Written by
Christina Rossetti |
I never said I loved you, John:
Why will you tease me day by day,
And wax a weariness to think upon
With always "do" and "pray"?
You Know I never loved you, John;
No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
As shows an hour-old ghost?
I dare say Meg or Moll would take
Pity upon you, if you'd ask:
And pray don't remain single for my sake
Who can't perform the task.
I have no heart?-Perhaps I have not;
But then you're mad to take offence
That don't give you what I have not got:
Use your common sense.
Let bygones be bygones:
Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:
I'd rather answer "No" to fifty Johns
Than answer "Yes" to you.
Let's mar our plesant days no more,
Song-birds of passage, days of youth:
Catch at today, forget the days before:
I'll wink at your untruth.
Let us strike hands as hearty friends;
No more, no less; and friendship's good:
Only don't keep in veiw ulterior ends, And points not understood
In open treaty.
Rise above
Quibbles and shuffling off and on:
Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,-
No, thank you, John.
|
Written by
William Butler Yeats |
Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.
My man was a poor fisher
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.
And sometimes from the Saltin' shed
I scarce could drag my feet,
Under the blessed moonlight,
Along thc pebbly street.
I'd always been but weakly,
And my baby was just born;
A neighbour minded her by day,
I minded her till morn.
I lay upon my baby;
Ye little childer dear,
I looked on my cold baby
When the morn grew frosty and clear.
A weary woman sleeps so hard!
My man grew red and pale,
And gave me money, and bade me go
To my own place, Kinsale.
He drove me out and shut the door.
And gave his curse to me;
I went away in silence,
No neighbour could I see.
The windows and the doors were shut,
One star shone faint and green,
The little straws were turnin round
Across the bare boreen.
I went away in silence:
Beyond old Martin's byre
I saw a kindly neighbour
Blowin' her mornin' fire.
She drew from me my story -
My money's all used up,
And still, with pityin', scornin' eye,
She gives me bite and sup.
She says my man will surely come
And fetch me home agin;
But always, as I'm movin' round,
Without doors or within,
Pilin' the wood or pilin' the turf,
Or goin' to the well,
I'm thinkin' of my baby
And keenin' to mysel'.
And Sometimes I am sure she knows
When, openin' wide His door,
God lights the stats, His candles,
And looks upon the poor.
So now, ye little childer,
Ye won't fling stones at me;
But gather with your shinin' looks
And pity Moll Magee.
|
Written by
Barry Tebb |
(To Paul Sykes, author of 'Sweet Agony')
He demolished five doors at a sitting
And topped it off with an outsize window
One Christmas afternoon, when drunk;
Sober he smiled like an angel, bowed,
Kissed ladies’ hands and courtesy
Was his middle name.
She tried to pass for thirty at fifty-six,
Called him "My Sweet piglet" and laid out
Dainty doylies for his teatime treats; always
She wore black from toe to top and especially
Underneath, her hair dyed black, stuck up in a
Bun, her lipstick caked and smeared, drawling
From the corner of her mouth like a
Thirties gangsters’ moll, her true ambition.
"Kill him, kill him, the bastard!" she’d scream
As all Wakefield watched, "It’s Grotty,
Grotty’s at it again!" as pubs and clubs
Banned them, singly or together and they
Moved lodgings yet again, landlords and
Landladies left reeling behind broken doors.
Blood-smeared walls covered with a shiny
Patina of carefully applied deceits! "It was
The cat, the kids, them druggies, lads from
Football", anyone, anywhere but him and her.
Once I heard them fight, "Barry, Barry, get
The police," she thumped my door, double
Five-lever mortice locked against them,
"Call t’ police ‘e’s murderin’ me!" I went
And calmed her down, pathetic in black
Underwear and he, suddenly sober, sorry,
Muttering, "Elaine, Elaine, it were only fun,
Give me a kiss, just one.
"
Was this her fourth or fifth husband, I’d
Lost count and so had she, each one she said
Was worse than the last, they’d all pulled her
Down, one put her through a Dorothy Perkins
Plate-glass window in Wakefield’s midnight,
Leaving her strewn amongst the furs and
Bridal gowns, blood everywhere, such perfection
Of evidence they nearly let her bleed to death
Getting all the photographs.
Rumour flew and grew around her, finally
They said it was all in a book one ‘husband’
Wrote in prison, how she’d had a great house,
Been a brothel madame, had servants even.
For years I chased that book, "Lynch," they
Told me, "It’s by Paul Lynch" but it wasn’t,
Then finally, "I remember, Sykes, they allus
Called him Sykesy" and so it was, Sweet Agony,
Written in prison by one Paul Sykes, her most
Famous inamorato, amateur boxing champion
Of all England, twenty years inside, fly-pitcher
Supreme, king of spielers; how she hated you
For beating her, getting it all down on paper,
Even making money for doing it, "That bastard
Cheated me, writing lying filth about me and
I never saw a penny!" she’d mutter, side-mouthed,
To her pals.
But that book, that bloody book, was no pub myth,
It even won an Arthur Koestler Literary Award
And is compulsive reading; hardly, as a poet,
My cup of tea but I couldn’t put it down.
Paul Sykes, I salute you, immortaliser of Elaine,
Your book became and is my sweetest pain.
|
Written by
David Lehman |
Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie
tear, wanting to look like a moll
in a Chandler novel.
Dinner, consisting of three parts gin
and one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair.
There are, she said, poems that can be written
only when the poet is clad in black underwear.
But that's Jorie for you.
Always cracking wise, always where
the action is, the lights, and the sexy lingerie.
Poems, she said, were meant to be written
on the run, like ladders on the stockings of a gun moll
at a bar.
Jorie had to introduce the other poet with the fabulous hair
that night.
She'd have preferred to work out at the gym.
She'd have preferred to work out with Jim.
She'd have preferred to be anywhere
but here, where young men gawked at her hair
and old men swooned at the thought of her lingerie.
"If you've seen one, you've seen the moll,"
Jorie said when asked about C.
"Everything she's written
is an imitation of E.
" Some poems can be written
only when the poet has fortified herself with gin.
Others come easily to one as feckless as Moll
Flanders.
Jorie beamed.
"It happened here,"
she said.
She had worn her best lingerie,
and D.
made the expected pass at her.
"My hair
was big that night, not that I make a fetish of hair,
but some poems must not be written
by bald sopranos.
" That night she lectured on lingerie
to an enthusiastic audience of female gymnasts and gin-
drinking males.
"Utopia," she said, "is nowhere.
"
This prompted one critic to declare that, of them all,
all the poets with hair, Jorie was the fairest moll.
The New York Times voted her "best hair.
"
Iowa City was said to be the place where
all aspiring poets went, their poems written
on water, with blanks instead of words, a tonic
of silence in the heart of noise, and a vision of lingerie
in the bright morning -- the lingerie to be worn by a moll
holding a tumbler of gin, with her hair
wet from the shower and her best poems waiting to be written.
|
Written by
Christopher Smart |
It ever was allow'd, dear Madam,
Ev'n from the days of father Adam,
Of all perfection flesh is heir to,
Fair patience is the gentlest virtue;
This is a truth our grandames teach,
Our poets sing, and parsons preach;
Yet after all, dear Moll, the fact is
We seldom put it into practice;
I'll warrant (if one knew the truth)
You've call'd me many an idle youth,
And styl'd me rude ungrateful bear,
Enough to make a parson swear.
I shall not make a long oration
in order for my vindication,
For what the plague can I say more
Than lazy dogs have done before;
Such stuff is naught but mere tautology,
And so take that for my apology.
First then for custards, my dear Mary,
The produce of your dainty dairy,
For stew'd, for bak'd, for boil'd, for roast,
And all the teas and all the toast;
With thankful tongue and bowing attitude,
I here present you with my gratitude:
Next for you apples, pears, and plums
Acknowledgment in order comes;
For wine, for ale, for fowl, for fish--for
Ev'n all one's appetite can wish for:
But O ye pens and O ye pencils,
And all ye scribbling utensils,
Say in what words and in what meter,
Shall unfeign'd admiration greet her,
For that rich banquet so refin'd
Her conversation gave the mind;
The solid meal of sense and worth,
Set off by the desert of mirth;
Wit's fruit and pleasure's genial bowl,
And all the joyous flow of soul;
For these, and every kind ingredient
That form'd your love--your most obedient.
|
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
James Henry Leigh Hunt |
Robin and his merry men
: Lived just like the birds;
They had almost as many tracks as thoughts,
: And whistles and songs as words.
Up they were with the earliest sign
Of the sun's up-looking eye;
But not an archer breakfasted
Till he twinkled from the sky.
All the morning they were wont
To fly their grey-goose quills
At butts, or wands, or trees, or twigs,
Till theirs was the skill of skills.
With swords too they played lustily,
And at quarter-staff;
Many a hit would have made some cry,
Which only made them laugh.
The horn was then their dinner-bell;
When like princes of the wood,
Under the glimmering summer trees,
Pure venison was their food.
Pure venison and a little wine,
Except when the skies were rough;
Or when they had a feasting day;
For their blood was wine enough.
And story then, and joke, and song,
And Harry's harp went round;
And sometimes they'd get up and dance,
For pleasure of the sound.
Tingle, tangle! said the harp,
As they footed in and out:
Good lord! it was a sight to see
Their feathers float about;--
A pleasant sight, especially
: If Margery was there,
Or little Ciss, or laughing Bess,
: Or Moll with the clumps of hair;
Or any other merry lass
: From the neighbouring villages,
Who came with milk and eggs, or fruit,
: A singing through the trees.
For all the country round about
: Was fond of Robin Hood,
With whom they got a share of more
: Than the acorns in the wood;
Nor ever would he suffer harm
: To woman, above all;
No plunder, were she ne'er so great,
: No fright to great or small;
No,—not a single kiss unliked,
: Nor one look-saddening clip;
Accurst be he, said Robin Hood,
: Makes pale a woman's lip.
Only on the haughty rich,
: And on their unjust store,
He'd lay his fines of equity
: For his merry men and the poor.
And special was his joy, no doubt
: (Which made the dish to curse)
To light upon a good fat friar,
: And carve him of his purse.
A monk to him was a toad in the hole,
: And an abbot a pig in grain,
But a bishop was a baron of beef,
: With cut and come again.
Never poor man came for help,
And wnet away denied;
Never woman for redress,
And went away wet-eyed.
Says Robin to the poor who came
: To ask of him relief,
You do but get your goods again,
: That were altered by the thief;
There, ploughman, is a sheaf of your's
: Turned to yellow gold;
And, miller, there's your last year's rent,
: 'Twill wrap thee from the cold:
And you there, Wat of Lancashire,
: Who such a way have come,
Get upon your land-tax, man,
: And ride it merrily home.
|
Written by
Jonathan Swift |
Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing, show'd the ruddy morn's approach.
Now Betty from her master's bed had flown,
And softly stole to discompose her own.
The slip-shod 'prentice from his master's door
Had par'd the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirl'd her mop with dext'rous airs,
Prepar'd to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel-edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep;
Till drown'd in shriller notes of "chimney-sweep.
"
Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had scream'd through half a street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees.
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands;
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.
|
Written by
George Meredith |
Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg.
Curved open to the river-reach is seen
A country merry-making on the green.
Fair space for signal shakings of the leg.
That little screwy fiddler from his booth,
Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints
Of all who caper here at various points.
I have known rustic revels in my youth:
The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease.
An early goddess was a county lass:
A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass.
What life was that I lived? The life of these?
Heaven keep them happy! Nature they seem near.
They must, I think, be wiser than I am;
They have the secret of the bull and lamb.
'Tis true that when we trace its source, 'tis beer.
|
Written by
Dylan Thomas |
I
Our eunuch dreams, all seedless in the light,
Of light and love the tempers of the heart,
Whack their boys' limbs,
And, winding-footed in their shawl and sheet,
Groom the dark brides, the widows of the night
Fold in their arms.
The shades of girls, all flavoured from their shrouds,
When sunlight goes are sundered from the worm,
The bones of men, the broken in their beds,
By midnight pulleys that unhouse the tomb.
II
In this our age the gunman and his moll
Two one-dimensional ghosts, love on a reel,
Strange to our solid eye,
And speak their midnight nothings as they swell;
When cameras shut they hurry to their hole
down in the yard of day.
They dance between their arclamps and our skull,
Impose their shots, showing the nights away;
We watch the show of shadows kiss or kill
Flavoured of celluloid give love the lie.
III
Which is the world? Of our two sleepings, which
Shall fall awake when cures and their itch
Raise up this red-eyed earth?
Pack off the shapes of daylight and their starch,
The sunny gentlemen, the Welshing rich,
Or drive the night-geared forth.
The photograph is married to the eye,
Grafts on its bride one-sided skins of truth;
The dream has sucked the sleeper of his faith
That shrouded men might marrow as they fly.
IV
This is the world; the lying likeness of
Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move
Loving and being loth;
The dream that kicks the buried from their sack
And lets their trash be honoured as the quick.
This is the world.
Have faith.
For we shall be a shouter like the cock,
Blowing the old dead back; our shots shall smack
The image from the plates;
And we shall be fit fellows for a life,
And who remains shall flower as they love,
Praise to our faring hearts.
|