Written by
Ruth Stone |
Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you.
But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash;
bird perches, miles of telephone wires.
What is so innocent as grazing cattle?
If you think about it, it turns into words.
Trash is so cheerful; flying up
like grasshoppers in front of the reaper.
The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers,
squares of clear plastic--windows on a house of air.
Below the weedy edge in last year's mat,
red and silver beer cans.
In bits blown equally everywhere,
the gaiety of flying paper
and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.
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Written by
T Wignesan |
When at five-thirty
In the rubbed-eye haziness
Of ferreting lonesome night walks
The camera-eye refugee
Asleep in the half awakefulness
Of the hour
Peers out of his high turbanned sockets:
Hyde Park's through road links
London's diurnally estranged couple -
The Arch and Gate.
When at five-thirty
The foot falls gently
Of the vision cut in dark recesses
And the man, finger gingerly on the fly
Gapes dolefully about
For a while
Exchanges a casual passing word
Standing in the Rembrandtesque clefts
And the multipled ma'm'selle trips out:
Neat and slick.
They say you meet the girls at parties
And get deeper than swine in orgies.
When at five-thirty
The fisherman's chilled chips
Lie soggy and heeled under the Arch
Where patchy transparent wrappers cling
To slippery hands jingling the inexact change
That mounted the trustful fisherman's credit:
The stub legged fisher of diplomat
And cool cat
And the prostitutes' confidant;
Each shivering pimp's warming pan.
Then at five-thirty
The bowels of Hyde Park
Improperly growled and shunted
And shook the half-night-long
Lazily swaggering double deckers,
Suddenly as in a rude recollection,
To break and pull, grind and swing away
And around, drawing the knotting air after
Curling and unfurling on the pavements.
And at five-thirty
The prostrate mindful old refugee
Dares not stir
Nor cares to wake and swallow
The precisely half-downed bottle
Of Coke clinging to the pearly dew
Nor lick the clasp knife clean
Lying bare by a tin of' skewed top
Corned beef, incisively culled
Look! that garden all spruced up
An incongruous lot of hair on that bald pate
No soul stirs in there but the foul air
No parking alongside but from eight to eight.
Learning so hard and late
No time to scratch the bald pate.
At five-thirty-one
A minute just gone
The thud is on, the sledge-hammer yawns
And in the back of ears, strange noises
As from afar and a million feet tramp.
One infinitesimal particle knocks another
And the whirl begins in a silent rage
And the human heart beats harder
While in and around, this London
This atomic mammoth roams
In the wastes of wars and tumbling empires.
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Written by
Rg Gregory |
let's all go to the party friends
where left over bottles and stale ***-ends
are proudly on offer from the last time round
and our hosts believe by a ritual sound
fine spirits will flow and new cellophane wrappers
will tingle the fingers of eligible clappers
let's all ignite at the party friends
and burn with the best of the latest trends
which prove that the world is a running sore
whose plight can't be laid at this party's door
so let us look deep in our empty glasses
and puff short of breath at the weaker classes
whose salvation must lie in a further imbibing
of the rush of hot air this party's prescribing
let's all depart from the party friends
and seek other ways of making amends
for the mess that we're all in up to our noses
let's kick the conviction the party is moses
with tablets worth taking for any condition
while the world holds its breath for the big collision
let's kick off the hangovers all parties swear
is part of the bargain f or breathing free air
and dare to be lost and risk being found
in the springs that are cracking the crust of dead ground
and when we're all shot of the parties friends
maybe then odd beginnings will perk up from dead ends
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Written by
Ruth L Schwartz |
Isn't one of your prissy richpeoples' swans
Wouldn't be at home on some pristine pond
Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms
in its tidal fringe
Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck
into the body of a Great Lake,
Swilling whatever it is swans swill,
Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud,
While Clevelanders walk by saying Look
at that big duck!
Beauty isn't the point here; of course
the swan is beautiful,
But not like Lorie at 16, when
Everything was possible--no
More like Lorie at 27
Smoking away her days off in her dirty kitchen,
Her kid with asthma watching TV,
The boyfriend who doesn't know yet she's gonna
Leave him, washing his car out back--and
He's a runty little guy, and drinks too much, and
It's not his kid anyway, but he loves her, he
Really does, he loves them both--
That's the kind of swan this is.
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