Written by
Les Murray |
From the metal poppy
this good blast of trance
arriving as shock, private cloudburst blazing down,
worst in a boarding-house greased tub, or a barrack with competitions,
best in a stall, this enveloping passion of Australians:
tropics that sweat for you, torrent that braces with its heat,
inflames you with its chill, action sauna, inverse bidet,
sleek vertical coruscating ghost of your inner river,
reminding all your fluids, streaming off your points, awakening
the tacky soap to blossom and ripe autumn, releasing the squeezed gardens,
smoky valet smoothing your impalpable overnight pyjamas off,
pillar you can step through, force-field absolving love's efforts,
nicest yard of the jogging track, speeding aeroplane minutely
steered with two controls, or trimmed with a knurled wheel.
Some people like to still this energy and lie in it,
stirring circles with their pleasure in it, but my delight's that toga
worn on either or both shoulders, fluted drapery, silk whispering to the tiles,
with its spiralling, frothy hem continuous round the gurgle-hole'
this ecstatic partner, dreamy to dance in slow embrace with
after factory-floor rock, or even to meet as Lot's abstracted
merciful wife on a rusty ship in dog latitudes,
sweetest dressing of the day in the dusty bush, this persistent,
time-capsule of unwinding, this nimble straight well-wisher.
Only in England is its name an unkind word;
only in Europe is it enjoyed by telephone.
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Written by
Alain Bosquet |
Let me introduce to you
my poetry: it's an island flying
from book to book
searching for
the page where it was born,
then stops at my house, both wings wounded,
for its meals of flesh and cold phrases.
I paid dearly for the poem's visit!
My best words lie down to sleep in the nettles,
my greenest syllables dream
of a silence as young as themselves.
Offer me the horizon which no longer dares
to swim across even one book.
I will give you this sonnet in return:
in that place live the birds
signed by the ocean;
and also these exalted consonants
from which can be seen
the brain tumors of stars.
Manufacturers of equators,
to what client, to what wanderer
who knows neither how to read nor love,
have you resold my poem,
that smiling predator who at each syllable
leapt for my throat?
My language is at half-mast
since my syllables
fled for safety, carrying with them,
as one carries wedding gifts,
all my spare sunrises.
My poem, as much as I dismiss you
like a valet who for twenty-five years
has been stealing my manuscript snows;
as much as I walk you on a leash
like a poodle
that fears to tread the dawn;
as much as I caress you,
with an equator around your neck
which devours my other images one by one,
at each breath I begin you again,
at each breath you become my epitaph.
A duel took place
between the words and their syllables.
followed by the execution of overly rich poems.
The language bled,
the last vowel surrendered.
Already the great reptiles were being conjugated.
Here is my last will and testament:
the panther which follows my alphabet
must devour it, if it turns back.
© 2001 translated by F.J. Bergmann
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Written by
Stevie Smith |
Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess,
He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand,
He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,
Leaving my alone with a private meaning,
He loves me so much, my heart is singing.
Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening
They said: Sir Rat is dining, is dining, is dining,
No madam, he left no messafe, ah how his silence speaks,
He loves me too much for words, my heart is singing.
The Pullman seats are here, the tickets for Paris, I am waiting,
Presently the telephone rings, it is his valet speaking,
Sir Rat is called away, to Scotland, his constituents,
(Ah the dreadful duchess, but he loves me best)
Best pleasure to the last, my heart is singing,
One night he came, it was four in the morning,
Walking slowly upstairs, he stands beside my bed,
Dear darling, lie beside me, it is too cold to stand speaking,
He lies down beside me, his face is like the sand,
He is in a sleep of love, my heart is singing.
Sleeping softly softly, in the morning I must wake him,
And waking he murmurs, I only came to sleep.
The words are so sweetly cruel, how deeply he loves me,
I say them to myself alone, my heart is singing.
Now the sunshine strenghtens, it is ten in the morning,
He is so timid in love, he only needs to know,
He is my little child, how can he come if I do not call him,
I will write and tell him everything, I take the pen and write:
I love you so much, my heart is singing.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
In Wall Street once a potent power,
And now a multi-millionaire
Alone within a shady bower
In clothes his valet would not wear,
He watches bird wings bright the air.
The man who mighty mergers planned,
And oil and coal kinglike controlled,
With field-glasses in failing hand
Spies downy nestlings five days old,
With joy he could not buy for gold.
Aye, even childlike is his glee;
But how he crisps with hate and dread
And shakes a clawlike fist to see
A kestrel hover overhead:
Though he would never shoot it dead.
Although his cook afar doth forage
For food to woo his appetite,
The old man lives on milk and porridge
And now it is his last delight
At eve if one lone linnet lingers
To pick crushed almonds from his fingers.
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