Written by
Aleister Crowley |
I to the open road,
You to the hunchbacked street -
Which of us two
Shall the earlier rue
That day we chanced to meet?
I with a heart that's sound,
You with sick fancies of pain -
Which of us two
Would the earlier rue
If we chanced to meet again?
I jingle homely lore,
While you rhyme is with kiss -
Which of us two
Will the earlier rue
The love of the Hoylake Miss?
Not I the first to go,
Nor I the first to deceive -
Which of us two
Shall the the earliest rue
Our garden of make-believe?
You were a Chinese god,
I an offering fair,
As we entered the
Garden of Allah,
To sing our holy prayer.
Entered with hearts bowed low,
Yet I heard a voice that cried:
For he is the god of the
Sacrifice,
You are the crucified.
It was all make-believe,
A foolish game of play,
Our garden of Allah
A drawing-room,
Our Chinese god of clay.
Strings of bruises for pearls,
Tears for forget-me-nots,
And a deadly pain
Of the sickening shame
Watching the fading spots.
As quickly they faded,
The heart of me faded as well,
Until nothing is left
Of my garden,
But a soul sunk to hell.
Hail!
Poet prend ton lute -Je disparaire,
No more together we'll enter the
Enchanted garden of make-believe,
Nor my sad soul listen while thine deceive.
No more you'll be the God of Sacrifice,
Nor I the crucified.
Ah, Garden of Allah -how bitter sweet
Thy fruit. Why breakest thou the heart?
Why spoilest thou the soul with notes
From thy golden lute?
Lo! our garden a common room
Our Chinese god burnt clay, and
The singing of verses a funeral hymn
That awakes with awakening day.
'Twas all such a meaningless play,
Poet prend ton lute -Je disparaitre.
Hail!
Poet, take my hand -we'll walk
Still a little way.
I'll not desert thee at the close of day,
I, too, must pray.
A beggar asking alms of passers-by,
Does not refuse a drink to one who's dry
That once by him did lie.
Poet, come close -before I leave for aye
Take thou my hand, we'll walk still
A little way.
One garment covered both to keep us warm,
What harmed the one, was't not the other's harm?
Close clasped, one single form.
Was it not meant of aye?
Poet, take thou my hand -we'll still
Walk a little way.
|
Written by
Weldon Kees |
Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six or more.
Whether at dusk or daybreak
Or at blinding noon, a retinue
Of shadows that no door
Excludes.--One like a kind of scrawl,
Hands scrawled trembling and blue,
A harelipped and hunchbacked dwarf
With a smile like a grapefruit rind,
Who jabbers the way I do
When the brain is empty and tired
And the guests no longer care:
A clown, who shudders and suddenly
Is a man with a mouth of cotton
Trapped in a dentist's chair.
Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six or more:
One with his face gone rotten,
Most hideous of all,
Whose crutches shriek on the sidewalk
As a fingernail on a slate
Tears open some splintered door
Of childhood. Down the hall
We enter a thousand rooms
That pour the hours back,
That silhouette the walls
With shadows ripped from war,
Accusing and rigid, black
As the streets we are discolored by.
The crutches fall to the floor.
Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six, or more
Than fingers or brain can bear--
A monster strung with guts,
A coward covered with hair,
Matted and down to his knees,
Murderers, liars, thieves,
Moving in darkened rows
Through daylight and evening air
Until the eyelids close,
Snapped like the blades of a knife,
And your dream of their death begins.
Possessors and possessed,
They keep the bedside wake
As a doctor or a wife
Might wait the darkness through
Until the pale daybreak--
Protectors of your life.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
the winding wye
curls into my senses
feliniously
there's no such word
but no such river
merely exists
where this river slivers
between the dream
and the time i camped by it
has left a furmark
on my inward skin
it takes only a wet thought
for hunchbacked woods
and a drift of mist
lifting off the silver water
to sidle onto the retina
where the lazy mind's at ease
(nectar's the drinks all round)
this is my river
that went underground
before priapus found its tongue
and every flowing girl
ran her hair down
between those wise green banks
|