Written by
Derek Walcott |
So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won't come out.
Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun; still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.
She is in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
she does not come out.
Don't you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain ? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all with not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you.
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Written by
Rainer Maria Rilke |
I am like a flag in the center of open space.
I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live
it through.
while the things of the world still do not move:
the doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full
of silence,
the windows do not rattle yet, and the dust still lies down.
I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea.
I leap out, and fall back,
and throw myself out, and am absolutely alone
in the great storm.
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
If the Led Striker call it a strike,
Or the papers call it a war,
They know not much what I am like,
Nor what he is, My Avatar.
Throuh many roads, by me possessed,
He shambles forth in cosmic guise;
He is the Jester and the Jest,
And he the Text himself applies.
The Celt is in his heart and hand,
The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;
Where, cosmopolitanly planned,
He guards the Redskin's dry reserve
His easy unswept hearth he lends
From Labrador to Guadeloupe;
Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,
He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.
Calm-eyed he scoffs at Sword and Crown,
Or, panic-blinded, stabs and slays:
Blatant he bids the world bow down,
Or cringing begs a crust of praise;
Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,
He dubs his dreary breathren Kings.
His hands are black with blood -- his heart
Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.
But, through the shift of mood and mood,
Mine ancient humour saves him whole --
The cynic devil in his blood
That bids him mock his hurrying soul;
That bids him flout the Law he makes,
That bids him make the Law he flouts,
Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes
The drumming guns that -- have no doubts;
That checks him foolish-hot and fond,
That chuckles through his deepest ire,
That gilds the slough of his despond
But dims the goal of his desire;
Inopportune, shrill-accented,
The acrid Asiatic mirth
That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead,
The scandal of the elder earth.
How shall he clear himself, how reach
Your bar or weighed defence prefer --
A brother hedged with alien speech
And lacking all interpreter?
Which knowledge vexes him a space;
But, while Reproof around him rings,
He turns a keen untroubled face
Home, to the instant need of things.
Enslaved, illogical, elate,
He greets the embarrassed Gods, nor fears
To shake the iron hand of Fate
Or match with Destiny for beers.
Lo, imperturbable he rules,
Unkempt, desreputable, vast --
And, in the teeth of all the schools,
I -- I shall save him at the last!
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Written by
Edna St. Vincent Millay |
I said,—for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,—
"I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in
bed;
But I'll never leave my pillow, though there be some
As would let him in—and take him in with tears!" I said.
I lay,—for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,—
I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;
And he found me at my window with my big cloak on,
All sorry with the tears some folks might weep!
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Written by
Norman Dubie |
You were never told, Mother, how old Illyawas drunk
That last holiday, for five days and nights
He stumbled through Petersburg forming
A choir of mutes, he dressed them in pink ascension gowns
And, then, sold Father's Tirietz stallion so to rent
A hall for his Christmas recital: the audience
Was rowdy but Illya in his black robes turned on them
And gave them that look of his; the hall fell silent
And violently he threw his hair to the side and up
Went the baton, the recital ended exactly one hour
Later when Illya suddenly turned and bowed
And his mutes bowed, and what applause and hollering
Followed.
All of his cronies were there!
Illya told us later that he thought the voices
Of mutes combine in a sound
Like wind passing through big, winter pines.
Mother, if for no other reason I regret the war
With Japan for, you must now be told,
It took the servant, Illya, from us. It was confirmed.
He would sit on the rocks by the water and with his stiletto
Open clams and pop the raw meats into his mouth
And drool and laugh at us children.
We hear guns often, now, down near the village.
Don't think me a coward, Mother, but it is comfortable
Now that I am no longer Czar. I can take pleasure
From just a cup of clear water. I hear Illya's choir often.
I teach the children about decreasing fractions, that is
A lesson best taught by the father.
Alexandra conducts the French and singing lessons.
Mother, we are again a physical couple.
I brush out her hair for her at night.
She thinks that we'll be rowing outside Geneva
By the spring. I hope she won't be disappointed.
Yesterday morning while bread was frying
In one corner, she in another washed all of her legs
Right in front of the children. I think
We became sad at her beauty. She has a purple bruise
On an ankle.
Like Illya I made her chew on mint.
Our Christmas will be in this excellent barn.
The guards flirt with your granddaughters and I see...
I see nothing wrong with it. Your little one, who is
Now a woman, made one soldier pose for her, she did
Him in charcoal, but as a bold nude. He was
Such an obvious virgin about it; he was wonderful!
Today, that same young man found us an enormous azure
And pearl samovar. Once, he called me Great Father
And got confused.
He refused to let me touch him.
I know they keep your letters from us. But, Mother,
The day they finally put them in my hands
I'll know that possessing them I am condemned
And possibly even my wife, and my children.
We will drink mint tea this evening.
Will each of us be increased by death?
With fractions as the bottom integer gets bigger, Mother, it
Represents less. That's the feeling I have about
This letter. I am at your request, The Czar.
And I am Nicholas.
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Written by
Omar Khayyam |
My critics call me a philosopher,
But Allah knows full well they greatly err;
I know not even what I am, much less
Why on this earth I am a sojourner!
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