1125. The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors - Shem Tov Ardutiel (pen name Santob De Carrion)

Excerpt From The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors (CE 1345) by Shem Tov Ardutiel (pen name Santob De Carrion)

Writer, you hold a flame in your hand,

or is it the blade of a sword or a spear-- 

the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

or a staff to make wondrous signs appear?

Are there words enough in all of song

to praise the pen? Who else could bear

the burden of bringing back the past

and preserving it then as though with myrrh?

It has no ear with which it might hear,

or mouth with which to offer answers,

and yet the pen, in a single stroke,

at once does both—observes and remembers.

At night he says “Tomorrow I’ll write,”

but there nothing at all to back up his words;

the heaven’s frost caught in his face,

and the cackling of mocking ice is heard.

Don’t pride yourself on tomorrow’s prize,

when you have no notion of what it hides.

1124. Autobiografia Literaria - Frank O'Hara

 

When I was a child

I played by myself in a

corner of the schoolyard

all alone.

I hated dolls and I

hated games, animals were

not friendly and birds

flew away.

If anyone was looking

for me I hid behind a

tree and cried out “I am

an orphan.”

And here I am, the

center of all beauty!

writing these poems!

Imagine!

1123. Earthing - Billy Collins

 

You have probably come across

those scales in planetariums

that tell you how much you

would weigh on other planets.

You have noticed the fat ones

lingering on the Mars scale

and the emaciated slowing up

the line for Neptune.

As a creature of average weight.

I fail to see the attraction.

Imagine squatting in the wasteland

Of Pluto, all five tons of you,

or wandering around Mercury

wondering what to do next with your ounce.

How much better to step onto

the simple bathroom scale,

a happy earthing feeling

the familiar ropes of gravity,

157 pounds standing soaking wet

a respectful distance from the sun.

1122. No Path - David Whyte

 There is No Path that Goes all the Way

Han Shan

Not that it stops us looking

for the full continuation.

The one line in the poem

we can start and follow

straight to the end. The fixed belief

we can hold, facing a stranger

that saves us the trouble

of a real conversation.  

But one day you are not

just imagining an empty chair

where your loved one sat.

Your are not just telling a story

where the bridge is down

and there’s nowhere to cross.

You are not just trying to pray

to a God you always imagined

would keep you safe.

No, you’ve come to a place

where nothing you’ve done

will impress and nothing you 

can promise will avert

the silent confrontation,

the place where

your body already seems to know

the way, having kept

to the last, its own secret

reconnaissance.

But still, there is no path

that goes all the way,

one conversation leads

to another,

one breath to the next

until

there’s no breath at all,

just

the inevitable

final release

of the burden.

And then,

wouldn’t your life

have to start

all over again 

for you to know

even a little

of who you had been?

1121. “Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning” - Alice Walker

Looking down into my father’s

dead face

for the last time

my mother said without

tears, without smiles

without regrets

but with civility

“Good night, Willie Lee, I’ll see you

in the morning.”

And it was then I knew that the healing

of all out wounds

is forgiveness

that permits a promise

of our return 

at the end.

1120. Closing His Eyes - John Tagliabue

 Did

you

ever

let

a     it 

poem     would

go     return

through             in

the     another 

air     season

like             in

a     another

swift     life ?

beautiful

bird

not

asking

it

to

tell

you 

a

word

knowing

1119. Robert Louis Stevenson - The Land Of Counterpane

 

When I was sick and lay a-bed,

I had two pillows at my head,

And all my toys beside me lay

To keep me happy all the day,

And sometimes for an hour or so

I watched my leaden soldiers go,

With different uniforms and drills,

Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets

All up and down among the sheets;

Or brought my trees and houses out,

And planted cites all about.

I was the giant of great and still

That sits upon the pillow-hill,

And sits before him, dale and plain,

The pleasant land of counterpane.

1118. Steps - Robert O'Hara

How funny you are today New York

like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime

and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left

here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days

(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still

accepts me foolish and free

all I want is a room up there

and you in it

and even the traffic halt so thick is a way

for people to rub up against each other

and when their surgical appliacnces lock

they stay together

for the rest of the day (what a day)

I go by to check a slide and I say

that painting’s not so blue

where’s Lana Turner

she’s out eating

and Garbo’s backstage at the Met

everyone’s taking their coat off

so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers

and the park’s full of dancers and their tights and shoes

in little bags

who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y

why not

the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won

and in a sense we’re all winning

we’re alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple

who moved to the country for fun

they moved a day too soon

even the stabbings are helping the population explosion

though in the wrong country

and all those liars have left the U N

the Seagram Building’s no longer rivaled in interest

not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk

next to the delicatessen

so the old man can sit on it and drink beer

and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day

while the sun is still shining

oh god it’s wonderfull

to get out of bed

and drink too much coffee

and smoke too many cigarettes

and  love you so much

1117. Time - Louise Glück

There was too much, always, then too little

Childhood: sickness.

By the side of the bed I had a little bell—

at the other end of the bell, my mother.

Sickness, gray rain. The dogs slept through it. They slept on the bed,

at the end of it, and it seemed to me they understood

about childhood: best to remain unconscious.

The rain made gray slats on the windows.

I sat with my book, the little bell beside me.

Without hearing a voice, I apprenticed myself to a voice.

Without seeing any sign of the spirit, I determined

to live in the spirit.

The rain faded in and out.

Month after month, in the space of a day

Things became dreams; dreams became things.

Then I was well; the bell went back to the cupboard.

The rain ended. The dogs stood at the door,

panting to go outside.

I was well, then I was an adult.

And time went on—it was like the rain,

to much, so much, as though it was a weight that couldn’t be moved.

I was a child, half sleeping.

I was sick: I was proected.

And I lived in the world of the spirit,

the world of the gray rain,

the lost, the remembered.

Then suddenly the sun was shining,

And time went on, even when there was almost none left.

And the perceived became the remembered,

the remembered, the perceived.

1116. The Next Time - Mark Strand

Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our time

Is becoming the architecture of the next time. And the dazzle

Of light upon the waters is as nothing beside the changes

Wrought therein, just as our waywardness means

Nothing against the steady purr of things over the edge.

Nobody can stop the flow, but nobody can start it either.

Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems,

And what is invisible stays that way. Desire has fled,

Leaving only a trace of perfume in its wake,

and so many people we loved have gone,

And no voice comes from outer space, from the folds

Of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this

Is the way it was meant to happen that if only we knew

How long the ruins would last we would never complain.

1115. Excerpt from: What W. H. Auden Can Do For You - Alexander McCall Smith

 “…. Auden wrote a gravely beautiful poem…. Its title was: “New Year Letter,” and it was addressed to Elizabeth Mayer, a refugee from the depredations of Nazi Germany, a translator, and a close friend. Like many of his works, this poem is conversational in tone but contains within it a complex skein of ideas about humanity and history, about art, civilization, and violence. At the end of the letter, through, there occur lines that are among the most beautiful he wrote. Addressing his friend, he draws attention to what she brings to the world through her therapeutic calling:” 

We fall down in the dance, we make

The old ridiculous mistake,

But always there are such as you

Forgiving, helping what we do.

O every day in sleep and labour

Our life and death are with our neighbor,

And love illuminates again

The city and the lion’s den. 

The world’s great rage, the travail of young men.

1114. - Madly Singing In The Mountains - Po Chu - I

 Selected from: A Book Of Luminous Things, Edited by Czeslaw Milosz

Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley

There is no one among men that has not a special failing,

I have broken away from the thousand ties of life;

But this infirmity still remains behind.

Each time that I look at a fine landscape,

Each time that I meet a loved friend,

I raise my voice and recite a stanza of poetry

And marvel as though a God had crossed my path.

Ever since the day I was banished to Hsün-yang

Half my time I have lived among the hills.

And often when I have finished a new poem,

Alone I climb the road to the Eastern Rock.

I lean my body on the banks of white Stone;

I pull down with my hands a green cassia branch.

My mad singing startles the valleys and hills;

The apes and birds all come to peep.

Fearing to become a laughing-stock to the world,

I choose a place that is unfrequented by men.

1113. There Is No Insurmountable Solitude - Pablo Neruda

There is no insurmountable solitude,

All paths lead to the same goal:

to convey to others what we are.

And we must pass through solitude and

difficulty, isolation and silence

to find that enchanted place 

where we can dance our clumsy dance 

and sing our sorrowful song.

But in that dance, and in

that song, the most ancient rites 

of our conscience fulfill themselves

in the awareness of being human.

1112. Working Together - David Whyte

We shape our self

to fit this world

and by the world

are shaped again.

The visible

and the invisible

working together

in common cause,

to produce

the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way

the intangible air

traveled at speed

round a shaped wing

easily

holds our weight.

So may we, in this life

trust

to those elements 

we have yet to see

or imagine,

and look for the true

shape of our own self,

by forming it well

to the great 

intangibles about us.

1111. Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon - Li Po (701-762)

Translated by Irving Y. Lo

A pot of wine among the flowers:

I drink alone, no kith or kin near.

I raise my cup to invite the moon to join me;

It and my shadow make a party of three.

Alas, the moon is unconcerned about drinking,

And my shadow merely follows me around.

Briefly I cavort with the moon and my shadow:

Pleasure must be sought while it is spring.

I sing and the moon goes back and forth,

I dance and my shadow falls at random.

While sober we seek pleasure in fellowship;

When drunk we go each our own way.

Then let us pledge a friendship without human ties

And meet again at the far end of the Milky Way

1110. C Is For Charms - Eleanor Farjeon

I met a Strange Woman

With things in her arms.

‘What have you got, Woman?

‘Charms,’ she said, ‘charms.’

‘I will put one on you

‘Ere I have done.

‘Which shall I put on you?’

’None ‘ I said, ’none!’

Oh, how she smiled at me.

’Nay, then, my dear,

Look, do but look at them.

What do you fear?’

‘I’ve a black charm for night

And a gold one for noon,

A white charm for winter,

A rose charm for June;’

‘I’ve a green charm for woods,

And a blue one for water,

And a silver for moons

When they’re in their first quarter.’

‘I’ve a slow charm for growth,

And a swift one for birds,

And a soft one for sleep,

And a sweet one for words.’

‘I’ve a long charm for love,

And a strong charm for youth,

And one you can’t change

Or destroy, for the truth.’

’Sorry’s the man my dear,

Sorry, she said,

‘Who wanders through life 

With no charm on his head.’

O how she smiled at me.

‘Big one or small,

‘Which shall I put on you?’

‘All,’ I said, ‘all!’

1109. Siting Alone In Ching-t'ing Mountain - Li Po (701-762)

Flocks of birds fly high and away

A solitary cloud calmly drifts on

We look at each other and never get bored -

Just me and Ching-t’ing mountain.

1108. Synopsis of the Great Welsh Novel - Harri Web

Dai K lives at the end of a valley. One is not quite sure

Whether it has been drowned or not. His Mam

Loves him too much and his Dada drinks.

As for his girlfriend Blodwen, she’s pregnant. So

Are all the other girls in the village. —  there’s been a Revival.

After a performance of Elijah, the mad preacher

Davies the Doom has burnt the chapel down.

One Saturday night after the dance at the Con Club,

With the Free Wales Army up to no good in the back lanes,

A stranger comes to the village, he is, of course,

God, the well-known television personality. He succeeds

In confusing the issue, whatever it is, and departs

On the last train before the line is closed.

The colliery blows up, there is a financial scandal

Involving the most respected citizens, the Choir

Wins at the National. It is all seen, naturally,

Through eyes of a sensitive boy who never grows up.

The men emigrate to America, Cardiff and the moon. The girls

Find rich and foolish English husbands. Only daft Ianto

Is left to recite the Complete Works of Sir Lewis Morris

To puzzled sheep, before throwing himself over

The edge of the abandoned quarry. One is not quite sure

Whether it is fiction or not.

1107. Cow Worship - Gerald Stern

I love the cows best when they are a few feet away

from my dining-room window and my pine floor,

when they reach in to kiss me with their wet

mouths and their white noses.

I love them when they walk over the garbage cans

and across the cellar doors,

over sidewalk and through the metal chairs

and the birdseed.

—Let me reach out through the thin curtains

and feel the warm air of May.

It is the temperature of the whole galaxy,

all the bright clouds and clusters,

beast and heroes,

glittering singers and isolated thinkers

at pasture.

1106. Blackberry Eating - Galway Kinnell

.

I love to go out in late September

among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries

to eat blackberries for breakfast,

the stalks very prickly, a penalty

they earn for knowing the black art

of blackberry making: and as I stand among them

lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries

fall almost unbidden to my tongue,

as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words

like strengths or squinted, or brougham,

many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,

which I squeeze, squelch open, and splurge well

in the silent, startled, icy, black language

of blackberry eating in late September.