*Poem of the day thread

[heinous seamus]

The Fly

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

William Blake

 

[Ceej]

I do love Blake - his poems are deceptively simple. He's not a bad painter either!

My nephew is reading a poetry book where children have written poems inspired by other poems. How cool is this one, inspired by 'Stop all the Clocks' - WH Auden.

Muffle the wind
Silence the clock
Muzzle the mice
Curb the small talk
Cure the hinge squeak
Banish the thunder
Let me sit silent
Let me wonder.

 

[lontok09]

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home

Craig Raine, 1979

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings--

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on the ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the properites of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside --
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night, when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

 

[silver]

Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley


The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single:
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

 

[lillia]

“I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.”


Roy Croft



A little cheesy tbh, but pretty nonetheless!

 

[lontok09]

The More Loving One (Auden)

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.


And here he is reading it:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7474255

 

[butchersapron]

A bed for the night

I hear that in New York
At the corner of 26th street and Broadway
A man stands every evening during the winter months
And gets beds for the homeless there
By appealing to passers-by.

It won't change the world
It won't improve relations among men
It will not shorten the age of exploitation
But a few men have a bed for the night
For a night the wind is kept from them
The snow meant for them falls on the roadway.

Don't put down the book on reading this, man.

A few people have a bed for the night
For a night the wind is kept from them
The snow meant for them falls on the roadway
But it won't change the world
It won't improve relations among men
It will not shorten the age of exploitation.

Bertolt Brecht

 

[Ceej]

A perfect poem for all of us who love poetry.



Words by Ann Sexton.

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous ones we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be good as fingers.
They can be trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.

Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.

Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren't good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.

But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

 

[butchersapron]

One for Nick Clegg, you giant amongst men - you'll get there one day:

The Hand That Signed the Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

Dylan Thomas

 

[Ceej]

I found this in a collection of poems called Soft Keys. This fella is a new one on me...never heard of him personally, but he seems to be fairly well-known, having won a Whitbread Poetry Award, and shortlisted for lots of other awards! Gorgeous poem, though.



ANGEL OF THE PERFUMES by Michael Symmons Roberts

From the night-shift cement works,
dust built on fields, seeped
into buildings, coughed me awake.

It fused with fallen rain
to make a crust so thin one heel
could break the landscape open.

I held my breath
the sheet pulled up across my face,
afraid my lungs would set.

When you awoke the dust
cleared, I heard dawn crack
smelt on your hands burst

Fruit. Old skins, bruised black,
you split with thumbnails, found
seeds of new bodies, inside intact.

 

[Ceej]

OWL by Alice Oswald

last night at the joint of dawn,
an owl’s call opened the darkness

miles away, more than a world beyond this room

and immediately I was in the woods again,
poised, seeing my eyes seen,
hearing my listening heard

under a huge tree improvised by fear

dead brush falling then a star
straight through to God
founded and fixed the wood

then out, until it touched the town’s lights,
an owl elsewhere swelled and questioned
twice, like you light lean and strike
two matches in the wind.

 

[Brubricker]

The God Who Loves You

by Carl Dennis



It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you’d be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you’re living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

 

[Brubricker]

Openness

by Wyslawa Szymborska



Here we are, naked lovers,
beautiful to each other—and that's enough.
The leaves of our eyelids our only covers,
we're lying amidst deep night.

But they know about us, they know,
the four corners, and the chairs nearby us.
Discerning shadows also know,
and even the table keeps quiet.

Our teacups know full well
why the tea is getting cold.
And old Swift can surely tell
that his book's been put on hold.

Even the birds are in the know:
I saw them writing in the sky
brazenly and openly
the very name I call you by.

The trees? Could you explain to me
their unrelenting whispering?
The wind may know, you say to me,
but how is just a mystery.

A moth surprised us through the blinds,
its wings in fuzzy flutter.
Its silent path—see how it winds
in a stubborn holding pattern.

Maybe it sees where our eyes fail
with an insect's inborn sharpness.
I never sensed, nor could you tell
that our hearts were aglow in the darkness.

 

[Brubricker]

Kitchen Fable

by Eleanor Ross Taylor



The fork lived with the knife
and found it hard — for years
took nicks and scratches,
not to mention cuts.

She who took tedium by the ears:
nonforthcoming pickles,
defiant stretched-out lettuce,
sauce-gooed particles.

He who came down whack.
His conversation, even, edged.

Lying beside him in the drawer
she formed a crazy patina.
The seasons stacked — 
melons, succeeded by cured pork.

He dulled; he was a dull knife,
while she was, after all, a fork.

 

[Brubricker]

Turtle

by Kay Ryan



Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
She can ill afford the chances she must take
In rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
A packing-case places, and almost any slope
Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way
To something edible. With everything optimal,
She skirts the ditch which would convert
Her shell into a serving dish. She lives
Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
Will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things.

 

[Brubricker]

Abandoned Farmhouse

by Ted Kooser



He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.


A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.


Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm--a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

The Crunch

too much too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
though of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no."

Charles Bukowski

 

[Brubricker]

Mrs Lazarus

by Carol Ann Duffy



I had grieved. I had wept for a night and a day
over my loss, ripped the cloth I was married in
from my breasts, howled, shrieked, clawed
at the burial stones until my hands bled, retched
his name over and over again, dead, dead.

Gone home. Gutted the place. Slept in a single cot,
widow, one empty glove, white femur
in the dust, half. Stuffed dark suits
into black bags, shuffled in a dead man's shoes,
noosed the double knot of a tie around my bare neck,

gaunt nun in the mirror, touching herself. I learnt
the Stations of Bereavement, the icon of my face
in each bleak frame; but all those months
he was going away from me, dwindling
to the shrunk size of a snapshot, going,

going. Till his name was no longer a certain spell
for his face. The last hair on his head
floated out from a book. His scent went from the house.
The will was read. See, he was vanishing
to the small zero held by the gold of my ring.

Then he was gone. Then he was legend, language;
my arm on the arm of the schoolteacher-the shock
of a man's strength under the sleeve of his coat-
along the hedgerows. But I was faithful
for as long as it took. Until he was memory.

So I could stand that evening in the field
in a shawl of fine air, healed, able
to watch the edge of the moon occur to the sky
and a hare thump from a hedge; then notice
the village men running towards me, shouting,

behind them the women and children, barking dogs,
and I knew. I knew by the sly light
on the blacksmith's face, the shrill eyes
of the barmaid, the sudden hands bearing me
into the hot tang of the crowd parting before me.

He lived. I saw the horror on his face.
I heard his mother's crazy song. I breathed
his stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud,
moist and dishevelled from the grave's slack chew,
croaking his cuckold name, disinherited, out of his time.

 

[Brubricker]

Brooding Grief

by D.H. Lawrence



A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will
To die: and the quick leaf tore me
Back to this rainy swill
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

 

[Brubricker]

To Be In Love

by Gwendolyn Brooks



To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.

 

[Brubricker]

Two Sonnets in Memory

by Edna St. Vincent Millay



(Nicola Sacco -- Bartolomeo Vanzetti)
Executed August 23, 1927


I
As men have loved their lovers in times past
And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace,
So have we loved sweet Justice to the last,
That now lies here in an unseemly place.
The child will quit the cradle and grow wise
And stare on beauty till his senses drown;
Yet shall be seen no more by mortal eyes
Such beauty as here walked and here went down.
Like birds that hear the winter crying plain
Her courtiers leave to seek the clement south;
Many have praised her, we alone remain
To break a fist against the lying mouth
Of any man who says this was not so:
Though she be dead now, as indeed we know.

II
Where can the heart be hidden in the ground
And be at peace, and be at peace forever,
Under the world, untroubled by the sound
Of mortal tears, that cease from pouring never?
Well for the heart, by stern compassion harried,
If death be deeper than the churchmen say, --
Gone from this world indeed what's graveward carried,
And laid to rest indeed what's laid away.
Anguish enough while yet the indignant breather
Have blood to spurt upon the oppressor's hand;
Who would eternal be, and hang in ether
A stuffless ghost above his struggling land,
Retching in vain to render up the groan
That is not there, being aching dust's alone?

 

[Brubricker]

To a Child Falling Asleep

by Robert Alden Sanborn



Over the dim edge of sleep I lean,
And in her eyes' illimitable grey distances,
Look down into the shadow-tinted space, --
The cloudy air of sleep, --
To see the rose-lit petal of a Child's fair soul
Seek dreamily the farther gloom,
Where waking eyes may follow her no more.

One more last time her lids are lifted,
And in her look I read a wistful fare-thee-well;
Her spirit waves a twinkling white hand,
Her bark is out upon the sea of dream, --
The calm, grey sea, full and immovably established,
That drinks the river of my love, without o'er flowing,
Nor ever gives my image back to me.

When o'er the sun-swept land
Murmuring twilight spread her dusky tent,
A Stranger passed before our friendly sun, --
Between the dark and dawn, --
A Stranger whom we love but never see.
And as she came and cast her blue benignant shadow over all,
She set a silver trumpet to her lips,
And blew a note that thrilled in Children's hearts;
Because in little hearts the echo-fairies love to play,
Roaming the scented meadows there,
Where Love has been and sown the amaranthine flowers,
Out of whose pristine cups were born the singing stars.
And as the first free rainbow bubble sailed,
Launched by the Stranger with the silver pipe,
Upon the listening air;
As first the hollow note
Kissed the sweet lips and died of happiness,
The little Child unfurled her sails.

I stood there on the very verge of sleep,
And called to her,
And Love's own self had deigned to wait within my heart,
(Because I kept it always fit for Childish guests)
And would have given welcome had she stayed.
But then I saw the eyelids close,
And knew that Azrael who championed her soul,
Had shut the gates lest I should see
More than my life could bear.

Yet I had seen her go,
And sight no more could hold of Beauty's wine.
I had seen the fair face flush,
As the soft curtains of the tinted west
Are drawn before the temple of the Night,
When the day-worn Sun has passed within;
Had seen the little body, whitely gowned,
Folded within its nest;
Had caught the last light kiss
Before the lips lay still;
And I had looked into the cool grey deep,
Where Sleep received the rose-leaf soul of her,
And bore it out upon her gentle waters.

Into the night I passed,
Where on the mellow bosom of the west
Floated the flame-lit shell of Hesperus;
And as I stayed with hallowed breath
The soul of fire fell over the rim of night:
And then I knew the soul of her I loved
Had heard the last clear call,
The low Elysian chant of Hesperus,
And loving me had borne the love I gave,
Out and beyond and over the ends of earth,
And where the altar flame of Venus burned,
Had laid the gift and breathed her Childhood's prayer.

 

[Brubricker]

Mirrors

by John Agard



Switching from dress to dress
you face the truth of mirrors
with your woman’s dreams
and fragile human need
to stun the staring world

but when the face of mirrors
tells you that they lie
and the world’s fault-finding eye
does not see your private hurt

you will turn to find in me
a human mirror
for the hidden self
that others fail to hold or see

 

[butchersapron]

I know it's one a day but no one can get one in you post every day in the middle of the night, i'm posting one anyway:

Stone

When the stone fall that morning out of the johncrow sky
it was not dark at first . that opening on to the red sea humming
but something in my mouth like feathers . blue like bubbles
carrying signals & planets & the sliding curve of the
world like a water pic. ture in a raindrop when the pressure. drop



When the stone fall that morning out of the johncrow sky

I couldn't cry out because my mouth was full of beast & plunder
as if I was gnashing badwords among tombstones
as if the road up stony hill . round the bend by the church
yard . on the way to the post office . was a bad bad dream

& the dream was like a snarl of broken copper wire zig
zagging its electric flashes up the hill & splitt. ing spark & flow.
ers high. er up the hill. past the white houses & the ogogs bark.
ing all teeth & fur. nace & my mother like she up. like she up.


like she up. side down up a tree like she was scream.
like she was scream. like she was scream. ing no & no.
body i could hear could hear a word i say. ing . even though
there were so many poems left & the tape was switched on &

runn. ing & runn. ing &
the green light was red & they was stannin up there &
evva. where in london & amsterdam & at unesco in paris &
in west berlin & clapp. ing & clapp. ing & clapp. ing &

not a soul on stony hill to even say amen



& yet it was happening happening happening .
the fences begin to crack in i skull.
& there was a loud booodoooooooooooooooogs like
guns goin off . them ole time magnums .

or like a fireworks a dreadlocks was on fire .
& the gaps where the river comin down
inna the drei gully where my teeth use to be smilin .
& i tuff gong tongue that use to press against them & parade

pronunciation . now unannounce & like a black wick in i head & dead .
& it was like a heavy heavy riddim low down in i belly . bleedin dub .
& there was like this heavy heavy black dog thump. in in i chest &
pump. in

murdererrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

& i throat like dem tie. like dem tie. like dem tie a tight tie a.
round it. twist. ing my name quick crick. quick crick .
& a nevva wear neck. tie yet .

& a hear when de big boot kick down i door . stump
in it foot pun a knot in de floor. board .
a window slam shat at de back a mi heart .

de itch & ooze & damp a de yaaad
in mi sil. ver tam. bourines closer & closer .
st joseph marching bands crash. ing & closer .

bom si. cai si. ca boom ship bell . bom si. cai si. ca boom ship bell
& a laughin more blood & spittin out

lawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd

Kamau Brathwaite - for Mikey Smith, stoned to death on Stony Hill, Kingston 1954-1983

 

[Pickman's model]

The Return Of Sir Richard Grenville
--Robert E Howard--

One slept beneath the branches dim,
Cloaked in the crawling mist,
And Richard Grenville came to him
And plucked him by the wrist.

No nightwind shook the forest deep
Where the shadows of Doom were spread,
And Solomon Kane awoke from sleep
And looked upon the dead.

He spake in wonder, not in fear:
"How walks a man who died?
"Friend of old times, what do ye here,
"Long fallen at my side?"

"Rise up, rise up," Sir Richard said,
"The hounds of doom are free;
"The slayers come to take your head
"To hang on the ju-ju tree.

"Swift feet press the jungle mud
"Where the shadows are grim and stark,
"And naked men who pant for blood
"Are racing through the dark."

And Solomon rose and bared his sword,
And swift as tongue could tell,
The dark spewed forth a painted horde
Like shadows out of Hell.

His pistols thundered in the night,
And in that burst of flame
He saw red eyes with hate alight,
And on the figures came.

His sword was like a cobra's stroke
And death hummed in its tune;
His arm was steel and knotted oak
Beneath the rising moon.

But by him sang another sword,
And a great form roared and thrust,
And dropped like leaves the screaming horde
To writhe in bloody dust.

Silent as death their charge had been,
Silent as night they fled;
And in the trampled glade was seen
Only the torn dead.

And Solomon turned with outstretched hand,
Then halted suddenly,
For no man stood with naked brand
Beneath the moon-lit tree.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I know it's one a day but no one can get one in you post every day in the middle of the night, i'm posting one anyway:

Stone

When the stone fall that morning out of the johncrow sky
it was not dark at first . that opening on to the red sea humming
but something in my mouth like feathers . blue like bubbles
carrying signals & planets & the sliding curve of the
world like a water pic. ture in a raindrop when the pressure. drop



When the stone fall that morning out of the johncrow sky

I couldn't cry out because my mouth was full of beast & plunder
as if I was gnashing badwords among tombstones
as if the road up stony hill . round the bend by the church
yard . on the way to the post office . was a bad bad dream

& the dream was like a snarl of broken copper wire zig
zagging its electric flashes up the hill & splitt. ing spark & flow.
ers high. er up the hill. past the white houses & the ogogs bark.
ing all teeth & fur. nace & my mother like she up. like she up.


like she up. side down up a tree like she was scream.
like she was scream. like she was scream. ing no & no.
body i could hear could hear a word i say. ing . even though
there were so many poems left & the tape was switched on &

runn. ing & runn. ing &
the green light was red & they was stannin up there &
evva. where in london & amsterdam & at unesco in paris &
in west berlin & clapp. ing & clapp. ing & clapp. ing &

not a soul on stony hill to even say amen



& yet it was happening happening happening .
the fences begin to crack in i skull.
& there was a loud booodoooooooooooooooogs like
guns goin off . them ole time magnums .

or like a fireworks a dreadlocks was on fire .
& the gaps where the river comin down
inna the drei gully where my teeth use to be smilin .
& i tuff gong tongue that use to press against them & parade

pronunciation . now unannounce & like a black wick in i head & dead .
& it was like a heavy heavy riddim low down in i belly . bleedin dub .
& there was like this heavy heavy black dog thump. in in i chest &
pump. in

murdererrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

& i throat like dem tie. like dem tie. like dem tie a tight tie a.
round it. twist. ing my name quick crick. quick crick .
& a nevva wear neck. tie yet .

& a hear when de big boot kick down i door . stump
in it foot pun a knot in de floor. board .
a window slam shat at de back a mi heart .

de itch & ooze & damp a de yaaad
in mi sil. ver tam. bourines closer & closer .
st joseph marching bands crash. ing & closer .

bom si. cai si. ca boom ship bell . bom si. cai si. ca boom ship bell
& a laughin more blood & spittin out

lawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd

Kamau Brathwaite - for Mikey Smith, stoned to death on Stony Hill, Kingston 1954-1983

I know his girlfriend of the time. Mikey Smith had mental health issues. That's why he was killed. It seems quite prevalent in JA. I know someone else who brought her autistic son to the UK as he'd been stoned a couple of times but rescued in the nick of time. Disability and difference can be a death sentence

 

[heinous seamus]

I've just read that Edwin Morgan has passed away, aged 90, so I'd like to post a couple of poems in his honour. The first one is my favourite poem by him, I read it one day when I was waiting on the underground in Glasgow and I was completely blown away. The second one is more of a fun one I guess

Trio

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening

a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights -

The young man carries a new guitar in his arms,

the girl on the inside carries a very young baby,

and the girl on the outside carries a chihuahua.

And the three of them are laughing, their breath rises

in a cloud of happiness, and as they pass

the boy says, "Wait till he sees this but!"

The chihuahua has a tiny Royal Stewart tartan coat like a teapot-

holder,

the baby in its white shawl is all bright eyes and mouth like

favours in a fresh sweet cake,

the guitar swells out under its milky plastic cover, tied at the neck

with silver tinsel tape and a brisk sprig of mistletoe.

Orphean sprig! Melting baby! Warm chihuahua!

The vale of tears is powerless before you.

Whether Christ is born, or is not born, you

put paid to fate, it abdicates

under the Christmas lights.

Monsters of the year

go blank, are scattered back,

can't bear this march of three.

And the three have passed, vanished in the crowd

(yet not vanished, for in their arms they wind

the life of men and beasts, and music,

laughter ringing them round like a guard)

at the end of this winter's day.

The Loch Ness Monster's Song

Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl –
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok – doplodovok – plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl –
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp.

Edwin Morgan

 

[Brubricker]

methinx

by Jordie Albiston



wandering upon the suburban moors
I am cut to th' brains again o! when
will th' moon shine through this poor
head? while you have your ransom

let me have surgeons then let them
slice through th' mire for their piece
of th' pie let them operate ad infinitum
for my mind doth burst with its species

of madness & madness doth spill
from this mind but while I'm alone
I am not short on shrapnel & will
(if required) send forth stick & stone

to combat th' front of this ill I stand
for nought o! edgar I nothing am

 

[Brubricker]

Far-Darting Apollo

by Kathleen Raine



I saw the sun step like a gentleman
Dressed in black and proud as sin.
I saw the sun walk across London
Like a young M. P., risen to the occasion.

His step was light, his tread was dancing,
His lips were smiling, his eyes glancing.
Over the Cenotaph in Whitehall
The sun took the wicket with my skull.

The sun plays tennis in the court of Geneva
With the guts of a Finn and the head of an Emperor.
The sun plays squash in a tomb of marble,
The horses of Apocalypse are in his stable.

The sun plays a game of darts in Spain
Three by three in flight formation.
The invincible wheels of his yellow car
Are the discs that kindle the Chinese war.

The sun shows the world to the world,
Turns its own ghost on the terrified crowd,
Then plunges all images into the ocean
Of the nightly mass emotion.

Games of chance and games of skill,
All his sports are games to kill.
I saw the murderer at evening lie
Bleeding on his death-bed sky.

His hyacinth breath, his laurel hair,
His blinding sight, his moving air,
My love, my grief, my weariness, my fears
Hid from me in a night of tears.

 

[Brubricker]

All Shall Be Restored

by Kay Ryan



The grains shall be collected
from the thousand shores
to which they found their way,
and the boulder restored,
and the boulder itself replaced
in the cliff, and likewise
the cliff shall rise
or subside until the plate of earth
is without fissure. Restoration
knows no half measure. It will
not stop when the treasured and lost
bronze horse remounts the steps.
Even this horse will founder backward
to coin, cannon, and domestic pots,
which themselves shall bubble and
drain back to green veins in stone.
And every word written shall lift off
letter by letter, the backward text
read ever briefer, ever more antic
in its effort to insist that nothing
shall be lost.