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Best Famous Skirting Poems

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Written by Nazim Hikmet | Create an image from this poem

Things I Didnt Know I Loved

 it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it 
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
 and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before 
 and will be said after me

I didn't know I loved the sky 
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard 
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest 
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
 lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief 
 to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads 
even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea 
 Koktebele
 formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish 
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute 
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé
 when I was eighteen
apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take 
and at eighteen our lives are what we value least
I've written this somewhere before
wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play 
Ramazan night
a paper lantern leading the way
maybe nothing like this ever happened
maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy
 going to the shadow play
Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand 
 his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat
 with a sable collar over his robe
 and there's a lantern in the servant's hand
 and I can't contain myself for joy
flowers come to mind for some reason 
poppies cactuses jonquils
in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika 
fresh almonds on her breath
I was seventeen
my heart on a swing touched the sky 
I didn't know I loved flowers
friends sent me three red carnations in prison

I just remembered the stars 
I love them too
whether I'm floored watching them from below 
or whether I'm flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts 
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
 or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't 
 be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract 
 well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to 
 say they were terribly figurative and concrete
my heart was in my mouth looking at them 
they are our endless desire to grasp things
seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad 
I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes
both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind 
I didn't know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors 
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
 except the Sea of Azov
or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois 
strikes me
I like it

I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my 
 heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop 
 and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved 
 rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting 
 by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette 
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty 
 to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
 watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

 19 April 1962
 Moscow


Written by Jorie Graham | Create an image from this poem

Le Manteau De Pascal

 I have put on my great coat it is cold.

It is an outer garment.

Coarse, woolen.

Of unknown origin.

 *

It has a fine inner lining but it is 
as an exterior that you see it — a grace.

 *

I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
as the evening calls the bird up into
the branches of the shaven hedgerows,
to twitter bodily
a makeshift coat — the boxelder cut back stringently by the owner 
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know — 
the birds tucked gestures on the inner branches — 
and space in the heart, 
not shade-giving, not 
chronological...Oh transformer, logic, where are you here in this fold, 
my name being called-out now but back, behind, 
in the upper world....

 *

I have a coat I am wearing I was told to wear it.
Someone knelt down each morning to button it up.
I looked at their face, down low, near me.
What is longing? what is a star?
Watched each button a peapod getting tucked back in. 
Watched harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves. 
Watched grappling hooks trawl through the late-night waters. 
Watched bands of stations scan unable to ascertain.
There are fingers, friend, that never grow sluggish.
They crawl up the coat and don't miss an eyehole.
Glinting in kitchenlight.
Supervised by the traffic god.
Hissed at by grassblades that wire-up outside
their stirring rhetoric — this is your land, this is my my — 

 *

You do understanding, don't you, by looking?
The coat, which is itself a ramification, a city,
floats vulnerably above another city, ours,
the city on the hill (only with hill gone),
floats in illustration
of what once was believed, and thus was visible — 
(all things believed are visible) —
floats a Jacob's ladder with hovering empty arms, an open throat,
a place where a heart might beat if it wishes,
pockets that hang awaiting the sandy whirr of a small secret,
folds where the legs could be, with their kneeling mechanism,
the floating fatigue of an after-dinner herald,
not guilty of any treason towards life except fatigue,
a skillfully cut coat, without chronology,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed —
as then it is, abruptly, the last stitch laid in, the knot bit off —
hung there in Gravity, as if its innermost desire,
numberless the awaitings flickering around it,
the other created things also floating but not of the same order, no,
not like this form, built so perfectly to mantle the body,
the neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower,
a skirting barely visible where the tucks indicate
the mild loss of bearing in the small of the back,
the grammar, so strict, of the two exact shoulders —
and the law of the shouldering —
and the chill allowed to skitter up through,
and those crucial spots where the fit cannot be perfect — 
oh skirted loosening aswarm with lessenings,
with the mild pallors of unaccomplishment,
flaps night-air collects in,
folds... But the night does not annul its belief in,
the night preserves its love for, this one narrowing of infinity,
that floats up into the royal starpocked blue its ripped, distracted supervisor —
this coat awaiting recollection,
this coat awaiting the fleeting moment, the true moment, the hill,the vision of the hill,
and then the moment when the prize is lost, and the erotic tinglings of the dream of reason 
are left to linger mildly in the weave of the fabric according to the rules,
the wool gabardine mix, with its grammatical weave, 
never never destined to lose its elasticity, 
its openness to abandonment, 
its willingness to be disturbed.

 * 

July 11 ... Oaks: the organization of this tree is difficult. Speaking generally 
no doubt the determining planes are concentric, a system of brief contiguous and 
continuous tangents, whereas those of the cedar wd. roughly be called horizontals 
and those of the beech radiating but modified by droop and by a screw-set towards 
jutting points. But beyond this since the normal growth of the boughs is radiating 
there is a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve-pieces. And since the 
end shoots curl and carry young scanty leaf-stars these clubs are tapered, and I 
have seen also pieces in profile with chiseled outlines, the blocks thus made 
detached and lessening towards the end. However the knot-star is the chief thing: 
it is whorled, worked round, and this is what keeps up the illusion of the tree. 
Oaks differ much, and much turns on the broadness of the leaves, the narrower 
giving the crisped and starry and catharine-wheel forms, the broader the flat-pieced 
mailed or chard-covered ones, in wh. it is possible to see composition in dips, etc. 
But I shall study them further. It was this night I believe but possibly the next 
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying in the Church of England.

 *

How many coats do you think it will take?

The coat was a great-coat.

The Emperor's coat was.

How many coats do you think it will take?

The undercoat is dry. What we now want is?

The sky can analyse the coat because of the rips in it. 

The sky shivers through the coat because of the rips in it. 

The rips in the sky ripen through the rips in the coat. 

There is no quarrel.

 *

I take off my coat and carry it.

 *

There is no emergency.

 *

I only made that up.

 *

Behind everything the sound of something dripping

The sound of something: I will vanish, others will come here, what is that? 

The canvas flapping in the wind like the first notes of our absence

An origin is not an action though it occurs at the very start

Desire goes travelling into the total dark of another's soul 
looking for where it breaks off

I was a hard thing to undo

 *

The life of a customer 

What came on the paper plate 

overheard nearby

an impermanence of structure

watching the lip-reading

had loved but couldn't now recognize

 *

What are the objects, then, that man should consider most important? 

What sort of a question is that he asks them.

The eye only discovers the visible slowly.

It floats before us asking to be worn,

offering "we must think about objects at the very moment 
when all their meaning is abandoning them"

and "the title provides a protection from significance" 

and "we are responsible for the universe."

 *

I have put on my doubting, my wager, it is cold.
It is an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering,
so coarse and woolen, also of unknown origin,
a barely apprehensible dilution of evening into
an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering,
to twitter bodily a makeshift coat,
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know,
not shade-giving, not chronological,
my name being called out now but from out back, behind,
an outer garment, so coarse and woolen,
also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological,
each harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves,
you do understand, don't you, by looking?
the jacob's ladder with its floating arms its open throat,
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know, 
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed, 
the other created things also floating but not of the same order, 
not shade-giving, not chronological, 
you do understand, don't you, by looking? 
a neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower, 
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
the moment the prize is lost, the erotic tingling, 
the wool-gabardine mix, its grammatical weave
 — you do understand, don't you, by looking? —
never never destined to lose its elasticity,
it was this night I believe but possibly the next
I saw clearly the impossibility of staying
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological 
since the normal growth of boughs is radiating 
a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces —
never never destined to lose its elasticity 
my name being called out now but back, behind, 
hissing how many coats do you think it will take
"or try with eyesight to divide" (there is no quarrel)
behind everything the sound of something dripping
a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces
filled with the sensation of suddenly being completed 
the wool gabardine mix, the grammatical weave,
the never-never-to-lose-its-elasticity: my name 
flapping in the wind like the first note of my absence
hissing how many coats do you think it will take
are you a test case is it an emergency
flapping in the wind the first note of something
overheard nearby an impermanence of structure
watching the lip-reading, there is no quarrel,
I will vanish, others will come here, what is that,
never never to lose the sensation of suddenly being 
completed in the wind — the first note of our quarrel —
it was this night I believe or possibly the next 
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
I will vanish, others will come here, what is that now 
floating in the air before us with stars a test case 
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying
Written by Siegfried Sassoon | Create an image from this poem

A Letter Home

 (To Robert Graves) 

I 

Here I'm sitting in the gloom 
Of my quiet attic room. 
France goes rolling all around, 
Fledged with forest May has crowned. 
And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, 
Thinking how the fighting started, 
Wondering when we'll ever end it, 
Back to hell with Kaiser sent it, 
Gag the noise, pack up and go, 
Clockwork soldiers in a row. 
I've got better things to do 
Than to waste my time on you. 

II 

Robert, when I drowse to-night, 
Skirting lawns of sleep to chase 
Shifting dreams in mazy light, 
Somewhere then I'll see your face 
Turning back to bid me follow 
Where I wag my arms and hollo, 
Over hedges hasting after 
Crooked smile and baffling laughter, 
Running tireless, floating, leaping, 
Down your web-hung woods and valleys, 
Where the glowworm stars are peeping, 
Till I find you, quiet as stone 
On a hill-top all alone, 
Staring outward, gravely pondering 
Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering. 

III 

You and I have walked together 
In the starving winter weather. 
We've been glad because we knew 
Time's too short and friends are few. 
We've been sad because we missed 
One whose yellow head was kissed 
By the gods, who thought about him 
Till they couldn't do without him. 
Now he's here again; I've been 
Soldier David dressed in green, 
Standing in a wood that swings 
To the madrigal he sings. 
He's come back, all mirth and glory, 
Like the prince in a fairy tory. 
Winter called him far away; 
Blossoms bring him home with May. 

IV 

Well, I know you'll swear it's true 
That you found him decked in blue 
Striding up through morning-land 
With a cloud on either hand. 
Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches 
Arm-in-arm with aoks and larches; 
Hides all night in hilly nooks, 
Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks. 
Yet, it's certain, here he teaches 
Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches. 
And I'm sure, as here I stand, 
That he shines through every land, 
That he sings in every place 
Where we're thinking of his face. 

V 

Robert, there's a war in France; 
Everywhere men bang and blunder, 
Sweat and swear and worship Chance, 
Creep and blink through cannon thunder. 
Rifles crack and bullets flick, 
Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. 
Bones are smashed and buried quick. 
Yet, through stunning battle storms, 
All the while I watch the spark 
Lit to guide me; for I know 
Dreams will triumph, though the dark 
Scowls above me where I go. 
You can hear me; you can mingle 
Radiant folly with my jingle. 
War's a joke for me and you 
While we know such dreams are true!
Written by Lewis Carroll | Create an image from this poem

Phantasmagoria CANTO V ( Byckerment )

 "DON'T they consult the 'Victims,' though?"
I said. "They should, by rights,
Give them a chance - because, you know,
The tastes of people differ so,
Especially in Sprites." 

The Phantom shook his head and smiled.
"Consult them? Not a bit!
'Twould be a job to drive one wild,
To satisfy one single child -
There'd be no end to it!" 

"Of course you can't leave CHILDREN free,"
Said I, "to pick and choose:
But, in the case of men like me,
I think 'Mine Host' might fairly be
Allowed to state his views." 

He said "It really wouldn't pay -
Folk are so full of fancies.
We visit for a single day,
And whether then we go, or stay,
Depends on circumstances. 

"And, though we don't consult 'Mine Host'
Before the thing's arranged,
Still, if he often quits his post,
Or is not a well-mannered Ghost,
Then you can have him changed. 

"But if the host's a man like you -
I mean a man of sense;
And if the house is not too new - "
"Why, what has THAT," said I, "to do
With Ghost's convenience?" 

"A new house does not suit, you know -
It's such a job to trim it:
But, after twenty years or so,
The wainscotings begin to go,
So twenty is the limit." 

"To trim" was not a phrase I could
Remember having heard:
"Perhaps," I said, "you'll be so good
As tell me what is understood
Exactly by that word?" 

"It means the loosening all the doors,"
The Ghost replied, and laughed:
"It means the drilling holes by scores
In all the skirting-boards and floors,
To make a thorough draught. 

"You'll sometimes find that one or two
Are all you really need
To let the wind come whistling through -
But HERE there'll be a lot to do!"
I faintly gasped "Indeed! 

"If I 'd been rather later, I'll
Be bound," I added, trying
(Most unsuccessfully) to smile,
"You'd have been busy all this while,
Trimming and beautifying?" 

"Why, no," said he; "perhaps I should
Have stayed another minute -
But still no Ghost, that's any good,
Without an introduction would
Have ventured to begin it. 

"The proper thing, as you were late,
Was certainly to go:
But, with the roads in such a state,
I got the Knight-Mayor's leave to wait
For half an hour or so." 

"Who's the Knight-Mayor?" I cried. Instead
Of answering my question,
"Well, if you don't know THAT," he said,
"Either you never go to bed,
Or you've a grand digestion! 

"He goes about and sits on folk
That eat too much at night:
His duties are to pinch, and poke,
And squeeze them till they nearly choke."
(I said "It serves them right!") 

"And folk who sup on things like these - "
He muttered, "eggs and bacon -
Lobster - and duck - and toasted cheese -
If they don't get an awful squeeze,
I'm very much mistaken! 

"He is immensely fat, and so
Well suits the occupation:
In point of fact, if you must know,
We used to call him years ago,
THE MAYOR AND CORPORATION! 

"The day he was elected Mayor
I KNOW that every Sprite meant
To vote for ME, but did not dare -
He was so frantic with despair
And furious with excitement. 

"When it was over, for a whim,
He ran to tell the King;
And being the reverse of slim,
A two-mile trot was not for him
A very easy thing. 

"So, to reward him for his run
(As it was baking hot,
And he was over twenty stone),
The King proceeded, half in fun,
To knight him on the spot." 

"'Twas a great liberty to take!"
(I fired up like a rocket).
"He did it just for punning's sake:
'The man,' says Johnson, 'that would make
A pun, would pick a pocket!'" 

"A man," said he, "is not a King."
I argued for a while,
And did my best to prove the thing -
The Phantom merely listening
With a contemptuous smile. 

At last, when, breath and patience spent,
I had recourse to smoking -
"Your AIM," he said, "is excellent:
But - when you call it ARGUMENT -
Of course you're only joking?" 

Stung by his cold and snaky eye,
I roused myself at length
To say "At least I do defy
The veriest sceptic to deny
That union is strength!" 

"That's true enough," said he, "yet stay - "
I listened in all meekness -
"UNION is strength, I'm bound to say;
In fact, the thing's as clear as day;
But ONIONS are a weakness."
Written by Emile Verhaeren | Create an image from this poem

The Grave-digger

In the garden yonder of yews and death,
There sojourneth
A man who toils, and has toiled for aye.
Digging the dried-up ground all day.


Some willows, surviving their own dead selves.
Weep there around him as he delves.
And a few poor flowers, disconsolate
Because the tempest and wind and wet
Vex them with ceaseless scourge and fret.


The ground is nothing but pits and cones,
Deep graves in every corner yawn;
The frost in the winter cracks the stones,
And when the summer in June is born
One hears, 'mid the silence that pants for breath,
The germinating and life of Death
Below, among the lifeless bones.


Since ages longer than he can know,
The grave-digger brings his human woe,
That never wears out, and lays its head
Slowly down in that earthy bed.


By all the surrounding roads, each day
They come towards him, the coffins white,
They come in processions infinite;
They come from the distances far away.
From corners obscure and out-of-the-way.
From the heart of the towns—and the wide-spreading
plain.
The limitless plain, swallows up their track;
They come with their escort of people in black.
At every hour, till the day doth wane;
And at early dawn the long trains forlorn
Begin again.


The grave-digger hears far off the knell,
Beneath weary skies, of the passing bell,
Since ages longer than he can tell.


Some grief of his each coffin carrieth—
His wild desires toward evenings dark with death
Are here: his mournings for he knows not what:
Here are his tears, for ever on this spot
Motionless in their shrouds: his memories.
With gaze worn-out from travelling through the years
So far, to bid him call to mind the fears
Of which their souls are dying—and with these
Lies side by side
The shattered body of his broken pride.
His heroism, to which nought replied,
Is here all unavailing;
His courage, 'neath its heavy armour failing.
And his poor valour, gashed upon the brow.
Silent, and crumbling in corruption now.
The grave-digger watches them come into sight,
The long, slow roads.
Marching towards him, with all their loads
Of coffins white.


Here are his keenest thoughts, that one by one
His lukewarm soul hath tainted and undone;
And his white loves of simple days of yore,
in lewd and tempting mirrors sullied o'er;
The proud, mute vows that to himself he made
Are here—for he hath scored and cancelled them,
As one may cut and notch a diadem;
And here, inert and prone, his will is laid,
Whose gestures flashed like lightning keen before.
But that he now can raise in strength no more.


The grave-digger digs to the sound of the knell
'Mid the yews and the deaths in yonder dell.
Since ages longer than he can tell.


Here is his dream—born in the radiant glow.
Of joy and young oblivion, long ago—
That in black fields of science he let go,
That he hath clothed with flame and embers bright,
—Red wings plucked off from Folly in her flight—
That he hath launched toward inaccessible
Spaces afar, toward the distance there,
The golden conquest of the Impossible,
And that the limitless, refractory sky,
Sends back to him again, or it has ere
So much as touched the immobile mystery.


The grave-digger turneth it round and round—
With arms by toil so weary made,
With arms so thin, and strokes of spade—
Since what long times?—the dried-up ground.
Here, for his anguish and remorse, there throng
Pardons denied to creatures in the wrong;
And here, the tears, the prayers, the silent cries,
He would not list to in his brothers' eyes.
The insults to the gentle, and the jeer
What time the humble bent their knees, are here;
Gloomy denials, and a bitter store
Of arid sarcasms, oft poured out before
Devotedness that in the shadow stands
With outstretched hands.


The grave-digger, weary, yet eager as well.
Hiding his pain to the sound of the knell,
With strokes of the spade turns round and round
The weary sods of the dried-up ground.


Then—fear-struck dallyings with suicide;
Delays, that conquer hours that would decide:
Again—the terrors of dark crime and sin
Furtively felt with frenzied fingers thin:
The fierce craze and the fervent rage to be
The man who lives of the extremity
Of his own fear:
And then, too, doubt immense and wild affright.
And madness, with its eyes of marble white,
These all are here.


His head a prey to the dull knell's sound,
In terror the grave-digger turns the ground
With strokes of the spade, and doth ceaseless cast
The dried-up earth upon his past.


The slain days, and the present, he doth see,
Quelling each quivering thrill of life to be.
And drop by drop, through fists whose fingers start.
Pressing the future blood of his red heart;
Chewing with teeth that grind and crush, each part
Of that his future's body, limb by limb,
Till there is but a carcase left to him;
And shewing him, in coffins prisoned,
Or ever they be born, his longings dead.


The grave-digger yonder doth hear the knell,
More heavy yet, of the passing bell.
That up through the mourning horizons doth swell
What if the bells, with their haunting swing,
Would stop on a day that heart-breaking ring!
And the endless procession of corse after corse.
Choke the highways no more of his long remorse
But the biers, with the prayers and the tears,
Immensely yet follow the biers;
They halt by crucifix now, and by shrine,
Then take up once more their mournful line;
On the backs of men, upon trestles borne.
They follow their uniform march forlorn;
Skirting each field and each garden-wall.
Passing beneath the sign-posts tall,
Skirting along by the vast Unknown,
Where terror points horns from the corner-stone.


The old man, broken and propless quite.
Watches them still from the infinite
Coming towards him—and hath beside
Nothing to do, but in earth to hide
His multiple death, thus bit by bit,
And, with fingers irresolute, plant on it
Crosses so hastily, day by day,
Since what long times—he cannot say.


Written by T Wignesan | Create an image from this poem

Who dares to take this life from me Knows no better

for Eric Mottram

"Nur wenn das Herz erschlossen,

Dann ist die Erde schön."

Goethe.

I

An important thing in living
Is to know when to go;
He who does not know this
Has not far to go,
Though death may come and go
When you do not know.


Come, give me your hand,
Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder
We'll go, sour kana in cheeks
And in the mornings cherry sticks
To gum: the infectious chilli smiles
Over touch-me-not thorns, crushing snails
From banana leaves, past
Clawing outstretched arms of the bougainvilias
To stone the salt-bite mangoes.

Tread carefully through this durian kampong
For the ripe season has pricked many a sole.

II
la la la tham'-pong
Let's go running intermittent
To the spitting, clucking rubber fruit
And bamboo lashes through the silent graves,
Fresh sod, red mounds, knee stuck, incensing joss sticks
All night long burning, exhuming, expelling the spirit.
Let's scour, hiding behind the lowing boughs of the hibiscus
Skirting the school-green parapet thorny fields.
Let us now squawk, piercing the sultry, humid blanket
In the shrill wakeful tarzan tones,
Paddle high on.the swings
Naked thighs, testicles dry.

Let us now vanish panting on the climbing slopes
Bare breasted, steaming rolling with perspiration,
Biting with lalang burn.
Let us now go and stand under the school
Water tap, thrashing water to and fro.
Then steal through the towkay's
Barbed compound to pluck the hairy
Eyeing rambutans, blood red, parang in hand,
And caoutchouc pungent with peeling.
Now scurrying through the estate glades
Crunching, kicking autumnal rubber leavings,
Kneading, rolling milky latex balls,
Now standing to water by the corner garden post.

III
This is the land of the convectional rains
Which vie on the monsoon back scrubbing streets
This is the land at half-past four
The rainbow rubs the chilli face of the afternoon
And an evening-morning pervades the dripping, weeping
Rain tree, and gushing, tumbling, sewerless rain drains
Sub-cutaneously eddy sampan fed, muddy, fingerless rivers
Down with crocodile logs to the Malacca Sea.

This is the land of stately dipterocarp, casuarina
And coco-palms reeding north easterly over ancient rites
Of turtle bound breeding sands.

This is the land of the chignoned swaying bottoms
Of sarong-kebaya, sari and cheongsam.
The residual perch of promises
That threw the meek in within
The legs of the over-eager fledgelings.

The land since the Carnatic conquerors
Shovelling at the bottom of the offering mountains
The bounceable verdure brought to its bowers
The three adventurers.

A land frozen in a thousand
Climatic, communal ages
Wags its primordial bushy tail to the Himalayas
Within a three cornered monsoon sea -
In reincarnate churches
And cracker carousels.
The stranglehold of boasting strutting pedigrees
And infidel hordes of marauding thieves,
Where pullulant ideals
Long rocketed in other climes
Ride flat-foot on flat tyres.

IV
Let us go then, hurrying by
Second show nights and jogget parks
Listening to the distant whinings of wayangs
Down the sidewalk frying stalls on Campbell Road
Cheong-Kee mee and queh teow plates
Sateh, rojak and kachang puteh
(rediffusion vigil plates)
Let us then dash to the Madras stalls
To the five cent lye chee slakes.

la la la step stepping
Each in his own inordinate step
Shuffling the terang bulan.
Blindly buzzes the bee
Criss-crossing
Weep, rain tree, weep
The grass untrampled with laughter
In the noonday sobering shade.

Go Cheena-becha Kling-qui Sakai

V
Has it not occurred to you how I sat with you
dear sister, counting the chicking back of the
evening train by the window sill and then
got up to wind my way down the snake infested rail
to shoo shoo the cows home to brood
while you gee geaed the chicks to coop
and did we not then plan of a farm
a green milking farm to warm the palm
then turned to scratch the itch over in our minds
lay down on the floors, mat aside
our thoughts to cushion heads
whilst dug tapioca roots heaped the dream
and we lay scrapping the kernel-less
fiber shelled coconuts

O Bhama, my goatless daughter kid
how I nursed you with the callow calves
those mutual moments forced in these common lives
and then, that day when they sold you
the blistering shirtless sun never flinching
an eye, defiant I stood caressing your creamy coat
and all you could say was a hopeless baaa..a..aa
and then, then, that day as we came over the mountains
two kids you led to the thorny brush, business bent
the eye-balling bharata natyam

VI
O masters of my fading August dream
For should you take this life from me
Know you any better
Than when children we have joyously romped
Down and deep in the August river
Washing on the mountain tin.

Now on the growing granite's precipitous face
In our vigilant wassail
Remember the children downstream playing
Where your own little voices are speechless lingering

Let it not be simply said that a river flows
to flourish a land
More than that he who is high at the source
take heed:
For a river putrid in the cradle is worse
than the plunging flooding rain.

And the eclectic monsoons may have come
Have gathered and may have gone
While the senses still within torrid membranes


thap-po-ng
                           thap-pong
                                                      thap-pong
Written by Peter Huchel | Create an image from this poem

Answer

 THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost;
Upon the lonely road a child limps by
Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost:
 Our hearts sink utterly.


But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear,
Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height,
With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear
 Its soundless hymn of light.


Out of the vast the voice of one replies
Whose words are clouds and stars and night and day,
When for the light the anguished spirit cries
 Deep in its house of clay.
Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

An Old-time Lay

 ("Jamais elle ne raille.") 
 
 {Bk. III. xiii.} 


 Where your brood seven lie, 
 Float in calm heavenly, 
 Life passing evenly, 
 Waterfowl, waterfowl! often I dream 
 For a rest 
 Like your nest, 
 Skirting the stream. 
 
 Shine the sun tearfully 
 Ere the clouds clear fully, 
 Still you skim cheerfully, 
 Swallow, oh! swallow swift! often I sigh 
 For a home 
 Where you roam 
 Nearing the sky! 
 
 Guileless of pondering; 
 Swallow-eyes wandering; 
 Seeking no fonder ring 
 Than the rose-garland Love gives thee apart! 
 Grant me soon— 
 Blessed boon! 
 Home in thy heart! 


 




Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

Just lost when I was saved!

 Just lost, when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!
Just girt me for the onset with Eternity,
When breath blew back,
And on the other side
I heard recede the disappointed tide!

Therefore, as One returned, I feel
Odd secrets of the line to tell!
Some Sailor, skirting foreign shores --
Some pale Reporter, from the awful doors
Before the Seal!

Next time, to stay!
Next time, the things to see
By Ear unheard,
Unscrutinized by Eye --

Next time, to tarry,
While the Ages steal --
Slow tramp the Centuries,
And the Cycles wheel!
Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

Dalliance of the Eagles The

 SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) 
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, 
The rushing amorous contact high in space together, 
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, 
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling, 
Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull, 
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing, 
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight, 
She hers, he his, pursuing.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry