Written by
Fleda Brown |
Sometimes I feel her easing further into her grave,
resigned, as always, and I have to come to her rescue.
Like now, when I have so much else to do.
Not that
she'd want a poem.
She would have been proud, of course,
of all its mystery, involving her, but scared a little.
Her eyes would have filled with tears.
It always comes
to that, I don't know why I bother.
One gesture
and she's gone down a well of raw feeling, and I'm left
alone again.
I avert my eyes, to keep from scaring her.
On her dresser is one of those old glass bottles
of Jergen's Lotion with the black label, a little round
bottle of Mum deodorant, a white plastic tray
with Avon necklaces and earrings, pennies, paper clips,
and a large black coat button.
I appear to be very
interested in these objects, even interested in the sun
through the blinds.
It falls across her face, and not,
as she changes the bed.
She would rather have clean sheets
than my poem, but as long as I don't bother her, she's glad
to know I care.
She's talked my father into taking
a drive later, stopping for an A & W root beer.
She is dreaming of foam on the glass, the tray propped
on the car window.
And trees, farmhouses, the expanse
of the world as seen from inside the car.
It is no
use to try to get her out to watch airplanes
take off, or walk a trail, or hear this poem
and offer anything more than "Isn't that sweet!"
Right now bombs are exploding in Kosovo, students
shot in Colorado, and my mother is wearing a root beer
mustache.
Her eyes are unfocused, everything's root beer.
I write root beer, root beer, to make her happy.
from Breathing In, Breathing Out, Anhinga Press, 2002
© 2000, Fleda Brown
(first published in The Southern Review, 36 [2000])
|
Written by
Elizabeth Bishop |
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely.
Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
|
Written by
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.
|
Written by
Thomas Hardy |
When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time,
And sedges were horny,
And summer's green wonderwork faltered
On leaze and in lane,
I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly
Came wheeling around me
Those phantoms obscure and insistent
That shadows unchain.
Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me
A low lamentation,
As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,
Perplexed, or in pain.
And, heeding, it awed me to gather
That Nature herself there
Was breathing in aerie accents,
With dirgeful refrain,
Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,
Had grieved her by holding
Her ancient high fame of perfection
In doubt and disdain .
.
.
- "I had not proposed me a Creature
(She soughed) so excelling
All else of my kingdom in compass
And brightness of brain
"As to read my defects with a god-glance,
Uncover each vestige
Of old inadvertence, annunciate
Each flaw and each stain!
"My purpose went not to develop
Such insight in Earthland;
Such potent appraisements affront me,
And sadden my reign!
"Why loosened I olden control here
To mechanize skywards,
Undeeming great scope could outshape in
A globe of such grain?
"Man's mountings of mind-sight I checked not,
Till range of his vision
Has topped my intent, and found blemish
Throughout my domain.
"He holds as inept his own soul-shell -
My deftest achievement -
Contemns me for fitful inventions
Ill-timed and inane:
"No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,
My moon as the Night-queen,
My stars as august and sublime ones
That influences rain:
"Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,
Immoral my story,
My love-lights a lure, that my species
May gather and gain.
"'Give me,' he has said, 'but the matter
And means the gods lot her,
My brain could evolve a creation
More seemly, more sane.
'
- "If ever a naughtiness seized me
To woo adulation
From creatures more keen than those crude ones
That first formed my train -
"If inly a moment I murmured,
'The simple praise sweetly,
But sweetlier the sage'--and did rashly
Man's vision unrein,
"I rue it! .
.
.
His guileless forerunners,
Whose brains I could blandish,
To measure the deeps of my mysteries
Applied them in vain.
"From them my waste aimings and futile
I subtly could cover;
'Every best thing,' said they, 'to best purpose
Her powers preordain.
' -
"No more such! .
.
.
My species are dwindling,
My forests grow barren,
My popinjays fail from their tappings,
My larks from their strain.
"My leopardine beauties are rarer,
My tusky ones vanish,
My children have aped mine own slaughters
To quicken my wane.
"Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,
And slimy distortions,
Let nevermore things good and lovely
To me appertain;
"For Reason is rank in my temples,
And Vision unruly,
And chivalrous laud of my cunning
Is heard not again!"
|
Written by
Aleister Crowley |
To-night I tread the unsubstantial way
That looms before me, as the thundering night
Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray
One little prayer, and then - what bitter fight
Flames at the end beyond the darkling goal?
These are my passions that my feet must read;
This is my sword, the fervour of my soul;
This is my Will, the crown upon my head.
For see! the darkness beckons: I have gone,
Before this terrible hour, towards the gloom,
Braved the wild dragon, called the tiger on
With whirling cries of pride, sought out the tomb
Where lurking vampires battened, and my steel
Has wrought its splendour through the gates of death
My courage did not falter: now I feel
My heart beat wave-wise, and my throat catch breath
As if I choked; some horror creeps between
The spirit of my will and its desire,
Some just reluctance to the Great Unseen
That coils its nameless terrors, and its dire
Fear round my heart; a devil cold as ice
Breathes somewhere, for I feel his shudder take
My veins: some deadlier asp or cockatrice
Slimes in my senses: I am half awake,
Half automatic, as I move along
Wrapped in a cloud of blackness deep as hell,
Hearing afar some half-forgotten song
As of disruption; yet strange glories dwell
Above my head, as if a sword of light,
Rayed of the very Dawn, would strike within
The limitations of this deadly night
That folds me for the sign of death and sin -
O Light! descend! My feet move vaguely on
In this amazing darkness, in the gloom
That I can touch with trembling sense.
There shone
Once, in my misty memory, in the womb
Of some unformulated thought, the flame
And smoke of mighty pillars; yet my mind
Is clouded with the horror of this same
Path of the wise men: for my soul is blind
Yet: and the foemen I have never feared
I could not see (if such should cross the way),
And therefore I am strange: my soul is seared
With desolation of the blinding day
I have come out from: yes, that fearful light
Was not the Sun: my life has been the death,
This death may be the life: my spirit sight
Knows that at last, at least.
My doubtful breath
Is breathing in a nobler air; I know,
I know it in my soul, despite of this,
The clinging darkness of the Long Ago,
Cruel as death, and closer than a kiss,
This horror of great darkness.
I am come
Into this darkness to attain the light:
To gain my voice I make myself as dumb:
That I may see I close my outer sight:
So, I am here.
My brows are bent in prayer:
I kneel already in the Gates of Dawn;
And I am come, albeit unaware,
To the deep sanctuary: my hope is drawn
From wells profounder than the very sea.
Yea, I am come, where least I guessed it so,
Into the very Presence of the Three
That Are beyond all Gods.
And now I know
What spiritual Light is drawing me
Up to its stooping splendour.
In my soul
I feel the Spring, the all-devouring Dawn,
Rush with my Rising.
There, beyond the goal,
The Veil is rent!
Yes: let the veil be drawn.
|
Written by
William Blake |
THEL'S MOTTO
1 Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
2 Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
3 Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
4 Or Love in a golden bowl?
I
1.
1 The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,
1.
2 All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,
1.
3 To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:
1.
4 Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard,
1.
5 And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew:
1.
6 "O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water,
1.
7 Why fade these children of the spring, born but to smile and fall?
1.
8 Ah! Thel is like a wat'ry bow, and like a parting cloud;
1.
9 Like a reflection in a glass; like shadows in the water;
1.
10 Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infant's face;
1.
11 Like the dove's voice; like transient day; like music in the air.
1.
12 Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head,
1.
13 And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice
1.
14 Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time.
"
1.
15 The Lily of the valley, breathing in the humble grass,
1.
16 Answer'd the lovely maid and said: "I am a wat'ry weed,
1.
17 And I am very small and love to dwell in lowly vales;
1.
18 So weak, the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head.
1.
19 Yet I am visited from heaven, and he that smiles on all
1.
20 Walks in the valley and each morn over me spreads his hand,
1.
21 Saying, 'Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-born lily-flower,
1.
22 Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks;
1.
23 For thou shalt be clothed in light, and fed with morning manna,
1.
24 Till summer's heat melts thee beside the fountains and the springs
1.
25 To flourish in eternal vales.
' Then why should Thel complain?
1.
26 Why should the mistress of the vales of Har utter a sigh?"
1.
27 She ceas'd and smil'd in tears, then sat down in her silver shrine.
1.
28 Thel answer'd: "O thou little virgin of the peaceful valley,
1.
29 Giving to those that cannot crave, the voiceless, the o'ertired;
1.
30 Thy breath doth nourish the innocent lamb, he smells thy milky garments,
1.
31 He crops thy flowers while thou sittest smiling in his face,
1.
32 Wiping his mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints.
1.
33 Thy wine doth purify the golden honey; thy perfume,
1.
34 Which thou dost scatter on every little blade of grass that springs,
1.
35 Revives the milked cow, and tames the fire-breathing steed.
1.
36 But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun:
1.
37 I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place?"
1.
38 "Queen of the vales," the Lily answer'd, "ask the tender cloud,
1.
39 And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky,
1.
40 And why it scatters its bright beauty thro' the humid air.
1.
41 Descend, O little Cloud, and hover before the eyes of Thel.
"
1.
42 The Cloud descended, and the Lily bow'd her modest head
1.
43 And went to mind her numerous charge among the verdant grass.
II
2.
1 "O little Cloud," the virgin said, "I charge thee tell to me
2.
2 Why thou complainest not when in one hour thou fade away:
2.
3 Then we shall seek thee, but not find.
Ah! Thel is like to thee:
2.
4 I pass away: yet I complain, and no one hears my voice.
"
2.
5 The Cloud then shew'd his golden head and his bright form emerg'd,
2.
6 Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel.
2.
7 "O virgin, know'st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs
2.
8 Where Luvah doth renew his horses? Look'st thou on my youth,
2.
9 And fearest thou, because I vanish and am seen no more,
2.
10 Nothing remains? O maid, I tell thee, when I pass away
2.
11 It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace and raptures holy:
2.
12 Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers,
2.
13 And court the fair-eyed dew to take me to her shining tent:
2.
14 The weeping virgin trembling kneels before the risen sun,
2.
15 Till we arise link'd in a golden band and never part,
2.
16 But walk united, bearing food to all our tender flowers.
"
2.
17 "Dost thou, O little Cloud? I fear that I am not like thee,
2.
18 For I walk thro' the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers,
2.
19 But I feed not the little flowers; I hear the warbling birds,
2.
20 But I feed not the warbling birds; they fly and seek their food:
2.
21 But Thel delights in these no more, because I fade away;
2.
22 And all shall say, 'Without a use this shining woman liv'd,
2.
23 Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?' "
2.
24 The Cloud reclin'd upon his airy throne and answer'd thus:
2.
25 "Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
2.
26 How great thy use, how great thy blessing! Every thing that lives
2.
27 Lives not alone nor for itself.
Fear not, and I will call
2.
28 The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice,
2.
29 Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.
"
2.
30 The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lily's leaf,
2.
31 And the bright Cloud sail'd on, to find his partner in the vale.
III
3.
1 Then Thel astonish'd view'd the Worm upon its dewy bed.
3.
2 "Art thou a Worm? Image of weakness, art thou but a Worm?
3.
3 I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lily's leaf
3.
4 Ah! weep not, little voice, thou canst not speak, but thou canst weep.
3.
5 Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless and naked, weeping,
3.
6 And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother's smiles.
"
3.
7 The Clod of Clay heard the Worm's voice and rais'd her pitying head:
3.
8 She bow'd over the weeping infant, and her life exhal'd
3.
9 In milky fondness: then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes.
3.
10 "O beauty of the vales of Har! we live not for ourselves.
3.
11 Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed.
3.
12 My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark;
3.
13 But he, that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head,
3.
14 And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast,
3.
15 And says: 'Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee
3.
16 And I have given thee a crown that none can take away.
'
3.
17 But how this is, sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know;
3.
18 I ponder, and I cannot ponder; yet I live and love.
"
3.
19 The daughter of beauty wip'd her pitying tears with her white veil,
3.
20 And said: "Alas! I knew not this, and therefore did I weep.
3.
21 That God would love a Worm I knew, and punish the evil foot
3.
22 That wilful bruis'd its helpless form; but that he cherish'd it
3.
23 With milk and oil I never knew, and therefore did I weep;
3.
24 And I complain'd in the mild air, because I fade away,
3.
25 And lay me down in thy cold bed, and leave my shining lot.
"
3.
26 "Queen of the vales," the matron Clay answer'd, "I heard thy sighs,
3.
27 And all thy moans flew o'er my roof, but I have call'd them down.
3.
28 Wilt thou, O Queen, enter my house? 'Tis given thee to enter
3.
29 And to return: fear nothing, enter with thy virgin feet.
"
IV
4.
1 The eternal gates' terrific porter lifted the northern bar:
4.
2 Thel enter'd in and saw the secrets of the land unknown.
4.
3 She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous roots
4.
4 Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:
4.
5 A land of sorrows and of tears where never smile was seen.
4.
6 She wander'd in the land of clouds thro' valleys dark, list'ning
4.
7 Dolours and lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave
4.
8 She stood in silence, list'ning to the voices of the ground,
4.
9 Till to her own grave plot she came, and there she sat down,
4.
10 And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit.
4.
11 "Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?
4.
12 Or the glist'ning Eye to the poison of a smile?
4.
13 Why are Eyelids stor'd with arrows ready drawn,
4.
14 Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie?
4.
15 Or an Eye of gifts and graces show'ring fruits and coined gold?
4.
16 Why a Tongue impress'd with honey from every wind?
4.
17 Why an Ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in?
4.
18 Why a Nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling, and affright?
4.
19 Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?
4.
20 Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?"
4.
21 The Virgin started from her seat, and with a shriek
4.
22 Fled back unhinder'd till she came into the vales of Har.
|
Written by
Gregory Corso |
My hands did numb to beauty
as they reached into Death and tightened!
O sovereign was my touch
upon the tan-inks's fragile page!
Quickly, my eyes moved quickly,
sought for smell for dust for lace
for dry hair!
I would have taken the page
breathing in the crime!
For no evidence have I wrung from dreams--
yet what triumph is there in private credence?
Often, in some steep ancestral book,
when I find myself entangled with leopard-apples
and torched-skin mushrooms,
my cypressean skein outreaches the recorded age
and I, as though tipping a pitcher of milk,
pour secrecy upon the dying page.
|
Written by
Philip Levine |
Green fingers
holding the hillside,
mustard whipping in
the sea winds, one blood-bright
poppy breathing in
and out.
The odor
of Spanish earth comes
up to me, yellowed
with my own piss.
40 miles from Málaga
half the world away
from home, I am home and
nowhere, a man who envies
grass.
Two oxen browse
yoked together in the green clearing
below.
Their bells cough.
When
the darkness and the wet roll in
at dusk they gather
their great slow bodies toward
the stalls.
If my spirit
descended now, it would be
a lost gull flaring against
a deepening hillside, or an angel
who cries too easily, or a single
glass of seawater, no longer blue
or mysterious, and still salty.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
what's that
i'm awake
a bang like a door or a foot
knocking a chair
who's there
tense i lie in my bed my face
stretching out on the black air
my ears strain.
.
.
.
.
.
a creak this time
like a cat on the stair - but we have no cat
if the door-handle turned and a.
.
.
.
shape came in.
.
.
.
.
darkness
clutches at my startled hair
spiders walk my skin
would i dare
to go for it with my fists - my fists
clench doped with sweat
would i scream
faint or lie there staring
my eyes pushing out in jets of fear
waiting for what - what would it do
a short nipped sound from the earwig night
drops in my ear
i sit up
pinching my breath - was it by the door
or the window - i can't be sure
i wait for the next sound for the
blade of the knife
i become aware
of the ticking clock.
.
.
and my father's
heavy breathing in the next room
the curtain moves and a faint light
like a living thing creeps on the bed
something - a twig - scratches on the pane
a car changes gear on a nearby hill
there is a creak in the house again
a door rattles in a hidden wind - an owl's cry
dogs barking - even a distant train - all
friendly and easy to explain
i relax
and yawn get out and stand by the window
looking out on the soft outlines of houses
silent lawns making my own peace with night
when i return to bed at last (all
tension gone) birds are standing
on the treetops bringing in the dawn
|