Written by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
It was a face which darkness could kill
in an instant
a face as easily hurt
by laughter or light
'We think differently at night'
she told me once
lying back languidly
And she would quote Cocteau
'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
'whom I am constantly shocking'
Then she would smile and look away
light a cigarette for me
sigh and rise
and stretch
her sweet anatomy
let fall a stocking
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Written by
Marvin Bell |
This year,
I'm raising the emotional ante,
putting my face
in the leaves to be stepped on,
seeing myself among them, that is;
that is, likening
leaf-vein to artery, leaf to flesh,
the passage of a leaf in autumn
to the passage of autumn,
branch-tip and winter spaces
to possibilities, and possibility
to God. Even on East 61st Street
in the blowzy city of New York,
someone has planted a gingko
because it has leaves like fans like hands,
hand-leaves, and sex. Those lovely
Chinese hands on the sidewalks
so far from delicacy
or even, perhaps, another gender of gingko--
do we see them?
No one ever treated us so gently
as these green-going-to-yellow hands
fanned out where we walk.
No one ever fell down so quietly
and lay where we would look
when we were tired or embarrassed,
or so bowed down by humanity
that we had to watch out lest our shoes stumble,
and looked down not to look up
until something looked like parts of people
where we were walking. We have no
experience to make us see the gingko
or any other tree,
and, in our admiration for whatever grows tall
and outlives us,
we look away, or look at the middles of things,
which would not be our way
if we truly thought we were gods.
|
Written by
Marge Piercy |
I am packing to go to the airport
but somehow I am never packed.
I keep remembering more things
I keep forgetting.
Secretly the clock is bolting
forward ten minutes at a click
instead of one. Each time
I look away, it jumps.
Now I remember I have to find
the cats. I have four cats
even when I am asleep.
One is on the bed and I slip
her into the suitcase.
One is under the sofa. I
drag him out. But the tabby
in the suitcase has vanished.
Now my tickets have run away.
Maybe the cat has my tickets.
I can only find one cat.
My purse has gone into hiding.
Now it is time to get packed.
I take the suitcase down.
There is a cat in it but no clothes.
My tickets are floating in the bath
tub full of water. I dry them.
One cat is in my purse
but my wallet has dissolved.
The tickets are still dripping.
I look at the clock as it leaps
forward and see I have missed
my plane. My bed is gone now.
There is one cat the size of a sofa.
|
Written by
Robert Browning |
I.
So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?—
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?
II.
My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net.
III.
When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!
IV.
And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!
V.
So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
And round she turned for my noble sake,
And gave me herself indeed.
VI.
The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
The wren is he, with his maiden face.
—You look away and your lip is curled?
Patience, a moment's space!
VII.
For see, my friend goes shaling and white;
He eyes me as the basilisk:
I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
Eclipsing his sun's disk.
VIII.
And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
"Though I love her—that, he comprehends—
"One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)
"And be loyal to one's friends!"
IX.
And she,—she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'Tis mine,—can I let it fall?
X.
With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?
'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst
When I gave its stalk a twist.
XI.
And I,—what I seem to my friend, you see:
What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:
What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
No hero, I confess.
XII.
'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
And matter enough to save one's own:
Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
He played with for bits of stone!
XIII.
One likes to show the truth for the truth;
That the woman was light is very true:
But suppose she says,—Never mind that youth!
What wrong have I done to you?
XIV.
Well, any how, here the story stays,
So far at least as I understand;
And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
Here's a subject made to your hand!
|
Written by
Philip Levine |
1
We live here because the houses
are clean, the lawns run
right to the street
and the streets run away.
No one walks here.
No one wakens at night or dies.
The cars sit open-eyed
in the driveways.
The lights are on all day.
2
At home forever, she has removed
her long foreign names
that stained her face like hair.
She smiles at you, and you think
tears will start from the corners
of her mouth. Such a look
of tenderness, you look away.
She's your sister. Quietly she says,
You're a ****, I'll get you for it.
3
Money's the same, he says.
He brings it home in white slabs
that smell like soap.
Throws them down
on the table as though
he didn't care.
The children hear
and come in from play glowing
like honey and so hungry.
4
With it all we have
such a talent for laughing.
We can laugh at anything.
And we forget no one.
She listens to mother
on the phone, and he remembers
the exact phrasing of a child's sorrows,
the oaths taken by bear and tiger
never to forgive.
5
On Sunday we're having a party.
The children are taken away
in a black Dodge, their faces erased
from the mirrors. Outside a scum
is forming on the afternoon.
A car parks but no one gets out.
Brother is loading the fridge.
Sister is polishing and spraying herself.
Today we're having a party.
6
For fun we talk about you.
Everything's better for being said.
That's a rule.
This is going to be some long night, she says.
How could you? How could you?
For the love of mother, he says.
There will be no dawn
until the laughing stops. Even the pines
are burning in the dark.
7
Why do you love me? he says.
Because. Because.
You're best to me, she purrs.
In the kitchen, in the closets,
behind the doors, above the toilets,
the calendars are eating it up.
One blackened one watches you
like another window. Why
are you listening? it says.
8
No one says, There's a war.
No one says, Children are burning.
No one says, Bizniz as usual.
But you have to take it all back.
You have to hunt through your socks
and dirty underwear
and crush each word. If you're serious
you have to sit in the corner
and eat ten new dollars. Eat'em.
9
Whose rifles are brooding
in the closet? What are
the bolts whispering
back and forth? And the pyramids
of ammunition, so many
hungry mouths to feed.
When you hide in bed
the revolver under the pillow
smiles and shows its teeth.
10
On the last night the children
waken from the same dream
of leaves burning.
Two girls in the dark
knowing there are no wolves
or bad men in the room.
Only electricity on the loose,
the television screaming at itself,
the dishwasher tearing its heart out.
11
We're going away. The house
is too warm. We disconnect
the telephone.
Bones, cans, broken dolls, bronzed shoes,
ground down to face powder. Burn
the toilet paper collected in the basement.
Take back the bottles.
The back stairs are raining glass.
Cancel the milk.
12
You may go now, says Cupboard.
I won't talk,
says Clock.
Your bag is black and waiting.
How can you leave your house?
The stove hunches its shoulders,
the kitchen table stares at the sky.
You're heaving yourself out in the snow
groping toward the front door.
|
Written by
D. H. Lawrence |
This is the last of all, this is the last!
I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire,
I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,
Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past
Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire
Where the ash on the dying coals grows swiftly, like heavy moss.
Strange he is, my son, whom I have awaited like a loyer,
Strange to me like a captive in a foreign country, haunting
The confines and gazing out on the land where the wind is free;
White and gaunt, with wistful eyes that hover
Always on the distance, as if his soul were chaunting
The monotonous weird of departure away from me.
Like a strange white bird blown out of the frozen seas,
Like a bird from the far north blown with a broken wing
Into our sooty garden, he drags and beats
From place to place perpetually, seeking release
From me, from the hand of my love which creeps up, needing
His happiness, whilst he in displeasure retreats.
I must look away from him, for my faded eyes
Like a cringing dog at his heels offend him now,
Like a toothless hound pursuing him with my will,
Till he chafes at my crouching persistence, and a sharp spark flies
In my soul from under the sudden frown of his brow,
As he blenches and turns away, and my heart stands still.
This is the last, it will not be any more.
All my life I have borne the burden of myself,
All the long years of sitting in my husband’s house,
Never have I said to myself as he closed the door:
“Now I am caught!—You are hopelessly lost, O Self,
You are frightened with joy, my heart, like a frightened mouse.”
Three times have I offered myself, three times rejected.
It will not be any more. No more, my son, my son!
Never to know the glad freedom of obedience, since long ago
The angel of childhood kissed me and went. I expected
Another would take me,—and now, my son, O my son,
I must sit awhile and wait, and never know
The loss of myself, till death comes, who cannot fail.
Death, in whose service is nothing of gladness, takes me:
For the lips and the eyes of God are behind a veil.
And the thought of the lipless voice of the Father shakes me
With fear, and fills my eyes with the tears of desire,
And my heart rebels with anguish as night draws nigher.
|
Written by
George (Lord) Byron |
Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king’s in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!
Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.
Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!
|
Written by
D. H. Lawrence |
Now I am come again, you who have so desired
My coming, why do you look away from me?
Why does your cheek burn against me--have I inspired
Such anger as sets your mouth unwontedly?
Ah, here I sit while you break the music beneath
Your bow; for broken it is, and hurting to hear:
Cease then from music--does anguish of absence bequeath
Me only aloofness when I would draw near?
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