Written by
John Matthew |
You hide your face in shame,
But I can see your private parts,
Have you no contrition,
To expose yourself, shamelessly, thus?
Tell me what does it feel,
To be watched while you strain?
Is that why you hang your head in shame;
Has all embarrassment left you?
I know it’s hard; you need your money,
But couldn’t you put the money —
You spend on spirits and tobacco,
To use that public facility on the street corner?
Is it communion with nature you seek?
Or the pleasure of shocking,
Young children, and pubescent girls?
Your revenge, your wretchedness!
If it’s your laziness, unforgivable indolence,
And reluctance to pay Rupee two,
And wash with dignity in that public facility,
Then bury your face, wretch, and die in shame.
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
1.
Old Man
Old man, it's four flights up and for what?
Your room is hardly bigger than your bed.
Puffing as you climb, you are a brown woodcut
stooped over the thin tail and the wornout tread.
The room will do.
All that's left of the old life
is jampacked on shelves from floor to ceiling
like a supermarket: your books, your dead wife
generously fat in her polished frame, the congealing
bowl of cornflakes sagging in their instant milk,
your hot plate and your one luxury, a telephone.
You leave your door open, lounging in maroon silk
and smiling at the other roomers who live alone.
Well, almost alone.
Through the old-fashioned wall
the fellow next door has a girl who comes to call.
Twice a week at noon during their lunch hour
they puase by your door to peer into your world.
They speak sadly as if the wine they carry would sour
or as if the mattress would not keep them curled
together, extravagantly young in their tight lock.
Old man, you are their father holding court
in the dingy hall until their alarm clock
rings and unwinds them.
You unstopper the quart
of brandy you've saved, examining the small print
in the telephone book.
The phone in your lap is all
that's left of your family name.
Like a Romanoff prince
you stay the same in your small alcove off the hall.
Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn't stop,
with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.
2.
Seamstress
I'm at pains to know what else I could have done
but move him out of his parish, him being my son;
him being the only one at home since his Pa
left us to beat the Japs at Okinawa.
I put the gold star up in the front window
beside the flag.
Alterations is what I know
and what I did: hems, gussets and seams.
When my boy had the fever and the bad dreams
I paid for the clinic exam and a pack of lies.
As a youngster his private parts were undersize.
I thought of his Pa, that muscly old laugh he had
and the boy was thin as a moth, but never once bad,
as smart as a rooster! To hear some neighbors tell,
Your kid! He'll go far.
He'll marry well.
So when he talked of taking the cloth, I thought
I'd talk him out of it.
You're all I got,
I told him.
For six years he studied up.
I prayed
against God Himself for my boy.
But he stayed.
Christ was a hornet inside his head.
I guess
I'd better stitch the zipper in this dress.
I guess I'll get along.
I always did.
Across the hall from me's an old invalid,
aside of him, a young one -- he carries on
with a girl who pretends she comes to use the john.
The old one with the bad breath and his bed all mussed,
he smiles and talks to them.
He's got some crust.
Sure as hell, what else could I have done
but pack up and move in here, him being my son?
3.
Young Girl
Dear love, as simple as some distant evil
we walk a little drunk up these three flughts
where you tacked a Dufy print above your army cot.
The thin apartment doors on the way up will
not tell us.
We are saying, we have our rights
and let them see the sandwiches and wine we bought
for we do not explain my husband's insane abuse
and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled
or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead.
Your palms fold over me like knees.
Love is the only use.
Both a little drunk in the afternoon
with the forgotten smart of August on our skin
we hold hands as if we were still children who trudge
up the wooden tower, on up past that close platoon
of doors, past the dear old man who always asks us in
and the one who sews like a wasp and will not budge.
Climbing the dark halls, I ignore their papers and pails,
the twelve coats of rubbish of someone else's dim life.
Tell them need is an excuse for love.
Tell them need prevails.
Tell them I remake and smooth your bed and am your wife.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
now pay attention
(said the teacher)
and look up here
the children looked up
this is william shakespeare
four centuries up
on a pedestal
was shakespeare's head
he was what we call
a great man
the children got sore necks
looking up
and some began to look down
no no
you mustn't look down
(said the teacher)
apart from winston churchill
shakespeare was the greatest
englishman who ever lived
the children's eyes
drained to their feet
and their minds
played around with
their private parts
shakespeare was once
a schoolteacher who
had a second best bed
and he happened to write
thirty six plays
and sonnets and things
he has a noble brow
as you can see
the children stared
from a dusty old head
and a mothridden beard
two sour eyes
glared down
from being a bit bored
then very bored
the children began to have
explosions going off
in many parts of their
bodies
mutters came
out of their mouths
and then anger
followed by flames
shakespeare is a chauvinist
pig
(they screamed)
why don't you piss off
(they shrieked at the teacher)
and take him with you
now now children
(said the teacher)
shakespeare's language
was always as noble
as his brow
he will be shocked
to hear such words
some of the class jumped
on the teacher
(as the young are inclined
to nowadays)
and
the rest began to rock
shakespeare's pedestal
no
please no children
(cried the teacher)
you know not what you do
do you want to destroy
all that is good
in the world
the rocking went on
like an earthquake
and slowly
up four
centuries of stone
shakespeare's head
began to wobble
and all of a sudden
it seemed to
jump from its pedestal
and drop
shaking itself
free of dust and
a beardful of moths
vandals desecrators
(raged the teacher)
wetting himself
no doubt
watch out
(laughed the children)
catch
and the head
fell safely into
their outstretched hands
the teacher shrank away
(wet wet)
terrified to be so close
to the greatest but one
of the greats
the children flocked round
curious to find
what greatness was
shakespeare blew his nose
cleared his throat
(the last of the dust)
and said
hello kids
i'm famished
what's to eat
tell me about yourselves
(and things like that)
he had a real face
and he spoke english
with a kind of
birmingham accent
and he didn't seem to know
much more than they did
he was always pissing around
(he told them)
when he was their age
the teacher gradually
came back
very surprised
and (when he dared to look
at himself) obviously
very relieved
he went away and began
reading the plays
and (discovering
where he'd gone wrong)
got out of teaching
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
in the shadow
of the flower
is the sting
the bee driven by need
uses its painful gift
to keep its sense of beauty
in proportion
it does its job with
a thoughtless dedication
its honeyed world
excites no inner space
bees are not poets
who wade through words
with too much brain
around their ankles
each itching bee-part
is attuned
to a cosmic web
each buzz miraculous
flowers put powder
on their private parts
to call the bees in
it seems a good game
much fumbling and the bee
goes home to mother
rewards ripple outwards
to many dripping tongues
bees hate anything
that gets in the way
the bee-world is exclusive
aliens - keep out
bees live on a knife-edge
between honey
and a ripped-out sting
violation propels them
in the shadow
of the nectar
is the horror
|
Written by
Delmore Schwartz |
What curious dresses all men wear!
The walker you met in a brown study,
The President smug in rotogravure,
The mannequin, the bathing beauty.
The bubble-dancer, the deep-sea diver,
The bureaucrat, the adulterer,
Hide private parts which I disclose
To those who know what a poem knows.
|