Written by
Kingsley Amis |
See her come bearing down, a tidy craft!
Gaily her topsails bulge, her sidelights burn!
There's jigging in her rigging fore and aft,
And beauty's self, not name, limned on her stern.
See at her head the Jolly Roger flutters!
"God, is she fully manned? If she's one short.
.
.
"
Cadet, bargee, longshoreman, shellback mutters;
Drowned is reason that should me comfort.
But habit, like a cork, rides the dark flood,
And, like a cork, keeps her in walls of glass;
Faint legacies of brine tingle my blood,
The tide-wind's fading echoes, as I pass.
Now, jolly ship, sign on a jolly crew:
God bless you, dear, and all who sail in you.
|
Written by
William Matthews |
I read to the entire plebe class,
in two batches.
Twice the hall filled
with bodies dressed alike, each toting
a copy of my book.
What would my
shrink say, if I had one, about
such a dream, if it were a dream?
Question and answer time.
"Sir," a cadet yelled from the balcony,
and gave his name and rank, and then,
closing his parentheses, yelled
"Sir" again.
"Why do your poems give
me a headache when I try
to understand them?" he asked.
"Do
you want that?" I have a gift for
gentle jokes to defuse tension,
but this was not the time to use it.
"I try to write as well as I can
what it feels like to be human,"
I started, picking my way care-
fully, for he and I were, after
all, pained by the same dumb longings.
"I try to say what I don't know
how to say, but of course I can't
get much of it down at all.
"
By now I was sweating bullets.
"I don't want my poems to be hard,
unless the truth is, if there is
a truth.
" Silence hung in the hall
like a heavy fabric.
My own
head ached.
"Sir," he yelled.
"Thank you.
Sir.
"
|