Written by
Judy Grahn |
When she goes to Hollywood
she is an angel.
She writes in red red lipstick
on the window of her body,
long for me, oh need me!
Parts her lips like a lotus.
Opening night she stands, poised
on her carpet, luminescent,
young men humming
all around her.
She is flying.
Her high heels are wands, her
furs electric.
Her bracelets
flashing.
How completely
dazzling her complexion,
how vibrant her hair and eyes,
how brilliant the glow that spreads
four full feet around her.
She is totally self conscious
self contained
self centered,
caught in the blazing central eye
of our attention.
We infuse her.
Fans, we wave at her
like handmaids, unabashedly,
we crowd on tiptoe pressed together
just to feel the fission of the star
that lives on earth,
the bright, the angel sun
the luminescent glow of someone
other than we.
Look! Look! She is different.
Medium for all our energy
as we pour it through her.
Vessel of light,
Her flesh is like flax,
a living fiber.
She is the symbol of our dreams and fears
and bloody visions, all
our metaphors for living in America.
Harlowe, Holiday, Monroe
Helen
When she goes to Hollywood
she is the fire for all purposes.
Her flesh is like dark wax, a candle.
She is from any place or class.
"That's the one," we say in instant recognition,
because our breath is taken by her beauty,
or what we call her beauty.
She is glowing from every pore.
we adore her.
we imitate and rob her
adulate envy
admire neglect
scorn.
leave alone
invade, fill
ourselves with her.
we love her, we say
and if she isn't careful
we may even kill her.
Opening night
she lands on her carpet,
long fingered hands
like divining rods
bobbing and drawing the strands
of our attention,
as limousine drivers in blue jackets
stand on the hoods of their cars
to see the angel, talking
Davis, Dietrich, Wood
Tyson, Taylor, Gabor
Helen, when she goes to Hollywood
to be a walking star,
to be an actor
She is far more that a product
of Max Factor,
Max Factor didn't make her
though the make-up helps us
see what we would like
to take her for
her flesh is like glass,
a chandelier
a mirror
Harlowe, Holiday, Monroe
Helen
when she went to Hollywood
to be an angel
And it is she and not we
who is different
She who marries the crown prince
who leads the processional dance,
she who sweeps eternally
down the steps
in her long round gown.
A leaping, laughing leading lady,
she is our flower.
It is she who lies strangled
in the bell tower;
she who is monumentally drunk and suicidal
or locked waiting in the hightower,
she who lies sweating with the vicious jungle fever,
who leaps from her blue window
when he will, if he will, leave her
it is she and not we
who is the lotus
It is she with the lilies in her hair
and a keyboard beside her,
the dark flesh glowing
She whose wet lips nearly swallow
the microphone, whose whiskey voice
is precise and sultry and overwhelming,
she who is princess and harlequin,
athlete and moll and whore and lady,
goddess of the silver screen
the only original American queen
and Helen
when she was an angel
when she went to Hollywood
|
Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
Well, Bokardo, here we are;
Make yourself at home.
Look around—you haven’t far
To look—and why be dumb?
Not the place that used to be,
Not so many things to see;
But there’s room for you and me.
And you—you’ve come.
Talk a little; or, if not,
Show me with a sign
Why it was that you forgot
What was yours and mine.
Friends, I gather, are small things
In an age when coins are kings;
Even at that, one hardly flings
Friends before swine.
Rather strong? I knew as much,
For it made you speak.
No offense to swine, as such,
But why this hide-and-seek?
You have something on your side,
And you wish you might have died,
So you tell me.
And you tried
One night last week?
You tried hard? And even then
Found a time to pause?
When you try as hard again,
You’ll have another cause.
When you find yourself at odds
With all dreamers of all gods,
You may smite yourself with rods—
But not the laws.
Though they seem to show a spite
Rather devilish,
They move on as with a might
Stronger than your wish.
Still, however strong they be,
They bide man’s authority:
Xerxes, when he flogged the sea,
May’ve scared a fish.
It’s a comfort, if you like,
To keep honor warm,
But as often as you strike
The laws, you do no harm.
To the laws, I mean.
To you—
That’s another point of view,
One you may as well indue
With some alarm.
Not the most heroic face
To present, I grant;
Nor will you insure disgrace
By fearing what you want.
Freedom has a world of sides,
And if reason once derides
Courage, then your courage hides
A deal of cant.
Learn a little to forget
Life was once a feast;
You aren’t fit for dying yet,
So don’t be a beast.
Few men with a mind will say,
Thinking twice, that they can pay
Half their debts of yesterday,
Or be released.
There’s a debt now on your mind
More than any gold?
And there’s nothing you can find
Out there in the cold?
Only—what’s his name?—Remorse?
And Death riding on his horse?
Well, be glad there’s nothing worse
Than you have told.
Leave Remorse to warm his hands
Outside in the rain.
As for Death, he understands,
And he will come again.
Therefore, till your wits are clear,
Flourish and be quiet—here.
But a devil at each ear
Will be a strain?
Past a doubt they will indeed,
More than you have earned.
I say that because you need
Ablution, being burned?
Well, if you must have it so,
Your last flight went rather low.
Better say you had to know
What you have learned.
And that’s over.
Here you are,
Battered by the past.
Time will have his little scar,
But the wound won’t last.
Nor shall harrowing surprise
Find a world without its eyes
If a star fades when the skies
Are overcast.
God knows there are lives enough,
Crushed, and too far gone
Longer to make sermons of,
And those we leave alone.
Others, if they will, may rend
The worn patience of a friend
Who, though smiling, sees the end,
With nothing done.
But your fervor to be free
Fled the faith it scorned;
Death demands a decency
Of you, and you are warned.
But for all we give we get
Mostly blows? Don’t be upset;
You, Bokardo, are not yet
Consumed or mourned.
There’ll be falling into view
Much to rearrange;
And there’ll be a time for you
To marvel at the change.
They that have the least to fear
Question hardest what is here;
When long-hidden skies are clear,
The stars look strange.
|
Written by
Thomas Hardy |
I
O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -
Light in their loving as soldiers can be -
First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them
Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! .
.
.
II
- Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly
Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,
They stepping steadily--only too readily! -
Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.
III
Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there,
Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;
Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,
Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.
IV
Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily
Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,
While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them
Not to court perils that honour could miss.
V
Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours,
When at last moved away under the arch
All we loved.
Aid for them each woman prayed for them,
Treading back slowly the track of their march.
VI
Someone said: "Nevermore will they come: evermore
Are they now lost to us.
" O it was wrong!
Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways,
Bear them through safely, in brief time or long.
VII
- Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us,
Hint in the night-time when life beats are low
Other and graver things .
.
.
Hold we to braver things,
Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show.
|
Written by
Edward Thomas |
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends,
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter and leave alone
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.
|