by
John Ashbery
Something strange is creeping across me.
La Celestina has only to warble the first few bars
Of "I Thought about You" or something mellow from
Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can
Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue rams the 2300 block of Highland
Fling Terrace. He promised he'd get me out of this one,
That mean old cartoonist, but just look what he's
Done to me now! I scarce dare approach me mug's attenuated
Reflection in yon hubcap, so jaundiced, so déconfit
Are its lineaments--fun, no doubt, for some quack phrenologist's
Fern-clogged waiting room, but hardly what you'd call
Companionable. But everything is getting choked to the point of
Silence. Just now a magnetic storm hung in the swatch of sky
Over the Fudds' garage, reducing it--drastically--
To the aura of a plumbago-blue log cabin on
A Gadsden Purchase commemorative cover. Suddenly all is
Loathing. I don't want to go back inside any more. You meet
Enough vague people on this emerald traffic-island--no,
Not people, comings and goings, more: mutterings, splatterings,
The bizarrely but effectively equipped infantries of
happy-go-nutty
Vegetal jacqueries, plumed, pointed at the little
White cardboard castle over the mill run. "Up
The lazy river, how happy we could be?"
How will it end? That geranium glow
Over Anaheim's had the riot act read to it by the
Etna-size firecracker that exploded last minute into
A carte du Tendre in whose lower right-hand corner
(Hard by the jock-itch sand-trap that skirts
The asparagus patch of algolagnic nuits blanches) Amadis
Is cozening the Princesse de Cleves into a midnight
micturition spree
On the Tamigi with the Wallets (Walt, Blossom, and little
Sleezix) on a lamé barge "borrowed" from Ollie
Of the Movies' dread mistress of the robes. Wait!
I have an announcement! This wide, tepidly meandering,
Civilized Lethe (one can barely make out the maypoles
And châlets de nécessitê on its sedgy shore)
leads to Tophet, that
Landfill-haunted, not-so-residential resort from which
Some travellers return! This whole moment is the groin
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us in his sleep. Farewell bocages,
Tanneries, water-meadows. The allegory comes unsnarled
Too soon; a shower of pecky acajou harpoons is
About all there is to be noted between tornadoes. I have
Only my intermittent life in your thoughts to live
Which is like thinking in another language. Everything
Depends on whether somebody reminds you of me.
That this is a fabulation, and that those "other times"
Are in fact the silences of the soul, picked out in
Diamonds on stygian velvet, matters less than it should.
Prodigies of timing may be arranged to convince them
We live in one dimension, they in ours. While I
Abroad through all the coasts of dark destruction seek
Deliverance for us all, think in that language: its
Grammar, though tortured, offers pavillions
At each new parting of the ways. Pastel
Ambulances scoop up the quick and hie them to hospitals.
"It's all bits and pieces, spangles, patches, really; nothing
Stands alone. What happened to creative evolution?"
Sighed Aglavaine. Then to her Sélysette: "If his
Achievement is only to end up less boring than the others,
What's keeping us here? Why not leave at once?
I have to stay here while they sit in there,
Laugh, drink, have fine time. In my day
One lay under the tough green leaves,
Pretending not to notice how they bled into
The sky's aqua, the wafted-away no-color of regions supposed
Not to concern us. And so we too
Came where the others came: nights of physical endurance,
Or if, by day, our behavior was anarchically
Correct, at least by New Brutalism standards, all then
Grew taciturn by previous agreement. We were spirited
Away en bateau, under cover of fudge dark.
It's not the incomplete importunes, but the spookiness
Of the finished product. True, to ask less were folly, yet
If he is the result of himself, how much the better
For him we ought to be! And how little, finally,
We take this into account! Is the puckered garance satin
Of a case that once held a brace of dueling pistols our
Only acknowledging of that color? I like not this,
Methinks, yet this disappointing sequel to ourselves
Has been applauded in London and St. Petersburg. Somewhere
Ravens pray for us." The storm finished brewing. And thus
She questioned all who came in at the great gate, but none
She found who ever heard of Amadis,
Nor of stern Aureng-Zebe, his first love. Some
They were to whom this mattered not a jot: since all
By definition is completeness (so
In utter darkness they reasoned), why not
Accept it as it pleases to reveal itself? As when
Low skyscrapers from lower-hanging clouds reveal
A turret there, an art-deco escarpment here, and last perhaps
The pattern that may carry the sense, but
Stays hidden in the mysteries of pagination.
Not what we see but how we see it matters; all's
Alike, the same, and we greet him who announces
The change as we would greet the change itself.
All life is but a figment; conversely, the tiny
Tome that slips from your hand is not perhaps the
Missing link in this invisible picnic whose leverage
Shrouds our sense of it. Therefore bivouac we
On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by
Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is
Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up
Over the horizon like a boy
On a fishing expedition. No one really knows
Or cares whether this is the whole of which parts
Were vouchsafed--once--but to be ambling on's
The tradition more than the safekeeping of it. This mulch for
Play keeps them interested and busy while the big,
Vaguer stuff can decide what it wants--what maps, what
Model cities, how much waste space. Life, our
Life anyway, is between. We don't mind
Or notice any more that the sky is green, a parrot
One, but have our earnest where it chances on us,
Disingenuous, intrigued, inviting more,
Always invoking the echo, a summer's day.
|
by
David Lehman
for Jim Cummins
In Iowa, Jim dreamed that Della Street was Anne Sexton's
twin. Dave drew a comic strip called the "Adventures of Whitman,"
about a bearded beer-guzzler in Superman uniform. Donna dressed
like Wallace Stevens
in a seersucker summer suit. To town came Ted Berrigan,
saying, "My idea of a bad poet is Marvin Bell."
But no one has won as many prizes as Philip Levine.
At the restaurant, people were talking about Philip Levine's
latest: the Pulitzer. A toast was proposed by Anne Sexton.
No one saw the stranger, who said his name was Marvin Bell,
pour something into Donna's drink. "In the Walt Whitman
Shopping Center, there you feel free," said Ted Berrigan,
pulling on a Chesterfield. Everyone laughed, except T. S. Eliot.
I asked for directions. "You turn right on Gertrude Stein,
then bear left. Three streetlights down you hang a Phil Levine
and you're there," Jim said. When I arrived I saw Ted Berrigan
with cigarette ash in his beard. Graffiti about Anne Sexton
decorated the men's room walls. Beth had bought a quart of Walt
Whitman.
Donna looked blank. "Walt who?" The name didn't ring a Marvin Bell.
You laugh, yet there is nothing inherently funny about Marvin Bell.
You cry, yet there is nothing inherently scary about Robert Lowell.
You drink a bottle of Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale, as thirsty as
Walt Whitman.
You bring in your car for an oil change, thinking, this place has the aura
of Philip Levine.
Then you go home and write: "He kissed her Anne Sexton, and she
returned the favor, caressing his Ted Berrigan."
Donna was candid. "When the spirit of Ted Berrigan
comes over me, I can't resist," she told Marvin Bell,
while he stood dejected at the xerox machine. Anne Sexton
came by to circulate the rumor that Robert Duncan
had flung his drink on a student who had called him Philip Levine.
The cop read him the riot act. "I don't care," he said, "if you're Walt
Whitman."
Donna told Beth about her affair with Walt Whitman.
"He was indefatigable, but he wasn't Ted Berrigan."
The Dow Jones industrials finished higher, led by Philip Levine,
up a point and a half on strong earnings. Marvin Bell
ended the day unchanged. Analyst Richard Howard
recommended buying May Swenson and selling Anne Sexton.
In the old days, you liked either Walt Whitman or Anne Sexton,
not both. Ted Berrigan changed that just by going to a ballgame with
Marianne Moore.
And one day Philip Levine looked in the mirror and saw Marvin Bell.
|
by
Robert Hayden
Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.
|
by
Charlotte Bronte
A Short Poem or Else Not Say I
True pleasure breathes not city air,
Nor in Art's temples dwells,
In palaces and towers where
The voice of Grandeur dwells.
No! Seek it where high Nature holds
Her court 'mid stately groves,
Where she her majesty unfolds,
And in fresh beauty moves;
Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
The wildly rushing storm
And hundred streams which glide along,
Her mighty concert form!
Go where the woods in beauty sleep
Bathed in pale Luna's light,
Or where among their branches sweep
The hollow sounds of night.
Go where the warbling nightingale
In gushes rich doth sing,
Till all the lonely, quiet vale
With melody doth ring.
Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
And view the prospect round;
The hills and vales, the valley's sweep,
The far horizon bound.
Then view the wide sky overhead,
The still, deep vault of blue,
The sun which golden light doth shed,
The clouds of pearly hue.
And as you gaze on this vast scene
Your thoughts will journey far,
Though hundred years should roll between
On Time's swift-passing car.
To ages when the earth was yound,
When patriarchs, grey and old,
The praises of their god oft sung,
And oft his mercies told.
You see them with their beards of snow,
Their robes of ample form,
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
Felt seldom passion's storm.
Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
Into your inmost mind;
A quiet aura your spirit feels,
A softened stillness kind.
|
by
Andrew Marvell
Quid facis Arctoi charissime transfuga coeli,
Ingele, proh sero cognite, rapte cito?
Num satis Hybernum defendis pellibus Astrum,
Qui modo tam mollis nec bene firmus eras?
Quae Gentes Hominum, quae sit Natura Locorum,
Sint Homines, potius dic ibi sintre Loca?
Num gravis horrisono Polus obruit omnia lapsu,
Jungitur & praeceps Mundas utraque nive?
An melius canis horrescit Campus Aristis,
Amuius Agricolis & redit Orbe labor?
Incolit, ut fertur, saevam Gens mitior Oram,
Pace vigil, Bello strenua, justa Foro.
Quin ibi sunt Urbes, atque alta Palatia Regum,
Musarumque domus, & sua Templa Deo.
Nam regit Imperio populum Christina ferocem,
Et dare jura potest regia Virgo viris.
Utque trahit rigidum Magnes Aquilone Metallum,
Gandet eam Soboles ferrea sponte sequii.
Dic quantum liceat fallaci credere Famae,
Invida num taceat plura, sonet ve loquax.
At, si vera fides, Mundi melioris ab ortu,
Saecula Christinae nulla tulere parem.
Ipsa licet redeat (nostri decus orbis) Eliza,
Qualis nostra tamen quantaque Eliza fuit.
Vidimus Effigiem, mistasque Coloribus Umbras:
Sic quoque Sceptripotens, sic quoque visa Dea.
Augustam decorant (raro concordia) frontem
Majestas & Amor, Forma Pudorque simul.
Ingens Virgineo spirat Gustavus in ore:
Agnoscas animos, fulmineumque Patrem.
Nulla suo nituit tam lucida Stella sub Axe;
Non Ea quae meruit Crimine Nympha Polum.
Ah quoties pavidum demisit conscia Lumen,
Utque suae timuit Parrhasis Ora Deae!
Et, simulet falsa ni Pictor imagine Vultus,
Delia tam similis nec fuit ipsa sibi.
Ni quod inornati Triviae sint forte Capilli,
Sollicita sed buic distribuantur Acu.
Scilicet ut nemo est illa reverentior aequi;
Haud ipsas igitur fert sine Lege Comas.
Gloria sylvarum pariter communis utrique
Est, & perpetuae Virginitatis Honos.
Sic quoque Nympharum supereminet Agmina collo,
Fertque Choros Cynthi per Juga, per Nives.
Haud aliter pariles Ciliorum contrahit Arcus
Acribus ast Oculis tela subesse putes.
Luminibus dubites an straverit illa Sagittis
Quae foret exuviis ardua colla Feram.
Alcides humeros coopertus pelle Nemaea
Haud ita labentis sustulit Orbis Onus.
Heu quae Cervices subnectunt Pectora tales.
Frigidiora Gelu, candidiora Nive.
Caetera non licuit, sed vix ea tota, videre;
Nam chau fi rigido stant Adamante Sinus.
Seu chlamys Artifici nimium succurrerit auso,
Sicque imperfectum fugerit impar Opus:
Sive tribus spernat Victrix certare Deabus,
Et pretium formae nec spoliata ferat.
Junonis properans & clara Trophaea Minervae;
Mollia nam Veneris praemia nosse piget.
Hinc neque consuluit fugitivae prodiga Formae,
Nectimuit seris invigilasse Libris.
Insommem quoties Nymphae monuere sequaces
Decedet roseis heu color ille Genis.
Jamque vigil leni cessit Philomela sopori,
Omnibus & Sylvis conticuere Ferae.
Acrior illa tamen pergit, Curasque fatigat:
Tanti est doctorum volvere scripta Virum.
Et liciti quae sint moderamina discere Regni,
Quid fuerit, quid sit, noscere quicquid erit.
Sic quod in ingenuas Gothus peccaverit Artes
Vindicat, & studiis expiat Una suis.
Exemplum dociles imitantur nobile Gentes,
Et geminis Infans imbuit Ora sonis.
Transpositos Suecis credas migrasse Latinos,
Carmine Romuleo sic strepit omne Nemus.
Upsala nec priscis impar memoratur Athenis,
Aegidaque & Currus hic sua Pallas habet.
Illinc O quales liceat sperasse Liquores,
Quum Dea praesideat fontibus ipsa sacris!
Illic Lacte ruant illic & flumina Melle,
Fulvaque inauratam tingat Arena Salam.
Upsalides Musae nunc & majora conemus,
Quaeque mihi Famae non levis Aura tulit.
Creditur haud ulli Christus signasse suorum
Occultam gemina de meliore Notam.
Quemque tenet charo descriptum Nomine semper,
Non minus exculptum Pectore fida refert.
Sola haec virgineas depascit Flamma Medullas,
Et licito pergit solvere corda foco.
Tu quoque Sanctorum fastos Christina sacrabis,
Unica nec Virgo Volsiniensis erit.
Discite nunc Reges (Majestas proxima coelo)
Discite proh magnos hinc coluisse Deos.
Ah pudeat Tanitos puerilia fingere coepta,
Nugas nescio quas, & male quaerere Opes.
Acer Equo cunctos dum praeterit illa Britanno,
Et pecoris spolium nescit inerme sequi.
Ast Aquilam poscit Germano pellere Nido,
Deque Palatino Monte fugare Lupam.
Vos etiam latos in praedam jungite Campos,
Impiaque arctatis cingite Lustra Plagis.
Victor Oliverus nudum Caput exerit Armis,
Ducere sive sequi nobile laetus Iter.
Qualis jam Senior Solymae Godfredus ad Arces,
Spina cui canis floruit alba comis.
Et lappos Christina potest & solvere Finnos,
Ultima quos Boreae carcere Claustra premunt.
Aeoliis quales Venti fremuere sub antris,
Et tentant Montis corripuisse moras.
Hanc Dea si summa demiserit Arce procellam
Quam gravis Austriacis Hesperiisque cadat!
Omnia sed rediens olim narraveris Ipse;
Nec reditus spero tempora longa petit.
Non ibi lenta pigro stringuntur frigore Verba,
Solibus, & tandem Vere liquanda novo.
Sed radiis hyemem Regina potentior urit;
Haecque magis solvit, quam ligat illa Polum.
Dicitur & nostros moerens andisse Labores,
Fortis & ingenuam Gentis amasse Fidem.
Oblatae Batavam nec paci commodat Aurem;
Nec versat Danos insidiosa dolos.
Sed pia festinat mutatis Foedera rebus,
Et Libertatem quae dominatur amat.
Digna cui Salomon meritos retulisset honores,
Et Saba concretum Thure cremasset Iter.
Hanc tua, sed melius, celebraverit, Ingele, Musa;
Et labor est vestrae debitus ille Lyrae.
Nos sine te frustra Thamisis saliceta subimus,
Sparsaque per steriles Turba vagamur Agros.
Et male tentanti querulum respondet Avena:
Quin & Rogerio dissiluere fides.
Haec tamen absenti memores dictamus Amico,
Grataque speramus qualiacumque fore.
|
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
A deep bell that links the downs
To the drowsy air;
Every loop of sound that swoons,
Finds a circle fair,
Whereon it doth rest and fade;
Every stroke that dins is laid
Like a node,
Spinning out the quivering, fine,
Vibrant tendrils of a vine:
(Bim - bim - bim.)
How they wreathe and run,
Silvern as a filmy light,
Filtered from the sun:
The god of sound is out of sight,
And the bell is like a cloud,
Humming to the outer rim,
Low and loud:
(Bim - bim - bim.)
Throwing down the tempered lull,
Fragile, beautiful:
Married drones and overtones,
How we fancy them to swim,
Spreading into shapes that shine,
With the aura of the metals,
Prisoned in the bell,
Fulvous tinted as a shell,
Dreamy, dim,
Deep in amber hyaline:
(Bim - bim - bim.)
|
by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 249] SONNET XVIII. Se quell' aura soave de' sospiri. SHE RETURNS IN PITY TO COMFORT HIM WITH HER ADVICE. If that soft breath of sighs, which, from above,I hear of her so long my lady here,Who, now in heaven, yet seems, as of our sphere,To breathe, and move, to feel, and live, and love,I could but paint, my passionate verse should moveWarmest desires; so jealous, yet so dearO'er me she bends and breathes, without a fear,That on the way I tire, or turn, or rove.She points the path on high: and I who knowHer chaste anxiety and earnest prayer,In whispers sweet, affectionate, and low,Train, at her will, my acts and wishes there:And find such sweetness in her words aloneAs with their power should melt the hardest stone.
|
by
Anne Sexton
Something
cold is in the air,
an aura of ice
and phlegm.
All day I've built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
The horizon bleeds
and sucks its thumb.
The little red thumb
goes out of sight.
And I wonder about
this lifetime with myself,
this dream I'm living.
I could eat the sky
like an apple
but I'd rather
ask the first star:
why am I here?
why do I live in this house?
who's responsible?
eh?
|
by
Les Murray
Sleeping-bagged in a duplex wing
with fleas, in rock-cleft or building
radar bats are darkness in miniature,
their whole face one tufty crinkled ear
with weak eyes, fine teeth bared to sing.
Few are vampires. None flit through the mirror.
Where they flutter at evening's a *****
tonal hunting zone above highest C.
Insect prey at the peak of our hearing
drone re to their detailing tee:
ah, eyrie-ire; aero hour, eh?
O'er our ur-area (our era aye
ere your raw row) we air our array
err, yaw, row wry - aura our orrery,
our eerie ü our ray, our arrow.
A rare ear, our aery Yahweh.
|
by
Du Fu
Qutang gorge mouth bend river bank 10,000 li wind mist join pale autumn Calyx secret wall through imperial energy Lotus little park enter border sorrow Pearl curtain embroider pillar surround yellow crane Brocade hawser ivory mast rise white gull Turn head can regret sing dance place Qin middle from old emperor place The mouth of the Qutang Gorge, the bank of the Bending River, Ten thousand miles of wind and mist join them in pale autumn. Through Calyx Hall's hidden passage the imperial aura passed, Now the little Lotus Park is filled with border sorrows. Pearls on curtains, embroidery on pillars, around the yellow cranes, From brocade hawsers and ivory masts rise the white gulls. I turn my head, sad now for the place of song and dance, Qin has been since olden days the land of emperors.
|