This Morning, I Wanted Four Legs
Nothing on two legs weighs much,
or can.
An elephant, a donkey, even a cookstove—
those legs, a person could stand on.
Two legs pitch you forward.
Two legs tire.
They look for another two legs to be with,
to move one set forward to music
while letting the other move back.
They want to carve into a tree trunk:
2gether 4ever.
Nothing on two legs can bark,
can whinny or chuff.
Tonight, though, everything’s different.
Tonight I want wheels.
By Jane Hirshfield (from The Beauty)
The Coyote
by Alan Feldman
If you stripped a dog of its social eagerness,
gave it a loping indifference to human presence
and starved it, you’d have a coyote,
stalking like a shadow among the garbage cans
at the top of Pearl Street, near the Fine Arts Work Center.
We’re heading back to our car through a fine mist,
the streetlights haloing amid the black trees,
and we stop, watching him appear and disappear
gaunt as a Giacometti. He’s nothing
like a dog bounding into the street.
Does he care if this is a street?—or just a hard place
under his paws. Ever since childhood
I’ve tried to be alert to what people are up to,
but why not see the coyote’s point of view?—
how he prefers to ignore them,
following his own track through the darkness.
“The Coyote” by Alan Feldman from Immortality.
© University of Wisconsin Press
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
“the withness of the body”"
The heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy factotum, disheveling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.
Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,
A sweetness intimate as the water’s clasp,
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.
—The strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles to think that his quivering meat
Must finally wince to nothing at all.
That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit’s motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the hundred million of his kind,
The scrimmage of appetite everywhere.
Delmore Schwartz, 1913 - 1966
Wells Within Your Heart
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
others are far too deep for that.
In one well
you have just a few precious cups of water,
that "love" is literally something of yourself.
It can grow as slow as a diamond
if it is lost.
This love
should only be offered
to someone
who has the valor and daring
to cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
and then
weave them into a blanket
to protect you.
There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
others are far, far too deep
for that.
-Hafiz
"What do you think this sacred well looks like? The one that has a limited supply? Some forms of love can be offered to the mouths of strangers, doled out like the newest passing craze. When we give this form of love, we know it will come back to us with each new rain (kind gesture, novel idea, compassionate thought, etc.). Conversely, there is a certain type of love that is just so sacred, so deep, so real...so ethereal that it may come only once in this world. And so we should save that love, and use it only when we meet someone who is also willing to use up their own stockpile. In this, I believe Hafiz means someone who will go the extra mile for you, someone who will be there for you, someone who will quietly cut pieces of their own soul in a time when yours requires replenishment.
And this is a rare find, a precious gem, a true beauty...the diamond that grows slowly, or not at all, if it is lost. For many, this will be the person they marry. Some cultures have such an emphasis on "saving yourself" for marriage. This I have never agreed with, for the physical self is such a small part of "Self", why would it be the most sacred thing to save? Instead, perhaps we should consider saving this deep well - be it the thoughts, emotions, stories, moments, etc. that make up a part of us too complex to be rejuvenated with each passing rain. Yes, save yourself for marriage, but only if that means saving the parts of your soul you plan to share with just one person."
http://yearwithhafiz.blogspot.com/2014/01/wells-within-your-heart.html
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
By Wallace Stevens
Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1982)
Note: Appears to develop the theme that death is an inevitable aspect of life.
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyI disagree. Clearly it's about the zenith of human achievement, ice cream. Particularly Ben & Jerrys (TM) and Haagen-Dazs (TM).
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Note: Appears to develop the theme that death is an inevitable aspect of life.
This is the House that Jack Built
This is the house that Jack built!
This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cat that killed the rat
That ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the priest all shaven and shorn
That married the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cock that crowed in the morn
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn
That married the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the farmer sowing his corn
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn
That married the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built!
“This is the House that Jack Built” by Anonymous. Public Domain.
There Was An Old Woman
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,
I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a bird,
How absurd! to swallow a bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a cat,
Imagine that! to swallow a cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a dog,
What a hog! to swallow a dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a goat,
Just opened her throat! to swallow a goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a cow,
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
She's dead—of course!
After his death
It turned out
that the bombs he had thrown
raised buildings:
that the acid he had sprayed
had painfully opened
the eyes of the blind.
Fishermen hauled
prizewinning fish
from the water he had polluted.
We sat with astonishment
enjoying the shade
of the vicious words he had planted.
The government decreed that
on the anniversary of his birth
the people should observe
two minutes pandemonium.
Norman MacCaig
I read in an online newsfeed this morning
that Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish Nobel Prize winning poet (2011) died. Anyone here familiar his literary works?
Thread 162554 (Page 5)
The Oven Bird
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
By Robert Frost
_____________________________________
"On "The Oven Bird"
Reuben A. Brower
. . . The poem opens with what first sounds like flat prosaic statement,
There is a singer everyone has heard . . .
but the line rides on the expected thrust of later lines, and before it ends, it melts imperceptibly into iambics. But—we must always be saying 'but' of this poem—as we are lapsing into a regular beat, the meter flutters slightly in 'everyone' before settling down. The next line begins unexpectedly
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird . . ."
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/ovenbrid.htm