Written by
Margaret Atwood |
You're sad because you're sad.
It's psychic.
It's the age.
It's chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.
Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings.
Better than that,
buy a hat.
Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.
Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.
My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you're trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,
and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside you head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.
|
Written by
Yehuda Amichai |
Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
The trees bend in the wind,
And stones fly from all four winds,
Into all four winds.
They throw stones,
Throw this land, one at the other,
But the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, want to get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can't get rid of it.
They throw stones, throw stones at me
In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites,
Evil men throw and just men throw,
Sinners throw and tempters throw,
Geologists throw and theologists throw,
Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw,
Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
Stones shaped like a screaming mouth
And stones fitting your eyes
Like a pair of glasses,
The past throws stones at the future,
And all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
Even God in the Bible threw stones,
Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
And got stuck in the beastplate of justice,
And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.
Oh, the poem of stone sadness
Oh, the poem thrown on the stones
Oh, the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
A stone that was never thrown
And never built and never overturned
And never uncovered and never discovered
And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
And never turned into a cornerstone?
Please do not throw any more stones,
You are moving the land,
The holy, whole, open land,
You are moving it to the sea
And the sea doesn't want it
The sea says, not in me.
Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be.
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
Roach, foulest of creatures,
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes,
you are lumps of coal that are mechanized
and when I turn on the light you scuttle
into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.
Yet I know you are only the common angel
turned into, by way of enchantment, the ugliest.
Your uncle was made into an apple.
Your aunt was made into a Siamese cat,
all the rest were made into butterflies
but because you lied to God outrightly--
told him that all things on earth were in order--
He turned his wrath upon you and said,
I will make you the most loathsome,
I will make you into God's lie,
and never will a little girl fondle you
or hold your dark wings cupped in her palm.
But that was not true.
Once in New Orleans
with a group of students a roach fled across
the floor and I shrieked and she picked it up
in her hands and held it from my fear for one hour.
And held it like a diamond ring that should not escape.
These days even the devil is getting overturned
and held up to the light like a glass of water.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful
little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney.
Miniature
rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala
flamed a night of victorious wars.
The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his
head forward and back, slowly,
and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes.
He stares
into the air
and nods -- forward and back.
The red rose in his hand
is a crimson splash
on his yellow coat.
Forward and back, and his blue-green
eyes stare
into the air, and he nods -- nods.
Tommy's soldiers march to battle,
Trumpets flare and snare-drums rattle.
Bayonets flash, and sabres glance --
How the horses snort and prance!
Cannon drawn up in a line
Glitter in the dizzy shine
Of the morning sunlight.
Flags
Ripple colours in great jags.
Red blows out, then blue, then green,
Then all three -- a weaving sheen
Of prismed patriotism.
March
Tommy's soldiers, stiff and starch,
Boldly stepping to the rattle
Of the drums, they go to battle.
Tommy lies on his stomach on the floor and directs his columns.
He puts his infantry in front, and before them ambles a mounted
band.
Their instruments make a strand of gold before the scarlet-tunicked
soldiers,
and they take very long steps on their little green platforms,
and from the ranks bursts the song of Tommy's soldiers marching
to battle.
The song jolts a little as the green platforms stick on the thick
carpet.
Tommy wheels his guns round the edge of a box of blocks, and places
a squad of cavalry on the commanding eminence of a footstool.
The fire snaps pleasantly, and the old Chinaman nods -- nods.
The
fire makes
the red rose in his hand glow and twist.
Hist! That
is a bold song
Tommy's soldiers sing as they march along to battle.
Crack! Rattle! The sparks
fly up the chimney.
Tommy's army's off to war --
Not a soldier knows what for.
But he knows about his rifle,
How to shoot it, and a trifle
Of the proper thing to do
When it's he who is shot through.
Like a cleverly trained flea,
He can follow instantly
Orders, and some quick commands
Really make severe demands
On a mind that's none too rapid,
Leaden brains tend to the vapid.
But how beautifully dressed
Is this army! How impressed
Tommy is when at his heel
All his baggage wagons wheel
About the patterned carpet, and
Moving up his heavy guns
He sees them glow with diamond suns
Flashing all along each barrel.
And the gold and blue apparel
Of his gunners is a joy.
Tommy is a lucky boy.
Boom! Boom! Ta-ra!
The old mandarin nods under his purple umbrella.
The
rose in his hand
shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson.
Then
they collapse
and shrivel like red embers.
The fire sizzles.
Tommy is galloping his cavalry, two by two, over the floor.
They
must pass
the open terror of the door and gain the enemy encamped under the
wash-stand.
The mounted band is very grand, playing allegro and leading the
infantry on
at the double quick.
The tassel of the hearth-rug has
flung down
the bass-drum, and he and his dapple-grey horse lie overtripped,
slipped out of line, with the little lead drumsticks glistening
to the fire's shine.
The fire burns and crackles, and tickles the tripped
bass-drum
with its sparkles.
The marching army hitches its little green platforms
valiantly, and steadily
approaches the door.
The overturned bass-drummer, lying
on the hearth-rug,
melting in the heat, softens and sheds tears.
The song
jeers
at his impotence, and flaunts the glory of the martial and still
upstanding,
vaunting the deeds it will do.
For are not Tommy's soldiers
all bright and new?
Tommy's leaden soldiers we,
Glittering with efficiency.
Not a button's out of place,
Tons and tons of golden lace
Wind about our officers.
Every manly bosom stirs
At the thought of killing -- killing!
Tommy's dearest wish fulfilling.
We are gaudy, savage, strong,
And our loins so ripe we long
First to kill, then procreate,
Doubling so the laws of Fate.
On their women we have sworn
To graft our sons.
And overborne
They'll rear us younger soldiers, so
Shall our race endure and grow,
Waxing greater in the wombs
Borrowed of them, while damp tombs
Rot their men.
O Glorious War!
Goad us with your points, Great Star!
The china mandarin on the bookcase nods slowly, forward and back
--
forward and back -- and the red rose writhes and wriggles,
thrusting its flaming petals under and over one another like tortured
snakes.
The fire strokes them with its dartles, and purrs
at them,
and the old man nods.
Tommy does not hear the song.
He only sees the beautiful,
new,
gaily-coloured lead soldiers.
They belong to him, and
he is very proud
and happy.
He shouts his orders aloud, and gallops his
cavalry past the door
to the wash-stand.
He creeps over the floor on his hands
and knees
to one battalion and another, but he sees only the bright colours
of his soldiers and the beautiful precision of their gestures.
He is a lucky boy to have such fine lead soldiers to enjoy.
Tommy catches his toe in the leg of the wash-stand, and jars the
pitcher.
He snatches at it with his hands, but it is too late.
The
pitcher falls,
and as it goes, he sees the white water flow over its lip.
It
slips
between his fingers and crashes to the floor.
But it
is not water which oozes
to the door.
The stain is glutinous and dark, a spark
from the firelight
heads it to red.
In and out, between the fine, new soldiers,
licking over the carpet, squirms the stream of blood, lapping at
the little green platforms, and flapping itself against the painted
uniforms.
The nodding mandarin moves his head slowly, forward and back.
The rose is broken, and where it fell is black blood.
The
old mandarin leers
under his purple umbrella, and nods -- forward and back, staring
into the air
with blue-green eyes.
Every time his head comes forward
a rosebud pushes
between his lips, rushes into full bloom, and drips to the ground
with a splashing sound.
The pool of black blood grows
and grows,
with each dropped rose, and spreads out to join the stream from
the wash-stand.
The beautiful army of lead soldiers steps
boldly forward,
but the little green platforms are covered in the rising stream
of blood.
The nursery fire burns brightly and flings fan-bursts of stars up
the chimney,
as though a gala flamed a night of victorious wars.
|
Written by
W S Merwin |
Naturally it is night.
Under the overturned lute with its
One string I am going my way
Which has a strange sound.
This way the dust that way the dust.
I listen to both sides
But I keep right on.
I remember the leaves sitting in judgment
And then winter.
I remember the rain with its bundles of roads.
The rain taking all its roads.
Nowhere.
Young as I am old as I am
I forget tomorrow the blind man.
I forget the life among the buried windows.
The eyes in the curtains.
The wall
Growing through the immortelles.
I forget silence
The owner of the smile.
This must be what I wanted to be doing
Walking at night between the two deserts
Singing.
|
Written by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams |
Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—
And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me.
Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.
Trees vanish—reappear—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.
Peer Gynt.
Rip Van Winkle.
Diana.
If I were young I would try a new alignment—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross: four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad.
All toads are happy
and belong in gardens.
A toad to Diana!
Lean forward.
Punch the steerman
behind the ear.
Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge! Screams! Crash!
The end.
I sit above my head—
a little removed—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving,—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch! All threads cut!
Death! Black.
The end.
The very end—
I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful: the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine.
All stuff of the blind emotions.
But—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time—The eye awake!—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny weed flattened upon it under
a weight of air—For the first time!—
or a yawning depth: Big!
Swim around in it, through it—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff—
God how I love you!—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch.
The End.
I sit
examining my red handful.
Balancing
—this—in and out—agh.
Love you? It's
a fire in the blood, willy-nilly!
It's the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it's the grey moon too, already up
in the morning.
You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman? Fighters.
Playfellows.
White round thighs! Youth! Sighs—!
It's the fillip of novelty.
It's—
Mountains.
Elephants humping along
against the sky—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces.
It's
the fillip of novelty.
It's a fire in the blood.
Oh get a flannel shirt], white flannel
or pongee.
You'd look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you! I wanted you
in spite of all they'd say—
Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river.
Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.
—Always! Always!
And the white moon already up.
White.
Clean.
All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye—awake!
backed by the emotions—blind—
River and mountain, light and rain—or
rain, rock, light, trees—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or—
Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers—rivers meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.
—
It's the grey moon—over and over.
It's the clay of these parts.
|
Written by
Thomas Lux |
furnished rooms, flats, a hayloft,
a tent, motels, under a table,
under an overturned rowboat, in a villa (briefly) but not,
as yet, a yurt.
In these places
he has slept, eaten,
put his forehead to the window glass,
looking out.
He's in a stilt-house now,
the water passing beneath him half the day;
the other half it's mud.
The tides
do this: they come, they go,
while he sleeps, eats, puts his forehead
to the window glass.
He's moving soon: his trailer to a trailer park,
or to the priory to live among the penitents
but in his own cell,
with wheels, to take him, when it's time
to go, to: boathouse, houseboat
with a little motor, putt-putt,
to take him across the sea
or down the river
where at night, anchored by a sandbar
at the bend,
he will eat, sleep, and press his eyelids
to the window
of the pilothouse
until the anchor-hauling hour
when he'll embark again
toward his sanctuary, harborage, saltbox,
home.
|
Written by
William Topaz McGonagall |
'Twas near the Begum Kothie the battle began,
Where innocent blood as plentiful as water ran;
The Begum Kothie was a place of honour given to the 93rd,
Which heroically to a man they soon did begird.
And the 4th Punjaub Rifles were their companions in glory,
And are worthy of their names enrolled in story,
Because they performed prodigious wonders in the fight,
By killing and scattering the Sepoys left and right.
The 93rd Highlanders bivouacked in a garden surrounded by mud walls,
Determined to capture the Begum Kothie no matter what befalls--,
A place strongly fortified and of enormous strength,
And protected by strong earthworks of very great length.
And added to these obstacles was the most formidable of all--
A broad deep ditch that ran along the wall,
Which the storming party not even guessed at before;
But this barrier the British soon did climb o'er.
But early the next morning two batteries of Artillery were pounding away,
And the fight went on for the whole day;
And the defenders of the building kept up rattling musketry fire,
And when night fell the British had to retire.
Next day the contest was renewed with better success,
And the 93rd in all their beauty forward did press,
And moved on toward the position without firing a shot,
And under cover of some ruined buildings they instantly got.
And here for a few minutes they kept themselves under cover,
While each man felt more anxious than another
To attack the merciless rebels while it was day,
Because their blood was up and eager for the fray.
Still the enemy kept up a blazing fire at them pell-mell,
But they fired too high and not a man of them fell;
And the bullets whistled around them again and again,
Still on went the unwavering Highlanders with might and main.
But when they reached the ditch they were taken by surprise,
By the unexpected obstacle right before their eyes;
But Captain Middleton leapt into the ditch and showed them the way,
And immediately the whole of the men were after him without delay.
Leith Hay himself was among the first across,
And gained a footing on the other side without any personal loss;
And he assisted in helping the rest out of the ditch,
While the din of war was at the highest pitch.
'Twas then the struggle commenced in terrible earnest:
While every man was resolved to do his best;
And the enemy barricaded every entrance so as a single man could only pass,
Determined to make a strong resistance, and the British to harass.
But barrier after barrier soon was passed;
And the brave men no doubt felt a little harassed,
But they fought desperately and overturned their foes at every point,
And put the rebels to flight by shot and bayonet conjoint.
The Sheiks and the Horse Guards behaved right well--
Because beneath their swords, by the score, the Sepoys fell;
And their beautiful war steeds did loudly neigh and roar,
While beneath their hoofs they trampled them all o'er.
And as for John McLeod-- the pipe-major of the 93rd,
He kept sounding his bagpipes and couldn't be stirred--
Because he remembered his duty in the turmoil,
And in the battlefield he was never known to recoil.
And as for Major General McBain-- he was the hero in the fight;
He fought heroically-- like a lion-- with all his might;
And again and again he was met by desperate odds,
But he scattered them around him and made them kiss the sods.
And he killed eleven of the enemy with sword in hand,
Which secured for him the proudest of all honours in the land,
Namely, that coveted honour called the Victoria Cross,
Of which many a deserving hero has known the loss.
And as for brave Hodson-- he was a warrior born,
And military uniform did his body adorn;
And his voice could be heard in the battle afar,
Crying-- "Come on my boys there is nothing like war!"
But, in a moment, a volley was discharged at him,
And he fell mortally wounded, while the Sepoys did grin;
Then the Highlanders closed with their foes and made them retreat,
And left them not till every rebel lay dead at their feet.
Then Sir Colin Campbell to his men did say,--
"Men, I feel proud that we have captured Lucknow this day;
Therefore strike up the bagpipes and give one hearty cheer,
And enjoy yourselves, my heroes, while ye are here.
"
|
Written by
Omar Khayyam |
In the face of the decrees of Providence, nothing avails
but resignation. Among men nothing avails but seeming
and hypocrisy. I have employed every ruse, the strongest
that the human mind can invent, but destiny has always
overturned my projects.
|
Written by
Omar Khayyam |
Here is the noise of the morning, O idol, whose coming
brings happiness! Chant the refrain and bring the wine;
for [you know it], the constant sequence of these months
of Tir and Di have overturned upon the earth a thousand
potentates like Djem, a hundred thousand like to Kai.
|