TRUE STUFF

"Aerialist"
-- Sylvia Plath

Each night, this adroit young lady 
Lies among sheets 
Shredded fine as snowflakes 
Until dream takes her body 
From bed to strict tryouts 
In tightrope acrobatics. 

Nightly she balances 
Cat-clever on perilous wire 
In a gigantic hall, 
Footing her delicate dances 
To whipcrack and roar 
Which speak her maestro's will. 

Gilded, coming correct 
Across that sultry air, 
She steps, halts, hung 
In dead center of her act 
As great weights drop all about her 
And commence to swing. 

Lessoned thus, the girl 
Parries the lunge and menace 
Of every pendulum; 
By deft duck and twirl 
She draws applause; bright harness 
Bites keen into each brave limb 

Then, this tough stint done, she curtsies 
And serenely plummets down 
To traverse glass floor 
And get safe home; but, turning with trained eyes, 
Tiger-tamer and grinning clown 
Squat, bowling black balls at her. 

Tall trucks roll in 
With a thunder like lions; all aims 
And lumbering moves 

To trap this outrageous nimble queen 
And shatter to atoms 
Her nine so slippery lives. 

Sighting the stratagem 
Of black weight, black bail, black truck, 
With a last artful dodge she leaps 
Through hoop of that hazardous dream 
To sit up stark awake 
As the loud alarmclock stops. 

Now as penalty for her skill, 
By day she must walk in dread 
Steel gaunticts of traffic, terror-struck 
Lest, out of spite, the whole 
Elaborate scaffold of sky overhead 
Fall racketing finale on her luck.

"At a Lecture"
-- Joseph Brodsky

Since mistakes are inevitable, I can easily be taken
for a man standing before you in this room filled
with yourselves. Yet in about an hour
this will be corrected, at your and at my expense,
and the place will be reclaimed by elemental particles
free from the rigidity of a particular human shape
or type of assembly. Some particles are still free. It's not all dust. 

So my unwillingness to admit it's I
facing you now, or the other way around,
has less to do with my modesty or solipsism
than with my respect for the premises' instant future,
for those afore-mentioned free-floating particles
settling upon the shining surface 
of my brain. Inaccessible to a wet cloth eager to wipe them off.

The most interesting thing about emptiness
is that it is preceded by fullness. 
The first to understand this were, I believe, the Greek
gods, whose forte indeed was absence. 
Regard, then, yourselves as rehearsing perhaps for the divine encore,
with me playing obviously to the gallery.
We all act out of vanity. But I am in a hurry.

Once you know the future, you can make it come
earlier. The way it's done by statues or by one's furniture. 
Self-effacement is not a virtue 
but a necessity, recognised most often
toward evening. Though numerically it is easier
not to be me than not to be you. As the swan confessed 
to the lake: I don't like myself. But you are welcome to my reflection.

"A Ritual to Read to Each Other"
-- William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes, no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

"I Don't Know If History Repeats Itself"
-- Yehuda Amichai

I don't Know if history repeats itself
But I do know that you don't.

I remember that city was didvided 
Not only between Jews and Arabs,
But Between me and you,
When we were there together.

We made ourselves a womb of dangers
We built ourselves a house of deadening wars
Like men of far north 
Who build themselves a safe warm house of deadening ice.

The city has been reunited
But we haven't been there together.
By now I know
That History doesn't repeat itself, 
As I always knew that you wouldn't.  

"Giving Myself Up"
--Mark Strand

I give up my eyes which are glass eggs.
I give up my tongue.
I give up my mouth which is the constant dream of my tongue.
I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice.
I give up my heart which is a burning apple.
I give up my lungs which are trees that have never seen the moon.
I give up my smell which is that of a stone traveling through rain.
I give up my hands which are ten wishes.
I give up my arms which have wanted to leave me anyway.
I give up my legs which are lovers only at night.
I give up my buttocks which are the moons of childhood.
I give up my penis which whispers encouragement to my thighs.
I give up my clothes which are walls that blow in the wind
and I give up the ghost that lives in them.
I give up. I give up.
And you will have none of it because already I am beginning
again without anything.

"The Diameter of the Bomb"
-- Yehuda Amichai (translated by Chana Bloch)

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won't even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.

"The Telephone"
-- by Robert Frost

'When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head again a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said?'

'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'

'Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned on my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word--
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say--
Someone said "Come" -- I heard it as I bowed.'

'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'

"Well, so I came.'

"A Dream Pang"
-- Robert Frost

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew away;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(this was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
"I dare not--too far in his footsteps stray--
He must seek me would he undo the wrong."

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all,
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
and tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

"A blade of grass"
-- Brian Patten

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

"Cinderella"
-- Anne Sexton

You always read about it:
the plumber with twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.
                                           
Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
From diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the big event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That's the way with stepmothers.

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince's ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little gold slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.

As nightfall came she thought she'd better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
The don't just heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

"Stanzas For Music: There's Not A Joy The World Can Give"
-- Lord Byron

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath? 
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

"Ramon"
-- Bret Harte

Drunk and senseless in his place,
Prone and sprawling on his face,
More like brute than any man
Alive or dead,
By his great pump out of gear,
Lay the peon engineer,
Waking only just to hear,
Overhead,
Angry tones that called his name,
Oaths and cries of bitter blame,--
Woke to hear all this, and, waking, turned and fled!

"To the man who`ll bring to me,"
Cried Intendant Harry Lee,--
Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine,--
"Bring the sot alive or dead,
I will give to him," he said,
"Fifteen hundred pesos down,
Just to set the rascal's crown
Underneath this heel of mine:
Since but death
Deserves the man whose deed,
Be it vice or want of heed,
Stops the pumps that give us breath,--
Stops the pumps that suck the death
From the poisoned lower levels of the mine!"

No one answered; for a cry
From the shaft rose up on high,
And shuffling, scrambling, tumbling from below,
Came the miners each, the bolder
Mounting on the weaker`s shoulder,
Grappling, clinging to their hold or
Letting go,
As the weaker gasped and fell
From the ladder to the well,--
To the poisoned pit of hell
Down below!

"To the man who sets them free,"
Cried the foreman, Harry Lee,--
Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine,--
"Brings them out and sets them free,
I will give that man," said he,
"Twice that sum, who with a rope
Face to face with Death shall cope.
Let him come who dares to hope!"
"Hold your peace!" some one replied,
Standing by the foreman`s side;
"There has one already gone, whoe'er he be!"

Then they held their breath with awe,
Pulling on the rope, and saw
Fainting figures reappear,
On the black rope swinging clear,
Fastened by some skillful hand from below;
Till a score the level gained,
And but one alone remained,--
He the hero and the last,
He whose skillful hand made fast
The long line that brought them back to hope and cheer!

Haggard, gasping, down dropped he
At the feet of Harry Lee,--
Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine.
"I have come," he gasped, "to claim
Both rewards. Senor, my name
Is Ramon!
I'm the drunken engineer,
I'm the coward, Senor"-- Here
He fell over, by that sign,
Dead as stone!

"Come-By-Chance"
-- Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson

As I pondered very weary o'er a volume long and dreary- 
For the plot was void of interest; 'twas the Postal Guide, in fact- 
There I learnt the true location, distance, size and population 
Of each township, town, and village in the radius of the Act.

And I learnt that Puckawidgee stands beside the Murrumbidgee, 
And that Booleroi and Bumble get their letters twice a year, 
Also that the post inspector, when he visited Collector, 
Closed the office up instanter, and re-opened Dungalear. 

But my languid mood forsook me, when I found a name that took me; 
Quite by chance I came across it- "Come-by-Chance" was what I read; 
No location was assigned it, not a thing to help one find it, 
Just an N which stood for northward, and the rest was all unsaid. 

I shall leave my home, and forthwith wander stoutly to the northward 
Till I come by chance across it, and I'll straight-way settle down; 
For there can't be any hurry, nor the slightest cause for worry 
Where the telegraph don't reach you, nor the railways run to town, 

And one's letters and exchanges come by chance across the ranges, 
Where a wiry young Australian leads a packhorse once a week, 
And the good news grows by keeping, and you're spared the pain of weeping 
Over bad news when the mailman drops the letters in the creek. 

But I fear and more's the pity, that there's really no such city, 
For there's not a man can find it of the shrewdest folk I know; 
"Come-by-Chance," be sure it never means a land of fierce endeavour- 
It is just the careless country where the dreamers only go.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Though we work and toil and hustle in our life of haste and bustle, 
All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free; 
Man may weary and importune, but the fickle goddess Fortune 
Deals him out his pain or pleasure, careless what his worth may be. 

All the happy times entrancing, days of sport and nights of dancing, 
Moonlit rides and stolen kisses, pouting lips and loving glance: 
When you think of these be certain you have looked behind the curtain, 
You have had the luck to linger just a while in "Come-by-Chance."

"The Smoking Frog"
-- Robert Service

Three men I saw beside a bar,
Regarding o'er their bottle,
A frog who smoked a rank cigar
They'd jammed within its throttle.

A Pasha frog it must have been
So big it was and bloated;
And from its lips the nicotine
In graceful festoon floated.

And while the trio jeered and joked,
As if it quite enjoyed it,
Impassively it smoked and smoked,
(It could not well avoid it).

A ring of fire its lips were nigh
Yet it seemed all unwitting;
It could not spit, like you and I,
Who've learned the art of spitting.

It did not wink, it did not shrink,
As there serene it squatted'
Its eyes were clear, it did not fear
The fate the Gods allotted.

It squatted there with calm sublime,
Amid their cruel guying;
Grave as a god, and all the time
It knew that it was dying.

And somehow then it seemed to me
These men expectorating,
Were infinitely less than he,
The dumb thing they were baiting.

It seemed to say, despite their jokes:
"This is my hour of glory.
It isn't every frog that smokes:
My name will live in story."

Before its nose the smoke arose;
The flame grew nigher, nigher;
And then I saw its bright eyes close
Beside that ring of fire.

They turned it on its warty back,
From off its bloated belly;
It legs jerked out, then dangled slack;
It quivered like a jelly.

And then the fellows went away,
Contented with their joking;
But even as in death it lay,
The frog continued smoking.

Life's like a lighted fag, thought I;
We smoke it stale; then after
Death turns our belly to the sky:
The Gods must have their laughter.

"The Gardener (LXXXV)"
-- Rabindranath Tagore

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring,
  one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished
  flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one
  spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.

"Spelling"
-- Margaret Atwood

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

                 *

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

                 *

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
There is no either / or.
However.

                 *

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

                 *

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

                 *

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

[This poem is magnificient. I had to read it through several times. She's
voicing the struggle of women by comparing the difficulties of childbirth
and motherhood to the difficulties of writing and of free speech.
Beautiful.]

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
-- Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--"
-- Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind?

THE SELF/BEING HUMAN

"If"
-- Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build `em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

"Wisdom"
-- Sara Teasdale

When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I have looked Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange -- my youth.

"Mezzo Cammin"
-- Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Half of my life is gone, and I have let
the years slip from me and have not fulfilled
the aspiration of my youth, to build
some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nore pleasure, nor the fret
of resltess passions that would not be stilled,
but sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, iI see the Past
lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--
a city in the twilight dima and vast,
with smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,--
and hear above me on the autumnal blast
the cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

"In the Desert"
-- Stephen Crane

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

"What Kind of a Person"
-- Yehuda Amichai

"What kind of a person are you," I heard them say to me.
I'm a person with a complex plumbing of the soul,
Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system
Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century,
But with an old body from ancient times
And with a God even older than my body.
I'm a person for the surface of the earth.
Low places, caves and wells
Frighten me. Mountain peaks
And tall buildings scare me.
I'm not like an inserted fork,
Not a cutting knife, not a stuck spoon.

I'm not flat and sly
Like a spatula creeping up from below.
At most I am a heavy and clumsy pestle
Mashing good and bad together
For a little taste
And a little fragrance.

Arrows do not direct me. I conduct
My business carefully and quietly
Like a long will that began to be written
The moment I was born.

Now I stand at the side of the street
Weary, leaning on a parking meter.
I can stand here for nothing, free.

I'm not a car, I'm a person,
A man-god, a god-man
Whose days are numbered. Hallelujah.

"If Only Out of Vanity"
-- Staceyann Chin

If only out of vanity
I have wondered what kind of woman I will be
when I am well past the summer of my raging youth

Will I still be raising revolutionary flags
and making impassioned speeches
that stir up anger in the hearts of psuedo-liberals
dressed in navy-blue conservative wear

In those years when I am grateful 
I still have a good sturdy bladder 
that does not leak undigested prune juice 
onto diapers - no longer adorable

will I be more grateful for that
than for any forward movement in any current political cause
and will it have been worth it then

Will it have been worth the long hours 
of not sleeping
that produced little more than reams 
of badly written verses that catapulted me into literary spasms
but did not even whet the appetite 
of the three O' clock crowd 
in the least respected of the New York poetry cafes

Will I wish then that I had taken that job working at the bank
or the one to watch that old lady drool
all over her soft boiled eggs
as she tells me how she was a raving beauty in the sixties
how she could have had any man she wanted
but she chose the one least likely to succeed
and that's why when the son of a bitch died 
she had to move into this place
because it was government subsidized

Will I tell my young attendant
how slender I was then
and paint for her pictures 
of the young me more beautiful than I ever was
if only to make her forget the shriveled paper skin 
the stained but even dental plates
and the faint smell of urine that tends to linger 
in places built especially for revolutionaries 
whose causes have been won 
or forgotten

Will I still be lesbian then
or will the church or family finally convince me 
to marry some man with a smaller dick 
than the one my woman uses to afford me 
violent and multiple orgasms

Will the staff smile at me
humor my eccentricities to my face
but laugh at me in their private resting rooms
saying she must have been something in her day

Most days I don't know what I will be like then
but everyday - I know what I want to be now

I want to be that voice that makes Gulianni 
so scared he hires two (butch) black bodyguards

I want to write the poem
that the New York Times cannot print
because it might start some kind of black or lesbian
or even a white revolution

I want to go to secret meetings and under the guise 
of female friendship I want to bed the women 
of those young and eager revolutionaries
with too much zeal for their cause
and too little passion for the women 
who follow them from city to city 
all the while waiting in separate rooms

I want to be forty years old 
and weigh three hundred pounds
and ride a motorcycle in the wintertime
with four hell raising children 
and a one hundred ten pound female lover 
who writes poetry about my life
and my children and loves me 
like no one has ever loved me before

I want to be the girl your parents will use 
as a bad example of a lady
I want to be the dyke who likes to fuck men
I want to be the politician who never lies
I want to be the girl who never cries

I want to go down in history
in a chapter marked miscellaneous
because the writers could find
no other way to categorize me

In this world where classification is key
I want to erase the straight lines
So I can be me

"Of Human Knowledge"
-- Sir John Davies

I know my body's of so frail a kind, 
    As force without, fevers within can kill; 
I know the heavenly nature of my mind, 
    But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will. 

I know my Soul hath power to know all things, 
    Yet is she blind and ignorant in all; 
I know I am one of Nature's little kings, 
    Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall. 

I know my life's a pain and but a span, 
    I know my Sense is mock'd with every thing: 
And to conclude, I know myself a MAN, 
    Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.

"Being Boring"
-- Wendy Cope

If you ask me 'What's new?', I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is, 
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.

There was drama enough in my turbulent past: 
Tears and passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last, 
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see, 
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.

I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for, 
If you don't need to find a new lover? 
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I've found a safe mooring, 
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

"A Man Doesn't Have Time In His Life"
-- Yehuda Amichai

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.

"Happy the Man"
-- Horace

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

"Anna Who Was Mad"
-- Anne Sexton

Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.

Speak Mary-words into our pillow.
Take me the gangling twelve-year-old
into your sunken lap.
Whisper like a buttercup.
Eat me. Eat me up like cream pudding.
Take me in.
Take me.
Take.

Give me a report on the condition of my soul.
Give me a complete statement of my actions.
Hand me a jack-in-the-pulpit and let me listen in.
Put me in the stirrups and bring a tour group through.
Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy.
Did I make you go insane?
Did I turn up your earphone and let a siren drive through?
Did I open the door for the mustached psychiatrist
who dragged you out like a gold cart?
Did I make you go insane?
From the grave write me, Anna!
You are nothing but ashes but nevertheless
pick up the Parker Pen I gave you.
Write me.
Write.

"More Than Myself"
-- Anne Sexton

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me . . .
I tapped my own head;
it was glass, an inverted bowl.
It's small thing
to rage inside your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself.

"The Ideal"
-- James Fenton

This is where I came from.
I passed this way.
This should not be shameful
Or hard to say.

A self is a self.
It is not a screen.
A person should respect
What he has been.

This is my past
Which I shall not discard.
This is the ideal.
This is hard.

"What One Approves, Another Scorns"
-- Arthur Guiterman

What one approves,
another scorns,
and thus
his nature each discloses.
You find the rosebush
full of thorns,
I find the
thornbush full of roses.

"Named"
-- Stephen Dunn

He'd spent his life trying to control the names
            people gave him;
oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt.

Just recently he'd been a son-of-a-bitch
           and sweetheart in the same day,
and once again knew what antonyms

love and control are, and how comforting
            it must be to have a business card -
Manager, Specialist - and believe what it says.

Who, in fact, didn't want his most useful name
           to enter with him,
when he entered a room, who didn't want to be

that kind of lie? A man who was a sweetheart
            and a son-of-a-bitch
was also more or less every name

he'd ever been called, and when you die, he thought,
            that's when it happens,
you're collected forever into a few small words.

But never to have been outrageous or exquisite,
            no grand mistake
so utterly yours it causes whispers

in the peripheries of your presence - that was
                   his fear.
"Reckless"; he wouldn't object to such a name

if it came from the right voice with the right
            amount of reverence.
Someone nearby, of course, certain to add "fool."

"Alone"
-- Edgar Allan Poe

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 loved, I loved alone.
Then––in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From every 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 rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed 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.

"The Road Not Taken"
-- Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

"Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Our Thoughts Are Free)"
-- Traditional (old German song)

Die Gedanken sind frei 
My thoughts freely flower, 
Die Gedanken sind frei 
My thoughts give me power. 
No scholar can map them, 
No hunter can trap them, 
No man can deny: 
Die Gedanken sind frei! 

I think as I please 
And this gives me pleasure, 
My conscience decrees, 
This right I must treasure; 
My thoughts will not cater 
To duke or dictator, 
No man can deny-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei! 

And if tyrants take me 
And throw me in prison 
My thoughts will burst free, 
Like blossoms in season. 
Foundations will crumble, 
The structure will tumble, 
And free men will cry: 
Die Gedanken sind frei! 

Neither trouble or pain 
Will ever touch me again. 
No good comes of fretting, 
My hope's in forgetting. 
Within myself still 
I can think as I will, 
But I laugh, do not cry: 
Die Gedanken sind frei!

"Keeping Things Whole"
-- Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

"Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?
-- Walt Whitman

Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?

THE WORLD/SOCIETY

"I am the People, the Mob"
-- Carl Sandburg

I am the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and
     clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me
     and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons
     and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.
     Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out
     and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes
     me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history
     to remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the
     lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year,
     who played me for a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the
     world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his
     voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.

"And They Obey"
-- Carl Sandburg

Smash down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
     and homes
Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black
     burnt wood:
     You are the soldiers and we command you.

Build up the cities.
Set up the walls again.
Put together once more the factories and cathedrals,
     warehouses and homes
Into buildings for life and labor:
     You are workmen and citizens all: We
     command you.

"The World Is A Box"
-- Sophie Hannah

My heart is a box of affection.
My head is a box of ideas.
My room is a box of protection.
My past is a box full of years.

The future's a box full of after.
An egg is a box full of yolk.
My life is a box full of laughter
And the world is a box full of folk.

"Untitled"
-- Anonymous/Unknown

where do we go from here?
humanity is being ravaged by a disease
doctors are powerless against it
pollution is everywhere
men and women die daily in senseless ethnic conflicts
homelessness is rampant
people can't read
children are being killed in the streets
the year is 1350
it was the beginning of the Renaissance
they made it
so will we

[Appeared on United Way posters in the Harvard MBTA station.]

"Tired"
-- Langston Hughes

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
and cut the world in two-
And see what worms are eating
at the rind.

"Parable of the Madman"
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright 

morning hours, 
ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: 
"I seek God! I seek God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God 
were standing around just then, 
he provoked much laughter. 
Has he got lost? asked one. 
Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. 
Or is he hiding?
Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?
Thus they yelled and laughed. 

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. 
"Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. 
We have killed him---you and I. 
All of us are his murderers. 
But how did we do this? 
How could we drink up the sea? 
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? 
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? 
Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? 
Away from all suns? 
Are we not plunging continually? 
Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? 
Is there still any up or down? 
Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? 
Do we not feel the breath of empty space? 
Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? 
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? 
Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers 
who are burying God? 
Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? 
Gods, too, decompose. 
God is dead. 
God remains dead. 
And we have killed him. 

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? 
What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled
to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? 
What water is there for us to clean ourselves? 
What festivals of atonement, what sacred gamesshall we have to invent? 
Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? 
Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? 
There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us - 
For the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all
history hitherto." 

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; 
and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. 
At last he threw his lantern on the ground, 
and it broke into pieces and went out. 
"I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. 
This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; 
it has not yet reached the ears of men. 
Lightning and thunder require time; 
the light of the stars requires time; 
deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. 
This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars - 
and yet they have done it themselves. 

It has been related further that on the same day 
the madman forced his way into several churches 
and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. 
Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing
but: 
"What after all are these churches now 
if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

"Forced March"
-- Miklos Radnoti

You're crazy. You fall down, stand up and walk again,
your ankles and your knees move
but you start again as if you had wings.
The ditch calls you, but it's no use you're afraid to stay,
and if someone asks why, maybe you turn around and say
that a woman and a sane death a better death wait for you.
But you're crazy. For a long time
only the burned wind spins above the houses at home,
Walls lie on their backs, plum trees are broken
and the angry night is thick with fear.
Oh if I could believe that everything valuble
is not only inside me now that there's still home to go back to.
If only there were! And just as before bees drone peacefully
on the cool veranda, plum preserves turn cold
and over sleepy gardens quietly, the end of summer bathes in the
sun.
Among the leaves the fruit swing naked
and in front of the rust-brown hedge blond Fanny waits for me,
the morning writes slow shadows---
All this could happen The moon is so round today!
Don't walk past me, friend. Yell, and I'll stand up again!

[This poem is describing the forced marching a Jew being brought to a 
concentration camp during the Holocaust. This poem was found in the coat 
of a man among the piles of dead after the end of WWII.]

"A Contribution to Statistics"
-- Wislawa Szymborska

Out of a hundred people

those who always know better
-fifty-two

doubting every step
-nearly all the rest,

glad to lend a hand
if it doesn't take too long
-as high as forty-nine,

always good 
because they can't be otherwise
-four, well maybe five,

able to admire without envy
-eighteen,

suffering illusions
induced by fleeting youth
-sixty, give or take a few,

not to be taken lightly
-forty and four,

living in constant fear
of someone or something
-seventy-seven,

capable of happiness
-twenty-something tops,

harmless singly, savage in crowds
-half at least,

cruel
when forced by circumstances
-better not to know 
even ballpark figures,

wise after the fact
-just a couple more
than wise before it,

taking only things from life
-thirty
(I wish I were wrong),

hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
-eighty-three
sooner or later,

righteous
-thirty-five, which is a lot,

righteous
and understanding
-three,

worthy of compassion
-ninety-nine,

mortal
-a hundred out of a hundred.
thus far this figure still remains unchanged.

"Harlem"
-- Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

"A Man Said to the Universe"
-- Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

"Fire and Ice"
-- Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

"Much Madness is divinest Sense"
-- Emily Dickinson

Much Madness is divinest Sense--
To a discerning Eye--
Much Sense--the starkest Madness--
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail--
Assent--and you are sane--
Demur--you're straightway dangerous--
And handled with a Chain--

ATMOSPHERE POEMS

"One Cigarette"
-- Edwin Morgan

No smoke without you, my fire.
After you left,
your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray
and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey
I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal
of so much love. One cigarette
in the non-smoker's tray.
As the last spire
trembles up, a sudden draught
blows it winding into my face.
Is it smell, is it taste?
You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.
Out with the light.
Let the smoke lie back in the dark.
Till I hear the very ash
sigh down among the flowers of brass
I'll breathe, and long past midnight, your last kiss.

"Fog"
-- Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking 
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on. 

"Acquainted with the Night"
-- Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

"Sit"
-- Vikram Seth

Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.

The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.

"The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm"
-- Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night 
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm. 
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page, 
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom 
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be. 
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page. 
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself 
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

LIFE VS. DEATH

"Diatribe Against the Dead"
-- Angel Gonzalez

The dead are selfish:
they make us cry and don't care,
they stay quiet in the most inconvenient places,
they refuse to walk, we have to carry them
on our backs to the tomb
as if they were children. What a burden!
Unusually rigid, their faces
accuse us of something, or warn us;
they are the bad conscience, the bad example,
they are the worst things in our lives always, always.
The bad thing about the dead
is that there is no way you can kill them.
Their constant destructive labor
is for the reason incalculable.
Insensitive, distant, obstinate, cold,
with their insolence and their silence
they don't realize what they undo.

"Let Me Die a Youngman's Death"
-- Roger McGough

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

"Lines Inscribed Upon A Cup Formed From A Skull"
-- Lord Byron

Start not -nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee;
I died: let earth my bones resign:
Fill up -thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape
Than nurse the earthworm's slimy brood,
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst; another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not?since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce?
Redeemed from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs to be of use.

"Long Distance II"
-- Tony Harrison

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

"Madam Life's a Piece in Bloom"
-- William Ernest Henley

Madam life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant in the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend.
You shall bilk him once or twice;
But he'll trap you in the end,
And he'll stick you for her price 

With his kneebone at your chest,
And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason - plead - protest!
Clutching at her petticoat; 

But she's heard it all before,
Well she knows you've had your fun,
Gingerly she gains the door,
And your little job is done. 

"Here Dead We Lie"
-- A. E. Housman

Here dead we lie 
Because we did not choose 
To live and shame the land 
From which we sprung. 

Life, to be sure,  
Is nothing much to lose, 
But young men think it is, 
And we were young.

[Just letting you know, in case you didn't catch it, this is about young
soldiers in war.]

"Life"
-- Anna Letitia Barbauld

Life! I know not what thou art, 
  But know that thou and I must part; 
  And when, or how, or where we met, 
  I own to me's a secret yet. 
  But this I know, when thou art fled, 
  Where'er they lay these limbs, this head, 
  No clod so valueless shall be, 
  As all that then remains of me. 
  O whither, whither dost thou fly, 
  Where bend unseen thy trackless course, 
    And in this strange divorce, 
Ah tell where I must seek this compound I? 

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame, 
    From whence thy essence came, 
  Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed 
  From matter's base encumbering weed? 
    Or dost thou, hid from sight, 
    Wait, like some spell-bound knight, 
Through blank oblivious years th' appointed hour, 
To break thy trance and reassume thy power? 
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? 
O say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee? 

Life! we've been long together, 
  Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 
  'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; 
  Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; 
  Then steal away, give little warning, 
    Choose thine own time; 
Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime 
    Bid me Good morning.

"Death, Be Not Proud"
-- John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow
And soonest our best men with thee do go
Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!

[I like imagining someone angrily shouting this poem to the skies.
I'm sure a better diatribe against death has never been written.]

"Richard Cory"
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, 
We people on the pavement looked at him: 
He was a gentleman from sole to crown, 
Clean favored, and imperially slim. 

And he was always quietly arrayed, 
And he was always human when he talked; 
But still he fluttered pulses when he said, 
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. 

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king - 
And admirably schooled in every grace; 
In fine we thought that he was everything 
To make us wish that we were in his place. 

So on we worked, and waited for the light, 
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; 
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, 
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

LOVE STUFF

"The Shipfitter's Wife"
-- Dorianne Laux

I loved him most
when he came home from work, 
his fingers still curled from fitting pipe, 
his denim shirt ringed with sweat 
and smelling of salt, the drying weeds 
of the ocean. I would go to him where he sat 
on the edge of the bed, his forehead 
anointed with grease, his cracked hands 
jammed between his thighs, and unlace 
the steel-toed boots, stroke his ankles, 
his calves, the pads and bones of his feet. 
Then I'd open his clothes and take 
the whole day inside me -- the ship's 
gray sides, the miles of copper pipe, 
the voice of the first man clanging 
off the hull's silver ribs, spark of lead 
kissing metal, the clamp, the winch, 
the white fire of the torch, the whistle 
and the long drive home.

"Love: Beginnings"
-- C.K. Williams

They're at that stage where so much desire streams between them, 
   so much frank need and want,
so much absorption in the other and the self 
   and the self-admiring entity and unity they make --
her mouth so full, breast so lifted, head thrown back
   so far in her laughter at his laughter
he so solid, planted, oaky, firm, so resonantly factual 
   in the headiness of being craved so,
she almost wreathed upon him as they intertwine again, 
   touch again, cheek, lip, shoulder, brow,
every glance moving toward the sexual, every glance away  
   soaring back in flame into the sexual --
that just to watch them is to feel again that hitching in the groin,
   that filling of the heart,
the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart, 
   snorting again, stamping in its stall.

"Variations On The Word Love"
-- Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
 
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

"Mediocrity in Love Rejected"
-- Thomas Carew

 Give me more love or more disain!
    The torrid or the frozen zone
 Bring equal ease unto my pain,
    The temperate affords me none;
 Either extreme of love or hate
 Is sweeter than a calm estate.

 Give me a storm; if it be love,
    Like Danae in that golden shower,
 I swim in pleasure; if it prove
    Disdain, that torrent will devour
 My vulture-hopes; and he's possessed
 Of heaven, that's but from hell released.
    Then crown my joys or cure my pain:
    Give me more love or more disdain.

"Sonnet XIV"
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day--
For these things in themselves, Belov'd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

"I am Very Bothered"
-- Simon Armitage

I am very bothered when I think
of the bad things I have done in my life.
Not least that time in the chemistry lab
when I held a pair of scissors by the blades
and played the handles
in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner;
then called your name, and handed them over. 

O the unrivalled stench of branded skin
as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in,
then couldn't shake off the two burning rings. Marked,
the doctor said, for eternity.

Don't believe me, please, if I say
that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen,
of asking you if you would marry me.

"Sex Without Love"
-- Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
Gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth, whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

"Song Five"
-- Gaius Valerius Catullus

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us judge all the rumors of the old men
to be worth just one penny!
The suns are able to fall and rise:
When that brief light has fallen for us,
we must sleep a never ending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.
Then, when we have made many thousands,
we will mix them all up so that we don't know,
and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out
how many kisses we have shared.

"Untitled"
-- Langston Hughes

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began,--
I loved my friend.

"Ah, Love! Could Thou and I with Fate Conspire"
-- Omar Khayyam

Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!
Would not we shatter it to bits - and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

"Juliet"
-- Hilaire Belloc

How did the party go in Portman Square?
I cannot tell you: Juliet was not there.

And how did Lady Gaster's party go?
Juliet was next to me and I do not know.

"Sonnet 135"
--William Shakespeare

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast they Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;
More than enough am I that vex thee still
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou being rich in Will add to the Will
One will of mine to make they large Will more.
   Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
  Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

[To fully understand this poem, you must know what "will" meant to
Elizabethan Englanders. During that time, "will" meant all of:
1. strength of character/will power, 2. sexual desire, 3. the act
of sex, and 4. the sexual organs. Plus, it's a pun on his name. Now,
reread the poem, and see if it isn't a little more ... visual.]

"Don't Go Far Off"
-- Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

"The Flea"
-- John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this
How little which thou deny'st 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 said
A 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 flee spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our 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 be.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled 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 thyself, 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.

"She Walks In Beauty?
-- Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

"Untitled"
-- Plato

Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.

"The Night has a Thousand Eyes"
-- Francis William Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
      And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
      With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
      And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
       When love is done.

"Let's be discreet"
-- Amanda Townsend

Tell me
That your eyes do not search for me
In a crowd
And I shall say to you
That my heart does not miss a beat
When I see you
And that nature's fertile flow
Does not bathe
The most delicate
And intimate essence of my femininity
Tell me
That I have not felt
The pressure of your body against mine
And that I was not shocked
Or excited
By the power of your masculinity
Tell me that you cannot cure the ache
Which lingers between my thighs
And my body will deny that I desire you

"XVII (I do not love you)"
-- Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

"Variations On The Word Sleep"
-- Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

"In Paris with You"
-- James Fenton

Don't talk to me of love.  I've had an earful
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.
I'm one of your talking wounded.
I'm a hostage. I'm marooned.
But I'm in Paris with you.
 
Yes, I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess that I've been through.
I admit I'm on the rebound
And I don't care where are we bound.
I'm in Paris with you.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre,
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame
If we skip the champs Elysees
And remain here in this sleazy
Old hotel room
Doing this or that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.
 
Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There's that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling 
And I'm in Paris with you.
 
Don't talk to me of love.  Let's talk of Paris.
I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I'm in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I'm in Paris with... all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I'm in Paris with you.

[Ah, lovely. What a sweet poem.  *Grins*]

"The Sun Rising"
-- John Donne

        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 schoolboys, and sour prentices,
    Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams, so reverend 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 mine
    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 is all states, and all princes I,
        Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
        Thou, sun, art half as happy 's 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 centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

LOVE PAINS

"Breaking Up"
-- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I fell out of love: that's our story's dull ending,
as flat as life is, as dull as the grave.
Excuse me -- I'll break off the string of this love song
and smash the guitar. We have nothing to save.

The puppy is puzzled. Our furry small monster
can't decide why we complicate simple things so --
he whines at your door and I let him enter,
when he scratches at my door, you always go.

Dog, sentimental dog, you'll surely go crazy,
running from one to the other like this --
too young to conceive of an ancient idea:
it's ended, done with, over, kaput. Finis.

Get sentimental and we end up by playing
the old melodrama, "Salvation of Love."
"Forgiveness," we whisper, and hope for an echo;
but nothing returns from the silence above.

Better save love at the very beginning,
avoiding all passionate "nevers," "forevers;"
we ought to have heard what the train wheels were 

shouting,
"Do not make promises!" Promises are levers.

We should have made note of the broken branches,
we should have looked up at the smokey sky,
warning the witless pretensions of lovers --
the greater the hope is, the greater the lie.

True kindness in love means staying quite sober,
weighing each link of the chain you must bear.
Don't promise her heaven -- suggest half an acre;
not "unto death," but at least to next year.

And don't keep declaring, "I love you, I love you."
That little phrase leads a durable life --
when remembered again in some loveless hereafter,
it can sting like a hornet or stab like a knife.

So -- our little dog in all his confusion
turns and returns from door to door.
I won't say "forgive me" because I have left you;
I ask pardon for one thing: I loved you before.

"Ashes of Life"
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
  Eat I must, and sleep I will, -- and would that night were here!
But ah! -- to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
  Would that it were day again! -- with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
  This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, --
  There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,
  And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, --
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
  There's this little street and this little house.

"Sonnet XLIII"
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

"Quick And Bitter"
-- Yehuda Amichai

The end was quick and bitter.
Slow and sweet was the time between us,
slow and sweet were the nights
when my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love 
of your body which came
between them.

And when I entered into you 
it seemed then that great happiness
could be measured with precision
of sharp pain.  Quick and bitter.

Slow and sweet were the nights.
Now is bitter and grinding as sand?
"Let's be sensible" and similiar curses.

And as we stray further from love
we multiply the words,
words and sentences so long and orderly.
Had we remained together 
we could have become a silence.

"If You Only Knew"
-- Robert Desnos (Translated by Michael Benedikt)

Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the other traditional trappings of poetic mythology
Far from me yet present nonetheless although you're unaware of it
Far from me, and even more silent than you are distant, since I keep on endlessly imagining you
Far from me, my gorgeous mirage and my perpetual dream, in ways you just can't know.
If you only knew.
Far from me and perhaps all the more so because you not only ignore me, but ignore me more each day.
Far from me because undoubtedly you don't love me or, what amounts to the same thing,
because I doubt so strongly that you do.
Far from me because you so methodically ignore my each and every desire.
Far from me because you're so cruel.
If you only knew.
Far from me, O blissful as a flower dancing in a river at the tip of its underwater stem, O melancholy
as 7 pm and sunset in a mushroom-cellar.
Far from me and therefore still more silent than if you were actually present, yet more blissful still
than some lucky, stork-shaped hour that falls down from above.
Far from me at that moment when the stills are singing, at that moment when the silently foaming sea
curls back up on its white pillows.
Far from me, O my ever-present, constant torment, far from me and lost in the magnificent noises of
oyster-shells, crushed by footsteps of some night-owl at the harborside, passing cafe-doors at dawn.
If you only knew.
Far from me, O my deliberate, material mirage.
Far from me there's an island turning around as ships pass.
Far from me, a herd of docile cattle wanders off a path, then obstinately stops at the edge of a steep cliff,
far from me, O cruel one!
Far from me a shooting star lands in the poet's nightly bottle. He promptly corks it up again, and for a
long time afterwards gazes through its glass at the captive star, glimpsing constellations
forming within its walls, far from me, you're that far from me.
If you only knew.
Far from me a house long under construction has just finally been completed.
At the top of a scaffold a bricklayer in dusty white overalls sings a sad little song to himself and then, in the
leftover cement in his mortar tray, sees the entire future of the house: the kisses the lovers and the
suicide pacts, nakedness in the bedrooms of beautiful strangers and their most intimate midnight
dreams, together with various voluptuous secrets caught in the act and revealed by squares of polished parquet.
Far from me,
If you only knew.
If you only knew how I love you and - even though you don't love me - how happy I've become,
how empowered and proud, for being able with your image in my mind to step out into this world,
and able even to step out of this entire universe,
And for being so happy, moreover, even to die for this.
If you only knew how I've conquered the world.
And you, so beautiful, and so seemingly unconquerable too, how completely you've become my prisoner.
Oh you, who from so far away, completely conquer me!
If you only knew.

"I've Dreamed of You So Much"
-- Robert Desnos (Translated by Michael Benedikt)

I've dreamed of you so much that you're losing your reality.
Is it already too late for me to embrace your literal, living and breathing physical body
and to kiss that mouth which is the birthplace of that voice which is so dear to me?
I've dreamed of you so much that my arms--which have become accustomed to
lying crossed upon my own chest after attempting to encircle your
shadow--might not be able to unfold again to embrace the contours of your literal form, perhaps
So that coming face-to-face with the actual incarnation of what has haunted me
and ruled me and dominated my life for so many days and years
Might very well turn me into a shadow.
Oh equilibriums of the emotional scales!
I've dreamed of you so much that it might be too late for me to ever wake up again.
I sleep on my feet, body confronting all the usual phenomena of life and love and yet
when it comes to you--you, the only being on the planet who matters to me now--
I can no more touch your face and lips than I can those of the next random passerby.
I've dreamed of you so much, have walked and talked and slept so much with your
phantom presence that perhaps the only thing left for me to do now
Is to become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadowy
than that shifting shape which moves and which will go on moving,
stepping lightly and happily across the sundial of your life.

"Woman's Constancy"
-- John Donne

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
To-morrow when thou 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, then 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 those scapes I could
Dispute and conquer, if I would;
Which I abstain to do,
For by to-morrow, I may think so too.

"No One So Much As You"
-- Edward Thomas

No one so much as you
Loves this my clay,
Or would lament as you
Its dying day.

You know me through and through
Though I have not told,
And though with what you know
You are not bold.

None ever was so fair
As I thought you:
Not a word can I bear
Spoken against you.

All that I ever did
For you seemed coarse
Compared with what I hid
Nor put in force.

My eyes scarce dare meet you
Lest they should prove
I but respond to you
And do not love.

We look and understand,
We cannot speak
Except in trifles and
Words the most weak.

For I at most accept
Your love, regretting
That is all: I have kept
Only a fretting

That I could not return
All that you gave
And could not ever burn
With the love you have,

Till sometimes it did seem
Better it were
Never to see you more
Than linger here

With only gratitude
Instead of love -
A pine in solitude
Cradling a dove.

"When We Two Parted?
-- Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow? 
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me? 
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:? 
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met? 
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?? 
With silence and tears.

"Sometimes it Happens"
-- Brian Patten

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then
You do not want to speak,
Then the opportunity has passed.
Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then
There is somewhere to go,
Then you have bypassed.
And the years flare up and are gone,
Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.
You wonder if these things matter and then
As soon you begin to wonder if these things matter
They cease to matter,
And caring is past.
And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

FUN STUFF

"Temporary Well Being"
-- Kenneth Burke

The pond is plenteous
The land is lush,
And having turned off the news
I am for the moment mellow.

With my book in one hand
And my drink in the other
What more could I want

But fame,
Better health,
And ten million dollars?

"You are old, Father William"
-- Lewis Carroll

"You are old, father William," the young man said, 
"And your hair has become very white; 
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," father William replied to his son, 
"I feared it might injure the brain; 
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, 
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, 
And you have grown most uncommonly fat; 
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- 
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, 
"I kept all my limbs very supple 
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling a box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak 
For anything tougher than suet; 
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his fater, "I took to the law, 
And argued each case with my wife; 
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, 
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose 
That your eye was as steady as ever; 
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough," 
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! 
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? 
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

"The Gruffalo"
-- Julia Donaldson

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
  
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have lunch in my underground house."
  
"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no ?
I'm going to have lunch with a gruffalo."

"A gruffalo?  What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo!  Why, didn't you know?
 
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws,
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."
 
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by these rocks,
And his favourite food is roasted fox."
 
"Roasted fox!  I'm off!" Fox said.
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away he sped.
 
"Silly old Fox!  Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"
 
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
An owl saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
 
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have tea in my treetop house."
 
"It's terribly kind of you, Owl, but no ?
I'm going to have tea with a gruffalo."
 
"A gruffalo?  What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo!  Why, didn't you know?
 
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes,
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose."
 
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by this stream,
And his favourite food is owl ice cream."
 
"Owl ice cream!  Toowhit toowhoo!"
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away Owl flew.
 
"Silly old Owl!  Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"
 
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
A snake saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good.
 
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come for a feast in my logpile house."
 
"It's terribly kind of you, Snake, but no ?
I'm having a feast with a gruffalo."
 
"A gruffalo?  What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo!  Why, didn't you know?
 
His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,
He has purple prickles all over his back."
 
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by this lake,
And his favourite food is scrambled snake."
 
"Scrambled snake!  It's time I hid!"
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away Snake slid.
 
"Silly old Owl!  Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffal...?"
 
...OH!"
 
But who is this creature with terrible claws
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws?
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes,
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.
His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,
He has purple prickles all over his back.
 
"Oh help!  Oh no!
It's a gruffalo!"
 
"My favourite food!" the Gruffalo said.
"You'll taste good on a slice of bread!"
 
"Good?" said the mouse.  "Don't call me good!
I'm the scariest creature in this wood.
Just walk behind me and soon you'll see,
Everyone is afraid of me."
 
"All right," said the Gruffalo, bursting with laughter.
"You go ahead and I'll follow after."
 
They walked and walked till the Gruffalo said,
"I hear a hiss in the leaves ahead."
 
"It's Snake," said the mouse.  "Why, Snake, hello!"
Snake took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh crumbs!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he slid to his logpile house.
 
"You see?" said the mouse.  "I told you so."
"Amazing!" said the Gruffalo.
 
They walked some more till the Gruffalo said,
"I hear a hoot in the trees ahead."
 
"It's Owl," said the mouse.  "Why, Owl, hello!"
Owl took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh dear!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he flew to his treetop house.
 
"You see?" said the mouse.  "I told you so."
"Astounding!" said the Gruffalo.
 
They walked some more till the Gruffalo said,
"I can hear feet on the path ahead."
 
"It's Fox," said the mouse.  "Why, Fox, hello!"
Fox took one look at the Gruffalo.
"Oh help!" he said, "Goodbye, little mouse!"
And off he ran to his underground house.
 
"Well, Gruffalo," said the mouse.  "You see?
Everyone is afraid of me!
But now my tummy's beginning to rumble.
My favourite food is ? gruffalo crumble!"
 
"Gruffalo crumble!" the Gruffalo said,
And quick as the wind he turned and fled.
 
All was quiet in the deep dark wood.
The mouse found a nut and the nut was good.

"The Misanthrope"
-- Moliere

ORONTE: 
... 
In short, I am your servant. And now, dear friend,
Since you have such fine judgement, I intend
To please you, if I can, with a small sonnet
I wrote not long ago. Please comment on it,
And tell me whether I ought to publish it.

ALCESTE:
Sir, these are delicate matters; we all desire
To be told that we've the true poetic fire.
But once, to one whose name I shall not mention,
I said, regarding some verse of his invention,
That gentlemen should rigorously control
That itch to write which often afflicts the soul;
That one should curb the heady inclination
To publicize one's little avocation;
And that in showing off one's works of art
One often plays a very clownish part.
...
You're under no necessity to compose;
Why you should wish to publish, heaven knows.
There's no excuse for printing tedious rot
Unless one writes for bread, as you do not.
Resist temptation, then, I beg of you;
Conceal your pastimes from the public view.

"His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell"
-- A. D. Hope

Since you have world enough and time
Sir, to admonish me in rhyme,
Pray Mr Marvell, can it be
You think to have persuaded me?
Then let me say: you want the art
To woo, much less to win my heart.
The verse was splendid, all admit,
And, sir, you have a pretty wit.
All that indeed your poem lacked
Was logic, modesty, and tact,
Slight faults and ones to which I own,
Your sex is generally prone;
But though you lose your labour, I
Shall not refuse you a reply:
 
First, for the language you employ:
A term I deprecate is "coy";
The ill-bred miss, the bird-brained Jill,
May simper and be coy at will;
A lady, sir, as you will find,
Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind,
Means what she says and scorns to fence
And palter with feigned innocence.
 
The ambiguous "mistress" next you set
Beside this graceless epithet.
"Coy mistress", sir? Who gave you leave
To wear my heart upon your sleeve?
Or to imply, as sure you do,
I had no other choice than you
And must remain upon the shelf
Unless I should bestir myself?
Shall I be moved to love you, pray,
By hints that I must soon decay?
No woman's won by being told
How quickly she is growing old;
Nor will such ploys, when all is said,
Serve to stampede us into bed.
 
When from pure blackmail, next you move
To bribe or lure me into love,
No less inept, my rhyming friend,
Snared by the means, you miss your end.
"Times winged chariot", and the rest
As poetry may pass the test;
Readers will quote those lines, I trust,
Till you and I and they are dust;
But I, your destined prey, must look
Less at the bait than at the hook,
Nor, when I do, can fail to see
Just what it is you offer me:
Love on the run, a rough embrace
Snatched in the fury of the chase,
The grave before us and the wheels
Of Time's grim chariot at our heels,
While we, like "am'rous birds of prey",
Tear at each other by the way.
 
To say the least, the scene you paint
Is, what you call my honour, quaint!
And on this point what prompted you
So crudely, and in public too,
To canvass and , indeed, make free
With my entire anatomy?
Poets have licence, I confess,
To speak of ladies in undress;
Thighs, hearts, brows, breasts are well enough,
In verses this is common stuff;
But -- well I ask: to draw attention
To worms in -- what I blush to mention,
And prate of dust upon it too!
Sir, was this any way to woo?
 
Now therefore, while male self-regard
Sits on your cheek, my hopeful bard,
May I suggest, before we part,
The best way to a woman's heart
Is to be modest, candid, true;
Tell her you love and show you do;
Neither cajole nor condescend
And base the lover on the friend;
Don't bustle her or fuss or snatch:
A suitor looking at his watch
Is not a posture that persuades
Willing, much less reluctant maids.

Remember that she will be stirred
More by the spirit than the word;
For truth and tenderness do more
Than coruscating metaphor.
Had you addressed me in such terms
And prattled less of graves and worms,
I might, who knows, have warmed to you;
But, as things stand, must bid adieu
(Though I am grateful for the rhyme)
And wish you better luck next time.

"I Had a Hippopotamus"
--Patrick Barrington

I had a hippopotamus; I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread.
I made him my companion on many cheery walks,
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalks.

His charming eccentricities were known on every side.
The creature's popularity was wonderfully wide.
He frolicked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles,
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles.

If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again.

I had a hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to end.
Time takes, alas! our joys from us and robs us of our blisses.
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamissus.

My housekeeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye.
She did not want a colony of hippopotami.
She borrowed a machine gun from her soldier-nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy.

My house now lacks the glamour that the charming creature gave.
The garage where I kept him is as silent as a grave.
No longer he displays among the motor-tires and spanners
His hippopotamastery of hippopotamanners.

No longer now he gambols in the orchard in the Spring;
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string;
No longer in the mornings does the neighborhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-modulated voice.

I had a hippopotamus, but nothing upon the earth
Is constant in its happiness or lasting in its mirth.
No life that's joyful can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for what might have been a hippopotamother.

"The Uncertainty of the Poet"
-- Wendy Cope

I am a poet.
I am very fond of bananas.
 
I am bananas.
I am very fond of a poet.
 
I am a poet of bananas.
I am very fond.
 
A fond poet of 'I am, I am'-
Very bananas.
 
Fond of 'Am I bananas?
Am I?'-a very poet.
 
Bananas of a poet!
Am I fond? Am I very?
 
Poet bananas! I am.
I am fond of a 'very.'
 
I am of very fond bananas.
Am I a poet?

"The Wombat"    
-- Ogden Nash

The wombat lives across the seas,
Among the far Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
Or then again, on missionaries;
His distant habitat precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods,
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.

from "certain maxims of archy"
-- Don Marquis

i once heard the survivors
of a colony of ants
that had been partially
obliterated by a cow s foot
seriously debating
the intention of the gods
towards their civilization

if you get gloomy just
take an hour off and sit
and think how
much better this world
is than hell
of course it won t cheer
you up much if
you expect to go there

that stern and
rockbound coast felt
like an amateur
when it saw how grim
the puritans that
landed on it were

every cloud
has its silver
lining but it is
sometimes a little
difficult to get it to
the mint

prohibition makes you
want to cry
into your beer and
denies you the beer
to cry into

there is always
something to be thankful
for you would not
think that a cockroach
had much ground
for optimism
but as the fishing season
opens up i grow
more and more
cheerful at the thought
that nobody ever got
the notion of using
cockroaches for bait

"Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff"
-- John Keats

Give me women, wine, and snuff
Until I cry out "hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.

"Drinking Song"
-- J. K. Stephen

There are people, I know, to be found,
   Who say, and apparently think,
That sorrow and care may be drowned
   By a timely consumption of drink.

Does not man, these enthusiasts ask,
   Most nearly approach the divine,
When engaged in the soul-stirring task
   Of filling his body with wine?

Have not beggars been frequently known,
   When satisfied, soaked, and replete,
To imagine their bench was a throne
   And the civilised world at their feet?

Lord Byron has finely described
   The remarkably soothing effect
Of liquor, profusely imbibed,
   On a soul that is shattered and wrecked.

In short, if your body or mind
   Or your soul or your purse come to grief,
You need only get drunk, and you'll find
   Complete and immediate relief.

For myself, I have managed to do
   Without having recourse to this plan,
So I can't write a poem for you,
   And you'd better get someone who can.

"Lucile: Part 1, Canto 2"
-- Owen Meredith

We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man can not live without cooks.
He may live without books, -- what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,  -- what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love,  -- what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?

"Intimates"
-- D.H.Lawrence

Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

   I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
 In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct! --
     So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and that held her spell bound for two seconds
	   while I fled.

"The Idiot Boy"
-- Rudyard Kipling

He wandered down the mountain grade 
Beyond the speed assigned--
A youth whom Justice often stayed
And generally fined.

He went alone, that none might know
If he could drive or steer.
Now he is in the ditch, and Oh!
The differential gear!

[A parody of Wordsworth?s "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways".]

"The Connoisseuse of Slugs"
-- Sharon Olds

When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those gold bodies,
translucent strangers glistening along the
stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the
odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the
ends, delicate and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.

"What We Might Be, What We Are"
-- X. J. Kennedy

If you were a scoop of vanilla
And I were the cone where you sat,
If you were a slowly pitched baseball
And I were the swing of a bat,

If you were a shiny new fishhook
And I were a bucket of worms,
If we were a pin and a pincushion,
We might be on intimate terms.

If you were a plate of spaghetti
And I were your piping-hot sauce,
We'd not even need to write letters
To put our affection across.

But you're just a piece of red ribbon
In the beard of a Balinese goat
And I'm a New Jersey mosquito.
I guess we'll stay slightly remote.

"Strugnell's Sonnets (VI)"
-- Wendy Cope

Let me not to the marriage of true swine
Admit impediments. With his big car
He's won your heart, and you have punctured mine. 
I have no spare; henceforth I'll bear the scar.
Since women are not worth the booze you buy them
I dedicate myself to Higher Things. 
If men deride and sneer, I shall defy them
And soar above Tulse Hill on poet's wings -- 
A brother to the thrush in Brockwell Park,
Whose song, though sometimes drowned by rock guitars,
Outlives their din. One day I'll make my mark,
Although I'm not from Ulster or from Mars,
And when I'm published in some classy mag
You'll rue the day you scarpered in his Jag.

"Strugnell's Rubaiyat"
-- Wendy Cope

1
Awake! for Morning on the Pitch of Night
Has whistled and has put the Stars to Flight.
The incandescent football in the East
Has brought the splendour of Tulse Hill to Light.

7

Another Pint! Come, loosen up, have Fun!
Fling off your Hang-ups and enjoy the Sun:
Time's Spacecraft all too soon will carry you
Away - and Lo! the Countdown has begun

11

Here with a Bag of Crisps beneath the Bough,
A Can of Beer, a Radio - and Thou
Beside me half asleep in Brockwell Park
And Brockwell Park is Paradise enow.

12

Some Men to everlasting Bliss aspire,
Their lives, Auditions for the heavenly Choir:
Oh, use your Credit Card and waive the Rest -
Brave Music of a distant Amplifier!

26

Oh, come with Strugnell - Argument's no Tonic.
One thing's certain: Life flies supersonic.
One thing's certain: Man's Evasion chronic -
The Flower that's blown can never be bionic.

51

The Moving Telex writes, and having writ,
Moves on; nor all thy Therapy nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor Tide nor Daz wash out a word of it.

"Waste Land Limericks"
-- Wendy Cope

I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II

She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

"The Penitent"
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

I had a little Sorrow,
  Born of a little Sin,
   I found a room all damp with gloom
 And shut us all within;
  And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I,
   "And, Little Sin, pray God to die,
      And I upon the floor will lie
    And think how bad I've been!"

      Alas for pious planning - -
It mattered not a whit!
   As far as gloom went in that room,
     The lamp might have been lit!
   My little Sorrow would not weep,
   My little Sin would go to sleep --
   To save my soul I could not keep
      My graceless mind on it!

 So I got up in anger,
And took a book I had,
    And put a ribbon on my my hair
      To please a passing lad,
 And, "One thing there's no getting by --
    I've been a wicked girl," said I:
     "But if I can't be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!"

"Untitled"
-- Arthur Eddington

The Clock no question makes of Fasts and Slows,
But steadily and with a constant Rate it goes.
And Lo! The clouds are parting and the Sun
A crescent glimmering on the screen--It shows!--It shows!

Five minutes, not a moment left to waste,
Five minutes, for the picture to be traced--
The stars are shining, and coronal light
Streams from the Orb of Darkness--Oh make haste!

For in and out, above, about, below
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show
Played in a Box whose candle is the Sun
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

Oh leave the Wise our measurements to collate.
One thing at least is certain, LIGHT has WEIGHT
One thing is certain and the rest debate--
Light-rays, when near the Sun, DO NOT GO STRAIGHT

[This delightful attempt at poetry was written by the English
astrophysicist, Arthur Eddington, after he had proven a significant
prediction of Eistein's theory of general relativity. Eddington,
without informing Einstein, had travelled to Principe island to
observe a solar eclipse. During the eclipse, he and his team were
able to measure whether or not light (from stars whose light passed]
near our Sun) would bend around massive objects. Well, it did, and in
precisely the amount Einstein predicted. Eddington was so freakin'
excited, that he had to write a poem about the discovery. This is what
you see above. The last stanza is just so sweet. Eddington was no poet,
but he sure was enthusiastic. It's just so cute!]

(No Title)
-- American Folk Rhyme

Early in the mornin in the middle of the night
two dead boys got up to fight 
back to back they faced each other
drew their swords and shot each other
the deaf policeman heard the noise
he came and shot those two dead boys
if you don't believe this lie is true
go ask the blind man, he saw it too

"The Unknown"
-- D. H. Rumsfield, U.S. Secretary of Defense

As we know, 
There are known knowns. 
There are things we know we know. 
We also know 
There are known unknowns. 
That is to say 
We know there are some things 
We do not know. 
But there are also unknown unknowns, 
The ones we don?t know 
We don?t know.

[This "poem" was part of a speech that our illustrious Secretary of
Defense gave during a news briefing on February 12, 2002. There are
other quotations taken from him and placed into "poetic form" for
amusement, but I thought this one was the funniest. Truly inspired
idiocy. I swear, I thought only the mini-Bush could up with this
non-sense. Rumsfield needs to hire new speech writers.]

"Sonnet 130"
-- William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
    As any she belied with false compare.

[My English teacher from highschool used to recite this one in the
voice of a truck-driver. It was great.]

"Stupid Pencil Maker"
-- Shel Silverstein

Some dummy built this pencil wrong,
The eraser's down here where the point belongs,
And the point's at the top - so it's no good to me,
It's amazing how stupid some people can be.

"Eating Poetry"
-- Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

[Teehee, that poor librarian. Silly man is acting like an animal, a
dog. Consuming poetry is such an overpowering, euphoric, beastial
experience. :-)]

"The Great Panjandrum"
-- Samuel Foote

So she went into the garden
to cut a cabbage-leaf
to make an apple-pie;
and at the same time
a great she-bear, coming down the street,
pops its head into the shop.
What! no soap?
    So he died,
and she very imprudently married the Barber:
and there were present
the Picninnies,
    and the Joblillies,
        and the Garyulies,
and the great Panjandrum himself,
with the little round button at top;
and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can,
till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.

[According to Wondering Minstrels, this poem was "Composed by Foote in
1755 to test the memory of the actor Charles Macklin, who had claimed
he could read any paragraph once through and then recite it verbatim.
It is not recorded whether or not Macklin was, in fact, able to memorise
the passage at first reading, but he apparently took great pleasure in
reciting both the anecdote and the passage in later life."]

"The Walrus and the Carpenter"
-- Lewis Carroll

The sun was shining on the sea,
  Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
  The billows smooth and bright --
And this was odd, because it was
  The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
  Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
  After the day was done --
'It's very rude of him.' she said,
  'To come and spoil the fun!'

The sea was wet as wet could be,
  The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
  No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead --
  There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
  Were walking close at hand:
They wept like anything to see
  Such quantities of sand:
'If this were only cleared away,'
  They said, 'it would be grand.'

'If seven maids with seven mops
  Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,
  'That they could get it clear?'
'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,
  And shed a bitter tear.

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!
  The Walrus did beseech.
'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
  Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
  To give a hand to each.'

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
  But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
  And shook his heavy head --
Meaning to say he did not choose
  To leave the oyster-bed.

Out four young Oysters hurried up.
  All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
  Their shoes were clean and neat --
And this was odd, because, you know,
  They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
  And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
  And more, and more, and more --
All hopping through the frothy waves,
  And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
  Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
  Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
  And waited in a row.

'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
  'To talk of many things:
Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing wax --
  Of cabbages -- and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot --
  And whether pigs have wings.'

'But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried,
  'Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
  And all of us are fat!'
'No hurry!' said the Carpenter.
  They thanked him much for that.

'A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,
  'Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
  Are very good indeed --
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear,
  We can begin to feed.'

'But not on us!' the Oysters cried,
  Turning a little blue.
'After such kindness, that would be
  A dismal thing to do!'
'The night is fine,' the Walrus said,
  'Do you admire the view?'

'It was so kind of you to come!
  And you are very nice!'
The Carpenter said nothing but
  'Cut us another slice-
I wish you were not quite so deaf-
  I've had to ask you twice!'

'It seems a shame,' the Walrus said,
  'To play them such a trick.
After we've brought them out so far,
  And made them trot so quick!'
The Carpenter said nothing but
  'The butter's spread too thick!'

'I weep for you,'the Walrus said:
  'I deeply sympathize.'
With sobs and tears he sorted out
  Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
  Before his streaming eyes.

'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,
  'You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
  But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
  They'd eaten every one.

[I remember watching the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. It
was great how they depicted this poem, as I probably would have skipped
over it the first time I read the book. In any case, it is highly amusing,
although I always feel so bad for those poor oysters. ... Later, I saw the
movie Dogma, where this poem is used by an angel to prove to a nun that
God doesn't exist. He completely pulls bullshit out of his ass. It's
hilarious. That movie is so great.]

TWISTEDLY HUMOROUS STUFF

"The Curse" 
-- J. M. Synge

Lord, confound that surly sister,
Blight her brow with blotch and blister,
Cramp her gullet, lungs and liver
In her guts a galling give her.
Let her live to earn her dinners
In Mountjoy with seedy sinners.
Lord, this judgement quickly bring
And I'm your servant, J. M. Synge.

"Down With Fanatics!"
-- Roger Woddis

If I had my way with violent men
I'd simmer them in oil,
I'd fill a pot with bitumen
And bring them to the boil.
I execrate the terrorist
And those who harbour him,
And if I weren't a moralist
I'd tear them limb from limb.

Fanatics are an evil breed
Whom decent men should shun;
I'd like to flog them till they bleed,
Yes, every mother's son,
I'd like to tie them to a board
And let them taste the cat,
While giving praise, oh thank the Lord,
That I am not like that.

For we should love the human kind,
As Jesus taught us to,
And those who don't should be struck blind
And beaten black and blue;
I'd like to roast them in a grill
And listen to them shriek,
Then break them on the wheel until
They turned the other cheek.

"Little Willie" Poems
-- Unknown

In the family drinking well
Willie pushed his sister Nell
There she's yet because it kilt her
Now we have to buy a filter.

Willie with a thirst for gore
Nailed his sister to the door.
Mother said with humor quaint,
"Willie dear, don't scratch the paint."

Yes, life is a bit enigmatic,
And happiness not automatic,
But murder--of course,
With a smidgeon of force--
May be neatly performed in the attic.

In all things a rapid beginner,
Young Fay soon excelled as a sinner;
When tired, at nine,
Of cocaine and fine wine,
She switched to cigars and paint thinner.

Marie, on the brink of disaster,
Went off to speak with her pastor;
She feared what he'd think
Of her troubles with drink,
But lucky for her he was plastered.

Young Lucy was sorely bedevilled
By the ranks of fine lads as they revelled;
The first one she could
She led into the wood --
They returned after dawn all dishevelled.

"Dreadful"
-- Shel Silverstein

Someone ate the baby.
It's rather sad to say.
Someone ate the baby
So she won't be out to play. 
We'll never hear her whiney cry
Or have to feel if she is dry.
We'll never hear her asking "Why?"
Someone ate the baby.

Someone ate the baby.
It's absolutely clear
Someone ate the baby
'Cause the baby isn't here. 
We'll give away her toys and clothes.
We'll never have to wipe her nose.
Dad says, "That's the way it goes."
Someone ate the baby.

Someone ate the baby.
What a frightful thing to eat!
Someone ate the baby
Though she wasn't very sweet. 
It was a heartless thing to do.
The policemen haven't got a clue.
I simply can't imagine who
Would go and (burp) eat the baby.

"The Ballad Of William Bloat"
-- Raymond Calvert

In a mean abode on the Shankill Road
Lived a man named William Bloat;
And he had a wife, the curse of his life,
Who always got his goat.
'Til one day at dawn, with her nightdress on
He slit her pretty throat.

With a razor gash he settled her hash
Oh never was crime so quick
But the steady drip on the pillowslip
Of her lifeblood made him sick.
And the pool of gore on the bedroom floor
Grew clotted and cold and thick.

Now he was right glad he had done as he had
As his wife lay there so still
But a sudden awe of the mighty law
Filled his heart with an icy chill.
So to finish the fun so well begun
He resolved himself to kill.

He took the sheet from his wife's cold feet
And twisted it into a rope
And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf,
'Twas an easy end, let's hope.
In the face of death with his latest breath
He said "to hell with the Pope."

Now the strangest turn in this whole concern
Is only just beginning.
He went to Hell, but his wife got well
And is still alive and sinning.
For the razor blade was Dublin made
But the sheet was Belfast linen.

"Tim Turpin"
--Thomas Hood

Tim Turpin he was gravel-blind,
 And ne'er had seen the skies :
For Nature, when his head was made,
 Forgot to dot his eyes. 

So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
 Poor Tim was forced to do -
Look out for pupils; for he had
 A vacancy for two.

There's some have specs to help their sight
 Of objects dim and small : 
But Tim had specks within his eyes, 
 And could not see at all. 

Now Tim he wooed a servant maid, 
 And took her to his arms; 
For he, like Pyramus, had cast 
 A wall-eye on her charms.

By day she led him up and down. 
 Where'er he wished to jog,
A happy wife, altho' she led 
 The life of any dog.

But just when Tim had lived a month
 In honey with his wife, 
A surgeon ope'd his Milton eyes,
 Like oysters, with a knife. 

But when his eyes were opened thus, 
 He wished them dark again : 
For when he looked upon his wife, 
 He saw her very plain.

Her face was bad, her figure worse,
 He couldn't bear to eat :
For she was anything but like 
 A grace before his meat.

Now Tim he was a feeling man : 
 For when his sight was thick 
It made him feel for everything -
 But that was with a stick.

So, with a cudgel in his hand 
 It was not light or slim -
He knocked at his wife's head until 
 It opened unto him. 

And when the corpse was stiff and cold,
 He took his slaughtered spouse, 
And laid her in a heap with all 
 The ashes of her house. 

But like a wicked murderer,
 He lived in constant fear 
From day to day, and so he cut 
 His throat from ear to ear. 

The neighbours fetched a doctor in :
 Said he, "'This wound I dread 
Can hardly be sewed up -
 his life Is hanging on a thread." 

But when another week was gone, 
 He gave him stronger hope -
Instead of hanging on a thread,
 Of hanging on a rope. 

Ah ! when he hid his bloody work 
 In ashes round about, 
How little he supposed the truth 
 Would soon be sifted out. 

But when the parish dustman came,
 His rubbish to withdraw,
He found more dust within the heap
 Than he contracted for ! 

A dozen men to try the fact 
 Were sworn that very day ;
But though they all were jurors, yet
 No conjurors were they. 

Said Tim unto those jurymen, 
 You need not waste your breath, 
For I confess myself at once
 The author of her death.

And, oh ! when I refect upon
 The blood that I have spilt,
Just like a button is my soul, 
 Inscribed with double guilt ! 

Then turning round his head again, 
 He saw before his eyes, 
A great judge, and a little judge, 
 The judges of a-size ! 

The great judge took his judgment cap, 
 And put it on his head, 
And sentenced Tim by law to hang 
 Till he was three times dead. 

So he was tried, and he was hung
 (Fit punishment for such) 
On Horsham-drop, and none can say
 It was a drop too much.

MATH & COMPUTER STUFF

"Electronically Yours"
-- Gerald Jonas

   Baud: the rate of speed at which information is
   sent between two computer devices,
   for example, modems.

From 1200 plus, our baud
declined. At under 300, a blank.
EXIT. Or so I thought. But bits
of you 
were saved, it seems, to memory's
soft disk. I found a file called
HIDDEN FILES. Delete ?

"Telnet Song"
-- Guy L. Steele, Jr.

There is a program called TELNET to get to another CPU.
Control up-arrow is the escape; it's doubled to send it through,
and "quit" is control up-arrow Q.

A hacker once used TELNET to get to another CPU.
He knew he could quit whenever he wanted to: all he had to do was type
control up-arrow Q.

Instead the hacker used TEL-NET to get to another CPU.
He knew he could quit whenever he wanted to: all he had to do was type
control up-arrow [at i-th time, repeat 2^i times]
Q.
[repeat verse n times; the choice of n is free]

The hacker soon got bored with this, and wanted to get back.
He sighed, and started the exponential popping of the stack:

The hacked flushed the TEL-NET to the most distant CPU:
He couldn't log out until he had killed them all,
counting up powers of two: he typed
control up-arrow [at i-th time, repeat 2^(n-i+1) times]
Q. [repeat n times]

Whew!

The hacker's eyes were bloodshot; his fingers, black and blue;
He wanted to log out and and go home to bed, and sleep for a day or two.
He typed L O G O U T ... carriage return ...

The hacker was on a network with only twenty CPU's.
But if he had telnetted to them all,
he would not yet be through with typing
control up-arrow [repeat 7 times]
Q!

"Math Is Beautiful and So Are You"
-- Becky Dennison Sakellariou

If n is an even number
*then I'll kiss you goodnight right here,*
but if the modulus k is the unique solution,
*I'll take you in my arms for the long night.*

When the properties are constrained as well as incomplete,
*I'll be getting off the train at this stop.*
However, if there is some positive constant,
*then I'll stay on board for a while longer.*

When it says that the supremum deviates from the least zero,
*my heart closes off.*
But if all moments are infinite and you can hear me,
*I will open out for you.*

This sequence satisfies the hypothesis of uniformity,
and because we know that approximation is possible
and that inequality is an embedding factor,
*come, let's try once more.*

"Mathematicians at Work"
-- Judith Saunders

hunker down on their hands and knees
and sniff the problem
poke it with ungentle fingers
rub it raw with steel wool
wad it up in a ball and cackle
then pound it flat with little mallets
watch it rise like dough (uh oh)
resume its original shape
screech, swing at it with hatchets
spatter the walls with oozing fragments
stare horrified at the shattered bits
reassembling themselves, jump up
attack the problem with icepicks
gouge holes six inches deep
and seven inches across
(chew the mangled matter
spit it out and belch) kick the thing
into a corner, remove their belts
and beat it senseless, walk off
with the answer in their pockets.

"Love and Tensor Algebra"
-- Stanislaw Lem

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustrum longs to be a cone
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in our bound partition never part.

For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel,
Or Fourier, or any Bools or Euler,
Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers,
Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell?

Cancel me not - for what then shall remain?
Abscissas some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

Ellipse of bliss, converge, O lips divine!
the product o four scalars is defines!
Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind
Cuts capers like a happy haversine.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die,
Had he but known such a^2 cos 2 phi!

[Teehee!  Who says mathematics can't be romantic!]

DEFIES CATEGORIZATION STUFF

"Diving into the Wreck"
-- Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

"Health Fanatic"
-- John Cooper Clarke

Around the block, against the clock:
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock;
running out of breath, running out of socks;
rubber on the road; flippety flop;
non-skid agility; chop chop,
no time to hang about!
Work out, health fanatic, work out.

The crack of dawn, lifting weights;
a tell-tale heart reverberates;
high in polyunsaturates,
low in polysaturates;
a Duke of Edinburgh's award awaits.
It's a man's life;
he's a health fanatic; so was his wife.

A one-man war against decay.
Enjoys himself the hard way;
allows himself a Mars a day.
"How old am I? What do I weigh?
Punch me there! Does it hurt? No way!"
Running on the spot, don't get too hot;
he's a health fanatic, that's why not.

Peanut power; stay ahead,
running through the traffic jam taking in the lead.
Hyperactivity keeps him out of bed.
Deep down he'd like to kick it in the head.
They'll regret it when they're dead:
there's more to life than fun;
he's a health fanatic; he's got to run.

Beans, greens and tangerines
and low cholesterol margarines;
his limbs are loose, his teeth are clean;
he's a high octane fresh-air fiend.
You've got to admit he's keen.
What can you do but be impressed;
he's a health fanatic. Give it a rest!

Shadow-boxing; punch the wall;
One-a-side football;
"What's the score?" "One all."
Could have been a copper; too small.
Could have been a jockey; too tall.
Knees up, knees up! Head the ball!
Nervous energy makes him tick;
he's a health fanatic. He makes you sick!

"Heaven"
-- Rupert Brooke

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near --
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

"Eros Turannos"
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson

She fears him, and will always ask 
What fated her to choose him; 
She meets in his engaging mask 
All reason 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 by 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.

"An Infinite Number of Monkeys"
-- Ronald Koertge

After all the Shakespeare, the book
of poems they type is the saddest
in history.

But before they can finish it,
they have to wait for that Someone
who is always

looking to look away. Only then
can they strike the million
keys that spell

humiliation and grief, which are
the great subjects of Monkey
Literature

and not, as some people still
believe, the banana
and the tire.

"Recompense"
-- Robert E. Howard

I have not heard lutes beckon me, nor the brazen bugles call,
But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall.
I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled,
But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world.

I have not seen the horsemen fall before the hurtling host,
But I have paced a silent hall where each step waked a ghost.
I have not kissed the tiger-feet of a strange-eyed golden god,
But I have walked a city's street where no man else had trod.

I have not raised the canopies that shelter revelling kings,
But I have fled from crimson eyes and black unearthly wings.
I have not knelt outside the door to kiss a pallid queen,
But I have seen a ghostly shore that no man else has seen.

I have not seen the standards sweep from keep and castle wall,
But I have seen a woman leap from a dragon's crimson stall,
And I have heard strange surges boom that no man heard before,
And seen a strange black city loom on a mystic night-black shore.

And I have felt the sudden blow of a nameless wind's cold breath,
And watched the grisly pilgrims go that walk the roads of Death,
And I have seen black valleys gape, abysses in the gloom,
And I have fought the deathless Ape that guards the Doors of Doom.

I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad's haste,
But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy waste.
I have not died as men may die, nor sin as men have sinned,
But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite wind.

"The New Poetry Handbook"
-- Mark Strand

1  If a man understands a poem,
 he shall have troubles. 
2  If a man lives with a poem,
 he shall die lonely. 
3  If a man lives with two poems,
 he shall be unfaithful to one. 
4  If a man conceives of a poem,
 he shall have one less child. 
5  If a man conceives of two poems,
 he shall have two children less. 
6  If a man wears a crown on his head as he writes,
 he shall be found out. 
7  If a man wears no crown on his head as he writes,
 he shall deceive no one but himself. 
8  If a man gets angry at a poem,
 he shall be scorned by men. 
9  If a man continues to be angry at a poem,
 he shall be scorned by women. 
10  If a man publicly denounces poetry,
 his shoes will fill with urine. 
11  If a man gives up poetry for power,
 he shall have lots of power. 
12  If a man brags about his poems,
 he shall be loved by fools. 
13  If a man brags about his poems and loves fools,
 he shall write no more. 
14  If a man craves attention because of his poems,
 he shall be like a jackass in moonlight. 
15  If a man writes a poem and praises the poem of a fellow,
 he shall have a beautiful mistress. 
16  If a man writes a poem and praises the poem of a fellow overly,
 he shall drive his mistress away. 
17  If a man claims the poem of another,
 his heart shall double in size. 
18  If a man lets his poems go naked,
 he shall fear death. 
19  If a man fears death,
 he shall be saved by his poems. 
20  If a man does not fear death,
 he may or may not be saved by his poems. 
21  If a man finishes a poem,
 he shall bathe in the blank wake of his passion
 and be kissed by white paper.

"The Amores"
-- Ovid (translated by Peter Green)

Fair's fair now, Venus. This girl's got me hooked. All I'm asking from her
Is love - or at least some future hope for my own
Eternal devotion. No, even that's too much--hell, just let me love her!
(Listen, Venus: I've asked you so often now.)
Say yes, pet. I'd be your slave for years, for a lifetime.
Say yes--unswerving fidelity's my strong suit.
I may not have top-drawer connections, I can't produce blue-blooded
Ancestors to impress you, my father's plain middle-class,
And there aren't any squads of ploughmen to deal with my broad acres -
My parents are both pretty thrifty, and need to be.
What have I got on my side, then?  Poetic genius, sweetheart,
Divine inspiration. And love. I'm yours to command -
Unswerving faithfulness, morals above suspicion
Naked simplicity, a born-to-the-purple blush.
I don't chase thousands of girls, I'm no sexual circus-rider;
Honestly, all I want is to look after you
Till death do us part, have the two of us living together
All my time, and know you'll cry for me when I'm gone.
Besides, when you give me yourself, what you'll be providing
Is creative material. My art will rise to the theme
And immortalise you. Look, why do you think we remember
The swan-upping of Leda, or Io's life as a cow,
Or poor virgin Europa whisked off overseas, clutching
That so-called bull by the - horn?  Through poems, of course.
So you and I, love, will enjoy that same world-wide publicity,
And our names will be linked, forever, with the gods.

"the lesson of the moth"
-- Don Marquis

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy

[Background info: The narrator is a poet reincarnated in a cockroach's
body. He types by jumping on the keys of a typewriter, hence the lack
of caps. Go here to read more about archy and his friend Mehitabel the
cat (who is a reincarnation of Cleopatra).]

"The Wolf's Postscript to 'Little Red Riding Hood"
-- Agha Shahid Ali

First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn't wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn't speak to strangers.

And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn't I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn't know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before?

And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you'll agree she was pretty.

And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.

"The Wind and the Sea"
-- Paul Dunbar

I stood by the shore at the death of day,
As the sun sank flaming red;
And the face of the waters that spread away
Was as gray as the face of the dead.

And I heard the cry of the wanton sea
And the moan of the wailing wind;
For love's sweet pain in his heart had he,
But the gray old sea had sinned.

The wind was young and the sea was old,
But their cries went up together;
The wind was warm and the sea was cold,
For age makes wintry weather.

So they cried aloud and they wept amain,
Till the sky grew dark to hear it;
And out of its folds crept the misty rain,
In its shroud, like a troubled spirit.

For the wind was wild with a hopeless love,
And the sea was sad at heart
At many a crime that he wot of,
Wherein he had played his part.

He thought of the gallant ships gone down
By the will of his wicked waves;
And he thought how the churchyard in the town
Held the sea-made widows' graves.

The wild wind thought of the love he had left
Afar in an Eastern land,
And he longed, as long the much bereft,
For the touch of her perfumed hand.

In his winding wail and his deep-heaved sigh
His aching grief found vent;
While the sea looked up at the bending sky
And murmured: "I repent."

But e'en as he spoke, a ship came by,
That bravely ploughed the main,
And a light came into the sea's green eye,
And his heart grew hard again.

Then he spoke to the wind: "Friend, seest thou not
Yon vessel is eastward bound?
Pray speed with it to the happy spot
Where thy loved one may be found."

And the wind rose up in a dear delight,
And after the good ship sped;
But the crafty sea by his wicked might
Kept the vessel ever ahead.

Till the wind grew fierce in his despair,
And white on the brow and lip.
He tore his garments and tore his hair,
And fell on the flying ship.

And the ship went down, for a rock was there,
And the sailless sea loomed black;
While burdened again with dole and care,
The wind came moaning back.

And still he moans from his bosom hot
Where his raging grief lies pent,
And ever when the ships come not,
The sea says: "I repent."

"Brave World"
-- Tony Hoagland

But what about the courage
of the cancer cell
that breaks out from the crowd
it has belonged to all its life

like a housewife erupting
from her line at the grocery store
because she just can't stand
the sameness anymore?

What about the virus that arrives
in town like a traveler
from somewhere faraway
with suitcases in hand,

who only wants a place
to stay, a chance to get ahead
in the land of opportunity,
but who smells bad,

talks funny, and reproduces fast?
What about the microbe that
hurls its tiny boat straight
into the rushing metabolic tide,

no less cunning and intrepid
than Odysseus; that gambles all
to found a city
on an unknown shore?

What about their bill of rights,
their access to a full-scale,
first-class destiny?
their chance to realize

maximum potential?-which, sure,
will come at the expense
of someone else, someone
who, from a certain point of view,

is a secondary character,
whose weeping is almost
too far off to hear,

a noise among the noises
coming from the shadows
of any brave new world.

"Self-Improvement"
-- Tony Hoagland

Just before she flew off like a swan
to her wealthy parents' summer home,
Bruce's college girlfriend asked him
to improve his expertise at oral sex,
and offered him some technical advice:

Use nothing but his tonguetip
to flick the light switch in his room
on and off a hundred times a day
until he grew fluent at the nuances
of force and latitude.

Imagine him at practice every evening,
more inspired than he ever was at algebra,
beads of sweat sprouting on his brow,
thinking, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,
seeing, in the tunnel vision of his mind's eye,
the quadratic equation of her climax
yield to the logic
of his simple math.

Maybe he unscrewed
the bulb from his apartment ceiling
so that passersby would not believe
a giant firefly was pulsing
its electric abdomen in 13 B.

Maybe, as he stood
two inches from the wall,
in darkness, fogging the old plaster
with his breath, he visualized the future
as a mansion standing on the shore
that he was rowing to
with his tongue's exhausted oar.

Of course, the girlfriend dumped him:
met someone, apres-ski, who,
using nothing but his nose
could identify the vintage of a Cabernet.

Sometimes we are asked
to get good at something we have
no talent for,
or we excel at something we will never
have the opportunity to prove.

Often we ask ourselves
to make absolute sense
out of what just happens,
and in this way, what we are practicing

is suffering,
which everybody practices,
but strangely few of us
grow graceful in.

The climaxes of suffering are complex,
costly, beautiful, but secret.
Bruce never played the light switch again.

So the avenues we walk down,
full of bodies wearing faces,
are full of hidden talent:
enough to make pianos moan,
sidewalks split,
streetlights deliriously flicker.