Written by
Amy Clampitt |
While you walk the water's edge,
turning over concepts
I can't envision, the honking buoy
serves notice that at any time
the wind may change,
the reef-bell clatters
its treble monotone, deaf as Cassandra
to any note but warning.
The ocean,
cumbered by no business more urgent
than keeping open old accounts
that never balanced,
goes on shuffling its millenniums
of quartz, granite, and basalt.
It behaves
toward the permutations of novelty—
driftwood and shipwreck, last night's
beer cans, spilt oil, the coughed-up
residue of plastic—with random
impartiality, playing catch or tag
ot touch-last like a terrier,
turning the same thing over and over,
over and over.
For the ocean, nothing
is beneath consideration.
The houses
of so many mussels and periwinkles
have been abandoned here, it's hopeless
to know which to salvage.
Instead
I keep a lookout for beach glass—
amber of Budweiser, chrysoprase
of Almadén and Gallo, lapis
by way of (no getting around it,
I'm afraid) Phillips'
Milk of Magnesia, with now and then a rare
translucent turquoise or blurred amethyst
of no known origin.
The process
goes on forever: they came from sand,
they go back to gravel,
along with treasuries
of Murano, the buttressed
astonishments of Chartres,
which even now are readying
for being turned over and over as gravely
and gradually as an intellect
engaged in the hazardous
redefinition of structures
no one has yet looked at.
|
Written by
Elizabeth Bishop |
This is not my home.
How did I get so far from water? It must
be over that way somewhere.
I am the color of wine, of tinta.
The inside of my powerful
right claw is saffron-yellow.
See, I see it now; I wave it like a
flag.
I am dapper and elegant; I move with great precision,
cleverly managing all my smaller yellow claws.
I believe in the
oblique, the indirect approach, and I keep my feelings to myself.
But on this strange, smooth surface I am making too much
noise.
I wasn't meant for this.
If I maneuver a bit and keep a
sharp lookout, I shall find my pool again.
Watch out for my right
claw, all passersby! This place is too hard.
The rain has stopped,
and it is damp, but still not wet enough to please me.
My eyes are good, though small; my shell is tough and tight.
In my own pool are many small gray fish.
I see right through
them.
Only their large eyes are opaque, and twitch at me.
They
are hard to catch but I, I catch them quickly in my arms and
eat them up.
What is that big soft monster, like a yellow cloud, stifling
and warm? What is it doing? It pats my back.
Out, claw.
There,
I have frightened it away.
It's sitting down, pretending nothing's
happened.
I'll skirt it.
It's still pretending not to see me.
Out of
my way, O monster.
I own a pool, all the little fish that swim in it,
and all the skittering waterbugs that smell like rotten apples.
Cheer up, O grievous snail.
I tap your shell, encouragingly,
not that you will ever know about it.
And I want nothing to do with you, either, sulking toad.
Imagine, at least four times my size and yet so vulnerable.
.
.
I
could open your belly with my claw.
You glare and bulge, a
watchdog near my pool; you make a loud and hollow noise.
I
do not care for such stupidity.
I admire compression, lightness,
and agility, all rare in this loose world.
|
Written by
Ezra Pound |
After Li Po
While my hair was still cut straight
across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling
flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing
horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with
blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of
Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or
suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never
looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with
yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river
of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise
overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went
out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown,
the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in
wind.
The paired butterflies are already
yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the
narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.
|
Written by
Hugo Williams |
How beautiful it would be to wait for you again
in the usual place,
not looking at the door,
keeping a lookout in the long mirror,
knowing that if you are late
it will not be too late,
knowing that all I have to do
is wait a little longer
and you will be pushing through the other customers,
out of breath, apologetic.
Where have you been, for God's sake?
I was starting to worry.
How long did we say we would wait
if one of us was held up?
It's been so long and still no sign of you.
As time goes by, I search other faces in the bar,
rearranging their features
until they are monstrous versions of you,
their heads wobbling from side to side
like heads on sticks.
Your absence inches forward
until it is standing next to me.
Now it has taken a seat I was saving.
Now we are face to face in the long mirror.
|
Written by
John Berryman |
Bright-eyed & bushy tailed woke not Henry up.
Bright though upon his workshop shone a vise
central, moved in
while he was doing time down hospital
and growing wise.
He gave it the worst look he had left.
Alone.
They all abandoned Henry—wonder! all,
when most he—under the sun.
That was all right.
He can't work well with it here, or think.
A bilocation, yellow like catastrophe.
The name of this was freedom.
Will Henry again ever be on the lookout for women & milk,
honour & love again,
have a buck or three?
He felt like shrieking but he shuddered as
(spring mist, warm, rain) an handful with quietness
vanisht & the thing took hold.
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