Written by
Les Murray |
To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass,
to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches,
or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -
If the cardinal points of costume
are Robes, Tat, Rig and Scunge,
where are shorts in this compass?
They are never Robes
as other bareleg outfits have been:
the toga, the kilt, the lava-lava
the Mahatma's cotton dhoti;
archbishops and field marshals
at their ceremonies never wear shorts.
The very word
means underpants in North America.
Shorts can be Tat,
Land-Rovering bush-environmental tat,
socio-political ripped-and-metal-stapled tat,
solidarity-with-the-Third World tat tvam asi,
likewise track-and-field shorts worn to parties
and the further humid, modelling negligee
of the Kingdom of Flaunt,
that unchallenged aristocracy.
More plainly climatic, shorts
are farmers' rig, leathery with salt and bonemeal;
are sailors' and branch bankers' rig,
the crisp golfing style
of our youngest male National Costume.
Most loosely, they are Scunge,
ancient Bengal bloomers or moth-eaten hot pants
worn with a former shirt,
feet, beach sand, hair
and a paucity of signals.
Scunge, which is real negligee
housework in a swimsuit, pyjamas worn all day,
is holiday, is freedom from ambition.
Scunge makes you invisible
to the world and yourself.
The entropy of costume,
scunge can get you conquered by more vigorous cultures
and help you notice it less.
To be or to become
is a serious question posed by a work-shorts counter
with its pressed stack, bulk khaki and blue,
reading Yakka or King Gee, crisp with steely warehouse odour.
Satisfied ambition, defeat, true unconcern,
the wish and the knack of self-forgetfulness
all fall within the scunge ambit
wearing board shorts of similar;
it is a kind of weightlessness.
Unlike public nakedness, which in Westerners
is deeply circumstantial, relaxed as exam time,
artless and equal as the corsetry of a hussar regiment,
shorts and their plain like
are an angelic nudity,
spirituality with pockets!
A double updraft as you drop from branch to pool!
Ideal for getting served last
in shops of the temperate zone
they are also ideal for going home, into space,
into time, to farm the mind's Sabine acres
for product and subsistence.
Now that everyone who yearned to wear long pants
has essentially achieved them,
long pants, which have themselves been underwear
repeatedly, and underground more than once,
it is time perhaps to cherish the culture of shorts,
to moderate grim vigour
with the knobble of bare knees,
to cool bareknuckle feet in inland water,
slapping flies with a book on solar wind
or a patient bare hand, beneath the cadjiput trees,
to be walking meditatively
among green timber, through the grassy forest
towards a calm sea
and looking across to more of that great island
and the further tropics.
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Written by
Bliss Carman |
When I was just a little boy,
Before I went to school,
I had a fleet of forty sail
I called the Ships of Yule;
Of every rig, from rakish brig
And gallant barkentine,
To little Fundy fishing boats
With gunwales painted green.
They used to go on trading trips
Around the world for me,
For though I had to stay on shore
My heart was on the sea.
They stopped at every port to call
From Babylon to Rome,
To load with all the lovely things
We never had at home;
With elephants and ivory
Bought from the King of Tyre,
And shells and silks and sandal-wood
That sailor men admire;
With figs and dates from Samarcand,
And squatty ginger-jars,
And scented silver amulets
From Indian bazaars;
With sugar-cane from Port of Spain,
And monkeys from Ceylon,
And paper lanterns from Pekin
With painted dragons on;
With cocoanuts from Zanzibar,
And pines from Singapore;
And when they had unloaded these
They could go back for more.
And even after I was big
And had to go to school,
My mind was often far away
Aboard the Ships of Yule.
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Written by
Carl Sandburg |
THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.
And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
They run to drabs and grays—and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow—and some: We should worry.
Yes, Kalamazoo is a spot on the map
And the passenger trains stop there
And the factory smokestacks smoke
And the grocery stores are open Saturday nights
And the streets are free for citizens who vote
And inhabitants counted in the census.
Saturday night is the big night.
Listen with your ears on a Saturday night in Kalamazoo
And say to yourself: I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?
Main street there runs through the middle of the twon
And there is a dirty postoffice
And a dirty city hall
And a dirty railroad station
And the United States flag cries, cries the Stars and Stripes to the four winds on Lincoln’s birthday and the Fourth of July.
Kalamazoo kisses a hand to something far off.
Kalamazoo calls to a long horizon, to a shivering silver angel, to a creeping mystic what-is-it.
“We’re here because we’re here,” is the song of Kalamazoo.
“We don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way,” are the words.
There are hound dogs of bronze on the public square, hound dogs looking far beyond the public square.
Sweethearts there in Kalamazoo
Go to the general delivery window of the postoffice
And speak their names and ask for letters
And ask again, “Are you sure there is nothing for me?
I wish you’d look again—there must be a letter for me.”
And sweethearts go to the city hall
And tell their names and say,“We want a license.”
And they go to an installment house and buy a bed on time and a clock
And the children grow up asking each other, “What can we do to kill time?”
They grow up and go to the railroad station and buy tickets for Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska.
“Kalamazoo is all right,” they say. “But I want to see the world.”
And when they have looked the world over they come back saying it is all like Kalamazoo.
The trains come in from the east and hoot for the crossings,
And buzz away to the peach country and Chicago to the west
Or they come from the west and shoot on to the Battle Creek breakfast bazaars
And the speedbug heavens of Detroit.
“I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?”
Said a loafer lagging along on the sidewalks of Kalamazoo,
Lagging along and asking questions, reading signs.
Oh yes, there is a town named Kalamazoo,
A spot on the map where the trains hesitate.
I saw the sign of a five and ten cent store there
And the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester
And a graveyard and a ball grounds
And a short order counter where a man can get a stack of wheats
And a pool hall where a rounder leered confidential like and said:
“Lookin’ for a quiet game?”
The loafer lagged along and asked,
“Do you make guitars here?
Do you make boxes the singing wood winds ask to sleep in?
Do you rig up strings the singing wood winds sift over and sing low?”
The answer: “We manufacture musical instruments here.”
Here I saw churches with steeples like hatpins,
Undertaking rooms with sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men kill imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And newspapers with a splatter of telegrams from sister cities of Kalamazoo the round world over.
And the loafer lagging along said:
Kalamazoo, you ain’t in a class by yourself;
I seen you before in a lot of places.
If you are nuts America is nuts.
And lagging along he said bitterly:
Before I came to Kalamazoo I was silent.
Now I am gabby, God help me, I am gabby.
Kalamazoo, both of us will do a fadeaway.
I will be carried out feet first
And time and the rain will chew you to dust
And the winds blow you away.
And an old, old mother will lay a green moss cover on my bones
And a green moss cover on the stones of your postoffice and city hall.
Best of all
I have loved your kiddies playing run-sheep-run
And cutting their initials on the ball ground fence.
They knew every time I fooled them who was fooled and how.
Best of all
I have loved the red gold smoke of your sunsets;
I have loved a moon with a ring around it
Floating over your public square;
I have loved the white dawn frost of early winter silver
And purple over your railroad tracks and lumber yards.
The wishing heart of you I loved, Kalamazoo.
I sang bye-lo, bye-lo to your dreams.
I sang bye-lo to your hopes and songs.
I wished to God there were hound dogs of bronze on your public square,
Hound dogs with bronze paws looking to a long horizon with a shivering silver angel, a creeping mystic what-is-it.
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Written by
Paul Muldoon |
Why Brownlee left, and where he went,
Is a mystery even now.
For if a man should have been content
It was him; two acres of barley,
One of potatoes, four bullocks,
A milker, a slated farmhouse.
He was last seen going out to plough
On a March morning, bright and early.
By noon Brownlee was famous;
They had found all abandoned, with
The last rig unbroken, his pair of black
Horses, like man and wife,
Shifting their weight from foot to
Foot, and gazing into the future.
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Written by
Lewis Carroll |
The Hunting
The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
"If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!
"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then?
"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.
"You may charge me with murder--or want of sense--
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!
"I said it in Hebrew--I said it in Dutch--
I said it in German and Greek:
But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)
That English is what you speak!"
"'Tis a pitiful tale," said the Bellman, whose face
Had grown longer at every word:
"But, now that you've stated the whole of your case,
More debate would be simply absurd.
"The rest of my speech" (he exclaimed to his men)
"You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.
But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!
'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!
"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!
"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that wo'n't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!
"For England expects--I forbear to proceed:
'Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:
And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need
To rig yourselves out for the fight."
Then the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),
And changed his loose silver for notes:
The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair.
And shook the dust out of his coats:
The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade--
Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed
No interest in the concern:
Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride
And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
Had proved an infringement of right.
The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned
A novel arrangement of bows:
While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand
Was chalking the tip of his nose.
But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,
With yellow kid gloves and a ruff--
Said he felt it exactly like going to dine,
Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff".
"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,
"If we happen to meet it together!"
And the Bellman, sagaciously nodding his head,
Said "That must depend on the weather."
The Beaver went simply galumphing about,
At seeing the Butcher so shy:
And even the Baker, though stupid and stout,
Made an effort to wink with one eye.
"Be a man!" said the Bellman in wrath, as he heard
The Butcher beginning to sob.
"Should we meet with a Jubjub, that desperate bird,
We shall need all our strength for the job!"
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Written by
Ellis Parker Butler |
You have heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day.
And then, of a sudden, it up and bust,
And all that was left was a mound of dust?
Holmes—O. W.—told it well
In a rhyme of his—what there was to tell—
But the one-hoss shay wasn’t “one, two, three”
With a vehicle once belonged to me.
One hoss? No, sir! Not six nor nine—
Twenty there were in this rig of mine!
Twenty hosses as tough as rocks,
All caged up in a sort of box
That stood jist back of the forward wheels!
Right! She was one of those automobiles
With twenty hosses bottled inside—
Hosses that not only pull but ride!
Wonder what Holmes would have had to say
If the mare had rode in his one-hoss shay!
I reckon the shay would have logicked out
Before the century rolled about.
Well, this big touring car, I say,
Was built just like the one-hoss shay—
Some dependable, logical way—
Flipflaps, dujabs, wheels and things,
Levers, thing-gum-bobs and springs,
Hub, and felloe, and hoss-power chest—
One part just as strong as the rest;
So “logic is logic,” as Holmes would say,
And no one part could first give way.
Wonderful vehicle, you’ll admit,
With not one flaw in the whole of it;
As long as I had it, I declare
I hadn’t one cent to pay for repair,
It couldn’t break down because, you see,
It was such a logical symphony.
Now for my tale. We’re not so slow
These days as a hundred years ago,
And it’s like enough that the one-hoss shay,
Ambling along in its sleepy way,
Should creep a century ‘thout a break,
But nowadays we aim to make
A pace that is something like a pace,
And if that old shay got in our race
It would stand the pressure twenty days
And go to the home of played-out shays.
“Logic is logic.” Just figure this out—
For I know just what I’m talking about:—
If a one-hoss vehicle, genus shays,
Will stand our pressure twenty days,
Then, vice versa, a twenty-hoss shay
Should stand the pressure just one day;—
Well, mine is a logical automobile,
From rubber tire to steering wheel.
I bought it one morning at just 10.42,
And the very next morning what did it do,
Right on the second, but up and bust!
Talk of the old shay’s pile of dust—
That’s not logical; my mobile
Vanished completely! Brass and steel,
Iron and wood and rubber tire
Went right up in a gush of fire,
And in half a minute a gassy smell
Was all I had left by which to tell
I ever owned a touring car,—
And then that vanished, and there you are!
End of my twenty hoss-power shay.
Logic is logic. That’s all I say.
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Written by
Howard Nemerov |
I tell you that I see her still
At the dark entrance of the hall.
One gas lamp burning near her shoulder
Shone also from her other side
Where hung the long inaccurate glass
Whose pictures were as troubled water.
An immense shadow had its hand
Between us on the floor, and seemed
To hump the knuckles nervously,
A giant crab readying to walk,
Or a blanket moving in its sleep.
You will remember, with a smile
Instructed by movies to reminisce,
How strict her corsets must have been,
How the huge arrangements of her hair
Would certainly betray the least
Impassionate displacement there.
It was no rig for dallying,
And maybe only marriage could
Derange that queenly scaffolding -
As when a great ship, coming home,
Coasts in the harbor, dropping sail
And loosing all the tackle that had laced
Her in the long lanes...
I know
We need not draw this figure out
But all that whalebone came for whales
And all the whales lived in the sea,
In calm beneath the troubled glass,
Until the needle drew their blood.
I see her standing in the hall,
Where the mirror's lashed to blood and foam,
And the black flukes of agony
Beat at the air till the light blows out.
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
In distant New Zealand, whose tresses of gold
The billows are ceaselessly combing,
Away in a village all tranquil and old
I came on a market where porkers were sold --
A market for pigs in the gloaming.
And Maoris in plenty in picturesque rig
The lands of their forefathers roaming,
Were weighing their swine, whether little or big,
For purchasers paid by the weight of the pig --
The weight of the pig in the gloaming.
And one mighty chieftain, I grieve to relate,
The while that his porker was foaming
And squealing like fifty -- that Maori sedate,
He leant on the pig just to add to its weight --
He leant on the pig in the gloaming.
Alas! for the buyer, an Irishman stout --
O'Grady, I think, his cognomen --
Perceived all his doings, and, giving a shout,
With the butt of his whip laid him carefully out
By the side of his pig in the gloaming.
A terrible scrimmage did straightway begin,
And I thought it was time to be homing,
For Maoris and Irish were fighting like sin
'Midst war-cries of "Pakeha!" "Batherashin!"
As I fled from the spot in the gloaming
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Written by
Robert Burns |
A GUID New-year I wish thee, Maggie!
Hae, there’s a ripp to thy auld baggie:
Tho’ thou’s howe-backit now, an’ knaggie,
I’ve seen the day
Thou could hae gaen like ony staggie,
Out-owre the lay.
Tho’ now thou’s dowie, stiff, an’ crazy,
An’ thy auld hide as white’s a daisie,
I’ve seen thee dappl’t, sleek an’ glaizie,
A bonie gray:
He should been tight that daur’t to raize thee,
Ance in a day.
Thou ance was i’ the foremost rank,
A filly buirdly, steeve, an’ swank;
An’ set weel down a shapely shank,
As e’er tread yird;
An’ could hae flown out-owre a stank,
Like ony bird.
It’s now some nine-an’-twenty year,
Sin’ thou was my guid-father’s mear;
He gied me thee, o’ tocher clear,
An’ fifty mark;
Tho’ it was sma’, ’twas weel-won gear,
An’ thou was stark.
When first I gaed to woo my Jenny,
Ye then was trotting wi’ your minnie:
Tho’ ye was trickie, slee, an’ funnie,
Ye ne’er was donsie;
But hamely, tawie, quiet, an’ cannie,
An’ unco sonsie.
That day, ye pranc’d wi’ muckle pride,
When ye bure hame my bonie bride:
An’ sweet an’ gracefu’ she did ride,
Wi’ maiden air!
Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide
For sic a pair.
Tho’ now ye dow but hoyte and hobble,
An’ wintle like a saumont coble,
That day, ye was a jinker noble,
For heels an’ win’!
An’ ran them till they a’ did wauble,
Far, far, behin’!
When thou an’ I were young an’ skeigh,
An’ stable-meals at fairs were dreigh,
How thou wad prance, and snore, an’ skreigh
An’ tak the road!
Town’s-bodies ran, an’ stood abeigh,
An’ ca’t thee mad.
When thou was corn’t, an’ I was mellow,
We took the road aye like a swallow:
At brooses thou had ne’er a fellow,
For pith an’ speed;
But ev’ry tail thou pay’t them hollow,
Whare’er thou gaed.
The sma’, droop-rumpl’t, hunter cattle
Might aiblins waur’t thee for a brattle;
But sax Scotch mile, thou try’t their mettle,
An’ gar’t them whaizle:
Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle
O’ saugh or hazel.
Thou was a noble fittie-lan’,
As e’er in tug or tow was drawn!
Aft thee an’ I, in aught hours’ gaun,
In guid March-weather,
Hae turn’d sax rood beside our han’,
For days thegither.
Thou never braing’t, an’ fetch’t, an’ fliskit;
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,
An’ spread abreed thy weel-fill’d brisket,
Wi’ pith an’ power;
Till sprittie knowes wad rair’t an’ riskit
An’ slypet owre.
When frosts lay lang, an’ snaws were deep,
An’ threaten’d labour back to keep,
I gied thy cog a wee bit heap
Aboon the timmer:
I ken’d my Maggie wad na sleep,
For that, or simmer.
In cart or car thou never reestit;
The steyest brae thou wad hae fac’t it;
Thou never lap, an’ sten’t, and breastit,
Then stood to blaw;
But just thy step a wee thing hastit,
Thou snoov’t awa.
My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a’,
Four gallant brutes as e’er did draw;
Forbye sax mae I’ve sell’t awa,
That thou hast nurst:
They drew me thretteen pund an’ twa,
The vera warst.
Mony a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,
An’ wi’ the weary warl’ fought!
An’ mony an anxious day, I thought
We wad be beat!
Yet here to crazy age we’re brought,
Wi’ something yet.
An’ think na’, my auld trusty servan’,
That now perhaps thou’s less deservin,
An’ thy auld days may end in starvin;
For my last fow,
A heapit stimpart, I’ll reserve ane
Laid by for you.
We’ve worn to crazy years thegither;
We’ll toyte about wi’ ane anither;
Wi’ tentie care I’ll flit thy tether
To some hain’d rig,
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather,
Wi’ sma’ fatigue.
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Written by
Robert Burns |
GUDEWIFE,I MIND it weel in early date,
When I was bardless, young, and blate,
An’ first could thresh the barn,
Or haud a yokin’ at the pleugh;
An, tho’ forfoughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn:
When first amang the yellow corn
A man I reckon’d was,
An’ wi’ the lave ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing
The tither stooked raw,
Wi’ claivers, an’ haivers,
Wearing the day awa.
E’en then, a wish, (I mind its pow’r),
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast,
That I for poor auld Scotland’s sake
Some usefu’ plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,
I turn’d the weeder-clips aside,
An’ spar’d the symbol dear:
No nation, no station,
My envy e’er could raise;
A Scot still, but blot still,
I knew nae higher praise.
But still the elements o’ sang,
In formless jumble, right an’ wrang,
Wild floated in my brain;
’Till on that har’st I said before,
May partner in the merry core,
She rous’d the forming strain;
I see her yet, the sonsie quean,
That lighted up my jingle,
Her witching smile, her pawky een
That gart my heart-strings tingle;
I firèd, inspired,
At every kindling keek,
But bashing, and dashing,
I fearèd aye to speak.
Health to the sex! ilk guid chiel says:
Wi’ merry dance in winter days,
An’ we to share in common;
The gust o’ joy, the balm of woe,
The saul o’ life, the heaven below,
Is rapture-giving woman.
Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name,
Be mindfu’ o’ your mither;
She, honest woman, may think shame
That ye’re connected with her:
Ye’re wae men, ye’re nae men
That slight the lovely dears;
To shame ye, disclaim ye,
Ilk honest birkie swears.
For you, no bred to barn and byre,
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,
Thanks to you for your line:
The marled plaid ye kindly spare,
By me should gratefully be ware;
’Twad please me to the nine.
I’d be mair vauntie o’ my hap,
Douce hingin owre my curple,
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.
Farewell then, lang hale then,
An’ plenty be your fa;
May losses and crosses
Ne’er at your hallan ca’!R. BURNS.March, 1787
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