Sunday, December 31, 2006

301. Edward Lear - W. H. Auden

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. Left by his friend to breakfast alone on the white Italian shore, his Terrible Demon arose Over his shoulder; he wept to himself in the ni...
Saturday, December 30, 2006

300. The Ascensions - William Pillin

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. You, Marc Chagall, should be able to tell us what was cremated in Thor's ovens, you who were always painting ascensions. The ascension...
Friday, December 29, 2006

299. From: In My Life, On My Life - Yehuda Amichai

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10 When a man dies, they say "He was gathered unto his fathers." As long as he is alive, his fathers are gathered within him, each...
Thursday, December 28, 2006

298. Sad Sestina - Robin Becker

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For Susanna Kaysen from The Horse Fair Illustrates Today’s sadness is different from yesterday’s: more green in it, some ...
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

297. XVI. Even As Love Grows More, I Write The Less

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. Even as love grows more, I write the less, Impelled to speak, unable still to voice The lyric thoughts like angels that rejoice Attendant ...
Tuesday, December 26, 2006

296. Heard and Seen - W. H. Auden

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. Events reported by the ear Are soft or loud, not far or near, In what is heard we only sense Transition and impermanence: A bark, a laugh,...
Monday, December 25, 2006

295. Evenescence - Stephen Dunn

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Stephen Dunn - Evanescence The silhouette of a mountain. Above it a dark halo of rain. Dusk's light fading, holding on. He thinks he...
Sunday, December 24, 2006

294. Saying Things - Marilyn Krysl

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. Three things quickly - pineapple, sparrowgrass, whale - and then on to asbestos. What I want to say tonight is words, the naming of things...
Saturday, December 23, 2006

294. The Birds - Linda Pastan

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The Birds are heading south, pulled by a compass in the genes. They are not fooled by this odd November summer, though we stand in our doorw...
Friday, December 22, 2006

292. After Making Love We Hear Footsteps - Galway Kinnell

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. For I can snore like a bullhorn or play loud music or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman and Fergus will only sink deeper i...
Thursday, December 21, 2006

291. Fire On The Hills - Robinson Jeffers

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. The deer were bounding like blown leaves Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire; I thought of the smaller lives tha...
Wednesday, December 20, 2006

290. From: 'The Pauper Witch of Grafton' - Robert Frost

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. I was a strapping girl of twenty then. The smarty someone who spoiled everything Was Arthur Amy. You know who he was. That was the way he...
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

289. The Known Unknown - Pattiann Rogers

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Some unknowns we can identify–– the untraversed knife-rare ravines and gorges, the unmapped inner-salt canyons of an iceberg mountain extend...
Monday, December 18, 2006

288. Sestina: Vanishing Point - Marilyn Krysl

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. A city, alive with sleeping people. Awake, the man feels in his pockets. A roll of film, loose change, ticket stubs, a book of matches. Al...
Sunday, December 17, 2006

287. At Once I Was Irish, At Least - Thomas Whitehead

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. There was no one with me, so I took my hot baked potato and while I ate the other portions of my uncomplicated dinner, held the potato in...
Saturday, December 16, 2006

286. Fugue - Howard Neverov

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. You see them vanish in their speeding cars, The many people hastening through the world, And wonder what they would have done before This ...
Thursday, December 14, 2006

285. On The Circuit - W. H. Auden

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. Among the pelagian travelers, Lost on their lewd conceited way To Massachusetts, Michigan, Miami or L.A., An airborne instrument I sit, Pr...

284. Medium as Meteorologist - Heather McHugh

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. Listening in or looking out, alert to othernesses, grasping something now and then, a hand or pattern, circle, sympathy or symbol (one sid...
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

283. Boustrophedon - Edward Kleinschmidt

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. Whereas some poems are baskets catching falling Things, some line up for the diving board To add twenty-five laps to their scorecards. Thi...
Tuesday, December 12, 2006

282. To Goethe: A Complaint - W. H. Auden

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. How wonderfully your songs begin With praise of Nature and her beauty, But then, as if it were a duty, You drag some god-damned sweetheart...