February 2012
27 posts
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Where Go the Boats
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating— Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, ...
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Not Only the Eskimos
Lisel Mueller
We have only one noun but as many different kinds:
the grainy snow of the Puritans and snow of soft, fat flakes,
guerrilla snow, which comes in the night and changes the world by morning,
rabbinical snow, a permanent skullcap on the highest mountains,
snow that blows in like the Lone Ranger, riding hard from out of the West,
surreal snow in the Dakotas, when you...
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The Three Kings
Muriel Spark
Where do we go from here? We left our country, Bore gifts, Followed a star. We were questioned. We answered. We reached our objective. We enjoyed the trip. Then we came back by a different way. And now the people are demonstrating in the streets. They say they don’t need the Kings any more. They did very well in our absence. Everything was all right without us. ...
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too sweet
Charles Bukowski
I have been going to the track for so long that all the employees know me, and now with winter here it’s dark before the last race. as I walk to the parking lot the valet recognizes my slouching gait and before I reach him my car is waiting for me, lights on, engine warm. the other patrons (still waiting) ask, “who the hell is that guy?”
I slip...
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The Sunlight on the Garden
Louis MacNeice
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil...
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It Is Raining on the House of Anne Frank
Linda Pastan
It is raining on the house of Anne Frank and on the tourists herded together under the shadow of their umbrellas, on the perfectly silent tourists who would rather be somewhere else but who wait here on stairs so steep they must rise to some occasion high in the empty loft, in the quaint toilet, in the skeleton of a kitchen or on the map- each of its arrows a barb of...
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The Planet on the Table
Wallace Stevens
Ariel was glad he had written his poems. They were of a remembered time Or of something seen that he liked. Other makings of the sun Were waste and welter And the ripe shrub writhed. His self and the sun were one And his poems, although makings of his self, Were no less makings of the sun. It was not important that they survive. What mattered was that they should bear Some...
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Nothing Is Lost
Noel Coward
Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told Lie all our memories, lie all the notes Of all the music we have ever heard And all the phrases those we loved have spoken, Sorrows and losses time has since consoled, Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes Each sentimental souvenir and token Everything seen, experienced, each word Addressed to us in infancy, before Before we could even know...
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The Meeting
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
After so long an absence At last we meet again: Does the meeting give us pleasure, Or does it give us pain? The tree of life has been shaken, And but few of us linger now, Like the Prophet’s two or three berries In the top of the uttermost bough. We cordially greet each other In the old, familiar tone; And we think, though we do not...
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Al and Beth
Louis Simpson
My Uncle Al worked in a drugstore three blocks above Times Square, dispensing pills and cosmetics. All day long crazy people and thieves came into the store , but nothing seemed to faze him. His sister, Beth, was the opposite … romantic. She used to sing on ships that sailed from New York to Central and South America. When the tourists came trailing back on board...
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Calling Your Father
Robert Bly
There was a boy who never got enough. You know what I mean. Something In him longed to find the big Mother, and he leaped into the sea.
It took a while, but a whale Agreed to swallow him. He knew it was wrong, but once Past the baleen, it was too late.
It’s OK. There’s a curved library Inside, and those high Ladders. People take requests. It’s like the British...
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The Prodigal Son's Brother
Steve Kowit
who’d been steadfast as small change all his life forgave the one who bounced back like a bad check the moment his father told him he ought to. After all, that’s what being good means. In fact, it was he who hosted the party, bought the crepes & champagne, uncorked every bottle. With each drink another toast to his brother: ex-swindler, hit-man & rapist. ...
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The Lawyer
Carl Sandburg
When the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool decisions of the judge, There are points of high silence—twiddling of thumbs is at an end—bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco and wait—and the clock has a chance for its ticking to be heard. A lawyer for the defense clears his...
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The Discovery of Sex
Debra Spencer
We try to be discreet standing in the dark hallway by the front door. He gets his hands up inside the front of my shirt and I put mine down inside the back of his jeans. We are crazy for skin, each other’s skin, warm silky skin. Our tongues are in each other’s mouths, where they belong, home at last. At first we hope my mother won’t see us, but later we...
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Thelonious Monk
Stephen Dobyns
A record store on Wabash was where I bought my first album. I was a freshman in college and played the record in my room over and over. I was caught by how he took the musical phrase and seemed to find a new way out, the next note was never the note you thought would turn up and yet seemed correct. Surprise in ‘Round Midnight or Sweet and Lovely. I bought the...
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Last Days
Donald Hall
“It was reasonable to expect.” So he wrote. The next day, in a consultation room, Jane’s hematologist Letha Mills sat down, stiff, her assistant standing with her back to the door. “I have terrible news,” Letha told them. “The leukemia is back. There’s nothing to do.” The four of them wept. He asked how long, why did it happen now? Jane asked...
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Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness
John Donne
Since I am coming to that Holy room, Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore, I shall be made Thy music ; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before ; Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown That this is...
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Snapshot of a Lump
Kelli Russell Agodon
I imagine Nice and topless beaches, women smoking and reading novels in the sun. I pretend I am comfortable undressing in front of men who go home to their wives, in front of women who have seen twenty pairs of breasts today, in front of silent ghosts who walked through these same doors before me, who hoped doctors would find it soon enough, that surgery, pills and chemo...
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The Unsaid
Stephen Dunn
One night they both needed different things of a similar kind; she, solace; he, to be consoled. So after a wine-deepened dinner when they arrived at their house separately in the same car, each already had been failing the other with what seemed an unbearable delay of what felt due. What solace meant to her was being understood so well you’d give it to her before she...
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The Poet's Occasional Alternative
Grace Paley
I was going to write a poem I made a pie instead it took about the same amount of time of course the pie was a final draft a poem would have had some distance to go days and weeks and much crumpled paper the pie already had a talking tumbling audience among small trucks and a fire engine on the kitchen floor everybody will like this pie it will have apples and...
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My Husband Discovers Poetry
Diane Lockward
Because my husband would not read my poems, I wrote one about how I did not love him. In lines of strict iambic pentameter, I detailed his coldness, his lack of humor. It felt good to do this.
Stanza by stanza, I grew bolder and bolder. Towards the end, struck by inspiration, I wrote about my old boyfriend, a boy I had not loved enough to marry but who could make me laugh...
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All That Time
May Swenson
I saw two trees embracing. One leaned on the other as if to throw her down. But she was the upright one. Since their twin youth, maybe she had been pulling him toward her all that time,
and finally almost uprooted him. He was the thin, dry, insecure one, the most wind-warped, you could see. And where their tops tangled it looked like he was crying on her shoulder. On the...
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Riveted
Robyn Sarah
It is possible that things will not get better than they are now, or have been known to be. It is possible that we are past the middle now. It is possible that we have crossed the great water without knowing it, and stand now on the other side. Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now we are being given tickets, and they are not tickets to the show we had been thinking of, ...
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The Future
Wesley McNair
On the afternoon talk shows of America the guests have suffered life’s sorrows long enough. All they require now is the opportunity for closure, to put the whole thing behind them and get on with their lives. That their lives, in fact, are getting on with them even as they announce their requirement is written on the faces of the younger ones wrinkling their brows,...
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The Fish
Elizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his...
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High Plains Farming
William Notter
There’s never enough of the right kind of rain, and always too much of what we get. We’ve got not need for casinos— keeping the farm is enough to gamble on. If the seed doesn’t blow out of the ground in December, the wheat gets laid down flat in the fields by hail come summer. Spring blizzards get the calves, and one year my corn was nothing but rows of...
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The Yak
Hilaire Belloc
As a friend to the children commend me the Yak. You will find it exactly the thing: It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back, Or lead it about with a string.
The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet (A desolate region of snow) Has for centuries made it a nursery pet. And surely the Tartar should know!
Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got, And if he...
January 2012
31 posts
4 tags
Afraid So
Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Is it starting to rain? Did the check bounce? Are we out of coffee? Is this going to hurt? Could you lose your job? Did the glass break? Was the baggage misrouted? Will this go on my record? Are you missing much money? Was anyone injured? Is the traffic heavy? Do I have to remove my clothes? Will it leave a scar? Must you go? Will this be in the papers? Is my...
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My Agent Says
R. S. Gwynn
My agent says Los Angeles will call. My broker says to sell without delay. My doctor says the spot is very small. My lover says get tested right away. My congressman says yes, he truly cares. My bottle says he’ll see me after five. My mirror says to pluck a few stray hairs. My mother says that she is still alive. My leader says we may have seen the worst. My mistress...
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Mother, in Love at Sixty
Susanna Styve
Reason number one it can’t work: his name is Bill. For god’s sake, he hunts. He has no pets, other than two doting daughters, and his ex-wife is still alive. He’s simply not my type. Who wants to get married again, anyway? I’m too old. I go South at the first frost. Plus, he’s messy. Men are messy. He could die. Then where would I be?
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Berryman
W. S. Merwin
I will tell you what he told me in the years just after the war as we then called the second world war don’t lose your arrogance yet he said you can do that when you’re older lose it too soon and you may merely replace it with vanity just one time he suggested changing the usual order of the same words in a line of verse why point out a thing twice he...
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Minnesota Thanksgiving
John Berryman
For that free Grace bringing us past great risks & thro’ great griefs surviving to this feast sober & still, with the children unborn and born, among brave friends, Lord, we stand again in debt and find ourselves in the glad position: Gratitude. We praise our ancestors who delivered us here within warm walls all safe, aware of music, likely toward ample &...
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Prayer
Galway Kinnell
Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that.
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No Longer A Teenager
Gerald Locklin
my daughter, who turns twenty tomorrow, has become truly independent. she doesn’t need her father to help her deal with the bureaucracies of schools, hmo’s, insurance, the dmv. she is quite capable of handling landlords, bosses, and auto repair shops. also boyfriends and roommates. and her mother.
frankly it’s been a big relief. the teenage years were...
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To a Daughter Leaving Home
Linda Pastan
When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your crash as I sprinted to catch up, while you grew smaller, more breakable with distance, pumping, pumping for your life, screaming with laughter, the...
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Proverbs of Hell
William Blake
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same...
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What the Uneducated Old Woman Told Me
Christopher Reid
That she was glad to sit down. That her legs hurt in spite of the medicine. That times were bad. That her husband had died nearly thirty years before. That the war had changed things. That the new priest looked like a schoolboy and you could barely hear him in church. That pigs were better company, generally speaking, than goats. That no one could fool her. That...
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Courtesy
Hilaire Belloc
Of Courtesy, it is much less Than Courage of Heart or Holiness, Yet in my Walks it seems to me That the Grace of God is in Courtesy. On Monks I did in Storrington fall, They took me straight into their Hall; I saw Three Pictures on a wall, And Courtesy was in them all. The first the Annunciation; The second the Visitation; The third the Consolation, Of God...
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The Rules of Evidence
Lee Robinson
What you want to say most is inadmissible. Say it anyway. Say it again. What they tell you is irrelevant can’t be denied and will eventually be heard. Every question is a leading question. Ask it anyway, then expect what you won’t get. There is no such thing as the original so you’ll have to make do with a reasonable facsimile. The history of the...
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The Benefits of Ignorance
Hal Sirowitz
If ignorance is bliss, Father said, shouldn’t you be looking blissful? You should check to see if you have the right kind of ignorance. If you’re not getting the benefits that most people get from acting stupid, then you should go back to what you always were— being too smart for your own good.
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Ode on the Whole Duty Of Parents
Frances Cornford
The spirits of children are remote and wise, They must go free Like fishes in the sea Or starlings in the skies, Whilst you remain The shore where casually they come again. But when there falls the stalking shade of fear, You must be suddenly near, You, the unstable, must become a tree In whose unending heights of flowering green Hangs every fruit that grows, with silver...
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Theater
William Greenway
Like the neighborhood kind you went to as a kid, full of yellow light and red velvet curtains and everybody there, friends, bullies throwing popcorn, somebody with red hair. The roof is leak-stained like the bloody footprints of the beast from 20,000 fathoms, there’s a yo-yo demonstration by a greasy man in a sequined suit, the girl you love is there somewhere ...
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Classic Ballroom Dances
Charles Simic
Grandmothers who wring the necks Of chickens; old nuns With names like Theresa, Marianne, Who pull schoolboys by the ear; The intricate steps of pickpockets Working the crowd of the curious At the scene of an accident; the slow shuffle Of the evangelist with a sandwich-board; The hesitation of the early morning customer Peeking through the window-grille Of a pawnshop; the...
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Happiness
Michael Van Walleghen
Weep for what little things could make them glad. —Robert Frost, “Directive” Melvin, the large collie who lives in the red house at the end of my daily run is happy, happy to see me even now, in February— a month of low skies and slowly melting snow. His yard has turned almost entirely to mud— but so what? Today, ...
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Now Winter Nights Enlarge
Thomas Campion
Now winter nights enlarge This number of their hours; And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o’erflow with wine, Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep’s leaden spells remove. This time doth well...
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Snow in the Suburbs
Thomas Hardy
Every branch big with it, Bent every twig with it; Every fork like a white web-foot; Every street and pavement mute: Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward, when Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again. The palings are glued together like a wall, And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall. A sparrow enters the tree, Whereon...
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After School on Ordinary Days
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
After school on ordinary days we listened to The Shadow and The Lone Ranger as we gathered around the tabletop radio that was always kept on the china cabinet built into the wall in that tenement kitchen, a china cabinet that held no china, except thick and white and utilitarian, cups and saucers, poor people’s cups from the 5 & 10 cents store. My mother...
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High Water Mark
David Shumate
It’s hard to believe, but at one point the water rose to this level. No one had seen anything like it. People on rooftops. Cows and coffins floating through the streets. Prisoners carrying invalids from their rooms. The barkeeper consoling the preacher. A coon hound who showed up a month later forty miles downstream. And all that mud it left behind. You never forget...
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Ode to American English
Barbara Hamby
I was missing English one day, American, really, with its pill-popping Hungarian goulash of everything from Anglo-Saxon to Zulu, because British English is not the same, if the paperback dictionary I bought at Brentano’s on the Avenue de l’Opera is any indication, too cultured by half. Oh, the English know their dahlias, but what about doowop,...
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Analysis of Baseball
May Swenson
It’s about the ball, the bat, and the mitt. Ball hits bat, or it hits mitt. Bat doesn’t hit ball, bat meets it. Ball bounces off bat, flies air, or thuds ground (dud) or it fits mitt. Bat waits for ball to mate. Ball hates to take bat’s bait. Ball flirts, bat’s late, don’t keep the date. Ball goes in (thwack) to mitt, and goes out (thwack) back to mitt. Ball fits mitt, but not all...