Written by
Wendell Berry |
The ewes crowd to the mangers;
Their bellies widen, sag;
Their udders tighten.
Soon
The little voices cry
In morning cold.
Soon now
The garden must be worked,
Laid off in rows, the seed
Of life to come brought down
Into the dark to rest,
Abide awhile alone,
And rise.
Soon, soon again
The cropland must be plowed,
For the years promise now
Answers the years desire,
Its hunger and its hope.
This goes against the time
When food is bought, not grown.
O come into the market
With cash, and come to rest
In this economy
Where all we need is money
To be well stuffed and free
By sufferance of our Lord,
The Chairman of the Board.
Because theres thus no need
To plant ones ground with seed.
Under the seasons sway,
Against the best advice,
In time of death and tears,
In slow snowfall of years,
Defiant and in hope,
We keep an older way
In light and breath to stay
This household on its slope
|
Written by
Roger McGough |
So you think its Stephen?
Then I'd best make sure
Be on the safe side as it were.
Ah, theres been a mistake.
The hair
you see, its black, now Stephens fair .
.
.
Whats that? The explosion?
Of course, burnt black.
Silly of me.
I should have known.
Then lets get on.
The face, is that the face mask?
that mask of charred wood
blistered scarred could
that have been a child's face?
The sweater, where intact, looks
in fact all too familiar.
But one must be sure.
The scoutbelt.
Yes thats his.
I recognise the studs he hammered in
not a week ago.
At the age
when boys get clothes-conscious
now you know.
Its almost
certainly Stephen.
But one must
be sure.
Remove all trace of doubt.
Pull out every splinter of hope.
Pockets.
Empty the pockets.
Handkerchief? Could be any schoolboy's.
Dirty enough.
Cigarettes?
Oh this can't be Stephen.
I dont allow him to smoke you see.
He wouldn't disobey me.
Not his father.
But that's his penknife.
Thats his alright.
And thats his key on the keyring
Gran gave him just the other night.
Then this must be him.
I think I know what happened
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
about the cigarettes
No doubt he was minding them
for one of the older boys.
Yes thats it.
Thats him.
Thats our Stephen.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes --
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us --
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are --
None may teach it -- Any --
'Tis the Seal Despair --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air --
When it comes, the Landscape listens --
Shadows -- hold their breath --
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death --
|
Written by
Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings |
am was.
are leaves few this.
is these a or
scratchily over which of earth dragged once
-ful leaf.
; were who skies clutch an of poor
how colding hereless.
air theres what immense
live without every dancing.
singless on-
ly a child's eyes float silently down
more than two those that and that noing our
gone snow gone
yours mine
.
We're
alive and shall be:cities may overflow(am
was)assassinating whole grassblades five
ideas can swallow a man;three words im
-prison a woman for all her now:but we've
such freedom such intense digestion so
much greenness only dying makes us grow
|
Written by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot |
The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse.
Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat--
And there isn't any call for me to shout it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!
The Rum Tum Tugger is a terrible bore:
When you let him in, then he wants to be out;
He's always on the wrong side of every door,
And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.
He likes to lie in the bureau drawer,
But he makes such a fuss if he can't get out.
Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat--
And there isn't any use for you to doubt it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!
The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious beast:
His disobliging ways are a matter of habit.
If you offer him fish then he always wants a feast;
When there isn't any fish then he won't eat rabbit.
If you offer him cream then he sniffs and sneers,
For he only likes what he finds for himself;
So you'll catch him in it right up to the ears,
If you put it away on the larder shelf.
The Rum Tum Tugger is artful and knowing,
The Rum Tum Tugger doesn't care for a cuddle;
But he'll leap on your lap in the middle of your sewing,
For there's nothing he enjoys like a horrible muddle.
Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat--
And there isn't any need for me to spout it:
For he will do
As he do do
And theres no doing anything about it!
|
Written by
Rupert Brooke |
"Oh love is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,
"But love goes lightly over.
" I bowed her foolish head,
And kissed her hair and laughed at her.
Such a child was she;
So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.
But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own,
Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young,
Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?
|
Written by
Bob Hicok |
My left hand will live longer than my right.
The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers.
Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time.
I think
praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn.
I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science.
In another dimension this
is exactly what's happening,
it's what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of Old Battersea Bridge.
I like the idea of different
theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell.
Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook
of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
anyone.
Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,
your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb
but couldn't hang on.
One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother's belly
she had to scream out.
Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again.
And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,
in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.
|
Written by
William Ernest Henley |
There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad.
.
.
.
Do you not know it yet?
For deeds undone
Rnakle and snarl and hunger for their due,
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.
Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by and by
Death, that derides you too --
Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way
And then -- and then, who knows
But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his term,
Hanker and grope and crave?
"Poor fool that might --
That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be,
Think of it, here and thus made over to me
In the implacable night!"
And writhing, fain
And like a triumphing lover, he shall take,
His fill where no high memory lives to make
His obscene victory vain.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
There's something quieter than sleep
Within this inner room!
It wears a sprig upon its breast --
And will not tell its name.
Some touch it, and some kiss it --
Some chafe its idle hand --
It has a simple gravity
I do not understand!
I would not weep if I were they --
How rude in one to sob!
Might scare the quiet fairy
Back to her native wood!
While simple-hearted neighbors
Chat of the "Early dead" --
We -- prone to periphrasis
Remark that Birds have fled!
|
Written by
William Blake |
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair
And so he was quiet.
& that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black,
And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind.
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
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