Written by
Sylvia Plath |
The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
naked in the merely actual room,
the stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.
Just how guilty are we when the ceiling
reveals no cracks that can be decoded? when washbowl
maintains it has no more holy calling
than physical ablution, and the towel
dryly disclaims that fierce troll faces lurk
in its explicit folds? or when the window,
blind with steam, will not admit the dark
which shrouds our prospects in ambiguous shadow?
Twenty years ago, the familiar tub
bred an ample batch of omens; but now
water faucets spawn no danger; each crab
and octopus -- scrabbling just beyond the view,
waiting for some accidental break
in ritual, to strike -- is definitely gone;
the authentic sea denies them and will pluck
fantastic flesh down to the honest bone.
We take the plunge; under water our limbs
waver, faintly green, shuddering away
from the genuine color of skin; can our dreams
ever blur the intransigent lines which draw
the shape that shuts us in? absolute fact
intrudes even when the revolted eye
is closed; the tub exists behind our back;
its glittering surfaces are blank and true.
Yet always the ridiculous nude flanks urge
the fabrication of some cloth to cover
such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
|
Written by
Edward Taylor |
It seemed as if the enormous journey
was finally approaching its conclusion.
From the window of the train
the last trees were dissipating,
a child-like sailor waved once,
a seal-like dog barked and died.
The conductor entered the lavatory
and was not seen again, although
his harmonica-playing was appreciated.
He was not without talent, some said.
A botanist with whom I had become acquainted
actually suggested we form a group or something.
I was looking for a familiar signpost
in his face, or a landmark that would
indicate the true colors of his tribe.
But, alas, there was not a glass of water
anywhere or even the remains of a trail.
I got a bewildered expression of my own
and slinked to the back of the car
where a nun started to tickle me.
She confided to me that it was her
cowboy pride that got her through . . .
Through what? I thought, but drew my hand
close to my imaginary vest.
"That's a beautiful vest," she said,
as I began crawling down the aisle.
At last, I pressed my face against
the window: A little fog was licking
its chop, as was the stationmaster
licking something. We didn't stop.
We didn't appear to be arriving,
and yet we were almost out of landscape.
No creeks or rivers. Nothing
even remotely reminding one of a mound.
O mound! Thou ain't around no more.
A heap of abstract geometrical symbols,
that's what it's coming to, I thought.
A nothing you could sink your teeth into.
"Relief's on the way," a little
know-nothing boy said to me.
"Imagine my surprise," I said
and reached out to muss his hair.
But he had no hair and it felt unlucky
touching his skull like that.
"Forget what I said," he said.
"What did you say?" I asked
in automatic compliance.
And then it got very dark and quiet.
I closed my eyes and dreamed of an emu I once loved.
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods.
She began looking in the sky
—expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch.
No one.
She looked next in all the learned books
and the print spat back at her.
No one
She made a pilgrimage to the great poet
and he belched in her face.
No one.
She prayed in all the churches of the world
and learned a great deal about culture.
No one.
She went to the Atlantic, the Pacific, for surely God...
No one.
She went to the Buddha, the Brahma, the Pyramids
and found immense postcards.
No one.
Then she journeyed back to her own house
and the gods of the world were shut in the lavatory.
At last!
she cried out,
and locked the door.
|
Written by
James Tate |
It seemed as if the enormous journey
was finally approaching its conclusion.
From the window of the train
the last trees were dissipating,
a child-like sailor waved once,
a seal-like dog barked and died.
The conductor entered the lavatory
and was not seen again, although
his harmonica-playing was appreciated.
He was not without talent, some said.
A botanist with whom I had become acquainted
actually suggested we form a group or something.
I was looking for a familiar signpost
in his face, or a landmark that would
indicate the true colors of his tribe.
But, alas, there was not a glass of water
anywhere or even the remains of a trail.
I got a bewildered expression of my own
and slinked to the back of the car
where a nun started to tickle me.
She confided to me that it was her
cowboy pride that got her through . . .
Through what? I thought, but drew my hand
close to my imaginary vest.
"That's a beautiful vest," she said,
as I began crawling down the aisle.
At last, I pressed my face against
the window: A little fog was licking
its chop, as was the stationmaster
licking something. We didn't stop.
We didn't appear to be arriving,
and yet we were almost out of landscape.
No creeks or rivers. Nothing
even remotely reminding one of a mound.
O mound! Thou ain't around no more.
A heap of abstract geometrical symbols,
that's what it's coming to, I thought.
A nothing you could sink your teeth into.
"Relief's on the way," a little
know-nothing boy said to me.
"Imagine my surprise," I said
and reached out to muss his hair.
But he had no hair and it felt unlucky
touching his skull like that.
"Forget what I said," he said.
"What did you say?" I asked
in automatic compliance.
And then it got very dark and quiet.
I closed my eyes and dreamed of an emu I once loved.
|
Written by
Theodore Roethke |
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
on a deformed request in a train lavatory
gentlemen lift the sea
be all of you the modern
muscular mountains
who with a scoop of biceptual crags
swoop down for an armful of ocean
leavening the dreadful pressures
on the valleys of lyonnesse
gentlemen rape air with water
let the submarine nose round the moon
and aeroplane astonished
break wind in the vaults between
the antelope ecstatic on the ocean bed
and the constellations of live crabs
gentlemen be men - in the locked
compartment from the nagging
economical head-shrinking
function of the ladies
(for them such exhortation is irrelevant)
dare the utmost of virility
harness the power in your massive limbs
and when the universal waters flow
gentlemen lift the sea
|
Written by
Barry Tebb |
Composed of chalk dust,
Pencil shavings and
The sharp odour
Of stale urine;
It meets me now and then
Creeping down a creosoted corridor
Or waiting to be banged
With the dust from piles of books
On top of a cupboard.
The double desks heeled with iron
Having long been replaced;
The steel-nibbed pens and
Ink watered to pale grey
Gone too: the cane’s bamboo bite
Has nothing left to bite on
And David’s psalms
Must learn each other.
But it’s there
Ready to spring out
Like a coiled snake skin still envenomed
After years by a suburban hearth.
It was fifteen years ago
But I still remember Smigger,
Our greying old headmaster
In his spats and striped trousers,
The last in our town to wear them,
And his northern accent,
Heavy as Sunday.
"Now then you lads,
I’m not having this
Or I’ll tan you all,"
He’d bawl at a mill-hand’s boy
For drawing cunts on the lavatory wall.
Old Holmes, too, his yellow teeth
And hair all over the place,
One hand trembling with shell shock.
The other with rage, one foot lame
And brain half daft,
Ready to belt you
For moving an eye.
The boys were always
Belching and farting
And tormenting me for my
Long words and soft voice
And they do still
When I sense that stink
In my nostrils.
|
Written by
Barry Tebb |
A thousand visits to the supermarket
A thousand acts of sexual intimacy
Spread over forty years.
Your essence was quite other
A smile of absolute connection
Repeated a thousand times.
Your daily visits to the outside lavatory
While I stood talking outside,
An intimacy I have sought
With no other.
My greatest fear is that you might
Have changed beyond recognition,
Submerged in trivia and the
Minutiae of the quotidian.
At ten my adoration of you was total.
At sixty it’s somewhat greater:
I place you among the angels and madonnas
Of the quattrocento, Raphael and Masaccio
And Petrarch’s sonnets to Laura.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
(1) the ordinary
you are not interested in me
a receiver of food and a giver of ****
my brain knuckled under
i have rendered the skills of my
limbs to generations of caesars
and caesar's gods have siphoned off my spirit
by day i have been trained to dismember my own brothers
my own pieces travel through the night yearning for union
in every land i am the bulk
the bricks you build with
in every land mine is the back that bends
the face that gets shoved in the earth
i am told how costly it is to allow me to breathe
i am not told how much your palaces (private or stately) depend on
my breathing
i must eat so that i may be eaten
i must labour so that others may find space for their estates
i am grasses told to lie down as lawn
i am shrubs being clipped into hedges
i am weeds being torn out of lines
i am dirt being churned into mud
i am mat that must always be shaken
but choke me i must breathe
crush me i must rise
wipe me out i am everywhere
whip me my blood runs into air
destroy me i shall run out of doors
my fingers root in the earth and shoot stars
(2) loud hosannas (and a bowl of cherries) to the ordinary
ordinary holds the world
in a hat - it is a grey hat
(grey - if you can but see it -
is the brightest of colours)
the world hates its grey sky
endlessly moaning
what a gloomy day
how mediocre
but ordinary holds the world
it's about time someone
gave loud hosannas
(and a bowl of cherries)
to the ordinary
without it the sky
loses its air
fields give up grass
meals do without salt
bodies have no skin
blood mourns its arteries
language has no tongue
at the foot of mountains
there is no earth
ordinary has been kicked
in the teeth (and of course
in the privates) every
second of every
minute of every
hour of every
day of every
week of every
month of every
year of existence
and every second of every
etc. ordinary sits up
a grin bubbling through
its spilled blood (and
of course keeping
its privates to itself)
and simply says
i am i am
i am i am i am
wham
more
blood and
another
grin
etc
ordinary is where it all
started and where it is
eternally - square one the
universal square
one or two
claim to have reached
square one and a half - they
slip back but they
eventually slip back
their arses red
with shame
no man can
put his foot down where
there is no banana skin
the ordinary runs
down to the sea and
without trying
encompasses all views
blends all colours
and (in the end) copes
quietly with death
poets spend a lifetime
in their songs
hoping (not daring)
to touch it
it is wellwater
the mountain spring
the stream running
throughout man
bathing his wounds
cooling his fevers
it is the untransplantable heart
it speaks all languages
it eludes science
it wracks art
it is the lavatory the fool
and the wise man share
it discerns truly
man if you are not ordinary
you are a bloated
nothing
when you burst you spill
your ordinary intestines
and in no time
your stink is
assuaged by the stream
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