Written by
Adrienne Rich |
1.
A conversation begins
with a lie.
and each
speaker of the so-called common language feels
the ice-floe split, the drift apart
as if powerless, as if up against
a force of nature
A poem can being
with a lie.
And be torn up.
A conversation has other laws
recharges itself with its own
false energy, Cannot be torn
up.
Infiltrates our blood.
Repeats itself.
Inscribes with its unreturning stylus
the isolation it denies.
2.
The classical music station
playing hour upon hour in the apartment
the picking up and picking up
and again picking up the telephone
The syllables uttering
the old script over and over
The loneliness of the liar
living in the formal network of the lie
twisting the dials to drown the terror
beneath the unsaid word
3.
The technology of silence
The rituals, etiquette
the blurring of terms
silence not absence
of words or music or even
raw sounds
Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed
the blueprint of a life
It is a presence
it has a history a form
Do not confuse it
with any kind of absence
4.
How calm, how inoffensive these words
begin to seem to me
though begun in grief and anger
Can I break through this film of the abstract
without wounding myself or you
there is enough pain here
This is why the classical of the jazz music station plays?
to give a ground of meaning to our pain?
5.
The silence strips bare:
In Dreyer's Passion of Joan
Falconetti's face, hair shorn, a great geography
mutely surveyed by the camera
If there were a poetry where this could happen
not as blank space or as words
stretched like skin over meaningsof a night through which two people
have talked till dawn.
6.
The scream
of an illegitimate voice
It has ceased to hear itself, therefore
it asks itself
How do I exist?
This was the silence I wanted to break in you
I had questions but you would not answer
I had answers but you could not use them
The is useless to you and perhaps to others
7.
It was an old theme even for me:
Language cannot do everything-
chalk it on the walls where the dead poets
lie in their mausoleums
If at the will of the poet the poem
could turn into a thing
a granite flank laid bare, a lifted head
alight with dew
If it could simply look you in the face
with naked eyeballs, not letting you turn
till you, and I who long to make this thing,
were finally clarified together in its stare
8.
No.
Let me have this dust,
these pale clouds dourly lingering, these words
moving with ferocious accuracy
like the blind child's fingers
or the newborn infant's mouth
violent with hunger
No one can give me, I have long ago
taken this method
whether of bran pouring from the loose-woven sack
or of the bunsen-flame turned low and blue
If from time to time I envy
the pure annunciation to the eye
the visio beatifica
if from time to time I long to turn
like the Eleusinian hierophant
holding up a single ear of grain
for the return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I keep choosing
are these words, these whispers, conversations
from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green.
|
Written by
G K Chesterton |
WE laid him to rest with tenderness;
Homeward we turned in the twilight’s gold;
We thought in ourselves with dumb distress—
All the story of earth is told.
A beautiful word at the last was said:
A great deep heart like the hearts of old
Went forth; and the speaker had lost the thread,
Or all the story of earth was told.
The dust hung over the pale dry ways
Dizzily fired with the twilight’s gold,
And a bitter remembrance blew in each face
How all the story of earth was told.
|
Written by
Maggie Estep |
I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with
dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull.
I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.
So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and rake
them down the chalkboard of the job market's soul.
So I go in the beauty salon.
This beautiful Puerto Rican girl in tight white spandex and a push-up bra
sits me down and starts chopping my hair:
"Girlfriend," she says, "what the hell you got growing outta
your head there, what is that, hair implants? Yuck, you want me to touch
that ****, whadya got in there, sandwiches?"
I just go: "I'm sorry.
"
She starts snipping my carefully cultivated Johnny Lydon post-Pistols hairdo.
My foul little dreadlocks are flying around all over the place but I'm
not looking in the mirror cause I just don't want to know.
"So what's your name anyway?" My stylist demands then.
"Uh, Maggie.
"
"Maggie? Well, that's an okay name, but my name is Suzy.
"
"Yeah, so?"
"Yeah so it ain't just Suzy S.
U.
Z.
Y, I spell it S.
U.
Z.
E.
E, the extra
"e" is for extra Suzee.
"
I nod emphatically.
Suzee tells me when she's not busy chopping hair, she works as an exotic
dancer at night to support her boyfriend named Rocco.
Suzee loves Rocco,
she loves him so much she's got her eyes closed as she describes him:
"6 foot 2, 193 pounds and, girlfriend, his arms so big and long they
wrap around me twice like I'm a little Suzee sandwich.
"
Little Suzee Sandwich is rapt, she blindly snips and clips at my poor punk
head.
She snips and clips and snips and clips, she pauses, I look in the
mirror: "Holy ****, I'm bald.
"
"Holy ****, baby, you're bald.
" Suzee says, finally opening her
eyes and then gasping.
All I've got left is little post-nuke clumps of orange fuzz.
And I'll never
get a receptionist job now.
But Suzy waves her manicured finger in my face: "Don't you worry,
baby, I'm gonna get you a job at the dancing club.
"
"What?"
"Baby, let me tell you, the boys are gonna like a bald go go dancer.
"
That said, she whips out some clippers, shaves my head smooth and insists
I'm gonna love getting naked for a living.
None of this sounds like my idea of a good time, but I'm broke and I'm
bald so I go home and get my best panties.
Suzee lends me some 6 inch pumps,
paints my lips bright red, and gives me 7 shots of Jack Daniels to relax
me.
8pm that night I take the stage.
I'm bald,
I'm drunk,
and by god,
I'm naked.
HOLY **** I'M NAKED IN A ROOM FULL OF STRANGERS THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE
RECURRING NIGHTMARES WE ALL HAVE ABOUT BEING BUTT NAKED IN PUBLIC, I AM
NAKED, I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE, THIS REALLY SUCKS.
A few guys feel sorry for me and risk getting their hands bitten off by
sticking dollars in my garter belt.
My disheveled pubic hairs stand at
full attention, ready to poke the guys' eyes out if they get too close.
Then I notice this bald guy in the audience, I've got a new empathy for
bald people, I figure maybe it works both ways, maybe this guy will stick
10 bucks in my garter.
I saunter over.
I'm teetering around unrhythmically, I'm the surliest, unsexiest dancer
that ever go-go across this hemisphere.
The bald guy looks down into his
beer, he'd much rather look at that than at my pubic mound which has now
formed into one vicious spike so it looks like I've got a unicorn in my
crotch.
I stand there weaving through the air.
The strobe light is illuminating my pubic unicorn.
Madonna's song Borderline
is pumping through the club's speaker system for the 5th time tonight:
"BORDERLINE BORDERLINE BORDERLINE/LOVE ME TIL I JUST CAN'T SEE.
"
And suddenly, I start to wonder: What does that mean anyway?
"LOVE ME TIL I JUST CAN'T SEE"
What?
Screw me so much my eyes pop out, I go blind, end up walking down 2nd Avenue
crazy, horny, naked and blind? What?
There's a glitch in the tape and it starts to skip.
"Borderl.
.
.
ooop.
.
.
.
.
Borderl.
.
.
.
ooop.
.
.
Borderlin.
.
.
.
.
ooop"
I stumble and twist my ankle.
My g-string rides between my buttcheeks making
me twitch with pain.
My head starts spinning, my knees wobble, I go down
on all fours and puke all over the bald guy's lap.
So there I am.
Butt naked on all fours.
But before I have time to regain
my composure, the strip club manager comes over, points his smarmy strip
club manager finger at me and goes:
"You're bald, you're drunk, you can't dance and you're fired.
"
I stand up.
"Oh yeah, well you stink like a sneaker, pal.
" I peel off one
of my pumps and throw it in the direction of his fat head then I get the
hell out of there.
A few days later I run into Suzee on Avenue A.
Turns out she got fired
for getting me a job there in the first place.
But she was completely undaunted,
she dragged me up to this wig store on 14th Street, bought me a mouse brown
shag wig, then got us both telemarketing jobs on Wall Street.
And I never went to a beauty salon again.
|
Written by
Ellis Parker Butler |
Twain? Oh, yes, I’ve heard Mark Twain
Heard him down to Pleasant Plain;
Funny? Yes, I guess so.
Folks
Seemed to laugh loud at his jokes—
Laughed to beat the band; but I
Couldn’t rightly make out why.
Guess his humor ain’t refined.
Quite enough to suit my mind.
Mark’s all right—right clever speaker—
But he can’t touch Jabed Meeker;
And one thing that makes it *****
Is that Jabed lives right here.
You ain’t met him? Son, you’ve missed
The most funniest humorist
I’ve met with in my born days—
Funniest talker, anyways,
When it comes to repartee—
That’s the humor catches me!
Like a specimen? Huh! Well,
Take, for instance, his umbrell;
Wouldn’t think, until he spoke,
He could turn that to a joke;
Mark Twain couldn’t, bet you that!
That’s where Meeker beats Mark flat!
Just imagine three or four
Fellers in Jim Beemer’s store—
‘Long comes Meeker, and some feller
Says, “See Meeker’s bum umbreller.
”
Quick as lightning Meeker ‘d yell:
“Don’t you guy my bumberell!
Where’s the feller dares to hoot
At this sping-spang bumbershoot?
Show me some one dares to call
Bad names at my bumbersoll!”
Right like that! Right off the reel!
Say, you’d ought to heard us squeal!
Then, before we’d got our breath,
Meeker, solemn sad as death,
Says: “Stand up there ‘gainst that wall,
Para-bumber-shooter-soll!”
Twain? All right! But just give me
Some one slick at repartee!
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Our fathers, brave men were and strong,
And whisky was their daily liquor;
They used to move the world along
In better style than now -- and quicker.
Elections then were sport, you bet!
A trifle rough, there's no denying
When two opposing factions met
The skin and hair were always flying.
When "cabbage-trees" could still be worn
Without the question, "Who's your hatter?"
There dawned a bright election morn
Upon the town of Parramatta.
A man called Jones was all the go --
The people's friend, the poor's protector;
A long, gaunt, six-foot slab of woe,
He sought to charm the green elector.
How Jones had one time been trustee
For his small niece, and he -- the villain! --
Betrayed his trust most shamefully,
And robbed the child of every shillin'.
He used to keep accounts, they say,
To save himself in case of trouble;
Whatever cash he paid away
He always used to charge it double.
He'd buy the child a cotton gown
Too coarse and rough to dress a cat in,
And then he'd go and put it down
And charge the price of silk or satin!
He gave her once a little treat,
An outing down the harbour sunny,
And Lord! the bill for bread and meat,
You'd think they all had eaten money!
But Jones exposed the course he took
By carelessness -- such men are ninnies.
He went and entered in his book,
"Two pounds of sausages -- two guineas.
"
Now this leaked out, and folk got riled,
And said that Jones, "he didn't oughter".
But what cared Jones? he only smiled --
Abuse ran off his back like water.
And so he faced the world content:
His little niece -- he never paid her:
And then he stood for Parliament,
Of course he was a rank free trader.
His wealth was great, success appeared
To smile propitious on his banner,
But Providence it interfered
In this most unexpected manner.
A person -- call him Brown for short --
Who knew the story of this stealer,
Went calmly down the town and bought
Two pounds of sausage from a dealer,
And then he got a long bamboo
And tightly tied the sausage to it;
Says he, "This is the thing to do,
And I am just the man to do it.
"When Jones comes out to make his speech
I won't a clapper be, or hisser,
But with this long bamboo I'll reach
And poke the sausage in his 'kisser'.
I'll bring the wretch to scorn and shame,
Unless those darned police are nigh:
As sure as Brown's my glorious name,
I'll knock that candidate sky-high.
"
The speech comes on -- beneath the stand
The people push and surge and eddy
But Brown waits calmly close at hand
With all his apparatus ready;
And while the speaker loudly cries,
"Of ages all, this is the boss age!"
Brown hits him square between the eyes,
Exclaiming, "What's the price of sausage?"
He aimed the victuals in his face,
As though he thought poor Jones a glutton.
And Jones was covered with disgrace --
Disgrace and shame, and beef and mutton.
His cause was lost -- a hopeless wreck
He crept off from the hooting throng;
Protection proudly ruled the deck,
Here ends the sausage and the song.
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
There can be certain potions
needled in the clock
for the body's fall from grace,
to untorture and to plead for.
These I have known
and would sell all my furniture
and books and assorted goods
to avoid, and more, more.
But the other pain
I would sell my life to avoid
the pain that begins in the crib
with its bars or perhaps
with your first breath
when the planets drill
your future into you
for better of worse
as you marry life
and the love that gets doled out
or doesn't.
I find now, swallowing one teaspoon
of pain, that it drops downward
to the past where it mixes
with last year's cupful
and downward into a decade's quart
and downward into a lifetime's ocean.
I alternate treading water
and deadman's float.
The teaspoon ought to be hearable
if it didn't mix into the reruns
and thus enlarge into what it is not,
a sea pest's sting turning promptly
into the shark's neat biting off
of a leg because the soul
wears a magnifying glass.
Kicking the heart
with pain's big boots running up and down
the intestines like a motorcycle racer.
Yet one does get out of bed
and start over, plunge into the day
and put on a hopeful look
and does not allow fear to build a wall
between you and an old friend
or a new friend and reach out your hand,
shutting down the thought that
an axe may cut it off unexpectedly.
One learns not to blab about all this
except to yourself or the typewriter keys
who tell no one until they get brave
and crawl off onto the printed page.
I'm getting bored with it,
I tell the typewriter,
this constantly walking around
in wet shoes and then, surprise!
Somehow DECEASED keeps getting
stamped in red over the word HOPE.
And I who keep falling thankfully
into each new pillow of belief,
finding my Mercy Street,
kissing it and tenderly gift-wrapping my love,
am beginning to wonder just what
the planets had in mind on November 9th, 1928.
The pillows are ripped away,
the hand guillotined,
dog **** thrown into the middle of a laugh,
a hornets' nest building into the hi-fi speaker
and leaving me in silence,
where, without music,
I become a cracked orphan.
Well,
one gets out of bed
and the planets don't always hiss
or muck up the day, each day.
As for the pain and its multiplying teaspoon,
perhaps it is a medicine
that will cure the soul
of its greed for love
next Thursday.
|
Written by
Oliver Wendell Holmes |
HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!
We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!
Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close,-- you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,--
And these are white roses in place of the red.
We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old:--
That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;"
It's a neat little fiction,-- of course it's all fudge.
That fellow's the "Speaker,"-- the one on the right;
"Mr.
Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night?
That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff;
There's the "Reverend" What's his name?-- don't make me laugh.
That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true!
So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!
There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire.
"
And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,--
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,
Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!"
You hear that boy laughing?-- You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!
Yes, we're boys, --always playing with tongue or with pen,--
And I sometimes have asked,-- Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?
Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!
|
Written by
Louise Gluck |
Don't listen to me; my heart's been broken.
I don't see anything objectively.
I know myself; I've learned to hear like a psychiatrist.
When I speak passionately,
That's when I'm least to be trusted.
It's very sad, really: all my life I've been praised
For my intelligence, my powers of language, of insight-
In the end they're wasted-
I never see myself.
Standing on the front steps.
Holding my sisters hand.
That's why I can't account
For the bruises on her arm where the sleeve ends .
.
.
In my own mind, I'm invisible: that's why I'm dangerous.
People like me, who seem selfless.
We're the cripples, the liars:
We're the ones who should be factored out
In the interest of truth.
When I'm quiet, that's when the truth emerges.
A clear sky, the clouds like white fibers.
Underneath, a little gray house.
The azaleas
Red and bright pink.
If you want the truth, you have to close yourself
To the older sister, block her out:
When I living thing is hurt like that
In its deepest workings,
All function is altered.
That's why I'm not to be trusted.
Because a wound to the heart
Is also a wound to the mind.
|
Written by
Robert Francis |
The first speaker said
Fear fire.
Fear furnaces
Incinerators, the city dump
The faint scratch of a match.
The second speaker said
Fear water.
Fear drenching rain
Drizzle, oceans, puddles, a damp
Day and the flush toilet.
The third speaker said
Fear wind.
And it needn't be
A hurricane.
Drafts, open
Windows, electric fans.
The fourth speaker said
Fear knives.
Fear any sharp
Thing, machine, shears
Scissors, lawnmowers.
The fifth speaker said
Hope.
Hope for the best
A smooth folder in a steel file.
|
Written by
Thomas Lux |
Senator, statesman, speaker of the House,
exceptional dancer, slim,
graceful, ugly.
Proclaimed, before most, slavery
an evil, broker
of elections (burned Jackson
for Adams), took a pistol ball in the thigh
in a duel, delayed, by forty years,
with his compromises, the Civil War,
gambler ("I have always
paid peculiar homage to the fickle goddess"),
boozehound, ladies' man -- which leads us
to his mouth, which was huge,
a long slash across his face,
with which he ate and prodigiously drank,
with which he modulated his melodic voice,
with which he liked to kiss and kiss and kiss.
He said: "Kissing is like the presidency,
it is not to be sought and not to be declined.
"
A rival, one who wanted to kiss
whom he was kissing, said: "The ample
dimensions of his kissing apparatus
enabled him to rest one side of it
while the other was on active duty.
"
It was written, if women had the vote,
he would have been President,
kissing everyone in sight,
dancing on tables ("a grand Terpsichorean
performance .
.
.
"), kissing everyone,
sometimes two at once, kissing everyone,
the almost-President
of our people.
|