by
Shel Silverstein
Tell me who can
Catch a toucan?
Lou can.
Just how few can
Ride the toucan?
Two can.
What kind of goo can
Stick you to the toucan?
Glue can.
Who can write some
More about the toucan?
You can!
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by
Rg Gregory
(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there
poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving the poet's self
estranged from the once-intending man)
and six ears in the room have tuned
objectives sifting the coloured strands
the words have hidden from the poet
asking what world has come to light
people measured by their heartbeats
language can't flout that come-and-go
to touch the heartbeat in a poem
calls for the brain's surrender
a warm diffusion of the mind
a listening to an eery silence
the words both mimic and destroy
(no excuses slipping off the tongue)
and when a poem works the unknown
opens a timid shutter on a world
so familiar it's not been seen
before - and then it's gone bringing
a frisson to an altered room
and in a stuttering frenzy dusty
attributes are tried to resurrect
a glimpse of what it's like inside
a truth (the glow a glow-worm makes)
this is not (not much) what happens
there's serious concern and banter
there's opacity there's chit-chat
diversions and derailings from
a line some avalanche has blocked
(what a fine pass through the mountains)
poetry and fidgets are blood-brothers
it's within all these the cosmos calls
that makes these afternoons a rich
adventure through a common field
when three men moving towards death
(without alacrity but conscious of it)
find youth again and bubble with
its springs - opening worn valves
to give such flow their own direction
there's no need of competition
no wish to prove that one of us
holds keys the others don't to the
sacral chambers - no want to find
consensus in technique or drench
the rites of words in orthodox
belief - difference is essential
and delightful (integrity's all)
quality's a private quarrel
between the poem and the poet - taste
the private hang-up of receivers
mostly migrained by exposure
to opinions not their own - fed
from a culture no one bleeds in
sustained by reputations manured
by a few and spread by hearsay
(b)
these meetings are a modest vow
to let each poet speak uncluttered
from establishment's traditions
and conditions where passions rippling
from the marrow can choose a space
to innocent themselves and long-held
tastes for carlos williams gurney
poems to siva (to name a few)
can surface in a side-attempt
to show unexpected lineage from
the source to present patterns
of the poet - but at the core
of every poem read and comment made
it's not the poem or the poet
being sifted to the seed but
poetry itself given the works
the most despised belittled
enervated creative cowcake
of them all in the public eye
prestigious when it doesn't matter
to the clapped-out powers and turned
away from when too awkward and
impolitic to confront - ball
to be bounced from high art to low
when fights break out amongst the teachers
and shakespeare's wielded as a cane
as the rich old crusty clan reverts
to the days it hated him at school
but loved the beatings - loudhailer
broken-down old-banger any ram-it-
up-your-**** and suck-my-prick to those
who want to tear chintz curtains down
and shock the cosy populace to taste
life at its rawest (most obscene)
courtesan to fashion and today's
ploy - advertisement's gold gimmick
slave of beat and rhythm - dead but
much loved donkey in the hearts of all
who learned di-dah di-dah at school
and have been stuck in the custard since
plaything political-tool pop-
star's goo - poetry's been made to garb
itself in all these rags and riches
this age applauds the eye - is one
of outward exploration - the earth
(in life) and universe (in fiction)
are there for scurrying over - haste
is everything and the beat is all
fireworks feed the fancy - a great ah
rewards the enterprise that fills
night skies with flashing bountifuls
of way-out stars - poetry has to be
in service to this want (is fed
into the system gracelessly)
there can be no standing-still or
stopping-by no take a little time
and see what blossoms here - we're into
poetry in motion and all that ****
and i can accept it all - what stirs
the surface of the ocean ignores
the depths - what talks the hindlegs off
the day can't murder dreams - that's not
to say the depths and dreams aren't there
for those who need them - it's commonplace
they hold the keystones of our lives
i fear something else much deeper
the diabolical self-deceiving
(wilful destruction of the spirit)
by those loudspeaking themselves
as poetry's protectors - publishers
editors literature officers
poetry societies and centres
all all jumping on the flagship
competition's crock of gold
find the winners pick the famous
all the hopefuls cry please name us
aspiring poets search their wardrobes
for the wordy swimsuit likely
to catch the eyeful of the judges
(winners too in previous contests
inured to the needle of success
but this time though now they are tops
totally pissed-off with the process
only here because the money's good)
winners' middle name is wordsworth
losers swallow a dose of shame
organisers rub their golden hands
pride themselves on their discernment
these jacks have found the beanstalk
castle harp and the golden egg
the stupid giant and his frightened wife
who let them steal their best possessions
whose ear for poetry's so poor
they think fum rhymes with englishman
and so of course they get no prizes
thief and trickster now come rich
poetry's purpose is to hit the jackpot
so great the lust for poetic fame
thousands without a ghost of winning
find poems like mothballs in their drawers
sprinkle them with twinkling stardust
post them off with copperplate cheques
the judges wipe their arses on them
the money's gone to a super cause
everyone knows it's just a joke
who gets taken - the foolish and vain
if they're daft enough and such bad poets
more money than sense the best advice
is - keep it up grannies the cause
is noble and we'll take your cheque
again and again and again
it's the winners who fall in the bog
to win is to be preened - conceit
finds a little fluffy nest dear
to the feted heart and swells there
fed (for a foetal space) on all
the praisiest worms but in the nest
is a bloated thing that sucks (and chokes)
on hurt that has the knack of pecking
where there's malice - it grows two heads
winners by their nature soon become
winged and weighted - icarus begins
to prey upon their waking dreams
prometheus gnawed by eagles
the tight-shut box epimetheus
gave pandora about to burst
apart - yeats's centre cannot hold
being poets they know the references
and they learn the lesson quickly
climb upon others as they would
climb on you - in short be ruthless
or be dead they mostly fade away
being too intact or too weak-willed
to go the shining way with light-
ning bolts at every second bend
agents breathing fire up their pants
those who withstand the course become
the poets of their day (and every one
naturally good as gold - exceptions
to the rule - out of the hearing
and the judgment of their rivals)
the media covet the heartache
and the bile - love the new meteor
can't wait to blast it from the heavens
universities will start the cult
with-it secondary teachers catch
the name on fast - magazines begin
to taste the honey on the plate
and soon another name is buzzing
round the bars where literary pass-
ons meet to dole out bits of hem
i accept it all - it's not for me
above it all the literary lions
(jackals to each other) stand posed
upon their polystyrene mountains
constructed by their fans and foes
alike (they have such need of them)
disdaining what they see but terror-
stricken when newcomers climb up
waving their thin bright books
for so long they've dubbed themselves
the intellectual cream - deigning
to hand out poems when they're asked
(for proper recompense in cash
or fawning) - but well beyond the risk
of letting others turn the bleeders
down so sure they are they're halfway
to the gods (yet still need preening)
a poem from one of them is like
the loaves and fishes jesus touched
and rendered food for the five thousand
they too can walk on water in
their home - or so the reviewers say
poetry from their mouths is such a gift
if you don't read or understand it
you'll be damned - i accept all that
but what i can't accept is (all
this while) the source and bed of what
is poetry to me as cracked and parched -
condemned ignored made mock of
shoved in wilderness by those
who've gone the gilded route (mapped out
by ego and a driving need to claim
best prick with a capital pee)
it's being roomed with the said poem
coming back and back to the same
felt heartbeat having its way with words
absorbing the strains and promises
that make the language opt for paths
no other voice would go - shifting
a dull stone and knowing what bright
creature this instinct has bred there
it's trusting the poet with his own map
not wanting to tear it up before
the ink is dry because the symbols
he's been using don't suit your own
conception of terrain you've not
been born to - it's being pleased
to have connections made in ways
you couldn't dream of (wouldn't want to)
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by
Anne Sexton
Take away your knowledge, Doktor.
It doesn't butter me up.
You say my heart is sick unto.
You ought to have more respect!
you with the goo on the suction cup.
You with your wires and electrodes
fastened at my ankle and wrist,
sucking up the biological breast.
You with your zigzag machine
playing like the stock market up and down.
Give me the Phi Beta key you always twirl
and I will make a gold crown for my molar.
I will take a slug if you please
and make myself a perfectly good appendix.
Give me a fingernail for an eyeglass.
The world was milky all along.
I will take an iron and press out
my slipped disk until it is flat.
But take away my mother's carcinoma
for I have only one cup of fetus tears.
Take away my father's cerebral hemorrhage
for I have only a jigger of blood in my hand.
Take away my sister's broken neck
for I have only my schoolroom ruler for a cure.
Is there such a device for my heart?
I have only a gimmick called magic fingers.
Let me dilate like a bad debt.
Here is a sponge. I can squeeze it myself.
O heart, tobacco red heart,
beat like a rock guitar.
I am at the ship's prow.
I am no longer the suicide
with her raft and paddle.
Herr Doktor! I'll no longer die
to spite you, you wallowing
seasick grounded man.
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by
James Whitcomb Riley
THEY all climbed up on a high board-fence---
Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes---
Nine little Goblins that had no sense,
And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies;
And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat---
And I asked them what they were staring at.
And the first one said, as he scratched his head
With a ***** little arm that reached out of his ear
And rasped its claws in his hair so red---
"This is what this little arm is fer!"
And he scratched and stared, and the next one said,
"How on earth do you scratch your head ?"
Nine Little Gobblins
And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge---
Laughed and laughed till his face grew black;
And when he clicked, with a final twinge
Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back
With a fist that grew on the end of his tail
Till the breath came back to his lips so pale.
And the third little Goblin leered round at me---
And there were no lids on his eyes at all---
And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he,
"What is the style of your socks this fall ?"
And he clapped his heels---and I sighed to see
That he had hands where his feet should be.
Then a bald-faced Goblin, gray and grim,
Bowed his head, and I saw him slip
His eyebrows off, as I looked at him,
And paste them over his upper lip;
And then he moaned in remorseful pain---
"Would---Ah, would I'd me brows again!"
And then the whole of the Goblin band
Rocked on the fence-top to and fro,
And clung, in a long row, hand in hand,
Singing the songs that they used to know---
Singing the songs that their grandsires sung
In the goo-goo days of the Goblin-tongue.
And ever they kept their green-glass eyes
Fixed on me with a stony stare---
Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise,
And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair,
And I felt the heart in my breast snap to
As you've heard the lid of a snuff-box do.
And they sang "You're asleep! There is no board-fence,
And never a Goblin with green-glass eyes!---
"Tis only a vision the mind invents
After a supper of cold mince-pies,---
And you're doomed to dream this way," they said,---
"And you sha'n't wake up till you're clean plum dead!"
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by
William Barnes
In the zunsheen of our zummers
Wi’ the hay time now a-come,
How busy wer we out a-vield
Wi’ vew a-left at hwome,
When waggons rumbled out ov yard
Red wheeled, wi’ body blue,
And back behind ‘em loudly slamm’d
The geate a’vallen to.
Drough daysheen ov how many years
The geate ha’ now a-swung
Behind the veet o’ vull-grown men
And vootsteps of the young.
Drough years o’ days it swung to us
Behind each little shoe,
As we tripped lightly on avore
The geate a-vallen to.
In evenen time o’ starry night
How mother zot at hwome,
And kept her bleazen vier bright
Till father should ha’ come,
An' how she quicken'd up and smiled
An' stirred her vier anew,
To hear the trampen ho'ses’ steps
An' geate a-vallen to.
There’s moon-sheen now in nights o’ fall
When leaves be brown vrom green,
When, to the slammen o' the geate,
Our Jenny’s ears be keen,
When the wold dog do wag his tail,
An' Jean could tell to who,
As he do come in drough the geate,
The geate a-vallen to.
An' oft do come a saddened hour
When there must goo away
One well-beloved to our heart’s core,
Vor long, perhaps vor aye:
An' oh! it is a touchen thing
The loven heart must rue,
To hear behind his last farewell
The geate a-vallen to.
(William Barnes’s last dialect poem,
dictated shortly before his death.)
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by
William Barnes
'Ithin the woodlands, flow'ry gleaded,
By the woak tree's mossy moot,
The sheenen grass-bleades, timber-sheaded,
Now do quiver under voot;
An' birds do whissle over head,
An' water's bubblen in its bed,
An' there vor me the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.
When leaves that leately wer a-springen
Now do feade 'ithin the copse,
An' painted birds do hush their zingen
Up upon the timber's tops;
An' brown-leav'd fruit's a-turnen red,
In cloudless zunsheen, over head,
Wi' fruit vor me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.
Let other vo'k meake money vaster
In the air o' dark-room'd towns,
I don't dread a peevish measter;
Though noo man do heed my frowns,
I be free to goo abrode,
Or teake agean my hwomeward road
To where, vor me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.
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by
William Barnes
Since I noo mwore do zee your feace,
Up steairs or down below,
I’ll zit me in the lwonesome pleace,
Where flat-bough’d beech do grow;
Below the beeches’ bough, my love,
Where you did never come,
An’ I don’t look to meet ye now,
As I do look at hwome.
Since you noo mwore be at my zide,
In walks in zummer het,
I’ll goo alwone where mist do ride,
Drough trees a-drippen wet;
Below the rain-wet bough, my love,
Where you did never come,
An’ I don’t grieve to miss ye now,
As I do grieve at hwome.
Since now bezide my dinner-bwoard
Your vaice do never sound,
I’ll eat the bit I can avword,
A-vield upon the ground;
Below the darksome bough, my love,
Where you did never dine,
An’ I don’t grieve to miss ye now,
As I at hwome do pine.
Since I do miss your vaice an’ feace
In prayer at eventide,
I’ll pray wi’ woone sad vaice vor greace
To goo where you do bide;
Above the tree an’ bough, my love,
Where you be gone avore,
An’ be a-waiten vor me now,
To come vor evermwore.
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by
Ingeborg Bachmann
In the zunsheen of our zummers
Wi’ the hay time now a-come,
How busy wer we out a-vield
Wi’ vew a-left at hwome,
When waggons rumbled out ov yard
Red wheeled, wi’ body blue,
And back behind ‘em loudly slamm’d
The geate a’vallen to.
Drough daysheen ov how many years
The geate ha’ now a-swung
Behind the veet o’ vull-grown men
And vootsteps of the young.
Drough years o’ days it swung to us
Behind each little shoe,
As we tripped lightly on avore
The geate a-vallen to.
In evenen time o’ starry night
How mother zot at hwome,
And kept her bleazen vier bright
Till father should ha’ come,
An' how she quicken'd up and smiled
An' stirred her vier anew,
To hear the trampen ho'ses’ steps
An' geate a-vallen to.
There’s moon-sheen now in nights o’ fall
When leaves be brown vrom green,
When, to the slammen o' the geate,
Our Jenny’s ears be keen,
When the wold dog do wag his tail,
An' Jean could tell to who,
As he do come in drough the geate,
The geate a-vallen to.
An' oft do come a saddened hour
When there must goo away
One well-beloved to our heart’s core,
Vor long, perhaps vor aye:
An' oh! it is a touchen thing
The loven heart must rue,
To hear behind his last farewell
The geate a-vallen to.
(William Barnes’s last dialect poem,
dictated shortly before his death.)
|
by
Ingeborg Bachmann
Since I noo mwore do zee your feace,
Up steairs or down below,
I’ll zit me in the lwonesome pleace,
Where flat-bough’d beech do grow;
Below the beeches’ bough, my love,
Where you did never come,
An’ I don’t look to meet ye now,
As I do look at hwome.
Since you noo mwore be at my zide,
In walks in zummer het,
I’ll goo alwone where mist do ride,
Drough trees a-drippen wet;
Below the rain-wet bough, my love,
Where you did never come,
An’ I don’t grieve to miss ye now,
As I do grieve at hwome.
Since now bezide my dinner-bwoard
Your vaice do never sound,
I’ll eat the bit I can avword,
A-vield upon the ground;
Below the darksome bough, my love,
Where you did never dine,
An’ I don’t grieve to miss ye now,
As I at hwome do pine.
Since I do miss your vaice an’ feace
In prayer at eventide,
I’ll pray wi’ woone sad vaice vor greace
To goo where you do bide;
Above the tree an’ bough, my love,
Where you be gone avore,
An’ be a-waiten vor me now,
To come vor evermwore.
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by
William Barnes
The girt woak tree that's in the dell !
There's noo tree I do love so well;
Vor times an' times when I wer young
I there've a-climb'd, an' there've a-zwung,
An' pick'd the eacorns green, a-shed
In wrestlen storms from his broad head,
An' down below's the cloty brook
Where I did vish with line an' hook,
An' beat, in playsome dips and zwims,
The foamy stream, wi' white-skinn'd lim's.
An' there my mother nimbly shot
Her knitten-needles, as she zot
At evenen down below the wide
Woak's head, wi' father at her zide.
An' I've a-played wi' many a bwoy,
That's now a man an' gone awoy;
Zoo I do like noo tree so well
'S the girt woak tree that's in the dell.
An' there, in leater years, I roved
Wi' thik poor maid I fondly lov'd,-
The maid too feair to die so soon,-
When evenen twilight, or the moon,
Cast light enough 'ithin the pleace
To show the smiles upon her feace,
Wi' eyes so clear's the glassy pool,
An' lips an' cheaks so soft as wool.
There han' in han', wi' bosoms warm
Wi' love that burned but thought noo harm,
Below the wide-bough's tree we past
The happy hours that went too vast;
An' though she'll never be my wife,
She's still my leaden star o' life.
She's gone: an' she've a-left to me
Her token in the girt woak tree;
Zoo I do love noo tree so well
'S the girt woak tree that's in the dell.
An' oh ! mid never ax nor hook
Be brought to spweil his steately look;
Nor ever roun' his ribby zides
Mid cattle rub ther heairy hides;
Nor pigs rout up his turf, but keep
His lwonesome sheade vor harmless sheep;
An' let en grow, an' let en spread,
An' let en live when I be dead.
But oh! if men should come an' vell
The girt woak tree that's in the dell,
An' build his planks 'ithin the zide
O' zome girt ship to plough the tide,
Then, life or death ! I'd goo to sea,
A-sailen wi' the girt woak tree
An' I upon his planks would stand,
An' die a-fighten vor the land,-
The land so dear,-the land so free,-
The land that bore the girt woak tree;
Vor I do love noo tree so well
'S the girt woak tree that's in the dell.
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