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*Poem of the day thread

Money is talking
to itself again

in this season’s
bondage
and safari look,

its closeout camouflage.

Hit the refresh button
and this is what you get,

money pretending
that its hands are tied.
It's good to give the name of the poet. "Money Talks" is by Rae Armantrout
 
good is dead

Mein Kampf by David Lerner

all i want to do is
make poetry famous

ali i want to do is
burn my initials into the sun

all i want do do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building
standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Building

the literary world
sucks dead dog dick

I’d rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I’d rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to Bolinas

I’d rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I’ve won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem “Autumn in the Spring”

I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living

I want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomit

I want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and

go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else’s money

this ain’t no party
this ain’t no disco
this ain’t no foolin’ a

grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about

how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun

this ain’t no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshit

this ain’t no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love

this ain’t no letter-press, hand-me-down
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbow

it is a carnival of dread

it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena

it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie’s dead of AIDS

I come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but

throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the the motherfucker can
swim for its life

because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it

but, my friends…

there is so much to hate These Days

that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I’ll never pay

because they’re after us

they’re selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we get politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glassy magazines
promising that they’ll
fuck us till we shoot blood

if we’ll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives

I’ve got mine
 

Poem For Stillness

He stirs his tea with a gun barrel
He solves the puzzle with a gun barrel
He scratches his thoughts with a gun barrel

And sometimes
he sits facing himself
and pulls bullet-memories
out of his brain

He’s fought in many wars
but is no match for his own despair

These white pills
have left him so colorless
his shadow must stand up
to fetch him water

We ought to accept
that no soldier
has ever returned
from war
alive

-Garous Abdolmalekian
 
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.


In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.


You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
 
Spark

I always resented all the years, the hours, the
minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
dizzy and a bit crazy—I couldn’t understand the
murdering of my years
yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
the dull and senseless work.

the workers submitted.
the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
scooped-out and thrown away.

I resented each minute, every minute as it was
mutilated
and nothing relieved the monotony.

I considered suicide.
I drank away my few leisure hours.

I worked for decades.

I lived with the worst kind of women, they killed what
the job failed to kill.

I knew that I was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become as
them, accept.

then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.

I think I did.
I’m glad I did.
what a lucky god damned
thing.


Charles Bukowski
 
I Am Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage

I am Simon Armitage. I am
Aiming Maestro,
Airiest Gammon. I am

Armani Egotism,
Ammonia Tigers,
Grim Anatomies.

I am German Otis,
I am Inmost Rage,
I am Moist Anger.

Granite Mimosa I am,
Reaming Maoist,
Marmite Saigon.
Mismanage Riot
,
Origami Stamen,
Omega Martinis,

I am More Giants,
I am Groin Meats,
I am Me Roasting. I am

Soaring Tammie,
Steaming Moira,
Emigration Sam.

I am a Snog Timer.
I am Sir Megaton.
Against Memoir I am.
 
Christmas Day In The Workhouse

By George R. Sims


It is Christmas Day in the workhouse,
and the cold, bare walls are bright
With garlands of green and holly,
and the place is a pleasant sight;
For with clean-washed hands and faces
in a long and hungry line

The paupers sit at the table,
for this is the hour they dine.
And the guardians and their ladies,
although the wind is east,
Have come in their furs and wrappers
to watch their charges feast;
To smile and be condescending,
putting on pauper plates.
To be hosts at the workhouse banquet,
they've paid for with the rates.

0h, the paupers are meek and lowly
with their 'Thank'ee kindly, mumsl'
So long as they fill their stomachs
what matter it whence it comes?
But one of the old men mutters
and pushes his plate aside,
"Great God!" he cries, "but it chokes me;
for this is the day she died!"
The guardians gazed in horror,
the master's face went white;
Did a pauper refuse their pudding?
Could that their ears believe right?

Then the ladies clutched their husbands,
thinking the man would die,
Struck by a bolt, or something,
by the outraged One on high.
But the pauper sat for a moment,
then rose 'mid silence grim,
For the others had ceased to chatter
and trembled in every limb:

He looked at the guardians' ladies,
then, eyeing their lords, he said;
"I eat not the food of villains,
whose hands are foul and red;"
"Whose victims cry for vengeance
from their dark, unhallowed graves."
"He's drunk," said the workhouse master,
"or else he's mad and raves."

"Not drunk or mad," cried the pauper,
"but only a haunted beast,
Who, torn by the hounds and mangled,
declines the vulture's feast."
"I care not a curse for the guardians,
and I won't be dragged away;
Just let me have the fit out,
it's only on Christmas Day...
That the black past comes to goad me
and prey on my burning brain;
I'll tell you the rest in a wbisper,
I swear I won't shout again.

"Keep your hands off me, curse you!
Hear me right out to the end.
You come here to see how paupers,
the season of Christmas spend;
You come here to watch us feeding,
as they watched the captured beast;
Here's why a penniless pauper,
spits on your paltry feast."

"Do you think I will take your bounty
and let you smile and think
You're doing a noble action
with the parish's meat and drink?
Where is my wife, you traitors,
the poor old wife you slew?
Yes, by the God above me,
my Nance was killed by you."

"Last Winter my wife lay dying,
starved in a filthy den.
I had never been to the parish,
I came to the parish then;
I swallowed my pride in coming!
for ere the ruin came
I held up my head as a trader,
and I bore a spotless name.

"I came to the parish craving,
bread for a starving wife
Bread for the woman who'd loved me
thro' fifty years of life;
And what do you think they told me,
mocking my awful grief,
That the house was open to us,
but they wouldn't give out relief."

"I slunk to the filthy alley,
'twas a cold, raw Christmas Eve
And the bakers' shops were open,
tempting a man to thieve;
But I clenched my fists together,
holding my head awry,
So I came to her empty-handed
and mournfully told her why."

"Then I told her the house was open;
she had heard of the ways of that
For her bloodless cheeks went crimson,
and up in her rags she sat,
Crying, 'Bide the Christmas here, John,
we've never had one apart;
I think I can bear the hunger,
the other would break my heart.

"All through that eve I watched her,
holding her hand in mine,
Praying the Lord and weeping
till my lips were salt as brine;
I asked her once if she hungered,
and she answered 'No.'
The moon shone in at the window,
set in a wreath of snow."

"Then the room was bathed in glory,
and I saw in my darling's eyes
The faraway look of wonder,
that comes when the spirit flies;
And her lips were parched and parted,
and her reason came and went.
For she raved of our home in Devon,
where our happiest years were spent."

"And the accents, long forgotten,
came back to the tongue once more.
For she talked like the country lassie
I wooed by the Devon shore;
Then she rose to her feet and trembled,
and fell on the rags and moaned,
And, 'Give me a crust, I'm famished...
for the love of God,' she groaned.

"I rushed from the room like a madman
and flew to the workhouse gate,
Crying, 'Food for a dying woman!'
and the answer came, 'Too late!'
They drove me away with curses;
then I fought with a dog in the street
And tore from the mongrel's clutches
a crust he was trying to eat."

"Back through the filthy by-ways...
back through the trampled slush!
Up to the crazy garret,
wrapped in an awful hush;
My heart sank down at the threshold,
and I paused with a sudden thrill.
For there, in the silv'ry moonlight,
my Nance lay cold and still."
"Up to the blackened ceiling,
the sunken eyes were cast
I knew on those lips, all bloodless,
my name had been the last;
She called for her absent husband...
Oh God! Had I known--
Had called in vain, and, in anguish,
had died in that den alone."

"Yes, there in a land of plenty,
lay a loving woman dead.
Cruelly starved and murdered
for a loaf of the parish bread;
At yonder gate, last Christmas,
I craved for a human life,
You, who would feed us paupers,
what of my murdered wife?"

"There, get ye gone to your dinners,
don't mind me in the least,
Think of the happy paupers
eating your Christmas feast
And when you recount their blessings
in your parochial way,
Say what you did for me too...
only last Christmas Day."
 
Dinosauria, We (Born Into This) by Charles Bukowski

Born like this

Into this

As the chalk faces smile

As Mrs. Death laughs

As the elevators break

As political landscapes dissolve

As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree

As the oily fish spit out their oily prey

As the sun is masked

We are

Born like this

Into this

Into these carefully mad wars

Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness

Into bars where people no longer speak to each other

Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

Born into this

Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die

Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty

Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed

Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

Born into this

Walking and living through this

Dying because of this

Muted because of this

Castrated

Debauched

Disinherited

Because of this

Fooled by this

Used by this

Pissed on by this

Made crazy and sick by this

Made violent

Made inhuman

By this

The heart is blackened

The fingers reach for the throat

The gun

The knife

The bomb

The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god

The fingers reach for the bottle

The pill

The powder

We are born into this sorrowful deadliness

We are born into a government 60 years in debt

That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt

And the banks will burn

Money will be useless

There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets

It will be guns and roving mobs

Land will be useless

Food will become a diminishing return

Nuclear power will be taken over by the many

Explosions will continually shake the earth

Radiated robot men will stalk each other

The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms

Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground

The sun will not be seen and it will always be night

Trees will die

All vegetation will die

Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men

The sea will be poisoned

The lakes and rivers will vanish

Rain will be the new gold

The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind

The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases

And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition

The petering out of supplies

The natural effect of general decay

And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard

Born out of that.

The sun still hidden there

Awaiting the next chapter.
 
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Blue Bird by Charles Bukowski



There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that .
wants to get out.
but I'm too tough for him,.
I say,.
stay down, do you want to mess.
me up?.
you want to screw up the.
works?.
you want to blow my book sales in .
Europe?.
there's a bluebird in my heart that.
wants to get out.
but I'm too clever, I only let him out.
at night sometimes.
when everybody's asleep..
I say, I know that you're there,.
so don't be .
sad.
.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
 
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Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me by Mary Oliver

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying

what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth!
That's what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing

under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment,
at which moment

my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain—
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
 
Solitude by Umberto Saba

The changing seasons, sunlight and darkness,
alter the world, which, in its sunny aspect
comforts us, and with its clouds brings sadness.

And I, who have looked with infinite
tenderness at so many of its guises,
don’t know whether I ought to be sad today

or gladly go on as if a test had been passed;
I’m sad, and yet the day is so beautiful;
only in my heart is there sun and rain.

I can transform a long winter into spring;
where the pathway in the sun is a ribbon
of gold, I bid myself ”good evening.”

In me alone are my mists and fine weather,
as in me alone is that perfect love
for which I suffered so much and no longer mourn,

let my eyes suffice me, and my heart
 
Ancient History by Jamie McKendrick

The year began with baleful auguries:
comets, eclipses, tremors, forest fires,
the waves lethargic under a coat of pitch
the length of the coastline. And a cow spoke,
which happened last year too, although last year
no one believed cows spoke. Worse was to come.
There was a bloody rain of lumps of meat
which flocks of gulls snatched in mid-air
while what they missed fell to the ground
where it lay for days without festering.
Then a wind tore up a forest of holm-oaks
and jackdaws pecked the eyes from sheep.
Officials construing the Sibylline Books
told of helmeted aliens occupying
the cross-roads, and high places of the city.
Blood might be shed. Avoid, they warned,
factions and in-fights. The tribunes claimed
this was the usual con-trick
trumped up to stonewall the new law
about to be passed. Violence was only curbed
by belief in a rumour that the tribes
to the east had joined forces and forged
weapons deadlier than the world has seen
and that even then the hooves of their scouts
had been heard in the southern hills.
The year ended fraught with the fear of war.
Next year began with baleful auguries.
 
my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live in the space of a door
that opens and shuts

- Samuel Beckett
 
As I Walked Out by Esther Morgan

Don't tell me you've never dreamed of this –
of waking in a room with a wide open window,

the air clear and ringing after night rain;
of needing no other reason than a sky

the unbelievable blue of which
sends you flitting deftly through the house

past the year-old jar of nails and flies,
the pile of dishes in the sink, and out the back door

where you're caught for an instant in the brightness
because the future's so much easier than you'd thought –

slipping your heart under the rosebush like a key,
everything you need in the canvas bag

resting lightly at your hip
and life as simple as turning left or right.
 
Beasts



i am the beast that cuts the meats, now that theyre dead, you can sink in your teeth

i am the beast that grows the wheat, i make bread, to eat it with meat

i am the beast that makes the fleece, keeps you warm, keeps out fleas

i am the beast that handles deeds yeeeeeaaahh

i am the beast that keeps thing clean, give it a shine, give it a sheen

i am the beast that keeps the beat, shake those hips, lemme see (oh)

i am the beast that keeps the peace, get out of line, and you'll get some of these

i am the beast that likes to preach, dont face your problems, resort to belief

i am the beast that chops down trees, theyre put here for us, so we can do as we please

i am the beast that sails the seas, i find new worlds, to claim for the beasts

i am the beast that must compete, its so much fun, to put a thing in a thing

i am the beast that makes decrees, as long as i smile, i can treat them like sheep

i am the beast that likes to teach, work on your minds, or you work on the streets

i am the beast thats on TV, i make you think, that you need to be me

i am the beast with your deceased, i make them look nice, before they go underneath

i am the beast that sports the teat, i nurse the young so we have more beasts

Treats for Beasts​
 

Goblin Market​


BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 1/2


Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”

Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.

“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.”
Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,
Cover’d close lest they should look;
Laura rear’d her glossy head,
And whisper’d like the restless brook:
“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.”
“No,” said Lizzie, “No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

Laura stretch’d her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen
Turn’d and troop’d the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
“Come buy, come buy.”
When they reach’d where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One rear’d his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heav’d the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Long’d but had no money:
The whisk-tail’d merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr’d,
The rat-faced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly;”—
One whistled like a bird.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
“Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.”
“You have much gold upon your head,”
They answer’d all together:
“Buy from us with a golden curl.”
She clipp’d a precious golden lock,
She dropp’d a tear more rare than pearl,
Then suck’d their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flow’d that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She suck’d until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gather’d up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turn’d home alone.

Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
“Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Pluck’d from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the noonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so.”
“Nay, hush,” said Laura:
“Nay, hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more;” and kiss’d her:
“Have done with sorrow;
I’ll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap.”

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other’s wings,
They lay down in their curtain’d bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipp’d with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gaz’d in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapp’d to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Lock’d together in one nest.

Early in the morning
When the first cock crow’d his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetch’d in honey, milk’d the cows,
Air’d and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churn’d butter, whipp’d up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sew’d;
Talk’d as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,
One longing for the night.

At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie pluck’d purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: “The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.”
But Laura loiter’d still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still
The dew not fall’n, the wind not chill;
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
“Come buy, come buy,”
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, “O Laura, come;
I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glowworm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?”

Laura turn’d cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
“Come buy our fruits, come buy.”
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life droop’d from the root:
She said not one word in her heart’s sore ache;
But peering thro’ the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudg’d home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnash’d her teeth for baulk’d desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.

Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
“Come buy, come buy;”—
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon wax’d bright
Her hair grew thin and grey;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.
 
2/2

One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dew’d it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watch’d for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dream’d of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crown’d trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetch’d honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.

Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister’s cankerous care
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins’ cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy;”—
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The yoke and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Long’d to buy fruit to comfort her,
But fear’d to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

Till Laura dwindling
Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:
Then Lizzie weigh’d no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kiss’d Laura, cross’d the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.

Laugh’d every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel- and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes,—
Hugg’d her and kiss’d her:
Squeez’d and caress’d her:
Stretch’d up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
“Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.”—

“Good folk,” said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
“Give me much and many: —
Held out her apron,
Toss’d them her penny.
“Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,”
They answer’d grinning:
“Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry:
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us.”—
“Thank you,” said Lizzie: “But one waits
At home alone for me:
So without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I toss’d you for a fee.”—
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One call’d her proud,
Cross-grain’d, uncivil;
Their tones wax’d loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbow’d and jostled her,
Claw’d with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil’d her stocking,
Twitch’d her hair out by the roots,
Stamp’d upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeez’d their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,—
Like a rock of blue-vein’d stone
Lash’d by tides obstreperously,—
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire,—
Like a fruit-crown’d orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee,—
Like a royal virgin town
Topp’d with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguer’d by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuff’d and caught her,
Coax’d and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch’d her, pinch’d her black as ink,
Kick’d and knock’d her,
Maul’d and mock’d her,
Lizzie utter’d not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupp’d all her face,
And lodg’d in dimples of her chin,
And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kick’d their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writh’d into the ground,
Some div’d into the brook
With ring and ripple,
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanish’d in the distance.

In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,
Threaded copse and dingle,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse,—
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she fear’d some goblin man
Dogg’d her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin scurried after,
Nor was she prick’d by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.

She cried, “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutch’d her hair:
“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruin’d in my ruin,
Thirsty, canker’d, goblin-ridden?”—
She clung about her sister,
Kiss’d and kiss’d and kiss’d her:
Tears once again
Refresh’d her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kiss’d and kiss’d her with a hungry mouth.

Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loath’d the feast:
Writhing as one possess’d she leap’d and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks stream’d like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through her veins, knock’d at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame;
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense fail’d in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
Spun about,
Like a foam-topp’d waterspout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life?

Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watch’d by her,
Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cool’d her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirp’d about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bow’d in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Open’d of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laugh’d in the innocent old way,
Hugg’d Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks show’d not one thread of grey,
Her breath was sweet as May
And light danced in her eyes.

Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town):
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
 
Aboriginal Sin by Leonard Peltier


We each begin in innocence.
We all become guilty.
In this life you find yourself guilty
of being who you are.
Being yourself, that's Aboriginal Sin.
the worst sin of all.
That's a sin you'll never be forgiven for.

We Indians are all guilty,
guilty of being ourselves.
We're taught that guilt from the day we're born.
We learn it well.

To each of my brothers and sisters, I say,
be proud of that guilt.
You are guilty only of being innocent,
of being yourselves,
of being Indian,
of being human

Your guilt makes you holy.
 

Praise​

Angelo Geter

Today I will praise.
I will praise the sun
For showering its light
On this darkened vessel.
I will praise its shine.
Praise the way it wraps
My skin in ultraviolet ultimatums
Demanding to be seen.
I will lift my hands in adoration
Of how something so bright
Could be so heavy.
I will praise the ground
That did not make feast of these bones.
Praise the casket
That did not become a shelter for flesh.
Praise the bullets
That called in sick to work.
Praise the trigger
That went on vacation.
Praise the chalk
That did not outline a body today.
Praise the body
For still being a body
And not a headstone.
Praise the body,
For being a body and not a police report
Praise the body
For being a body and not a memory
No one wants to forget.
Praise the memories.
Praise the laughs and smiles
You thought had been evicted from your jawline
Praise the eyes
For seeing and still believing.
For being blinded from faith
But never losing their vision
Praise the visions.
Praise the prophets
Who don’t profit off of those visions.
Praise the heart
For housing this living room of emotions
Praise the trophy that is my name
Praise the gift that is my name.
Praise the name that is my name
Which no one can plagiarize or gentrify
Praise the praise.
How the throat sounds like a choir.
The harmony in your tongue lifts
Into a song of adoration.
Praise yourself
For being able to praise.
For waking up,
When you had every reason not to.

 
Willy’s at the foodbank
Polishing the brand
Stepping from the Range Rover
With nothing in his hand
Kate is in a pink coat
Willy’s jumper’s green
They’ve brought a photographer
They’re here to be seen

Willy’s at the foodbank
Chatting to the staff
Kate is sorting out the tins
They’re both having a laugh
Like this is all so normal
This whip round for the poor
With his green-jumpered patronage
And the pink coat that she wore

Willy’s at the foodbank
And no one’s going to say
That they never used to need
A foodbank round this way
Kate is in a pink coat
Willy’s jumper’s green
While the folk who use the foodbank
Are neither heard nor seen

‘Cause some of them are nurses
And that would never do
The Prince bestowing loaves of bread
When claps would surely do
They’ve brought a photographer
To keep the image clean
Kate is in a pink coat
And Willy’s jumper’s green


Steve White
 
Antiquities by Veronica Forrest Thompson

A gesture is adjective,
two hands, granite
when they turn bread to flesh
(Notre Dame, July 14th)
A mirror is a museum-case,
two hands, priestesses'
when she mummifies her face.
Emotion is a parenthesis,
two hands, irony
when I light the candle
and cross myself.
Aesthetic approbation is glass
when it encloses her faience eyes
and gilded skin.
(Musée du Louvre, July 18th)
Glance is the copula
that petrifies our several identities,
syntactic superficies.

II

Michaelmas
My cardboard daisies are in bloom
again.
The city's silhouette stands out
just like real, from a child's
pop-up book, "a castle cut in
paper" (Gawain & the Grene Knight
c.1400). Autumn leaves turn like
pages, black on white. For green
and gold must be as parenthetical
as walks through sharpening air
and clamant colour, smoky light
along the Backs, from typewriter
to Library. "Grammar" derives from
"glamour"; ecology may show the two
still cognate: Museum, Gk. mouseion,
a seat of the Muses, a building
dedicated to the pursuit of learning
or the arts. (OED)
The glamorous grammatical frames
captions for a monograph on non-
existent plates. Glue, paper,
scissors, and the library together
paste a mock-up of an individual
history. The art of English Poesie?
"Such synne is called yronye."
 
Don't Come To Me


Don't come to me in the name of freedom
Shouting about 'free speech'.
All this when free speech is given to those who'd deny it to others and drip hatred to the masses
Don't come to me in the name of democracy.
Rabidly blackmailing votes for a corrupt and greedy elite.
All this in a degenerate system that has never been truly democratic.
Don't come to me in the name of your god.
Self-righteously slaughtering innocents in the name of Jesus
All this whilst praying to him to save you from sin and a free pass to paradise.
Don't come to me in the name of money
Whilst walking past destitute people dying on the streets
All this whilst trying to sell me the idea capitalism can be made fair through reform.
Let's come together to liberate and emancipate our planet.
Let's unite for a social and political revolution and Anarchy.
Let's join hands when faith is about love and solidarity and the betterment of humankind.
Let's create a world with equality, a world with liberty.

By Comrade Grumpaloe
 
43
Robin Coste Lewis

Absolutely nothing
significant
except the growing
realization that
with or without me
it is happening.
And that for
the first 42
I thought that
it needed my
approval, my agreement.
It began a while ago.
It’s been waiting
and not waiting
wishing
I would catch up.
I am catching up
to the day
accepting
that the Sun cares
and does not care,
that with or without me
it will spin and burn.
That I should
spin and burn
too.
 

A Psalm for the Scaffolders​

who balanced like tightrope walkers,
who could run up the bracing
faster than you or I could climb
a ladder, who wore red shorts
and worked bare-chested,
who cut their safety vests in half,
a psalm for the scaffolders
and their vans, their steel
toe-capped boots, their coffee mugs,
a psalm for those who learnt
to put up a scaffold standing
on just one board, a psalm
for the scaffolder who could put
a six-inch nail in a piece of wood
with just his palm, a psalm
for those who don’t like rules
or things taking too long, who now
mustn’t go to work uncovered,
who mustn’t cut their safety vests
or climb without ladders, who must
use three boards at all times,
a psalm for the scaffolders
who fall with a harness on,
who have ten minutes to be rescued,
a psalm for the scaffolder who fell
in a clear area, a tube giving way,
that long slow fall, a psalm for him,
who fell thirty feet and survived,
a psalm for the scaffolder
who saw him fall, a psalm for those
at the top of buildings, the wind whistling
in their ears, the sky in their voices,
for those who lift and carry
and shout and swear, for those
who can recite the lengths of boards
and tubes like a song, a psalm for them,
the ones who don’t like heights
but spent their whole life hiding it,
a psalm for those who work too long,
a psalm for my father, a psalm for him.

© 2015, Kim Moore
From: The Art of Falling
Publisher: Seren Books, Bridgend

(posted for StoneRoad )
 

The Orange​


At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

— Wendy Cope
 

Easter, 1916 WB Yeats​

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
 
At Poll Salach
Easter Sunday 1998

While I was looking for Easter snow on the hills
You showed me, like a concentration of violets
Or a fragment from some future unimagined sky,
A single spring gentian shivering at our feet.

Michael Longley
 
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