits, yet are still one kind, So doth, so is Religion; and this blind- ness too much light breeds; but unmoved, thou Of force must one, and forc'd, but one allow, And the right; ask thy father which is she, Let him ask his; though truth and falsehood be Near twins, yet truth a little elder is; Be busy to seek her; believe me this, He's not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best. To adore, or scorn an image, or protest, May all be bad; doubt wisely; in strange way To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; To sleep, or run wrong, is. On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will Reach her, about must and about must go, And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so. Yet strive so that before age, death's twilight, Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night. To will implies delay, therefore now do; Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge too The mind's endeavours reach, and mysteries Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes. Keep the truth which thou hast found; men do not stand In so ill case, that God hath with his hand Sign'd kings' blank charters to kill whom they hate; Nor are they vicars, but hangmen to fate. Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied To man's laws, by which she shall not be tried At the last day? Oh, will it then boot thee To say a Philip, or a Gregory, A Harry, or a Martin, taught thee this? Is not this excuse for mere contraries Equally strong? Cannot both sides say so? That thou mayest rightly obey power, her bounds know; Those past, her nature and name is chang'd; to be Then humble to her is idolatry. As streams are, power is; those blest flowers that dwell At the rough stream's calm head, thrive and do well, But having left their roots, and themselves given To the stream's tyrannous rage, alas, are driven Through mills, and rocks, and woods, and at last, almost Consum'd in going, in the sea are lost. So perish souls, which more choose men's unjust Power from God claim'd, than God himself to trust.",John Donne,Joy
A Burnt Ship,"Out of a fired ship, which by no way But drowning could be rescued from the flame, Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay; So all were lost, which in the ship were found,       They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown'd.",John Donne,Anger
A Lame Begger,"I am unable, yonder beggar cries, To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.",John Donne,Fear
The Good-Morrow,"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.",John Donne,Joy
The Calm,"Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage, A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage. The fable is inverted, and far more A block afflicts, now, than a stork before. Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us; In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus. As steady'as I can wish that my thoughts were, Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there, The sea is now; and, as the isles which we Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be. As water did in storms, now pitch runs out; As lead, when a fir'd church becomes one spout. And all our beauty, and our trim, decays, Like courts removing, or like ended plays. The fighting-place now seamen's rags supply; And all the tackling is a frippery. No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday. Earth's hollownesses, which the world's lungs are, Have no more wind than the upper vault of air. We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover, But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover. Only the calenture together draws Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes' jaws; And on the hatches, as on altars, lies Each one, his own priest, and own sacrifice. Who live, that miracle do multiply, Where walkers in hot ovens do not die. If in despite of these we swim, that hath No more refreshing than our brimstone bath; But from the sea into the ship we turn, Like parboil'd wretches, on the coals to burn. Like Bajazet encag'd, the shepherds' scoff, Or like slack-sinew'd Samson, his hair off, Languish our ships. Now as a myriad Of ants durst th' emperor's lov'd snake invade, The crawling gallies, sea-gaols, finny chips, Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships. Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain, Or to disuse me from the queasy pain Of being belov'd and loving, or the thirst Of honour, or fair death, out-push'd me first, I lose my end; for here, as well as I, A desperate may live, and a coward die. Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies, Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies. Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay A scourge, 'gainst which we all forget to pray. He that at sea prays for more wind, as well Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell. What are we then? How little more, alas, Is man now, than before he was? He was Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit; Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it. We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie, I should not then thus feel this misery.",John Donne,Joy
A Hymn to God the Father,"Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,          Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,          And do run still, though still I do deplore?                 When thou hast done, thou hast not done,                         For I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won          Others to sin, and made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun          A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?                 When thou hast done, thou hast not done,                         For I have more. I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun          My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son          Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;                 And, having done that, thou hast done;                         I fear no more.",John Donne,Anger
A Valediction of the Book,"I’ll tell thee now (dear Love) what thou shalt do     To anger destiny, as she doth us,     How I shall stay, though she esloygne me thus And how posterity shall know it too;          How thine may out-endure          Sybil’s glory, and obscure          Her who from Pindar could allure,     And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame, And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name. Study our manuscripts, those myriads     Of letters, which have past twixt thee and me,     Thence write our annals, and in them will be   To all whom love’s subliming fire invades,          Rule and example found;          There, the faith of any ground          No schismatic will dare to wound,     That sees, how Love this grace to us affords, To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records. This book, as long-lived as the elements,     Or as the world’s form, this all-graved tome     In cipher writ, or new made idiom; We for love’s clergy only’are instruments,          When this book is made thus,          Should again the ravenous          Vandals and the Goths invade us,     Learning were safe; in this our universe Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse. Here Love’s divines (since all divinity     Is love or wonder) may find all they seek,     Whether abstract spiritual love they like, Their souls exhaled with what they do not see,          Or loth so to amuse          Faith’s infirmity, they choose          Something which they may see and use;     For, though mind be the heaven, where love doth sit, Beauty’a convenient type may be to figure it. Here more than in their books may lawyers find,     Both by what titles mistresses are ours,     And how prerogative these states devours, Transferred from Love himself, to womankind,          Who though from heart, and eyes,          They exact great subsidies,          Forsake him who on them relies     And for the cause, honor, or conscience give, Chimeras, vain as they, or their prerogative. Here statesmen (or of them, they which can read)     May of their occupation find the grounds,     Love and their art alike it deadly wounds, If to consider what’tis, one proceed,          In both they do excel          Who the present govern well,          Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell;     In this thy book, such will there nothing see, As in the Bible some can find out alchemy. Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I’ll study thee,     As he removes far off, that great heights takes;     How great love is, presence best trial makes, But absence tries how long this love will be;          To take a latitude          Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewed          At their brightest, but to conclude,     Of longitudes, what other way have we, But to mark when, and where the dark eclipses be?",John Donne,Sadness
The Triple Fool,"I am two fools, I know,       For loving, and for saying so           In whining poetry; But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,           If she would not deny? Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes     Do purge sea water's fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains     Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay. Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce, For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.       But when I have done so,       Some man, his art and voice to show,           Doth set and sing my pain; And, by delighting many, frees again           Grief, which verse did restrain. To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,     But not of such as pleases when 'tis read. Both are increased by such songs,     For both their triumphs so are published, And I, which was two fools, do so grow three; Who are a little wise, the best fools be.",John Donne,Anger
"Elegy VII: Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love","Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love, And in that sophistry, oh, thou dost prove Too subtle: Fool, thou didst not understand The mystic language of the eye nor hand: Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air Of sighs, and say, this lies, this sounds despair: Nor by the’eye’s water call a malady Desperately hot, or changing feverously. I had not taught thee then, the alphabet Of flowers, how they devicefully being set And bound up, might with speechless secrecy Deliver errands mutely, and mutually. Remember since all thy words used to be To every suitor, “I, ’if my friends agree”; Since, household charms, thy husband’s name to teach, Were all the love-tricks, that thy wit could reach; And since, an hour’s discourse could scarce have made One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed  In broken proverbs, and torn sentences. Thou art not by so many duties his, That from the’world’s common having severed thee, Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see, As mine: who have with amorous delicacies Refined thee’into a blissful paradise. Thy graces and good words my creatures be; I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee, Which oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas  Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass? Chafe wax for others’ seals? break a colt’s force And leave him then, being made a ready horse?",John Donne,Love
Lovers' Infiniteness,"If yet I have not all thy love, Dear, I shall never have it all; I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move, Nor can intreat one other tear to fall; And all my treasure, which should purchase thee— Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters—I have spent. Yet no more can be due to me, Than at the bargain made was meant; If then thy gift of love were partial, That some to me, some should to others fall,          Dear, I shall never have thee all. Or if then thou gavest me all, All was but all, which thou hadst then; But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall New love created be, by other men, Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears, In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me, This new love may beget new fears, For this love was not vow'd by thee. And yet it was, thy gift being general; The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall          Grow there, dear, I should have it all. Yet I would not have all yet, He that hath all can have no more; And since my love doth every day admit New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store; Thou canst not every day give me thy heart, If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it; Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart, It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it; But we will have a way more liberal, Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall          Be one, and one another's all.",John Donne,Sadness
The Relic,"When my grave is broke up again        Some second guest to entertain,        (For graves have learn'd that woman head,        To be to more than one a bed)                 And he that digs it, spies A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,                 Will he not let'us alone, And think that there a loving couple lies, Who thought that this device might be some way To make their souls, at the last busy day, Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?          If this fall in a time, or land,          Where mis-devotion doth command,          Then he, that digs us up, will bring          Us to the bishop, and the king,                 To make us relics; then Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I                 A something else thereby; All women shall adore us, and some men; And since at such time miracles are sought, I would have that age by this paper taught What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.          First, we lov'd well and faithfully,          Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;          Difference of sex no more we knew          Than our guardian angels do;                 Coming and going, we Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;                 Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals Which nature, injur'd by late law, sets free; These miracles we did, but now alas, All measure, and all language, I should pass, Should I tell what a miracle she was.",John Donne,Love
Phases,"I. There’s a little square in Paris, Waiting until we pass. They sit idly there, They sip the glass. There’s a cab-horse at the corner, There's rain. The season grieves. It was silver once, And green with leaves. There’s a parrot in a window, Will see us on parade, Hear the loud drums roll— And serenade.                            II. This was the salty taste of glory, That it was not Like Agamemnon’s story. Only, an eyeball in the mud, And Hopkins, Flat and pale and gory!                            III. But the bugles, in the night, Were wings that bore To where our comfort was; Arabesques of candle beams, Winding Through our heavy dreams; Winds that blew Where the bending iris grew; Birds of intermitted bliss, Singing in the night's abyss; Vines with yellow fruit, That fell Along the walls That bordered Hell.                            IV. Death's nobility again Beautified the simplest men. Fallen Winkle felt the pride Of Agamemnon When he died. What could London’s Work and waste Give him— To that salty, sacrificial taste? What could London’s Sorrow bring— To that short, triumphant sting?",Wallace Stevens,Joy
A Postcard from the Volcano,"Children picking up our bonesWill never know that these were once   As quick as foxes on the hill;And that in autumn, when the grapes   Made sharp air sharper by their smell   These had a being, breathing frost;And least will guess that with our bones   We left much more, left what still is   The look of things, left what we feltAt what we saw. The spring clouds blow   Above the shuttered mansion-house,   Beyond our gate and the windy skyCries out a literate despair.We knew for long the mansion's look   And what we said of it becameA part of what it is ... Children,   Still weaving budded aureoles,Will speak our speech and never know,Will say of the mansion that it seems   As if he that lived there left behind   A spirit storming in blank walls,A dirty house in a gutted world,A tatter of shadows peaked to white,   Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.",Wallace Stevens,Joy
Peter Quince at the Clavier,"I Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the selfsame sounds On my spirit make a music, too. Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you, Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music. It is like the strain Waked in the elders by Susanna: Of a green evening, clear and warm, She bathed in her still garden, while The red-eyed elders, watching, felt The basses of their beings throb In witching chords, and their thin blood Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.                                               II In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody. Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions. She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering. A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned— A cymbal crashed, And roaring horns.                                            III Soon, with a noise like tambourines, Came her attendant Byzantines. They wondered why Susanna cried Against the elders by her side; And as they whispered, the refrain Was like a willow swept by rain. Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame Revealed Susanna and her shame. And then, the simpering Byzantines Fled, with a noise like tambourines.                                              IV Beauty is momentary in the mind— The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of winter, done repenting. So maidens die, to the auroral Celebration of a maiden's choral. Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings Of those white elders; but, escaping, Left only Death's ironic scraping. Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise.",Wallace Stevens,Joy
The Plain Sense of Things,"After the leaves have fallen, we returnTo a plain sense of things. It is as ifWe had come to an end of the imagination,Inanimate in an inert savoir.It is difficult even to choose the adjectiveFor this blank cold, this sadness without cause.The great structure has become a minor house.No turban walks across the lessened floors.The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.A fantastic effort has failed, a repetitionIn a repetitiousness of men and flies.Yet the absence of the imagination hadItself to be imagined. The great pond,The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silenceOf a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all thisHad to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,Required, as a necessity requires.",Wallace Stevens,Surprise
Of Modern Poetry,"The poem of the mind in the act of finding   What will suffice. It has not always had   To find: the scene was set; it repeated what   Was in the script.                               Then the theatre was changed   To something else. Its past was a souvenir.It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.   It has to face the men of the time and to meet   The women of the time. It has to think about war   And it has to find what will suffice. It has   To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage   And, like an insatiable actor, slowly andWith meditation, speak words that in the ear,   In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound   Of which, an invisible audience listens,Not to the play, but to itself, expressedIn an emotion as of two people, as of two   Emotions becoming one. The actor isA metaphysician in the dark, twangingAn instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives   Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly   Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,   Beyond which it has no will to rise.                                                      It mustBe the finding of a satisfaction, and mayBe of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman   Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.",Wallace Stevens,Surprise
Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks,"In the moonlightI met Berserk,In the moonlightOn the bushy plain. Oh, sharp he wasAs the sleepless! And, “Why are you redIn this milky blue?”I said.“Why sun-colored,As if awakeIn the midst of sleep?” “You that wander,”So he said,“On the bushy plain,Forget so soon.But I set my trapsIn the midst of dreams.” I knew from thisThat the blue groundWas full of blocksAnd blocking steel.I knew the dreadOf the bushy plain,And the beautyOf the moonlightFalling there,FallingAs sleep fallsIn the innocent air.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
The Wind Shifts,"This is how the wind shifts:Like the thoughts of an old human,Who still thinks eagerlyAnd despairingly.The wind shifts like this:Like a human without illusions,Who still feels irrational things within her.The wind shifts like this:Like humans approaching proudly,Like humans approaching angrily.This is how the wind shifts:Like a human, heavy and heavy,Who does not care.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade,"Capitán profundo, capitán geloso,Ask us not to sing standing in the sun,Hairy-backed and hump-armed,Flat-ribbed and big-bagged. There is no pith in musicExcept in something false. Bellissimo, pomposo,Sing a song of serpent-kin,Necks among the thousand leaves,Tongues around the fruit.Sing in clownish bootsStrapped and buckled bright. Wear the breeches of a mask,Coat half-flare and half galloon;Wear a helmet without reason,Tufted, tilted, twirled, and twisted.Start the singing in a voiceRougher than a grinding shale. Hang a feather by your eye,Nod and look a little sly.This must be the vent of pity,Deeper than a truer dittyOf the real that wrenches,Of the quick that’s wry.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
The Idea of Order at Key West,"She sang beyond the genius of the sea.   The water never formed to mind or voice,   Like a body wholly body, flutteringIts empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion   Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,   That was not ours although we understood,   Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.The sea was not a mask. No more was she.   The song and water were not medleyed sound   Even if what she sang was what she heard,   Since what she sang was uttered word by word.It may be that in all her phrases stirred   The grinding water and the gasping wind;   But it was she and not the sea we heard.For she was the maker of the song she sang.   The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured seaWas merely a place by which she walked to sing.   Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew   It was the spirit that we sought and knew   That we should ask this often as she sang.If it was only the dark voice of the sea   That rose, or even colored by many waves;   If it was only the outer voice of skyAnd cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,   However clear, it would have been deep air,   The heaving speech of air, a summer sound   Repeated in a summer without endAnd sound alone. But it was more than that,   More even than her voice, and ours, amongThe meaningless plungings of water and the wind,   Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped   On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres   Of sky and sea.                           It was her voice that made   The sky acutest at its vanishing.   She measured to the hour its solitude.   She was the single artificer of the worldIn which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,   Whatever self it had, became the selfThat was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,   As we beheld her striding there alone,Knew that there never was a world for her   Except the one she sang and, singing, made.Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,   Why, when the singing ended and we turned   Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,   The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,   As the night descended, tilting in the air,   Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,   Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,   Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,   The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,   Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,   And of ourselves and of our origins,In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
The Emperor of Ice-Cream,"Highlight ActionsEnable or disable annotationsCall the roller of big cigars,The muscular one, and bidbid Command, order, direct him whipIn kitchen cups concupiscent concupiscent Sensual, desirous curds.Let the wenches wenches Girls dawdle in such dressAs they are used to wear, and let the boysBring flowers in last month's newspapers.Let be be finale of seem.Let be be finale of seem. A possible literal paraphrase of this sentence might read “Let artifice and illusion give way to plain reality.”The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. In the context of death, an echo of Hamlet's comment to Claudius: “Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.” (Hamlet, act 4, scene 3)Take from the dresser of dealdeal Cheap pine or fir wood,Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheetOn which she embroidered fantailsfantails Birds with a fan-shaped tail onceAnd spread it so as to cover her face.If her horny feet protrude, they comeTo show how cold she is, and dumb.Let the lamp affix its beam.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.",Wallace Stevens,Joy
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 fullAnd 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-lightAnd 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,Joy
from The Indigo Glass in the Grass,d,Wallace Stevens,Sadness
To the One of Fictive Music,"Sister and mother and diviner love,And of the sisterhood of the living deadMost near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,And of the fragrant mothers the most dearAnd queen, and of diviner love the dayAnd flame and summer and sweet fire, no threadOf cloudy silver sprinkles in your gownIts venom of renown, and on your headNo crown is simpler than the simple hair. Now of the music summoned by the birthThat separates us from the wind and sea,Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,By being so much of the things we are,Gross effigy and simulacrum, noneGives motion to perfection more sereneThan yours, out of our imperfections wrought,Most rare, or ever of more kindred airIn the laborious weaving that you wear. For so retentive of themselves are menThat music is intensest which proclaimsThe near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,And of all vigils musing the obscure,That apprehends the most which sees and names,As in your name, an image that is sure,Among the arrant spices of the sun,O bough and bush and scented vine, in whomWe give ourselves our likest issuance. Yet not too like, yet not so like to beToo near, too clear, saving a little to endowOur feigning with the strange unlike, whence          springsThe difference that heavenly pity brings.For this, musician, in your girdle fixedBear other perfumes. On your pale head wearA band entwining, set with fatal stones.Unreal, give back to us what once you gave:The imagination that we spurned and crave.",Wallace Stevens,Joy
The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain,"There it was, word for word,The poem that took the place of a mountain.He breathed its oxygen,Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.It reminded him how he had neededA place to go to in his own direction,How he had recomposed the pines,Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,For the outlook that would be right,Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:The exact rock where his inexactnessesWould discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,Recognize his unique and solitary home.",Wallace Stevens,Surprise
The Man on the Dump,"Day creeps down. The moon is creeping up.The sun is a corbeil of flowers the moon Blanche   Places there, a bouquet. Ho-ho ... The dump is full   Of images. Days pass like papers from a press.   The bouquets come here in the papers. So the sun,   And so the moon, both come, and the janitor’s poems   Of every day, the wrapper on the can of pears,   The cat in the paper-bag, the corset, the boxFrom Esthonia: the tiger chest, for tea.The freshness of night has been fresh a long time.The freshness of morning, the blowing of day, one says   That it puffs as Cornelius Nepos reads, it puffs   More than, less than or it puffs like this or that.   The green smacks in the eye, the dew in the green   Smacks like fresh water in a can, like the seaOn a cocoanut—how many men have copied dew   For buttons, how many women have covered themselvesWith dew, dew dresses, stones and chains of dew, heads   Of the floweriest flowers dewed with the dewiest dew.   One grows to hate these things except on the dump.Now, in the time of spring (azaleas, trilliums,   Myrtle, viburnums, daffodils, blue phlox),   Between that disgust and this, between the things   That are on the dump (azaleas and so on)   And those that will be (azaleas and so on),   One feels the purifying change. One rejects   The trash.               That’s the moment when the moon creeps up   To the bubbling of bassoons. That’s the timeOne looks at the elephant-colorings of tires.   Everything is shed; and the moon comes up as the moon   (All its images are in the dump) and you seeAs a man (not like an image of a man),You see the moon rise in the empty sky.One sits and beats an old tin can, lard pail.One beats and beats for that which one believes.   That’s what one wants to get near. Could it after allBe merely oneself, as superior as the earTo a crow’s voice? Did the nightingale torture the ear,   Peck the heart and scratch the mind? And does the ear   Solace itself in peevish birds? Is it peace,Is it a philosopher’s honeymoon, one findsOn the dump? Is it to sit among mattresses of the dead,   Bottles, pots, shoes and grass and murmur aptest eve:   Is it to hear the blatter of grackles and sayInvisible priest; is it to eject, to pullThe day to pieces and cry stanza my stone?Where was it one first heard of the truth? The the.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
Invective Against Swans,"The soul, O ganders, flies beyond the parksAnd far beyond the discords of the wind. A bronze rain from the sun descending marksThe death of summer, which that time endures Like one who scrawls a listless testamentOf golden quirks and Paphian caricatures, Bequeathing your white feathers to the moonAnd giving your bland motions to the air. Behold, already on the long paradesThe crows anoint the statues with their dirt. And the soul, O ganders, being lonely, fliesBeyond your chilly chariots, to the skies.",Wallace Stevens,Sadness
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,"IAmong twenty snowy mountains,   The only moving thing   Was the eye of the blackbird.   III was of three minds,   Like a tree   In which there are three blackbirds.   IIIThe blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   It was a small part of the pantomime.   IVA man and a woman   Are one.   A man and a woman and a blackbird   Are one.   VI do not know which to prefer,   The beauty of inflections   Or the beauty of innuendoes,   The blackbird whistling   Or just after.   VIIcicles filled the long window   With barbaric glass.   The shadow of the blackbird   Crossed it, to and fro.   The mood   Traced in the shadow   An indecipherable cause.   VIIO thin men of Haddam,   Why do you imagine golden birds?   Do you not see how the blackbird   Walks around the feet   Of the women about you?   VIIII know noble accents   And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   But I know, too,   That the blackbird is involved   In what I know.   IXWhen the blackbird flew out of sight,   It marked the edge   Of one of many circles.   XAt the sight of blackbirds   Flying in a green light,   Even the bawds of euphony   Would cry out sharply.   XIHe rode over Connecticut   In a glass coach.   Once, a fear pierced him,   In that he mistook   The shadow of his equipage   For blackbirds.   XIIThe river is moving.   The blackbird must be flying.   XIIIIt was evening all afternoon.   It was snowing   And it was going to snow.   The blackbird sat   In the cedar-limbs.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
The Death of a Soldier,"Life contracts and death is expected,As in a season of autumn.The soldier falls. He does not become a three-days personage,Imposing his separation,Calling for pomp. Death is absolute and without memorial,As in a season of autumn,When the wind stops, When the wind stops and, over the heavens,The clouds go, nevertheless,In their direction.",Wallace Stevens,Joy
Nuances of a Theme by Williams,"It’s a strange courageyou give me, ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrisetoward which you lend no part!                           IShine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze,that reflects neither my face nor any inner partof my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.                          IILend no part to any humanity that suffusesyou in its own light.Be not chimera of morning,Half-man, half-star.Be not an intelligence,Like a widow’s birdOr an old horse.",Wallace Stevens,Surprise
Anecdote of the Jar,"I placed a jar in Tennessee,And round it was, upon a hill.It made the slovenly wildernessSurround that hill.The wilderness rose up to it,And sprawled around, no longer wild.The jar was round upon the groundAnd tall and of a port in air.It took dominion everywhere.The jar was gray and bare.It did not give of bird or bush,Like nothing else in Tennessee.",Wallace Stevens,Fear
"Easter, 1916","I have met them at close of day   Coming with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among grey   Eighteenth-century houses.I have passed with a nod of the head   Or polite meaningless words,   Or have lingered awhile and said   Polite meaningless words,And thought before I had done   Of a mocking tale or a gibe   To please a companionAround the fire at the club,   Being certain that they and I   But lived where motley is worn:   All changed, changed utterly:   A terrible beauty is born.That woman's days were spent   In ignorant good-will,Her nights in argumentUntil her voice grew shrill.What voice more sweet than hers   When, young and beautiful,   She rode to harriers?This man had kept a school   And rode our wingèd horse;   This other his helper and friend   Was coming into his force;He might have won fame in the end,   So sensitive his nature seemed,   So daring and sweet his thought.This other man I had dreamedA drunken, vainglorious lout.He had done most bitter wrongTo some who are near my heart,   Yet I number him in the song;He, too, has resigned his partIn the casual comedy;He, too, has been changed in his turn,   Transformed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.Hearts with one purpose alone   Through summer and winter seem   Enchanted to a stoneTo trouble the living stream.The horse that comes from the road,   The rider, the birds that range   From cloud to tumbling cloud,   Minute by minute they change;   A shadow of cloud on the stream   Changes minute by minute;   A horse-hoof slides on the brim,   And a horse plashes within it;   The long-legged moor-hens dive,   And hens to moor-cocks call;   Minute by minute they live:   The stone's in the midst of all.Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.   O when may it suffice?That is Heaven's part, our part   To murmur name upon name,   As a mother names her child   When sleep at last has come   On limbs that had run wild.   What is it but nightfall?No, no, not night but death;   Was it needless death after all?For England may keep faith   For all that is done and said.   We know their dream; enoughTo know they dreamed and are dead;   And what if excess of love   Bewildered them till they died?   I write it out in a verse—MacDonagh and MacBride   And Connolly and PearseNow and in time to be,Wherever green is worn,Are changed, changed utterly:   A terrible beauty is born.",William Butler Yeats,Anger
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,Fear
A Coat,"I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take itFor there’s more enterprise In walking naked.",William Butler Yeats,Fear
Reconciliation,"Some may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning, you went from me, and I could find Nothing to make a song about but kings, Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things That were like memories of you—but now We'll out, for the world lives as long ago; And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit, Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit. But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone, My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.",William Butler Yeats,Sadness
The Sad Shepherd,"There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend, And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming, Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming And humming sands, where windy surges wend: And he called loudly to the stars to bend From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they Among themselves laugh on and sing alway: And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story! The sea swept on and cried her old cry still, Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill. He fled the persecution of her glory And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping, Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening. But naught they heard, for they are always listening, The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping. And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend Sought once again the shore, and found a shell, And thought, I will my heavy story tell Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart; And my own tale again for me shall sing, And my own whispering words be comforting, And lo! my ancient burden may depart. Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim; But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.",William Butler Yeats,Anger
The Everlasting Voices,"O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more; Have you not heard that our hearts are old, That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.",William Butler Yeats,Joy
The Tower,"IWhat shall I do with this absurdity —O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature,Decrepit age that has been tied to meAs to a dog's tail?                                 Never had I moreExcited, passionate, fantasticalImagination, nor an ear and eyeThat more expected the impossible —No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's backAnd had the livelong summer day to spend.It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friendUntil imagination, ear and eye,Can be content with argument and dealIn abstract things; or be derided byA sort of battered kettle at the heel.                                      III pace upon the battlements and stareOn the foundations of a house, or where",William Butler Yeats,Love
A Meditation in Time of War,"For one throb of the artery, While on that old grey stone I sat Under the old wind-broken tree, I knew that One is animate Mankind inanimate phantasy.",William Butler Yeats,Fear
The Second Coming,"Turning and turning in the widening gyre   The falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   The ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worst   Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   When a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?",William Butler Yeats,Love
On being asked for a War Poem,"I think it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter’s night.",William Butler Yeats,Joy
To an Isle in the Water,"Shy one, shy one, Shy one of my heart, She moves in the firelight Pensively apart. She carries in the dishes, And lays them in a row. To an isle in the water With her would I go. She carries in the candles, And lights the curtained room, Shy in the doorway And shy in the gloom; And shy as a rabbit, Helpful and shy. To an isle in the water With her would I fly.",William Butler Yeats,Fear
Adam's Curse,"We sat together at one summer’s end,That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,   And you and I, and talked of poetry.I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,   Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.   Better go down upon your marrow-bones   And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones   Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;   For to articulate sweet sounds togetherIs to work harder than all these, and yet   Be thought an idler by the noisy setOf bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen   The martyrs call the world.’                                          And thereuponThat beautiful mild woman for whose sake   There’s many a one shall find out all heartache   On finding that her voice is sweet and low   Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know—Although they do not talk of it at school—That we must labour to be beautiful.’I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing   Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.There have been lovers who thought love should be   So much compounded of high courtesy   That they would sigh and quote with learned looks   Precedents out of beautiful old books;   Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’We sat grown quiet at the name of love;   We saw the last embers of daylight die,   And in the trembling blue-green of the sky   A moon, worn as if it had been a shell   Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell   About the stars and broke in days and years.I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:   That you were beautiful, and that I strove   To love you in the old high way of love;That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown   As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.",William Butler Yeats,Love
Politics,"In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.'                                                                                                  THOMAS MANN.How can I, that girl standing there,My attention fixOn Roman or on RussianOr on Spanish politics,Yet here's a travelled man that knowsWhat he talks about,And there's a politicianThat has both read and thought,And maybe what they say is trueOf war and war's alarms,But O that I were young againAnd held her in my arms.",William Butler Yeats,Fear
Sailing to Byzantium,"IThat is no country for old men. The youngIn one another's arms, birds in the trees,—Those dying generations—at their song,The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unageing intellect.IIAn aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unlessSoul clap its hands and sing, and louder singFor every tatter in its mortal dress,Nor is there singing school but studyingMonuments of its own magnificence;And therefore I have sailed the seas and comeTo the holy city of Byzantium.IIIO sages standing in God's holy fireAs in the gold mosaic of a wall,Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,And be the singing-masters of my soul.Consume my heart away; sick with desireAnd fastened to a dying animalIt knows not what it is; and gather meInto the artifice of eternity.IVOnce out of nature I shall never takeMy bodily form from any natural thing,But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths makeOf hammered gold and gold enamellingTo keep a drowsy Emperor awake;Or set upon a golden bough to singTo lords and ladies of ByzantiumOf what is past, or passing, or to come.",William Butler Yeats,Love
The Rose Tree,"O words are lightly spoken,' Said Pearse to Connolly, 'Maybe a breath of politic words Has withered our Rose Tree; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea.' 'It needs to be but watered,' James Connolly replied, 'To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the blossom from the bud To be the garden's pride.' 'But where can we draw water,' Said Pearse to Connolly, 'When all the wells are parched away? O plain as plain can be There's nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree.'",William Butler Yeats,Anger
The Lake Isle of Innisfree,"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,I hear it in the deep heart’s core.",William Butler Yeats,Fear
Under Ben Bulben,"ISwear by what the Sages spoke   Round the Mareotic LakeThat the Witch of Atlas knew,   Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.Swear by those horsemen, by those women,   Complexion and form prove superhuman,   That pale, long visaged companyThat airs an immortalityCompleteness of their passions won;   Now they ride the wintry dawnWhere Ben Bulben sets the scene.Here's the gist of what they mean.   IIMany times man lives and dies   Between his two eternities,   That of race and that of soul,   And ancient Ireland knew it all.   Whether man dies in his bed   Or the rifle knocks him dead,A brief parting from those dear   Is the worst man has to fear.   Though grave-diggers' toil is long,   Sharp their spades, their muscle strong,   They but thrust their buried men   Back in the human mind again.IIIYou that Mitchel's prayer have heard   `Send war in our time, O Lord!'   Know that when all words are said   And a man is fighting mad,   Something drops from eyes long blind   He completes his partial mind,   For an instant stands at ease,   Laughs aloud, his heart at peace,   Even the wisest man grows tense   With some sort of violence   Before he can accomplish fate   Know his work or choose his mate.IVPoet and sculptor do the work   Nor let the modish painter shirk   What his great forefathers did,   Bring the soul of man to God,   Make him fill the cradles right.Measurement began our might:   Forms a stark Egyptian thought,   Forms that gentler Phidias wrought.Michael Angelo left a proof   On the Sistine Chapel roof,   Where but half-awakened Adam   Can disturb globe-trotting Madam   Till her bowels are in heat,   Proof that there's a purpose set   Before the secret working mind:   Profane perfection of mankind.Quattrocento put in paint,On backgrounds for a God or Saint,   Gardens where a soul's at ease;   Where everything that meets the eyeFlowers and grass and cloudless sky   Resemble forms that are, or seem   When sleepers wake and yet still dream,   And when it's vanished still declare,   With only bed and bedstead there,   That Heavens had opened.                                        Gyres run on;When that greater dream had gone   Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude   Prepared a rest for the people of God,   Palmer's phrase, but after thatConfusion fell upon our thought.VIrish poets learn your trade   Sing whatever is well made,   Scorn the sort now growing up   All out of shape from toe to top,Their unremembering hearts and heads   Base-born products of base beds.   Sing the peasantry, and then   Hard-riding country gentlemen,   The holiness of monks, and after   Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;   Sing the lords and ladies gay   That were beaten into the clay   Through seven heroic centuries;   Cast your mind on other days   That we in coming days may be   Still the indomitable Irishry.VIUnder bare Ben Bulben's headIn Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid,   An ancestor was rector thereLong years ago; a church stands near,By the road an ancient Cross.No marble, no conventional phrase,   On limestone quarried near the spot   By his command these words are cut:               Cast a cold eye                  On life, on death.                  Horseman, pass by!",William Butler Yeats,Surprise
Lapis Lazuli,"(for Harry Clifton)I have heard that hysterical women sayThey are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,Of poets that are always gay,For everybody knows or else should knowThat if nothing drastic is doneAeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls inUntil the town lie beaten flat.All perform their tragic play,There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;Yet they, should the last scene be there,The great stage curtain about to drop,If worthy their prominent part in the play,Do not break up their lines to weep.They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.All men have aimed at, found and lost;Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,And all the drop scenes drop at onceUpon a hundred thousand stages,It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.On their own feet they came, or on shipboard,Camel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,Old civilisations put to the sword.Then they and their wisdom went to rack:No handiwork of CallimachusWho handled marble as if it were bronze,Made draperies that seemed to riseWhen sea-wind swept the corner, stands;His long lamp chimney shaped like the stemOf a slender palm, stood but a day;All things fall and are built againAnd those that build them again are gay.Two Chinamen, behind them a third,Are carved in Lapis Lazuli,Over them flies a long-legged birdA symbol of longevity;The third, doubtless a serving-man,Carries a musical instrument.Every discolouration of the stone,Every accidental crack or dentSeems a water-course or an avalanche,Or lofty slope where it still snowsThough doubtless plum or cherry-branchSweetens the little half-way houseThose Chinamen climb towards, and IDelight to imagine them seated there;There, on the mountain and the sky,On all the tragic scene they stare.One asks for mournful melodies;Accomplished fingers begin to play.Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.",William Butler Yeats,Sadness
The Fascination of What’s Difficult,"The fascination of what's difficultHas dried the sap out of my veins, and rentSpontaneous joy and natural contentOut of my heart. There's something ails our coltThat must, as if it had not holy bloodNor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and joltAs though it dragged road metal. My curse on playsThat have to be set up in fifty ways,On the day's war with every knave and dolt,Theatre business, management of men.I swear before the dawn comes round againI'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.",William Butler Yeats,Fear
The Circus Animals’ Desertion,"II sought a theme and sought for it in vain,I sought it daily for six weeks or so.Maybe at last being but a broken manI must be satisfied with my heart, althoughWinter and summer till old age beganMy circus animals were all on show,Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.IIWhat can I but enumerate old themes,First that sea-rider Oisin led by the noseThrough three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;But what cared I that set him on to ride,I, starved for the bosom of his fairy bride.And then a counter-truth filled out its play,`The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it,She, pity-crazed, had given her soul awayBut masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.I thought my dear must her own soul destroySo did fanaticism and hate enslave it,And this brought forth a dream and soon enoughThis dream itself had all my thought and love.And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the breadCuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;Heart mysteries there, and yet when all is saidIt was the dream itself enchanted me:Character isolated by a deedTo engross the present and dominate memory.Players and painted stage took all my loveAnd not those things that they were emblems of.IIIThose masterful images because completeGrew in pure mind but out of what began?A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slutWho keeps the till. Now that my ladder's goneI must lie down where all the ladders startIn the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.",William Butler Yeats,Surprise
The Fish,"Although you hide in the ebb and flow Of the pale tide when the moon has set, The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net, And how you have leaped times out of mind Over the little silver cords, And think that you were hard and unkind, And blame you with many bitter words.",William Butler Yeats,Anger
Among School Children,"II walk through the long schoolroom questioning;A kind old nun in a white hood replies;The children learn to cipher and to sing,To study reading-books and history,To cut and sew, be neat in everythingIn the best modern way—the children's eyesIn momentary wonder stare uponA sixty-year-old smiling public man.III dream of a Ledaean body, bentAbove a sinking fire, a tale that sheTold of a harsh reproof, or trivial eventThat changed some childish day to tragedy—Told, and it seemed that our two natures blentInto a sphere from youthful sympathy,Or else, to alter Plato's parable,Into the yolk and white of the one shell.IIIAnd thinking of that fit of grief or rageI look upon one child or t'other thereAnd wonder if she stood so at that age—For even daughters of the swan can shareSomething of every paddler's heritage—And had that colour upon cheek or hair,And thereupon my heart is driven wild:She stands before me as a living child.IVHer present image floats into the mind—Did Quattrocento finger fashion itHollow of cheek as though it drank the windAnd took a mess of shadows for its meat?And I though never of Ledaean kindHad pretty plumage once—enough of that,Better to smile on all that smile, and showThere is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.VWhat youthful mother, a shape upon her lapHoney of generation had betrayed,And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escapeAs recollection or the drug decide,Would think her son, did she but see that shapeWith sixty or more winters on its head,A compensation for the pang of his birth,Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?VIPlato thought nature but a spume that playsUpon a ghostly paradigm of things;Solider Aristotle played the tawsUpon the bottom of a king of kings;World-famous golden-thighed PythagorasFingered upon a fiddle-stick or stringsWhat a star sang and careless Muses heard:Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.VIIBoth nuns and mothers worship images,But those the candles light are not as thoseThat animate a mother's reveries,But keep a marble or a bronze repose.And yet they too break hearts—O PresencesThat passion, piety or affection knows,And that all heavenly glory symbolise—O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;VIIILabour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul,Nor beauty born out of its own despair,Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,How can we know the dancer from the dance?",William Butler Yeats,Anger
On a Political Prisoner,"She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers' touch And from her fingers ate its bit. Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became a bitter, an abstract thing, Her thought some popular enmity: Blind and leader of the blind Drinking the foul ditch where they lie? When long ago I saw her ride Under Ben Bulben to the meet, The beauty of her country-side With all youth's lonely wildness stirred, She seemed to have grown clean and sweet Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird: Sea-borne, or balanced in the air When first it sprang out of the nest Upon some lofty rock to stare Upon the cloudy canopy, While under its storm-beaten breast Cried out the hollows of the sea.",William Butler Yeats,Anger
No Second Troy,"Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?",William Butler Yeats,Anger
He wishes his Beloved were Dead,"Were you but lying cold and dead, And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words, Forgiving me, because you were dead: Nor would you rise and hasten away, Though you have the will of wild birds, But know your hair was bound and wound About the stars and moon and sun: O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one.",William Butler Yeats,Love
"To the States,","To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing? What deepening twilight—scum floating atop of the waters, Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol? What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your arctic freezings!) Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President? Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons; (With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake, South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)",Walt Whitman,Anger
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,"Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,Out of the Ninth-month midnight,Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,Down from the shower’d halo,Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,From the myriad thence-arous’d words,From the word stronger and more delicious than any,From such as now they start the scene revisiting,As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,A reminiscence sing.Once Paumanok,When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,Up this seashore in some briers,Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.Shine! shine! shine!Pour down your warmth, great sun!While we bask, we two together.Two together!Winds blow south, or winds blow north,Day come white, or night come black,Home, or rivers and mountains from home,Singing all time, minding no time,While we two keep together.",Walt Whitman,Sadness
Song of Myself: 36,"Stretch’d and still lies the midnight, Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer’d,The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,Near by the corpse of the child that serv’d in the cabin,The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl’d whiskers,The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,The hiss of the surgeon’s knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan,These so, these irretrievable.",Walt Whitman,Anger
O Captain! My Captain!,"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;                         But O heart! heart! heart!                            O the bleeding drops of red,                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,                                  Fallen cold and dead.O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;                         Here Captain! dear father!                            This arm beneath your head!                               It is some dream that on the deck,                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!                            But I with mournful tread,                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,                                  Fallen cold and dead.",Walt Whitman,Fear
Sometimes with One I Love,"Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love,But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one way or another(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,Yet out of that I have written these songs).",Walt Whitman,Joy
Song of Myself: 35,"Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?List to the yarn, as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to me.Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;Along the lower’d eve he came horribly raking us.We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’d,My captain lash’d fast with his own hands.We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water,On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported,The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.Our frigate takes fire,The other asks if we demand quarter?If our colors are struck and the fighting done?Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.Only three guns are in use,One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s mainmast,Two well serv’d with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.Not a moment’s cease,The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.Serene stands the little captain,He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.",Walt Whitman,Fear
from The Sleepers,"I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea, His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs, I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes, I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks. What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves? Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime of his middle-age? Steady and long he struggles, He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d, he holds out while his strength holds out, The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him, His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on rocks, Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.",Walt Whitman,Surprise
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing,"I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not, And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,) Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love; For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not.",Walt Whitman,Anger
A Noiseless Patient Spider,"A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.",Walt Whitman,Fear
Beat! Beat! Drums!,"Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,Into the school where the scholar is studying,Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.",Walt Whitman,Anger
"A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown","A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,’Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospitalEntering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down,At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster’s face is white as a lily,)Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o’er the scene fain to absorb it all,Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead,Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odor of blood,The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill’d,Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,An occasional scream or cry, the doctor’s shouted orders or calls,The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches,These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,The unknown road still marching.",Walt Whitman,Fear
America,"Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,Chair’d in the adamant of Time.",Walt Whitman,Joy
"Long, too long America","Long, too long America,Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)",Walt Whitman,Surprise
The World Below the Brine,"The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray, Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.",Walt Whitman,Fear
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night,"Vigil strange I kept on the field one night; When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave which your dear eyes return’d with a look I shall never forget, One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the ground, Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle, Till late in the night reliev’d to the place at last again I made my way, Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,) Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind, Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-field spreading, Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night, But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed, Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands, Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade—not a tear, not a word, Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier, As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole, Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death, I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,) Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear’d, My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop’d well his form, Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet, And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited, Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim, Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,) Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten’d, I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket, And buried him where he fell.",Walt Whitman,Anger
O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy,"O tan-faced prairie-boy,Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift,Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among the recruits,You came, taciturn, with nothing to give – we but look’d on each other,When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.",Walt Whitman,Sadness
As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life,"1 As I ebb’d with the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk’d where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok, Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems, Was seiz’d by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe. Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows, Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,   Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide, Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, These you presented to me you fish-shaped island, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk’d with that electric self seeking types.                                              2 As I wend to the shores I know not, As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck’d, As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, I too but signify at the utmost a little wash’d-up drift, A few sands and dead leaves to gather, Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift. O baffled, balk’d, bent to the very earth, Oppress’d with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch’d, untold, altogether unreach’d, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath. I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can, Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me, Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.                                              3 You oceans both, I close with you, We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing not why, These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all. You friable shore with trails of debris, You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot, What is yours is mine my father. I too Paumanok, I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been wash’d on your shores, I too am but a trail of drift and debris, I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island. I throw myself upon your breast my father, I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, I hold you so firm till you answer me something. Kiss me my father, Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love, Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I envy.                                              4 Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother, Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me, Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you. I mean tenderly by you and all, I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead, and following me and mine. Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses, Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, (See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last, See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,) Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, Buoy’d hither from many moods, one contradicting another, From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random, Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets, We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you, You up there walking or sitting, Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.",Walt Whitman,Anger
A Glimpse,"A glimpse through an interstice caught,Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.",Walt Whitman,Joy
"""Out of the rolling ocean the crowd""","Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,Whispering, I love you, before long I die,I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,For I could not die till I once look’d on you,For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.",Walt Whitman,Fear
When I Heard at the Close of the Day,"When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d,And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy,But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me, For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I was happy.",Walt Whitman,Joy
Gliding O'er All,"Gliding o'er all, through all,Through Nature, Time, and Space,As a ship on the waters advancing,The voyage of the soul—not life alone,Death, many deaths I'll sing.",Walt Whitman,Sadness
On the Beach at Night,"On the beach at night, Stands a child with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky. Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, And nigh at hand, only a very little above, Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades. From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, Watching, silently weeps. Weep not, child, Weep not, my darling, With these kisses let me remove your tears, The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition, Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again, The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure, The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine. Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter? Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars? Something there is, (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.",Walt Whitman,Love
Gliding O'er All,"Gliding o'er all, through all,Through Nature, Time, and Space,As a ship on the waters advancing,The voyage of the soul—not life alone,Death, many deaths I'll sing.",Walt Whitman,Sadness
Kosmos,"Who includes diversity and is Nature, Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth and the equilibrium also, Who has not look’d forth from the windows the eyes for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing, Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most majestic lover, Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the æsthetic or intellectual, Who having consider’d the body finds all its organs and parts good, Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body understands by subtle analogies all other theories, The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these States; Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons, Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.",Walt Whitman,Joy
The Bookshelf of the God of Infinite Space,"You would expect an uncountable number,Acres and acres of books in rowsLike wheat or gold bullion. Or that the words justAppear in the mind, like banner headlines.In fact there is one shelfHolding a modest number, ten or twelve volumes.No dust jackets, because — no dust.Covers made of gold or skinOr golden skin, or creosote or rain-Soaked macadam, or someMix of salt & glass. You turn a page& mountains rise, clouds drawn by childrenBubble in the sky, you are twentyAgain, trying to read a mapDissolving in your hands. I say You & meanMe, say God & mean Librarian — who after long researchOffers you a glass of water and an apple — You, grateful to discover your name,A footnote in that book.",Jeffrey Skinner,Joy
House of Shadows. Home of Simile,"One afternoon of summer rain   my hand skimmed a shelf and I found   an old florin. Ireland, 1950. We say like or as and the world is   a fish minted in silver and alloy, an outing for all the children,   an evening in the Sandford cinema,   a paper cone of lemonade crystals and say it again so we can see   androgyny of angels, edges to a circle,   the way the body works against the possible— and no one to tell us, now or ever,   why it ends, why   it always ends. I am holding   two whole shillings of nothing,   observing its heaviness, its uselessness. And how in the cool shadow of nowhere   a salmon leaps up to find a weir   it could not even know   was never there.",Eavan Boland,Fear
Asymmetries,I’m thinking about you and you’re humming while cutting a piece of wood.I’m positive you aren’t thinking about me which is fine as long as youaren’t thinking about yourself. I know and love the way you inhabitthis house and the occasions we mutually create. But I don’t knowthe man you picture when you see yourself walking aroundthe world inside your head and I’m jealousof the attention you pay that personwhom I suspectof being devious.,Rae Armantrout,Anger
Trail of Tears: Our Removal,"With lines unseen the land was broken.When surveyors came, we knewwhat the prophet had said was true,this land with unseen lines would be taken.So, you who live there now,don't forget to love it, thank itthe place that was once our forest,our ponds, our mosses,the swamplands with birds and more lowly creatures.As for us, we walked into the military strength of hungerand war for that land we still dream.As the ferry crossed the distance,or as the walkers left behind their loved ones,think how we took with us our cats and kittens,the puppies we loved. We were innocent of what we faced,along the trail. We took clothing, dishes,thinking there would be something to start a new life,believing justice lived in the world,and the horses, so many,one by one stolen, taken by the many thievesSo have compassion for that land at least.Every step we took was one away from the songs,old dances, memories, some of us dark and not speaking English,some of us white, or married to the dark, or children of translatorsthe half-white, all of us watched by America, all of uslonging for trees for shade, homing, rooting,even more for food along the hunger way.You would think those of us born laterwould fight for justice, for peace,for the new land, its trees being taken.You would thinkthe struggle would be overbetween the two worlds in this placethat is now our knowledge,our new belonging, our being,and we'd never again care for the notion of mapsor American wars, or the god of their sky,thinking of those things we were forced to leave behind,living country, stolen home,the world measured inch by inch, mile by mile,hectares, all measurements, even the trail of our tears.With all the new fierce light, heat, droughtthe missing water, you'd thinkin another red century, the old wisdommight exist if we considered enoughthat even before the new beliefswe were once whole,but now our bodies and minds remainthe measured geography.",Linda Hogan,Love
The Hastily Assembled Angel Falls at the Beginning of the World,Except most things weren’t clouds      everything thereWas clouds      the hastily assembled angelBefore he knew the word      clouds was the last wordHe heard the other angels shouting asThey shoved him      though he after he had fallenToo far to hear them he      saw their mouths mak-ing shapes that were not clouds      and when he saw thatThought That’s      something that isn’t clouds that      shouting After I’ve fallen too far to hear them don’tThey know      I’ve fallen too far to hear them now Or are we not together now beforeHe knew the word      in those few minutes the oth-er angels were assembling him      he namedThe things he saw with words that seemed to fit themNothing was heavenly a few things wereOcean and hole and monkeyapple heBefore the other angels shoved him      hadStarted combining words      but nobodyWould name the things he saw the way he named themAnd to the other angels all his namingWas noise they shouted      as they shoved him It’sAll clouds      what difference could it make      to the angelBuilt to monitor the Earth      from the surfaceOf  the Earth      what was or wasn’t true in HeavenThey shoved him then      they stared and then they shoutedAfter the disappearing figure allThe things they suddenly remembered      they hadForgotten to tell him      as they were hammer-ing him together as they hammered himTogether and behind them      but aboveBehind      a pinkish light that was or was-n’t God pulsed      like the heart of  one of  the creaturesGod hadn’t yet created though the angelsHad seen the creatures coming in the wavesThen covering the Earth      the angels hadSeen them      and didn’t want to be assignedTo live with them      and so had voted toBuild their own angel but they didn’t askPermission first instead they built him quick-ly      and as Gabriel asked God      if  thisNew angel could be sent instead to EarthFresh      eyes for a fresh world the other angelsShoved him the hastily assembled angelFrom the cloud and Heaven      he      the hastilyAssembled angel could see      farther thanThe other angels though he couldn’t under-stand what he saw as well      as the other angelsMight have      and as he fell he saw their mouths mak-ing shapes he saw the light behind them      pulsingAnd as he fell he watched the clouds becomingAbstract      as any other angel wouldFrom Heaven watch a species go extinctEven as dry land emerged from the waves below him,Shane McCrae,Fear
Oxtail Stew,"At five o’clock in the morning,I walked to work and passed the green pondsof Horizon Park where the last bluegill,caught on the low, slight bank,panted hard in the dark mud, crushed glass,sour bottle caps, whiskey,and the iron weight of heat and smog.This haze stared through eyesgray as the broken window paneson the cheap side of town,and when this haze held youand whispered in your ears its quiet tragedies,it stole your breath quick as time.This is where men gathered to sell peanuts,buckets of oranges, and roses,and they sat on the benches and watchedthe trucks drive by and disappear.What I want to say is simple:a man must do more than sell roseswhere the bums go and beg—he must keep something holy.He must breath the windsthat rustle the orchards of the valleywhere the white almond bloomsreplenish with their soft scent.He must learn from the Appaloosawhen she walks in from the fieldsand bows her head to a trough of waterthat reflects nothing but her eyes and the stars.Shoulder, fat, bone, and loose sheet metalbanged out a day-long cacophony.Twenty-eight pounds of spicehad to be mixed before the grinder was done.Mustard powder, paprika, salt,and chili powder boiled in my nose,in my eyes, and in the red throbof my hard nicked-up knuckles.By late morning the meat defrosted,and the boxes began their ooze.Pig parts became easy to recognize.Eighty pounds of guts, kidneys,and stomach fell across my chesteach time a box ripped apart.We dared not stop the music of our work:the clack of a clean pine pallet,pink meat and white fat ground to a pulp,sweetened, stuffed, and crimped,the chorizo boxed, the boxes labeled,stacked, and wrapped.At lunch, I watched Guillermo hunker over the tableand dig into his stew—carrots, potatoes,celery, oxtail, and gravy, made fromchili peppers and fat, smoldering in a ceramic bowl.Guillermo took out a white cotton napkinand spread it evenly across his lap,picked up a piece of sourdough rippedfrom a loaf and soaked the bread in the stewfor a long time . . . his own tired bodytaking back what the work took, and he ate.He sucked on chili peppers the color of bloodand took another bite of the bread.He sucked out the beef from the eyes of the bonesand gnawed on the soft marrow,and he drank hot coffee sweetened con canela.“Eloisa,” he said, “can cook,” and he touchedthe brown lace crocheted into the edgeof his cotton napkin, rubbed his gut, wiped the table,and walked out to complete his work.",David Dominguez,Fear
Advances,"seventy wingbeatsper second vagaries of vegetation, rosyanticipation Iturn the page without reading essence ofaccident what is the strongestmotive whatdrives the solar wind time’s not soold, dating onlyfrom the creation New England hascooled significantly, icycore with a sooty coating this icehard to break—the brainwill have to wait catharsis of thevulture, obligatoryvespers a bat, painted thecolor of joy, headdownward because the brain isheavy I put on music but don’t alwayslisten whether magma couldrise to where tones reachaudible frequencies modest success with a lateparasitic moth we will soon find out if all thisis true sudden drain on theheart, moredoubt, the big melt: anythinggone isreplaced",Keith Waldrop,Surprise
Litany,"Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant?I will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and I will eat it and callit a carolyn sandwich. Then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayon­naise and that is how you shall love me in my restaurantTom, will you come to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed?Yes, and I will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later,it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my babyTom, I am sitting on my dirt bike on the deck. Will you come out from the kitchenand watch the people with me?Yes, and then we will race to your bedroom. I will win and we will tangle upon your comforter while the sweat rains from our stomachs and fore­headsTom, the stars are sitting in tonight like gumball gems in a little girl’s jewelry box. Later can we walk to the duck pond?Yes, and we can even go the long way past the jungle gym. I will push you onthe swing, but promise me you’ll hold tight. If you fall I might disappearTom, can we make a baby together? I want to be a big pregnant woman with aloved face and give you a squalling red daughter.No, but I will come inside you and you will be my daughterTom, will you stay the night with me and sleep so close that we are one person?No, but I will lie down on your sheets and taste you. There will be feathersof you on my tongue and then I will never forget youTom, when we are in line at the convenience store can I put my hands in yourback pockets and my lips and nose in your baseball shirt and feel the crookof your shoulder blade?No, but later you can lie against me and almost touch me and when I go I willleave my shirt for you to sleep in so that always at night you will be pressedup against the thought of meTom, if I weep and want to wait until you need me will you promise that somedayyou will need me?No, but I will sit in silence while you rage, you can knock the chairs downany mountain. I will always be the same and you will always waitTom, will you climb on top of the dumpster and steal the sun for me? It’s justhanging there and I want it.No, it will burn my fingers. No one can have the sun: it’s on loan from God.But I will draw a picture of it and send it to you from Richmond and then youcan smooth out the paper and you will have a piece of me as well as the sunTom, it’s so hot here, and I think I’m being born. Will you come back fromRichmond and baptise me with sex and cool water?I will come back from Richmond. I will smooth the damp spiky hairs from theback of your neck and then I will lick the salt off it. Then I will leaveTom, Richmond is so far away. How will I know how you love me?I have left you. That is how you will know",Carolyn Creedon,Fear
Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary,Closed Mondaysis music    is menoff early from work    is waitingfor the chance at the chairwhile the eagle claws holesin your pockets    keepingtime    by the turningof rusty fans    steel flowers withcold breezes    is having nothingbetter to do    than guess at the yearsof hair    matted beneath the soiled capsof drunks    the pain of runninga fisted comb through stubbornknots    is the dark dirty lowdown blues    the tender headsof sons fresh from cornrows    allwonder at losing    half their heightis a mother gathering hair    for goodluck    for a soft wig    is the rounddifficulty of ears    the peachfaced boys asking Eddieto cut in parts and arrowswanting to have their names readfor just a few days    and among thinjazz    is the quick brush of a donehead    the black flood aroundyour feet    grandfathersstopping their games of ivorydominoes    just before they reach the boneyard    is winking widowers announcingcut it clean off    I’m through courtingand hair only gets in the way,Kevin Young,Love
The Cypress Broke,"The cypress is the tree’s grief and not                                 the tree, and it has no shadow because it is                                 the tree’s shadow                                       —Bassam HajjarThe cypress broke like a minaret, and slept onthe road upon its chapped shadow, dark, green,as it has always been. No one got hurt. The vehiclessped over its branches. The dust blewinto the windshields ... / The cypress broke, butthe pigeon in a neighboring house didn’t changeits public nest. And two migrant birds hovered abovethe hem of the place, and exchanged some symbols.And a woman said to her neighbor: Say, did you see a storm?She said: No, and no bulldozer either ... / And the cypressbroke. And those passing by the wreckage said:Maybe it got bored with being neglected, or it grew oldwith the days, it is long like a giraffe, and littlein meaning like a dust broom, and couldn’t shade two lovers.And a boy said: I used to draw it perfectly,its figure was easy to draw. And a girl said: The sky todayis incomplete because the cypress broke.And a young man said: But the sky today is completebecause the cypress broke. And I saidto myself: Neither mystery nor clarity,the cypress broke, and that is allthere is to it: the cypress broke!",Mahmoud Darwish,Anger
The Parlement of Fowls,"(excerpt)Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe,That hast this wintres wedres overshake,And driven away the longe nyghtes blake!Saynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte,Thus syngen smale foules for thy sake:Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe,That hast this wintres wedres overshake.Wel han they cause for to gladen ofte,Sith ech of hem recovered hath hys make;Ful blissful mowe they synge when they wake:Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softeThat hast this wintres wedres overshakeAnd driven away the longe nyghtes blake!",Geoffrey Chaucer,Joy
Work Shy,"To be poor and raise skinny children. To own nothing but skinny clothing. Skinny food falls in between cracks. Friends cannot visit your skinny home. They cannot fit through the door. Your skinny thoughts evaporate into the day or the night that you cannot see with your tiny eyes. God sticks you with the smallest pins and your blood, the red is diluted. Imagine a tiny hole, the other side of which is a fat world and how lost you would feel. Of course, I’m speaking to myself. How lost I would feel, and how dangerous.",Alex Phillips,Anger
The Destruction of Sennacherib,"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.   Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,That host with their banners at sunset were seen:Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.   For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!   And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.   And there lay the rider distorted and pale,With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.   And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!",Lord Byron (George Gordon),Anger
The Mother’s Charge,"She raised her head. With hot and glittering eye, ‘I know,’ she said, ‘that I am going to die. Come here, my daughter, while my mind is clear. Let me make plain to you your duty here; My duty once — I never failed to try—   But for some reason I am going to die.’ She raised her head, and, while her eyes rolled wild, Poured these instructions on the gasping child: ‘Begin at once — don’t iron sitting down—   Wash your potatoes when the fat is brown—   Monday, unless it rains — it always pays To get fall sewing done on the right days—   A carpet-sweeper and a little broom—   Save dishes — wash the summer dining-room With soda — keep the children out of doors—   The starch is out — beeswax on all the floors—   If girls are treated like your friends they stay—   They stay, and treat you like their friends — the way To make home happy is to keep a jar —   And save the prettiest pieces for the star In the middle — blue’s too dark — all silk is best—   And don’t forget the corners — when they’re dressed Put them on ice — and always wash the chest Three times a day, the windows every week—   We need more flour — the bedroom ceilings leak—   It’s better than onion — keep the boys at home—   Gardening is good — a load, three loads of loam—   They bloom in spring — and smile, smile always, dear—   Be brave, keep on — I hope I’ve made it clear.’ She died, as all her mothers died before. Her daughter died in turn, and made one more.",Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman,Anger
“I want you to leave your body now” he tells me,his voice not so much hypnotic as reachingfor the hypnoticbut I leave it anyway sitting in the upright chairof the windowless roomfor a place higher up that’s not quitethe windowless room—though I’m aware of my body’s particular kindof breathing down theredressed in my favorite shirt and somehowup here I’m dressedin that same shirt which is I feel suddenlybecoming very importantits color pertaining to a quiet hue of knowingI can’t quite explainand I do not think about the money I havegiven him the man who is speakingbut I’m looking instead down on a yellowkitchen in Swindonupon a tiny remembered body I have foundcrying or about to cryin little white shorts and there is carpetstreaked with blueand there is the noise of a terrible thingthat is happeningand there is summer outside with itsother children“He doesn’t understand does he”says the man“he is so young” and I understand the shirtthat he will have to grow throughall of the terrible things to fitI can feel my body nowfilling up the space inside its soft andlavender-scented cotton,Wayne Holloway-Smith,Joy
Narrowing Hallway,"The unkempt beard of the fearsome mullahoverwhelms the two aging poets from the periphery,the far-flung provinces of Iran and Iraq.They stand tiptoe, toe deep in the master culture,arguing in an emptying, narrowing hallway,in the high imperial language of their poetry,over what became of the muffled, cuffed bulbulor of the straw-stuffed, stone-eyed mynah,over the proper ornithology for the symbols of woe.",Raza Ali Hasan,Fear
Unemployment (2),"Another day come, add it To the list, theNot to do list.Son of mine,I was rambling across the undercarpetingStrewn with imperceptible tacksIn one shapeless slip-onWhen a pain rang out in my flankAnd I fell to,Braying,But who should answer but no one.I lost good cause that day, don’t ask,Let us sit a bit in this ill-starredSuit in the form-fillingChamber of subtraction,Listing.I haven’t another trip around the sun Left in me. Speak to meSon, vague one. For this is where it thickens,Me here and it there and me there and them hereAnd you with the soul.I’ll cross that gravid boneyard All the day poking Radishes for remembrance.For this is a private matter Between a man and his scaffoldingAnd it shall remain so Privation permitting.",Mark Levine,Fear
I Walked in the House,"I walked in the houseon the flat aspect of the woodI took rectangular instruction of the wood when I walked I turned at the walland on the flat I moved steadily unimpeded, not tumbling, climbing or short of breath.I walked in ease on the flat.                                                                 Something electric charged into our accountand zinged out of it, pre-instructed and paid for the house. I felthouse on my heel then instep and toe.I had a bad foot and I paidto get it fixed so I could walk here.I paid for the house and I paid for thefoot that touches it. I paid to bedirected rectangularly and down a hall.I curved my body to directmy waste through a hole. I am helpedand paying for it. all of me exchanged,housing exchange.                                         I saw us standing   up in the world.And we sank into   exchange  vibrating transparency                 like a sea nettle              afloat in the night sea the edges of the sea-veil      tensed slapping above, visiblewhen the wind crevassed and doilied                                                             If there is a ceiling to exchange                                                                        and above it sky                                                          I don’t can’t see it and I don’t know why                                                                        I want it                                                               above my house which is crystalline gel edges                  because the whole world’s disappeared                                                                                              viewed as exchange      I broke my arm and the windowintegrally to exchange. I paid someone to fix me and improvethe window, triple-glazing it, and warmerI rebounded       knit in knit up.All parties to the event’s aftermath                     were paid.      Suppose I did not go in pain                   to hospital, did not visit and revisitfor x-rays, left the window smashed                  and sat here by it,            stuck up                among the crystalline                            and cold.I was painful and determinednot to play, and with the other unemployedweighed —                        the ghostshipsagged with holes.                                                 —So you want to be a thing outside exchange?                                               Drain out the dying bath                                              see what color you are?     The coin changed hands  identical      with a willto transact.",Catherine Wagner,Anger
Echo,"1 My ear amps whistle like they are singingto Echo, goddess of noise,the raveled knot of tongues,of blaring birds, consonant crumbsof dull doorbells, sounds swampedin my misty hearing aid tubes.Gaudí believed in holy soundand built a cathedral to contain it,pulling hearing men from their kneesas though atheism is a kind of deafness.Who would turn down God?Even though I have not heardthe golden decibels of angels,I have been living in a noiselesspalace where the doorbell is pulsatinglight and I am able to answer.                                      2What?a word that keeps lookingin mirrors like it is in lovewith its own volume.What?I am a one-word question,a one-manpatience test.What?What languagewould we speakwithout ears?What?Is paradisea world whereI hear everything?What?How will my brainknow what to holdif it has too many arms?                                      3The day I clear out my dead father’s flat,I throw away boxes of molding LPs, Garvey,Malcolm X, Mandela, speeches on vinyl.I find a TDK cassette tape on the shelf,smudged green label Raymond Speaking.I play the tape in his vintage cassette playerand hear my two-year-old voice chanting my name Antroband dad’s laughter crackling in the backgroundnot knowing I couldn’t hear the word “bus”and wouldn’t until I got my hearing aids.Now I sit here listening to the space of deafness — Antrob Antrob Antrob                                      4And no one knew what I was missinguntil a doctor gave me a handful of Legosand said to put a brick on the tableevery time I heard a sound.After the test I still held enough bricksin my hand to build a houseand call it my sanctuary,call it the reason I sat in saintly silenceduring my grandfather’s sermons when he preachedthe good news, I only heardas Babylon’s babbling echoes.                                      5          And if you don’t catch nothing          then something wrong with your ears —          they been tuned to de wrong frequency                                   — Kei Miller",Raymond Antrobus,Joy
I Wish I Want I Need,"The black kitten cries at her bowlmeek meek and the gray one glowersfrom the windowsill. My hand on the canto serve them. First day of spring.Yesterday I drove my little mother for hoursthrough wet snow. Her eightieth birthday.What she wanted was that ride with me—shopping, gossiping, mulling old grievances,1930, 1958, 1970.How cruel the world has been to her,how uncanny she’s survived it.In her bag, a birthday cardfrom “my Nemesis,” signed Sincerelywith love—",Gail Mazur,Anger
After a Rainstorm,"Because I have come to the fence at night, the horses arrive also from their ancient stable. They let me stroke their long faces, and I note in the light of the now-merging moonhow they, a Morgan and a Quarter, have been by shake-guttered raindrops spotted around their rumps and thus made Appaloosas, the ancestral horses of this place.Maybe because it is night, they are nervous, or maybe because they too sense what they have become, they seem to be waiting for me to say somethingto whatever ancient spirits might still abide here, that they might awaken from this strange dream, in which there are fences and stables and a man who doesn’t know a single word they understand.",Robert Wrigley,Fear
Mason Jars by the Window,"Yes, but beyond happiness what is there?The question has not yet been answered.No great quotations have issued forthFrom there, we have no still photographsFull of men in fine leather hiking boots,Women with new-cut walking sticks.So yes, it is the realm of thin tigersProwling, out to earn even more stripes;It is the smell of seven or eight perfumesNot currently available in America.Maybe this is wrong, of course.The place may after all be populated,Or over-populated, with dented trash cansIn the streets and news of genital herpesIn every smart article in every slick magazineEverywhere in the place.But everybody there smiles—Laughs, even, every time a breath can be caught.This is all true.Beyond happiness, it’s all the same,Things come back to where we are now.Of course maybe this is wrong,But don’t believe it: a happiness exists,All right, I have seen it for myself,Touched it, touched the womanWho with her daughter together keepAmmonia in Mason jars by the side window.They will throw it all in his face GodDamn him if he ever comes close again.",Alberto Ríos,Sadness
Acceptance Speech,"This time I’m not going to say a thingabout deity. It’s not the blizzard,it’s three days after. Trinkle from thawingroofs, ruined crocus pronging through.Ruin, I promise, won’t be mentioned again.Trees, sure, still begging in the road, splitto the bole but this isn’t about the chainsaw.A pruning saw will have to do. The puppetsaren’t hanging themselves in each other’sstrings. Everyone’s easily identifiablebeneath the funny mask. Somewhere in Oregon,Mary has another month to go, she’s comfortablein any position for thirty-five seconds. Lulu,we know you’re in there but no one’sblaming you for reluctance to come out.Poetry is the grinding of a multiplicitythrowing off sparks, wrote Artaudand look what that got him: toothlessnessand shock therapy. Your dad, who has the worstteeth of anyone I know, once ordered eggplantin a steakhouse. Do not order eggplantin a steakhouse turned out to be morethan aphoristicly true. Do not spend a lotof time in an asylum writing cruel poemsif you can help it, one Artaud is enough.In Kandinsky’s Blue 2, there’s a shapein two rows of shapes that seems okayalthough to the right’s a capsized canoefull of mathematicians, to the left a bowabout to launch the killer astrolabe.By what manner is the soul joined tothe body? How about climbing a ladderof fire? No thanks. On TV, a rhino’slying in some red dust, munching a thorn.You wouldn’t think he could ejaculatefor half an hour straight, but you’d be wrong.See that cloud, it might weigh 10,000 poundswhich is about average for a cloud.Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.Tony says Mary is always writing about the sacred.Talcum powder, binoculars, this decimatedplanet. I know, a promise has been madebut Tony’s been sick for years and no oneknows with what. Flax oil, bark tinctures,corticosteroids. He’s not exactly someoneyou’d trust to drive your car, but still.Something awful’s coming, isn’t it?Would it help if I said Amen?",Dean Young,Surprise
"A Red, Red Rose","O my Luve is like a red, red rose    That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody    That’s sweetly played in tune. So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,    So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear,    Till a’ the seas gang dry. Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,    And the rocks melt wi’ the sun; I will love thee still, my dear,    While the sands o’ life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only luve!    And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my luve,    Though it were ten thousand mile.",Robert Burns,Love
Eating the Avocado,"Now I know that I’ve never describedanything, not one single thing, notthe flesh of the avocado which darkensso quickly, though if you scrapewhat’s been exposed to the air it’s new-greenbeneath like nothing ever happened.I want to describe this evening, thoughit’s not spectacular. The baby babblingin the other room over the dinand whistle of a football game, and nowthe dog just outside the door, scratching,rattling the tags on her collar, the cargoing by, far away but loud, a car withouta muffler, and the sound of the babyreturning again, pleasure and weight.I want to describe the baby. I want to describethe baby for many hours to anyonewho wishes to hear me. My feelings for hertake me so far inside myself I can see the pureholiness in motherhood, and it makes meburn with success and fear, the hole hercoming has left open, widening. Last nightwe fed her some of the avocado I’ve justfinished eating while writing this poem.Her first food. I thought my heart might burst,knowing she would no longer be madeentirely of me, flesh of my flesh. Startledin her amusing way by the idea of eating,she tried to take it in, but her mouthpushed it out. And my heart did burst.",Carrie Fountain,Surprise
Barter,"Life has loveliness to sell,     All beautiful and splendid things,Blue waves whitened on a cliff,     Soaring fire that sways and sings,And children's faces looking upHolding wonder like a cup.Life has loveliness to sell,     Music like a curve of gold,Scent of pine trees in the rain,     Eyes that love you, arms that hold,And for your spirit's still delight,Holy thoughts that star the night.Spend all you have for loveliness,     Buy it and never count the cost;For one white singing hour of peace     Count many a year of strife well lost,And for a breath of ecstasyGive all you have been, or could be.",Sara Teasdale,Joy
At the Altar,"That bag you packed mewhen you sent meto the universe—camp after camp I’ve opened itdebating whether to unpack—        Not yet, not yet—Why did I feel so much in itwas dangerous on the playground,too good for everyday,feel those splendid fireworkshazardous to institutions,unmannerly to etiquette,so that, time after time,I found myself saying       Not yet? At each new place I faced it,it suggested,Here spread out your things,put on this coat,open this bottle—       No, not yet . . .sometimes throwing something out,giving things away,lightening my load. . . . The more I pull out,the more it seems, some days,is left inside,the heavier it is. Sometimes I think this packageis almost a doorthe opening of whichcareening across heavencould be fatal. Some days now I wonder if I’ll everdare face my given garments—permanently wrinkled,surely out of date—your travel-thoughtwasting in its tissue, flesh-corrupt—till I’ve absorbed it,like those stitches that dissolvein an incisionwhere something’s been removed.",Eleanor Ross Taylor,Anger
Swapping Minds,"(for Vanessa)Melissa and I were sitting   by the little lake in Green   Park in London playing   “swapping minds.” It’s anold game that came down from   the Lowlands. It was a fine   day so we had brought   a little picnic. Melissa   makes wonderful pâté, asgood as anything from Fortnum   & Masson. Yummy. And we had   a half bottle of Chardonnay   between us.Here is how the game of   “swapping minds” goes. It’s   not a child’s game, it’s   very intellectual, or should   I say psychological. Just   imagine Melissa and I are   talking. She says something   to me, “James why are you   always so arrogant?” But,   obviously that’s not what   she is thinking. To answer   her I must try to imagine   what she was thinking when   she asked that. I must swap   minds with her.I ventured the following:   “Melissa, you have the mostlovely white skin in England,   you must be careful   not to get sunburned.Melissa: “James, why do you   pretend you are Scots when   you’re really of Irish descent?”James: “Melissa, are you   remembering the handsome   Russian boy you met in the   Hermitage on your trip to   Russia and he took you to have   an ice cream with him?”Melissa: “James, did theother boys in school tease   you because you were so bad   at games?”James: “Do you really love   me or are you just flirting?”Melissa: “I’m sorry, James,   but the response is in your   mind, not in mine.”That was the end of the   “swapping game” for that   day, and such a happy day   it was, there in Green Park,   watching the ducks on the   pond.",James Laughlin,Joy
Winter,"I don’t know what to say to you, neighbor,as you shovel snow from your part of our street   neat in your Greek black. I’ve waited for   chance to find words; now, by chance, we meet.We took our boys to the same kindergarten,   thirteen years ago when our husbands went.Both boys hated school, dropped out feral, dropped in   to separate troubles. You shift snow fast, back bent,   but your boy killed himself, six days dead.My boy washed your wall when the police were done.   He says, “We weren’t friends?” and shakes his head,   “I told him it was great he had that gun,”and shakes. I shake, close to you, close to you.   You have a path to clear, and so you do.",Marie Ponsot,Anger
Song: “You charm'd me not with that fair face”,"from An Evening's LoveYou charm'd me not with that fair face       Though it was all divine: To be another's is the grace,       That makes me wish you mine.    The Gods and Fortune take their part       Who like young monarchs fight; And boldly dare invade that heart       Which is another's right.    First mad with hope we undertake       To pull up every bar; But once possess'd, we faintly make       A dull defensive war.    Now every friend is turn'd a foe       In hope to get our store: And passion makes us cowards grow,       Which made us brave before.",John Dryden,Anger
Anathema,"I never recline in splendor,I never take repose. The eyesof an old woman are blueand stick to me like insects toa screen. She is not hating me,though there are those who hate me,so I never lie in repose for fearthat if I agree with the vulnerabilityof sleep, I'll make my own murder.I don't embrace the unconsciousor analyze my dreams. The eyesof people who hate me might bespiders crawling on my hands,or snails that leave their shells,but I will not allow their acidictongues to touch me. I believein ghosts only now that her blueeyes stick to me like humidity.I will not outgrow my spite,though I read books that instructme to. No, I'll always lie with mysleep beside me like a knife.I forgot my spite, once, onlyto wish I had not: He lay meupon the bed, crossed my armsacross my chest, then fell to me,pressing a book between us.I never lie in repose. I am nota portrait. But I think so stillmy joints ache. One day, heshall not be the same (as I havenever been the same), and weshall read upon his stone a verseattributed to my name. Thisis my foresight and my fright,blooming red in his eye's white.",Cate Marvin,Anger
Playthings,"Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.Perhaps you glance at me and think, ""What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!""Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my strength over things I never can obtain.In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am playing a game.",Rabindranath Tagore,Sadness
Account,"The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,The time when I was among their adherentsWho strut victoriously, unsuspecting.But all of them would have one subject, desire,If only my own—but no, not at all; alas,I was driven because I wanted to be like others.I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.The history of my stupidity will not be written.For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.Berkeley, 1980.",Czeslaw Milosz,Sadness
Revolution,"I would not have gotten in this boat with you.I would notexceptwhere else was thereat the dock’s endto go?The waterwas cold.I would not have let you row the boat.I could seewhat kind of man you were.I would not butwho was there to choosebetweenyou and me?I would not have let you throw away the oars.I knew what would happen next,exceptwhat else was there to do,strugglein a boat with a leakover cold water?",Susan Griffin,Anger
Bright Blue Self-Portrait,"I thank the spiders’ webs and the circus dancers who stain our eyes withRapid movements and authorize our handcuffs to make no distinctionBetween night and day or love and hate.No one will know the sum of our arduous daily separations from bed toWork. These pillars actually belong to you since I have not counted themOr know any more than you do where they are or in what country theyStill exist. We can put all our concerns into a loaf of bread and FrenchKisses, go to movies and watch the splashing milk on the screen imitatethe forest in the moonlight. Why all the fuss about the patrons becomingFeathers, discharging their ideas of nobility on the evening news? ThereAre no lights in the theater just soft snow from the balcony that is theLittle red schoolhouse where all this began.Actually it was because of you I did not attend as often as I should have.I was too embarrassed to face you across the clay modeling tables since IAlways felt like the clay in your hands was a cartoon version of my teenYears, dear slippery-fish ladies of the sleepy west.Don’t forget, my early life will be yours, too,With its self-descriptions of poetic justice,The tiny creatures we write about can describe themselves in the mossWe leave behind.",Frank Lima,Surprise
Dreams of Avenging the Dogs,"You and I thigh deep in Suwannee River then in a bathtub. Spanish moss clogsthe drain and a man carrying a green towel interrupts. We send him away oncemore knowing he'll return to watch. We're photographers shooting on locationfor Sylvia Plath's upcoming book, Savage Beauty—wrong poet or wrong book,I know, depending on how you look at it—however, I'm the one who is whitethis time, you're darker, maybe Quechua Indian or Spanish, like actor AntonioBanderas, with very defined stomach muscles and a slick throb of a penis.Years later I write a book about our affair. They bring me on one of thosedaytime talk shows, and before being reunited, we are kept in separate rooms, thetelevision split screen, green-towel man in the audience. I'm still white, so are you,both of us middle-aged with freckles and strawberry-blonde hair. Later I'm theviewer at home thinking, Like hell they'll fall for each other.",Esther Lee,Anger
Harvest of Death,"(Civil War Photography by T. O’Sullivan, 1866)Raisin-black blood dries on their faces.Thick wool clothes.Lumps of bloated bodieslying on their backs. Mouths open. Chinspointing to the sky.As though blown over backward.Or turned. Fingers swollen.Boots and rifles missing.Coats and jackets pulled upexposing gray shirts, bloody underwear. The sky drifts toward sap green.No fences. No stone walls.",John Spaulding,Sadness
Robo,"""Was Andalusia here or there? On the land . . . or in the poem?""                                                                               —Mahmoud DarwishI must admit to this outright theft.Before the crickets could impede me,I reached outside my windowto grab as much of Andalusia asI could in the palm of my hand.I took the evening's silverfrom the olive trees, the yellow slumberfrom the lemons, the recipe for gazpacho.I made a small incision in my heartand slipped in as much as my leftand right ventricles could hold.I reached for a pen and a piece of paperto ease-out the land into this poem.I closed the small incision in my heartand closed the wooden shuttersof my window.",Nick Carbó,Fear
Winter,"Behold the gloomy tyrant’s awful formBinding the captive earth in icy chains;His chilling breath sweeps o’er the watery plains,Howls in the blast, and swells the rising storm.See from its centre bends the rifted tower,Threat’ning the lowly vale with frowning pride,O’er the scared flocks that seek its sheltering side,A fearful ruin o’er their heads to pour.While to the cheerful hearth and social boardContent and ease repair, the sons of wantReceive from niggard fate their pittance scant;And where some shed bleak covert may afford,Wan poverty, amidst her meagre hostCasts round her haggard eyes, and shivers at the frost.",Anne Hunter,Joy
Amor Fati,"Little soul,you have wanderedlost a long time.The woods all dark now,birded and eyed.Then a light, a cabin, a fire, a door standing open.The fairy tales warn you:Do not go in,you who would eat will be eaten.You go in. You quicken.You want to have feet.You want to have eyes.You want to have fears.",Jane Hirshfield,Fear
A Walk in the River,"A few companions had been doing too much talking beside the purple water. The troupe, panic-stricken, ran away, and I found I was incapable of following them. I stepped into the water and the depths turned luminous; faraway ferns could just be seen. The reflections of other dark plants stopped them rising to the surface. Red threads took on all sorts of shapes, caught in the invisible and doubtless powerful currents. A plaster-cast woman advancing caused me to make a gesture which was to take me far. Translated from the French",René Magritte,Fear
Ode to a Drone,"Hell-raiser, razor-featheredrisers, windhover overPeshawar,power'sjoystick-blithethousand-mile scythe,proxy executioner'sproxy axpinged by a proxy server,winged victory,pilot cipherunburdened by aughtbut fuel and bombs,fool of God, savageidiot savantsucking your benumbedtrigger-fingergamer's thumb",Amit Majmudar,Anger
Though that Men do Call it Dotage,"Though that men do call it dotage,Who loveth not wanteth courage;And whosoever may love get,From Venus sure he must it fetOr else from her which is her heir,And she to him must seem most fair.With eye and mind doth both agree.There is no boot: there must it be.The eye doth look and represent,But mind afformeth with full consent.Thus am I fixed without grudge:Mine eye with heart doth me so judge.Love maintaineth all noble courage.Who love disdaineth is all of the village:Such lovers—though they take pain—It were pity they should obtain,For often times where they do sueThey hinder lovers that would be true.For whoso loveth should love but once.Change whoso will, I will be none.","Henry VIII, King of England",Joy
Had Death Not Had Me in Tears,"Had death not had me in tearsI would have seen the bargeson life's stream sail.I would have heard sorrow songsin groves where the road was lostlongwhere men foot prints mix with other men foot printsBy the road I wait""death is better, death is better""came the songI am by the roadsidelooking for the roaddeath is better, death is much betterHad death not had me in tearsI would have seen the bargesI would have found the roadand heard the sorrow songs.The land wreathes in rhythmwith your soul, caressed by historyand cruel geographylandscape ineffable yet screamingeloquent resonant like the drumsof after harvests.We pile rocks on terracing loveCarry the pithy clothto cover the hearths of our mother.Come now, you lucky onescome to the festival of corn and lambto the finest feast of this landcome, now,your lovers have unfurledtheir clothstheir thighs glistening like golden knivesready for the plunging,for the plentiful loving time.To whom shall I turnto what shall I tell my woes ?My kinsmen, the desert treedenied us sustenancelong before the drought.To whom shall I turnto whom shall I tell my woes?Some say tell the mother goatshe too is my kinswomanelemental sister of your clanBut I cannot tell the mother goatfor she is not here.",Kofi Awoonor,Anger
Coquí,"One tiny tree frogwith big eyessings happily,“Kokee! Kokee!”His brother comes to bother.Coquí doesn't push him.Coquí doesn't bite him.Coquí tells him,“Kokee-Kee! Kokee-Kee!”Two tiny tree frogswith big eyessing happily,“Kokee! Kokee!”",Carmen Bernier-Grand,Fear
As If Made of Blue Legos,"In inaccurate skin,among hologram trees,fresh from the tundra of dreams,I hear public television saythat Jesus was trilingual.Billie Holiday singsthe loss of plotliness,the loss of onomatopoeiabreath.Doris asks if I’ll touchher titanium humerus—I do.I go to Sheboygan to stand inEmery Blagdon's ""The Healing                                                                Machine,"" which was brought in                                                                    pieces from the Nebraska Plains.Its coffee can klieg lights' grace                                                                       and copper wire sculptures                                                                          leave burns all over me.      Death is like Russia:                                                                                        beautiful, cold, expansive,                                                                           expensive. Ephesus says:                                                                             even marble turns to chalk.                                                                          Aldebaran is nearing                                                                                 the end of its life.                                                                                        Jupiter and the moon are                                                                              the closest they'll be until 2026.                                                                   It's 25-below wind chill. Winds                                                                    push iced piers into houses.                                                                               My wounds smell like strawberries.                                                                 Jim who once saw a UFO and was too tired to tell anyone,who rode a tiger, and                                                                            slept with his cornet's mouthpiecestenciled on his lips, was a lifelongIndiana water garden gang member,Jim who delivered a babyfrom my body, Jim, impresarioof poems, parking tickets, andsky-blue hydrangeas, Jim who""wore a crown of snow,""Jim's ashes change the garden.Who can sleep with bandedJupiter so close to the moon?",Susan Firer,Joy
How We Made a New Art on Old Ground,"A famous battle happened in this valley.                        You never understood the nature poem.   Till now. Till this moment—if these statements                        seem separate, unrelated, follow this   silence to its edge and you will hear                        the history of air: the crispness of a fern   or the upward cut and turn around of                        a fieldfare or thrush written on it.   The other history is silent: The estuary                        is over there. The issue was decided here:   Two kings prepared to give no quarter.                        Then one king and one dead tradition.   Now the humid dusk, the old wounds                        wait for language, for a different truth:   When you see the silk of the willow                        and the wider edge of the river turn   and grow dark and then darker, then                        you will know that the nature poem   is not the action nor its end: it is                        this rust on the gate beside the trees, onthe cattle grid underneath our feet,                        on the steering wheel shaft: it is   an aftermath, an overlay and even in                        its own modest way, an art of peace:I try the word distance and it fills with                        sycamores, a summer's worth of pollen   And as I write valley straw, metal                        blood, oaths, armour are unwritten.   Silence spreads slowly from these words                        to those ilex trees half in, half out   of shadows falling on the shallow ford                        of the south bank beside Yellow Island   as twilight shows how this sweet corrosion                        begins to be complete: what we see   is what the poem says:                        evening coming—cattle, cattle-shadows—and whin bushes and a change of weather                        about to change them all: what we see is howthe place and the torment of the place are                        for this moment free of one another.",Eavan Boland,Anger
The Man Who Gave Birth to a Panda,"He had to have it, his mother told him. How could he not, with so few left in the world? He felt heaviest at night with the miracle of it. He was a vessel now. A receptacle for a threatened being. What if he rose too fast and killed it? Or maybe his stillness would do it, too much sitting around, stunned and hungry. And what if the bear emerged alive and another formed in its place, would he have to have that one, too, and another one after that?  He dreamed of the panda’s tiny eyes opening inside him, the doctor’s wide incision, a whirring pain, and then the furry thing emerging, the bear turning to him as to a stranger and whether that would be it—his bit part in the history of the future.",Idra Novey,Surprise
Lazy,"I don’t say things I don’t want to sayor chew the fat with fat cats just because. With favor-givers who want favors back,I tend to pass on going for the ask.I send, instead, a series of regrets,slip the winding snares that people lay.The unruffledness I feel as a result,the lank repose, the psychic field of ryeswayed in wavy air, is my respite among the shivaree of clanging egoson the packed commuter train again tonight.Sapping and demeaning—it takes a lotto get from bed to work and back to bed. I barely go an hour before I’m caughtwincing at the way that woman laughsor he keeps clucking at his magazine. And my annoyance fills me with annoyance.It’s laziness that lets them seem unreal—a radio with in-and-out reception blaring like hell when it finally hits a station.The song that’s on is not the one I’d hoped for, so I wait distractedly for what comes next.",David Yezzi,Surprise
Leda,"Where the slow river   meets the tide,a red swan lifts red wingsand darker beak,and underneath the purple downof his soft breastuncurls his coral feet.Through the deep purpleof the dying heatof sun and mist,the level ray of sun-beamhas caressedthe lily with dark breast,and flecked with richer goldits golden crest.Where the slow lifting   of the tide,   floats into the river   and slowly drifts   among the reeds,   and lifts the yellow flags,   he floats   where tide and river meet.   Ah kingly kiss—no more regret   nor old deep memories   to mar the bliss;   where the low sedge is thick,   the gold day-lily   outspreads and rests   beneath soft fluttering   of red swan wingsand the warm quiveringof the red swan's breast.",H. D.,Joy
Epilogue,For my daughter,Steve Gehrke,Sadness
"The helicopter,","The helicopter,a sort of controlled silver leafdropped lightly into the clearing.The searchlights swung, the little girl,the little girl was crying, her mother, a girl herself,was giving birth, the forest dropped birdseeds of milk.Then the helicopter lifted away,the mother rested.                                    Like him who came to us empty-handed,who came, it seemed, with nothing,Joseph Cornell—          makinga shoebox universe to put it all in.",Jean Valentine,Sadness
Captain Haddock vs. the PTA,"Bewildered Saint of the curse, bulbous",Amy Beeder,Fear
An Institute Is Closing,"I’m not in with this mystery. Somebody steady me.                       Cool ocean breezes don’t make me laugh.               I’m in with noisy metal little nils. A million apologies.                                  I must have made more.                           You were sensitive, you needed them              No you weren’t and you didn’t. In fact . . . oh forget it!                 In the middle of the ocean reflected with the moon,                 good place to show; probably no one knows you there.       Your leaving, the thrown rope up to sky, climbed up for real goodbye.          I realized my reason insufficient; you must have considered this.             How my specific lean to you smelled like an old paper cup                      of funny water and you were not very thirsty.                    You came unbidden initially and often. A field                and flickering wicks of foxes from here to there. You.                            Holding Hell at bay. Back to ground,                          I see you on the moon with your mirror                                catching action on the parallax.                                      Some kind of wise guy.",Ish Klein,Joy
[When the bed is empty ... ],"When the bed is empty, we pull the shades to block light,light of resemblance to remembery, long light of waiting,an impatience in the glows of it. The here of the now and the glowthat days make in the room, without the body but with the stenchof it. So we say, vacancy and abject,against the was, againsta philosophy of once and then not. Not-being against.A child once grew here. As lines on a wall. Asgrowing without knowing what would one day not be. Agnawing grows. Grew and was. Protection is curled. Motion-less. I envy her in her room. Hers with paint and dolls and hand-prints. Great green and glowing under blankets with a handthat nurtures the heart of the mouth, purrs into mouth, lovesthe heart. Heart beating within another—blushing blood—God, the beating, lit, and doing what it does.",Dawn Lundy Martin,Fear
Euphorias,"I heard a child, a little under four years old, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits, answer, “It is laughing, talking, and kissing.”—CHARLES DARWIN, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals1.   WALDORF-ASTORIA EUPHORIA,THE JOY OF BIG CITIES       Joy, when intense, leads to various purposeless       movements—to dancing about, clapping the       hands, stamping, etc.",Philip Appleman,Joy
The Moonlight,"That night the moon rosein the window. Its lighttouched the pane and spreadover the floor. The girlsclimbed out of their bedsand gathered in the glow,where their hands came alive.Their chatter filled their chestswith such gladness it flowedout past the sentry girlat the door and downthe corridor until it struckthe matron’s ears. She rockedforward, enraged, and thundered upthe corridor. The sentry girlgave the alarm. They flewfor their beds. The matronburst in. Her arm swungand connected. A girl dropped.The hand of the moonwent to the girl, tappingher on the shoulder, tappingto no avail. It withdrew,gliding back to the windowand out. When the suncame up, its blaze seethinginto the floor, the girlsgathered again at the window.They watched as the gardenerdug a hole. His shovelthrust firmly in the ground,he lifted a covered figureand let drop. Its armswere crossed as it tumbledto the bottom. The gardenergrimaced and covered the hole.That night the moon rosein the window. Its lighttouched the pane and spreadover the floor. The girlsclimbed out of their bedsand gathered in the glow,where their hands came alive.  Translated from the American Sign Language",Noah Buchholz,Anger
The Theft Outright,"after FrostWe were the land's before we were.Or the land was ours before you were a land.Or this land was our land, it was not your land.We were the land before we were people,loamy roamers rising, so the stories go,or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul—What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll?Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sandsswimming being from women's hands, we originate,originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage.Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by,possessed by what we now no more possess.We were the land before we were people,dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go,or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots—Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off.They landed late, but canyons spoke them home.Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know.What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go?Could be cousins, left on the land bridge,contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll.In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay.Such as we were we gave most things outright(the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakesand tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .)We were the land before we were a people,earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go,or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth—The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions,still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced.Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.",Heid E. Erdrich,Fear
Help Wanted,Santa needs new reindeer.The first bunch has grown old.Dasher has arthritis;Comet hates the cold.Prancer's sick of staringat Dancer's big behind.Cupid married Blitzenand Donder lost his mind.Dancer's mad at Vixenfor stepping on his toes.Vixen's being thrown out—she laughed at Rudolph's nose.If you are a reindeerwe hope you will apply.There is just one tricky part:You must know how to fly.,Timothy Tocher,Anger
Definition of Great,"Momentarily                            the language of description is lost         what you see with your eyes is enough, for you, anyway but how to get the sense of what you saw across                                                                               to another person it’s possible                       through the spirit in your voice         when you say                                          “it was great!” to convey                             what happened                                             in that moment       & it was great                                         not only that                               it was terrific, & interesting too                                                                                                it was nice             & I had a good time doing it. I had fun. You should have been there. Not only that, it was beautiful.It was inspiring.",Lewis Warsh,Joy
My Doggy Ate My Homework,"“My doggy ate my homework.He chewed it up,” I said.But when I offered my excuseMy teacher shook her head.I saw this wasn’t going well.I didn’t want to fail.Before she had a chance to talk,I added to the tale:“Before he ate, he took my workAnd tossed it in a pot.He simmered it with succotashTill it was piping hot.“He scrambled up my science notesWith eggs and bacon strips,Along with sautéed spelling wordsAnd baked potato chips.“He then took my arithmetic   And had it gently fried.He broiled both my book reports   With pickles on the side.“He wore a doggy apronAs he cooked a notebook stew.He barked when I objected.There was nothing I could do.”“Did he wear a doggy chef hat?”She asked me with a scowl.“He did,” I said. “And taking itWould only make him growl.”My teacher frowned, but then I said   As quickly as I could,“He covered it with ketchup,   And he said it tasted good.”“A talking dog who likes to cook?”   My teacher had a fit.She sent me to the office,   And that is where I sit.I guess I made a big mistake   In telling her all that.’Cause I don’t have a doggy.   It was eaten by my cat.",Dave Crawley,Love
Longing for Prophets,"Not for their ice-pick eyes,their weeping willow hair,and their clenched fists beating at heaven.Not for their warnings, predictionsof doom. But what they promised.I don’t care if their beardsare mildewed, and the laddersare broken. Let them go onpicking the wormy fruit. Let the onewith the yoke around his neckclimb out of the cistern.Let them come down from the heightsin their radiant despairlike the Sankei Juko dancers descendingon ropes, down from these hillsto the earth of their first existence.Let them follow the trackwe’ve cut on the sides of mountainsinto the desert, and stumble againthrough the great rift, litteredwith bones and the walls of cities.Let them sift through the asheswith their burned hands. Let themtell us what will come after.",Shirley Kaufman,Joy
"Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend'","Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c. Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?     Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.",Gerard Manley Hopkins,Sadness
Mind Core,"For Francisco X. Alarcón, RIPIt considers those men that ambled &Flushed their swords & cut off the neckOf the blue horses & scraped off deathDust from the carcass — rape of womenTresses in boilers — the tin-colored animalsOn the viridian grasses in particular theHowler Monkey let the word shoot upTo the spheres — later we charged ourBlood with these accounts we hid the armsUnforgiving texts & designs sewn intoOur tiny alabaster lockets. We visitedThe last ridge where Victor JaraDenounced the paramilitary — fromLa Obrera in the heights of  Tijuana weSketched the reddish moon & scratchedPoems those things that could carryThe letters we hauled on our backs.We were separated from something weCould not describe yet we were inThe totality in the long winding turquoiseThat broke us & put us back togetherAgain. What was that totality? It couldNot be written — Green moon, green blood — We wrote. We marched to the ends ofLacanjá Chansayab & the heightsOf El Colorín Central México. We were tooLate — the waters in which people bathedWere cloudy & malignant — belliesBloated children leaned on the twigHouse women stood up some sat cross-Legged under the fire rays of noon — We knew they knew the rubble landWas not theirs or ours it was stuffed intoThe cigarette packs of the LadinoHacendados who kicked up their shortBoots in the City of Bones below.With our faces in new faces we rolledBack to LA. Do you change it? Do youLeave it the same?Words — what are they?A new cognition was required — thenWith the ecstasy of the unleashedOther things pulled us apart. Other thingsReassembled us.Now we are here.",Juan Felipe Herrera,Fear
Aubade with Bread for the Sparrows,"The snow voids the distance of the roadand the first breath comes from the early morningghosts. The sparrows with their hard eyesglisten in the difficult light. They preentheir feathers and chirp. It’s as though they were onevoice talking to God.                                    Mornings are a sustained hymnwithout the precision of faith. You’ve turned the bagfilled with molding bread inside out and watchthe old crusts fall to the ice. What’s leftbut to watch the daylight halved by the glistening ground?What’s left but an empty bag and the dust of breadravaged by songsters?                                       There are ruins we witnesswithin the moment of the world’s first awakeningand the birds love you within that moment. They wantto eat the air and the stars they’ve hungered for, little razors.Little urgent bells, the birds steal from each other’s mouthswhich makes you hurt. Don’t ask for more bread.The world is in haste to waken. Don’t ask for a nameyou can surrender, for there are more ghosts to placate.Don’t hurt for the sparrows, for they love you like a road.",Oliver de la Paz,Fear
"What loves, takes away","If the nose of the pig in the market of Firenze has lost its matte patina, and shines, brassy,  even in the half light; if the mosaic saint on the tiles of the Basilica floor is half gone,  worn by the gravity of solid soles, the passing of piety; if the arms of Venus have reentered the rubble, taken by time, her perennial lover, mutilating even the memory of beauty;                                                                                                            and if the mother, hiding with her child from the death squads of brutality, if she, trying to keep the child quiet, to keep them from being found out,  holds her hand over his mouth, holds him  against her, tighter and tighter, until he stops breathing;                                if the restorer—trying to bring back to perfection the masterpiece scarred by its transit through time, wipes away by mistake, the mysterious smile. . .                                                                                                           if what  loves, and love is, takes away what it aims to preserve,                                   then here is the place to fall  silent, meaning well but in danger of marring what we would praise, unable to do more than wear down the marble  steps to the altar, smother the fire  we would keep from the wind’s extinction,                                                                                                           or if, afraid  of our fear, we lift the lid from the embers, and send  abroad, into the parched night, a flight of sparks, incendiary, dying to catch somewhere,  hungry for fuel, the past, its dry provision tinder for brilliance and heat, prelude to cold, and to ash. . .",Eleanor Wilner,Fear
The Knife,"In my sleep:Fell at his feet         wanted to eat him right upwould have         buteven betterhe talked to me.Did I ask you to?Were those words my blood-sucking too?Now I will have a body againmove differently, easier         back to the plana little house         a woman and a mancrossed against yours my soul will showglow through my breastbone:Back down into the kitchenyoursHere         I will save youothers have failed, even died, but Iwill save you         you save me         devour me awayupWoke up: I can cry but I can't wake uptoday again         don't answer the doorthen did         couldn't look at you talkcouldn't place the bed in the room, or where the room waswhen I closed my eyesThis is the same old knife         my knifeI know it as well as I know my own mouthIt will be lying there on the desk ifI open my eyes I will know the room very wellthere will be the little thrown-out globe of blood we leftand every molecule of every object here will swellwith life. And someone will be at the door.",Jean Valentine,Sadness
everything i’ve called women,"if i said baby you might think a certain thing but nah.that’s only maybe what i mean, perhaps i’ll say ma& your mind says Cam’ron, women creeping upbut i’m a changed man, & that’s not game ma.it’s practice in high school & THOT isn’t out yet.we’re classic Chicago & bustdowns bloom in our mouths. my Maspits Too $hort & the line i catch the first timeis b*tch b*tch b*tch make me rich but Maputs me on punishment when i whisper Ludacris& tells me sex shouldn’t hurt. i say nothing & Malets it go until a few years later when i get beckyor brain or top or dome by a white girl & Matells me everything i’ve risked for this escapade.i can’t fix my mouth to say                     but Mawhat i got i didn’t ask for",Nate Marshall,Joy
Morning Is Morning,"I have some explaining to do — 5 o’clockmeant I would speculateabout artichokes (Greek) and the unfarmed mackerel.Anyway, the men would present us with a bed of carrotand potatoes + 1 cup of broth.Our husbandry in sharp mustardsuit, laden with trial pieces for the fondue. I would prefernot to. I had such friends — a long time faring all through the Westwith my filth and a bouquet of cutlerywhere I had put it: by me.And yet expansive, the things made by the thingsI made. And a supervisor hovering behind me. The heavinessof being.I am the Name, Jehovah called from the bush. I had visionsof pigeons. And I replied:Here I am to be called Ishmael and beget.",Ricardo Alberto Maldonado,Joy
Superbly Situated,"you politely ask me not to die and i promise not to   right from the beginning—a relationship based on   good sense and thoughtfulness in little thingsi would like to be loved for such simple attainments   as breathing regularly and not falling down too often   or because my eyes are brown or my father left-handedand to be on the safe side i wouldn’t mind if somehowi became entangled in your perception of admirable objects   so you might say to yourself: i have recently noticedhow superbly situated the empire state building ishow it looms up suddenly behind cemeteries and rivers   so far away you could touch it—therefore i love youpart of me fears that some moron is already plotting   to tear down the empire state building and replace it   with a block of staten island mother/daughter housesjust as part of me fears that if you love me for my cleanliness   i will grow filthy if you admire my elegant clothes   i’ll start wearing shirts with sailboats on thembut i have decided to become a public beach an opera house   a regularly scheduled flight—something that can’t help being   in the right place at the right time—come take your seatwe’ll raise the curtain fill the house start the engines   fly off into the sunrise, the spire of the empire statethe last sight on the horizon as the earth begins to curve",Robert Hershon,Love
"After Peire Vidal, & Myself","for ShelleyOh you, the sprightliest & most puggish, the brightest starOf all my lively loves, all Ladies, & to whom once I gave upMy heart entire, thenceforth yours to keep foreverLocked up in your own heart’s tiniest room, my best hope, orTo throw away, carelessly, at your leisure, should that proveYour best pleasure, Who is that dumpy matron, decked out in worn &        fadedShabby army fatigues which pooch out both before & behind, now        screechingScoring me painfully in philistine Commedia dell’arte farce, low        summer fareAcross a pedestrian Ferry’s stretch of water in some meshugganah Snug        HarborAnd once more, even, fiercely pecking at me in the cold drab Parish        Hall ofManhattan’s Landmark Episcopal Church, where a once Avant-garde        now Grade SchoolPoetry Project continues to dwell, St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bouwerie,        whoseStones hold in tight grip one wooden leg & all of Peter Stuyvesant’s        bones?Who is that midget-witch who preens & prances as she flaunts her lost        wares,Otherwise hidden beneath some ancient boy’s flannel-shirt, its tail out& flapping, & whoIs shrieking even now these mean words:                                                            “Hey     Ted!”     “Hey, you Fat God!”& called me, “Fickle!”         “Fickle!”                                                                 & she points a long boney fingerat me, & croons, gleefully.                                                        “Limbo!”     “That's where you really live!”& She is claiming to be you                                                 as she whispers, viciously,                                                                                                            “Alone, &In Pain, In Limbo, is where you live     in your little cloud-9 home     Ted!Pitiful!”               She has a small purse, & removing it from one of her        shopping bagsShe brings out from inside that small purse, my withered heart; &lifting ithigh into the air over her head with her two hands, she turns it upside        downunzips its fasteners, & shakes it out over the plywood floor, happily.        “Empty,”she cries loudly, “just like I always knew it would be!” “Empty!”        “Empty” “Empty” I watch her, and think,                                     That’s not really you, up there, is it,                Rose?     Rochelle?     Shelley?                                                                 O, don’t be sad, little Rose! It’s stillYour ribbon I wear, your favor tied to the grip of my lance, when I        ride out to give battle,                                                  these golden days.",Ted Berrigan,Sadness
The Fall Returns,"the rooms are chosen, then they move onthe beads are wetted in the limethe weedlot boils in the blood of one eyethe children first are cankered then they spin there are not routes, only dialsthe rocks are spun together in one ballthe laundry is of rust, the pillow shriekspianos all blow northward and return must be a bath if  I could find it is a mapof all the ways that center intermissionskulls are simply caps for all compressionday’s light raising closets for its dark I put up the clothes and trail the keysthat onyx knob in vacuum turns the trainpressure on the pitches swaying back againa world without a heartbeat but it stays",Clark Coolidge,Fear
The Garden of Love,"I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And Thou shalt not. writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.",William Blake,Love
En Eski Aşk Şiiri,"The Oldest Love Poem(For Susan)Back from Istanbul, she gives to methe photograph she took insidethe Archaeological Museum’sblue tiled hush, of a tabletcarved in terra cotta from Nippur,written in Sumerian.Delicate etches, a lift of riverbedwhere the summer waters ranglistened on this piece of earththe earnest working hand,a pause between the lines to contemplatecedars’ ornate overhangingleaf-work become inseparablefrom the carving.  Maybe reading sky,reading wind, or tree soundsbeside the sound of clayshaped to carry a human mark.Maybe it says     we are so elegantin our exchange that looking at each otherthe trees whisper their contented greenacross any distance to be herebranches heat-satiatedfull in our veins of holding",Jessica Jopp,Love
War Widow,"The telephone never rings. Stillyou pick it up, smile into the static,the breath of those you’ve loved; long dead.The leaf you pick from the fallrises and dips away with every ridge.Fingers stiff from time, you trace.Staring off into a distance limnedby cataracts and other collected debris,you have forgotten none of the long-ago joyof an ice-cream truck and its summer song.Between the paving stones;between tea, a cup, and the soundof you pouring;between the time you woke that morningand the time when the letter came,a tired sorrow: like an old flagellantable only to tease with a weak sting.Riding the elevator all day,floor after floor after floor,each stop some small victory whittledfrom the hard stone of death, you smile.They used to write epics about moments like this.",Chris Abani,Sadness
The Green Car,"Defend me. I am not capable. The river sweeps by three minutes at once cleansing me of guilt. But the bear crashes through it and breaches my innocence. He rages and frightens my innocence. The psychologist says, ""You are the bear. You are the river. You are the green car crossing the bridge. Defend yourself."" But the green car is in a forest I have failed to speak to. The green car was never intended to drive in that forest, not cross a bridge that must not exist in a real dream. Further, the real dream defends itself.",Landis Everson,Fear
Blood Honey,"Apprehended and held without trial,our friend was sentenced:brain tumor, malignant.Condemned each day to wakeand remember.Overnight, a wall sprang up around him,leaving the rest of usoutside.Death passed over us this time.We’re still at large. We’re freeto get out of bed, start the coffee,open the blinds.The first of the human freedoms.If he’s guiltywe must be guilty; we’re all made ofthe same cup of dust—It’s a blessing, isn’t it? To be able,days at a time,to forget what we are.             *These numbered dayshave a concentrated sweetnessthat’s pressed from us,the dying man most of all.Today we eat brunch at Chester’s,poached egg on toast,orange juice foaming in frosted glasses.He remembers the summer he packed blood oranges,stripped to the waist,drinking the fresh-squeezed juice in the factorystraight from the tap.He cups his left hand under his chinas if to a faucet, laughing.He is scooping sweetness from the belly of death—honey from the lion’s carcass.We sit with our friendand brood on the riddle he sets before us:What is it, this blood honey?          *",Chana Bloch,Fear
Thoughts of a Solitary Farmhouse,"And not to feel bad about dying.Not to take it so personally—it is onlythe force we exert all our livesto exclude death from our thoughtsthat confronts us, when it does arrive,as the horror of being excluded— . . .something like that, the Canadian windcoming in off Lake Erierattling the windows, horizontal snowappearing out of nowhereacross the black highway and fields like billions of white bees.",Franz Wright,Sadness
In the North,"A blast off the Atlantic snaps a flag in the Firth of Clyde, while thirty leagues away, the same synoptic wind  surges across this hillside  honeycombed with mineshafts,  sounding the unstopped slots  of a ""G"" harmonica left  to dry on the kitchen sill. Snow charges a sky in which the sun swims and glimmers like a groat, a turbulent space where owls hunt by day but nothing stands for long—bereft of circumstance—beyond the standing stones of  Long Meg and Her Daughters. Through the night, like a stoker on a fast express—the Hyperion on its Edinburgh run— you hoy buckets of coal on the grate, only to see its flames drawn up the chimney, getting more  heat from hoying the fuel  than from its burning.  As a barnacle goose swims against the dark, uttering its terse honk, you pull your favorite word, duvet, close about your head. Tomorrow, bailiffs may take everything  not hammered down.",Devin Johnston,Anger
Acts of Vexation,The only thing under the sunI can run tois Ecclesiastesfor there is nothing gathered into one selfthat can be keptWant is humbled by deathas every purpose manifests itFeeling this all my lifea piercing frightgathers in the stomach's pitThis is it and this is not the endof the roadfor even despair is a kind of goadto wisdomThe beauty of the worldover one's own anguishThe day that I lost all feelingI was both a Fool and a Goddess,Pam Rehm,Sadness
Italy,"Here in Italy the buildings are the colorOf dead skin and the sky is “tragic”And the rivers are brown and turbulentAnd everybody is always stopping byTo say “Ciao!” and then “Ciao!”We think a lot about emotion, chieflyThe emotion of love. There is much to cry about.And after, sleep. One falls in loveSo as not to fall asleep. I have just awakenedTo the fact that I am not in loveAnd am about to fall asleep or write an operaIn which someone falls asleep and diesOr write a letter to a friend or call somebody upTo meet me later for a drink. Maybe it’s too late.Tomorrow I will go out and buy something to make me happy.I remember standing in the train station in PisaHoping to catch the sound of an American voiceIn the crowd. It’s good to remember such thingsWhen you think you haven’t “lived” enoughBecause you need to learn not to regretWhat you’ve never done. Fortunately, I rememberEverything that's ever happened to me.I remember asking a woman I didn't knowWhether or not she was the person I was looking forAnd she said, “Yes, much to my regret.”That wasn’t difficult to rememberBecause it just happened a few minutes ago.Other things are harder. I don’t rememberRight away what I had for breakfast two weeks agoLast Thursday or the specific date of my firstMasturbation, though I’m sure that with some effortI could recover the lasting details. I rememberMy father using a green hair tonic called “H-A,”Which stood for “Hair Arranger.” I remember the nightMy father tore out a big clump of my mother's hairIn an argument. They were drunk and I came outOf my room in my pajamas and asked them to stop.If I said I wanted to fall apart in someone’s armsYou would have to assume I was being sarcasticAnd you would be right. No one has arms in whichI care to fall apart, at least not at the moment.Tomorrow night I am going to see a play about“A contemporary man in the process of falling apart.”I think everyone falls apart about twenty times a day.I’m still confused about why I mentioned ItalyAt the beginning of this poem, especially sinceIt’s all a terrible lie. My students would sayIt means “the poet does not know where he is;Some catastrophe has distorted his perceptions.”I am drowsy but happy and resemble the cornerOf a big empty room. I am drunk and staringInto the bathtub. A lot of people are standingAround listening to music. My fingersSmell like cigarettes. I am wonderingIf there is any way to describe the pleasureSomeone derives from seeing a man’s cockShoved up someone’s ass, or how oneCan go on like this, even after having given upCompletely to nervousness, and to death.I remember the one night I spent on a ship.The porters woke us at dawn. We stoodAt the railing to sight the blue and transparent islandGaping through mist in the distance. For breakfast,We ate peaches. I hated the people I was with,But I must have been incredibly stupid. We spent the dayOn the island, seesawed in the park, and waded in the sea.",Donald Britton,Sadness
Immigrant Song,"All birds—even those that do not fly—have wings A constant confessionAdmission of omission This is your punctuated equilibriumAnd everything in betweenSlow it down The moment of extinctionThe death of the last individual of a species(Let’s put it aside for now)Stay with it This is our gene flowHow do you like our genetic driftA riff, a rift, a raft…Too rough for the second half Take us under, take us downhillPaint pangenesis all over your dancing bodyThe new party godKeep the beat going, don’t stop, you can’t stop Crick & WatsonEvo-devoThis is your mother’s local phenomenon If this is racial hygieneWhy do I feel so dirty? Microcosmic soulIt’s an involutionary wonderlandThis living matterA modern synthesis4.6 billion years of biologyCan’t stop the ideologyGraduate from meet/mateTo fitness landscape of sexual selection From land over seaIt’s a hard lyricThe impression of a key in a bar of soapA transitional fossil Keep campingPlant the flagBury the burial moundPut the pop in popularAnd the sigh in science",Sun Yung Shin,Fear
Amening,"Model prisoner or not, I won't.Silver lash, hound's tooth,meager sinful town's crook.I am nervous again. I could killif you let me. But tonight, I'll be stillunder this palm. Zeroed out,the tea my toilet muck.Licorice and almondtwisted beneath the sink,I'm lovely again. Come onwith my dying.Today the globe's undersideisn't pink, but rather,I look ahead toward whathas happened.",Esther Lee,Love
Janet Waking,"Beautifully Janet sleptTill it was deeply morning. She woke then   And thought about her dainty-feathered hen,   To see how it had kept.One kiss she gave her mother,Only a small one gave she to her daddyWho would have kissed each curl of his shining baby;   No kiss at all for her brother.“Old Chucky, Old Chucky!” she cried,   Running across the world upon the grass   To Chucky’s house, and listening. But alas,   Her Chucky had died.It was a transmogrifying beeCame droning down on Chucky’s old bald headAnd sat and put the poison. It scarcely bled,   But how exceedinglyAnd purply did the knotSwell with the venom and communicateIts rigour! Now the poor comb stood up straightBut Chucky did not.So there was JanetKneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen   (Translated far beyond the daughters of men)   To rise and walk upon it.And weeping fast as she had breathJanet implored us, “Wake her from her sleep!”   And would not be instructed in how deep   Was the forgetful kingdom of death.",John Crowe Ransom,Sadness
Catchy Tunes,"It’s not just this. Every written word is a suicide note.And a love letter, too.There may be no one to talk to who would get it,but if you write it down maybe someone will get it after you’ve left the room,or in five hundred years, or maybe someone from Sirius, the Dog Star,will get it. The composer Karlheinz Stockhausenclaimed he was born on Sirius. You remember him:the genius who said the crashing of planesinto the World Trade Center was the greatest concert ever held,although he later conceded the audience had not been given the optionto not attendand that somewhat diminished its perfection.I heard Stockhausen interviewed at Davies Symphony Hallbefore the orchestra played one of   his worksthat sounded to me like the voices of   the parentsin A Charlie Brown Christmas if they’d been arguing about real estate.No, I was not impressed by Karlheinz.His daughter Christel was a flautist in the orchestra,and she joined him for the interviewand said her father would take her and her brother out on the lawnof their summer house outside Cologne(this was years before he was on the cover of   Sgt. Pepper)and teach them to read each constellationas notes on a stave and to singthe words of their favorite nursery rhymes to the stars’melody: “The dog ran away in the snow” and“Go get the sleigh in the cellar.” It was a gamebut it was hard: work and play at once.Their father explained to them,“God does not write catchy tunes.”You could tell she meant it to be a charming story,but the audience sat in silence.Suffer the little children.",Robert Thomas,Surprise
Killary Harbor,"I drove through the narrow Gods—privet and cholesterol, or   Irish creamery butter as the waitercalled it, as it shaved another day   off my life. There was no salt   and antimony, just lumpy roadsthrough Meath and Leitrim.   The sky was a show of flashing   mirrors as day broke on Rosses.Tide out and weed like cow pies   on the shore. The punt down and   the EEC on the horizon,as I read in the guidebook about pilgrims   climbing St. Patrick’s barefoot   every summer.Out of the fog a man in Wranglers and   spurred boots, clean-shaven, a cigarette   in hand, waved me down.“Scrum faced house at the end of the bay.”   “Hop in,” I said. “You lookin’for where John Wayne made",Peter Balakian,Fear
From a Bridge,I saw my mother standing there below meOn the narrow bank just looking out over the riverLooking at something just beyond the taut middle rope Of the braided swirling currentsThen she looked up quite suddenly to the far bankWhere the densely twined limbs of the cypressTwisted violently toward the storm-struck skyThere are some things we know before we knowAlso some things we wish we would not ever knowEven if as children we already knew      & soStanding above her on that bridge that shuddered Each time the river ripped at its wooden pilings I knew I could never even fate willing ever Get to her in time,David St. John,Fear
The Redeemer,"Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;   It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;   There, with much work to do before the light,   We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might   Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,   And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;   We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one;   Darkness; the distant wink of a huge gun.I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;   A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,   And lit the face of what had been a form   Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there;   I say that He was Christ; stiff in the glare,   And leaning forward from His burdening task,   Both arms supporting it; His eyes on mine   Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask   Of mortal pain in Hell’s unholy shine.No thorny crown, only a woollen capHe wore—an English soldier, white and strong,   Who loved his time like any simple chap,   Good days of work and sport and homely song;   Now he has learned that nights are very long,   And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.   But to the end, unjudging, he’ll endure   Horror and pain, not uncontent to die   That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.He faced me, reeling in his weariness,Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.   I say that He was Christ, who wrought to bless   All groping things with freedom bright as air,   And with His mercy washed and made them fair.   Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch,   While we began to struggle along the ditch;   And someone flung his burden in the muck,   Mumbling: ‘O Christ Almighty, now I’m stuck!’",Siegfried Sassoon,Fear
Great Horned Owl,"An owl once perched in my treeat night (when most birds cannot see).But when the sun rose,he was found by some crows,and their caws caused the owl to flee.",Sallie Wolf,Fear
Roslyn,"Roslyn has nothing goingnothing to fight forno work to doshe couldn’t name one desirethat is not someone else’sor a manshe cannot claimwhere she came fromwill not claim who she isor the way she criesso no one can seeshe has no work to docannot finish booksfeed herselfor go out aloneshe is always latenot to sit alone somewhereand waitshe wouldn’t know what to doRoslyn doesn’t want a thingbut she waits for something anywayshe has no work to doshe holds off interestspassions and opinionseverything but the factsand these come to herfrom dramas and the papersshe agrees with fictionand what people sayi wouldn’t trust her in courtor on my backa woman without a dreamis a fault in the earthall steam and liquid fireRoslyn goes to workhas a jobbut no callingwaits for the wordto call herselfno one ever remembers her nameor where they saw hershe waits to be toldshe’s the only oneher tyranny is silentsmall and sexualher losses are greatshe has not called herselfsaid, “I’m here, now, deal with me”Roslyn wouldn’t hurt a flybut people fear her sleepher unconsciousthe primal whateverthat wants to playit might have guns outfor the rest of us",Thulani Davis,Anger
Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket,"I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.Come, let us vote against our human nature,Crying to God in all the polling placesTo heal our everlasting sinfulnessAnd make us sages with transfigured faces.",Vachel Lindsay,Surprise
Delia 46: Let others sing of knights and paladins,"Let others sing of knights and paladinsIn aged accents and untimely words;Paint shadows in imaginary linesWhich well the reach of their high wits records:But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyesAuthentic shall my verse in time to come,When yet th' unborn shall say, “Lo where she liesWhose beauty made him speak that else was dumb.”These are the arks, the trophies I erect,That fortify thy name against old age;And these thy sacred virtues must protectAgainst the dark, and time's consuming rage.Though th' error of my youth they shall discover,Suffice they show I liv'd and was thy lover.",Samuel Daniel,Sadness
Six Sailors,"to Pete Foss,God give him good berth!Shipped deckhand June of ’fifty-one aboard the freighter Willis Kerrigan,",Irving Feldman,Fear
Infidelity,"You have not conquered me—it is the surgeOf love itself that beats against my will;It is the sting of conflict, the old urgeThat calls me still.It is not you I love—it is the formAnd shadow of all lovers who have diedThat gives you all the freshness of a warmAnd unfamiliar bride.It is your name I breathe, your hands I seek;It will be you when you are gone.And yet the dream, the name I never speak,Is that that lures me on.It is the golden summons, the bright waveOf banners calling me anew;It is all beauty, perilous and grave—It is not you.",Louis Untermeyer,Surprise
The Delta Parade,"Everything stops.A fat man on his way to Baltimore   smokes for three hours in the club car.The porter slips out and calls his wife,he has one dime left and he’s almost   yelling. Somewhere south of York,   she thinks he said. The funeral   procession leaves its lights on   and out of this pure stubbornness   its batteries go dead.The bank robber leans on his horn   in desperation while his partner   snaps the rubber bands around   the money. A band,you can hear it up the river,first like the new heart of the child onyour lap, then like an old moon   pulsing below your nails, or somethingsoftly moving through your arms and   throat. Here,press here, not just drums.A clown is throwing caramels   at the porch rails, balloonsare exploding or sailing up the river.   The lucky trees, to be able   to stand that close. If we talk   too much, we’ll surely miss it.And at the still centerof summer it starts; cowboys ride out outof another life, old cars get upfrom the dead and dancelike cripples hired out for a tent meeting.   Up and down the sidewalk, the town   sucks in its breath like a girltaking short gasps just above her trumpet,   or a fire engine’s horn, heavinglike a drowned man or a heat wave slapping   against the water tower, this afternoon   just like a parade. The sore-footed   ponies are loaded down with flags   and the library float says“Immortal Shakespeare,” says itwith carnations and the hides of roses,   says it with a jester and a princess   wearing wings.And she stutters, but no one cares   or can hear her. Except for the man   on the unicycle who tips his top hat   to the crowd, who swears he will   follow her anywhere, who follows   the mayor and the city council, who   follows the tap dancing class and the Future   Farmers, the Lions Club and the Veterans   of Foreign Wars; who clasps a carnation   between his teeth and sways   back and forth likea broken clock.And then things begin again,a car follows the man on the unicycle   and suddenly it’s just another car,   a pair of dice danglingfrom the rearview mirror, a woman   giving her breast to a child and another   child carefully peeling a crayon, then   slowly giving the peels to hisgrandmother, who opens the big brass   clasps of her pocketbook and lets   the bright curls drop slowlyto the bottomlike confetti or a boy’s firsthaircut. Like a first yellow leafthat fell when we weren’t looking.Because it’s summer. Like a smooth   yellow pebble that is rubbing and rubbing   in the new left boot of the drummer,   that someone skimmed on the river   exactly at three o’clock.Not out of anger or of boredomthis time, but as if it could almost   wear wings.",Susan Stewart,Fear
Money,"Women want to save you or want you to savage them.Men want to see what is under your towel.The dollar bills they throw into your cageare all you need to care about becauseyou aren’t dancing in a cage to entertain them. You dance in a cage to make money. I openmy towel to the right then whip it back toward midlinejust as I open to the left: I show them nothing.But I have them convinced I will show them something.There is a difference between men and women— you must look women in the eyes and, if possible,look hurt; with men, you must avoid lookingat them altogether, you must focus on moving your hips,which is close to what they are actually watching.Suspended in a cage above the far end of the dance floor, I was not attainable; Imade myself seem attainable. These are just the basics.Wearing nothing but a towel, my greyish wingsextended to full wingspan, my chest shaved—the clubbers believe I am wearing a costume. It is amazing what people believe. The musicis cheaper than a Budweiser. The air is smoke andthe smell of smoke mixed with sweat, and your jobis to convince each of them you are dancing for no one else.When my shift is over and I pull on some jeans, tuck my wings and bandage them down, pull on two shirts,I can almost pretend I never entered that cage in the first place.Outside on Lansdowne Street, there are people standingin one line or another waiting to get in to clubs.Night after night, the same thing: the waiting never ends.",C. Dale Young,Joy
!,"Dear Writers, I’m compiling the first in what I hope is a series of publications I’m calling artists among artists. The theme for issue 1 is “Faggot Dinosaur.” I hope to hear from you! Thank you and best wishes.",Wendy Videlock,Joy
With a Court of Flies Attendant,"It burns up all the grass too, and breaks the stones, so tremendous is its noxious influence.— Pliny the Elder, “Natural History”On a blood- or honey-colored moon at midnight & no 60-watt abuzz. WithSirius ascendant. From a dunghill’s punk egg hatchedBy toad or serpent. From cold gland & pillaged crib, from ruined sluice,Bible comics & potshots at swallows. From the Ring of Fire, the Zipper,The Nighthawk with her victims taloned upside down. From pistis to gnosisTo the midway where they draw a bead on cardboard sheikhs. From no harvest.From no temperate father. From years borne down tainted water& all we failed to mark in frequencies cranked up, fromHow laughing we cast our own forfeit. O well —It’s cinch your boots up now, it’s shoulder to the wheel, it’s soldier onTo lay coins on the fang marks & stand already spent,Condemned for what we wrongly thought exhaustion.Comes now the bright arrival, comes the pageant rain of ashes:The seal torn & tablets fixed but still impossible to read.",Amy Beeder,Fear
Know No Name,Know no nameWhy this holy day honedHollow day haulI lost wind when woodenI can’t bear to beUnaided in hunt unhandedTo haunt when strewn soundWho will be held in handBrought sentMooring at the shoreWho’re you forFor what fewer who woreBe called this wooerMore who are the onesIn horror to light will strewthen sue for war,Kazim Ali,Fear
The Silence,"She took the spareribs out of the ovenand set them steaming on a platebefore leaving her apartment.I didn't know how long to wait,tore into cold meat when I decided  my mother wasn't coming back.   *   No one knew about the gun she kept in her purse until the authoritiescalled—a .38 caliber pistolwith a pearl handle and a triggereven she could easily pull—her car still waiting to be towed from a roadside ditch   when they arrived on the scene.   *   Yesterday morning, I was leaning over a kitchen sink, my husband upstairs sleeping. Between his snores muffled under a down comforter and a portable electric heater that kept our bedroom warm, I knew I could sob as loud as I wanted   without disturbing his dreams.   *   At the sports arena between musical acts and clouds of dope, I texted my lover a wide-angle shot of the stage—the reception bars on my phone bouncing back and forth between high and low—a text I had to send several times before it went through even though there was a chance his phone would be off or the text get lost for hours in the ether, even days.   The silence is the agony.   *   My therapist says: It's not your fault. No way for you to have known exactly where your mother was headed.   Then why am I left weepingin my kitchen decades after the fact?   When I went upstairs and sat beside my husband, he could feel the mattress shift beneath our weight even though I felt much lighter after watching translucent ropes of snot lowering down into the sink, arms around me when I asked if he   was awake, knowing that he wasn't.   *   How many romances get derailed when a text that has been sent fails to go through? How many mothers disappear through a kitchen door never to return—the food on the table   the last meal they will ever serve?   *   My lover texted back: where are you now? Having no idea what I'd been going through when he texted again:   Wish I was there with you.",Timothy Liu,Fear
Attenuate the Loss and Find,"For Adrienne Rich[Our burden to carry as she didshift the weight of song, heft and gnosis“body poetics”as a total eventher fullness rare in the amnesiac Kulchurawake, awareness & urgency when poetry serves]name appearseverywhere and in dreambody armor removedwhat now, legacy, archivumwe female archons preserve ofintensity a durance a hand you recognize(sounds sound)assurance as lives ondrank of thatdrank of thisalmost suffocated, then drowneddowned but neverwhat only she could only knowas herself living in the brute timespeak of a syntax of rendition?the politics of Empire chip awayas poetry attests, give it upcurve of a water-starved globeto follow and be following?racism, sexism, struggleeverything in intense grasp ofconsciousness — cut in crystal observationfor her rapid and perched intellectusprivacy opens to vibrant lightthis is stuff of Eros, of empathypassionate edge of Adriennethe American SkepticI feel you consociational in this lighta term of anthropology, to studyintersections in the annals we shareintergenerational, interspecies, interlanguagemove in parallelogramsgetting it right as she did Solstice, Boulder, Colorado 2012 High Park fires distress",Anne Waldman,Sadness
Insect Life of Florida,"In those days I thought their endless thrum   was the great wheel that turned the days, the nights.      In the throats of hibiscus and oleanderI’d see them clustered yellow, blue, their shells   enameled hard as the sky before the rain.      All that summer, my second, from cityto city my young father drove the black coupe   through humid mornings I’d wake to like fever      parceled between luggage and sample goods.Afternoons, showers drummed the roof,   my parents silent for hours. Even then I knew      something of love was cruel, was distant.Mother leaned over the seat to me, the orchid   Father’d pinned in her hair shriveled      to a purple fist. A necklace of shellscoiled her throat, moving a little as she   murmured of alligators that float the rivers      able to swallow a child whole, of mosquitoeswhose bite would make you sleep a thousand years.   And always the trance of blacktop shimmering      through swamps with names like incantations—Okeefenokee, where Father held my hand   and pointed to an egret’s flight unfolding      white above swamp reeds that sang with insectsuntil I was lost, until I was part   of the singing, their thousand wings gauze      on my body, tattooing my skin.Father rocked me later by the water,   the motel balcony, singing calypso      with the Jamaican radio. The lyricsa net over the sea, its lesson   of desire and repetition. Lizards flashed      over his shoes, over the railwhere the citronella burned merging our   shadows—Father’s face floating over mine      in the black changing soundof night, the enormous Florida night,   metallic with cicadas, musical      and dangerous as the human heart.",Lynda Hull,Anger
The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer,"Fredonia, NYOf course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruitso red they had to be borne of Summer, and no other season. Flip-flops and fishhooks. Ice cubes made of lemonade and sprigs of mint to slip in blue glasses of tea. I was dusty, my ponytailall askew and the tips of my fingers ran, of course, redfrom the fruitwounds of cherries I plunked into my bucketand still—he must have seen some small bit of lovelinessin walking his orchard with me. He pointed out which treeswere sweetest, which ones bore double seeds—puffing outthe flesh and oh the surprise on your tongue with two tiny stones(a twin spit), making a small gun of your mouth. Did I mentionmy favorite color is red? His jeans were worn and twistyaround the tops of his boot; his hands thick but careful, nimble enough to pull fruit from his trees without tearingthe thin skin; the cherry dust and fingerprints on his eyeglasses. I just know when he stuffed his hands in his pockets, saidOkay. Couldn't hurt to try? and shuffled back to his roadside standto arrange his jelly jars and stacks of buckets, I had madea terrible mistake. I just know my summer would've beenfull of pies, tartlets, turnovers—so much jubilee.",Aimee Nezhukumatathil,Sadness
The Rain,"All night the sound hadcome back again,and again fallsthis quiet, persistent rain. What am I to myselfthat must be remembered,insisted uponso often? Is it that never the ease,even the hardness,of rain fallingwill have for me something other than this,something not so insistent—am I to be locked in thisfinal uneasiness. Love, if you love me,lie next to me.Be for me, like rain,the getting out of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-lust of intentional indifference.Be wetwith a decent happiness.",Robert Creeley,Anger
"The Gospel of Ometéotl, the Brown Adam","People walk through you, the wind steals your voice,  you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat,forerunner of a new race,half and half — both woman and man, neither — a new gender.                          —Gloria AnzaldúaJasmine garlands thin             for the rib’s cartilage ring.The heart shudders with pure mission.                                                         She spreads                                                          & knows herself as Adam,                                                          Ometéotl,                                                          but through himself,                                                          Omecíhuatl,                                                          he is Eve.             He knows but what the garden gives:                        the garden’s soot                         awakened tongueless in root.             Cerise chrysantha                         coils around his leg.             Gathering the tides                                     of the seas to his side,                                     she conceives                                     where impossibilities seed.            Clarity burning coal,                he takes two knots                                                of grass                                                & strings                        four birds-of-paradise            through the ceiba’s rotted leaves:                                    she fashions the sorrows                                     from winter’s purse,                                     sea                                     & sun                                     sifted for sum.                         Entrammeled, Ometéotl rises                                     one among one                         body stitched in strange altar.",J. Michael Martinez,Fear
François Villon on the Condition of Pity in Our Time,"Frères humains qui après nous vivez,Soon they’ll have the speed freak twistingOn a scaffold, soon the birdsWill come to peck out his eyes, & whenHe’s too weak & exhausted to turnHis head away, they’ll do it, too,They’ll peck his eyes right out.You’ll want to watch it happen, you’ll wantTo witness it. You’ll want to see PaoloAnd Francesca almost touch beforeThey’re swept away again, him in one lineWaiting for rations, her in another one,Both of  them naked, standing there,Cock & nipples shriveled in the cold.Frères humains qui après nous vivez,N’ayez les cœurs contre nous endurcis.",Larry Levis,Fear
Messenger,"for John GardnerIt was not kindness, but I was only buckle-high in the door.I let him in because the knock had come, the rainclawed each window and wall. I was afraid.Climbing down the stairs I did not knowhow my country, cunningly, had rotted,but hear, now, my steps creak in memoryand the rocks let go in the blind nightglasswhere you get up, frightened, to reenactthe irrational logic of flesh.Even now I can’t see why it happens, the moment of change,but must try to witness each particular indexof landscape and irony of promise. I knowI was a child when the banging began, sleeplesswith every light in the house blazing. Thenthe man whose speech entangled me came infrom the mud-world. He could notput together the clear words of hopewe dream, only the surge of a river.He, who said it wasn’t a fit thingfor anyone, half-grown, to have to imagine in this godforsakenlife, said there was a message, the river high,no chance. I remember the wind at that doorbreaking like a father’s hand on my face.Such hurting does not cease and maybethat is why the man went on fumblingfor love, for the loving wordsthat might be knowledge. He gave methis message. I took it, and took, without warning, grief’slanguage that piece by piece has shown me howto connect dreamed moments skidding like rocksin the silence of a Wyoming midnight.Each of his rainy words, fragmentsof the old sickness, passed into me,then he was gone, miserable and emptied,and I had no home but the heart’s hut,the blistering walls of loneliness,the world’s blue skymiles of longing.Common with drowned fir and uncoiling crocus, then, Iwalked in ignorance and entered this terrible lifethat was always a dream of the futurein the relentless unsleep of thosewho cannot remember the last thing they wantedto say: that love exists. And in darknessyou have dreamed me into your worldwith their message, their wordswhispering an hour before black, sudden knockingthat, even as I recall it, begins in your heart’s meatto reverberate, oh, its noise is goingto wake you like a dove’s desire.This is the dream of the soft bucklingof flesh, the beautiful last erosions,and I swear I would give up these wordsif I could, I would stop the codeof that streetlight just beyond your bed—but it is too late, for the secret of hope swells in youand who can stop the news that already screamslike the roof’s edge leaving its nailsover your child’s bed that is, now,splintered and empty as every momentskidding at the back of your neck? Leavesnot a month old hurl out of the stormand steady splatter of time, and tomorrowwill lie still ripening, but only long enoughfor you to catalog, in dream, what was possiblebefore the rake must drag its scritch-scratch over ground.All I ask is that you turn to the childinside, those words dreaming and changelessas love’s last chance—let them be saidagainst whatever, crying in the night,we still think may be stopped, the blackhistorical fact of life’s eventcrashing, like a wall of water,over the actuary’s lawn and yours.You have seen me before and would not hear, stung by yourwife’s fierce beauty, when I called your name,and the day your mother died I beggedyour attention and got your dollar.I followed you once, in New York, like truth,always to give you the message, and nowon your porch, mud-spattered, I amknocking to make you see what love is.Call your wife, the police, anyone you like,for everyone is waiting. We don’t mean to be unkind but arecompelled to deliver, faithfully, the wordsthat have been fluttering in your earlike a scream. It is not the windwaking you, but the low roar of yearsfumbling to tell you what has happened,or will, when the door flies openand the naked message of lovestands there stuttering in your face,alive, crying, leaving nothing out.",Dave Smith,Fear
Déjà Vu,"It happened to me once.Winter came, and snow quilted every inch.I stood on the soapbox, as I was told,and made staggering accusations. The public ignored,so I retreated behind the potted yew.I was waiting for a moment I was supposed to haveon a balcony overlooking the giant, gridded landscape.The sounds I made underscored what I meant.The potted yew was the face that I wore.It was a metaphor for what could be.The public endured.I put the potted yew behind me. I made staggering an art.That wasn’t the truth though. Wintercomes and negates all it covers. It doesn’t matter where I stand.The balcony is a floor without walls.The yew is a hurt that shadows.The instance lives beneath us. Not just us, everybody.The shadow hurts us. I make sounds likethe truth. Fate and theft are involved.I think I told you this before. The floor is a wall that obscures.The yew is quilt without color. Shadow is a fate you involved.The yew on a balcony negates. I told you this before.I was left undone. It’s what I meant. Underneath everyone.",Carmen Giménez Smith,Anger
"Krishna, 3:29 AM","In a crumpled shirt (so casual for a god)Bow tucked loosely under an arm still jittery from battleHe balanced himself on a flat boat painted black.Each wave as I kneel closer a migrant flagA tongue with syllables no script can catch.The many births you have passed through, try to remember them as I do mineMemory is all you have.",Meena Alexander,Surprise
Fault Whispers,"“A skeleton’s mouth makes few concessions to prettiness.”                                                                             —Jacques JoubertBecause your mouth is violet and you cannot speakBecause maybe I like Thursdays the way I used to hate baths, andbaths are boundaries whose sharpness will be blurred with more informationBecause movement itself is a form of currencyFrozen in articulationsBecause don’t indulge yourself in the idea of restraintThe blackened patches could have been pubic hair on dead bodies, or simplythe wildness of neglectwithout horizons or spacesBecause it’s a comfort to know waste is the fuel of contradictionsa knife rusted before its first useBecause in the barest of rooms, nothing is comprehensibleNeither fanatic nor mysticBecause the first weeks of September came and went and the weather heldNot woven by innocent handsBecause this stasis is preparationBecause you’re deceased, maimed or in Philadelphia",Mark Tardi,Sadness
The Errancy,"Then the cicadas again like kindling that won’t take.The struck match of some utopia we no longer remember                                                      the terms of—the rules. What was it was going to be abolished, what   restored? Behind them the foghorn in the harbor,   the hoarse announcements of unhurried arrivals,the spidery virgin-shrieks of gulls, a sideways sound, a slippery                                                               utterly ash-freedelinquencyand then the subaqueous pasturings       inexhaustiblephosphorous handwritings the frothings of their own excitements now   erase, depth wrestling with the current-corridors of depth ...   But here, up on the hill, in town,the clusterings of dwellings in balconied crystal-formation,   the cadaverous swallowings of the dream of reason gone,hot fingerprints where thoughts laid out these streets, these braceletings   of park and government—a hospital—a dirt-bike run—here, we stand in our hysteria with our hands in our pockets,   quiet, at the end of day, looking out, theories stationary,   while the freight, the crazy wick, once more slides down—marionette-like its being lowered in—marionette-strung our outwaiting its bloody translation ...   Utopia: remember the sensation of direction we loved,   how it tunneled forwardly for us,and us so feudal in its wake—speckling of diamond-dust as I think of it now,that being carried forward by the notion of human   perfectibility—like a pasture imposedon the rising vibrancy of endless diamond-dust ...And how we would comply, some day. How we were built to fit and                                                                            comply—as handwriting fits to the form of its passion,no, to the form of its passionate bearer’s fingerprintable i.d.,or, no, to the handkerchief she brings now to her haunted face,   lifting the sunglasses to wipe awaythe theory—or is it the tears?—the freight now all   in her right hand, in the oceanic place we’d pull up   through her wrist—we’d siphon right up—marionette with her leavening of mother-of-pearl—how she wants to be legible, how the light streaking her shades now                                                               grows vermilion,which she would capture of course, because that, she has heard,   from the rumorous diamond-dust, is what is required,   as also her spirit—now that it has been swallowedlike a lustrous hailstone by her unquenchable body—suggests—the zero   at the heart of the christened bonfire—oh little grimace, kiss, solo   at the heart—growing refined, tiny missionary, in your brightskirted                                                                              host,scorched comprehension—because that is what’s required,   her putting down now the sunset onto that page,as an expression of her deepest undertowing sentiment,which spidery gestures, tongued-over the molecular whiteness,   squared out and stretched and made to resemble emptiness,   will take down the smoldering in the terms of her passion—sunglasses on the table, telephone ringing—and be carried across the tongue-tied ocean,through dusk, right through it, over prisons, over tiny clapboard houses   to which the bartender returns, exhausted, after work,   over flare-ups of civil strife, skeletons rotting in the arms of   skeletons, the foliage all round them gleaming,the green belly-up god we thought we’d seen the last of,shuddering his sleep off, first fruit hanging ripe—oh bright red zero—right there within reach, that he too may be nourished,   you know this of course, what has awakened which we thought we’d                                                                      extinguished,us still standing here sword in hand, hand extended,   frail, over the limpid surface of the lake-like page,the sleep-like page, now folded and gently driven intoits envelope, for the tiny journey, over offices, over sacrifices,   to its particular address, at the heart of the metropolis,   where someone else is waiting, hailstone at the core,   and the heat is too great, friend, the passion in its envelope,   doors slamming, traffic backing-up, the populace not really   abandoned, not really, just very tired on its long red errancy   down the freeways in the dusklighttowards the little town on the hill—the crystal-formation?—how long ago was it we said that? do you remember?—and now that you’ve remembered—and the distance we’ve   traveled—and where we were, then—andhow little we’ve found—aren’t we tired? aren’t we   going to close the elaborate folderwhich holds the papers in their cocoon of possibility,   the folder so pretty with its massive rose-blooms,oh perpetual bloom, dread fatigue, and drowsiness like leavening I   feel—",Jorie Graham,Fear
Wake Me in South Galway,"Wake me in South Galway, or better yet In Clare. You'll know the pub I have in mind. Improvise a hearse—one of those decrepit Postal vans would suit me down to the ground— A rust-addled Renault, Kelly green with a splash Of Oscar Wilde yellow stirred in to clash With the dazzling perfect meadows and limestone On the coast road from Kinvara down toward Ballyvaughan. Once you've got in off the road at Newquay Push aside some barstools and situate me Up in front by the door where the musicians sit, Their table crowded with pints and a blue teapot, A pouch of Drum, some rolling papers and tin Whistles. Ask Charlie Piggott to play a tune That sounds like loss and Guinness, turf smoke and rain, While Brenda dips in among the punters like a hedge-wren. Will I hear it? Maybe not. But I hear it now. The smoke of the music fills my nostrils, I feel the attuned Box and fiddle in harness, pulling the plough Of the melody, turning the bog-dark, root-tangled ground. Even the ceramic collie on the windowsill Cocks an ear as the tune lifts and the taut sail Of the Galway hooker trills wildly in its frame on the wall, Rippling to the salt pulse and seabreeze of a West Clare reel. Many a night, two octaves of one tune, We sat here side by side, your body awake To a jig or slide, me mending the drift of a line As the music found a path to my notebook. Lost in its lilt and plunge I would disappear Into the heathery freedom of a slow air Or walk out under the powerful stars to clear My head of thought and breathe their cooled-down fire. When my own session ends, let me leave like that, Porous to the wind that blows off the ocean. Goodbye to the company and step into the night Completed and one-off, like a well-played tune— Beyond the purified essence of hearth fires Rising from the life of the parish, past smoke and stars, Released from everything I've done and known. I won't go willingly, it's true, but I'll be gone.",Richard Tillinghast,Joy
A Book on a Shelf,"A history of some sort, one that made us, a war and what the war had meant, or since meaning eludes war, what it did to the look of the trees and the sides of the buildings, most of which survived, only to be torn down later to widen the street or put up a new office complex. There it was on the shelf. I was there only a moment, but still, I wanted to know what happened to the man in the photograph wearing a flat cap standing outside the important building cheering. He was there. He was part of that moment, one of the first into the streets when the turn of events came, the declaration or pronouncement, words that would change the look of everything he smiled on, words that may have cost him his life. Here it is in a book I found on a shelf. The person who lives here bought it at a library stock reduction sale. No one had read it. It looked interesting thirty years ago. It was practically new, the back uncracked. But the person did what those before her had, put it up on a shelf and never found a way back to it. The history sits there, unread, unbelievable, somebody else's. Even I have only looked at the pictures, at the man smiling between the cold pages. Maybe ending the world as he knew it was ok. Maybe it was the only way. Maybe the world has to come to an end in the first place to be the world. And the man? He has to smile, though he knows so little of what's coming, even looking right at it. As we do, who still haven't read the book.",Roger Mitchell,Fear
Moonshine,"Drunken laughter escapesBehind the fence wovenWith 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 legsLike the last image of mercy, three   Are drinking from the Mason jar.That’s the oak we plantedThe day before I left town,   As if father & sonNeeded staking down to earth.   If anything could now plumb   Distance, that tree comes close,   Recounting lost friendsAs they turn into mist.The woman stands in a kitchen   Folding a man’s trousers—Her chin tucked to holdThe cuffs straight.I’m lonely as those storytellers   In my father’s backyardI shall join soon. AloneAs they are, tilting back heads   To let the burning ease down.   The names of women meltIn 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,Fear
Dust,"Someone spoke to me last night,told me the truth. Just a few words,but I recognized it.I knew I should make myself get up,write it down, but it was late,and I was exhausted from workingall day in the garden, moving rocks.Now, I remember only the flavor —not like food, sweet or sharp.More like a fine powder, like dust.And I wasn’t elated or frightened,but simply rapt, aware.That’s how it is sometimes —God comes to your window,all bright light and black wings,and you’re just too tired to open it.",Dorianne Laux,Joy
The House of Life 53: Without Her,"What of her glass without her? The blank gray    There where the pool is blind of the moon’s face.    Her dress without her? The tossed empty space Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away. Her paths without her? Day’s appointed sway    Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place    Without her? Tears, ah me! for love’s good grace, And cold forgetfulness of night or day. What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart,    Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?    A wayfarer by barren ways and chill, Steep ways and weary, without her thou art, Where the long cloud, the long wood’s counterpart,    Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.",Dante Gabriel Rossetti,Anger
Self-Portrait,"He wants to bea brutal old man,an aggressive old man,as dull, as brutalas the emptiness around him,He doesn’t want compromise,   nor to be ever niceto anyone. Just mean,and final in his brutal,his total, rejection of it all.He tried the sweet,   the gentle, the “oh,let’s hold hands together”and it was awful,dull, brutally inconsequential.Now he’ll stand onhis own dwindling legs.   His arms, his skin,   shrink daily. Andhe loves, but hates equally.",Robert Creeley,Sadness
A Woman Speaks,Moon marked and touched by sun   my magic is unwrittenbut when the sea turns backit will leave my shape behind.   I seek no favoruntouched by bloodunrelenting as the curse of love   permanent as my errorsor my prideI do not mixlove with pitynor hate with scornand if you would know melook into the entrails of Uranus   where the restless oceans pound.I do not dwellwithin my birth nor my divinities   who am ageless and half-grown   and still seekingmy sisterswitches in Dahomeywear me inside their coiled cloths   as our mother didmourning.I have been womanfor a long timebeware my smileI am treacherous with old magic   and the noon's new furywith all your wide futures   promisedI amwomanand not white.,Audre Lorde,Fear
ESCHATOLOGY,"I accompany this life’s events like a personal journalist:“Little did she know when she got in the car that afternoon ...”;or “Despite inauspicious beginnings,this was to be their happiest year.”Little did I expect that our horoscopes would prove true.And how could we foresee an answer tothat frankly secular prayer, we with so little faithas to be false prophets to our most fortunate gifts.I am glad when doom fails. Inept apocalypseis a specialty of the times: the suffering of the richat the hand of riches; the second and third comings of wars.Shouldn’t we refuse predictionthat the untried today is guilty, that immeasurableas this child’s hope is, it will break tomorrow?",Sandra McPherson,Sadness
"Like Coins, November","We drove past late fall fields as flat and cold as sheets of tin and, in the distance, trees were tossed like coins against the sky. Stunned gold and bronze, oaks, maples stood in twos and threes: some copper bright, a few dull brown and, now and then, the shock of one so steeled with frostit glittered like a dime. The autumn boughs and blackened branches wore a somber glossthat whispered tails to me, not heads. I read memorial columns in their trunks; their leavesspelled UNUM, cent; and yours, the only head . . .  in penny profile, Lincoln-like (one sleeve,one eye) but even it was turning tails as russet leaves lay spent across the trails.",Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck,Surprise
Elementary,"At the 100-year-old National Elk Refugenear Jackson Hole, we might ask,How long does an elk live?Who’s an old elk here?  We’d like to spend timewith an elder elk please.Tell us how to balance our liveson this hard edge of human mean,mean temperatures, what we do and don’twant to mean. Closing the doorto the news will only make youstupid, snapped my friendwho wanted everyone to know as muchas she did. I’m hiding in old school bookswith information we never used yet.Before I drove, before I flew,before the principal went to jail.Sinking my eyes into tall woodenwindow sashes, dreaming of lightarriving from far reaches,our teacher as shepherds,school a vessel of golden hope,you could lift your daily lessonin front of your eyes,stare hard and think,this will take mesomewhere. O histories of India,geological formations of Australia,ancient poetries of China, Japan,someday we will be aligned in a placeof wisdom, together. Red deer, wapiti, running elk risingabove yellow meadows at sundown.An elk bows her head. In the companyof other elk, she feels at home.And we are lost on the horizon now,clumsy humanity,deeper into the next century than wecan even believe,and they will not speak to us.",Naomi Shihab Nye,Anger
A Song on the End of the World,"On the day the world endsA bee circles a clover,A fisherman mends a glimmering net.Happy porpoises jump in the sea,By the rainspout young sparrows are playingAnd the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.         On the day the world endsWomen walk through the fields under their umbrellas,A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,Vegetable peddlers shout in the streetAnd a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,The voice of a violin lasts in the airAnd leads into a starry night.And those who expected lightning and thunderAre disappointed.And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumpsDo not believe it is happening now.As long as the sun and the moon are above,As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,As long as rosy infants are bornNo one believes it is happening now.Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophetYet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:There will be no other end of the world,There will be no other end of the world.Warsaw, 1944",Czeslaw Milosz,Fear
Burning Monk,"From the remainsof his cremation,the monks recovered the seat of Thich Quang Duc’sconsciousness — a bloodless protestto awaken the heartof the oppressor offeredat the crossing ofPhanh Dinh Phung                                     & Le Van Duyetdoused in gasoline &immolated by 4-meterflames the orange-robed arhat folded inthe stillnessof full lotus his body witheringhis crown blackening his flesh charringhis corpse collapsing his heart refusing to burnhis heart refusing to burnhis heart refusing to burn",Shin Yu Pai,Fear
Sweetness,"Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear      one more friend   waking with a tumor, one more maniac   with a perfect reason, often a sweetness      has come   and changed nothing in the world   except the way I stumbled through it,      for a while lost   in the ignorance of loving   someone or something, the world shrunk      to mouth-size,   hand-size, and never seeming small.   I acknowledge there is no sweetness      that doesn’t leave a stain,   no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....   Tonight a friend called to say his lover      was killed in a car   he was driving. His voice was low   and guttural, he repeated what he needed      to repeat, and I repeated   the one or two words we have for such grief   until we were speaking only in tones.      Often a sweetness comes   as if on loan, stays just long enough   to make sense of what it means to be alive,      then returns to its dark   source. As for me, I don’t care   where it’s been, or what bitter road      it’s traveled   to come so far, to taste so good.",Stephen Dunn,Love
Why Being “On Fire” Is for Everyone,"Man on Fire, 1969, by Luis Jiménez Because the facial features burn fastest.Because the sun sets in Tibet before it ever rises in the West.Because Tsering Tashi’s mother told him to dress in the thickest, finest, llama wool chuba.For I find no flattering explanation for the murder of everyone.Flames consume the head, hands, and feet in the mural by Orozco.Because monks don’t even eat meat.His clothes made him torch; still Thích Quảng Đức’s heart would not fire.Because his remains stiffened when they tried to place him in a tomb.Because what is the point of murdering everyone in the world?Since the sun sets in Vietnam before it reaches the West.Because aren’t the faceless Mexicans always the ones we martyr?Why do heretic Indians hurry to incinerate themselves at the stake?Are you awake enough to remember how we clarify the skin of our slaves?To feel the fingers of the children of thread flame stitching your voluminous rugs?The candles in the basilica flicker when they channel the nightmares of the dead.Because Jiménez wept when the mammoth blue mustang leg fell from heaven, rupturing the artery in his leg.Because of Chinese soldiers armed to protect Tiananmen Square from monks burning to set themselves ablaze.Luis says he’s sorry for the pain he caused you having to finish his stallion.",Kristin Naca,Fear
"from What the Heart Longs For When It Only Knows Heat [""We spend the afternoon together watching a docudrama...""]","We spend the afternoon together watching a docudrama about wild horses that roamed the ancient Arctic Circle. Surprisingly sleek, built for speed and not the weather, they were remarkable for their recklessness. They careen headlong down ice bluffs to fall into a broken heap. We can hear the small, tinny sounds of their terror as they plunge across vast, glowing glacial faces. All of this takes place alongside an abstractly relentless gunmetal sea. I can feel you turn to me, wetness marking the corners of your lips and eyes. I, too, am mesmerized, my vision limited to a sense of motion on the peripheries. Later, I am summoned for an impromptu scan and, miraculously, I pass.",Sueyeun Juliette Lee,Fear
Wallpapering,"My parents argued over wallpaper. Would stripes make the room look larger? He would measure, cut, and paste; she’d swipe the flaws out with her brush. Once it was properly hung, doubt would set in. Would the floral have been a better choice? Then it would grow until she was certain: it had to go. Divorce terrified me as a child. I didn’t know what led to it, but I had my suspicions. The stripes came down. Up went the flowers. Eventually it became my definition of marriage: bad choices, arguments whose victors time refused to tell, but everything done together and done well.",Sue Ellen Thompson,Fear
"""She had forgotten how the August night""","She had forgotten how the August nightWas level as a lake beneath the moon,In which she swam a little, losing sightOf shore; and how the boy, who was at noonSimple enough, not different from the rest,Wore now a pleasant mystery as he went,Which seemed to her an honest enough testWhether she loved him, and she was content.So loud, so loud the million crickets’ choir. . .So sweet the night, so long-drawn-out and late. . .And if the man were not her spirit’s mate,Why was her body sluggish with desire?Stark on the open field the moonlight fell,But the oak tree’s shadow was deep and black and     secret as a well.",Edna St. Vincent Millay,Joy
"Pioneers, First Women in Construction","Her sister was shot, and hers found bludgeoneddead in her car trunk; her mother was alcoholic,and hers a suicide; her daughter killed by an uncle,and hers stayed alive thanks to prison.Before the term, date-raped, she was. Beforedomestic violence, love punched her face. We wanted the career. Not just skills and money,but structure, focus, printed plans, the rowdy orderof raising buildings that years later would still standright where you left them. We joined a tradition,expected a well-marked path and a welcome.The earnest ads never mentioned we’d be human minesweepers steering aroundbarricades, sinkholes, lethal instructions, We learnedSolidarity was a corporation privately held.Some left in shock. Some were maimed.Some went missing. A few found gold. Those with talent for sifting real threat from bluff,or detecting hair-triggers before the blast, fared best,We taught ourselves to disarm booby traps, sharedhand-drawn maps, and prepared for a long winter.We lied on postcards home.",Susan Eisenberg,Anger
The World Is Too Much With Us,"The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.",William Wordsworth,Joy
New Personal Poem,"to Michael LallyYou had your own reasons for gettingIn your own way. You didn’t want to beClear to yourself. You knew a hellOf a lot more than you were willing                 to let yourself know. I feltNatural love for you on the spot. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Right.Beautiful. I don’t use the word lightly. IProtested with whatever love (honesty) (& frontal nudity)A yes basically reserved Irish Catholic American Providence Rhode                 Island New Englander is able to manage. YouAre sophisticated, not uncomplicated, notNaïve, and Not simple. An Entertainer, & I am, too.Frank O’Hara respected love, so do you, & so do we.He was himself & I was me. And when we came togetherEach ourselves in Iowa, all the wayThat was love, & it still is, love, today. Can you see meIn what I say? Because as well I see you knowIn what you have to say, I did love Frank, as I doYou, “in the right way”.That’s just talk, not Logos,                 a getting down to cases:I take it as simple particulars that                 we wear our feelings on our faces.",Ted Berrigan,Joy
Kintsugi,"He slips on ice near a mailbox — no gemsbok leaps across the road — a singer tapped an eagle feather on his shoulders — women washed indigo-dyed yarn in this river, but today gallium and germanium particles are washed downstream — once they dynamited dikes to slow advancing troops — picking psilocybin mushrooms and hearing cowbells in the mist — as a child, he was tied to a sheep and escaped marauding soldiers — an apple blossom opens to five petals — as he hikes up a switchback, he remembers undressing her — from the train window, he saw they were on ladders cutting fruit off cacti — in the desert, a crater of radioactive glass — assembling shards, he starts to repair a gray bowl with gold lacquer — they ate psilocybin mushrooms, gazed at the pond, undressed — hunting a turkey in the brush, he stops — from the ponderosa pines: whoo-ah, whoo whoo whoo —",Arthur Sze,Fear
Saint Patrick’s Again,"Live jazz at El Fresco is one guy, electric plinks, until he turns off the switch, closes his eyes,and warbles a boy’s tenor, wood-flute tones, pure séance hymns from before Christians.Rowdies at the bar stop fighting and stare as seawater washes through the room,seeping through floorboards to serpent dens. The chorus stirs spirits from family lore.Desmond, Big Miller, James MackGehee— all rise from steerage and sing with the lords.Next performance is a poet reciting,“The Luck of the Irish,” blue eyes snapping:“Once I journeyed to the Cliffs of Moher.” I follow him to a rocky precipice, pause,then jump to dizzy foam tides below, fall, keep falling into this slow, heartbreaking solo.",Denise Low,Fear
Forget not Yet the Tried Intent,"Forget not yet the tried intent Of such a truth as I have meant; My great travail so gladly spent,             Forget not yet.    Forget not yet when first began The weary life ye know, since whan The suit, the service, none tell can;             Forget not yet.    Forget not yet the great assays, The cruel wrong, the scornful ways; The painful patience in denays,             Forget not yet.    Forget not yet, forget not this, How long ago hath been and is The mind that never meant amiss;             Forget not yet.    Forget not then thine own approved, The which so long hath thee so loved, Whose steadfast faith yet never moved;             Forget not this.",Sir  Thomas Wyatt,Anger
Admiral Nimitz,"Every day in summer I'd cross the border;he'd nod, pick up the horseshoes,hand me one, triple the sizeof my palm, and say, You first. We'd playaway the afternoon. Few wordspunctuated the clank of horseshoeagainst stake, until the fog rolled inand I'd retrace my steps home.I was five or six; he, white haired,however old that meant.One evening my father sat me down,spoke in the exaggerated toneadults adapt for children, askedif I knew who he was.Admiral Nimitz, of course, thoughI knew nothing of his commandof the Pacific Fleet and was less impressedthan if he'd landed a horseshoe.He was a calm man, a useful attributefor sending young men to their deaths.The only time I saw him upset,raccoons had invaded from their hideoutsin the hills, attacked the goldfish in his pond,leaving muddy footprints as they escaped.As far as I knew, this was his only defeat.",Carol V. Davis,Fear
Saving Minutes,"You were in bed.You heard your mother working in the kitchen.It was still light, the birds were bickering,the waterfall behind the house was falling.Its rushing lulled you,you loved the moment you lay in,and you counted the timefrom this instantto this,and put it awayto be lived on another night,your wedding night or some other nightthat needed all the luck,all the saved-up minutes you could bring it.Later you filled bottles in the streamand dated them and stored them in a cupboard.Months after, you retrieved themto stare at what time had done.You were eight, but already you knewit was working on you,each minute you passed through was gone.You didn’t want to give up your old clothes.You’d watch your mother wrapyour dresses in a box for another girland know that where their stripes and buttons wentwhat you’d lived in them followed.But those minutes in bed,minutes of utter safety,you heard the water fallingand didn’t want it to fall.You wanted to keep it,you saved yourself that minute.I don’t know if you still have itor if you’ve had to spend iton you or on me.But I know you still save minutesI used to think went unwatchedinto our account in timethat allows no withdrawals.You hold onto the slippers and letters,things that are leaving, things we’ve left,evidence we’re judged unfairly by.You have the picture, you and Pam in bluefishing in the stream below the pool,staring back at the camera half-abashed.Your jacket is still in the closet.You never wear it,you don’t even remember when you did,but it’s here to testifythe picture doesn’t lie—though the color’s different,your hair is shorter now,and the water in the poolis long gone downstream.",Jonathan Galassi,Joy
Parthenogenesis,"It’s easy to make more of myself by eating,and sometimes easy’s the thing.To be double-me, half the troublebut not lonely.Making cakes to celebrate any old day.Eating too much: the emperor of being used.Nature, mature and feminized,naturalizes me naturally by creatingthe feeling of being a natural woman,like a sixteen-year-old getting knocked upagain. To solve that problem,there’s the crispness of not eating,a pane of glass with a bloody-edgedbody, that is, having the baby at the promundetected and, in a trance of self-preservation,throwing it away in the girls’ room trash.Buried under paper towels, silent.Nothing could be better, for the teenager.For me, starving, that coreless, useful feeling,is not making myself smallerbut making myself bigger, inside.It’s prince and pauper both, it’s starving artistand good model in one masterpiece.It rhymes with marveling and that’s no accident.Fullness is dullness. Dreaming’s too easy.But sometimes I don’t care.Sometimes I put in just the right amount,but then I’m the worst kinds of patsy, a chumpgiving myself over to myself like a criminalto the law, with nothing to show for it.No reward, no news, no truth.It’s too sad to be so ordinary every day.Like some kind of employee.Being told what to do. Chop off a fingerto plant in fertilizer (that is, in used animalfood), to grow a finger tree.More fingers for me. Stop saying finger.I’m the one in charge here.Stop the madness and just eat the mirror.Put it in sideways or crush itinto a powder. It doesn’t hurt and it works.Mouth full, don’t talk.Nothing to say. I’ll be a whole new person.I’ll make her myself. Then we’ll walk away.We’ll say to each other how she’s changed.How we wouldn’t have recognized us.",Brenda Shaughnessy,Joy
Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change,"Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t changeis train tracks. She’s sure of it.The train changes, or the weeds that grow up spideryby the side, but not the tracks.I’ve watched one for three years, she says,and it doesn’t curve, doesn’t break, doesn’t grow.Peter isn’t sure. He saw an abandoned tracknear Sabinas, Mexico, and says a track without a trainis a changed track. The metal wasn’t shiny anymore.The wood was split and some of the ties were gone.Every Tuesday on Morales Streetbutchers crack the necks of a hundred hens.The widow in the tilted housespices her soup with cinnamon.Ask her what doesn’t change.Stars explode.The rose curls up as if there is fire in the petals.The cat who knew me is buried under the bush.The train whistle still wails its ancient soundbut when it goes away, shrinking backfrom the walls of the brain,it takes something different with it every time.",Naomi Shihab Nye,Fear
Firstlings,"(January 7, 1915)In the dregs of the year, all steam and rain,In the timid time of the heart again,When indecision is bold and thorough,And action dreams of a dawn in vain,I saw high up over Bloxham valeThe ploughshare tilt to the next long trail,And, spying a larder in every furrow,The wagtails crowd like a dancing hail!A second wonder there on the hill:Beneath the hedge, I saw with a thrillThe budding primroses laugh good-morrowFrom a deep cradle rocked by a rill!Wagtail smart in his belted blue,Primrose paying her gold ere due,—(Out upon Winter! Down with Sorrow!)These are the things that I know are true.",Louise Imogen Guiney,Fear
The Mothering Blackness,She came home running       back to the mothering blackness          deep in the smothering blacknesswhite tears icicle gold plains of her face          She came home runningShe came down creeping       here to the black arms waiting       now to the warm heart waitingrime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face          She came down creepingShe came home blameless       black yet as Hagar’s daughter       tall as was Sheba’s daughterthreats of northern winds die on the desert’s face          She came home blameless,Maya Angelou,Sadness
Vertigo,"After Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” triptych right panelBut all dark notes are dismantledthere from the middle eardownward. Voyaged mind, cauldron skin.Can you claim anything is yours?The burning salt hourthrows its black broken-glass frame skyward.Left behindthe mum orchestra, body parts in periland animals dizzy forlust past all lostastronomy and wipeout,this naked edible overjoy, a kindof suicide in syllables, fifthpanic, fourth stall’s birds-fermata, thishalf ocean’s susurrus is coming over us in the picture.Can you akin? Can youhear it, pinned to the unseasonable underearth,an option for music and waterconstantly changing shape, an answerin dissonance? To hear desireis to wake yourself inside, upturned,long enough to knowtomorrow is exile. Chaos, body harp,and painted butt music, crowd-crawl, rosecrowned to the chest, rabbitcall and playing cards    ...    listen,I’m hell-humming inyour direction, giddy, I am too takento leave it alone, the willlocked in as if it is alreadyinside of me now: to fall.Let’s be clear,my darling, in the reelingcrave, spilled gut-platterof enclosed bones, inthe final flesh-clean drop, it soundslike fire risingwith the cliff’s updraft.",Elena Karina Byrne,Surprise
Trailer,"The guests are floating in the lobby,walking but also gliding to the front deskthen away, checking in, checking out,muscular souls adorned in cotton,wool, and rayon, chewing the futureinside their heads, slicing the airwith ironed pleats, avoiding the cameraat every turn so as, so as to get it rightthis time, which is the first time.“First cut, best cut!” the director shoutssince this is also a silent film for the deafand therefore everyone. His aimis to get the cast to see what they’vebeen missing, to disregard the very soundsthat they don’t hear to begin with,but would notice immediatelyif they were gone. See how they glideon the ether above the floor.The insouciance, Lord. The insouciance!They are all here in the magic of the set,every soul in the guise of a guestgoing about her business, a rendezvous here,as assignation there, the solitary sippingat the bar. Someone striking appearsat the door. The rain outside beats downon the streets with terrible force until allyou can hear is the roar of the sky as it passesabove, and then below, on its narrow tracks.",Chard DeNiord,Fear
Stolen Dress,"I was walking through a vast darknessin a dress studded with diamonds, the clothunder them like chain mail—metallic,form fitting like the sea to its horizon. I couldhear waves breaking on the shore and far offconcertina music drifting over the dunes. Whatwas I doing in high heels in sand in a diamond-studdeddress that had to be stolen? Fear washedthrough me, as if one of those waves hadrisen up and, against all the rules of waves,splashed me from the shouldersdown. I was wet with diamonds and fear.A small boat held offshore with its coldyellow light pointing a long watery finger at mewhile the stolen feeling of the dress sparkledmy location out into the universe. Thief! Thief!came an interplanetary cry, causing me togaze up into the star-brilliant firmament,for it wasn’t just a sky anymore. It hadtaken on biblical stature. How had Igotten into this dress, these unrulywaves, this queasy feeling I would befound out? Time to run! my heart said,pumping away under its brocadeof diamonds. Strange vacancies hadaccumulated after all my sleep-plunderednights. Thief! came the cry again, as ifI should recognize myself. And I did.I flung those high heels into the depths,took up my newfound identity, and withoutthe least remorse, began to run those diamondsright out of this world.",Tess Gallagher,Anger
Strolling,"Some places you could die in,                                                if you could just go on                                                living there.The boy, his legs bare and small,swinging in the stroller, sockless, suede-shoed feet touchingthe runner. He can walk, but the womankeeps him from runninginto the street. He won’t obeybut listens to everything we say. Head tilted, face changingwith the conversation. Green leaves leap through fences.Cars wait while we cross. And each bird the boy greetswith its name, “Bird,” flies away. The sky holds everything. The woman pushes her son’s son along. Her arms strong enough   to holdnine strong horses prancing.She’s given her money awaybecause someone had to burya child. That is the worst thing.A mother burying her child. I would never do that to her, even though it meanswhat it means.A thousand years from nowwhen I am only a dreamI will dream this dreamof strolling.Perhaps I am doing so now.",Angela Jackson,Fear
Apology for Apostasy?,"Soft songs, like birds, die in poison airSo my song cannot now be candy.Anger rots the oak and elm; roses are rare,Seldom seen through blind despair.And my murmur cannot be heardAbove the din and damn. The night is fullOf buggers and bastards; no moon or starsLight the sky. And my candy is deferredTill peacetime, when my voice shall be light,Like down, lilting in the air; then shall ISing of beaches, white in the magic sun,And of moons and maidens at midnight.",Etheridge Knight,Joy
Cossacks and Bandits,"I grew up in a village built on coal and labor.An outhouse on a dirt road by a water pumpglared at the whitewashed fences of uniformed yardsthat gaped like broken teeth in the mouths of miners.All summer we played Cossacks and Bandits,shot our symbolic rifles and revolversand when killed would crush a wild cherryin the breast pocket, the spot where the heart stopped.Who started it? The red spreading over white satinnever to be washed away completely,“I killed you! I killed you!” I screamedas he fell down. Men found him three years laterin the abandoned mine after an explosion,his clothes covered with coal dust and blood.Women howled like wolves. “It’s nothing,he’ll get up,” I thought, “it’s just that stupidwild cherry on his shirt.”",Katia Kapovich,Fear
A Knot of Worms,"As day began to break, we passedthe “honk for worms” sign,passed it honking againand again, to wake up the wormsmy dad said. It was onlyabout another half mile tothe aspen grove and our worm digs.The humus, spongy and almostblack, turned over easily.I used my bare hands to putsome moist earth into a coffee canand, as the aspen glitteredin the risen sun, I gentlyslid the fresh, fat bait into my container.I heard the worms still in the groundgurgle as they tried to escape,while the ones in the can beganto ball up as their numbers grew.Streamside, surrounded by mountainswith snow lingering into summer,I picked out a worm and my dadarranged it on the hook to savemy small fingers. Now you can purchasea time-share on that land.The colony of aspen, thinnedby the builders, continues totremble. No amount of honkingbrings back the worms.",Marsha Truman Cooper,Fear
First Morel,"Up from wood rot, wrinkling up from duff and homely damps, spore-born and cauled like a meager seer, it pushes aside earth to make a small place from decay. Bashful, it brings honeycombed news from below of the coming plenty and everything rising.",Amy Fleury,Fear
Early December in Croton-on-Hudson,"Spiked sun. The Hudson’sWhittled down by ice.I hear the bone diceOf blown gravel clicking. Bone-pale, the recent snowFastens like fur to the river.Standstill. We were leaving to deliverChristmas presents when the tire blewLast year. Above the dead valves pines paredDown by a storm stood, limbs bared . . .I want you.",Louise Glück,Fear
The Sun,"There is one mind in all of us, one soul,   who parches the soil in some nations but in others hides perpetually behind a veil;   he spills light everywhere, here he spilled some on my tie, but it dried before dinner ended.   He is in charge of darkness also, also in charge of crime, in charge of the imagination.   People fucking do so by flicking him off and on, off and on, with their eyelids   as they ascertain their love's sincerity. He makes the stars disappear, but he makes   small stars everywhere, on the hoods of cars, in the ommatea of skyscrapers or in the eyes   of sighing lovers bored with one another. Onto the surface of the world he stamps   all plants and animals. They are not gods but it is he who made us worshippers of every    bramble toad, black chive we find. In Idaho there is a desert cricket that makes   a clock-like tick-tick when he flies, but he is not a god. The only god is the sun,   our mind, master of all crickets and clocks.",Dan Chiasson,Joy
The Jaunt,"In party outfits, two by two or one by one(I was expected to go along as well),They step up the steep gangplank, hands onMetal railing. The river, youthful alsoIn midnight blue with sunset-tinted wavelets,Lets them borrow its broad backFor an evening’s unhurried round trip,Which won’t interrupt old river habits for long.Not the chop and churn of big propellersAs the rocking stern heaves off and wheels fanwiseInto the current, nor a short blast from the stack,Not the up-tempo drumbeat of the black-tie comboNor an answering fusillade of popped corks, not geysersOf laughter pitched flagpole high among flailingLimbs out on the polished floor nor the mixedBabble of sideline comment over bubbling glassesCan shake that seamless imperturbability. . . .When the springy net of sparkles has shrunk and fadedOut of sight, the last rough throb been coaxedFrom the tenor sax’s frog-in-the-throat, the finalNeedling tremolo of the clarinet been wrapped upIn distance, suddenly it is strange to be hereIn lilac afterglow with trout-leap and mayfly. . . .Strange, too, how our part of the river continuesTo trundle along its tonnages of water and motion.The unused ticket spins to the ground.As much as any person not two people canI miss the jaunt, for just this one hour of dusk. . . .Then, a veiled echo, my name called as I turnTo answer, eyes adjusting to where we areAt the pivot of night, the cusp of light.Light enough to feel our way back to the groveOf alders along the curving path beside the river;Light enough to recognize my life when I see it,Going in its direction, more or less at the same pace.",Alfred Corn,Joy
Being Chinese,"In Los Angeles airport I sitstunned by the English, lettersharsh things with no storiesI know. The food smells dead,metal forks and knives setfor making war against food.I am undone and done again,broken off from narrativesof birth and being, of limitsbroken by the genius of slaves.I stand here where I was born,and the masks wait for me.",Afaa Michael Weaver,Sadness
A Hot Time in a Small Town,"In this restaurant a plate of bluefish pâtéand matzos begin memorable meals. The cracker is ridged, seems planked, an old wallstreaked sepia, very nearly blackin Tigrett, Tennessee where it burned into a matzo’s twin. While waitingfor a Martha’s Vineyard salad, I rebuild the churchwith crackers, pâté as paste as a flaming dessert arrives at another table where dinersare ready for a second magnum of champagne; every dayis an anniversary; every minute, a commemorationso there is no reason to ever be sober to excuse incendiaries who gave up the bottle,threw alcohol at the church, spectacular reform in flames themselves ordinary—there’d been fire in that churchmany times, every Sunday and even at the Thursdaychoir rehearsals. For years there’d been a fired-up congregation so seething, neighborhoods they marched through ignitedno matter their intention; just as natural as summer.There were hot links as active as telephone lineswhose poles mark the countryside as if the nation is helplesswithout a crucifix every few yards; pity they are combustible and that fire itself is holy, that its smoke merges with atmosphere,that we breathe its residue, that when it is thick and black enoughto believe in, it betrays and chokes us; pitythat it is the vehicle that proves the coming of the Lord,the establishment of his kingdom, his superiority becausefire that maintains him disfigures us; when we try to embracehim; we find ourselves out on a limb    burning.  The meal tastes divine, simply divineand I eat it in the presence of a companion dark as scab,as if skin burned off was replaced as he healedwith this total-body scab under which he is pink as a pig, unclean at leastthrough Malachi. In my left hand, a dash of Lot’s wife; in my right, a millto freshly grind the devil, since fire is powerboth the supreme good and supreme evil are entitledto it; most of the time, what did it matterwho was in charge of Job?     Both burnt him.",Thylias Moss,Joy
Particular Beauties,"Whether it was a particular beautyStirred the tearfall from the eyelid’s rim,Rinsing the world once more with self,Was it not there the general peered,Thousand-eyed, down from the peakIn the last of all imaginary sunsets?The light divided in half, the halfDivided again in half, the wayZeno’s paradox makes nothing moveBecause an infinity of points betweenTarget and arrow, though never seen,Exists. And there is snow in a capsule,A solid floor of individualFlakes that, shaken, settle in a field—Parachutists growing where the grass,One moment before, was only natural.I am speaking now of the diminishmentOr enhancement of enchanted objects,Of how they turn into nothingnessOr burnish the imagination:A fire at the bottom of the sea,For instance, or a mind in spaceThinking its way into science fiction,Or, inside the skull, a little worldClinging, about to be thrown away—Miraculous lint under a bell.",Howard Moss,Fear
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 coldIn 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 AustriaIs 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 bringBlack Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.Giants and the Genii,Multiplex of wing and eye,Whose strong obedience broke the skyWhen 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 seaWhere 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 knowThe 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 AustriaIs 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 shiftAnd 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 eyesAnd 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 eclipseCrying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,Trumpet that sayeth ha!      Domino gloria! Don John of AustriaIs 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 greyLike 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 raidGun upon gun, ha! ha!Gun upon gun, hurrah!Don John of AustriaHas 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 seaThe 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 repinesLike a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hungThe stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing onBefore the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hellWhere 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 seaWhite for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.Vivat Hispania!Domino Gloria!",G. K. Chesterton,Fear
The Measure of the Year,"A canoe made of horse ribs tipped over in the pasture.Prairie flowers took it for a meetinghouse.They grow there with a vengeance.Buck posts float across the flooded swampWhere my father rode in and under.Different horse.He held her head up out of the mudAnd said how he was sorryTill they came to pull him out.We found the white fillyOn the only hard ground by the south gate.He said she’d been a ghost from the start and he was right.We covered her with branches.There were things he had the wrong names forLike rose crystals. ThoughThey were about what you’d think from a name like that.He told us somewhere on Sand Creek PassWas a crystal that spelled our own initialsAnd we should try to find it.We walked through sagebrush and sand currents, looking.He said pasqueflowers and paintbrushWait till Easter to grow,Then they come up even with snow still on the ground.I thought I’d seen that happen.",James Galvin,Fear
"Hunters, Gatherers","1Late fall the white fur grew up your spinethick as the tail of a marten. You built up the fire,wrapped your legs with skins, but how thatchill wind broke through sill and jamb.We stuffed paper in every crevice — an uncle’s will,the writ that changed your name, a certificateof Degree of Indian Blood and one that said O positive. Stillwe shivered, your eyes yellow in the lantern’s light.Always, they were out there, in a field of bouldersthe size of bears hunched over. O, you were silkywith fur, with a sharp smell I could not get enough of.I fell into a dream of milk and skin,on the bed of pelts in the winter cabin. When I wokethey had taken you or you had gone with them.And didn’t I, so green with sleep, track youthe three days until new snow fell?2I packed flint and tinder and a compasswhose face shines in the lowest light.I learned a song to map the wayand one to call you back.I crouched over every footprint,sniffing.And herewas a broken branch and heresomething like hair caught by a bramble.I followed and followed — all the yellow hours,until I came to untouched earthand waitedin the clearing for the snow to come downwhiteas the winter blanket you long had wanted.3In the spring when youcome down hungry fromthat other mountainthe space between one riband the next deep enoughto lay my finger — how much of you willremain or linger — bone or mouth or memoryof the first sadness of humans?Will you dig from the crevicesthe paper where theywrote you down as thisinstead of that? Or startleat the clatter of plates?The creak of the wooden bed?Will your skin shake offits fur, your claws rememberthey were fingers? And the hands,meaty as paws, soften intowhat I once could stroke or suckle?",Janet McAdams,Fear
The Topography of History,"All cities are open in the hot season.Northward or southward the summer gives outFew telephone numbers but no one in our house sleeps.Southward that river carries its floodThe dying winter, the spring’s nostalgia:Wisconsin’s dead grass beached at Baton Rouge.Carries the vegetable loves of the young blondeGoing for water by the dikes of Winnetka or Louisville,Carries its obscure music and its strange humour,Its own disturbing life, its peculiar ideas of movement.Two thousand miles, moving from the secret northIt crowds the country apart: at last reachingThe lynch-dreaming, the demon-haunted, the murderous virgin SouthMakes its own bargains and says change in its own fashion.And where the Gulf choirs out its blue hosannasCarries the drowned men’s bones and its buried life:It is an enormous bell, rung through the country’s midnight.* * *Beyond the corrosive ironies of prairies,Midnight savannas, open vowels of the flat country,The moonstruck waters of the Kansas baysWhere the Dakotas bell and nuzzle at the north coast,The nay-saying desolation where the mind is lostIn the mean acres and the wind comes down for a thousand milesSmelling of the stars’ high pastures, and speaking a strange language—There is the direct action of mountains, a revolution,A revelation in stone, the solid decrees of past history,A soviet of language not yet cooled nor understood clearly:The voices from underground, the granite vocables.There shall that voice crying for justice be heard,But the local colorist, broken on cliffs of laughter,At the late dew point of pity collect only the irony of serene stars.* * *Here all questions are mooted. All battles joined.No one in our house sleeps.And the Idealist hunting in the high latitudes of unreason,By mummy rivers, on the open minds of curst lakesMirrors his permanent address; yet suffers from visionsOf spring break-up, the open river of history.On this the Dreamer sweats in his sound-proof tower:All towns are taken in the hot season.How shall that Sentimentalist love the Mississippi?His love is a trick of mirrors, his spit’s abstraction,Whose blood and guts are filing system forA single index of the head or heart’s statistics.Living in one time, he shall have no history.How shall he love change who lives in a static world?His love is lost tomorrow between Memphis andthe narrows of Vicksburg.But kissed unconscious between Medicine Bow and TombstoneHe shall love at the precipice brink who would love these mountains.Whom this land loves shall be a holy wanderer,The eyes burned slick with distances betweenKennebunkport and Denver, minted of transcience.For him shall that river run in circles andThe Tetons seismically skipping to their ancient compelling musicSend embassies of young sierras to nibble from his hand.His leaves familiar with the constant wind,Give, then, the soils and waters to command.Latitudinal desires scatter his seed,And in political climates sprout new freedom.But curst is the water-wingless foreigner from Boston,Stumping the country as others no better have done,Frightened of earthquake, aware of the rising waters,Calling out “O Love, Love,” but finding none.",Thomas McGrath,Surprise
"Idea 20: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still","An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still,Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess'd,Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest.In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake;And when by means to drive it out I try,With greater torments then it me doth take,And tortures me in most extremity.Before my face it lays down my despairs,And hastes me on unto a sudden death;Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,And then in sighing to give up my breath.Thus am I still provok'd to every evilBy this good-wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.",Michael Drayton,Fear
"Slam, Dunk, & Hook","Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury'sInsignia on our sneakers,We outmaneuvered the footworkOf bad angels. Nothing but a hotSwish of strings like silkTen feet out. In the roundhouseLabyrinth our bodiesCreated, we could almostLast forever, poised in midairLike storybook sea monsters.A high note hung thereA long second. OffThe rim. We'd corkscrewUp & dunk balls that explodedThe skullcap of hope & goodIntention. Lanky, all hands& feet...sprung rhythm.We were metaphysical when girlsCheered on the sidelines.Tangled up in a falling,Muscles were a bright motorDouble-flashing to the metal hoopNailed to our oak.When Sonny Boy's mama diedHe played nonstop all day, so hardOur backboard splintered.Glistening with sweat,We rolled the ball offOur fingertips. TroubleWas there slapping a blackjackAgainst an open palm.Dribble, drive to the inside,& glide like a sparrow hawk.Lay ups. Fast breaks.We had moves we didn't knowWe had. Our bodies spunOn swivels of bone & faith,Through a lyric slipknotOf joy, & we knew we wereBeautiful & dangerous.",Yusef Komunyakaa,Surprise
A Hymn to Childhood,"Childhood? Which childhood?The one that didn’t last?The one in which you learned to be afraidof the boarded-up well in the backyardand the ladder in the attic?The one presided over by armed menin ill-fitting uniformsstrolling the streets and alleys,while loudspeakers declared a new era,and the house around you grew bigger,the rooms farther apart, with more and morepeople missing?The photographs whispered to each otherfrom their frames in the hallway.The cooking pots said your nameeach time you walked past the kitchen.And you pretended to be dead with your sisterin games of rescue and abandonment.You learned to lie still so longthe world seemed a play you viewed from the muffledsafety of a wing. Look! Inrun the servants screaming, the soldiers shouting,turning over the furniture,smashing your mother’s china.Don’t fall asleep.Each act opens with your motherreading a letter that makes her weep.Each act closes with your father falleninto the hands of Pharaoh.Which childhood? The one that never ends? O you,still a child, and slow to grow.Still talking to God and thinking the snowfalling is the sound of God listening,and winter is the high-ceilinged housewhere God measures with one eyean ocean wave in octaves and minutes,and counts on many fingersall the ways a child learns to say Me.Which childhood?The one from which you’ll never escape? You,so slow to knowwhat you know and don’t know.Still thinking you hear low songin the wind in the eaves,story in your breathing,grief in the heard dove at evening,and plentitude in the unseen birdtolling at morning. Still slow to tellmemory from imagination, heaven   from here and now,hell from here and now,death from childhood, and both of themfrom dreaming.",Li-Young Lee,Fear
My Generation Reading the Newspapers,"We must be slow and delicate; returnthe policeman's stare with some esteem,   remember this is not a shadow playof doves and geese but this is nowthe time to write it down, record the words—I mean we should have left some prideof youth and not forget the destiny of men   who say goodbye to the wives and homes   they've read about at breakfast in a restaurant:   ""My love.""—without regret or bitterness   obtain the measure of the stride we make,   the latest song has chosen a theme of love   delivering us from all evil—destroy. . . ?why no. . . this too is fanciful. . . funny how   hard it is to be slow and delicate in this,   this thing of framing words to mark this grave   I mean nothing short of blood in every street   on earth can fitly voice the loss of these.",Kenneth Patchen,Sadness
Way-Station,The incoherent rushing of the trainDulls like a drugged painNumbsTo an ether throbbing of inaudible drumsUnfoldsHush within hush until the night withholdsOnly its darkness.                            From the deepDark a voice calls like a voice in sleepSlowly a strange name in a strange tongue.AmongThe sleeping listeners a soundAs leaves stir faintly on the groundWhen snow falls from a windless sky—A stir    A sigh,Archibald MacLeish,Surprise
One in Three or Four,"There are too many of us for youto believe you are either alone or responsible. No woman asks for this. Some are children. Some areboys. Every one of us should havebeen heard. This is for Anna, age 17,who was then beaten and left to die;for Nathan, who at 11 admired the basketball coach; for Rosaline, whosees in her baby the face of a rapistand who finds that face difficult tolove; for sisters when soldiers came,mothers imprisoned among guards,for aunties grandmas daughters sons,for one who was tied and one who triedto scream, one whose husband watched,one violated time after time, one tornapart, who called the police whodid not call her back, who went tothe clinic where there were no kits,who numbed her shame with drugs,who could not drink enough to forget,who took her life, who believed shewas an object, who said nothing, whoknew no one was there and that no one would ever be there. Know this: thereare so many that if we could speak,our voices might spread like floodwatersover their boots and swell past securitystations; that if we cried out togetherwe might finally understand it as anassault on all people, all creation, andmaybe then there would be justice inthis war to claim yourself, a strugglemapped all over the flesh of every womanor child who has known what it is to be used, as you were, your sacred body.",Karenne Wood,Love
Whispers of Immortality,"Webster was much possessed by deathAnd saw the skull beneath the skin;And breastless creatures under groundLeaned backward with a lipless grin.Daffodil bulbs instead of ballsStared from the sockets of the eyes!He knew that thought clings round dead limbsTightening its lusts and luxuries.Donne, I suppose, was such anotherWho found no substitute for sense,To seize and clutch and penetrate;Expert beyond experience,He knew the anguish of the marrowThe ague of the skeleton;No contact possible to fleshAllayed the fever of the bone.                         .  .  .  .  .",T. S. Eliot,Surprise
Einstein’s Bathrobe,"I wove myself of many delicious strandsOf violet islands and sugar-balls of threadSo faintly green a small white check betweenBalanced the field’s wide lawn, a plaidGathering in loose folds shaped around himThose Princeton mornings, slowly stage-lit, whenThe dawn took the horizon by surpriseAnd from the marsh long, crayoned birdsRose up, ravens, maybe crows, or raw-voiced,Spiteful grackles with their clothespin legs,Black-winged gossips rising out of mudAnd clattering into sleep. They woke my masterWhile, in the dark, I waited, knowingSooner or later he’d reach for meAnd, half asleep, wriggle into my arms.Then it seemed a moonish, oblique lightWould gradually illuminate the room,The world turn on its axis at a different slant,The furniture a shipwreck, the floor askew,And, in old slippers, he’d bumble down the stairs.Genius is human and wants its coffee hot—I remember mornings when he’d sitFor hours at breakfast, dawdling over notes,Juice and toast at hand, the world awakeTo spring, the smell of honeysuckleFilling the kitchen. A silent man,Silence became him most. How gentlyHe softened the edges of a guessed-at impactSo no one would keel over from the blow—A blow like soft snow falling on a lamb.He’d fly down from the heights to tie his shoesAnd cross the seas to get a glass of milk,Bismarck with a harp, who’d doff his hat(As if he ever wore one!) and softly landOn nimble feet so not to startle. He walkedIn grandeur much too visible to be seen—And how many versions crawled out of the Press!A small pre-Raphaelite with too much hair;A Frankenstein of test tubes; a “refugee”—A shaman full of secrets who could touchPhysics with a wand and body forthThe universe’s baby wrapped in stars.From signs Phoenicians scratched into the sandWith sticks he drew the contraries of space:Whirlwind Nothing and Volume in its rageOf matter racing to undermine itself,And when the planets sang, why, he sang backThe lieder black holes secretly adore.At tea at Mercer Street every afternoonHis manners went beyond civility,Kindness not having anything to learn;I was completely charmed. And fooled.What a false view of the universe I had!The horsehair sofa, the sagging chairs,A fire roaring behind the firesecreen—Imagine thinking Princeton was the world!Yet I wore prescience like a second skin:When Greenwich and Palomar saw eye to eye,Time and space having found their rabbi,I felt the dawn’s black augurs gather force,As if I knew in the New Jersey nightThe downcast sky that was to clamp on Europe,That Asia had its future in my pocket.",Howard Moss,Anger
We Real Old,The Canasta Players:Seven at Autumn's GoldWe real old. Webell-tolled. We dilate. Westagflate. We sing thin. Weshake Schwinn. We shit-doled. Youstuff gold.,William Trowbridge,Sadness
Raz el Hanout,"A recipe for lamb tagine   demands a mysterious   ingredient: raz el hanout.   Animal, vegetable, compound   of kings like myrrh? I decide   not to look it up, to wait and   see. At first it is everything   we seek but can’t express.   Then it reverses: everything   thrust upon us—think fast!—   by the universe, like the leg   my friend Tom caught when   a cyclist got clipped by a car,   the driver stinking drunk   at 9:00 AM. Severed above   the knee, the leg flung itself   into the air, a javelin. Tom,   always quick, reached up and   caught it. But the story has   a twist. After the cyclist died   in an ambulance, the widow   inexplicably came on to Tom.   Not that Tom is unattractive.   Indeed he is the sort of man   I’d throw myself at if I were   a leg. It’s hard to imagine   the sex that Tom and this   woman would have had there in the hotel room   with the blackout curtains   pulled. I’ve never had sex   with Tom myself, but if I had   been that leg or that woman   I might have whispered,   “What fine reflexes you   have, Sir!” “Sir, say something   tender!” “Cradle me against   the guttural gasp from your   solar plexus.” “Oh, Sir, I   sense the tip of bone   on skin, a surge of déjà vu.”   “I am coming, I am about   to come, your shuddering   lover, your raz el hanout.”",Rhoda Janzen,Fear
Gatekeepers,"1.A crow gliding over a ravine wasThe sign his eyes were waiting for.They thought they were ready to cross.The tumbleweed listening to a cricketAnd seeing a line of ants snaking inWas the figure of his younger sister,Huddled by him, asking for a campfire.They made it as far as a roadside storeAnd held their hands over the electric coils.When asked if they were going to buy anything,Their tongues broke off into halvesAnd fell to the floor like Popsicles.2.My father says I was born to translateWhat he could only nod to for years.He also says that God made a mistakeBy blurring out his eyes first becauseHe can hear her asking for a blanket.She saw a church adorned with hipbones,Sun-bleached, and beautiful as curved jewelry.She dreamt of its wide doors, and after dippingHer finger in His palm, she felt His warmth.My father says that cactus needles flyAnd burn like the memory of lost ones,Then he tells me I was born to studyThe sand trails and notice when footstepsDrag and turn to knee and handprints.Those are ones I need to follow, he says.",Juan Delgado,Fear
A Song,"Oh, Love, he went a-straying, A long time ago! I missed him in the Maying, When blossoms were of snow; So back I came by the old sweet way; And for I loved him so, wept that he came not with me, A long time ago! Wide open stood my chamber door, And one stepped forth to greet; Gray Grief, strange Grief, who turned me sore With words he spake so sweet. I gave him meat; I gave him drink; (And listened for Love’s feet.) How many years? I cannot think; In truth, I do not know— Ah, long time ago! Oh, love, he came not back again, Although I kept me fair; And each white May, in field and lane, I waited for him there! Yea, he forgot; but Grief stayed on, And in Love’s empty chair Doth sit and tell of days long gone— ’Tis more than I can bear!",Lizette Woodworth Reese,Surprise
Another Grace for a Child,"Here a little child I stand Heaving up my either hand; Cold as paddocks though they be, Here I lift them up to Thee, For a benison to fall On our meat, and on us all. Amen.",Robert Herrick,Anger
The Highland,"—Zelda Fitzgerald, 1939Dear One,Do you have the time? Can you takethe time? Can you makethe time?To visit me? The hospital doors have opened to spring,and its land is high, dear one, each slopewith a vapor of crocuses. Its citizens, alas,are low. Despondent, in fact, though a jar of sun teatans on the sill. The woman beside mehas opened the gift of a china doll, an antiqueFrozen Charlotte. Glass face, a cap of china hair,shellacked to the sheen of a chestnut.At breakfast the shifting returned, dreadfulwithin me: colors were infinite, part of the air . . .lines were free of the masses they held. The melon,a cloud; and the melon, an empty,oval lariat.They have moved the canvas chairfrom the window. Sun, enhancedby the brewing jar, threwan apricot scorch on the fabric. The fruit,a cloud. The fruit,a doll-sized, empty lariat.D. O., into what shapewill our shaplessness flow?    Dear One,Italian escapes me. Still, I float to the operasof Hasse and Handel, a word now and thenlifting through . . .  sole, libertà. In an earlier time,the thrum-plumped voice of a countertenor—half male,half female—might place himamong us, we who are thickenedby fracturings. D. O., now and then, my wordsbreak free of the masses they hold.Think of wind, how it barks through the reedsof a dog's throat. How the pungent, meaty stream of itcracks into something like words—but not. I just sitin the sun room then, slumped in my fur and slabber,feeling the wolf begin, back away, then somegreat-jawed, prehistoric otherbegin, back away, then the gill-less,the gilled, then the first pulsed flecksbegin, back away, until only a wind remains,vast and seamless. No earth, no heavens.No rise, no dip. No single flash of syllablethat might be me. Or you.   D. O.,Now a gauze of snow on the crocuses! I woketo its first brilliance—midnight, great moon—and walked through the hallways. The pin-shaped leavesof the potted cosmos threw a netted shadow,and I stopped in its fragile harmony,my arms, bare feet, the folds of my limp gownstriped by such weightless symmetryI might have beenmyself again. Through an open screen doorI saw a patient, drawn out by the brightness perhaps,her naked body a ghastly white, her facea ghastly, frozen white, fixedin a bow-mouthed syncope, like somethingout of time. As we are, D. O., herein the Highland, time's infinite, cyclic now-and-thenone simple flake of consciousnessagainst the heated tongue.   Dear One,My Italian improves:sole, libertà,and Dio, of course, D. O.! (Although Hehas forsaken me.) The tea at the windowgleams like the flank of a chestnut horse. It darkensimperceptibly, as madness does, or dusk.All morning, I held a length of cotton twine—a shaggy, oakum filament—between the jar and brewing sun.We made a budding universe: the solar disc,the glassy globe of reddish sea, the stillnessin the firmament. At last across the cotton twinea smoke began, a little ashless burn, Dio,that flared and died so suddenlyits light has yet to reach me.",Linda Bierds,Fear
Staggerlee wonders,"1I always wonderwhat they think the niggers are doingwhile they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists, are containing Russia  and defining and re-defining and re-aligning China, nobly restraining themselves, meanwhile,from blowing up that earthwhich they have already blasphemed into dung: the gentle, wide-eyed, cheerfulladies, and their men,nostalgic for the noble cause of Vietnam,nostalgic for noble causes,aching, nobly, to wade through the blood of savages—ah—!Uncas shall never leave the reservation, except to purchase whisky at the State Liquor Store.The Panama Canal shall remain forever locked: there is a way around every treaty.We will turn the tides of the restlessCaribbean, the sun will rise, and seton our hotel balconies as we see fit.The natives will have nothing to complain about,indeed, they will begin to be grateful,will be better off than ever before. They will learn to defer gratificationand save up for things, like we do. Oh, yes. They will.We have only to make an offerthey cannot refuse.This flag has been planted on the moon:it will be interesting to see what steps the moon will take to be revenged for this quite breathtaking presumption.This peoplemasturbate in winding sheets. They have hacked their children to pieces. They have never honoured a single treaty made with anyone, anywhere.The walls of their citiesare as foul as their children.No wonder their children come at them with knives.Mad Charlie man's son was one of their children, had got his shit togetherby the time he left kindergarten,and, as for Patty, heiress of all the ages,she had the greatest vacationof any heiress, anywhere:Golly-gee, whillikens, Mom, real guns!and they come with a real big, black funky stud, too: oh, Ma! he's making eyes at me!Oh, noble Duke Wayne, be careful in them happy hunting grounds.They say the only good Indian is a dead Indian,by what I say is, you can't be too careful, you hear?Oh, towering Ronnie Reagan,wise and resigned lover of redwoods, deeply beloved, winning man-child of the yearning Republicfrom diaper to football field to Warner Brothers sound-stages,be thou our grinning, gently phallic, Big Boy of all the ages!   Salt peanuts, salt peanuts, for dear hearts and gentle people,  and cheerful, shining, simple Uncle Sam!   Nigger, read this and run! Now, if you can't read,  run anyhow!   From Manifest Destiny (Cortez, and all his men silent upon a peak in Darien) to A Decent Interval, and the chopper rises above Saigon, abandoning the noble cause and the people we have made ignoble and whom we leave there, now, to die,  one moves, With All Deliberate Speed, to the South China Sea, and beyond,  where millions of new niggers await glad tidings!    No, said the Great Man's Lady, I'm against abortion, I always feel that's killing somebody. Well, what about capital punishment? I think the death penalty helps.   That's right. Up to our ass in niggers on Death Row.   Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me!    2Well, I guess what the niggers  is supposed to be doing is putting themselves in the path  of that old sweet chariot and have it swing down and carry us home.   That would help, as they say, and they got ways of sort of nudging the chariot. They still got influence with Wind and Water, though they in for some surprises with Cloud and Fire.   My days are not their days. My ways are not their ways. I would not think of them, one way or the other, did not they so grotesquely block the view between me and my brother.   And, so, I always wonder: can blindness be desired? Then, what must the blinded eyes have seen to wish to see no more!   For, I have seen,  in the eyes regarding me,  or regarding my brother,  have seen, deep in the farthest valley of the eye, have seen a flame leap up, then flicker and go out, have seen a veil come down, leaving myself, and the other, alone in that cave which every soul remembers, and out of which, desperately afraid,  I turn, turn, stagger, stumble out,  into the healing air, fall flat on the healing ground,  singing praises, counselling my heart, my soul, to praise.   What is it that this people cannot forget?   Surely, they cannot be deluded as to imagine that their crimes are original?   There is nothing in the least original about the fiery tongs to the eyeballs, the sex torn from the socket, the infant ripped from the womb,  the brains dashed out against rock, nothing original about Judas, or Peter, or you or me: nothing: we are liars and cowards all, or nearly all, or nearly all the time: for we also ride the lightning, answer the thunder, penetrate whirlwinds, curl up on the floor of the sun, and pick our teeth with thunderbolts.   Then, perhaps they imagine that their crimes are not crimes?    Perhaps. Perhaps that is why they cannot repent,  why there is no possibility of repentance. Manifest Destiny is a hymn to madness,  feeding on itself, ending (when it ends) in madness:  the action is blindness and pain, pain bringing a torpor so deep  that every act is willed, is desperately forced, is willed to be a blow:  the hand becomes a fist, the prick becomes a club,  the womb a dangerous swamp, the hope, and fear, of love is acid in the marrow of the bone.  No, their fire is not quenched,  nor can be: the oil feeding the flames being the unadmitted terror of the wrath of God.    Yes. But let us put it in another,  less theological way:  though theology has absolutely nothing to do  with what I am trying to say. But the moment God is mentioned theology is summoned to buttress or demolish belief: an exercise which renders belief irrelevant and adds to the despair of Fifth Avenue  on any afternoon,  the people moving, homeless, through the city, praying to find sanctuary before the sky  and the towers come tumbling down,  before the earth opens, as it does in Superman. They know that no one will appear to turn back time,  they know it, just as they know that the earth has opened before  and will open again, just as they know that their empire is falling, is doomed, nothing can hold it up, nothing. We are not talking about belief.   3  I wonder how they thinkthe niggers made, make it,  how come the niggers are still here.  But, then, again, I don't think they dare to think of that: no:  I'm fairly certain they don't think of that at all.   Lord,  I with the alabaster lady of the house,  with Beulah. Beulah about sixty, built in four-square,  biceps like Mohammed Ali, she at the stove, fixing biscuits,  scrambling eggs and bacon, fixing coffee,  pouring juice, and the lady of the house, she say, she don't know how  she'd get along without Beulah and Beulah just silently grunts, I reckon you don't, and keeps on keeping on and the lady of the house say She's just like one of the family, and Beulah turns, gives me a look,  sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes in the direction of the lady's back, and keeps on keeping on.    While they are containing  Russia and entering onto the quicksand of  China and patronizing Africa,  and calculating the Caribbean plunder, and the South China Sea booty,  the niggers are aware that no one has discussed  anything at all with the niggers.    Well. Niggers don't own nothing, got no flag, even our names  are hand-me-downs and you don't change that  by calling yourself X: sometimes that just makes it worse,  like obliterating the path that leads back to whence you came, and  to where you can begin.  And, anyway, none of this changes the reality,  which is, for example, that I do not want my son  to die in Guantanamo,  or anywhere else, for that matter,  serving the Stars and Stripes.  (I've seen some stars. I got some stripes.)    Neither (incidentally) has anyone discussed the Bomb with the niggers: the incoherent feeling is, the less the nigger knows about the Bomb, the better:  the lady of the house smiles nervously in your direction as though she had just been overheard discussing family, or sexual secrets,  and changes the subject to Education,  or Full Employment, or the Welfare rolls,  the smile saying, Don't be dismayed.  We know how you feel. You can trust us.   Yeah. I would like to believe you. But we are not talking about belief.  4The sons of greed, the heirs of plunder,  are approaching the end of their journey:  it is amazing that they approach without wonder,  as though they have, themselves, become that scorched and blasphemed earth,  the stricken buffalo, the slaughtered tribes,  the endless, virgin, bloodsoaked plain, the famine, the silence, the children's eyes,  murder masquerading as salvation, seducing every democratic eye, the mouths of truth and anguish choked with cotton,  rape delirious with the fragrance of magnolia, the hacking of the fruit of their loins to pieces,   hey! the tar-baby sons and nephews, the high-yaller     nieces,and Tom's black prick hacked offto rustle in crinoline,  to hang, heaviest of heirlooms, between the pink and alabaster breasts of the Great Man's Lady, or worked into the sash at the waist of the high-yaller Creole bitch, or niece, a chunk of shining brown-black satin, staring, staring, like the single eye of God:   creation yearns to re-create a time when we were able to recognize a crime.    Alas,  my stricken kinsmen,  the party is over:  there have never been any white people,  anywhere: the trick was accomplished with mirrors— look: where is your image now?  where your inheritance,  on what rock stands this pride?   Oh,  I counsel you,  leave History alone. She is exhausted,  sitting, staring into her dressing-room mirror, and wondering what rabbit, now,  to pull out of what hat,  and seriously considering retirement,  even though she knows her public dare not let her go.   She must change.  Yes. History must change.  A slow, syncopated relentless music begins suggesting her re-entry, transformed, virginal as she was, in the Beginning, untouched,  as the Word was spoken,  before the rape which debased her to be the whore of multitudes, or,  as one might say, before she became the Star,  whose name, above our title,  carries the Show, making History the patsy, responsible for every flubbed line,  every missed cue, responsible for the life and death, of all bright illusions and dark delusions, Lord, History is weary of her unspeakable liaison with Time,  for Time and History have never seen eye to eye:  Time laughs at History and time and time and time again Time traps History in a lie.   But we always, somehow, managed to roar History back onstage to take another bow, to justify, to sanctify the journey until now.    Time warned us to ask for our money back,  and disagreed with History as concerns colours white and black. Not only do we come from further back, but the light of the Sun marries all colours as one.    Kinsmen,  I have seen you betray your Saviour (it is you who call Him Saviour)  so many times, and I have spoken to Him about you,  behind your back.  Quite a lot has been going on  behind your back, and,  if your phone has not yet been disconnected,  it will soon begin to ring:  informing you, for example, that a whole generation,  in Africa, is about to die,  and a new generation is about to rise, and will not need your bribes,  or your persuasions, any more:  not your morality. No plundered gold— Ah! Kinsmen, if I could make you see the crime is not what you have done to me! It is you who are blind,  you, bowed down with chains,  you, whose children mock you, and seek another  master, you, who cannot look man or woman or child in the  eye, whose sleep is blank with terror,  for whom love died long ago, somewhere between the airport and the safe-deposit box, the buying and selling of rising or falling stocks,  you, who miss Zanzibar and Madagascar and Kilimanjaro and lions and tigers and elephants and zebras  and flying fish and crocodiles and alligators and leopards and crashing waterfalls and endless rivers,  flowers fresher than Eden, silence sweeter than the  grace of God, passion at every turning, throbbing in the bush,  thicker, oh, than honey in the hive,  dripping dripping opening, welcoming, aching from toe to bottom to spine,  sweet heaven on the line to last forever, yes,  but, now,  rejoicing ends, man, a price remains to pay,  your innocence costs too much and we can't carry you on our books or our backs, any longer: baby, find another Eden, another apple tree, somewhere, if you can,  and find some other natives, somewhere else, to listen to you bellow till you come, just like a man,  but we don't need you, are sick of being a fantasy to feed you,  and of being the principal accomplice to your crime:  for, it is your crime, now, the cross to which you cling,  your Alpha and Omega for everything.    Well (others have told you) your clown's grown weary, the puppet master is bored speechless with this monotonous disaster,  and is long gone, does not belong to you,  any more than my woman, or my child,  ever belonged to you.    During this long travail our ancestors spoke to us, and we listened,  and we tried to make you hear life in our song but now it matters not at all to me  whether you know what I am talking about—or not: I know why we are not blinded by your brightness, are able to see you,  who cannot see us. I know  why we are still here.    Godspeed.  The niggers are calculating,  from day to day, life everlasting,  and wish you well:  but decline to imitate the Son of the Morning,  and rule in Hell.",James Baldwin,Love
Tempo for a Winged Instrument,"Full of light and music, the beating air.  Light like a bird, Calvino says, not a feather.  Over the water the shags come in to landAll wings, uh-ohing over the cliffs.Rock, their nests, and bare the rookeries.  Blue eye, blue eye, the wind plays fast and sharp.They lift and ride and do not pick their fights.  Oh, blue sky, blue day. HeartOf muscle, thrumming down, and swift.",Katharine Coles,Surprise
The College Colonel,"He rides at their head;     A crutch by his saddle just slants in view, One slung arm is in splints, you see,     Yet he guides his strong steed—how coldly too.   He brings his regiment home—     Not as they filed two years before, But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn, Like castaway sailors, who—stunned           By the surf’s loud roar,     Their mates dragged back and seen no more— Again and again breast the surge,     And at last crawl, spent, to shore.   A still rigidity and pale—     An Indian aloofness lones his brow; He has lived a thousand years Compressed in battle’s pains and prayers,     Marches and watches slow. There are welcoming shouts, and flags;     Old men off hat to the Boy, Wreaths from gay balconies fall at his feet,     But to him—there comes alloy.   It is not that a leg is lost,     It is not that an arm is maimed, It is not that the fever has racked—     Self he has long disclaimed.   But all through the Seven Days’ Fight,     And deep in the Wilderness grim, And in the field-hospital tent,     And Petersburg crater, and dim Lean brooding in Libby, there came—     Ah heaven!—what truth to him.",Herman Melville,Surprise
The Gardener 38,"My love, once upon a time your poet launched a great epic in his mind.Alas, I was not careful, and it struck your ringing anklets and came to grief.It broke up into scraps of songs and lay scattered at your feet.All my cargo of the stories of old wars was tossed by the laughing waves and soaked in tears and sank.You must make this loss good to me, my love.If my claims to immortal fame after death are shattered, make me immortal while I live.And I will not mourn for my loss nor blame you.",Rabindranath Tagore,Sadness
Tide of Voices,"At the hour the streetlights come on, buildingsturn abstract. The Hudson, for a moment, formal.   We drink bourbon on the terrace and you speakin the evening voice, weighted deep in the throat.They plan to harvest oysters, you tell me,from the harbor by Jersey City, how the waterswill be clean again in twenty years. I imagine netsburdened with rough shells, the meat dun and sexual.Below, the river and the high rockwhere boys each year jump from bravadoor desperation. The day flares, turns into itself.And innocently, sideways, the way we always fallinto grace or knowledge, we watched the policedrag the river for a suicide, the third this year.   The terrible hook, the boy’s frail whiteness.His face was blank and new as your facein the morning before the day has workedits pattern of lines and tensions. A hooklike an iron question and this comingout of the waters, a flawed pearl—a memory that wasn’t ours to claim.   Perhaps, in a bedroom by lamplight,   a woman waits for this boy. She may riffle drawersgathering photographs, string, keys to abandoned rooms.Even now she may be leaving,   closing the door for some silence. I needto move next to you. Water sluicedfrom the boy’s hair. I need to watch youlight your cigarette, the flickeringof your face in matchlight, as if underwater,drifting away. I take your cigaretteand drag from it, touch your hand.Remember that winter of your long fever,   the winter we understood how fragileany being together was. The wall sweated   behind the headboard and you said you feltthe rim where dreams crouchand every room of the past. It must begin in luxury—do you think—a break and fall into the glamourattending each kind of surrender. Water must floodthe mind, as in certain diseases, the wallsbetween the cells of memory dissolve, blurinto a single stream of voices and faces.   I don’t know any more about this river or ifit can be cleaned of its tender and broken histories—a tide of voices. And this is how the deadrise to us, transformed: wet and singing,   the tide of voices pearling in our hands.",Lynda Hull,Joy
Montana Pastoral,"I am no shepherd of a child’s surmises.I have seen fear where the coiled serpent rises,Thirst where the grasses burn in early MayAnd thistle, mustard, and the wild oat stay.There is dust in this air. I saw in the heatGrasshoppers busy in the threshing wheat.So to this hour. Through the warm dusk I droveTo blizzards sifting on the hissing stove,And found no images of pastoral will,But fear, thirst, hunger, and this huddled chill.",J. V. Cunningham,Joy
Rarefied,"This sweater is made from only the finest, softest underhairs of the Mongolian camel.“Fancy-schmancy,” my father would have said,   whose snazziest sweater was still a declassé   synthetic from the sweatshops of Taiwan. My friend   Deloris, however, who really owns such clothes,   would say “exquisite” or “sublime”—her opened closet’s   row of shoulders teases late-day bedroomlight   along such textures, there are days when the laboring brain   and throbbing crotch appear to us to be not much more   than her wardrobe’s tasteful accessories. “. . . woven   from genital-down of prepubescent yeti, and then   hand-sewn in our undersea domes.” “Untouched   by anyone other than albino elves, this wool is . . . .”______________Rarefied—to Helthi Hart, the diet guru, it’s   a cup of clear organic cauliflower broth. And for   the Emperor Excessia, it’s a mad dessert of swans’ tongues   —there were, what? ten thousand?—dipped in a slip   of stiffening honey and set out to await the banqueteers   like a field of fresh shoots they could graze.   Some Roman party hosts had great roped bowls of snow   brought from the mountaintops to entertain their guests   with dishes of rose-petal sherbet and chilled roe.   They might even allow the household slaves to slide   leftover snow along the burning welts the ropes ate   into their shoulders all down the mountainside.   ______________   Afterwards it was an unrecognizable tatter.   But an image of my father’s worn-thin Bargain City   “all-weather” jacket is still whole in its polyester glory.   This is what happened: the alley dog (he later called the thing   a “cur”) had cornered Livia, and she screamed once,   with a seven-year-old’s unselfconscious terror.   And then my father was there, with his jacket wound around his arm,   and a rock. When it was over, he tore the sleeves off, tied the poor dog   quiet and, after comforting Livia, they both kneeled down   to comfort the dog. He was like that. And the jacket   that served as weapon and restraint?—was like him,   every day of his life. It did what was needed.   ______________I misread “migraine.” Which of the two   would we call the most rarefied? “Margarine”?   Or maybe comparison isn’t the point. A ghost   is a person rarefied through the fine, fine colander   death; that doesn’t make, for most of us, extinction   an ideal. It was hard to think of Frank and Deloris   divorcing, since it was hard to imagine the two of them   engaging in anything so mundane as sex or rage or envy   with the rest of the hoi polloi. They seemed unearthly   in close to a literal way, like radio waves. And yet divorcethey did. They found something real they could unjoin,   hertz from hertz until there just was air.   ______________A dream: We own the softest of the soft   Mongolian camel underhair sweaters. One day   (we think we’re doing the “right thing”) we release it   into the wild, to romp with its brother and sister   desert sweaters, out where it “belongs.”You know, however, what happens by now: it’s unfit   to fend for itself amid that hardened herd.   They beat it. It’s hungry. It crawls back   into the city, mewing, curling up at night against a door   my father opens and, seeing something in need, brings it inside,   wraps it in flannel. That’s how he was.   He’d give you the cheap shirt off his back.",Albert Goldbarth,Joy
Motherhood,"She sat on a shelf,her breasts two bellieson her poked-out belly,on which the navel lookedlike a sucked-in mouth—her knees bent and apart,her long left arm raised,with the large hand knuckledto a bar in the ceiling—her right hand clampingthe skinny infant to her chest—its round, pale, new,soft muzzle huntingin the brown hair for a nipple,its splayed, tiny hand pickingat her naked, dirty ear.Twisting its little neck,with tortured, ecstatic eyesthe size of lentils, it lookedinto her severe, close-set,solemn eyes, that beneath baldeyelids glared—dull lightsin sockets of leather.She twitched some chin-hairs,with pain or pleasure,as the baby-mouth found andyanked at her nipple;its pink-nailed, jointlessfingers, wandering her face,tangled in the tuftsof her cliffy brows.She brought her bighand down from the barwith pretended exasperationunfastened the little hand,and locked it within her palm—while her right handwith snag-nailed forefingerand short, sharp thumb, rakedthe new orange hairof the infant’s skinny flank—and found a louse,which she lipped, andthoughtfully crispedbetween broad teeth.She wrinkled appreciativenostrils which, without a nose,stood open—damp holesabove the poke of her mouth.She licked her lips, flickedher leather eyelids—then, suddenly flungup both arms and grabbedthe bars overhead.The baby's scrabbly fingersinstantly caught the hair—as if there were metal rings there—in her long, stretched armpits.And, as she stately swung,and then proudly, more swiftlyslung herself from cornerto corner of her cell—arms longer than her roundbody, short knees bent—her little wild-haired,poke-mouthed infant hung,like some sort of trophy,or decoration, or shaggy medal—shaped like herself—but new,clean, soft and shiningon her chest.",May Swenson,Fear
"[lady in red] ""at 4:30 AM""",at 4:30 AMshe rosemovin the arms & legs that trapped hershe sighed affirmin the sculptured man& made herself a bathof dark musk oil egyptian crystals& florida water to remove his smellto wash away the glitterto watch the butterflies melt intosuds & the rhinestones fall beneathher buttocks like smooth pebblesin a missouri creeklayin in watershe became herselfordinarybrown braided womanwith big legs & full lipsreglarseriously intendin to finish hernight’s workshe quickly walked to her gueststraddled on her pillows & began                    ‘you’ll have to go now/ i’ve                  a lot of work to do/ & i cant                  with a man around/ here are yr pants/                  there’s coffee on the stove/ its been                  very nice/ but i cant see you again/                  you got what you came for/ didnt you’& she smiledhe wd either mumble curses bout crazy bitchesor sit dumbfoundedwhile she repeated                  ‘i cdnt possibly wake up/ with                   a strange man in my bed/ why                   dont you go home’she cda been slapped upside the heador verbally challengedbut she never waz& the ones who fell prey to thedazzle of hips painted withorange blossoms & magnolia scented wristshad wanted no morethan to lay between her sparklin thighs& had planned on leavin before dawn& she had been so divinedevastatingly bizarre the wayher mouth fit round& now she stood areglar colored girlfulla the same malicelivid indifference as a sistahworn from supportin a wd be hornplayeror waitin by the window                              & they knew                              & left in a hurryshe wd gather her tinsel &jewels from the tub& laugh gayly or vengefulshe stored her silk roses by her bed& when she finished writinthe account of her exploit in a diaryembroidered with lilies & moonstonesshe placed the rose behind her ear& cried herself to sleep.,Ntozake Shange,Joy
[under the evening moon],Under the evening moon the snail       is stripped to the waist.,Kobayashi Issa,Fear
Socratic,"The students know the agenda. When I stepinside our classroom, the PowerPoint is loaded,the student presenting her report stands poisedto begin. And so she does. This day is hersecond try, the first a wash due to our failedtechnology. I ask, Do you think you will earnanother chance each time error is out of your hands?",Jacqueline Jones LaMon,Fear
Portrait d’une Femme,"The age demanded an imageof its accelerated grimace            —Ezra PoundIdiot Wind,Blowin' every time you move your teeth            —Bob DylanYou were energized by your epoch.The difference between a harmless nut—John Doe, Jane Doe, plain Jane, practically any mediocrity—standing on a beachand the same harmless nut riding a wave of (now) cultural self-righteousnessabout to tube. A tsunami armed with thunderbolts.Empowered—yea, packing.You played everything to the sympathetic studio theaterof your hearers, a chorus-cum-sounding-board.They were your doo-wop boys and girls, your clique and claque and Marshall stack. The church hall chairs scraped, the cheap black crepe backdrop rustled “cutting edge” at you.You paid attention to how they oohed and aahed for you, and then pantomime hissed, and balled their fists and bayed for blood:the half-lustful half-men betraying their half-gender when they weren’t speculating what you were like in bed,the frightened girls who’d never seen anything like youbut thought it might be fun (after Goth) to be a Maenad,the Pharisaic mothers going home to their chilly fires, their dim, furtive, put-upon husbands and their neo-feral offspringwith a “there but for the grace of God” on their bony lips.",Michael Hofmann,Love
My Father,"My father was four years in the war,and afterward, according to my mother,had nothing to say. She says he trembledin his sleep the next four years.My father was twice the father of sonsmiscarried, and afterward said nothing.My mother keeps this silence also.Four times my father was on strike,and according to my mother; had nothingto say. She says the company didn’t understand,nor can her son, the meaningof an extra fifteen cents an hour in 1956to a man tending a glass furnace in August. I have always remembered him a tired man.I have respected him like a guestand expected nothing.It is April now.My life lies before me,enticing as the woman at my side.Now, in April, I want him to speak.I want to stand against the worn bodyof his pain. I want to try it onlike a coat that does not fit.",Peter Oresick,Joy
"To Mary Sidney, On Reading Her Psalms","You give me a little courage, Mary,in your skittish dedication to her highness;I too can dare as humbleness may dare;if there’s anywhere to speak with you, it’s hereat the wordy Anglo-Saxon peripheryof the universe’s one great surge of praise though I’m lost here. Where’s the joyful noise?the syllables I managed to memorizebefore they were weighted down by meaning?and what’s all this complicated rhyme?Don’t mistake me—I’m not complaining;it’s just not my notion of a psalm for all my love of wrought, elaborate things—especially when they’re the sort that singsand yours do sing a stunning song—but they’re off-kilter without the aweinherent in my ancient holy tongue.I miss my amen sela, hallelujah though I do applaud you and your brother—going for the full linguistic bait-and-switchin the move from one language to another:David’s disarmingly direct speecha tour-de-force of formal contrivance(no form repeated more than once in each of a hundred fifty psalms!)in your show-off/virtuoso hands.Talk about such a song in such a land—but what else is there in dreary England?Its sole extravagance a trove of synonymsthat endlessly perplexes and expands its mongrel, unbeautiful tongue—a language, frankly, crying out for poetrygiven its absence, even, of integritynot to mention intrinsic song. . . .(Its sound: water going down the drainaccording to my friend, an Italian, after riding in a compartment of Americansgurgling all the way from Florence to Rome.)Why not a convoluted schemeof intricately wrought meter and rhyme?So what if the Hebrew has no strict patterns?Aim for a parallel sublime; aren’t poems for the impossible?Though perhaps yours wouldn’t have been writtenhad you known how daunting their task was;you had no Hebrew, used the Coverdale,Wyatt, Geneva Bible, as cribs for Latin,even psaumes de David, mis en rime Françoise . . . Clearly, your secret weapon was ignorance,also useful (look at me!) in writing a poem,your psalms fourth- and fifth-hand half the time.Unless (of course!) your stroke of brilliancewas to focus on the one thing you could do:Sing and let your song be new which they are, profoundly, even to me,who know so many bits of the originalsof what you claim you’re “translating” by heart.Still, I’ll be reading along, alternatelyput off and spellbound by your art-ifice, when my wary eye suddenly falls on something both completely known and new,my own—our own—ungainly languagefor a brief instant alien with grace,a black-on-white typescript miragein which English letters turn into Hebrewor at least intercept its holiness. . . . How did you manage it, Mary?Your contemporaries called it piety—but I don’t believe that for a second.What motivated you was love of poetry,or rather of your legendarybrother—lost so young—whom you would spend your whole life working to immortalize. . . .I’m not sure he needed you. No lighter touchexists in English poetry than his . . .a touch you often managed to approachin your grief-induced lyric resolveto force a bit of him to stay alive. Poetry as solace, as wizardry—and there he is, with you, all the time,clearly palpable in all your artistry.It was your eagerness to be with himthat kept you going back to intervenewith yet one more indomitable line, got you through all hundred-fifty psalms.Or maybe it was just your poet’s ruse(poetry often thrives on self-delusion)to trick yourself to rise to his occasion. . . .Unless he just provided the excuseto stake your own (quite vast) poetic claims, impossible to say from this vantage point:to distinguish collaborator from muse,self-doubt from false humilitybut, then again, there’s a poetry in mystery.Who will contradict me if I confusemy own passions with yours—so convenient, inevitable?—in a poem like this—though you and I—despite the labyrinthof misapprehension, class, religionreinforcing our dissociation(Jew from Christian, commoner from countess,twenty-first-century from seventeenth) come together in passion upon passion(forgive me, Mary, if dare too far):psalms, poetic forms, your genius brother(I mean both the poet and the man;no poem could manufacture that much charm).We’ve even suffered from a kindred harm: my version, albeit, fairly mild,though I too was admonished as a childabout what a woman dared not do.Still, I have a vast cohort, while youwere almost entirely alone.Better yet, I had the complete Dickinson (published just a year before I was born);I didn’t know it yet, but I had you . . .while you had to ransack antiquityfor even fragments of poems by a woman.But of course you weren’t troubled by inequity—it was, frankly, all you knew— you might even have relished your positionas sole woman poet, thinker, patron—lonely as it was—though you did encourageyour precocious niece, Mary (later Wroth).And who can really estimate the damageof your appalling bargain: a brother’s death required to turn you into poet?Of course, in your time, death was everywhere.Perhaps you were pious—a last resortto shore up an attenuated heartagainst even further disrepair,immersion in the psalms a sort of antidote to life’s massive overdose of pain:from living with a sad, disfigured mother(small-pox scars from nursing a sick queen)mourning her husband’s lost affectionto deaths of favorites—your sister, your brother,your only daughters, Katherine, then Anne. God made this day; he did us send itIn joy and mirth then let us spend itExcellent advice, if it would hold—And maybe it does, when you can summonall that air or life enfoldto distract you with a binge of exaltation . . . or if that fails, then an assiduousextravaganza of sublime detailcalibrated to provide the wherewithalto face a universe we cannot alterif not with joy and mirth, at least with grace:a perfect, hand-illuminated psalter, the loops of all its letters filled with gold—a treasure, even, for an exacting Queen—offering a deity who’ll listento a voice alternately humble, bold,beseeching, thankful, ecstatic, bleak,through which (hallelujah, Mary!) you still speak.",Jacqueline Osherow,Joy
Soon the City,"Soon the summerNow the pleasant purgatoryOf spring is over, Soon the chokingHumidityIn the city On the fire escapesIn a sleeveless T-shirtSmoking a cigar In tune with the tremorOf the mindless yellowCommercial traffic Moving in the city,Where no one reallyBuys a car, AmericanOr otherwise,Where we will, As Rilke said we wouldWhere we willWake, read, write Long lettersAnd in the avenuesWander restlessly To and froOn foot inThe humidity, Where soon I’ll shower, dress,Take the dog out for a piss,And mail this.",Liam Rector,Joy
A World of Light,"If I close my eyes now, I can still see themcanopied by the visor of my sunhat:three children islanded on a narrow rimof earth between the huge crack-willow thatthey squat before, hushed, poised to net a frog,and the pond the frog will jump to (it got away)a glass its dive will shatter.                                             The unbroken imagepleases my mind’s eye with its density,such thick crisscross of tree-trunk, earth, and tall grassI see no breach, no source for the light that steeps itbut a blue burning in the pond’s green glass.The grass withered, the tree blew down, earth caughtthe frog, the children grew. Sky’s ice-blue flameteased along the wick it would consume.",John Reibetanz,Fear
Digging in a Footlocker,"Crouched before dismantled guns,we found war souvenirsour uncle padlocked in the attic,a brittle latch easily pried off.Stiff uniforms on top, snapshotsof soldiers young as our cousins,a velvet box of medalsas if he fought all battlesin World War II. Bayonets, machetes,a folded flag, two hand grenadeswith missing pins. We picked up teethlike pennies, loose, as if tossed in,a piece of something dark and waxylike a fig, curved like a question mark,a human ear. We touched dried piecesof cloth stuck to curved bonesand held them to the light,turning them over and over, wonderinghow did uncles learn to kill,what would happen when we grew up.",Walter McDonald,Fear
Cantata for Lynette Roberts,"Lynette, the stars are kerned so far apart—Through a herniated zodiac I almost see your waled skylanes, your shocked Capricorn and Cancer.In the hundred and two years since you were born, and the sixteen since your heart failed, and the nearly sixty since you gave up poetry, it seems we can’t navigate by the same star chart.I’d like to think we were fated to work the same coracle: you steering with one hand, grasping your corner of the seine while I grasp mine; together sweeping the weirs.Lynette saw the sky made wide-waled corduroy by the flight paths of fighter jets.Corde du roi—“Cloth of the king.”(“A baseless assertion,” states the oed.)A fireman from the Midlands nfs said the raids on Swansea were worse than on Birmingham, where a ten-year-old Roy Fisher gaped at the garden where his cousins were slaughtered, and later wrote, It was like a burst pod filled with clay.Last night, Lynette, my son thought he saw his father in the jumbo jet roaring over Cherryhurst: the weather softer, flight paths altered.Three weeks now his father gone.                                                                             •Insofar as Moses came to in a coracle, it wasn’t a Welsh one-off; it wasn’t a hapax of vessels.Insofar as it’s kind of a kiddie boat, not a kayak, not the royal barge the Makah sent William Blake, aka Johnny Depp, with into the northern Pacific; not even the Viking ship, its carved prow like an uncial; insofar as it is calico wrapped up in tar, insofar as it is swaddled willow whippets.                                                                             •“Pastoral ding-dong is out,” Lynette wrote, and no wonder— bombs hidden on the glossy knolls. In the sorrel. In the tormentil.I thought she was perhaps the closest I could get to my grandmother.While Lynette was writing “Displaced Persons”—                   Neither from the frosted leaf nor from                   The grey hard ground could they find                   Relief",Ange Mlinko,Surprise
Child of a Day,"Child of a day, thou knowest not     The tears that overflow thy urn,The gushing eyes that read thy lot,     Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!And why the wish! the pure and blest     Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep.O peaceful night! O envied rest!     Thou wilt not ever see her weep.",Walter Savage Landor,Joy
Lucky Duck,"Be large with those small fears. The whole skyhas fallen on you and all you can do about it isshout, dragging your fear-ettes by their pinked ears. They dance a number now: consequence withoutsequence. Lovingly broadminded in theirrealization and ruin, expert at the parting shot. Not so small after all, we micro tomacro, swelling to the horror showslifted from the sly ways of life. You, both scorched and shining in the terrorof the equivocal moment, its box of cheekylogics rattling cold certainties out of bounds and into the plaits of a girl’s desirous ends.A little debauched, the flirt in a freckling,wondering spun to falling comes to this pert contract of a paradox: saying thingsbecause they will do no good, ringing changein frumpy mono-determination, fruity and fruitless. Exploded out of shelter, the tides come roaring in.Let in the hoarse Cassandras and the dull pain of thestoryteller. You’ve needed those eyes all along. We thought them disconcerting at first,but it’s the only way. You live here nowhaving exchanged etiquette for energy. Don’t be clever, don’t be shy! Participate today.Yesterday you say everything for their own sake,and soon enough, tomorrow, you learn a lot from them.",Sandra Lim,Fear
Torch,"when I beheld a fire win out against a hemisphere of shadows.                           —Inferno, Dante (tr. by Allen Mandelbaum)If I could hold a fire againsta hemisphere of shadows, hold itclose, not so that damagefinds my hands, but so fire scattersgalvanizing strands, my pupilsresponsive to the flames’ unbridled tutelage as they tell menothing but these little jumpsout of your definitions, smallor large or leaping, sinking, slumped",Lisa Williams,Fear
Mary's Girlhood (for a Picture),"This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect     God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she     Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.Unto God's will she brought devout respect,Profound simplicity of intellect,     And supreme patience. From her mother's knee     Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.So held she through her girlhood; as it were     An angel-water'd lily, that near God          Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home,She woke in her white bed, and had no fear     At all,—yet wept till sunshine, and felt aw'd:          Because the fulness of the time was come.",Dante Gabriel Rossetti,Joy
Mirabeau Bridge,Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away          And lovers    Must I be remindedJoy came always after pain         The night is a clock chiming         The days go by not IWe're face to face and hand in hand         While under the bridges    Of embrace expireEternal tired tidal eyes         The night is a clock chiming         The days go by not ILove elapses like the river         Love goes by    Poor life is indolentAnd expectation always violent         The night is a clock chiming         The days go by not IThe days and equally the weeks elapse         The past remains the past    Love remains lostUnder Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away         The night is a clock chiming         The days go by not I,Guillaume Apollinaire,Anger
The Little Orphan,"The crowded street his playground is, a patch of blue his sky; A puddle in a vacant lot his sea where ships pass by: Poor little orphan boy of five, the city smoke and grime Taint every cooling breeze he gets throughout the summer time; And he is just as your boy is, a child who loves to play, Except that he is drawn and white and cannot get away. And he would like the open fields, for often in his dreams The angels kind bear him off to where are pleasant streams, Where he may sail a splendid boat, sometimes he flies a kite, Or romps beside a shepherd dog and shouts with all his might; But when the dawn of morning comes he wakes to find once more That what he thought were sun-kissed hills are rags upon the floor. Then through the hot and sultry day he plays at “make-pretend,” The alley is a sandy beach where all the rich folks send Their little boys and girls to play, a barrel is his boat, But, oh, the air is tifling and the dust fills up his throat; And though he tries so very hard to play, somehow it seems He never gets such wondrous joys as angels bring in dreams. Poor little orphan boy of five, except that he is pale, With sunken cheeks and hollow eyes and very wan and frail, Just like that little boy of yours, with same desire to play, Fond of the open fields and skies, he’s built the self-same way; But kept by fate and circumstance away from shady streams, His only joy comes when he sleeps and angels bring him dreams.",Edgar Albert Guest,Joy
from Book of Hours,"The light here leaves youlonely, fadingas does the duskthat takes too longto arrive. By morningthe mountain movinga bit closer to the sun.This valley belongsto no one—except birds who namethemselves by their songsin the dawn.What goodare wishes, if they aren'tused upThe lamp of your arms.The brightestblue beneath the clouds—We guessat what's nextunlike the mountainwho knows itin the bones, a musictoo highto scale.*       *       *The burnt,blurred worldwhere does it end—The windkicks up the scentfrom the stableswhere horseshoes holdnot just luck, butbeyond. Butweight. But a bodythat itself burns,begs to run.The gondola quits justpast the clouds.The telephone polestall crosses in the road.Let us goeach, into the valley—turn ourselves& our hairshirtsinside out, let the worlditch—for once—*       *       *Black like an eyebruised night brightensby morning, yellowthen grey—a memory.What the light was like.All day the heat a heavy,colored coat.I want to liedown like the lamb—down & downtill gone—shorn of its wool.The coolof setting & risingin this valley,the canyon between usshoulders our echoes.Moan, & make way.*       *       *The sun's small furyfeeds me.Wind dying down.We delay, & ditherthen are liftedinto it, brightnessall about—O setting.O the musicas we soaris small, yet sating.What you want—Nobody, or nothingfills our short journeying.Above even the birds,winging heavenward,the world is hardto leave behindor land against—must end.I mean to make it.Turning slow beneathour feet,finding sun, seenfrom above,this world lookslike us—mostlysalt, dark water.*       *       *It's death thereis no cure forlife the longdisease.If we're lucky.Otherwise, shorttrip beyond.And below.Noon,growing shadow.I chase the quietround the house.Soon the sound—wind willsits way againstthe panes. Welcomethe rain.Welcomethe moon's squintinginto space.The treesbow like priests.The storm liftsup the leaves.Why not sing.",Kevin Young,Fear
The Mortician in San Francisco,"This may sound queer,but in 1985 I held the delicate handsof Dan White:I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milkwas made monument—no, myth—by the yearssince he was shot. I remember when Harvey was shot:twenty, and I knew I was queer.Those were the years,Levi’s and leather jackets holding handson Castro Street, cheering for Harvey Milk—elected on the same day as Dan White. I often wonder about Supervisor White,who fatally shotMayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk,who was one of us, a Castro queer.May 21, 1979: a jury handsdown the sentence, seven years— in truth, five years—for ex-cop, ex-fireman Dan White,for the blood on his hands;when he confessed that he had shotthe mayor and the queer,a few men in blue cheered. And Harvey Milk? Why cry over spilled milk,some wondered, semi-privately, for years—it meant “one less queer.”The jurors turned to White.If just the mayor had been shot,Dan might have had trouble on his hands— but the twelve who held his life in their handsmaybe didn’t mind the death of Harvey Milk;maybe, the second murder offered him a shotat serving only a few years.In the end, he committed suicide, this Dan White.And he was made presentable by a queer.",Randall Mann,Fear
Stop Sniffling!,"If you should have the sniffles,you’d better blow your nose.Because if you should go “Achoo!”you’ll mess up all your clothes.",Bruce Lansky,Anger
First Grade Homework,"The child’s assignment:“What is a city?”All dusk she sucks her pencilwhile cars swish bylike ghosts, neighbors’ radiosforecast rain, high clouds,diminishing winds: at lastshe writes: “The city is everyone.”       Now it’s timefor math, borrowing and exchanging,the long discipleshipto zero, the stranger,the force that makes uswhat we study: father and child,writing in separate books,infinite and alone.",D. Nurkse,Fear
Joy,"Like the time I dreamt about a loon family,just some common loons—not metaphorsin any way, just real loons in a lake swimmingnear each other so it was clear they were a set,preferring each other’s company in the coldstill lake with its depth of reflected pines.The curve of their black heads and sleeknecks, black and white stripes then checkson their folded wings, floating so lowatop their reflections they almost seeminside them. Their wails like wolves, theircalls like an echo without origin, theircalls like an echo of lake, or what makes lakelake. How nice to think the male and femaleloons cannot be told apart by their plumageand that they build a nest and sit on eggstogether. One of their calls is called “tremolo.”",Miller Oberman,Fear
Wishes to his (Supposed) Mistress,"Who e’er she beThat not impossible sheThat shall command my heart and me;Wher e’er she lie,Lock’d up from mortal eyeIn shady leaves of destiny;Till that ripe birthOf studied fate stand forthAnd teach her fair steps to our earth;Till that divineIdea take a shrineOf crystal flesh, through which to shine;Meet you her, my wishes,Bespeak her to my blisses,And be ye call’d my absent kisses.I wish her beautyThat owes not all his dutyTo gaudy tire, or glist’ring shoe-ty.Something more thanTaffeta or tissue can,Or rampant feather, or rich fan.More than the spoilOf shop, or silkworm’s toil,Or a bought blush, or a set smile.A face that’s bestBy its own beauty drest,And can alone command the rest.A face made upOut of no other shopThan what nature’s white hand sets ope.A cheek where youth,And blood, with pen of truthWrite, what the reader sweetly ru’th.A cheek where growsMore than a morning rose,Which to no box his being owes.Lips, where all dayA lover’s kiss may play,Yet carry nothing thence away.Looks that oppressTheir richest tires, but dressAnd clothe their simplest nakedness.Eyes, that displacesThe neighbour diamond, and outfacesThat sunshine, by their own sweet graces.Tresses, that wearJewels but to declareHow much themselves more precious are.Whose native rayCan tame the wanton dayOf gems, that in their bright shades play.Each ruby there,Or pearl that dare appear,Be its own blush, be its own tear.A well-tam’d heart,For whose more noble smartLove may be long choosing a dart.Eyes, that bestowFull quivers on Love’s bow,Yet pay less arrows than they owe.Smiles, that can warmThe blood, yet teach a charm,That chastity shall take no harm.Blushes, that binThe burnish of no sin,Nor flames of aught too hot within.Joys, that confessVirtue their mistress,And have no other head to dress.Fears, fond and flightAs the coy bride’s when nightFirst does the longing lover right.Tears, quickly fled,And vain, as those are shedFor a dying maidenhead.Days, that need borrowNo part of their good morrowFrom a forespent night of sorrow.Days, that in spiteOf darkness, by the lightOf a clear mind are day all night.Nights, sweet as they,Made short by lovers’ play,Yet long by th’ absence of the day.Life, that dares sendA challenge to his end,And when it comes say, “Welcome friend.”Sidneian showersOf sweet discourse, whose powersCan crown old Winter’s head with flowers.Soft silken hours,Open suns, shady bowers,’Bove all, nothing within that lours.Whate’er delightCan make Day’s forehead bright,Or give down to the wings of Night.In her whole frameHave nature all the name,Art and ornament the shame.Her flattery,Picture and poesy,Her counsel her own virtue be.I wish, her storeOf worth may leave her poorOf wishes, and I wish—no more.Now if time knowsThat her whose radiant browsWeave them a garland of my vows,Her whose just baysMy future hopes can raise,A trophy to her present praise;Her that dares beWhat these lines wish to see:I seek no further, it is she.’Tis she, and here,Lo, I unclothe and clearMy wishes’ cloudy character.May she enjoy it,Whose merit dare apply it,But modesty dares still deny it.Such worth as this isShall fix my flying wishes,And determine them to kisses.Let her full glory,My fancies, fly before ye;Be ye my fictions; but her story.",Richard Crashaw,Joy
King Prion,"—HooooooooLay in an array of pixelsFat, simulated proteinsLooks just like nutrition!Acts just like an avatar!I just wanted to give my body toA net of guarineGingko-balboa azatine melamineCamphobacter phylacter nicotineWhich hung like neuron-nectar in a cell, net ofVatic coughdropped hairball tells the future ofNeural center where the straight lines hoppedLike a hairline fracture on a bender jumps aMulholland retaining wall and crashes the crinkled Vale ofFood-for-thoughtFruit for monkeys in a barrel, one fruit per monkeyFor a total of fortyseven monkeydaysFor a total of twelve hours at a clipThe go-home-and-feed-the-baby milk of itThat man is a mouth chased by ghostsRound a rainslicked hairpin off a cliff in(And now I pause to rememberHow Art was a silver paper moulded to the ceilingWhere you cut your hairFor your rebirth as Fata AndrogyanaThe scissors-sister who slits where she goes-intoCuts as she cuts—)This machine makes its need louder andInvites me into its duct, unlike the babySleeping on the other edge of Pow’r,Eyes roll’d, mouth pinch’d shutRound Pow’r’s earthly sinks and shunts—",Joyelle McSweeney,Surprise
Back Road,"Winter morningsdriving pastI’d see these kids huddled like grousein the plowed rutsin front of their shack waiting for the bus,three small children bunched against the drifts rising behind them.This morningI slowed to wave and the smallest, a stick of a kid draped in a coat, grinned and raised his red, raw hand, the snowball packed with rock aimed at my face.",Bruce Guernsey,Joy
The First Sam Hazo at the Last,"A minor brush with medicine         in eighty years was all         he’d known.                             But this was different.His right arm limp and slung,         his right leg dead to feeling         and response, he let me spoon him         chicken-broth.                                 Later he said         without self-pity that he’d like         to die.                   I bluffed, “The doctors         think that therapy might help you         walk again.”                             “They’re liars,         all of them,” he muttered.                                                  Bedfast         was never how he hoped to go.“In bed you think of everything,”         he whispered with a shrug, “you think         of all your life.”                                   I knew         he meant my mother.                                           Without her         he was never what he might have been,         and everyone who knew him knew it.Nothing could take her place—         not the cars he loved to drive,         not the money he could earn at will,         not the roads he knew by heart         from Florida to Saranac, not the two         replacement wives who never         measured up.                             Fed now by family         or strangers, carried to the john,         shaved and changed by hired help,         this independent man turned silent         at the end.                          Only my wife         could reach him for his private needs.What no one else could do         for him, he let her do.She talked to him and held         his hand, the left.                                     She helped him         bless himself and prayed beside him         as my mother might have done.“Darling” was his final word         for her.                      Softly, in Arabic.",Samuel Hazo,Sadness
The Farm on the Great Plain,"A telephone line goes cold;birds tread it wherever it goes.A farm back of a great plaintugs an end of the line.I call that farm every year,ringing it, listening, still;no one is home at the farm,the line gives only a hum.Some year I will ring the lineon a night at last the right one,and with an eye tapered for braillefrom the phone on the wallI will see the tenant who waits—the last one left at the place;through the dark my braille eyewill lovingly touch his face.“Hello, is Mother at home?”No one is home today.“But Father—he should be there.”No one—no one is here.“But you—are you the one . . . ?”Then the line will be gonebecause both ends will be home:no space, no birds, no farm.My self will be the plain,wise as winter is gray,pure as cold posts gopacing toward what I know.",William E. Stafford,Sadness
Attack,"At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun, Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, Men jostle and climb to, meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!",Siegfried Sassoon,Fear
Portrait of a Figure near Water,"Rebuked, she turned and ranuphill to the barn. Anger, the inner   arsonist, held a match to her brain.   She observed her life: against her will   it survived the unwavering flame.The barn was empty of animals.   Only a swallow tiltednear the beams, and batshung from the raftersthe roof sagged between.Her breath became steadywhere, years past, the farmer cooled   the big tin amphoræ of milk.The stone trough was stillfilled with water: she watched it   and received its calm.So it is when we retreat in anger:   we think we burn aloneand there is no balm.Then water enters, though it makes   no sound.",Jane Kenyon,Fear
A Variation on Machado,I worry much about the sufferingof Machado. I was only one when he carriedhis mother across the border from Spain to Francein a rainstorm. She died and so did hea few days later in a rooming house along a dry canal.To carry Mother he abandoned a satchelholding his last few years of poetry.I've traveled to Collioure several timesto search for Machado's lost satchel.The French fed him but couldn't save him.There's no true path to a death —we discover the path by walking.We turn a corner on no roadand there's a house on a green hillwith a thousand colorful birds sweeping in a circle.Are the poems in the basement of the house on the hill?We'll find out if we remember earth at all.,Jim Harrison,Fear
To My Old City,"You’re still there in the spectral impress,   the plied afterimage grid of trucksand buses, diesel fume and bloodspoor streaked   on wet streets, and cars biting evening papersfrom the black newsstand. Above, the trestle’s   gravel bed hums expectantly, or with relief,and the gritty pinpoints of snow, at rest   on silver rails, flare into the coming dark,while everywhere your hungry light still tries   to reconstruct itself, charm the spacein and around the looseknit ironworks,   winter’s checkered yellowings glaring pastthe dark. From here, two years away, I see   in your middle distance a trestle stretchedbetween two brownstones, the whole scene   droning deep: the train tears through the gap,ratcheting the space with green aquatic squares   that flick past like old sluggish film,each frame a piece of failing, played-back fact,   and the unseen wheels click, mumble, clickin flukes of young clean snow fountaining up   around those strangers abiding in the glass.",W. S. Di Piero,Fear
Kept,"I was so thirsty, you crackedan egg into my mouth. I ate it& thanked you. We were sorich then. I imagined the moon,a being I’d never seen, in every nailyou’d use to tack the tarpover our heads. I confusedhens clucking for the ringingof the phone you’d neverlet me answer. With a spatulato my ear, I’d pretend to bea woman on TV & say:¿Bueno? Your angerwas the gun you kept by the door,my fear, the knife I used to choponions. One night you confusedthe sound of a snake rattlingfor rain. The snake openedits jaw & its fangs were the colorof mud. You reached for my thighsjust before you died & I couldn’tface you. Once you stoppedbreathing I rubbed your beardbetween my hands& played the most beautifulcumbia. We dancedfor the first time since our wedding.",Natalie Scenters-Zapico,Fear
Mingus in Diaspora,"You could say, I suppose, that he ate his way out,like the prisoner who starts a tunnel with a spoon,or you could say he was one in whom nothing was lost,who took it all in, or that he was big as a bus.He would say, and he did, in one of those blurredmelismatic slaloms his sentences ran—for allthe music was in his speech: swift switches of tempo,stop-time, double time (he could talk in 6/8),“I just ruined my body.” And there, Exhibit A,it stood, that Parthenon of fat, the tenant voicelifted, as we say, since words are a weight, and music.Silence is lighter than air, for the air we knowrises but to the edge of the atmosphere.You have to pick up The Bass, as Mingus calledhis, with audible capitals, and think of the slow yearsthe wood spent as a tree, which might well have beenenough for wood, and think of the skill the bassmakercarried without great thought of it from hometo the shop and back for decades, and knowwhat bassists before you have played, and knowhow much of this is stored in The Bass like energyin a spring and know how much you must coax out.How easy it would be, instead, to pull a swordfrom a stone. But what’s inside the bass wants out,the way one day you will. Religious stories are richin symmetry. You must release as much of this hoardas you can, little by little, in perfect time,as the work of the body becomes a body of work.",William Matthews,Anger
[My mother saw the green tree toad],"My mother saw the green tree toadon the window sillher first onesince she was young.We saw it breatheand swell up round.My youth is no sure signI’ll find this kind of thingtho it does sing.Let’s take it inI said so grandmother can seebut she could notit changed to brownand townchanged us, too.",Lorine Niedecker,Joy
Man of War,"After there were no women, men, and children, from the somber deeps horseshoe crabs crawled up on somber shores: Man-of-Wars' blue sails drifted downwind and blue filaments of some biblical cloak floated below: the stinging filaments. The cored of bone and rock-headed came near: clouds made wandering shadows: sea and grasses mingled:: There was no hell after all but a lull before it began over:: flesh lying alone: then mating: a little spray of soul: and the grace of waves, of stars, and remotest isles.",Carol Frost,Sadness
A DeafBlind Poet,A Deaf Blind poet doesn’t like to read sitting up. A Deaf Blind poet likes to read Braille magazines on the john. A Deaf Blind poet is in the habit of composing nineteenth-century letters and pressing Alt+S. A Deaf Blind poet is a terrible student. A Deaf Blind poet does a lot of groundbreaking research. A Deaf Blind poet is always in demand. A Deaf Blind poet has yet to be gainfully employed. A Deaf Blind poet shares all his trade secrets with his children. A Deaf Blind poet will not stop if police order him to. A Deaf Blind poet used to like dogs but now prefers cats. A Deaf Blind poet listens to his wife. A Deaf Blind poet knits soft things for his dear friends. A Deaf Blind poet doesn’t believe in “contributing to society.”,John Lee Clark,Fear
Our Family Tree,"On the death of my sister Cecilia—the last of five members of the family, who died successively.Our family tree is in the sear And yellow leaf of life;Branch after branch, year after year, Yields to death’s pruning knife.First, youngest born, as if ’twere meet, The sacrifice should be,“The last of earth,” the first to meet Th’ unknown eternity.’Twas God who gave, ’twas He who took, His voice let us obey,So that in his eternal book, Our names shine bright as day.",Joseph Cephas Holly,Joy
In the Event of Change,I am saying primroses lined the pathway of toothless hedges.I am saying the ocean shimmered like corrugated steel in themorning sun.The context of my story changes when you enter. Then I am dungon the wall of the nomad’s field. Then the everyday waking person.I am nodding in your direction like fissures between dandelion fur.Seeing in your manner.I am speaking your pace. Slippage of silk slippers.I say you are losing sight. I say your breasts are dry shells.I am afraid of what I am capable of doing.This is all a manner of stating how I prepare myself to be loved.,Tsering Wangmo Dhompa,Fear
Summer    (a love poem),I wanted to be sure this was our islandso we could walk between the long stars by the seathough your hips are slight and caught in the airlike a moth at the end of a river around my armsI am unable to understand the sun your dizzy spellswhen you form a hand around me on the sandI offer you my terrible sanitythe eternal voice that keeps me from reaching youthough we are close to each other every autumnI feel the desperation of a giant freezing in cementwhen I touch the door you're pressed againstthe color of your letter that reminds me of flamingosisn't that what you mean?the pleasure of hands andlips wetter than the oceanor the brilliant pain ofbreathless teeth in aturbulent dream on a roofwhile I thought of nothingelse except you againstthe sky as I unfolded youlike my very life a liquidsignal of enormous love weinvented like a comet thatsplits the air between us!the earth looks shiny wrapped in steam and erminetired of us perspiring at every chance on the floorbelow I bring you an ash tray out of love for theice palace because it is the end of summer the endof the sun because you are in season like a bluerug you are my favorite violin when you sit and peel my eyes with your great surfaces seem intimatewhen we merely touch the thread of life and kiss 7.30.69,Frank Lima,Sadness
To the Poet Before Battle,"Now, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes; Thy lovely things must all be laid away; And thou, as others, must face the riven day Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums, Or bugles' strident cry. When mere noise numbs The sense of being, the sick soul doth sway, Remember thy great craft's honour, that they may say Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs Of praise the little versemen joyed to take Shall be forgotten; then they must know we are, For all our skill in words, equal in might And strong of mettle as those we honoured; make The name of poet terrible in just war, And like a crown of honour upon the fight.",Ivor Gurney,Sadness
The Tables Turned,"Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless— Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.",William Wordsworth,Sadness
Let Us Sample Protection Together,"When I was little I cut off the headsof many lords. I can’t count on the energythat took to rise in me at will, but I’vestrengthened my ability to make astand-firm surface. A steady gaze will driveconflicted information away, back to theabyss from whence it came, but I’ll be righthere the morning after, wracked in aprivate shame too awful to admit andof no consequence at all. I work very hardnot to let myself go. Any channelcan tell. Due process appears in beautyand misgiving at once; an agilityborne from creative malice, a benigninsecurity. The plain truth: I forgetthe curtains are open sometimes and thehands wander. The room stares back from its things:They understand the end of the world, willnot waste time feeling your pain, and every-thing tragic in between need not be known.I don’t want love or remorse to followI want them in the way, things to burst throughcorollaries to be roped and tackledby surprise, get killed, and thank you. One fatetransforms into another, but I won’ttouch that bandaged story. I won’t belongto this scripted conversation, though Imay play along. Identity theft acceptingrenewal orders, copycat pre-emptive attacksan obscure murder string on the publicglide by sight, the victim a John doughnutpining for leadership from the passenger seat.The threat of meaning reassures: I knowit’s being made for me. Am I supposedto believe we’re receiving information?Can I defect back to curiosityin the moonlight, stone rabbit? Hit on byEcho, I go cold for the love of myown exile, and while I hope, my fleshexplodes into an arrangement of starspestered by darkness. Those aren’t birds youhear, just their corresponding holes in the sky.All the bottled water isn’t fooling anyone.",Anselm Berrigan,Sadness
Canto IV,"Palace in smoky light,Troy but a heap of smouldering boundary stones,ANAXIFORMINGES!  Aurunculeia!Hear me.   Cadmus of Golden Prows!The silver mirrors catch the bright stones and flare,Dawn, to our waking, drifts in the green cool light;Dew-haze blurs, in the grass, pale ankles moving.Beat, beat, whirr, thud, in the soft turf                under the apple trees,Choros nympharum, goat-foot, with the pale foot alternate;Crescent of blue-shot waters, green-gold in the shallows,A black cock crows in the sea-foam; And by the curved, carved foot of the couch,             claw-foot and lion head, an old man seatedSpeaking in the low drone…:                        Ityn!Et ter flebiliter, Ityn, Ityn!And she went toward the window and cast her down,               “All the while, the while, swallows crying:Ityn!               “It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish.”               “It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish?”               “No other taste shall change this.”And she went toward the window,                      the slim white stone barMaking a double arch;Firm even fingers held to the firm pale stone;Swung for a moment,                        and the wind out of RhodezCaught in the full of her sleeve.               . . .  the swallows crying:‘Tis.  ‘Tis.  ‘Ytis!               Actæon…                   and a valley,The valley is thick with leaves, with leaves, the trees,The sunlight glitters, glitters a-top,Like a fish-scale roof,               Like the church roof in PoictiersIf it were gold.               Beneath it, beneath itNot a ray, not a slivver, not a spare disc of sunlightFlaking the black, soft water;Bathing the body of nymphs, of nymphs, and Diana,Nymphs, white-gathered about her, and the air, air,Shaking, air alight with the goddess               fanning their hair in the dark,Lifting, lifting and waffing:Ivory dipping in silver,               Shadow’d, o’ershadow’dIvory dipping in silver,Not a splotch, not a lost shatter of sunlight.Then Actæon: Vidal,Vidal.   It is old Vidal speaking,    stumbling along in the wood,Not a patch, not a lost shimmer of sunlight,                the pale hair of the goddess. The dogs leap on Actæon,                “Hither, hither, Actæon,”Spotted stag of the wood;Gold, gold, a sheaf of hair,                Thick like a wheat swath,Blaze, blaze in the sun,                The dogs leap on Actæon.Stumbling, stumbling along in the wood,Muttering, muttering Ovid:                “Pergusa… pool… pool… Gargaphia,“Pool… pool of Salmacis.”                The empty armour shakes as the cygnet moves. Thus the light rains, thus pours, e lo soleills plovilThe liquid and rushing crystal                beneath the knees of the gods.Ply over ply, thin glitter of water;Brook film bearing white petals.The pine at Takasago                grows with the pine of Isé!The water whirls up the bright pale sand in the spring’s mouth“Behold the Tree of the Visages!”Forked branch-tips, flaming as if with lotus.                Ply over plyThe shallow eddying fluid,                beneath the knees of the gods. Torches melt in the glare                set flame of the corner cook-stall,Blue agate casing the sky (as at Gourdon that time)                the sputter of resin,Saffron sandal so petals the narrow foot: Hymenæus Io!                Hymen, Io Hymenæe! Aurunculeia!One scarlet flower is cast on the blanch-white stone.                 And So-Gyoku, saying:“This wind, sire, is the king’s wind,                This wind is wind of the palace,Shaking imperial water-jets.”                And Hsiang, opening his collar:“This wind roars in the earth’s bag,                it lays the water with rushes.”No wind is the king’s wind.                Let every cow keep her calf.“This wind is held in gauze curtains…”                       No wind is the king’s… The camel drivers sit in the turn of the stairs,                Look down on Ecbatan of plotted streets,“Danaë! Danaë!             What wind is the king’s?”Smoke hangs on the stream,The peach-trees shed bright leaves in the water,Sound drifts in the evening haze,                The bark scrapes at the ford,Gilt rafters above black water,                Three steps in an open field,Gray stone-posts leading… Père Henri Jacques would speak with the Sennin, on Rokku,Mount Rokku between the rock and the cedars,Polhonac,As Gyges on Thracian platter set the feast,Cabestan, Tereus,                It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish,Vidal, or Ecbatan, upon the gilded tower in EcbatanLay the god’s bride, lay ever, waiting the golden rain.By Garonne.             “Saave!”The Garonne is thick like paint,Procession,—“Et sa’ave, sa’ave, sa’ave Regina!”—Moves like a worm, in the crowd.Adige, thin film of images,Across the Adige, by Stefano, Madonna in hortulo,As Cavalcanti had seen her.                The Centaur’s heel plants in the earth loam.And we sit here…                there in the arena…",Ezra Pound,Joy
Faith,"When I cannot believe,The brown herds still move across green fieldsInto the tufty hills, and I was bornHigher, where I could watch them as a bird might.When even memory seems imagined, whatCan I bring to prayer? A pair of knees.The great faith that built a stair to heavenAs now my memory tries to climb a hill,Becomes an old stone building, a deaf priestWhose hand is in the pockets of his parish,Who longs to buy a bell he'll never hear.The water in the font is cold, I traceA circle on my brow and not a cross.",Michael Schmidt,Anger
Sometimes Never,"Talking, we begin to find the way intoour hearts, we who knew no words,words being a rare commodityin those countries we left behind.Both refugees and similarly deprived,we marvel at the many things thereare to say: so many variationsand colors of the same thought, somany different lengths in the wordsthat line up together on our tongues.No scarcity, no rationing, nowaiting in line in order to buythe same answer we heard each timewe asked, that one word, owned bythe state, manufactured by the state,serving all purposes equally alike:No, No, No, and sometimes Never.",Joyce Sutphen,Fear
from Epipsychidion,"Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor, No keel has ever plough'd that path before; The halcyons brood around the foamless isles; The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles; The merry mariners are bold and free: Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest Is a far Eden of the purple East; And we between her wings will sit, while Night, And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, And, for the harbours are not safe and good, This land would have remain'd a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, Simple and spirited; innocent and bold. The blue Aegean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam, Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide: There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air; and far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails Accompany the noonday nightingales; And all the place is peopled with sweet airs; The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep And dart their arrowy odour through the brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam and tone, With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soul—they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream. It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth and Sea, Cradled and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, Wash'd by the soft blue Oceans of young air. It is a favour'd place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way: The wingèd storms, chanting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess: Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. But the chief marvel of the wilderness Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how None of the rustic island-people know: 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight, Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Rear'd it, a wonder of that simple time, An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, But, as it were, Titanic; in the heart Of Earth having assum'd its form, then grown Out of the mountains, from the living stone, Lifting itself in caverns light and high: For all the antique and learned imagery Has been eras'd, and in the place of it The ivy and the wild-vine interknit The volumes of their many-twining stems; Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, Or fragments of the day's intense serene; Working mosaic on their Parian floors. And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem To sleep in one another's arms, and dream Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Read in their smiles, and call reality.        This isle and house are mine, and I have vow'd Thee to be lady of the solitude. And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden Eastern air, And level with the living winds, which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high Spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn, and therefore still, Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measur'd by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their wither'd hours, like leaves, on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle, Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds, to touch their paramour; Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea, Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy— Possessing and possess'd by all that is Within that calm circumference of bliss, And by each other, till to love and live Be one: or, at the noontide hour, arrive Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expir'd night asleep, Through which the awaken'd day can never peep; A veil for our seclusion, close as night's, Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights; Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. And we will talk, until thought's melody Become too sweet for utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, Harmonizing silence without a sound. Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, And our veins beat together; and our lips With other eloquence than words, eclipse The soul that burns between them, and the wells Which boil under our being's inmost cells, The fountains of our deepest life, shall be Confus'd in Passion's golden purity, As mountain-springs under the morning sun. We shall become the same, we shall be one Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two? One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, Till like two meteors of expanding flame, Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigur'd; ever still Burning, yet ever inconsumable: In one another's substance finding food, Like flames too pure and light and unimbu'd To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away: One hope within two wills, one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality, And one annihilation. Woe is me! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare Universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire— I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!",Percy Bysshe Shelley,Joy
God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop,"The summer and autumn had been so wet,That in winter the corn was growing yet,'Twas a piteous sight to see all aroundThe grain lie rotting on the ground.Every day the starving poorCrowded around Bishop Hatto's door,For he had a plentiful last-year's store,And all the neighbourhood could tellHis granaries were furnish'd well.At last Bishop Hatto appointed a dayTo quiet the poor without delay;He bade them to his great Barn repair,And they should have food for the winter there.Rejoiced such tidings good to hear,The poor folk flock'd from far and near;The great barn was full as it could holdOf women and children, and young and old.Then when he saw it could hold no more,Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;And while for mercy on Christ they call,He set fire to the Barn and burnt them all.""I'faith 'tis an excellent bonfire!"" quoth he,""And the country is greatly obliged to me,For ridding it in these times forlornOf Rats that only consume the corn.""So then to his palace returned he,And he sat down to supper merrily,And he slept that night like an innocent man;But Bishop Hatto never slept again.In the morning as he enter'd the hallWhere his picture hung against the wall,A sweat like death all over him came,For the Rats had eaten it out of the frame.As he look'd there came a man from his farm—He had a countenance white with alarm;""My Lord, I open'd your granaries this morn,And the Rats had eaten all your corn.""Another came running presently,And he was pale as pale could be,""Fly! my Lord Bishop, fly,"" quoth he,""Ten thousand Rats are coming this way,...The Lord forgive you for yesterday!""""I'll go to my tower on the Rhine,"" replied he,""'Tis the safest place in Germany;The walls are high and the shores are steep,And the stream is strong and the water deep.""Bishop Hatto fearfully hasten'd away,And he crost the Rhine without delay,And reach'd his tower, and barr'd with careAll the windows, doors, and loop-holes there.He laid him down and closed his eyes;...But soon a scream made him arise,He started and saw two eyes of flameOn his pillow from whence the screaming came.He listen'd and look'd;... it was only the Cat;And the Bishop he grew more fearful for that,For she sat screaming, mad with fearAt the Army of Rats that were drawing near.For they have swum over the river so deep,And they have climb'd the shores so steep,And up the Tower their way is bent,To do the work for which they were sent.They are not to be told by the dozen or score,By thousands they come, and by myriads and more,Such numbers had never been heard of before,Such a judgment had never been witness'd of yore.Down on his knees the Bishop fell,And faster and faster his beads did he tell,As louder and louder drawing nearThe gnawing of their teeth he could hear.And in at the windows and in at the door,And through the walls helter-skelter they pour,And down from the ceiling and up through the floor,From the right and the left, from behind and before,From within and without, from above and below,And all at once to the Bishop they go.They have whetted their teeth against the stones,And now they pick the Bishop's bones:They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb,For they were sent to do judgment on him!",Robert Southey,Sadness
washee/was she,she was washee i told her you arelike your motherland a wildernessneeds a belt laid down two whitehotel towels took her into the tub towudu the boys out of her mouth pointedher nipples toward qibla wiped cleanher intention to perform ruk’u as ifcarrying a glass of chai on her backfold at the knees palms to the groundtucked her soles under her astaghfirullahused countryin my used country I felt his teethcircle as a mosquito the black mysteryhe placed my right hand over my wrongstain said he was bringing me homeoffered me a suite with a lock a key inthe shape of a brother perhaps twenty-two years old my body pure as a glasstable he spilled was she my boss on myback at night came easy as a flyto post-conflict faithfullyused my country,Sahar Muradi,Fear
A Girl,"A Girl,      Her soul a deep-wave pearl Dim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;      A face flowered for heart’s ease,      A brow’s grace soft as seas      Seen through faint forest-trees:      A mouth, the lips apart, Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breeze     From her tempestuous heart.     Such: and our souls so knit,     I leave a page half-writ —            The work begun Will be to heaven’s conception done,            If she come to it.",Michael Field,Fear
The Knife-Sharpener’s Daughter,"A drain spout splashingrusty stains on concrete, the taste of doorknobsyou kiss before squinting through the musty keyholeat the knife-sharpener’s daughter, while across the citythe knife-sharpener limps his pushcartwith its dinging axles, with its screeching whetstoneup wet alleys crying: scissors! knives! axes!",Stuart Dybek,Fear
Sonnet,"Glitz girls in the spackle. Teen climbedThe boughed over stair. Stole lace to begin againIn darkness, a fingering salt. PrintDelighted the line to linedPink. Was doll-sized, weighted out. Was flat-reaped sighAnd dollar bin plaid. Fridays we stayed inTill in coughed through with dry heat. MenGrew approximate in their longing for something to mine.Sippy cup of burn, acrylic camel, and melting kohlWas a hiding past boyish. We shone with miraculousDroll. Don’t try to kiss me, she was always saying. OlderThan a watch, the girl who pays starch to hushMeat. Gargantuan between grown and still us,I leave her orange street, my wanting ode",Anne Marie Rooney,Love
Across the Street,"I ran across the street, I didn’t know any better.Ran out in the street, I didn’t know no better.I just knew a woman was there, though I’d never met her.She sat me in her parlor, distracted me with trinkets,milky glass birds and fish, distracting trinkets.She said my mother would be fine, but did she think it?The world was a blur of crystal wings and fins.My tears were casked in crystal, wings and fins.She was the first of many lady-friends.The tree shadows shortened, she brought me a drink of water.Morning matured, she brought me a glass of water.I drank it so fast, she went and brought another.I kept looking out the window, she didn’t ask me what for.I watched out that window, she didn’t ask what for.The seconds broke off and lay there on the floor.I imagined my mother’s route, as far as I could.Her long morning walk, followed as far as I could.Nothing I could do would do any good.Suffer the little children, and forbid them not.Christ said suffer the little children, and forbid them not.Said love thy neighbor, sometimes she’s all you got.",Austin Segrest,Anger
On Seeing the Wind at Hope Mansell,"Whether or not shadows are of the substance such is the expectation I can wait to surprise my vision as a wind enters the valley: sudden and silent in its arrival, drawing to full cry the whorled invisibilities, glassen towers freighted with sky-chaff; that, as barnstorming powers, rammack the small orchard; that well-steaded oaks ride stolidly, that rake the light-leafed ash, that glowing yew trees, cumbrous, heave aside. Amidst and abroad tumultuous lumina, regents, reagents, cloud-fêted, sun-ordained, fly tally over hedgerows, across fields.",Geoffrey Hill,Fear
Shiver & You Have Weather,"In the aftermath of calculusyour toast fell butter-side down.Squirrels swarmed the lawnsin flight patterns. The hovercrafthelped the waves along. Fromevery corner there was perspective.On the billboards the diamondswere real, in the stores, only zirconia.I cc’ed you. I let you know.Sat down to write the Black Ice Memo.Dinner would be meager &reminiscent of next week’s lunch.So what if I sat on the sectional?As always I was beside myself.",Matthea Harvey,Sadness
"Teodoro Luna Confesses After Years to His Brother, Anselmo the Priest, Who Is Required to Understand, But Who Understands Anyway, More Than People Think","I am a slave to the nudity of women.   I do not know with what resolveI could stand against it, a naked woman   Asking of me anything.An unclothed woman is sometimes other things.   I see her in a dish of green pears.Anselmo, do you know what I mean if I say   Without clothesHer breasts are the two lionsIn front of the New York Public Library,Do you know that postcard of mine?   In those lions there is somethingFor which I have in exchange   Only sounds. Only my fingers.I see her everywhere. She is the lionsAnd the pears, those letters of the alphabetAs children we called dirty, the W,   The Y, the small o.She is absolutely the wet clothing on the line.   Or, you know, to be more intimate,May I? The nub, the nose of the pear,Do you know what I mean? Those parts of the womanI will call two Spanish dancer hats,Or rounder sometimes, doughboy helmets from the War.Sometimes they are flat in the late afternoon   Asleep. Like drawings,Like a single rock thrown into the lake,   These parts of a woman an imperfect circlingGyre of lines moving out, beyond the water.   They reach me at the shore, Anselmo.Without fail, they are stronger,And they have always been faster than I am.It’s like watching the lassoing man,The man with the perfectly circling rope,Pedro Armendariz in the Mexican movies,   Or Will Rogers. Wherever one is from,Whoever this man is.And he is always there. Everybody knows one.He always makes his big lasso, twirling his rope   Around himself and a woman from the audienceOnly I am the woman, do you understand, Anselmo?   Caught in the circling rope. I am the womanAnd me thinking of a woman   Without clothesIs that man and that ropeAnd we are riding on separate horses.",Alberto Ríos,Fear
Meds,"1. Living from pill to pill, from bed to couch,what doesn’t kill me only makes me dizzy.Pain dissolves like chalk in water,grit on the bottom of the glass. Waiting takes forever,throbs to the soles of my feet, Bella noche . . . Hives as large as mice hump up under my skin(“no more barbiturates for you, Cynthia!”)—itch, stretch, I don’t fit my flesh—sting, tingle, prick, the sorcerer’s threat. There’s a knife stabbed through my left eye.My right foot is made of elephant hideand weighs in at roughly one cartload of potatoes.Oxygen twenty-four hours; I’m swelled with steroids, prednisone buzz in the brain; a motel roomwith sixteen foreign workers sleeping in shifts,playing reggae at three a.m.  2. Oh I love my white pillthat makes the black fist of pain unclench,unspasming the nerves. I float,released to darkness visible,worlds dissolving. And the yellow pill, bitter on my tongue,that wakes me at 2 a.m.writing out plans in Arabicto organize an expedition to the Pole.Drug of hubris searing my eyes,my scrawl unreadable in daylight: foil my enemies. Bitter taste of fugue,my hand shakes: some foreign being in my brain giving orders.You must You must You will. Later, the pungent brown liquorshoots the dark with threads of gold behind my eyes.One flash as the mind goes out.  3. I must elude pain                                                            float past claritypain in the brain                                                            slammed down like a housefly. It’s a big dodge. Fly on a stovetop                                                            sizzle and ash pop. This is illusion,                                                                        mental confusion                                                             born in the synapse.What can be undone                                                            down to the last gasp.It’s a hodgepodge. If you kill pain                                                you will become pain; pain does not feel pain,                                                            no nerves in the brain. It’s a mind-fuck. It’s just your bad luck.                                                             A torpor sealed my brain                                                            I felt no humans near                                                            it seemed to me I could not feel                                                            or touch or see or hear. I don’t know who I am                                                            without my medicine.My skin will crawl with bugs                                                            if I don’t get my drugs.My brain’s a maelstrom,                                                            singing a sad song.Reality is so cruel. Prednisone oh prednisoneso fast my mind racing, never tastingrest. Razzle-dazzle razz Fist bitch piss stitch witch . . .                                                            (only wait, the fit will pass.) fast, gash, lash, splash—QUIT! (I saw a werewolf in a white suit, walkingpast the tables at the Full Moon Café.Floppy bow tie, big furry hands.) Percodan, Percocet, let you go, let you rest.When the grip lets you go and you float like a noteon the flow, there’s your life, there’s no worry—(yeah, it’s funky how the night moves.) Barbiturate babykins, narcotic slut,black oil of opiate. Chatty Cathy, dirty brat,bed-wetter, nasty pants. Painkiller, painkiller, I have a new friend,better than my old friend,plugging holes in the brain:Sigmund Freud, Sigmund Freud, Sigmund Freud, Cocaine! I want a soft landing; let me float.Once the seizure lifted me and threw me down.I did not like it. I did not like lying thereon the floor looking upthrough air like green water.  4. And there is one so dark, a ghost,it passes through the mesh of thoughtwithout tearing a strand, whisperingdestinies perceived true, pronouncingsentences of death.  5. A cloud, the absence of a noun, no name,roaring far away in the summerdark like a train, or a giant fan, or a highway that never stops.The mind explodes in the dark of space,unnursed by atmospheres,as air raid sirens scream for bloodand I am only nerves, strung on constellations,meridians and vectors quivering. A red and yellowcapsule invades the chemistry of thought; cathode rays blastfrom the television screen and signals pass deep into spaceuntil the stars are singing “Rosalita.” Youwill not remember this night.",Cynthia Huntington,Fear
Geometry,"All the roofs sloped at the same angle. The distance between the houses was the same. There were so many feet from each front door to the curb. My father mowed the lawn straight up and down and then diagonally. And then he lined up beer bottles on the kitchen table. We knew them only in summer when the air passed through the screens. The neighbor girls talked to us across the great divide: attic window to attic window. We started with our names. Our whispers wobbled along a tightrope, and below was the rest of our lives.",Nancy Botkin,Fear
Goya,"Goya drew a pig on a wall.The five-year-old hairdresser’s sonSaw, graved on a silver tray,The lion; and sunsets were begun.Goya smelt the bull-fight blood.The pupil of the CarmeliteGave his hands to a goldsmith, learnedTo gild an aureole aright.Goya saw the Puzzel’s eyes:Sang in the street (with a guitar)And climbed the balcony; but Keats(Under the halyards) wrote ‘Bright star.’Goya saw the Great Slut pickThe chirping human puppets up,And laugh, with pendulous mountain lip,And drown them in a coffee cup;Or squeeze their little juices outIn arid hands, insensitive,To make them gibber . . . Goya wentAmong the catacombs to live.He saw gross Ronyons of the air,Harelipped and goitered, raped in flightBy hairless pimps, umbrella-winged:Tumult above Madrid at night.He heard the seconds in his clockCrack like seeds, divulge, and pourAbysmal filth of NothingnessBetween the pendulum and the floor:Torrents of dead veins, rotted cells,Tonsils decayed, and fingernails:Dead hair, dead fur, dead claws, dead skin:Nostrils and lids; and cauls and veils;And eyes that still, in death, remained(Unlidded and unlashed) awareOf the foul core, and, fouler yet,The region worm that ravins there.Stench flowed out of the second’s tick.And Goya swam with it through Space,Sweating the fetor from his limbs,And stared upon the unfeatured faceThat did not see, and sheltered naught,But was, and is. The second gone,Goya returned, and drew the face;And scrawled beneath it, ‘This I have known’ . . .And drew four slatterns, in an attic,Heavy, with heads on arms, asleep:And underscribed it, ‘Let them slumber,Who, if they woke, could only weep’ . . .",Conrad Aiken,Fear
"Sonnet 10: I have sought Happiness, but it has been","I have sought Happiness, but it has been A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit, And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit More fair of outward hue than sweet within. Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, I knew what came the nearest to content. For there at least my troubled flesh was free From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so; Discord and Strife were what I used to know, Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy; By War transported far from all of these, Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.",Alan Seeger,Sadness
Joyce's Ulysses,The Normal Monstersings in the Green Sahara The voice and offalof the image of God make Celtic noisesin these lyrical hells Hurricanesof reasoned musicsreap the uncensored earth The loquent consciousnessof living thingspours in torrential languages The elderly colloquiststhe Spirit and the Fleshare out of tongue The Spiritis impaled upon the phallus Phoenixof Irish fireslighten the Occident with Ireland's wingsflap pandemoniumsof Olympian prose and satinizethe imperial Roseof Gaelic perfumes —Englandthe sadistic motherembraces Erin Masterof meteoric idiompresent The word made fleshand feeding upon itselfwith erudite fangsThe sanguineintrospection of the womb Don Juanof Judeaupon a pilgrimageto the Libido The presspurringits lullabies to sanity Christ capitalizedscourgingincontrite usurers of destinyin hole and corner temples And hangThe soul's advertisementsoutside the ecclesiast's Zoo A gravid dayspawnsgutteral gargoylesupon the Tower of Babel Empyrean emporiumwhere therejector-recreatorJoyceflashes the giant reflectoron the sub rosa,Mina Loy,Joy
Backyard Georgics,"It takes a calendar one damp day to declare fall,weeks of dying mums to second the motion.                               *     *     * Gone the homeland, gone the father, nothing leftbut invisible north to magnetize your doubts.                               *     *     * Not eulogies or hearses but the sandwiches after,estranged cousins chewing under one umbrella.                               *     *     * One clock for errands, one for midnighttrysts, though neither will hurry a slow train.                               *     *     * Prairie is not the floor nor sky the coffered ceiling.Even a scarecrow is wise beyond its straw.                               *     *     *Look down: a river of grass. Look up: a velvet lostand found. Look inside: no straws to drink that dusk.                               *     *     *A woman’s watch thieved by a jay—ah, to be liftedlike that, to be carried like time across lapping waves.",Lance Larsen,Joy
Blockbusters,"He lives in Leeds, completely out of the literary world.— John FreemanThrillers like The Da Vinci Code are one of the key indicators of contemporary ideological shifts.— Slavoj ŽižekFor what might break a writer’s block that gripsmy pen as if King Arthur’s sword, I questthrough bookshops of My Lady Charityin Urbs Leodiensis Mystica,completely outside Freeman’s (as most) worlds,where locals speak blank verse (says Harrison);Back-to-Front Inside-Out Upside-Down Leeds,according to the Nuttgens book I baggedalong with authors promising keys to opensecrets of iambic pentameter,how it’s a ball and chain, a waltz — but best,in Žižek’s wind sock for the New World Order,Gnostic code imprinted by five feetthat lead us to a Grail Brown liquefiesas Shakespeare melts to decasyllabicslike congealed saint’s blood in a Naples shrine.Brown quotes from Philip’s Gospel where it suitsto build on Rosslyn Chapel’s premisesvast hypophetic labyrinths in the airyet blind to masons’ mysteries below,who carved among the seven virtues greedwith charity being made a deadly sin    ...    The world was made in error, Philip wrote — Savonarola, in The Rule of Four(another blockbuster from Oxfam’s shelves)is made to quote “the Gospel of Paul” — does error here disguise some secret truth?What if  Paul’s Gospel were real, a Gnostic textthrown on the Bonfire of the Vanitiesso seen there by our zealot’s burning eyes,its road map to the true Grail turning to ash?My back-to-back looks on a blind man’s roadto Wilfred’s city, where he came from Rometo blitz our monks for “Simon Magus” tonsuresafter that Gnostic heresiarcha dog denounces in St. Peter’s Acts,while Peter raised smoked tuna from the dead,explained his crucifixion upside down,then how God’s Kingdom might be found on Earth:make right your left, back forwards, low your high    ...",Ian Duhig,Sadness
Blizzard,"Snow: years of anger following hours that float idly down — the blizzard drifts its weight deeper and deeper for three days or sixty years, eh? Then the sun! a clutter of yellow and blue flakes — Hairy looking trees stand out in long alleys over a wild solitude. The man turns and there — his solitary track stretched out upon the world.",William Carlos Williams,Fear
How Evolution Came to Indiana,"In Indianapolis they drivefive hundred miles and end upwhere they started: survivalof the fittest. In the swampsof Auburn and Elkhart,in the jungles of South Bend,one-cylinder chain-driven runabouts fallto air-cooled V-4’s, a-speed gearboxes,16-horse flat-twin midships engines—carcasses left behindby monobloc motors, electric starters,3-speed gears, six cylinders, 2-chain drive,overhead cams, superchargedto 88 miles an hour in second gear, the ageof Leviathan ...    There is grandeur in this view of life,    as endless forms    most beautiful and wonderful    are being evolved.",Philip Appleman,Surprise
Ariel,"Stasis in darkness.Then the substanceless blue   Pour of tor and distances.God’s lioness,   How one we grow,Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrowSplits and passes, sister to   The brown arcOf the neck I cannot catch,Nigger-eye   Berries cast dark   Hooks—Black sweet blood mouthfuls,   Shadows.Something elseHauls me through air—Thighs, hair;Flakes from my heels.WhiteGodiva, I unpeel—Dead hands, dead stringencies.And now IFoam to wheat, a glitter of seas.   The child’s cryMelts in the wall.   And IAm the arrow,The dew that fliesSuicidal, at one with the drive   Into the redEye, the cauldron of morning.",Sylvia Plath,Joy
The King and Seer,"The King asks, “Tell me, what is the highest meaning of the holiest truths?”The Seer answers, “Emptiness, without holiness.”The King is a restless seeker.The Seer is a ruler and thief.I am seriously watching how trees are always missing some leaves.They sweep the air looking for them. Nothing distracts them. Nothing.Where leaves are missing between the branches, beautiful sun porches, which disappear when the tree reaches them.“Who are you?” the King asks.“It is not like that,” the Seer says.The Seer leaves the King alone in his throne roomand starts walking to China, kicking up gravel,hurrying to find the next king.On the road between country houses, he stops to listen to trees digging the air for crickets.He wonders whether the King is mad now like the trees,or dancing and recounting the story without an end.",Emily Warn,Fear
Autumn,"A touch of cold in the Autumn night— I walked abroad, And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge Like a red-faced farmer. I did not stop to speak, but nodded, And round about were the wistful stars With white faces like town children.",T. E. Hulme,Love
Valentine's Afternoon,"Four lanes over, a plump helium heart—  slipped, maybe, from some kid's wrist                or a rushed lover's empty front seat  through a half-cracked car window—  rises like a shiny purple cloudlet  toward today's gray mess of clouds,  trailing its gold ribbon like lightning  that will never strike anything  or anyone here on the forsaken ground,  its bold LOVE increasingly illegible  as it ascends over the frozen oaks,  riding swift currents toward the horizon,  a swollen word wobbling out of sight.",Michael McFee,Joy
Love Song,"The ancients would lift          a clay spout to your lips—          water and honey and wine.I give you milk, softened         with wine, and swearyou'll never hunger, never         thirst while I'm alive.What suffering I can't preclude         I'll soothe with singing:My future, for younot the greenness of a leaf         but of the leaves on all         the April branches.Fire, I give you fuel. I sweat         and chop the wood.I tender forever in you         who begin where I end as ifyour body is         my body, your elegance         my elegance.Sustenance, emptiness         is lack of you, yearning isthe road to where you are.You are the road, the where,         the song, the hunger. Child,I give you sleep, I sing                                          you there.",Maggie Dietz,Love
The Properly Scholarly Attitude,"The poet pursues his beautiful theme;The preacher his golden beatitude;  And I run after a vanishing dream—  The glittering, will-o’-the-wispish gleamOf the properly scholarly attitude—The highly desirable, the very advisable,The hardly acquirable, properly scholarly attitude.  I envy the savage without any clothes,Who lives in a tropical latitude;  It’s little of general culture he knows.  But then he escapes the worrisome woesOf the properly scholarly attitude—The unceasingly sighed over, wept over, cried over,The futilely died over, properly scholarly attitude.  I work and I work till I nearly am dead,And could say what the watchman said—that I could!  But still, with a sigh and a shake of the head,  “You don’t understand,” it is ruthlessly said,“The properly scholarly attitude—The aye to be sought for, wrought for and fought for,The ne’er to be caught for, properly scholarly attitude—”  I really am sometimes tempted to sayThat it’s merely a glittering platitude;  That people have just fallen into the way,  When lacking a subject, to tell of the swayOf the properly scholarly attitude—The easily preachable, spread-eagle speechable,In practice unreachable, properly scholarly attitude.",Adelaide Crapsey,Anger
The Measure,I cannotmove backward   or forward.I am caughtin the timeas measure.What we think   of we think of—of no other reason   we think thanjust to think—each for himself.,Robert Creeley,Fear
Leaving Tulsa,"for CosettaOnce there were coyotes, cardinalsin the cedar. You could cure amnesiawith the trees of our back-forty. OnceI drowned in a monsoon of frogs—Grandma said it was a good thing, a promisefor a good crop. Grandma’s perfect tomatoes.Squash. She taught us to shuck corn, laughing,never spoke about her childhoodor the faces in gingerbread tinsstacked in the closet.She was covered in a quilt, the Creek way.But I don’t know this kind of burial:vanishing toads, thinning pecan groves,peach trees choked by palms.New neighbors tossing clipped grassover our fence line, griping to the cityof our overgrown fields.Grandma fell in love with a truck driver,grew watermelons by the pondon our Indian allotment,took us fishing for dragonflies.When the bulldozers camewith their documents from the cityand a truckload of pipelines,her shotgun was already loaded.Under the bent chestnut, the wellwhere Cosetta’s husbandhid his whiskey—buried beneath rootsher bundle of beads. They tellthe story of our family.",Jennifer Elise Foerster,Fear
"from Odes: 15 [""Nothing""]","Nothingsubstance utters or timestills and restrainsjoins design andsupple measure deftlyas thought’s intricate polyphonicscore dovetails with the treadsensuous thingskeep in our consciousness.Celebrate man’s craftand the word spoken in shapeless night, thesharp tool paring awaywaste and the formscut out of mystery!When taut string’s notepasses ears’ reach or red rays or violetfade, strong over unseenforces the wordranks and enumerates...mimes clouds condensedand hewn hills and bristling forests,steadfast corn in its seasonand the seasonsin their due array,life of man’s own bodyand death...                  The sound thins into melody,discourse narrowing, craftfailing, designpetering out.Ears heavy to breeze of speech andthud of the ictus.",Basil Bunting,Surprise
Ach/Last Call,"Right up to my final hour I'll be obliging and polite. Should I hear death firmly knocking, I'll blithely shout: Come in all right!        What's on the schedule? Dying, is it? Well, that's something rather new. But I'm sure that we can swing it, showing them a thing or two.        What is this? Your hourglass? Interesting! And good to grasp. And the scythe is for grim reaping, did you say? I thought I'd ask.        Which way should I turn from here? To the left? From where you stand? Well, all right then. To the graveyard? Where I take my final hand?        Yes, the glass is out of sand now. Oh, I see, you want it back. May I ask you where you got it? So unusual, all in black.        Is it antique? Oh well, whatever. I only meant to ask, old chap— What? No questions? No more talking? That's fine by me. I'll shut my—        * * * Ach, noch in der letzten Stunde werde ich verbindlich sein. Klopft der Tod an meine Türe rufe ich geschwind: Herein!        Woran soll es gehn? Ans Sterben? Hab ich zwar noch nie gemacht, doch wir werd'n das Kind schon schaukeln— na, das wäre ja gelacht!        Interessant so eine Sanduhr! Ja, die halt ich gern mal fest. Ach—und das ist Ihre Sense? Und die gibt mir dann den Rest?        Wohin soll ich mich jetzt wenden? Links? Von Ihnen aus gesehn? Ach, von mir aus! Bis zur Grube? Und wie soll es weitergehn?        Ja, die Uhr ist abgelaufen. Wollen Sie die jetzt zurück? Gibt's die irgendwo zu kaufen? Ein so ausgefall'nes Stück        Findet man nicht alle Tage, womit ich nur sagen will —ach! Ich soll hier nichts mehr sagen? Geht in Ordnung! Bin schon",Robert Gernhardt,Surprise
The Introduction,"Did I, my lines intend for public view,How many censures, would their faults pursue,Some would, because such words they do affect,Cry they’re insipid, empty, and uncorrect.And many have attained, dull and untaught,The name of wit only by finding fault.True judges might condemn their want of wit,And all might say, they’re by a woman writ.Alas! a woman that attempts the pen,Such an intruder on the rights of men,Such a presumptuous creature, is esteemed,The fault can by no virtue be redeemed.They tell us we mistake our sex and way;Good breeding, fashion, dancing, dressing, playAre the accomplishments we should desire;To write, or read, or think, or to inquireWould cloud our beauty, and exhaust our time,And interrupt the conquests of our prime;Whilst the dull manage of a servile houseIs held by some our outmost art, and use.  Sure ’twas not ever thus, nor are we toldFables, of women that excelled of old;To whom, by the diffusive hand of Heaven Some share of wit, and poetry was given.On that glad day, on which the Ark returned,The holy pledge, for which the land had mourned,The joyful tribes, attend it on the way,The Levites do the sacred charge convey,Whilst various instruments, before it play;Here, holy virgins in the concert joinThe louder notes, to soften, and refine,And with alternate verse complete the hymn divine.Lo! the young Poet, after God’s own heart,By Him inspired, and taught the Muses’ art,Returned from conquest, a bright chorus meets,That sing his slain ten thousand in the streets.In such loud numbers they his acts declare,Proclaim the wonders of his early war,That Saul upon the vast applause does frown,And feels its mighty thunder shake the crown.What, can the threatened judgment now prolong?Half of the kingdom is already gone;The fairest half, whose influence guides the rest,Have David’s empire o’er their hearts confessed.  A woman here, leads fainting Israel on,She fights, she wins, she triumphs with a song,Devout, majestic, for the subject fit,And far above her arms, exalts her wit;Then, to the peaceful, shady palm withdraws,And rules the rescued nation, with her laws.How are we fall’n, fall’n by mistaken rules?And education’s, more than nature’s fools,Debarred from all improvements of the mind,And to be dull, expected and designed;And if some one would soar above the rest,With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed,So strong th’ opposing faction still appears,The hopes to thrive can ne’er outweigh the fears,Be cautioned then my Muse, and still retired;Nor be despised, aiming to be admired;Conscious of wants, still with contracted wing,To some few friends, and to thy sorrows sing;For groves of laurel thou wert never meant;Be dark enough thy shades, and be thou there content.",Countess of Winchilsea Anne Finch,Sadness
Rutherford McDowell,"They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me i Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes? i For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow of their eyes. It was like a pool of water, Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, Where the leaves fall, As you hear the crow of a cock From a far-off farm house, seen near the hills Where the third generation lives, and the strong men And the strong women are gone and forgotten. And these grand-children and great grand-children Of the pioneers! Truly did my camera record their faces, too, With so much of the old strength gone, And the old faith gone, And the old mastery of life gone, And the old courage gone, Which labors and loves and suffers and sings Under the sun!",Edgar Lee Masters,Joy
Paradise Lost: Book 10 (1674 version),"MEanwhile the hainous and despightfull act Of Satan done in Paradise, and how Hee in the Serpent, had perverted Eve, Her Husband shee, to taste the fatall fruit, Was known in Heav'n; for what can scape the Eye Of God All-seeing, or deceave his Heart Omniscient, who in all things wise and just, Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the minde Of Man, with strength entire, and free will arm'd, Complete to have discover'd and repulst Whatever wiles of Foe or seeming Friend. For still they knew, and ought to have still remember'd The high Injunction not to taste that Fruit, Whoever tempted; which they not obeying, Incurr'd, what could they less, the penaltie, And manifold in sin, deserv'd to fall. Up into Heav'n from Paradise in haste Th' Angelic Guards ascended, mute and sad For Man, for of his state by this they knew, Much wondring how the suttle Fiend had stoln Entrance unseen. Soon as th' unwelcome news From Earth arriv'd at Heaven Gate, displeas'd All were who heard, dim sadness did not spare That time Celestial visages, yet mixt With pitie, violated not thir bliss. About the new-arriv'd, in multitudes Th' ethereal People ran, to hear and know How all befell: they towards the Throne Supream Accountable made haste to make appear With righteous plea, thir utmost vigilance, And easily approv'd; when the most High Eternal Father from his secret Cloud, Amidst in Thunder utter'd thus his voice. Assembl'd Angels, and ye Powers return'd From unsuccessful charge, be not dismaid, Nor troubl'd at these tidings from the Earth, Which your sincerest care could not prevent, Foretold so lately what would come to pass, When first this Tempter cross'd the Gulf from Hell. I told ye then he should prevail and speed On his bad Errand, Man should be seduc't And flatter'd out of all, believing lies Against his Maker; no Decree of mine Concurring to necessitate his Fall, Or touch with lightest moment of impulse His free Will, to her own inclining left In eevn scale. But fall'n he is, and now What rests but that the mortal Sentence pass On his transgression, Death denounc't that day, Which he presumes already vain and void, Because not yet inflicted, as he fear'd, By some immediate stroak; but soon shall find Forbearance no acquittance ere day end. Justice shall not return as bountie scorn'd. But whom send I to judge them? whom but thee Vicegerent Son, to thee I have transferr'd All Judgement, whether in Heav'n, or Earth, or Hell. Easie it might be seen that I intend Mercie collegue with Justice, sending thee Mans Friend, his Mediator, his design'd Both Ransom and Redeemer voluntarie, And destin'd Man himself to judge Man fall'n. So spake the Father, and unfoulding bright Toward the right hand his Glorie, on the Son Blaz'd forth unclouded Deitie; he full Resplendent all his Father manifest Express'd, and thus divinely answer'd milde. Father Eternal, thine is to decree, Mine both in Heav'n and Earth to do thy will Supream, that thou in mee thy Son belov'd Mayst ever rest well pleas'd. I go to judge On Earth these thy transgressors, but thou knowst, Whoever judg'd, the worst on mee must light, When time shall be, for so I undertook Before thee; and not repenting, this obtaine Of right, that I may mitigate thir doom On me deriv'd, yet I shall temper so Justice with Mercie, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfied, and thee appease. Attendance none shall need, nor Train, where none Are to behold the Judgment, but the judg'd, Those two; the third best absent is condemn'd, Convict by flight, and Rebel to all Law Conviction to the Serpent none belongs. Thus saying, from his radiant Seat he rose Of high collateral glorie: him Thrones and Powers, Princedoms, and Dominations ministrant Accompanied to Heaven Gate, from whence Eden and all the Coast in prospect lay. Down he descended strait; the speed of Gods Time counts not, though with swiftest minutes wing'd. Now was the Sun in Western cadence low From Noon, and gentle Aires due at thir hour To fan the Earth now wak'd, and usher in The Eevning coole when he from wrauth more coole Came the mild Judge and Intercessor both To sentence Man: the voice of God they heard Now walking in the Garden, by soft windes Brought to thir Ears, while day declin'd, they heard, And from his presence hid themselves among The thickest Trees, both Man and Wife, till God Approaching, thus to Adam call'd aloud. Where art thou Adam, wont with joy to meet My coming seen far off? I miss thee here, Not pleas'd, thus entertaind with solitude, Where obvious dutie erewhile appear'd unsaught: Or come I less conspicuous, or what change Absents thee, or what chance detains? Come forth. He came, and with him Eve, more loth, though first To offend, discount'nanc't both, and discompos'd; Love was not in thir looks, either to God Or to each other, but apparent guilt, And shame, and perturbation, and despaire, Anger, and obstinacie, and hate, and guile. Whence Adam faultring long, thus answer'd brief. I heard thee in the Garden, and of thy voice Affraid, being naked, hid my self. To whom The gracious judge without revile repli'd. My voice thou oft hast heard, and hast not fear'd, But still rejoyc't, how is it now become So dreadful to thee? that thou art naked, who Hath told thee? hast thou eaten of the Tree Whereof I gave thee charge thou shouldst not eat? To whom thus Adam sore beset repli'd. O Heav'n! in evil strait this day I stand Before my judge, either to undergoe My self the total Crime, or to accuse My other self, the partner of my life; Whose failing, while her Faith to me remaines, I should conceal, and not expose to blame By my complaint; but strict necessitie Subdues me, and calamitous constraint Least on my head both sin and punishment, However insupportable, be all Devolv'd; though should I hold my peace, yet thou Wouldst easily detect what I conceale. This Woman whom thou mad'st to be my help, And gav'st me as thy perfet gift, so good, So fit, so acceptable, so Divine, That from her hand I could suspect no ill, And what she did, whatever in it self, Her doing seem'd to justifie the deed; Shee gave me of the Tree, and I did eate. To whom the sovran Presence thus repli'd. Was shee thy God, that her thou didst obey Before his voice, or was shee made thy guide, Superior, or but equal, that to her Thou did'st resigne thy Manhood, and the Place Wherein God set thee above her made of thee, And for thee, whose perfection farr excell'd Hers in all real dignitie: Adornd Shee was indeed, and lovely to attract Thy Love, not thy Subjection, and her Gifts Were such as under Government well seem'd, Unseemly to beare rule, which was thy part And person, had'st thou known thy self aright. So having said, he thus to Eve in few: Say Woman, what is this which thou hast done? To whom sad Eve with shame nigh overwhelm'd, Confessing soon, yet not before her judge Bold or loquacious, thus abasht repli'd. The Serpent me beguil'd and I did eate. Which when the Lord God heard, without delay To Judgement he proceeded on th' accus'd Serpent though brute, unable to transferre The Guilt on him who made him instrument Of mischief, and polluted from the end Of his Creation; justly then accurst, As vitiated in Nature: more to know Concern'd not Man (since he no further knew) Nor alter'd his offence; yet God at last To Satan first in sin his doom apply'd, Though in mysterious terms, judg'd as then best: And on the Serpent thus his curse let fall. Because thou hast done this, thou art accurst Above all Cattle, each Beast of the Field; Upon thy Belly groveling thou shalt goe, And dust shalt eat all the dayes of thy Life. Between Thee and the Woman I will put Enmitie, and between thine and her Seed; Her Seed shall bruse thy head, thou bruise his heel. So spake this Oracle, then verifi'd When Jesus son of Mary second Eve, Saw Satan fall like Lightning down from Heav'n, Prince of the Aire; then rising from his Grave Spoild Principalities and Powers, triumpht In open shew, and with ascention bright Captivity led captive through the Aire, The Realm it self of Satan long usurpt, Whom he shall tread at last under our feet; Eeven hee who now foretold his fatal bruise, And to the Woman thus his Sentence turn'd. Thy sorrow I will greatly multiplie By thy Conception; Children thou shalt bring In sorrow forth, and to thy Husbands will Thine shall submit, hee over thee shall rule. On Adam last thus judgement he pronounc'd. Because thou hast heark'nd to the voice of thy Wife, And eaten of the Tree concerning which I charg'd thee, saying: Thou shalt not eate thereof, Curs'd is the ground for thy sake, thou in sorrow Shalt eate thereof all the days of thy Life; Thorns also and Thistles it shall bring thee forth Unbid, and thou shalt eate th' Herb of th' Field, In the sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat Bread, Till thou return unto the ground, for thou Out of the ground wast taken, know thy Birth, For dust thou art, and shalt to dust returne. So judg'd he Man, both Judge and Saviour sent, And th' instant stroke of Death denounc't that day Remov'd farr off; then pittying how they stood Before him naked to the aire, that now Must suffer change, disdain'd not to begin Thenceforth the form of servant to assume, As when he wash'd his servants feet so now As Father of his Familie he clad Thir nakedness with Skins of Beasts, or slain, Or as the Snake with youthful Coate repaid; And thought not much to cloath his Enemies: Nor hee thir outward onely with the Skins Of Beasts, but inward nakedness, much more Opprobrious, with his Robe of righteousness, Araying cover'd from his Fathers sight. To him with swift ascent he up returnd, Into his blissful bosom reassum'd In glory as of old, to him appeas'd All, though all-knowing, what had past with Man Recounted, mixing intercession sweet. Meanwhile ere thus was sin'd and judg'd on Earth, Within the Gates of Hell sate Sin and Death, In counterview within the Gates, that now Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame Farr into Chaos, since the Fiend pass'd through, Sin opening, who thus now to Death began. O Son, why sit we here each other viewing Idlely, while Satan our great Author thrives In other Worlds, and happier Seat provides For us his ofspring deare; It cannot be But that success attends him; if mishap, Ere this he had return'd, with fury driv'n By his Avenger, since no place like this Can fit his punishment, or their revenge. Methinks I feel new strength within me rise, Wings growing, and Dominion giv'n me large Beyond this Deep; whatever drawes me on, Or sympathie, or som connatural force Powerful at greatest distance to unite With secret amity things of like kinde By secretest conveyance. Thou my Shade Inseparable must with mee along: For Death from Sin no power can separate. But least the difficultie of passing back Stay his return perhaps over this Gulfe Impassable, Impervious, let us try Adventrous work, yet to thy power and mine Not unagreeable, to found a path Over this Maine from Hell to that new World Where Satan now prevailes, a Monument Of merit high to all th' infernal Host, Easing thir passage hence, for intercourse, Or transmigration, as thir lot shall lead. Nor can I miss the way, so strongly drawn By this new felt attraction and instinct. Whom thus the meager Shadow answerd soon. Goe whither Fate and inclination strong Leads thee, I shall not lag behinde, nor erre The way, thou leading, such a sent I draw Of carnage, prey innumerable, and taste The savour of Death from all things there that live: Nor shall I to the work thou enterprisest Be wanting, but afford thee equal aid. So saying, with delight he snuff'd the smell Of mortal change on Earth. As when a flock Of ravenous Fowl, though many a League remote, Against the day of Battel, to a Field, Where Armies lie encampt, come flying, lur'd With sent of living Carcasses design'd For death, the following day, in bloodie fight. So sented the grim Feature, and upturn'd His Nostril wide into the murkie Air, Sagacious of his Quarry from so farr. Then Both from out Hell Gates into the waste Wide Anarchie of Chaos damp and dark Flew divers, and with Power (thir Power was great) Hovering upon the Waters; what they met Solid or slimie, as in raging Sea Tost up and down, together crowded drove From each side shoaling towards the mouth of Hell. As when two Polar Winds blowing adverse Upon the Cronian Sea, together drive Mountains of Ice, that stop th' imagin'd way Beyond Petsora Eastward, to the rich Cathaian Coast. The aggregated Soyle Death with his Mace petrific, cold and dry, As with a Trident smote, and fix't as firm As Delos floating once; the rest his look Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move, And with Asphaltic slime; broad as the Gate, Deep to the Roots of Hell the gather'd beach They fasten'd, and the Mole immense wraught on Over the foaming deep high Archt, a Bridge Of length prodigious joyning to the Wall Immovable of this now fenceless world Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad, Smooth, easie, inoffensive down to Hell. So, if great things to small may be compar'd, Xerxes, the Libertie of Greece to yoke, From Susa his Memnonian Palace high Came to the Sea, and over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joyn'd, And scourg'd with many a stroak th' indignant waves. Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art Pontifical, a ridge of pendent Rock Over the vext Abyss, following the track Of Satan, to the self same place where hee First lighted from his Wing, and landed safe From out of Chaos to the out side bare Of this round World: with Pinns of Adamant And Chains they made all fast, too fast they made And durable; and now in little space The confines met of Empyrean Heav'n And of this World, and on the left hand Hell With long reach interpos'd; three sev'ral wayes In sight, to each of these three places led. And now thir way to Earth they had descri'd, To Paradise first tending, when behold Satan in likeness of an Angel bright Betwixt the Centaure and the Scorpion stearing His Zenith, while the Sun in Aries rose: Disguis'd he came, but those his Children dear Thir Parent soon discern'd, though in disguise. Hee after Eve seduc't, unminded slunk Into the Wood fast by, and changing shape To observe the sequel, saw his guileful act By Eve, though all unweeting, seconded Upon her Husband, saw thir shame that sought Vain covertures; but when he saw descend The Son of God to judge them terrifi'd Hee fled, not hoping to escape, but shun The present, fearing guiltie what his wrauth Might suddenly inflict; that past, return'd By Night, and listening where the hapless Paire Sate in thir sad discourse, and various plaint, Thence gatherd his own doom, which understood Not instant, but of future time. With joy And tidings fraught, to Hell he now return'd, And at the brink of Chaos, neer the foot Of this new wondrous Pontifice, unhop't Met who to meet him came, his Ofspring dear. Great joy was at thir meeting, and at sight Of that stupendious Bridge his joy encreas'd. Long hee admiring stood, till Sin, his faire Inchanting Daughter, thus the silence broke. O Parent, these are thy magnific deeds, Thy Trophies, which thou view'st as not thine own, Thou art thir Author and prime Architect: For I no sooner in my Heart divin'd, My Heart, which by a secret harmonie Still moves with thine, join'd in connexion sweet, That thou on Earth hadst prosper'd, which thy looks Now also evidence, but straight I felt Though distant from thee Worlds between, yet felt That I must after thee with this thy Son; Such fatal consequence unites us three: Hell could no longer hold us in her bounds, Nor this unvoyageable Gulf obscure Detain from following thy illustrious track. Thou hast atchiev'd our libertie, confin'd Within Hell Gates till, now, thou us impow'rd To fortifie thus farr, and overlay With this portentous Bridge the dark Abyss. Thine now is all this World, thy vertue hath won What thy hands builded not, thy Wisdom gain'd With odds what Warr hath lost, and fully aveng'd Our foile in Heav'n; here thou shalt Monarch reign, There didst not; there let him still Victor sway, As Battel hath adjudg'd, from this new World Retiring, by his own doom alienated, And henceforth Monarchie with thee divide Of all things parted by th' Empyreal bounds, His Quadrature, from thy Orbicular World, Or trie thee now more dang'rous to his Throne. Whom thus the Prince of Darkness answerd glad. Fair Daughter, and thou Son and Grandchild both, High proof ye now have giv'n to be the Race Of Satan (for I glorie in the name, Antagonist of Heav'ns Almightie King) Amply have merited of me, of all Th' infernal Empire, that so neer Heav'ns dore Triumphal with triumphal act have met, Mine with this glorious Work, and made one Realm Hell and this World, one Realm, one Continent Of easie thorough-fare. Therefore while I Descend through Darkness, on your Rode with ease To my associate Powers, them to acquaint With these successes, and with them rejoyce, You two this way, among these numerous Orbs All yours, right down to Paradise descend; There dwell and Reign in bliss, thence on the Earth Dominion exercise and in the Aire, Chiefly on Man, sole Lord of all declar'd, Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill. My Substitutes I send ye, and Create Plenipotent on Earth, of matchless might Issuing from mee: on your joynt vigor now My hold of this new Kingdom all depends, Through Sin to Death expos'd by my exploit. If your joynt power prevailes, th' affaires of Hell No detriment need feare, goe and be strong. So saying he dismiss'd them, they with speed Thir course through thickest Constellations held Spreading thir bane; the blasted Starrs lookt wan, And Planets, Planet-strook, real Eclips Then sufferd. Th' other way Satan went down The Causey to Hell Gate; on either side Disparted Chaos over built exclaimd, And with rebounding surge the barrs assaild, That scorn'd his indignation: through the Gate, Wide open and unguarded, Satan pass'd, And all about found desolate; for those Appointed to sit there, had left thir charge, Flown to the upper World; the rest were all Farr to the inland retir'd, about the walls Of Pandaemonium, Citie and proud seate Of Lucifer, so by allusion calld, Of that bright Starr to Satan paragond. There kept thir Watch the Legions, while the Grand In Council sate, sollicitous what chance Might intercept thir Emperour sent, so hee Departing gave command, and they observ'd. As when the Tartar from his Russian Foe By Astracan over the Snowie Plaines Retires, or Bactrian Sophi from the hornes Of Turkish Crescent, leaves all waste beyond The Realm of Aladule, in his retreate To Tauris or Casbeen. So these the late Heav'n-banisht Host, left desert utmost Hell Many a dark League, reduc't in careful Watch Round thir Metropolis, and now expecting Each hour their great adventurer from the search Of Forrein Worlds: he through the midst unmarkt, In shew Plebeian Angel militant Of lowest order, past; and from the dore Of that Plutonian Hall, invisible Ascended his high Throne, which under state Of richest texture spred, at th' upper end Was plac't in regal lustre. Down a while He sate, and round about him saw unseen: At last as from a Cloud his fulgent head And shape Starr bright appeer'd, or brighter, clad With what permissive glory since his fall Was left him, or false glitter: All amaz'd At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng Bent thir aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld, Thir mighty Chief returnd: loud was th' acclaime: Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting Peers, Rais'd from thir Dark Divan, and with like joy Congratulant approach'd him, who with hand Silence, and with these words attention won. Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers, For in possession such, not onely of right, I call ye and declare ye now, returnd Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth Triumphant out of this infernal Pit Abominable, accurst, the house of woe, And Dungeon of our Tyrant: Now possess, As Lords, a spacious World, to our native Heaven Little inferiour, by my adventure hard With peril great atchiev'd. Long were to tell What I have don, what sufferd, with what paine Voyag'd th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep Of horrible confusion, over which By Sin and Death a broad way now is pav'd To expedite your glorious march; but I Toild out my uncouth passage, forc't to ride Th' untractable Abysse, plung'd in the womb Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wilde, That jealous of thir secrets fiercely oppos'd My journey strange, with clamorous uproare Protesting Fate supreame; thence how I found The new created World, which fame in Heav'n Long had foretold, a Fabrick wonderful Of absolute perfection, therein Man Plac't in a Paradise, by our exile Made happie; Him by fraud I have seduc'd From his Creator, and the more to increase Your wonder, with an Apple; he thereat Offended, worth your laughter, hath giv'n up Both his beloved Man and all his World, To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us, Without our hazard, labour, or allarme, To range in, and to dwell, and over Man To rule, as over all he should have rul'd. True is, mee also he hath judg'd, or rather Mee not, but the brute Serpent in whose shape Man I deceav'd: that which to mee belongs, Is enmity, which he will put between Mee and Mankinde; I am to bruise his heel; His Seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head: A World who would not purchase with a bruise, Or much more grievous pain? Ye have th' account Of my performance: What remains, ye Gods, But up and enter now into full bliss. So having said, a while he stood, expecting Thir universal shout and high applause To fill his eare, when contrary he hears On all sides, from innumerable tongues A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn; he wonderd, but not long Had leasure, wondring at himself now more; His Visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare, His Armes clung to his Ribs, his Leggs entwining Each other, till supplanted down he fell A monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone, Reluctant, but in vaine, a greater power Now rul'd him, punisht in the shape he sin'd, According to his doom: he would have spoke, But hiss for hiss returnd with forked tongue To forked tongue, for now were all transform'd Alike, to Serpents all as accessories To his bold Riot: dreadful was the din Of hissing through the Hall, thick swarming now With complicated monsters head and taile, Scorpion and Asp, and Amphisbaena dire, Cerastes hornd, Hydrus, and Ellops drear, And Dipsas (not so thick swarm'd once the Soil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the Isle Ophiusa) but still greatest hee the midst, Now Dragon grown, larger then whom the Sun Ingenderd in the Pythian Vale on slime, Huge Python, and his Power no less he seem'd Above the rest still to retain; they all Him follow'd issuing forth to th' open Field, Where all yet left of that revolted Rout Heav'n-fall'n, in station stood or just array, Sublime with expectation when to see ln Triumph issuing forth thir glorious Chief; They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd Of ugly Serpents; horror on them fell, And horrid sympathie; for what they saw, They felt themselvs now changing; down thir arms, Down fell both Spear and Shield, down they as fast, And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form Catcht by Contagion, like in punishment, As in thir crime. Thus was th' applause they meant, Turnd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame Cast on themselves from thir own mouths. There stood A Grove hard by, sprung up with this thir change, His will who reigns above, to aggravate Thir penance, laden with Fruit like that Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect strange Thir earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining For one forbidden Tree a multitude Now ris'n, to work them furder woe or shame; Yet parcht with scalding thurst and hunger fierce, Though to delude them sent, could not abstain, But on they rould in heaps, and up the Trees Climbing, sat thicker then the snakie locks That curld Megaera: greedily they pluck'd The Frutage fair to sight, like that which grew Neer that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd; This more delusive, not the touch, but taste Deceav'd; they fondly thinking to allay Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit Chewd bitter Ashes, which th' offended taste With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayd, Hunger and thirst constraining, drugd as oft, With hatefullest disrelish writh'd thir jaws With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell Into the same illusion, not as Man Whom they triumph'd once lapst. Thus were they plagu'd And worn with Famin, long and ceasless hiss, Till thir lost shape, permitted, they resum'd, Yearly enjoynd, some say, to undergo This annual humbling certain number'd days, To dash thir pride, and joy for Man seduc't. However some tradition they dispers'd Among the Heathen of thir purchase got, And Fabl'd how the Serpent, whom they calld Ophion with Eurynome, the wide- Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driv'n And Ops, ere yet Dictaean Jove was born. Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair Too soon arriv'd, Sin there in power before, Once actual, now in body, and to dwell Habitual habitant; behind her Death Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale Horse: to whom Sin thus began. Second of Satan sprung, all conquering Death, What thinkst thou of our Empire now, though earnd With travail difficult, not better farr Then stil at Hels dark threshold to have sate watch, Unnam'd, undreaded, and thy self half starv'd? Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answerd soon. To mee, who with eternal Famin pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven, There best, where most with ravin I may meet; Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems To stuff this Maw, this vast unhide-bound Corps. To whom th' incestuous Mother thus repli'd. Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, and Flours Feed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowle, No homely morsels, and whatever thing The Sithe of Time mowes down, devour unspar'd, Till I in Man residing through the Race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect, And season him thy last and sweetest prey. This said, they both betook them several wayes, Both to destroy, or unimmortal make All kinds, and for destruction to mature Sooner or later; which th' Almightie seeing, From his transcendent Seat the Saints among, To those bright Orders utterd thus his voice. See with what heat these Dogs of Hell advance To waste and havoc yonder World, which I So fair and good created, and had still Kept in that State, had not the folly of Man Let in these wastful Furies, who impute Folly to mee, so doth the Prince of Hell And his Adherents, that with so much ease I suffer them to enter and possess A place so heav'nly, and conniving-seem To gratifie my scornful Enemies, That laugh, as if transported with some fit Of Passion, I to them had quitted all, At random yielded up to their misrule; And know not that I call'd and drew them thither My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth Which mans polluting Sin with taint hath shed On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst With suckt and glutted offal, at one sling Of thy victorious Arm, well-pleasing Son, Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last Through Chaos hurld, obstruct the mouth of Hell For ever, and seal up his ravenous Jawes. Then Heav'n and Earth renewd shall be made pure To sanctitie that shall receive no staine: Till then the Curse pronounc't on both precedes. He ended, and the heav'nly Audience loud Sung Halleluia, as the sound of Seas, Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy Decrees on all thy Works; Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son, Destin'd restorer of Mankind, by whom New Heav'n and Earth shall to the Ages rise, Or down from Heav'n descend. Such was thir song, While the Creator calling forth by name His mightie Angels gave them several charge, As sorted best with present things. The Sun Had first his precept so to move, so shine, As might affect the Earth with cold and heat Scarce tollerable, and from the North to call Decrepit Winter, from the South to bring Solstitial summers heat. To the blanc Moone Her office they prescrib'd, to th' other five Thir planetarie motions and aspects In Sextile, Square, and Trine, and Opposite, Of noxious efficacie, and when to joyne In Synod unbenigne, and taught the fixt Thir influence malignant when to showre, Which of them rising with the Sun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous: To the Winds they set Thir corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, Aire, and Shoar, the Thunder when to rowle With terror through the dark Aereal Hall. Some say he bid his Angels turne ascanse The Poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more From the Suns Axle; they with labour push'd Oblique the Centric Globe: Som say the Sun Was bid turn Reines from th' Equinoctial Rode Like distant breadth to Taurus with the Seav'n Atlantick Sisters, and the Spartan Twins Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amaine By Leo and the Virgin and the Scales, As deep as Capricorne, to bring in change Of Seasons to each Clime; else had the Spring Perpetual smil'd on Earth with vernant Flours, Equal in Days and Nights, except to those Beyond the Polar Circles; to them Day Had unbenighted shon, while the low Sun To recompence his distance, in thir sight Had rounded still th' Horizon, and not known Or East or West, which had forbid the Snow From cold Estotiland, and South as farr Beneath Magellan. At that tasted Fruit The Sun, as from Thyestean Banquet, turn'd His course intended; else how had the World Inhabited, though sinless, more then now, Avoided pinching cold and scorching heate? These changes in the Heav'ns, though slow, produc'd Like change on Sea and Land, sideral blast, Vapour, and Mist, and Exhalation hot, Corrupt and Pestilent: Now from the North Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shoar Bursting thir brazen Dungeon, armd with ice And snow and haile and stormie gust and flaw, Boreas and Caecias and Argestes loud And Thrascias rend the Woods and Seas upturn; With adverse blast upturns them from the South Notus and Afer black with thundrous Clouds From Serraliona; thwart of these as fierce Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent Windes Eurus and Zephir with thir lateral noise, Sirocco, and Libecchio, Thus began Outrage from liveless things; but Discord first Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational, Death introduc'd through fierce antipathie: Beast now with Beast gan war, and Fowle with Fowle, And Fish with Fish; to graze the Herb all leaving, Devourd each other; nor stood much in awe Of Man, but fled him, or with count'nance grim Glar'd on him passing: these were from without The growing miseries, which Adam saw Alreadie in part, though hid in gloomiest shade, To sorrow abandond, but worse felt within, And in a troubl'd Sea of passion tost, Thus to disburd'n sought with sad complaint. O miserable of happie! is this the end Of this new glorious World, and mee so late The Glory of that Glory, who now becom Accurst of blessed, hide me from the face Of God, whom to behold was then my highth Of happiness: yet well, if here would end The miserie, I deserv'd it, and would beare My own deservings; but this will not serve; All that I eat or drink, or shall beget, Is propagated curse. O voice once heard Delightfully, Encrease and multiply, Now death to heare! for what can I encrease Or multiplie, but curses on my head? Who of all Ages to succeed, but feeling The evil on him brought by me, will curse My Head, Ill fare our Ancestor impure, For this we may thank Adam; but his thanks Shall be the execration; so besides Mine own that bide upon me, all from mee Shall with a fierce reflux on mee redound, On mee as on thir natural center light Heavie, though in thir place. O fleeting joyes Of Paradise, deare bought with lasting woes! Did I request thee, Maker, from my Clay To mould me Man, did I sollicite thee From darkness to promote me, or here place In this delicious Garden? as my Will Concurd not to my being, it were but right And equal to reduce me to my dust, Desirous to resigne, and render back All I receav'd, unable to performe Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold The good I sought not. To the loss of that, Sufficient penaltie, why hast thou added The sense of endless woes? inexplicable Thy justice seems; yet to say truth, too late, I thus contest; then should have been refusd Those terms whatever, when they were propos'd: Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good, Then cavil the conditions? and though God Made thee without thy leave, what if thy Son Prove disobedient, and reprov'd, retort, Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not: Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee That proud excuse? yet him not thy election, But Natural necessity begot. God made thee of choice his own, and of his own To serve him, thy reward was of his grace, Thy punishment then justly is at his Will. Be it so, for I submit, his doom is fair, That dust I am, and shall to dust returne: O welcom hour whenever! why delayes His hand to execute what his Decree Fixd on this day? why do I overlive, Why am I mockt with death, and length'nd out To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet Mortalitie my sentence, and be Earth Insensible, how glad would lay me down As in my Mothers lap? there I should rest And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more Would Thunder in my ears, no fear of worse To mee and to my ofspring would torment me With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt Pursues me still, least all I cannot die, Least that pure breath of Life, the Spirit of Man Which God inspir'd, cannot together perish With this corporeal Clod; then in the Grave, Or in some other dismal place who knows But I shall die a living Death? O thought Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath Of Life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life And sin? the Bodie properly hath neither. All of me then shall die: let this appease The doubt, since humane reach no further knows. For though the Lord of all be infinite, Is his wrauth also? be it, man is not so, But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end? Can he make deathless Death? that were to make Strange contradiction, which to God himself Impossible is held, as Argument Of weakness, not of Power. Will he, draw out, For angers sake, finite to infinite In punisht man, to satisfie his rigour Satisfi'd never; that were to extend His Sentence beyond dust and Natures Law, By which all Causes else according still To the reception of thir matter act, Not to th' extent of thir own Spheare. But say That Death be not one stroak, as I suppos'd, Bereaving sense, but endless miserie From this day onward, which 1 feel begun Both in me, and without me, and so last To perpetuitie; Ay me, that fear Comes thundring back with dreadful revolution On my defensless head; both Death and I Am found Eternal, and incorporate both, Nor I on my part single, in mee all Posteritie stands curst: Fair Patrimonie That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able To waste it all my self, and leave ye none! So disinherited how would ye bless Me now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind For one mans fault thus guiltless be condemn'd, If guiltless? But from me what can proceed, But all corrupt, both Mind and Will deprav'd, Not to do onely, but to will the same With me? how can they then acquitted stand In sight of God? Him after all Disputes Forc't I absolve: all my evasions vain, And reasonings, though through Mazes, lead me still But to my own conviction: first and last On mee, mee onely, as the sourse and spring Of all corruption, all the blame lights due; So might the wrauth. Fond wish! couldst thou support That burden heavier then the Earth to bear Then all the World much heavier, though divided With that bad Woman? Thus what thou desir'st And what thou fearst, alike destroyes all hope Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable Beyond all past example and future, To Satan only like both crime and doom. O Conscience, into what Abyss of fears And horrors hast thou driv'n me; out of which I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd! Thus Adam to himself lamented loud Through the still Night, not now, as ere man fell, Wholsom and cool, and mild, but with black Air Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom, Which to his evil Conscience represented All things with double terror: On the Ground Outstretcht he lay, on the cold ground, and oft Curs'd his Creation, Death as oft accus'd Of tardie execution, since denounc't The day of his offence. Why comes not Death, Said hee, with one thrice acceptable stroke To end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her word, Justice Divine not hast'n to be just? But Death comes not at call, Justice Divine Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries. O Woods, O Fountains, Hillocks, Dales and Bowrs, With other echo late I taught your Shades To answer, and resound farr other Song. Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve bebeld, Desolate where she sate, approaching nigh, Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd: But her with stern regard he thus repell'd. Out of my sight, thou Serpent, that name best Befits thee with him leagu'd, thy self as false And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape, Like his, and colour Serpentine may shew Thy inward fraud, to warn all Creatures from thee Henceforth; least that too heav'nly form, pretended To hellish falshood, snare them. But for thee I had persisted happie, had not thy pride And wandring vanitie, when lest was safe, Rejected my forewarning, and disdain'd Not to be trusted, longing to be seen Though by the Devil himself, him overweening To over-reach, but with the Serpent meeting Fool'd and beguil'd, by him thou, I by thee, To trust thee from my side, imagin'd wise, Constant, mature, proof against all assaults, And understood not all was but a shew Rather then solid vertu, all but a Rib Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears, More to the part sinister from me drawn, Well if thrown out, as supernumerarie To my just number found. O why did God, Creator wise, that peopl'd highest Heav'n With Spirits Masculine, create at last This noveltie on Earth, this fair defect Of Nature, and not fill the World at once With Men as Angels without Feminine, Or find some other way to generate Mankind? this mischief had not then befall'n, And more that shall befall, innumerable Disturbances on Earth through Femal snares, And straight conjunction with this Sex: for either He never shall find out fit Mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake, Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain Through her perversness, but shall see her gaind By a farr worse, or if she love, withheld By Parents, or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, alreadie linkt and Wedlock-bound To a fell Adversarie, his hate or shame: Which infinite calamitie shall cause To Humane life, and houshold peace confound. He added not, and from her turn'd, but Eve Not so repulst, with Tears that ceas'd not flowing, And tresses all disorderd, at his feet Fell humble, and imbracing them, besaught His peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint. Forsake me not thus, Adam, witness Heav'n What love sincere, and reverence in my heart I beare thee, and unweeting have offended, Unhappilie deceav'd; thy suppliant I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not, Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, Thy counsel in this uttermost distress, My onely strength and stay: forlorn of thee, Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? While yet we live, scarse one short hour perhaps, Between us two let there be peace, both joyning, As joyn'd in injuries, one enmitie Against a Foe by doom express assign'd us, That cruel Serpent: On me exercise not Thy hatred for this miserie befall'n, On me alreadie lost, mee then thy self More miserable; both have sin'd, but thou Against God onely, I against God and thee, And to the place of judgment will return, There with my cries importune Heaven, that all The sentence from thy head remov'd may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe, Mee mee onely just object of his ire. She ended weeping, and her lowlie plight, Immoveable till peace obtain'd from fault Acknowledg'd and deplor'd, in Adam wraught Commiseration; soon his heart relented Towards her, his life so late and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress, Creature so faire his reconcilement seeking, His counsel whom she had displeas'd, his aide; As one disarm'd, his anger all he lost, And thus with peaceful words uprais'd her soon. Unwarie, and too desirous, as before, So now of what thou knowst not, who desir'st The punishment all on thy self; alas, Beare thine own first, ill able to sustaine His full wrauth whose thou feelst as yet lest part, And my displeasure bearst so ill. If Prayers Could alter high Decrees, I to that place Would speed before thee, and be louder heard, That on my head all might be visited, Thy frailtie and infirmer Sex forgiv'n, To me committed and by me expos'd. But rise, let us no more contend, nor blame Each other, blam'd enough elsewhere, but strive In offices of Love, how we may light'n Each others burden in our share of woe; Since this days Death denounc't, if ought I see, Will prove no sudden, but a slow-pac't evill, A long days dying to augment our paine, And to our Seed (O hapless Seed!) deriv'd. To whom thus Eve, recovering heart, repli'd. Adam, by sad experiment I know How little weight my words with thee can finde, Found so erroneous, thence by just event Found so unfortunate; nevertheless, Restor'd by thee, vile as I am, to place Of new acceptance, hopeful to regaine Thy Love, the sole contentment of my heart Living or dying, from thee I will not hide What thoughts in my unquiet brest are ris'n, Tending to some relief of our extremes, Or end, though sharp and sad, yet tolerable, As in our evils, and of easier choice. If care of our descent perplex us most, Which must be born to certain woe, devourd By Death at last, and miserable it is To be to others cause of misery, Our own begotten, and of our Loines to bring Into this cursed World a woful Race, That after wretched Life must be at last Food for so foule a Monster, in thy power It lies, yet ere Conception to prevent The Race unblest, to being yet unbegot. Childless thou art, Childless remaine: so Death Shall be deceav'd his glut, and with us two Be forc'd to satisfie his Rav'nous Maw. But if thou judge it hard and difficult, Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain From Loves due Rites, Nuptial imbraces sweet, And with desire to languish without hope, Before the present object languishing With like desire, which would be meserie And torment less then none of what we dread, Then both our selves and Seed at once to free From what we fear for both, let us make short, Let us seek Death, or he not found, supply With our own hands his Office on our selves; Why stand we longer shivering under feares, That shew no end but Death, and have the power, Of many ways to die the shortest choosing, Destruction with destruction to destroy. She ended heer, or vehement despaire Broke off the rest; so much of Death her thoughts Had entertaind, as di'd her Cheeks with pale. But Adam with such counsel nothing sway'd, To better hopes his more attentive minde Labouring had rais'd, and thus to Eve repli'd. Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure seems To argue in thee somthing more sublime And excellent then what thy minde contemnes; But self-destruction therefore saught, refutes That excellence thought in thee, and implies, Not thy contempt, but anguish and regret For loss of life and pleasure overlov'd. Or if thou covet death, as utmost end Of miserie, so thinking to evade The penaltie pronounc't, doubt not but God Hath wiselier arm'd his vengeful ire then so To be forestall'd; much more I fear least Death So snatcht will not exempt us from the paine We are by doom to pay; rather such acts Of contumacie will provoke the highest To make death in us live: Then let us seek Some safer resolution, which methinks I have in view, calling to minde with heed Part of our Sentence, that thy Seed shall bruise The Serpents head; piteous amends, unless Be meant, whom I conjecture, our grand Foe Satan, who in the Serpent hath contriv'd Against us this deceit: to crush his head Would be revenge indeed; which will be lost By death brought on our selves, or childless days Resolv'd, as thou proposest; so our Foe Shall scape his punishment ordain'd, and wee Instead shall double ours upon our heads. No more be mention'd then of violence Against our selves, and wilful barrenness, That cuts us off from hope, and savours onely Rancor and pride, impatience and despite, Reluctance against God and his just yoke Laid on our Necks. Remember with what mild And gracious temper he both heard and judg'd Without wrauth or reviling; wee expected Immediate dissolution, which we thought Was meant by Death that day, when lo, to thee Pains onely in Child-bearing were foretold, And bringing forth, soon recompenc't with joy, Fruit of thy Womb: On mee the Curse aslope Glanc'd on the ground, with labour I must earne My bread; what harm? Idleness had bin worse; My labour will sustain me; and least Cold Or Heat should injure us, his timely care Hath unbesaught provided, and his hands Cloath'd us unworthie, pitying while he judg'd; How much more, if we pray him, will his ear Be open, and his heart to pitie incline, And teach us further by what means to shun Th' inclement Seasons, Rain, Ice, Hail and Snow, Which now the Skie with various Face begins To shew us in this Mountain, while the Winds Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks Of these fair spreading Trees; which bids us seek Som better shroud, som better warmth to cherish Our Limbs benumm'd, ere this diurnal Starr Leave cold the Night, how we his gather'd beams Reflected, may with matter sere foment, Or by collision of two bodies grinde The Air attrite to Fire, as late the Clouds Justling or pusht with Winds rude in thir shock Tine the slant Lightning, whose thwart flame driv'n down Kindles the gummie bark of Firr or Pine, And sends a comfortable heat from farr, Which might supplie the Sun: such Fire to use, And what may else be remedie or cure To evils which our own misdeeds have wrought, Hee will instruct us praying, and of Grace Beseeching him, so as we need not fear To pass commodiously this life, sustain'd By him with many comforts, till we end In dust, our final rest and native home. What better can we do, then to the place Repairing where he judg'd us, prostrate fall Before him reverent, and there confess Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears Watering the ground, and with our sighs the Air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek. Undoubtedly he will relent and turn From his displeasure; in whose look serene, When angry most he seem'd and most severe, What else but favor, grace, and mercie shon? So spake our Father penitent, nor Eve Felt less remorse: they forthwith to the place Repairing where he judg'd them prostrate fell Before him reverent, and both confess'd Humbly thir faults, and pardon beg'd, with tears Watering the ground, and with thir sighs the Air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek.",John Milton,Fear
The Knife Wearer,"This morning we found ourselves skinning a deer,cutting meat, hanging some to dry and packagingsome for the freezer. It was the dogs late last night that set off a howling, the unexpected smell of freshblood floating down the block, then a familiar carhorn honking in the driveway. My nephew and his friends were hunting and brought us a deer. Motheralways said, “Cut up the meat right away, don’t letit sit.” I look at a front quarter, a hole filled with coagulated blood. Grandma says not to eat the partnext to the wound, “Cut it out; offer it to the earth forhealing, a sacrifice to remember the hungering spirits.” Auntie says to save the muscle along the back strap,“It makes good thread.” I carefully learned the exactplace to cut the joints so the bones separate easily. Mother said that is important—“It means you are athoughtful person.” Auntie is at the door waiting fora roast. “An elder takes the first piece,” she reminded. Mom tells me to save the hooves for her. She wantsto make a bone game for the new grandchild, wantshim to be patient and skillful. I boil the hoofs with sage, find the little toe-bones for her. My hands beginto ache from the work, I soak them in warm waterand start again. I admire the placement of tendons on the deer shoulders, no joints, just the crisscrossingof muscle. Grandma says, “That’s why your dad calledthem jumpers, they bounce off the strength of their flexing muscles.” Late at night Mom helps me stakeout the hide. My back hurts; my feet feel like I’vebeen walking on rocks all day. I want to complain, but Mom catches the look in my eyes. She says to me,“When you get dressed for the dance this weekend,you will proudly wear your beautiful beaded dress, your beaded leggings and moccasins, and last, but notleast, you will put on your beaded belt, and attachedyou will wear your sharp knife and quilled knife sheath because of what you have done this day.”",Lois Red Elk,Fear
Lament For The Makers,"I that in heill wes and gladnes,Am trublit now with gret seiknes,And feblit with infermite;Timor mortis conturbat me.Our plesance heir is all vane glory,This fals warld is bot transitory,The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle;Timor mortis conturbat me.The stait of man dois change and vary,Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary,Now dansand mery, now like to dee;Timor mortis conturbat me.No stait in erd heir standis sickir;As with the wynd wavis the wickir,Wavis this warldis vanite.Timor mortis conturbat me.On to the ded gois all estatis,Princis, prelotis, and potestatis,Baith riche and pur of al degre;Timor mortis conturbat me.He takis the knychtis in to feild,Anarmit under helme and scheild;Victour he is at all mellie;Timor mortis conturbat me.That strang unmercifull tyrandTakis, on the moderis breist sowkand,The bab full of benignite;Timor mortis conturbat me.He takis the campion in the stour,The capitane closit in the tour,The lady in bour full of bewte;Timor mortis conturbat me.He sparis no lord for his piscence,Na clerk for his intelligence;His awfull strak may no man fle;Timor mortis conturbat me.Art-magicianis, and astrologgis,Rethoris, logicianis, and theologgis,Thame helpis no conclusionis sle;Timor mortis conturbat me.In medicyne the most practicianis,Lechis, surrigianis, and phisicianis,Thame self fra ded may not supple;Timor mortis conturbat me.I se that makaris amang the laifPlayis heir ther pageant, syne gois to graif;Sparit is nocht ther faculte;Timor mortis conturbat me.He hes done petuously devour,The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour,The Monk of Bery, and Gower, all thre;Timor mortis conturbat me.The gude Syr Hew of Eglintoun,And eik Heryot, and Wyntoun,He hes tane out of this cuntre;Timor mortis conturbat me.That scorpion fell hes done infekMaister Johne Clerk, and Jame Afflek,Fra balat making and tragidie;Timor mortis conturbat me.Holland and Barbour he hes berevit;Allace! that he nocht with us levitSchir Mungo Lokert of the Le;Timor mortis conturbat me.Clerk of Tranent eik he has tane,That maid the Anteris of Gawane;Schir Gilbert Hay endit hes he;Timor mortis conturbat me.He hes Blind Hary and Sandy TraillSlaine with his schour of mortall haill,Quhilk Patrik Johnestoun myght nocht fle;Timor mortis conturbat me.He hes reft Merseir his endite,That did in luf so lifly write,So schort, so quyk, of sentence hie;Timor mortis conturbat me.He hes tane Roull of Aberdene,And gentill Roull of Corstorphin;Two bettir fallowis did no man se;Timor mortis conturbat me.In Dumfermelyne he hes done rouneWith Maister Robert Henrisoun;Schir Johne the Ros enbrast hes he;Timor mortis conturbat me.And he hes now tane, last of aw,Gud gentill Stobo and Quintyne Schaw,Of quham all wichtis hes pete:Timor mortis conturbat me.Gud Maister Walter KennedyIn poynt of dede lyis veraly,Gret reuth it wer that so suld be;Timor mortis conturbat me.Sen he hes all my brether tane,He will nocht lat me lif alane,On forse I man his nyxt pray be;Timor mortis conturbat me.Sen for the deid remeid is none,Best is that we for dede dispone,Eftir our deid that lif may we;Timor mortis conturbat me.",William Dunbar,Fear
On Receiving News of the War,"Snow is a strange white word;No ice or frostHave asked of bud or birdFor Winter's cost.Yet ice and frost and snowFrom earth to skyThis Summer land doth know,No man knows why.In all men's hearts it is.Some spirit oldHath turned with malign kissOur lives to mould.Red fangs have torn His face.God's blood is shed.He mourns from His lone placeHis children dead.O! ancient crimson curse!Corrode, consume.Give back this universeIts pristine bloom.                         (Cape Town, 1914)",Isaac Rosenberg,Fear
The Guardian Angel of the Private Life,"All this was written on the next day’s list.On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,   pale but effective,and the long stern of the necessary, the sum of events, built-up its tiniest cathedral ...(Or is it the sum of what takes place?)If I lean down, to whisper, to them,down into their gravitational field, there where they head busily oninto the woods, laying the gifts out one by one, onto the path,   hoping to be on the air,hoping to please the children—(and some gifts overwrapped and some not wrapped at all)—if   I stir the wintered ground-leavesup from the paths, nimbly, into a sheet of sun,into an escape-route-width of sun, mildly gelatinous where wet, though                                                                                  mostly crisp,   fluffing them up a bit, and up, as if to choke the singularity of sunwith this jubilation of manyness, all through and round these passers-by—just leaves, nothing that can vaporize into a thought,   no, a burning-bush’s worth of spidery, up-ratcheting, tender-cling leaves,   oh if—the list gripped hard by the left hand of one,   the busyness buried so deep into the puffed-up greenish mind of one,the hurried mind hovering over its rankings,the heart—there at the core of the drafting leaves—wet and warm at the                                                                                           zero ofthe bright mock-stairwaying-up of the posthumous leaves—the heart,   formulating its alleyways of discovery,fussing about the integrity of the whole,the heart trying to make time and place seem small,sliding its slim tears into the deep wallet of each new event                                                                   on the listthen checking it off—oh the satisfaction—each check a small kiss,an echo of the previous one, off off it goes the dry high-ceilinged                                                                                     obligation,   checked-off by the fingertips, by the small gust called done that swipesthe unfinishable’s gold hem aside, revealingwhat might have been, peeling away what should ...   There are flowerpots at their feet.There is fortune-telling in the air they breathe.It filters in with its flashlight-beam, its holy-water-tinted air,down into the open eyes, the lampblack open mouth.   Oh listen to these words I’m spitting out for you.   My distance from you makes them louder.   Are we all waiting for the phone to ring?   Who should it be? What fountain is expected tothrash forth mysteries of morning joy? What quail-like giant tail of   promises, pleiades, psalters, plane-trees,   what parapets petalling-forth the invisible   into the world of things,turning the list into its spatial form at last,into its archival many-headed, many-legged colony....   Oh look at you.What is it you hold back? What piece of time is it the list   won’t cover?   You down there, in the theater of   operations—you, throat of the world—so diacritical—(are we all waiting for the phone to ring?)—(what will you say? are you home? are you expected soon?)—oh wanderer back from break, all your attention focused—as if the thinking were an oar, this ship the last of some   original fleet, the captains gone but some of us   who saw the plan drawn outstill here—who saw the thinking clot-up in the bodies of the greater men,who saw them sit in silence while the voices in the other roomlit up with passion, itchings, dreams of landings,   while the solitary ones,heads in their hands, so still,the idea barely formingat the base of that stillness,the idea like a homesickness starting just to fold and pleat and knot                                                                                              itselfout of the manyness—the plan—before it’s thought,   before it’s a done deal or the name-you’re-known-by—the men of x, the outcomes of y—before—the mind still gripped hard by the handsthat would hold the skull even stiller if they could,that nothing distract, that nothing but the possible be let                                                          to filter through—the possible and then the finely filamented hope, the filigree,   without the distractions of wonder—oh tiny golden spore just filtering in to touch the good idea,   which taking-form begins to twist,coursing for bottom-footing, palpating for edge-hold, limit,   now finally about torise, about to go into the other room—and yetnot having done so yet, not yet—theintake—before the credo, before the plan—right at the homesickness—before this list you hold   in your exhausted hand. Oh put it down.",Jorie Graham,Joy
Ancestral,"The star dissolved in evening—the one starThe silently                   and night O soon now, soonAnd still the light now                                    and still now the largeRelinquishing                     and through the pools of blueStill, still the swallows                                       and a wind now                                                            and the treeGathering darkness:                              I was small. I layBeside my mother on the grass, and sleepCame—          slow hooves and dripping with the darkThe velvet muzzles, the white feet that moveIn a dream water                        and O soon now soonSleep and the night.                              And I was not afraid.Her hand lay over mine. Her fingers knewDarkness,—and sleep—the silent lands, the farFar off of morning where I should awake.",Archibald MacLeish,Fear
Who kills my history,"Who kills my history knows   it is buried   in the same air ay breathe.   Only a hair is needed to keep you, mother.   Only a fit of bone.   Comfort, comfort, ay am my own.   Wanting simple, a sun like water, a flow and stir of air.   Warm stone, black-warm, dirt scent and bird.   Ay am put out to weather.   Animal eyed me here—heaving, breathing over—   felt by smell for me and loomed.   Air shifted my hair as it neared and sniffed   then left. Comfort, comfort me.   A thresh of sticks and vine, hand-carried   high—ay am my own weight carried by,   kind horse, kind mother, gone.",Joan Houlihan,Fear
In Time,The night the world was going to endwhen we heard those explosions not far awayand the loudspeakers telling usabout the vast fires on the backwaterconsuming undisclosed remnantsand warning us over and overto stay indoors and make no signalsyou stood at the open windowthe light of one candle back in the roomwe put on high boots to be readyfor wherever we might have to goand we got out the oysters and satat the small table feeding themto each other first with the forkthen from our mouths to each otheruntil there were none and we stood upand started to dance without musicslowly we danced around and aroundin circles and after a while we hummedwhen the world was about to endall those years all those nights ago,W. S. Merwin,Fear
Golden State,"ITo see my fatherlying in pink velvet, a rosary   twined around his hands, rouged,   lipsticked, his skin marble ...My mother said, “He looks the way he did   thirty years ago, the day we got married,—I’m glad I went;I was afraid: now I can remember him   like that ...”Ruth, your last girlfriend, who wouldn’t sleep with you   or marry, because you wanted herto pay half the expenses, and “His drinkingalmost drove me crazy—”                                    Ruth once saw youstaring into a mirror,in your ubiquitous kerchief and cowboy hat,say:       “Why can’t I look like a cowboy?”You left a bag of money; and were   the unhappiest man   I have ever known well.IIIt’s in many waysa relief to have you dead.                                        I have more money.Bakersfield is easier: life isn’t so nude,   now that I no longer have toface you each evening: mother is progressing   beautifully in therapy, I can almost convince myself   a good analyst would have saved you:for I need to believe, asalways, that your pervasive sense of disappointmentproceeded fromtrivial desires: but I fearthat beneath the wish to be a movie star,   cowboy, empire builder, all thosecheap desires, layradical disaffection                               from the very possibilities   of human life ...Your wishes were too simple:                        or too complex.IIII find it difficult to imagine youin bed, making love to a woman ...By common consensus, you were a good lover:   and yet,mother once said: “Marriage would be better   if it weren’t mixed up with sex ...”Just after the divorce,—when I was   about five,—I slept all night with youin a motel, and again and again   you begged meto beg her to come back ...I said nothing; but she went backseveral times, again and againyou would go on a binge, there would be   another woman,mother would leave ...You always said,“Your mother is the only woman I’ve ever loved.”IVOh Shank, don’t turn into the lies   of mere, neat poetry ...I’ve been reading Jung, and he says that we can   never get to the bottom   of what is, or was ...But why things were as they were   obsesses; I know that you   the necessity to contend with youyour helplessnessbefore yourself,                        —has been at the center   of how I think my life ...                                        And yet your voice, raw,demanding, dissatisfied,   saying over the telephone:               “How are all those bastards at Harvard?”remains, challenging: beyond all the   patterns and paradigms                                  I use to silence and stop it.VI dreamed I had my wish:                                    —I seemed to seethe conditions of my life, upona luminous stage: how I could change,   how I could not: the root of necessity,   and choice.                  The stage was labelled   “Insight”.                The actors therehad no faces, I cannot remember   the patterns of their actions, but   simply by watching,I knew that beneath my feet   the fixed starsgoverning my lifehad begun to fall, and melt ...                                                —Then your face appeared,laughing at the simplicity of my wish.VIAlmost every dayI take out the letter you wrote me in Paris.   ... Why?It was writtenthe year before you married Shirley; Myrtle,   your girlfriend, was an ally of minebecause she “took care of you,”but you alwaysmade it clearshe was too dumpy and crude to marry ...In some ways “elegant,”with a pencil-thin, neatly clipped moustache,   chiselled, Roman nose, you werea millionaireand always pretendedyou couldn’t afford to go to Europe ...When I was a child,you didn’t seem to care if I existed. Bakersfield, Calif July 9, 1961Dear Pinon,       Sorry I haven’t wrote to you sooner but glad to hear that you are well and enjoying Paris.       I got your fathers day wire in the hospital where I put in about twelve days but I am very well now. I quit the ciggeretts but went through ten days of hell quitting and my back had been giving me hell.       It had been very hot here but the last few days has been very nice. Emily just got out of the hospital yesterday. She had her feet worked on. I guess she will tell you about it. Glad to hear you are learning some French.       We are just about through with potatoes. Crop was very good but no price at all which made it a poor year. Cattle are cheap too. It look like a bad year for all farmer’s.       I don’t know anything else to tell you. Take care of your self and enjoy it. Maybe you will never have another chance for another trip. I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance to go, so if you run into a extra special gal between 28 & 35 send her over here to me as all I know over here don’t amount to mutch. Well I guess I’ll close now as I am going over to see Emily.       Hoping to hear from you right away.       This address is 4019 Eton St. be sure and get it straight. Myrtle would like to know how much that watch amounts to. Let us know          Will close now and write soon.                                                    Love ‘Shank’P.S. Excuse this writing as its about 30 years since I wrote a letter.VIIHow can I say this?                              I think my psychiatrist   likes me: he knowsthe most terrible things I’ve done, every stupidity,   inadequacy, awkwardness,ignorance, the mad girl I screwedbecause she once again and againteased and rejected me, and whose psychic incompetence   I grimly greeted as an occasion for revenge;   he greets my voicewith an interest, and regard, and affection,   which seem to signal I’m worth love;—you finallyforgave me for being your son, and in the nasty   shambles of your life, in which you had less and less   occasion for pride, you were proudof me, the first Bidartwho ever got a B.A.; Harvard, despiteyour distrust, was the crown;—but the way   you eyed me:                   the bewilderment, unease:the somehow alwaystentative, suspended judgment ...—however much you tried (and, clearly,   you did try)                   you could not remake your   taste, and like me: could not remake   yourself, to give methe graceneeded to look in a mirror, as I often can   now, with some equanimity ...VIIIWhen did I begin to substitute   insight, for prayer? ...                                     —You believed in neither:   but said, “My life is over,”after you had married Shirley,twenty-five years younger, with threesmall children, the youngestsix months old; she was unfaithfulwithin two months, the marriage was simply   annulled ...                   A diabetic, you didn’ttake your insulin when you drank, andalmost managed to diemany times ...                      You punished Ruthwhen she went to Los Angeles for a weekend, by   beginning to drink; she would return home   either to find you in the hospital,or in a coma on the floor ...                                             The exacerbation   of this seeming necessityfor connection—;                         you and mother taught me   there’s little that’s redemptive or usefulin natural affections ...I must unlearn; I must believeyou were merely a manwith a character, and a past—;                                              you wore them,                                                 unexamined,like a nimbus offuriesround yourgreying, awesome head ...IXWhat should I have done? In 1963,you wanted to borrow ten thousand dollars   from me, so that we could buy cattle   together, under the name “Bidart and Son,”—most of your money was tied up   in the increasingly noxious “Bidart Brothers,”   run by your brother, Johnny ...I said no,that I wanted to use the moneyfor graduate school; but I thoughtif you went on a binge, and as had happened   before, simply threw it away ...The Bidarts agreedyou were not to be trusted; you accepted   my answer, with an airof inevitability I was shocked at ...I didn’t want to see your self-disgust;   —somehow, your self-congratulation   had eroded more deeply, muchmore deeply, than even I had wished,—but for years, how I had wished! ...I have a friend who saysthat he has never felt a conflictbetween something deeply wished or desired,   and what he thought was “moral” ...Father, such innocencesurely is a kind of Eden—; but,somehow, I can’t regret that weare banished from that company—;   in the awareness, thehistory of our contradictions and violence,   insofar as I am “moral” at all,is the beginning of my moral being.XWhen I began this poem,                                    to see myselfas a piece of history, having a pastwhich shapes, and informs, and thus inevitably   limits—          at first this seemed sufficient, the beginning of   freedom ...                  The way to approach freedomwas to acknowledge necessity:—   I sensed I had to become not merelya speaker, the “eye,” but a character ...And you had to become a character: with a past,   with a set of internal contradictions and necessities   which if I could once define, would at least   begin to release us from each other ...But, of course, no such knowledge is possible;—   as I touch your photographs, they stare back at me   with the dazzling, impenetrable, glitter of mere life ...You stand smiling, at the end of the twenties,   in a suit, and hat,cane and spats, with a collie at your feet,   happy to be handsome, dashing, elegant:—   and though I cannot connect this imagewith the end of your life, with the defensive   gnarled would-be cowboy,—   you seem happy at that fact, happyto be surprising; unknowable; unpossessable ...You say it’s what you always understood by freedom. 1968-69.",Frank Bidart,Fear
wishes for sons,"i wish them cramps.i wish them a strange townand the last tampon.i wish them no 7-11.i wish them one week earlyand wearing a white skirt.i wish them one week late.later i wish them hot flashesand clots like youwouldn't believe. let theflashes come when theymeet someone special.let the clots comewhen they want to.let them think they have acceptedarrogance in the universe,then bring them to gynecologistsnot unlike themselves.",Lucille Clifton,Joy
How Spring Comes,"Toys and rose               The zoo body zigzagsI think fish too                                        but I'm a politesocial being, I'm a Ladle Lady or purpleand blue I write green letters and goldeditorials for the Krystal Oxygen CompanyI have one hip as far as I can see, thatI see as I write say                                         white tee-shirts                                            upsidedown                                         turn em around                                           & put them on                                             your muscles                                                my angels                      or                                   a semi-colon                                      is blue window                                           to meis that a haiku? I fly over San Diego in some one oranother real despair and ask you to comfort me. Youmore or less do, you aren't even here            my best me my worldly me            my taste of spring my continuance my            comfort will you comfort me?I offer you my heart over Tucson                                                I can't use it               take it to comfort me                                                             free                  me be it take it take it to                  be itwhich apparently you don't or take you help provideme it I think, thathappens among true people, that poem I was writingno good poem                                    but Moment framed the PleiadesThe garnets ring more beautiful the longer you                                             are waiting for me in them,                                             where Deity makes me friendly there.But who put on all the tee-shirts in Hunter'sPoint? Well we're all good boys my son said so.A semi-colon is a semi-precious garnet clustertelegram; what we love are such depths between allthe messages. Pass the salt; Ladies of the Tang,bubble of night; this book about Harry Truman is wonderful.I see the Gulf Moon Rising every night. I'm familiarwith the zonked starfish. I've the sheen on underthe fire-escape railing all streetlight-lit. Thehollow suddenly appeared to enlarge and fill with abright light. Wild with the taste of wine it does notremember the despair of an hour ago, which was truethat is of a true woman. She was somehow hating herposition on the round earth in the dusky sky on aharsh Sunday. On the ground forgotten flowerlikefirmaments. She addressed in uneloquent hatredSMUG LIFE                          the one who soothes one's foolishness theGreat Face Construct who loves you for your kinks childanyway, the Guru God:              Oh I will come back a knockout tomorrow                      Useless to you!                                        You're not it you smug face               I'm not doing your yoga not wearing               Your moondrops using your cream               Rinse letting you fuck me Exquisite               Like I was one of the Ones With Brains Too!               Intelligence in panties with peekaboo                                                                    holes—               No I'm coming back raw               I'm getting drenched in the rain               It's rain and it's wet I'm soaked I'm               Chilled and I'm coughing the air's raw               To my throat, which is raw from               Coughing, coughing so strong               Coughing and laughing                          So strong from killing you! Etc.                           She didn't kill nothing.                                                            & I don't get to shareno secrets with the stars. I make chow. I contemplatesemi-colons. I despair as a mother. I scream at thatkid I'm gonna crack open your big walnut if you don'tgo to sleep. Theories of grace, that it implies nosurprise no shock. Ukrainians sudden on Sunday speakingUkrainian, the cross not Christian but Gracious                            and when I want to cry or cough violentlyit must diffuse back into my embassy; hard, that takeshard. And if it weren't for you . . . not you smug lifeface, but real you. Please play cribbage.                                 Pass the salt.                                 Think of a garnet-black cabbage, aUkrainian is selling it on 7th Street in honor of ourmarriage. A Spanish fan opens in my abdomen                           I have Spanish dancers in my stomach         they're my arching striving in dance where it's blackred flowers darken to be huge pleasuring the                severe, tried Angel who meets transition,           transport, as abruptly as necessary                                                  for everyone's are aptSays the Unassuming GracefulWhose down-hip-nessIs that windowThe dancers' sensuous flawThat admits Spring,Contingent upon our personalitySpring is for the worldly                                                       just like the HaHa Room                       Just like dearest rockbottom                                                                  suddenly gone buoyant                                                                To be black geese to be                                 strenuous dancers                                 is not to dignify a passion but to                                 grip it.                                        Not saints but always pupilspupils dilated fully black in full achievement ofgut-feeling. Joy.",Alice Notley,Joy
Sonnet 23: Methought I saw my late espoused saint,"Methought I saw my late espoused saint       Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,       Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,       Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint       Purification in the old Law did save,       And such as yet once more I trust to have       Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;       Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight       Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'dSo clear as in no face with more delight.       But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,       I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.",John Milton,Joy
Canticle In The Fish's Belly,"How to get to it:               the heart withinthe corset               made of whaleboneand Parisian leaded satin,                              winter weight. I can barely breathe. Sun filters from high windows               into this dark-paneled room where my sister helps me stepinto the skirt,                              our grandmother’s grandmother’ssent-for dress, its pinprick satin buttonsdown my chest.               We hook each hookto hold the corset flush,                              to anchorthe bustle, as she did for her quietFebruary wedding,               snow covering the steepleof the Seamen’s Bethel.                               Melville: This, shipmates, is that other lesson: fasten the locks, hold the heartwithin its watery chamber.                                             When the seamstress slidthe bone into the bodice               and pinned eachcut piece together,                              the satin stood uprightat the sewing table.She could almost               see it breathe. I am swallowedand swallowed whole. It outlasts                              all our vows.",Rachel Richardson,Fear
Arms and the Boy,"Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads, Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads, Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death. For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple. There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple; And God will grow no talons at his heels, Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.",Wilfred Owen,Fear
My Life as a Subject,"I Because I was born in a kingdom, there was a king. At times the king was a despot; at other times, not. Axes flashed in the road at night, but if you closed your eyes and sang the old ballads sitting on the well edge amongst your kinspeople then the silver did not appear to be broken.    Such were the circumstances. They made a liar out of me. Did they change my spirit?  Kith in the night  the sound of owls. A bird fight. II We also had a queen, whetted by the moon. And we her subjects, softening in her sight. III What one had  the other had to have too. Soon  parrots bloomed in every garden, and  every daughter had a tuning fork  jeweled with emeralds. IV Learning to hunt in the new empire, the king invited his subjects to send him their knives. He tested these knives on oranges, pomegranates, acorn squash, soft birches, stillborns, prisoners who had broken rules. He used them on the teeth of traitors. V When strangers massed at the borders, the courtiers practiced  subjection of the foreign. The court  held a procession  of twine, rope, gold, knife, light, and prostitutes with their vials of white powder. Smoke coursed into the courtyard, and we wrought hunger upon the bodies of strangers. I am sure you can imagine it, really what need  is there for me to tell you? You were a stranger once too, and I brought rope. VI Afterward, I always slept, and let the dealers  come to me alone with jewels. VII  In the court at night, we debated the skin of language, questioned what might one day be revealed inside: a pink and soft fruit, a woman in a field. . . Or a shadow, sticky and loose as old jam. Our own  dialect was abstract, we wished to understand not how things were but what spectacle we might  make from them. VIII One day a merchant brought moving pictures,  the emperor's new delight.  He tacked dark cloth to all  the windows, top  and bottom, and turned the lights off, cranking the machine like a needle and thread making forms into which we could insinuate our cold bodies and find warmth. Light; dark. And the sliding images of courtiers merrily balancing pineapples on their heads, as if this  were an adequate story. IX And our queen, that hidden self. What became of her? Slid into the night like a statue, and felt around into shadows, nothing to prove, all worldly latitudes, knowing as a spider in retreat. The web her mind, and in it, the fly. X On Sundays, we flew kites  to ensure our joy was seen by all those who  threatened to threaten us. The thread spooling out up high  in the purple sky and silver gelatin films being made, sliding through the cranking machine so that the barbarians could know we made images of ourselves coated in precious metal and sent them away indifferent to our wealth. I miss the citrus  smell of spring on the plaza filled with young and long-limbed kite flyers. XI Do I have anything else to add? Only that I obeyed my king, my kind, I was not faithless. Should I be punished for that? It is true  some of my pictures creak unhappily through the spindle. It is true one day they came to my house. I know  the powder we coated our fingers with made us thirsty and sometimes cruel. But I was born with a spirit like you. I have woken, you see, and I wish to be  made new.",Meghan O'Rourke,Anger
I Flew into Denver April,I flew into Denver April.Rock salt and sand peppered the asphaltreflecting myself on a downtown streetwhere I’d paused on my route to smell lilacs.The wanton winds chortled wickedlyover remnant snows in gray clumps of doomand my heart soared gladly at winter’s deathbut an hour later I had whiskey breathat a dead end bar full of Indians.A Winnebago woman waltzed with meand told me how handsome I truly wasso I bought her drinks and felt her hipsand somewhere between the grindsand dips she lifted my wallet and split.,Adrian C. Louis,Joy
The Small Hours,"A joyrider rips up Lockland. It takes barely five minutes   for a precinct helicopter to dip and swivel over lawns   and two opposing lines of cars   parked innocently snug to the sidewalk.   They haven't found him yet.   Every couple of minutes or so,   my blind soaks in outrageous light   and the helicopter hauls its drone and feud all over my backyard.   There's a fan over my bed that says similar things in summer: adages, reproach and rhetoric. I talk too much; give far too much away. In mumbling my company, I reckon on a twofold payoff: some echo; being found out, consequence. I lie low. Minutes swell.   He must be out there somewhere,   lights switched off, crouched and bundled, foot within an inch of the get-go.   I pull the comforter up over my ears, count to forty-two, then start over.   I'm trying, trying hard, to hold my breath.",Vona Groarke,Anger
Making Peace,"A voice from the dark called out,             ‘The poets must give usimagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiarimagination of disaster. Peace, not onlythe absence of war.’                                   But peace, like a poem,is not there ahead of itself,can’t be imagined before it is made,can’t be known exceptin the words of its making,grammar of justice,syntax of mutual aid.                                       A feeling towards it,dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we haveuntil we begin to utter its metaphors,learning them as we speak.                                              A line of peace might appearif we restructured the sentence our lives are making,revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,questioned our needs, allowedlong pauses . . .                        A cadence of peace might balance its weighton that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,an energy field more intense than war,might pulse then,stanza by stanza into the world,each act of livingone of its words, each worda vibration of light—facetsof the forming crystal.",Denise Levertov,Joy
The Rainbow,"Soft falls the shower, the thunders cease!And see the messenger of peace   Illumes the eastern skies;Blest sign of firm unchanging love!While others seek the cause to prove,   That bids thy beauties rise.My soul, content with humbler views,Well pleased admires thy varied hues,   And can with joy beholdThy beauteous form, and wondering gazeEnraptured on thy mingled rays   Of purple, green, and gold.Enough for me to deem divineThe hand that paints each glowing line;   To think that thou art givenA transient gleam of that bright placeWhere Beauty owns celestial grace,   A faint display of Heaven!",Charlotte Richardson,Joy
Memorabilia,"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,   And did he stop and speak to you?And did you speak to him again?   How strange it seems, and new! But you were living before that,   And you are living after,And the memory I started at—   My starting moves your laughter! I crossed a moor, with a name of its own   And a certain use in the world no doubt,Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone   'Mid the blank miles round about: For there I picked up on the heather   And there I put inside my breastA moulted feather, an eagle-feather—   Well, I forget the rest.",Robert Browning,Fear
The Graves,"So here are the strange feelings that flickerin you or anchor like weights in your eyes.Turn back and you might undo them,the way trees seem to floatfree of themselves as they root.A swan can hold itself on the gray ice waterand not waver, an open note upon which minor chordsblur and rest. But it was born dark.The shore of that lake is littered with glass.How you came to be who you arewas all unwinding, aimless on a bike,off to retrieve a parcel that could only be a gift,and felt, as a child, the seaweave around your feet, white light rushing in with the surf.What lived there?                               —Joy, dispatched from nowhere,and no need to think about your purpose,and no fear that the sun gliding downmight burn the earth it feeds. Black habitat of nowin which decimation looks tender.Sometimes the call of a bird is so clearit bruises my hands. At night, behind glass,light empties out then fills a room and the people in it,hovering around a fire, gorgeous shapes of windleaning close to each other in laughter.From this distance, they are a grace,an ache. The kingdom inside.",Joanna Klink,Surprise
Father Lear,Father Lear the king so shaped his bairnswith the wand’s upper handthe fire’s swanny wingsmooth tippet of the spiderIn the very kingdom of herbs and servantshe shaped themfrom peace vessels of the animalsfrom toil of the fleshfrom milk horses and the birds of sighed mercyand the tongue undoneHe shaped his bairnsin night’s long harm and in day’s bright psalterin the seven courts of the northand with the mild birch of the paternosterFrom his ploughing fields and his sweathis toothèd heart and his waxing witFather Lear the king shaped his bairnsfor good or ill           this he did,Penelope Shuttle,Joy
from The Splinters,"(Skellig Michael) does not belong to any world that you and I have lived and worked in: it is part of our dream world…then (heading back) we were pursued by terrors, ghost from Michael…                                               George Bernard Shaw                     I The ferry furrowsthe foam,leaving a wakethat quickly settlesand forgets us,as it has forgottenall thosewho’ve opened these waters:fisherman, monk, pilgrim and pagan,some foundering here.Our mainlandworld diminishes.There is respite.A cloud engulfs usout of nowhereas if the miraculouswere about to appear.The veil liftsto reveal the small Skelligand Skellig Michaelrising like chapel and cathedral.                       II We forget speech, hypnotized by the climb,concentrating on narrow, rock-hewn stepsthat spiral up like the gyresof the Book of Kells, whirling in labyrinthsof knowledge, turmoil and eternity.They lead to the beehive huts and oratoriespacked with a congregation of sightseerswho whisper in disbelief and reverenceat how those sometime monks livedin this wind-tugged cloister of shells. We browse in each dome’s live absenceand picnic above the graveyardthat’s no bigger than a currachwith a crucifix for helmsmannavigating his crew to the island of the dead.We’re eyed by the staunch, monkish puffins.Our tongues loosen, but, in keepingwith the somberness of this sun-haloed place,we chat about the world with an earnestnessthat would embarrass us on the mainland. You tell of medieval monks charting world mapswith countries drawn as humans gorging uponeach other’s entangled bodies. We go on tothe lands and demons of the world of poetry.I’m flummoxed when you ask what poetry is.I recall how the earliest musical instrumentswere hewn out of bones, and that poetscarve their words out of those gone before.They are the primitive musicians who beatand blow words back to life. More than that I don’t know.                       III […] That dusk at Dún an Óir we slaughtered eventhe pregnant, whimpering women methodicallywhile a bloodstained sun drowned in the ocean.Each fetus struggled in the bellyof each slain mother as desperatelyas a lobster dropped in a boiling pot.Had shed blood been ink, I could still bequilling The Faerie Queene, but I did notallow a drop to blot a mere sonnetthat you, trapped in complicity, can neverquite break free of. Admit it, hypocrite!In your time few are not guilty of slaughter.Even the page you’ll pen this upon is of pinethat Amazonians were shot for. I could go on.                                                                                   (Edmund Spenser)I lifted the pitch of my grief    above the storm-lashing wavesfor my world breaking on the reefs    of foreign, land-grabbing knaves, who ignore dependence upon    the lowliest plants and creaturesas the hermit crab and cloak anemone    depend on one another. But no matter what, you must    keen for the world’s theftas I keened mine, despite knowing    soon no one may be left.                                                                                    (Aodhagán Ó Rathaille)Lend an ear to one of your own kind   and do not let yourself be caughtby the winds of lust, like Dante’s starlings   blown this way and that by every gust. I myself was borne on this wind   as I rode across country,always wary that around the next bend   my life would catch up with me.My rakish ways squandered energy   that I should have instilled in song,more worthy of the muse-gift given to me   than my odd aisling, Pay particular heed to me, especially   since your word-talent is less than mine.I’m still too bushed to eke out a last line.                                                                                    (Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin)Sing up front,cold-shoulderingthe fashionablelow key of your time,closed, cautious and crabbitas a farmer. Sing as open-throatedas my curlew keen.I supped the red wineof Art’s bloodas he lay slain,already becoming Cork mud. Sing as full-throatedas my unmatched plaint;matching my wordsto his cold bodythat would never againrouse to my touch.My hands weptthat day’s icy rainas I swore to undothat kowtowingdribble of a manwho slew my Artof the winged white horse. The spirit of that mareI rode fleeter than any hare,fleeter than any deer,fleeter than the windthrough Munster’s open country. Sing your provenance,our elder province.                                                                                     (Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill)I sang not for my own or for beauty's sakeas much as to keep our spirits fired, knowing as long as we sang we'd not break, refusing to allow the country be shired.But it was too much when even our landsturned hostile and drove us like lapwingsin the hard winter, together in dying bands,our swollen bellies pregnant with nothing. Even the birds seemed to give up singing. So I lay down and relinquished song.But I should have kept up my amhrán-ing, adapting and transmuting their tongue. Transform the spirit of where you belong, make something right out of what's wrong.                                                                                      (Tomás Rua Ó Súilleabháin)Tell of those weather-sketched    Attic islanderswho half-tamed their school    of rocky Blaskets,water spouting from the blowholes    of cliffs. Tell how they were forced    from their Ithaca,still dreaming in the surf-rush     of Irish,the inland longing for the lilt    of the sea.In them uncover the destiny   of everyone,for all are exiled and in search     of a home,as you settle the eroding     island of each poem.                                                                                         (Robin Flower)[…]The islands' standing armyof gannets fiercely snap,stab and peck one another.Few could matchthe spite I unleashed on any who encroached into my territory. I spat with petrel accuracy. I should have had the wisdom of the sad-eyed puffins who let everyone come close,sensing few mean hurt, though when forced to tusslethey'll show their worth. So learn from me. When I come to minddon't recall how, feisty, I knocked nests of wordsover the edge,splattering on the rocks the crude squwaks of other ravaging, wing-elbowing birds; rather think of the winged poems I hatched, seen, regardless of time and place, gliding and gyring with their own grace.                                                                                           (Patrick Kavanagh)Life when it is gone is like a womanyou were glad to be quit of only to findyourself years later longing for her,catching her scent on a crowded street. Tell us of the seagull plundering your picnic before it wakes you. Tell us of the raintapping a pane while you're ensconcedby the fire cradling a pregnant brandy glass.                                                                                             (Louis MacNeice)Can you still hear a distant train whistle blow? Wet my whistle with a slug of Guinness.What is the texture of fresh-fallen snow?Do girls still wear their hair in braid?What's tea? What's the smell of the sea?Tell me. Tell me. I am beginning to fade.                                                                                                       (Dylan Thomas)                      IVThe alarming, silhouetted birdhas a preternatural quality as it flutters aboutmy head, drawing mefrom sleep's underworld. I resist its pull. Everything turnsinto dream's usual montage. Another figure emerges but says nothing, as if that's what he came to say. His face merges intoone of a gagged female. She shimmers and vanishes. Dolphins breakbeyond Blind Man's Cove,returning the deadto Bull Island, transmittingtheir encrypted, underwater Morse. The savant local ferrymaninforms us that Skellig Michaelwas once a druidic site. His oil-wrinkled hands tugthe engine cord,coaxing our boatout of the cliff-shaded cove.We withdrawinto the distance, leaving a disgruntling sensethat we've only touched the tipof these dark icebergs.",Greg Delanty,Surprise
Legacy,"(For Blues People)In the south, sleeping againstthe drugstore, growling under   the trucks and stoves, stumbling   through and over the cluttered eyes   of early mysterious night. Frowning   drunk waving moving a hand or lash.   Dancing kneeling reaching out, letting   a hand rest in shadows. Squatting   to drink or pee. Stretching to climb   pulling themselves onto horses near   where there was sea (the old songs   lead you to believe). Riding out   from this town, to another, where   it is also black. Down a roadwhere people are asleep. Towards   the moon or the shadows of houses.   Towards the songs’ pretended sea.",Amiri Baraka,Fear
The Willing Mistriss,"Amyntas led me to a Grove,  Where all the Trees did shade us;The Sun it self, though it had Strove,  It could not have betray’d us:The place secur’d from humane Eyes,  No other fear allows.But when the Winds that gently rise,  Doe Kiss the yielding Boughs.Down there we satt upon the Moss,  And id begin to playA Thousand Amorous Tricks, to pass  The heat of all the day.A many Kisses he did give:  And I return’d the sameWhich made me willing to receive  That which I dare not name.His Charming Eyes no Aid requir’d  To tell their softning Tale;On her that was already fir’d  ’Twas easy to prevaile.He did but Kiss and Clasp me round,  Whilst those his thoughts Exprest:And lay’d me gently on the Ground;  Ah who can guess the rest?",Aphra Behn,Love
The Snake Doctors,"for Nicholas FuhrmannI   PigI was in the outhouseI heard somebody at the pumpI looked out the chink holeIt was the two fishermenThey stole fishOne man gave the other one some moneyHe flipped a fifty-cent piece upI lost it in the sunI saw the snake doctors riding each otherThe other man said “You lose”He took something else out of his pocketIt shinedThey had a tow sackI thought they were cleaning fishI looked upI saw the snake doctors riding each otherI took my eye awayIt was dark in the outhouseI whistledI heard the pump againIt sounded brokenI looked out the chink holeIt wasn’t the pumpIt was the pigThe guitar player cut them outThe midget helped him“Pump me some water, midget” he saidThe pig ran offThe guitar player washed off his handsThe midget washed off the nutsHe got a drinkMy eye hurtHe laughedHe cleaned the blood off his knife    He wiped         it on his legHe started singingThe dog tried to get the nutsBut the midget kicked himThe guitar player picked them upHe put them in his pocketThe dog went over to the pigHe licked himI pulled my pants upI went outsideI got the pigI walked over to the pumpI said “Don’t you ever lay a hand               on this pig again”The guitar player laughedHe asked me if I wanted the nuts backHe took them out of his pocketHe spit on themHe shook them like diceHe threw them on the groundHe said “Hah”The midget stomped on themI had the pig under my armHe was bleeding on my foot    I said“Midget, I got friends on that river”II   The AcolyteThe men rode byI passed them on the roadThey smelled like dead fishThe one in front had a guitar on his backThe other one had a chain sawI was riding the hogHe weighed three-hundred poundsI called him Holy GhostThe midget flashed a knifeHe thumbed the bladeHe smiled at meHe called me “Pig Rider”I rode over to Baby Gauge’sI was on my way to churchI had to get the red cassockI tied the hog to the front porchBaby Gauge was swinging in a tireBorn In The Camp With Six Toes was sleeping in the iceboxBaby Gauge said “Be at the levee at three o’clock”I put the robe onI said “I almost got drowned last time”“Going to have a mighty good time” he said“Going to be an eclipse” Born In The Camp With Six Toes saidI rode the hog to churchI took the new shoes offI lit the candlesI changed the bookI rung the bellI was drinking the wineI heard Baby Gauge yellI ran down the aisleI saw the men at the troughThey were beating the hog over the head with sledge hammersIt was like the clock in the German pilot’s shackOne of his eyes was hanging outAnd the trough was running over with bloodThey held his head under the waterHe was rooting in his own bloodHe pumped it out in a mistLike a buck shot in the lungIt was blackHe broke looseI ran down the road yellingI stepped on soda bottle capsI ran through sardine cansI tripped on the cassockThe hog was crazyHe ran into the churchHe ran into tombstonesI said “Somebody throw me something”Chinaman threw me a knifeI ran after the hogHe was heading for the riverI jumped on his backI rode the hogI hugged his neckI stabbed him seven timesI wanted the knife to go into meHe kept runningI ran the knife across his throatAnd the blood came out like a birdWe ran into a sycamore treeWhen the cloud passed over the moonLike a turkey shutting its eyeI rowed out into the slewNot allowing myself to sing gospel musicI woke up in a boatIt was full of bloodMy feet were dragging through the waterA knife was sticking in the prowAnd the sun was blackIt was darkBut I saw the snake doctors riding each otherI saw my new shoesI put them onThey filled up with bloodI took the surplice offI threw it in the riverI watched it sinkThere was hog blood in my hairI knelt in the prow with the knife in my mouthI looked at myself in the waterI heard someone singing on the leveeI was buried in a boatI woke upI set it afire with the taperI watched myself burnI reached in the ashes and found a red knifeI held my head under the water      so I wouldn’t go crazyIt was some commotionI rowed the boat in a circle with one oarA hundred people were in the waterThey had white robes onSome of them had umbrellasThey jumped up and down on the bankThey rowed down the leveeThey were yelling and singingOne of them saw meI saw a horse with tasselsI put my head under the waterI thought I was deadI hit it on a cypress kneeTwo Negroes came riding through the riverThey rode towards me on the moon-blind horseOne of them was drinking soda water“Where are you going, boy” Baby Gauge saidThe horse swam back to the leveeI was with themThe boat drifted awayA man said “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”III   HamboneThey tied his hind legs togetherAnd hung him in a tree with a log chainI saw themI was on Baby Gauge’s horseI threw a knife at the midgetSo they hung me up by the feet tooI saw them break his neckI saw them pull his legs apart    like a wishboneI wished the dead came backThe midget stood on a bucketHe reached up in the hog’s throatAnd pulled the heart outThe dog was lying on the groundWith his mouth openIt took all day to butcher the hogI got dizzyI saw the snake doctors riding each otherThey turned the bucket overIt filled up with bloodThey made a fireThe guitar player beat his hand over his legHe put some meat on the fireThey tried to make me eat itThe midget spit a bone on the groundThe other one picked it upHe put it on his fingerHe went over and got his guitarHe tried to play it like a NegroThere was too much grease on his handsHe got blood on the guitarThe midget danced around the campfireI wanted to cut his throatThe dog bayed at the moonAnd the blue Andalusian rooster played with a snakeI was bleeding out my noseThe fish bandits loaded the hog on Baby Gauge’s horseThey threw blood on the fireAnd filled the bucket up with guts for fish baitWhen they rode off I yelled “Peckerwoods”I dreamed I saw Holy Ghost walking around the campfireHe was a wild hog with blood on his tushesAlong about midnight I heard a boat    but no rowingSomebody short came walking out of the woodsWith a light on his headThe light went out I couldn’t seeHe drew something out of his bootHe grabbed me by the hairI saw a knife in the moonlight“Sweet Jesus” I saidBorn In The Camp With Six Toes cut me downIV   ChainsawThe man cut his hand off at dawnI heard him yellI set up in bedHe ran past the window“Don’t let the dog get it” he saidI got out of bedI had the long handles onIt was coldI threw some wood on the fireI put the dime around my ankleI put my boots onI put a knife in the bootI walked out to the roadThe blue Andalusian rooster followed meIt was darkI heard the chainsaw in the woodsI heard him singing all nightHe was cutting firewoodHe was drunkThe dog quit barkingI drew the knife out of my bootI looked for the midgetI saw the blood and I tracked itI saw the sun and the moonI saw the snake doctors riding each otherThe hand was in the sawdustIt was movingThe hambone was on the fingerIt was morningThe dog didn’t get itI didThere was blood on the chainsawI told the blue rooster“He thought it was a guitar”I walked around the hand seven timesI poked it with a stickI sung to itI picked it up like a snakeI took the hambone off the fingerI put Holy Ghost’s bone in my bootI put the hand on a stumpI danced on the handI peed on itI broke a wine bottle over itI threw it up in the air and a hawk    hit itThe dog licked the blood out of the dustI saw the fish bandit’s guitarThe blue rooster pecked itI beat the hand with itI threw the guitar in the riverThe snake doctors lit on itIt floated awayI went down to the bankI got a poleI put a hook through the handI washed it offWhen I touched the wound with my knife    it rolled up in a fistSomebody came by in a boatThey held up a big fishSo I held up the handThey jumped out of the boatThey thought I crossed themOne of them said “That wasn’t no hoodoo, was it”It was Baby GaugeI said “No, it was the guitar player’s hand”They swam to the bankI told them how I came by itBorn In The Camp With Six Toes said “It won’tTake another fish off my lines”I asked them “You want to shake it”Baby Gauge said “No, I want to spit on it”We spit on the handThey leftI wrapped it up in newspaper like fishI took it homeI put it under Jimmy’s pillowand he knocked my teeth outI put it in a cigar box with a picture      of Elvis PresleyI took it to townI walked over to the dance hallThe guitar player was bleeding in the back of the pickupI gave him the cigar boxHe passed outThe midget pulled a knife on meI picked up the handHe ran offOn the way home I ran folks off the roadWhen the truck came by the houseThe guitar player raised up in the bedHe said “Give me my hand back”When it was darkI tied fish line to it and hung it    in the outhouseI sung to itThe moon shined through the chink holeon the handI took it downI threw it in a yellow jacket nestI stomped on itI took it to the palm readerI said “Sister, read this”A lot of evenings I listened for themI knew they would come backWhen a stranger got a drink at nightI thought it was the Holy GhostAnd sometimes a cloud went by like a three-legged dogAnd the thunder was someone with a shotgunLetting him have itNow the moon was a fifty-cent pieceIt was a belly I wanted      to cut openWhen the flies got badI kept the hand in the smokehouseV   Swimming at NightThe midget ran his finger across his neckThe other one said “Give it back”I waited in the outhouseI had a sawed-off shotgunThe men rode offIn the afternoon they sold fishThey cleaned them at the pumpThe scales dried up on their facesThey loaded the meat on stolen horsesAt night they rode up shooting pistolsI slept with an ice pick under my pillowOne night they rode up drunkThe midget was sitting in the guitar player’s lapHe said “Come on out”They tied a bale of hay to Baby Gauge’s horseThey poured coal oil on itThey set it on fireThey laughedThe horse with the moon eye pranced around themHe galloped homeI carved wild hog out of a cypress kneeI made it the handleI made four tushes out of the hamboneI used the blade I brought out of the fireAnd sealed the pig withIt was the blade I put the burning horse to sleep withI called the knife the Holy GhostTo make me go crazyI took all my clothes offAnd jumped down the hole in the outhouseI grabbed the yellow jacket nestAnd held it over my heartI pumped cold water over myselfAnd wallowed in the mudI walked through the snake den barefootedI swam the river at midnightWith the hand and a blue feather in my mouthAnd the Holy Ghost around my neckAnd the hooks caught in my arms    they caught in my legsI cut the trot lines in twoI saw the guitar player stealing the fishI was swimming beneath the shackUnder the sleeping midgetWith the fish bandit’s hand in my mouthI climbed through the trap doorI crawled under the bedI cut the hooks outI believe I was snake bitI put the hand in the slop jarI reached up and tickled his nose with the featherHe got out of bedHe turned the lights onHe let down his pantsHe reached under the bed for the slop jarHe took the lid offHe screamedI brought the knife across his legI hamstrung the midgetI swam under the waterWith the hand in my mouthI came up near the guitar player’s boatHe was running the linesI swam to the other end of the trot lineI put the hand on a hookI jerked the lines like a big fishThe guitar player worked his way downHe thought he had a good oneI let go of the lineHe saw his left handHe screamedHe fell out of the boatI swam back through the riverI buried the knife in the leveeI was sleeping in the Negro’s lapHe was spitting snuff on my woundsBorn In The Camp With Six Toes cut me with a knifeBaby Gauge sucked the poison outOh Sweet Jesus the levees that break in my heart",Frank Stanford,Anger
Glow Flesh,you are fallingsun shine miracleyour lips are wet                        rainto our heartsfloods in every openingon the stoop your skirt risesfingers go up your legsyou are falling in the streetsthe hallways of east harlemthe dark hallways of east harlemthe dark hallways with mattressesof east harlem                     you are fallingroll with usthe avenuesyou are fallingthe nightqueen of the earthyou are fallingon us with lips& thighs& big round breastswe hold in our hands& hear your bomb tickyour blood get hotcome outcrack your eggson stupid american headsqueen of the earthpush us to the wallsfall on uskill uswith your love& tongueharlem queenfine mamasprinkle us with itthere are no bargainspure product                  you are fallingbloom bloomyou got allsingdark& you shinegrown fatfor lovein the darkyou are likea volcanowith a seaof heat          explode          you are falling          explode,Victor Hernández Cruz,Anger
Have A Good One [Just wasted],"Just wasted                     and taking it.        In life               I rally                        constantly.                 Effort is what we                breach. And                    accountability.                 Honed limits                   do you require                        ruthlessness or subtlety?                                           The # for that delivery service                                                                I could find. My                                                                      instinct is to agree                                                                with the collective.                                                                         I’ll flip over                                                               their indoor/outdoor                                                         reversible rug.                                                                 But my feelings                                                                     & their representatives                                                                   the passing sacrosanct                                                                   mob cuddle                                                            stirring expedience                                 are mine. Gradations                                                       of default tenor.                                                    Anything but more instinct.                                                      A proxy of determination                                                  in a cosmic discharge salon                                             speaking freely of cost’s                                     elephantine deployable                            former charm.                                 I’m micromanaging nausea.                                        The dishes are twilighting.                                             The dairy scythe elevatrix                                                              skins my shining                                                         teleprompted sporkdom.                                                       As poor specimens                                                                        go, the trail left                                                                 inhabitable trails.                                                            Arkanoid as meditative                                          space, if we travel by                              dragonfly. I cling                          to thy moving perimeter.                   I want payment                          for all instances                              of being caught                              on camera. We                                        all should.                                            Mutually                              assured destruction                                   overdosed on civility                                     by comparison.                                          Babywiping lead paint                                           dust from my soles.                                                 I’ll read entrails                                           for omens, action                                                                 figure entrails.",Anselm Berrigan,Joy
These kids running through pictures,"before cameras could remember color, back whenthe paint had not yet driedon the world, and where was the fire? Everywhereunder their feet a patchy shiningand nothing tall standing plumb on either sideof thestreet,canted saplingsand slow zigguratsin brick,everythingsplayedaway from     the kids   who wreck,who make                 these pictures.Their defenseless foreheads, the wet paving. Each cutstheir eyes at the adult who kneels, who staresthrough a black birdhouse.Their hurry does blur some thingson their way into the box: blousing coatsand bobbed hair, hungry auras. And somethingwithout fail also is tuckedin the arm’s right angle: a ball, an orange,an infant’s skull. They could notstrive more furiouslyif it were an infant’s skull.",Jane Zwart,Fear
The Closet,"(...after my Mother’s death)Here not long enough after the hospital happened   I find her closet lying empty and stop my play   And go in and crane up at three blackwire hangers   Which quiver, airy, released. They appear to enjoyTheir new distance, cognizance born of the absence   Of anything else. The closet has been cleaned out   Full-flush as surgeries where the hangers could be   Amiable scalpels though they just as well would beThemselves, in basements, glovelessly scraping uteri   But, here, pure, transfigured heavenward, they’reBirds, whose wingspans expand by excluding me. Their   Range is enlarged by loss. They’d leave buzzardsMeasly as moths: and the hatshelf is even higher!—As the sky over a prairie, an undotted desert where   Nothing can swoop sudden, crumple in secret. I’ve fled   At ambush, tag, age: six, must I face this, canI have my hide-and-seek hole back now please, the   Clothes, the thicket of shoes, where is it? Only   The hangers are at home here. Come heir to this   Rare element, fluent, their skeletal grace singsOf the ease with which they let go the dress, slip,   Housecoat or blouse, so absolvingly. Free, they flyTrim, triangular, augurs leapt ahead from some geometric   God who soars stripped (of flesh, it is said): catnipTo a brat placated by model airplane kits kidsMy size lack motorskills for, I wind up glue-scabbed,   Pawing goo-goo fingernails, glaze skins fun to peer in asFrost-i-glass doors ... But the closet has no windows,Opaque or sheer: I must shut my eyes, shrink within   To peep into this wall. Soliciting sleep I’ll dream   Mother spilled and cold, unpillowed, the operating-Table cracked to goad delivery: its stirrups slack,Its forceps closed: by it I’ll see mobs of obstetrical   Personnel kneel proud, congratulatory, cooingAnd oohing and hold the dead infant up to the dead   Woman’s face as if for approval, the promptedBeholding, tears, a zoomshot kiss. White-masked   Doctors and nurses patting each other on the back,   Which is how in the Old West a hangman, ifHe was good, could gauge the heft of his intended ...Awake, the hangers are sharper, knife-’n’-slice, I jump   Helplessly to catch them to twist them clear,   Mis-shape them whole, sail them across the small air   Space of the closet. I shall find room enough hereBy excluding myself; by excluding myself, I’ll grow.",Bill Knott,Joy
Felix Randal,"Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended, Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended? Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended! This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears. My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears, Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal; How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years, When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!",Gerard Manley Hopkins,Anger
The Rock in the Sea,"Think of our blindness where the water burned!Are we so certain that those wings, returnedAnd turning, we had half discernedBefore our dazzled eyes had surely seenThe bird aloft there, did not mean?—Our hearts so seized upon the sign!Think how we sailed up-wind, the brineTasting of daphne, the enormous waveThundering in the water cave—Thunder in stone. And how we beached the skiffAnd climbed the coral of that iron cliffAnd found what only in our hearts we’d heard—The silver screaming of that one, white bird:The fabulous wings, the crimson beakThat opened, red as blood, to shriekAnd clamor in that world of stone,No voice to answer but its own.What certainty, hidden in our hearts before,Found in the bird its metaphor?",Archibald MacLeish,Fear
I Grant You Ample Leave,"Highlight ActionsEnable or disable annotations""I grant you ample leavegrant you ample leave In other words, to let you express your grand opinion To use the hoaryhoary Ancient, worthy of respect for its age formula 'I am' Naming the emptiness where thought is not; But fill the void with definition, 'I' Will be no more a datumdatum A single piece of data or information than the words You link false inferencefalse inference In philosophy and logic, an inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. Inferences are typically evaluated to be valid or invalid. with, the 'Since' & 'so' That, true or not, make up the atom-whirlatom-whirl The orbital paths of electrons around the nucleus. Resolve your 'Ego'‘Ego’ Latin for “I”., it is all one web With vibrant ether clotted into worlds: Your subject, self, or self-assertive 'I' Turns nought but object, melts to molecules, Is stripped from naked Being with the rest Of those rag-garments named the Universe. Or if, in strife to keep your 'Ego' strong You make it weaver of the etherial lightetherial light Heavenly light, Space, motion, solids & the dream of Time — Why, still 'tis Being looking from the dark, The core, the centre of your consciousness, That notes your bubble-worldbubble-world : sense, pleasure, pain, What are they but a shifting otherness, Phantasmal fluxPhantasmal flux A fantastic, ghostlike stream or flow of moments? —""",George Eliot,Fear
My Mother's Music,"In the evenings of my childhood,when I went to bed,music washed into the cove of my room,my door open to a slice of light.I felt a melancholy I couldn't have named,a longing for what I couldn't yet have saidor understood but stillknew was longing,knew was sadnessuntouched by time.Sometimesthe music was a rippling streamof clear water rushingover a bed of river stonescaught in sunlight.And many nightsI crept from bedto watch herswaying where she satovertaken by the tide,her arms rowing the musicout of the piano.",Emilie Buchwald,Sadness
Nocturne Militaire,"Miami Beach: wartimeImagine or remember how the road at last led usOver bridges like prepositions, linking a drawl of islands.The coast curved away like a question mark, listening slylyAnd shyly whispered the insomniac Atlantic.But we were uncertain of both question and answer,Stiff and confused and bemused in expendable khaki,Seeing with innocent eyes, the walls gleaming,And the alabaster city of a rich man’s dream.Borne by the offshore wind, an exciting rumor,The legend of tropic islands, caresses the coast like hysteria,Bringing a sound like bells rung under sea;And brings the infected banker and others whose tenureIs equally uncertain, equally certain: the simpleAnd perfect faces of women—like the moonWhose radiance is disturbing and quite as impersonal:Not to be warmed by and never ample.They linger awhile in the dazzling sepulchral city,Delicately exploring their romantic diseases,The gangster, the capitalist and their proteg",Thomas McGrath,Surprise
The Relics,"1. brett returns my mother to the wildernessI slipped them into my friend’s palm — the tiny crucifix, and dove,from off my mother’s pendant watch — and I asked her to walk them up through the brushtoward timberline, and find a placeto hurl them, for safekeeping. Now,she writes, “I walked up the canyon at dusk,warm, with a touch of fall blowing down the canyon,came to an outcrop, above a steepdrop — far below, a seasonalcreek, green willows. I stood on a boulderand held out my hand. I wished your mother all thelove in the world, and I sent the talismansflying off the cliff. They were so small,and the wind was blowing, so I never saw orheard them land.” My mother is whereI cannot find her, she is gone beyondrecall, she lies in her sterling shapeslight as the most weightless bone in the body, herstirrup bone, which was ground upand sown into the sea. I do not knowwhat a soul is, I think of itas the smallest, the core, civil right. And sheis wild now with it, she touches and istouched by no one knows — down, ordroppings of a common nighthawk,root of bird’s foot fern, antenna ofHairstreak or Echo Azure, or stepped on by thehuge translucent Jerusalem cricket. There wassomething deeply right aboutthe physical elements — atoms, and cells,and marrow — of my mother’s body,when I was young, and now her delicateinsignias receive the directtouch of the sun, and scatter it,unseen, all over her home.  2. cross and dove  I had not wanted them, and I hadn’t knownwhat to do with them, the minusculesymbols of my mother’s religion,I looked for a crack in the stone floor of thecathedral but could not find one. Then I thoughtof the wilderness near Desolation,and asked my friend to carry them upto a peak of granite, and let the wind take them. Sincethen, it has been as if my mother’sspirit matter has been returnedinto the great bank of matter,as her marrow had been sifted down intothe ocean. It doesn’t matter, now, if Iever wanted to disassemblemy mother. The sixteenth-of-an-inch-across cross, and the silver line drawingof a dove are cached, somewhere, that is nowhereto be found. Now I think of the nature of metal, and howlong the soul-dolls of her trust will last in theirspider-egg-sac of roots, needles,quartz, feathers, dust, snow, shedclaw. Her belief she would have an eternallife was absolute, I think.It would not be good to think of my motherwithout her God — like a hermit howling in themoonscape of a desert. Once, when she was old — like anexquisite child playing a cronein the school play — we talked about heaven.She wasn’t sure exactly how, but sheknew her father would be there, and her elderbrother, and her second husband —maybe it was a heaven for four,the three men and her. It was soeasy to make my mother happyin her last years, to tell her that Icould just see her, as a kitten, in God’slap, being petted. Her eyes sparkled with morebeams than any other eyes I have seen.I have sent the tokens of her everlasting beinginto the high altitude.They will shine long after I can sing her — sing what Iperceived through the distorted prisms of my vision.I don’t know if I saw my motheror did not see her. Day and night,her charms will gleam in the brush or stream, willreflect the mountain light in littlepieces of unreadable language.",Sharon Olds,Joy
A Midsummer Night’s Stroll,"I.I am a man.  I’ve lived alone.  I’ve been  in  love.  I’ve  played  with fire, cursed the telephone, and basked in verse, in verve, and alsoHumid,     terrestrial,     mixed,     nongenderspecific,   have   occasionallyday’s  tumult  ushers  in   an   evening   with  a  lone    moved  a  woman’sshut   icecream   stand,   false  promises  of  cone  heart,  although  I also,and  scoop  near  Central  Park.   Juneific  famously,  had  such  an awk-are   the   silhouettes  of   people  dreaming  by,  ward   start.  Amazed  atlips,   lit   cigarette   tips,   thoughts  and  tulips  streaming  by  how  muchalong   dimly   hospitable   park   lamps  toward  eleven  symmetry  a  lifewith  an  occasional   rev   of   internal   combustion  can  still  support,  Iwafted   across   from   nearabouts.   stare  in  rapt  near-idiocy,  like  a“What’s   this   you  are  talking  about,  Sarah?”   foreign   passport, andyou   hear  a  voice,  and   the  reply,  “I’m  sorry.   April’s   Persian  lilacsbut  what  was  I  supposed  to  do?”  Two   bats  all  bloom  straight  intodash   through   a  silver  stretch  of  atmosphere.   my  face,  and  variousWhat   she   was  supposed  to  do   we  never  hear,   other   blossom, too,depending on each case, while  you  are  softly  tangible, while  you are sweetly mine. We’re existentially  wise,  we’re  mortally divine.     II.All whispers  know  where  whispers  go  and  lusters  where  with lusters flow, and when your palm is in my palm, just as my poem There  is   a  sparkling   tone  to  how  you   speak,  is  in  your  poem,  look a   quickness   to   your   whisper,   an   implied   at   this   stellar,  cellular, correctness   in   your   ironies.   We   stride   organic   life   of   mine,   the along   emphatic   benches   in   the   weak   general  and  particular,  the light   bristling   eloquent   dark.  Pine,   elm  and  oak   gross  (as  well   as fall  silent  now  to  hear  you  tell  a  joke— fine)  intentions  I  epitomize. something  about  a  man  and  a   mandrake;   Look,  seeing  through  its I think  it  cute  and  laugh  like  Captain  Drake.  thin disguise the bleary We  then  explore  the  vagaries  of  light   sky  whose   weepy  eyes  have found  underfoot  by  lamps,  and  kiss.  “Beatrix,   rained   us  a  surprise. will    you   still   need   me  when   I’m   thirty-six?""    A    lightning    bolt’s You   favorably   mumble  that  you  might,    protruding  hand  snatched and  throw  a  willing  arm  around  my  nape.  past us,  far and brief and I reassure you that there’s no escape.  as  I  hold  you  in  my  arms,  youfill me with belief. Don’t wonder if and how, much  stranger  than right now, the  hyacinth of  sorrow may blossom  forth tomorrow.     III. The  stars  in  liquid  decadence  reclaim  their  lost  positions, all knotty dispositions dissolved in limpid dance. They offer us theirAnother   couple   floats  up  through  thickened  ink   stardom.   Oh,   weinto  the  field  of  vision,  to  redissolve   could  sympathize  with  them,leaving  a  thin  trail  of   perfume  and  love   but   instead,  we   set  eyesand   visual   recollection  in   the  pink.   with   them  upon  that  higherCicadas   cataract  from  tree  to  tree.  tsardom,  that  real  of  love  andA mock  nightingale  trills,  then  two,  then  three.  reason.  Our  lengthyWe  cut   short  across  grass  and  leaves  (then  four),  cigarettes  crackleencountering   no  one  on  our  slight  detour  with   dry  regrets  duringwhere,   negligibly   burdened   with  a   sixpack,  the  rainy   season,  buta  master  and  his  bulldog  rustle  on,  we  ignore  their  humors, theira   small   red   light   fixed   to   her   furry   back.  melancholy  murmurs,We  are  too  busy  with  our  love  to  see  them.   decline   ascetic  rigors,Tomorrow   we’ll   be   going   back   to  Boston.   welcome  straight  facts,Three   cheers   for   Central   Park  at   height   of   season.   clear    figures,where   laws  concerning  numbers  come  plumed  with  midnight sounds, and spirits  stir  from  slumbers  like  angels out of clouds.",Philip Nikolayev,Surprise
God's Grandeur,"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oilCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soilIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.And for all this, nature is never spent;    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;And though the last lights off the black West went    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —Because the Holy Ghost over the bent    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.",Gerard Manley Hopkins,Sadness
Associations with a View from the House,"What can be compared to                                    the living eye?Its East             is floweringhoneysuckle                  and its Northdogwood bushes.What can be compared                               to lightin which leaves darken                                  after rain,fierce green?                     like Rousseau’s jungle:any minute                the tiger headwill poke through                           the foliagepeering            at experience.Who is like man                        sitting in the cellof referents,                     whose eyehas never seen                      a jungle,yet looks in?It is the great eye,                               source of security.Praised be thou,                         as the Jews say,who have engraved                           clarityand delivered us                         to the mindwhere you must reign                               severeas quiddity of bone                              foreverand ever without                         bias or mercy,attrition or mystery.",Carl Rakosi,Joy
Eros Turannos,"She fears him, and will always ask    What fated her to choose him; She meets in his engaging mask                      All reasons to refuse him; But what she meets and what she fears Are less than are the downward years, Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs    Of age, were she to lose him. Between a blurred sagacity    That once had power to sound him, And Love, that will not let him be    The Judas that she found him, Her pride assuages her almost, As if it were alone the cost.— He sees that he will not be lost,    And waits and looks around him. A sense of ocean and old trees    Envelops and allures him; Tradition, touching all he sees    Beguiles and reassures him; And all her doubts of what he says Are dimmed with what she knows of days— Till even prejudice delays    And fades, and she secures him. The falling leaf inaugurates    The reign of her confusion; The pounding wave reverberates    The dirge of her illusion; And home, where passion lived and died, Becomes a place where she can hide, While all the town and harbor side    Vibrate with her seclusion. We tell you, tapping on our brows,    The story as it should be,— As if the story of a house    Were told, or ever could be; We’ll have no kindly veil between Her visions and those we have seen,— As if we guessed what hers have been,    Or what they are or would be. Meanwhile we do no harm; for they    That with a god have striven, Not hearing much of what we say,    Take what the god has given; Though like waves breaking it may be, Or like a changed familiar tree, Or like a stairway to the sea    Where down the blind are driven.",Edwin Arlington Robinson,Fear
A Word on Statistics,"Out of every hundred peoplethose who always know better:fifty-two.Unsure of every step:almost all the rest.Ready to help,if it doesn't take long:forty-nine.Always good,because they cannot be otherwise:four—well, maybe five.Able to admire without envy:eighteen.Led to errorby youth (which passes):sixty, plus or minus.Those not to be messed with:forty and four.Living in constant fearof someone or something:seventy-seven.Capable of happiness:twenty-some-odd at most.Harmless alone,turning savage in crowds:more than half, for sure.Cruelwhen forced by circumstances:it's better not to know,not even approximately.Wise in hindsight:not many morethan wise in foresight.Getting nothing out of life except things:thirty(though I would like to be wrong).Doubled over in painand without a flashlight in the dark:eighty-three, sooner or later.Those who are just:quite a few at thirty-five.But if it takes effort to understand:three.Worthy of empathy:ninety-nine.Mortal:one hundred out of one hundred—a figure that has never varied yet.",Wisława Szymborska,Joy
Les Très Riches Heures de Florida,"NONESAt three p.m.under sky coming to harmsomething too red flashes from a limb,so red it hurts:against sky coming apart,against a left-out, twice-soaked shirt,a cardinalinflames the profane cathedralof suburban yard its owner let fallinto disgrace.How rain embarrassesthe half-pruned hedge. The half-mown grassthat sports a tonsurein reverse shines under the torture.Rain slicks with praise red shed, red feather.Crested seedeaterout of character whereyou’re neither the strictly monkish brown thrashernor the odd hermit thrush,you scratch in the underbrushof faith to see what you can flush:a grub. A seed.Eminence not grisebut rouge, from your lipsticked beakyou pass a sowbugto your mate. You peck at a slugsliming your path, seeming to begyour forgiveness.To what would you confessbeyond season-to-season unfaithfulness?VESPERSThere are more divine hours:a gold-leafed page a mowerrows with a scythe as tall as the towerthat tents alofta tiny sky bereftof cloud, a chapel ceiling leftunstarred, heavena lake turned upside down,filled with an emptiness that’s cleanbecause it’s cold,glacial enough to scaldthe skin it bathed, the lungs it filled.On devotion’s last page,deep in the golden ageof illumination, the hunt’s cortègehas halted at the edgeof the known world, a clearing wedgedin a forest of spears. Red bird the badgeon the huntsman’s tunic,you’re the splash of crimson lake,the distant lordship’s flag, the clericdog’s bright collar,its heretic tongue. It slaverson the bleeding stag. Snarling at prayerthat chases belief,it licks the offal of grief,the heart cast aside reward enough.",Debora Greger,Joy
The River of Bees,In a dream I returned to the river of beesFive orange trees by the bridge andBeside two mills my houseInto whose courtyard a blindman followedThe goats and stood singingOf what was olderSoon it will be fifteen yearsHe was old he will have fallen into his eyesI took my eyesA long way to the calendarsRoom after room asking how shall I liveOne of the ends is made of streetsOne man processions carry through itEmpty bottles theirImage of hopeIt was offered to me by nameOnce once and onceIn the same city I was bornAsking what shall I sayHe will have fallen into his mouthMen think they are better than grassI return to his voice rising like a forkful of hayHe was old he is not real nothing is realNor the noise of death drawing waterWe are the echo of the futureOn the door it says what to do to surviveBut we were not born to surviveOnly to live,W. S. Merwin,Fear