*Poem of the day thread

[vimto]

That's not too bad btw HurryUp

But my very favourite one was written by my niece Caitlin, then aged 10 and a bit.

THE SUN

The sun which shines ever so bright,
Comes out in the day and disappears in the night.
But where does it vanish to,
This bundle of light?

Time for the dark,
I get scared,
Shadows in the park,
Of figures which are feared.

The sun which shines ever so bright,
Comes out in the day and disappears in the night,
But where does it vanish to,
this bundle of light?

Some people say that it goes down under,
I wonder, I really do,
If it says hello to the kangaroos.

The sun which shines ever so bright,
Comes out in the day and disappears in the night,
But where does it vanish to,
Do you know?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

This is actually my favourite poem - Allen Ginsberg's America.

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

- Berkeley, January 17, 1956

 

[Yossarian]

Snail Poem

Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired
& handsome felt,
Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at
blown up clowd.
Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound
of rain dribble thru this layer
down to the roots that will tickle my ear.
Hay grave, my toes need cutting so file away
in sound curve or
Garbage grave, way above my head, blood will soon
trickle in my ear -
no choise but the grave, so cat & sheep are daisey
turned.
Train will tug my grave, my breath hueing gentil vapor
between weel & track.
So kitten string & ball, jumpe over this mound so
gently & cutely
So my toe can curl & become a snail & go curiously
on its way.

Peter Orlovsky, 1958

 

[jms]

Walk every path
climb every mountain
until your knackered


Spike Milligan

 

[Donna Ferentes]

..and here's my favourite first line in poetry. One to remember next time you're watching one of Jennie Bond's sycophantic reports.

No, say what you really think Percy, don't hold back...

Sonnet: England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,--
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,--
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,--
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,--
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,--
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless--a book sealed;
A Senate, Time's worst statute unrepealed,--
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

[vindictive]

good poem

 

[Anna Key]

Ah! Red Shelley. Warms the old cockles.

 

[rorymac]

Load of ol shite.

 

[Azrael]

Modern Prayer, by DH Lawrence.

Almighty Mammon, make me rich!
Make me rich quickly, with never a hitch
in my fine prosperity! Kick those in the ditch
Who hinder me, Mammon, great son of a bitch!

 

[jms]

there once was a martian from space
who entered a three-legged race
He was not very fast
in fact he came last
because he was a bag of oven-ready chips

 

[drfranni]

To His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell. 1621–1678

HAD we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave 's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.


I love this poem - funny, sexy and beautiful language. The last six lines feel as if the poet is suddenly changing pace, putting the pressure on, whilst acknowledging to himself the transitory nature of pleasure/sex/life. It makes me smile everytime I read it

 

[onemonkey]

do you reckon he got a shag out of it then?

 

[drfranni]

Good question - difficult to say without seeing the object of his attentions.

I have advised my children that if anyone ever comes up with anything as lovely as this (Rather than "If you loved me you'd let me" bollox) then they should jump them ASAP. It won't happen often, if at all

 

[Roadkill]

Night Mail

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

W.H. Auden

 

[Roadkill]

Bugger. Just remembered it was meant to be one poem per day. Sorry!



(It's a great poem, though)

 

[drfranni]

After the Lunch - Wendy Cope

On Waterloo bridge, where we said our goodbyes
The weather conditions brings tears to my eyes,
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I've fallen in love

On Waterloo bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. You're high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You're a fool. I don't care.
The head does it's best, but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I'm halfway across

 

[drfranni]

Continuing the bridge theme......

William Wordsworth


Composed on Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 

[drfranni]

For a more recent view.....

On Westminster Bridge
--------------------------------

Matthew Williams

The Thames wears a khaki shirt
with red bridge braid to beat some coloured kid.
Cocaine smuggler, you don't know him.
Detained, deported, dead.

... ...Tugela! make an oyster of his heart.
... ...Calm Tugela! bear his opened body
... ...through the fields again.

The Thames wears black polyester track pants,
waxes hair back into a shine,
cuts its own sweet 4 a.m line,
calls a mini-cab.

... ...All bright and glittering in the smoked up room.
... ...A sight so touching, so beautiful,
... ...never saw, never felt so deep

(geographical note - Tugela - river in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

 

[drfranni]

I know that some people have to do her for GCSE BUT....

.....doesn't mean she can't do some class verse (gedditt????)

Warming Her Pearls
Carol Ann Duffy

Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I´ll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,

resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.

She´s beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit´s foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.

Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head.... Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way

she always does.... And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.

 

[Roadkill]

Carol Ann Duffy was awarded an honourary doctorate by Hull Uni this year - I graduated from my MA at the same ceremony. She read a wonderful poem as part of her acceptance speech, but I can't remember what it was called.

 

[Azrael]

To Whom It May Concern, by Adrial Mitchell

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women,
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.


It was first read out in Trafalgar Square in 1964, and was read again Saturday 13 October 2001 at the Anti-War demonstration in London .

Said Mitchell: "It is about Vietnam , But it is still relevant. It's about sitting faithfully in England while thousands of miles away terrible atrocities are being committed in our name.''

 

[Yossarian]

Excellent anti-war poem there Azrael, I’ve never seen that one before.

NAMES OF THE RIVER

It's strange, like a dream: in the deep shadows of evening
to tumble down into narrow lanes, and rest my eyes
on the blind walls of darkness and search for black, leafless branches
which the wind has pressed against the violet sky
like characters in a strange alphabet - now it's blowing
these signs into strands of smoke.
The light from distant windows, reflections of stars and gleaming eyes
slide slowly over the bark, shadows emerge from below,
and the reflection runs along the bars and disappears
in the depths of the lane -
a trembling runs like a wave along the soft shades of sky
torn at the bottom by the darkness of stone houses and poles
flat as stage sets, sharp and unreal . . .
It's strange, like a dream, but somehow alive and painful
to walk in evening lanes, looking at lights and shadows
as at a traveling show, to be the wind and the branch
pressed against the sky, to pass in shapes, and flow
as on a river's tide, and each shape is a wave
rising alone and alone silently falling. . .
And have only one body, like the current of a strange river
rising in waves like a shadow, like a branch, like the wind,
passing, lonely and mute, a brief flash
on the stage set of events ... sleep and weariness come,
a cold wind blows, the body trembles, lips grow pale
and shapes are jumbled in dreams, everything is confused
like the unfamiliar lines the wind
slowly writes on the sky with the bare branches of trees.
It's strange: to walk through a lane and not recognize familiar
shapes and the ordinary names of houses, street lamps, stones,
and see faces of friends as through a sheet of water,
clouded and indistinct. Mouths open in a stifled shout
sink somewhere, flow down with the swaying wave
and eyes gaze at me, expectant,
swirl and blur in the spray of the shattered glass surface,
burning with phosphorescent fire. The sky creases in waves,
the hiss of electricity is like the quivering chord of a broken string. . .
and again the branches of trees, and the reflection along iron bars
and the writing falls in shadows, the names of the passing river.
It's strange, like a dream, but somehow alive, painful:
to walk in evening lanes and not recognize familiar
shapes and ordinary names, and forget the faces of friends
to be only light and shadow, to have a lonely, mute body,
and to be the wave of a strange river, passing on and on.

Tadeusz Borowski

 

[drfranni]

War poets - different war, same message

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

[drfranni]

Don't know why I like this but....

...but I do

A Psalm of Montreal
Samuel Butler

STOWED away in a Montreal lumber room
The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;
Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,
Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth:
O God! O Montreal!

Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter,
Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful -
He preacheth gospel of grace to the skin of owls
And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls:
O God! O Montreal!

When I saw him I was wroth and I said,
"O Discobolus! Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men!
What doest thou here, how camest thou hither, Discobolus,
Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?"
O God! O Montreal!

And I turned to the man of skins and said unto him, "O thou man of skins,
Wherefore hast thou done thus to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?"
But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins
And he answered, "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon."
O God! O Montreal!

"The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar -
He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;
I, Sir, am a person of most respectable connections -
My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon."
O God! O Montreal!

Then I said, "O brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher,
Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,
Thou callest trousers 'pants', whereas I call them 'trousers',
Therefore thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee!"
O God! O Montreal!

"Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas,
The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon's haberdashery to the gospel of Discobolus?"
Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty saying, "The Discobolus hath no gospel,
But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon."
O God! O Montreal!

(A brief explanation of the origins of the poem:
"Butler had little patience for flummery. When he visited Canada, he came across a copy of a Greek statue depicting a discus thrower in a Montreal museum. The statue had been placed facing the wall in the corner of a taxidermist's work area in the attic. The taxidermist told Butler that the museum thought the nudity (Greek athletes always competed without clothes) disqualified the statue for Victorian viewing. To bolster his own claim to respectability, the taxidermist mentioned that his brother-in-law did most of the printing for a prominent Montreal clergyman, Mr. Spurgeon.

Butler took these ingredients, changing them slightly (the printer becomes a haberdasher, mainly, I think, because Butler liked the sound of the word), and wrote today's poem A Psalm of Montreal.")

I sometimes start the day by deciding to get the phrase "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr Spurgeon" into conversation

 

[onemonkey]

Don't know why I like this but....

Originally posted by drfranni
I sometimes start the day by deciding to get the phrase "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr Spurgeon" into conversation

do you ever succeed?!

 

[drfranni]

Oh hell yes, it's easier for me because I like dressmaking and so I can often get the conversation round to bias-binding

From there it's a hop, skip and a jump to "In fact, my brother-in-law is...."

No one has EVER queried this, except one smartarse who knew the poem!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Originally posted by Yossarian
Excellent anti-war poem there Azrael, I’ve never seen that one before.

Which is odd, as I'm sure I posted that very poem on this very forum a couple of weeks ago.

What's more odd is that when I've searched for it, I can't find it...

 

[Anna Key]

Time for some Larkin. The old git.


Vers de Société

My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours: perhaps
You'd care to join us? In a pig's arse, friend.
Day comes to an end.
The gas fire breathes, the trees are darkly swayed.
And so Dear Warlock-Williams: I'm afraid -

Funny how hard it is to be alone.
I could spend half my evenings, if I wanted,
Holding a glass of washing sherry, canted
Over to catch the drivel of some bitch
Who's read nothing but Which;
Just think of all the spare time that has flown

Straight into nothingness by being filled
With forks and faces, rather than repaid
Under a lamp, hearing the noise of wind,
And looking out to see the moon thinned
To an air-sharpened blade.
A life, and yet how sternly it's instilled

All solitude is selfish. No one now
Believes the hermit with his gown and dish
Talking to God (who's gone too); the big wish
Is to have people nice to you, which means
Doing it back somehow.
Virtue is social. Are, then, these routines

Playing at goodness, like going to church?
Something that bores us, something we don't do well
(Asking that ass about his fool research)
But try to feel, because, however crudely,
It shows us what should be?
Too subtle, that. Too decent, too. Oh hell,

Only the young can be alone freely.
The time is shorter now for company,
And sitting by a lamp more often brings
Not peace, but other things.
Beyond the light stand failure and remorse
Whispering Dear Warlock-Williams: Why, of course -

Philip Larkin

 

[J77]

poem about where i come from (north norfolk):

The Garden of Sleep

by Clement Scott (1841 - 1904)


On the grass of the cliff, at the edge of the steep,
God planted a garden - a garden of sleep!
'Neath the blue of the sky, in the green of the corn,
It is there that the regal red poppies are born!
Brief days of desire, and long dreams of delight.
They are mine when my Poppyland cometh in sight.
In music of distance, with eyes that are wet,
It is there I remember, and there I forget!
O! heart of my heart! where the poppies are born.
I am waiting for thee, in the hush of the corn.
Sleep! Sleep! From the Cliff to the Deep!
Sleep, my Poppyland, Sleep!

In my garden of sleep, where red poppies are spread,
I wait for the living, alone with the dead!
For a tower in ruin stands guard o'er the deep,
At whose feet are green graves of dear women asleep!
Did they love as I love, when they lived by the sea?
Did they wait as I wait for the days that may be?
Was it hope or fulfilling that entered each breast,
Ere death gave release, and the poppies gave rest?
O! life of my life! on the cliffs by the sea,
By the graves in the grass, I am waiting for thee!
Sleep! Sleep! In the Dews by the Deep!
Sleep, my Poppyland. Sleep!

 

[Yossarian]

St Agnes' Eve
Kenneth Fearing

the settings include a fly-specked monday evening,
a cigar store with stagnant windows,
two crooked streets;
the characters: six policemen and louie glatz.

subways rumble and mutter a remote portent
as louie glatz holds up the cigar store and backs out with

$14.92.

officer dolan notices something suspicious, it is supposed
and ordered him to halt,
but dangerous, handsome, cross-eyed louie the rat

spoke with his gat
rat-a-tat-tat
rat-a-tat-tat
and dolan was buried as quickly as possible.

but louie didn't give a god damn,
he ran like a crazy shadow on a shadowy street,
with five policemen called to the beat
hot on his trail, going blam! blam! blam!

while rat-a-tat-tat
rat-a-tat-tat
said louie's gat,
so loud that peter wendotti rolled away from his wife,
got out of bed to scratch his stomach and shiver on the cold floor
listening to the stammering syllables of instant death met on secret floors in the big galleries of the night.

then louie sagged and fell and ran.
with seven bullets through his caved-in skull and those feeble brains spilling out like soup,
he crawled behind a water hydrant and stood them off for another half minute.

"i'm not shot," he yelled. "i'm not shot," he screamed. "it isn't me they've shot in the head," he laughed "oh,
i don't give a damn!"

and rat-a-tat-tat
rat-a-tat-tat
stuttered the gat
of louie the rat
while the officers of the law went blam! blam! blam!

soft music, as the wind moans at curtained windows and shuttered doors.
the vibrant throats of steamships hoot a sad defiance at distance and nothing.
space lays its arm across the flat roofs and dreary streets.
bricks bulge and sag.

louie's soul arose through his mouth in the form of a derby hat that danced with cigarette butts and burned matches and specks of dust where louie sprawled.
close-up of dolan's widow. of louie's mother.
picture of the fly-specked monday evening, and fade out slow.