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Full Moon March 2020
The moon was in self-isolation, too,
and wearing a white mask as it passed us
in an aisle of the night, keeping a distance
not acknowledging us. It was pushing
a cart heaped up with stars, far more stars
than any moon could ever need, the cart
sparkling, a few little stars falling out,
left behind as the moon rolled past,
on its way towards eternity’s checkout.
Ted Kooser
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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The Mermaid by Lisel Mueller
All day he had felt her stirring
under the boat, and several times
when the net had tightened, frog-nervous,
he had bungled the pulling-in,
half-glad of the stupid, open mouths
he could throw back.
At sundown
the shifting and holding of time and air
had brought her to the still surface,
to sun herself in the last, slow light
where lilies and leeches tangled and rocked.
He could have taken her then, aimed his net
as dragonfly hunters do when the glassy gliding
of rainbows goes to their heads,
could have carried her home on tiptoe
and lifted her lightly, ever so lightly
over his sill.
And, hopeless, knew
that to have her alive was only this,
the sounding, casting, waiting, seeing
and praying the light not to move,
not yet to round the bay of her shoulder
and passing, release her
to the darkness he would not enter.
Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett
On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.
Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for missaid.
Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be in. Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
First the body. No. First the place. No. First both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it back sick of the either. So on. Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all.
It stands. What? Yes. Say it stands. Had to up in the end and stand. Say bones. No bones but say bones. Say ground. No ground but say ground. So as to say pain. No mind and pain? Say yes that the bones may pain till no choice but stand. Somehow up and stand. Or better worse remains. Say remains of mind where none to permit of pain. Pain of bones till no choice but up and stand. Somehow up. Somehow stand. Remains of mind where none for the sake of pain. Here of bones. Other examples if needs must. Of pain. Relief from. Change of.
All of old. Nothing else ever. But never so failed. Worse failed. With care never worse failed.
Dim light source unknown. Know minimum. Know nothing no. Too much to hope. At most mereminimum. Meremost minimum.
No choice but stand. Somehow up and stand. Somehow stand. That or groan. The groan so long on itsway. No. No groan. Simply pain. Simply up. A time when try how. Try see. Try say. How first it lay. Then somehow knelt. Bit by bit. Then on from there. Bit by bit. Till up at last. Not now. Fail better worse now.
Another. Say another. Head sunk on crippled hands. Vertex vertical. Eyes clenched. Seat of all. Germ of all.
No future in this. Alas yes.
It stands. See in the dim void how at last it stands. In the dim light source unknown. Before the downcast eyes. Clenched eyes. Staring eyes. Clenched staring eyes.
That shade. Once lying. Now standing. That a body? Yes. Say that a body. Somehow standing. In the dim void.
A place. Where none. A time when try see. Try say. How small. How vast. How if not boundless bounded.Whence the dim. Not now. Know better now. Unknow better now. Know only no out of. No knowing how know only no out of. Into only. Hence another. Another place where none. Whither once whence noreturn. No. No place but the one. None but the one where none. Whence never once in. Somehow in. Beyondless. Thenceless there. Thitherless there. Thenceless thitherless there.
Where then but there see--
See for be seen. Misseen. From now see for be misseen.
Where then but there see now--
First back turned the shade astand. In the dim void see first back turned the shade astand. Still.
Where then but there see now another. Bit by bit an old man and child. In the dim void bit by bit an old man and child. Any other would do as ill.
Hand in hand with equal plod they go. In the free hands - no. Free empty hands. Backs turned both bowed with equal plod they go. The child hand raised to reach the holding hand. Hold the old holding hand. Hold and be held. Plod on and never recede. Slowly with never a pause plod on and never recede.Backs turned. Both bowed. Joined by held joining hands. Plod on as one. One shade. Another shade.
Head sunk on crippled hands. Clenched staring eyes. At in the dim void shades. One astand at rest. One old man and child. At rest plodding on. Any others would do as ill. Almost any. Almost as ill.
They fade. Now the one. Now the twain. Now both. Fade back. Now the one. Now the twain. Now both. Fade? No. Sudden go. Sudden back. Now the one. Now the twain. Now both.
Unchanged? Sudden back unchanged? Yes. Say yes. Each time unchanged. Somehow unchanged. Till no. Till say no. Sudden back changed. Somehow changed. Each time somehow changed.
The dim. The void. Gone too? Back too? No. Say no. Never gone. Never back. Till yes. Till say yes. Gone too. Back too. The dim. The void. Now the one. Now the other. Now both. Sudden gone. Sudden back.Unchanged? Sudden back unchanged? Yes. Say yes. Each time unchanged. Somehow unchanged. Till no. Till say no. Sudden back changed. Somehow changed. Each time somehow changed.
First sudden gone the one. First sudden back. Unchanged. Say now unchanged. So far unchanged. Back turned. Head sunk. Vertex vertical in hat. Cocked back of black brim alone. Back of black greatcoat cut off midthigh. Kneeling. Better kneeling. Better worse kneeling. Say now kneeling. From now kneeling. Could rise but to its knees. Sudden gone sudden back unchanged back turned head sunk dark shade on unseen knees. Still.
Next sudden gone the twain. Next sudden back. Say now unchanged. So far unchanged. Backs turned.Heads sunk. Dim hair. Dim white and hair so fair that in that dim light dim white. Black greatcoats to heels. Dim black. Bootheels. Now the two right. Now the two left. As on with equal plod they go. No ground. Plod as on void. Dim hands. Dim white. Two free and two as one. So sudden gone sudden back unchanged as one dark shade plod unreceding on.
The dim. Far and wide the same. High and low. Unchanging. Say now unchanging. Whence no knowing.No saying. Say only such dim light as never. On all. Say a grot in that void. A gulf. Then in that grot or gulfsuch dimmest light as never. Whence no knowing. No saying.
The void. Unchanging. Say now unchanging. Void were not the one. The twain. So far were not the one and twain. So far.
The void. How try say? How try fail? No try no fail. Say only--
First the bones. On back to them. Preying since first said on foresaid remains. The ground. The pain. No bones. No ground. No pain. Why up unknown. At all costs unknown. If ever down. No choice but up if ever down. Or never down. Forever kneeling. Better forever kneeling. Better worse forever kneeling. Say from now forever kneeling. So far from now forever kneeling. So far.
The void. Before the staring eyes. Stare where they may. Far and wide. High and low. That narrow field.Know no more. See no more. Say no more. That alone. That little much of void alone.
On back to unsay void can go. Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go. All not already gone. Till dim back. Then all back. All not still gone. The one can go. The twain can go. Dim can go. Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go.
On back better worse to fail the head said seat of all. Germ of all. All? If of all of it too. Where if not there it too? There in the sunken head the sunken head. The hands. The eyes. Shade with the other shades. In the same dim. The same narrow void. Before the staring eyes. Where it too if not there too? Ask not. No. Ask in vain. Better worse so.
The head. Ask not if it can go. Say no. Unasking no. It cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go. Oh dim go. Go for good. All for good. Good and all.
Whose words? Ask in vain. Or not in vain if say no knowing. No saying. No words for him whose words. Him? One. No words for one whose words. One? It. No words for it whose words. Better worse so.
Something not wrong with one. Meaning - meaning! - meaning the kneeling one. From now one for the kneeling one. As from now two for the twain. The as one plodding twain. As from now three for the head.The head as first said missaid. So from now. For to gain time. Time to lose. Gain time to lose. As the soul once. The world once.
Something not wrong with one. Then with two. Then with three. So on. Something not wrong with all. Far from wrong. Far far from wrong.
The words too whosesoever. What room for worse! How almost true they sometimes almost ring! How wanting in inanity! Say the night is young alas and take heart. Or better worse say still a watch of night alas to come. A rest of last watch to come. And take heart.
First one. First try fail better one. Something there badly not wrong. Not that as it is it is not bad. The noface bad. The no hands bad. The no -. Enough. A pox on bad. Mere bad. Way for worse. Pending worse still. First worse. Mere worse. Pending worse still. Add a -. Add? Never. Bow it down. Be it bowed down. Deep down. Head in hat gone. More back gone. Greatcoat cut off higher. Nothing from pelvis down.Nothing but bowed back. Topless baseless hindtrunk. Dim black. On unseen knees. In the dim void. Better worse so. Pending worse still.
Next try fail better two. The twain. Bad as it is as it is. Bad the no--
First back on to three. Not yet to try worsen. Simply be there again. There in that head in that head. Be it again. That head in that head. Clenched eyes clamped to it alone. Alone? No. Too. To it too. The sunken skull. The crippled hands. Clenched staring eyes. Be that shade again. In that shade again. With the other shades. Worsening shades. In the dim void.
Next--
First how all at once. In that stare. The worsened one. The worsening two. And what yet to worsen. To try to worsen. Itself. The dim. The void. All at once in that stare. Clenched eyes clamped to all.
Next two. From bad to worsen. Try worsen. From merely bad. Add -. Add? Never. The boots. Better worse bootless. Bare heels. Now the two right. Now the two left. Left right left right on. Barefoot unreceding on. Better worse so. A little better worse than nothing so.
Next the so-said seat and germ of all. Those hands! That head! That near true ring! Away. Full face from now. No hands. No face. Skull and stare alone. Scene and seer of all.
On. Stare on. Say on. Be on. Somehow on. Anyhow on. Till dim gone. At long last gone. All at long last gone. For bad and all. For poor best worst and all.
Dim whence unknown. At all costs unknown. Unchanging. Say now unchanging. Far and wide. High and low. Say a pipe in that void. A tube. Sealed. Then in that pipe or tube that selfsame dim. Old dim. Whenever what else? Where all always to be seen. Of the nothing to be seen. Dimly seen. Nothing ever unseen. Of the nothing to be seen. Dimly seen. Worsen that?
Next the so-said void. The so-missaid. That narrow field. Rife with shades. Well so-missaid. Shade-ridden void. How better worse so-missay?
Add others. Add? Never. Till if needs must. Nothing to those so far. Dimly so far. Them only lessen. But with them as they lessen others. As they worsen. If needs must. Others to lessen. To worsen. Till dim go.At long last go. For worst and all.
On. Somehow on. Anyhow on. Say all gone. So on. In the skull all gone. All? No. All cannot go. Till dim go. Say then but the two gone. In the skull one and two gone. From the void. From the stare. In the skill all save the skull gone. The stare. Alone in the dim void. Alone to be seen. Dimly seen. In the skull the skull alone to be seen. The staring eyes. Dimly seen. By the staring eyes. The others gone. Long sudden gone. Then sudden back. Unchanged. Say now unchanged. First one. Then two. Or first two. Then one. Or together. Then all again together. The bowed back. The plodding twain. The skull. The stare. All back in the skull together. Unchanged. Stare clamped to all. In the dim void.
The eyes. Time to--
First on back to unsay dim can go. Somehow on back. Dim cannot go. Dim to go must go for good. True then dim can go. If but for good. One can go not for good. Two too. Three no if not for good. With dim gone for good. Void no if not for good. With all gone for good. Dim can worsen. Somehow worsen. Go no. If not for good.
The eyes. Time to try worsen. Somehow try worsen. Unclench. Say staring open. All white and pupil. Dim white. White? No. All pupil. Dim black holes. Unwavering gaping. Be they so said. With worsening words.From now so. Better than nothing so bettered for the worse.
Still dim still on. So long as still dim still somehow on. Anyhow on. With worsening words. Worsening stare. For the nothing to be seen. At the nothing to be seen. Dimly seen. As now by way of somehow on where in the nowhere all together? All three together. Where there all three as last worse seen? Bowed back alone. Barefoot plodding twain. Skull and lidless stare. Where in the narrow vast? Say only vasts apart. In that narrow void vasts of void apart. Worse better later.
What when words gone? None for what then. But say by way of somehow on somehow with sight to do.With less of sight. Still dim and yet -. No. Nohow so on. Say better worse words gone when nohow on.Still dim and nohow on. All seen and nohow on. What words for what then? None for what then. No words for what when words gone. For what when nohow on. Somehow nohow on.
Worsening words whose unknown. Whence unknown. At all costs unknown. Now for to say as worst they may only they only they. Dim void shades all they. Nothing save what they say. Somehow say. Nothing save they. What they say. Whosesoever whencesoever say. As worst they may fail ever worse to say.
Remains of mind then still. Enough still. Some whose somewhere somehow enough still. No mind and no words? Even such words. So enough still. Just enough still to joy. Joy! Just enough still to joy that only they. Only!
Enough still not to know. Not to know what they say. Not to know what it is the words it says say. Says? Secretes. Say better worse secretes. What it is the words it secretes say. What the so-said void. The so-said dim. The so-said shades. The so-said seat and germ of all. Enough to know no knowing. No knowing what it is the words it secretes say. No saying. No saying what it is they somehow say.
That said on back to try worse say the plodding twain. Preying since last worse said on foresaid remains.But what not on them preying? What seen? What said? What of all seen and said not on them preying? True. True! And yet say worst perhaps worst of all the old man and child. That shade at last worse seen.Left right left right barefoot unreceding on. They then the words. Back to them now for want of better on and better fail. Worser fail that perhaps of all the least. Least worse failed of all the worse failed shades.Less worse than the bowed back alone. The skull and lidless stare. Though they too for worse. But whatnot for worse. True. True! And yet say first the worst perhaps worst of all the old man and child. Worst in need of worse. Worst in--
Blanks for nohow on. How long? Blanks how long till somehow on? Again somehow on. All gone when nohow on. Time gone when nohow on.
Worse less. By no stretch more. Worse for want of better less. Less best. No. Naught best. Best worse.No. Not best worse. Naught not best worse. Less best worse. No. Least. Least best worse. Least never to be naught. Never to naught be brought. Never by naught be nulled. Unnullable least. Say that best worst. With leastening words say least best worse. For want of worser worse. Unlessenable least best worse.
The twain. The hands. Held holding hands. That almost ring! As when first said on crippled hands the head. Crippled hands! They there then the words. Here now held holding. As when first said. Ununsaid when worse said. Away. Held holding hands!
The empty too. Away. No hands in the--. No. Save for worse to say. Somehow worse somehow to say. Say for now still seen. Dimly seen. Dim white. Two dim white empty hands. In the dim void.
So leastward on. So long as dim still. Dim undimmed. Or dimmed to dimmer still. To dimmost dim. Leastmost in dimmost dim. Utmost dim. Leastmost in utmost dim. Unworsenable worst.
What words for what then? How almost they still ring. As somehow from some soft of mind they ooze. From it in it ooze. How all but uninane. To last unlessenable least how loath to leasten. For then in utmost dim to unutter leastmost all.
So little worse the old man and child. Gone held holding hands they plod apart. Left right barefoot unreceding on. Not worsen yet the rift. Save for some after nohow somehow worser on.
On back to unsay clamped to all the stare. No but from now to now this and now that. As now from worsened twain to next for worse alone. To skull and stare alone. Of the two worse in want the skull preying since unsunk. Now say the fore alone. No dome. Temple to temple alone. Clamped to it and stare alone the stare. Bowed back alone and twain blurs in the void. So better than nothing worse shade three from now.
Somehow again on back to the bowed back alone. Nothing to show a woman's and yet a woman's. Oozed from softening soft the word woman's. The words old woman's. The words nothing to show bowed back alone a woman's and yet a woman's. So better worse from now that shade a woman's. An old woman's.
Next fail see say how dim undimmed to worsen. How nohow save to dimmer still. But but a shade so aswhen after nohow somehow on to dimmer still. Till dimmost dim. Best bad worse of all. Save somehow undimmed worser still.
Ooze on back not to unsay but say again the vasts apart. Say seen again. No worse again. The vasts of void apart. Of all so far missaid the worse missaid. So far. Not till nohow worse missay say worsemissaid. Not till for good nohow on poor worst missaid.
Longing the so-said mind long lost to longing. The so-missaid. So far so-missaid. Dint of long longing lostto longing. Long vain longing. And longing still. Faintly longing still. Faintly vainly longing still. For fainterstill. For faintest. Faintly vainly longing for the least of longing. Unlessenable least of longing. Unstillable vain least of longing still.
Longing that all go. Dim go. Void go. Longing go. Vain longing that vain longing go.Said is missaid. Whenever said said said missaid. From now said alone. No more from now now said andnow missaid. From now said alone. Said for missaid. For be missaid.
Back is on. Somehow on. From now back alone. No more from now now back and now back on. From now back alone. Back for back on. Back for somehow on.
Back unsay better worse by no stretch more. If more dim less light then better worse more dim. Unsaid then better worse by no stretch more. Better worse may no less than less be more. Better worse what? The say? The said? Same thing. Same nothing. Same all but nothing.
No once. No once in pastless now. No not none. When before worse the shades? The dim before more? When if not once? Onceless alone the void. By no stretch more. By none less. Onceless till no more.
Ooze back try worsen blanks. Those then when nohow on. Unsay then all gone. All not gone. Only nohow on. All not gone and nohow on. All there as now when somehow on. The dim. The void. The shades. Only words gone. Ooze gone. Till ooze again and on. Somehow ooze on.
Preying since last worse the stare. Something there still far so far from wrong. So far far far from wrong.Try better worse another stare when with words than when not. When somehow than when nohow. While all seen the same. No not all seen the same. Seen other. By the same other stare seen other. When with words than when not. When somehow than when nohow. How fail say how other seen?
Less. Less seen. Less seeing. Less seen and seeing when with words than when not. When somehow than when nohow. Stare by words dimmed. Shades dimmed. Void dimmed. Dim dimmed. All there as when no words. As when nohow. Only all dimmed. Till blank again. No words again. Nohow again. Then all undimmed. Stare undimmed. That words had dimmed.
Back unsay shades can go. Go and come again. No. Shades cannot go. Much less come again. Nor bowed old woman's back. Nor old man and child. Nor fore skull and and stare. Blur yes. Shades can blur.When stare clamped to one alone. Or somehow words again. Go no nor come again. Till dim if ever go.Never to come again.
Blanks for when words gone. When nohow on. Then all seen as only then. Undimmed. All undimmed that words dim. All so seen unsaid. No ooze then. No trace on soft when from it ooze again. In it ooze again.Ooze alone for seen as seen with ooze. Dimmed. No ooze for seen undimmed. For when nohow on. No ooze for when ooze gone.
Back try worsen twain preying since last worse. Since atwain. Two once so one. From now rift a vast. Vast of void atween. With equal plod still unreceding on. That little better worse. Till words for worser still.Worse words for worser still.
Preying but what not preying? When not preying? Nohow over words again say what then when not preying. Each better worse for naught. No stilling preying. The shades. The dim. The void. All alwaysfaintly preying. Worse for naught. No less than when but bad all always faintly preying. Gnawing.
Gnawing to be gone. Less no good. Worse no good. Only one good. Gone. Gone for good. Till then gnaw on. All gnaw on. To be gone.
All save void. No. Void too. Unworsenable void. Never less. Never more. Never since first said never unsaid never worse said never not gnawing to be gone.
Say child gone. As good as gone. From the void. From the stare. Void then not that much more? Say oldman gone. Old woman gone. As good as gone. Void then not that much more again? No. Void mostwhen almost. Worst when almost. Less then? All shades as good as gone. If then not that much morethan that much less then? Less worse then? Enough. A pox on void. Unmoreable unlessableunworseable evermost almost void.
Back to once so-said two as one. Preying ever since not long since last failed worse. Ever since vastatween. Say better worse now all gone save trunks from now. Nothing from pelves down. From napes up.Topless baseless hindtrunks. Legless plodding on. Left right unreceding on.
Stare clamped to stare. Bowed backs blurs in stare clamped to stare. Two black holes. Dim black. In through skull to soft. Out from soft through skull. Agape in unseen face. That the flaw? The want of flaw?Try better worse set in skull. Two black holes in foreskull. Or one. Try better still worse one. One dimblack hole mid-foreskull. Into the hell of all. Out from the hell of all. So better than nothing worse say starefrom now.
Stare outstared away to old man hindtrunk unreceding on. Try better worse kneeling. Legs gone say better worse kneeling. No more if ever on. Say never. Say never on. Ever kneeling. Legs gone from staresay better worse ever kneeling. Stare away to child and worsen same. Vast void apart old man and child dim shades on unseen knees. One blur. One clear. Dim clear. Now the one. Now the other.
Nothing to show a child and yet a child. A man and yet a man. Old and yet old. Nothing but ooze how nothing and yet. One bowed back yet an old man's. The other yet a child's. A small child's.
Somehow again and all in stare again. All at once as once. Better worse all. The three bowed down. The stare. The whole narrow void. No blurs. All clear. Dim clear. Black hole agape on all. Inletting all. Outletting all.
Nothing and yet a woman. Old and yet old. On unseen knees. Stooped as loving memory some old gravestones stoop. In that old graveyard. Names gone and when to when. Stoop mute over the graves of none. S
ame stoop for all. Same vasts apart. Such last state. Latest state. Till somehow less in vain. Worse invain. All gnawing to be naught. Never to be naught.
What were skull to go? As good as go. Into what then black hole? From out what then? What why of all? Better worse so? No. Skull better worse. What left of skull. Of soft. Worst why of all of all. So skull not go.What left of skull not go. Into it still the hole. Into what left of soft. From out what little left.
Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. Three pins. One pinhole.In dimmost dim. Vasts apart. At bounds of boundless void. Whence no farther. Best worse no farther.Nohow less. Nohow worse. Nohow naught. Nohow on.
Said nohow on.
I cant understand its prose or poetry? I found only this article https://differencebtwn.com/difference-be...and-poetry
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(10-22-2020, 10:50 PM)kimmiel Wrote: I cant understand its prose or poetry?
All who knew have died
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
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Rimbaud's Tooth Ache
Arthur had waited too long. Even the blue light of opium no longer countered the pain. His teeth throbbed with it, like the veins of a young soldier in the heat of a battle already lost. He wailed alone at the night in the painter's loft, until the old man living one flight up, a pedant with dry blood between the many crevices in his forehead, knocked on the door and inquired what the trouble might be. Arthur, too tired to shield himself behind his usual wit and insolence, made a gesture toward the swollen jaw, and the old man insisted he accompany the youth to a dentist he had known to be "quite reliable and competent," and who had offices nearby. He would be by to call on him following breakfast the next morning, and, if Arthur had no money to cover the expense, he insisted on arranging payment himself with the dentist, who, he added, was a longtime friend and an understanding sort.
Rimbaud could not deny the comfort he felt in the idea that at this same time tomorrow the ache would be gone, yet he could not help but lie back on the bed and regard the old man as a fool. For the wailing that brought this neighbor to his door had little to do with the pain upon his teeth. He wailed for a young girl who sat that day by the fountain he passed daily as he walked. Her dress was trimmed with lace, white as the veils of children in processions back home. How the spray from the fountain pressed the lines of sun deeper and deeper into her hair until the light remained beyond the cursed evening! "How will I ever dream again in daylight," he thought, "when I know she walks the streets of this city, and breathes the air?" The darkness was already full as she rose to go her way, and as she passed the bench where th poet had set himself, he drew a ragged notebook from his vest with great haste and pretended to read from its pages, which were empty. And she passed right by, the last drops of light sliding through the hair across her shoulders. At his feet. His fingers quivered with an unbearable longing. To touch. This was the source of the pain which the old man heard this night, sounding through the floor beneath him.
Rimbaud Sees the Dentist
As he had promised, the old man knocked at Arthur's door early that morning. Rimbaud was ready, and together they passed down into the fresh blocks of sunlight on the sidewalks. Rimbaud was neatly dressed, though his frail black ties, which was more like the lace of a boot, could not conceal the lines of dirt along his collar.
"You should hold no fear of the pain one often takes for granted on the way to the dentist," the old man explained, "for this particular one has been experimenting with a strange new form of gas, called nitrous oxide, which is, to all reports, quite successful in eliminating such discomfort."
Rimbaud nodded to that, though, as things were, he was rather looking forward to an experience which involved the purging of one pain by means of another, even greater, pain. By the time they had reached the office, however and the old man had made payment and Arthur had been seated in a chair not unlike that of a barber, he had grown curious about this new gas and asked the dentist if he might inhale some as part of his treatment. The dentist, who was fat, with a stale yellow beard, was delighted this young man knew of his innovation, and he began to attach, somewhat clumsily, a black mask shaped like a cup over the poet's mouth and nose. A long rubber tube ran from the mask to a cylinder placed behind the chair. He turned the knob on the mouth of the cylinder, readjusted the mask, patted the young man's shoulder and told him to relax, that he would return in a short time. "There is no time to speak of that is short," Arthur was mumbling. "And there is a tiny German whose clothing is in flames running in circles along the back of my jaw." The dentist chortled and walked through the door to his outer office; he knew the drug was already at work. The old man had told him his young patient made claims to writing poems, and now he would allow some time to pass before he began extracting teeth, and he would let the poet dream.
So Rimbaud dreamt the nitrous dreams. Of women with black skin whose lips were like drums. Of rodents sealed in kegs of blue water. Of lightning shaped like freight trains passing vertically through the branches of a tree. Whose leaves were knives falling to the earth and standing upright. There was a speed in these visions, each dissolved into the next with thin wheels in flame dropping from the sky. And there were words painted in many colors across the foreheads of women whose arms linked like a chain. The smell of burning rubber clung with thorny fingers to the ceiling of his skull.
I think the guy from The Basketball Diaries wrote this. And I cut and pasted it, so thats the way he wrote, maybe, the hip venacular, or however you spell it, if did anything wrong, or weird.
Theres another section of this, but it wasnt there where i copied this from.
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I can't find the whole, not even the whole of section VIII, in translation on here. But you get the gist.
The Keeper of Sheep
F. Pessoa
VIII
One midday in late spring
I had a dream that was like a photograph.
I saw Jesus Christ come down to earth.
He came down a hillside
As a child again,
Running and tumbling through the grass,
Pulling up flowers to throw them back down,
And laughing loud enough to be heard far away.
He had run away from heaven.
He was too much like us to fake
Being the second person of the Trinity.
In heaven everything was false and in disagreement
With flowers and trees and stones.
In heaven he always had to be serious
And now and then had to become man again
And get up on the cross, and be forever dying
With a crown full of thorns on his head,
A huge nail piercing his feet,
And even a rag around his waist
Like on black Africans in illustrated books.
He wasn’t even allowed a mother and father
Like other children.
His father was two different people—
An old man named
Joseph who was a carpenter
And who wasn’t his father,
And an idiotic dove:
The only ugly dove in the world,
Because it wasn’t of the world and wasn’t a dove.
And his mother gave birth to him without ever having loved.
She wasn’t a woman: she was a suitcase
In which he was sent from heaven.
And they wanted him, born only of a mother
And with no father he could love and honor,
To preach goodness and justice!
One day when God was sleeping
And the Holy Spirit was flying about,
He went to the chest of miracles and stole three.
He used the first to make everyone blind to his escape.
He used the second to make himself eternally human and a child.
He used the third to make an eternally crucified Christ
Whom he left nailed to the cross that’s in heaven
And serves as the model for all the others.
Then he fled to the sun
And descended on the first ray he could catch.
Today he lives with me in my village.
He’s a simple child with a pretty laugh.
He wipes his nose with his right arm,
Splashes about in puddles,
Plucks flowers and loves them and forgets them.
He throws stones at the donkeys,
Steals fruit from the orchards,
And runs away crying and screaming from the dogs.
And because he knows that they don’t like it
And that everyone thinks it’s funny,
He runs after the girls
Who walk in groups along the roads
Carrying jugs on their heads,
And he lifts up their skirts.
He taught me all I know.
He taught me to look at things.
He shows me all the things there are in flowers.
He shows me how curious stones are
When we hold them in our hand
And look at them slowly.
He speaks very badly of God.
He says God is a sick and stupid old man
Who’s always swearing
And spitting on the floor.
The Virgin Mary spends the afternoons of eternity knitting.
And the Holy Spirit scratches himself with his beak
And perches on the chairs, getting them dirty.
Everything in heaven is stupid, just like the Catholic Church.
He says God understands nothing
About the things he created.
“If he created them, which I doubt,” he says.
“God claims, for instance, that all beings sing his glory,
But beings don’t sing anything.
If they sang, they’d be singers.
Beings exist, that’s all,
Which is why they’re called beings.”
And then, tired of speaking badly about God,
The little boy Jesus falls asleep in my lap
And I carry him home in my arms.
He lives with me in my house, halfway up the hill.
He’s the Eternal Child, the god who was missing.
He’s completely natural in his humanity.
He smiles and plays in his divinity.
And that’s how I know beyond all doubt
That he’s truly the little boy Jesus.
And this child who’s so human he’s divine
Is my daily life as a poet.
It’s because he’s always with me that I’m always a poet
And that my briefest glance
Fills me with feeling,
And the faintest sound, whatever it is,
Seems to be speaking to me.
The New Child who lives where I live
Gives one hand to me
And the other to everything that exists,
And so the three of us go along whatever road we find,
Leaping and singing and laughing
And enjoying our shared secret
Of knowing that in all the world
There is no mystery
And that everything is worthwhile.
The Eternal Child is always at my side.
The direction of my gaze is his pointing finger.
My happy listening to each and every sound
Is him playfully tickling my ears.
We get along so well with each other
In the company of everything
That we never even think of each other,
But the two of us live together,
Intimately connected
Like the right hand and the left.
At day’s end we play jacks
On the doorstep of the house,
With the solemnity befitting a god and a poet
And as if each jack
Were an entire universe,
Such that it would be a great peril
To let one fall to the ground.
Then I tell him stories about purely human matters
And he smiles, because it’s all so incredible.
He laughs at kings and those who aren’t kings,
And feels sorry when he hears about wars,
And about commerce, and about ships
That are finally just smoke hovering over the high seas.
For he knows that all of this lacks the truth
Which is in a flower when it flowers
And with the sunlight when it dapples
The hills and valleys
Or makes our eyes smart before whitewashed walls.
Then he falls asleep and I put him to bed.
I carry him in my arms into the house
And lay him down, removing his clothes
Slowly and as if following a very pure
And maternal ritual until he’s naked.
He sleeps inside my soul
And sometimes wakes up in the night
And plays with my dreams.
He flips some of them over in the air,
Piles some on top of others,
And claps his hands all by himself,
Smiling at my slumber.
When I die, my son,
Let me be the child, the little one.
Pick me up in your arms
And carry me into your house.
Undress my tired and human self
And tuck me into your bed.
If I wake up, tell me stories
So that I’ll fall back asleep.
And give me your dreams to play with
Until the dawning of that day
You know will dawn.
This is the story of my little boy Jesus,
And is there any good reason
Why it shouldn’t be truer
Than everything philosophers think
And all that religions teach?
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But I don’t give any password …
I go in without explaining.
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short poem by Allen Ginsberg from his 1965 notebooks:
America is over
the world needs a new lover
So ladies & gentlemen relax
actually a long series, with 3rd line as refrain
unpublished poem from 1966:
Weep for the earth, scarred patched cancered in afternoon sunlight.
Red smoke pouring from tiny factories clinging to Peninsula’d Baltimore—
Smokestacks spiked myriad by green canals, patches of wood surviving
like mangy fur on reddish dogskin of the planet.
Rows of houses parked arithmetic in their limits,
warships cuddled in hundreds side by side inland at drydocks—
Zones of city traffic triangle near cloverland and footfate oval green
Man’s earth in greyish vapor, thru layer of gas shielding the cities,
and pure blue sky lined above, a higher horizon than earthman can see
except by roaring plane flight.
The crust of buildings Manhattan Wall to Empire spike
In smoke, Pulaski skyway to Newark
black toy’d over Kearney footways — home where I was born—
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After a long night of hookin', Trey
didn’t like the session so he had gutted me
and set me on fire.
But you know, I didn’t die:
I had crystallized
and now I’m a Glamazon bitch ready for the runway.
(by Kennedy Davenport) 
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Day 4305.
Eleven years, three months sober, I enter a liquor store
to buy a pack of chewing gum for a friend
and find myself surrounded by bottles filled with liquid
that can kill me, like inside each one there's a switch
that could unfreeze the drunkard within. The drunkard is on ice.
To him it's still December 6th, 1993.
We've just stumbled out of the Fox and Hounds Bar in Dupont
Circle, a half-dozen thimbles of whisky rattling
in our guts. We're jabbing the key into the car, igniting
the engine. The cops have not swooped in
and yanked us out yet. The drunkard in me kicks my ribs.
He can smell the Old Grand Dad on the shelf.
He wants to slug eggshells of bourbon till our nerve endings
are as dull as the butter knives in a psych ward.
He remembers scurrying through the brain's elaborate hallways,
holding a fire extinguisher filled with Jim Beam
and squelching all the thoughts smoldering inside.
The drunkard laughs at the list of places we've passed
out:
the East Village stairwell, the Philadelphia train yard,
behind the wheel of a one-eyed Pinto, in the arms
of Lila Shepherd, in the legs of Melissa Browne. The drunkard laughs
about snorting four grams of coke on an empty stomach
and puking so hard I ripped out the lining of my throat
like the silk inside a tuxedo sleeve. The drunkard
could care less that we were an unemployed loser, that our penis
had shriveled into a limp parachute chord, something
we tugged each night, when the drugs wore off,
and we plummeted back to earth, hoping
to ease the crash. I was in San Diego a few years back: nine a.m.,
a hot Saturday morning, jogging this palm-tree path,
parallel to the Pacific, water shimmering, when I noticed
this old bum in an overcoat conked out
on a patch of grass, the bottle in its brown paper nightgown
balanced in his palm, all these chipper, go-getter
Yuppies putzing past him in their day-glo running gear.
And it hit me--the old bum with his crowbar of a smile:
that's the oblivion I was seeking, to be so supremely blotto
I could pass out on a sunny morning, my whole body
splayed like a fuck you to their way of life. A guy
enters the store, grabs Grandpa by the throat.
If I live this life 100 more times, 98 times I die drunk. I enter
the windshield and don't come out, heroin's cherubs
seal their chubby palms over my lips. The street dealer
in North Philly with the switchblade slices my face
open like a papaya. Last week they found Hilary balled-up
in a bathroom. Before that it was Raymond in the desert,
a telescope jabbed into his forearm and a tube looping
from his exhaust pipe to his lips. On every leaf
of every branch of my family tree, I see this illness, this hunger
that multiplies when you feed it, this octopus
expanding in the belly. I haven't used in eleven years, and
still
it runs through me. I fall asleep, he's running laps
around
my pelvis. I wake, and he's churning up my calves, already
broken a sweat. How do you beat an opponent
that trains more than you do, that has no weakness?
Sam said there'd be moments like this,
when the only thing between me and a drink was a god
I'm not sure I believe in. I grab the pack
of gum, go to the counter. Anything else?
The guy asks.
A swimming pool overflowing with vodka? Crack
rocks the size of softballs? A sand box filled with crystal
meth? I am the miracle. I am the hand reaching
out of the wreck. I don't care if it's true. It's what
I need
to tell myself to make it out the door alive.
By Jeffrey McDaniel
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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Touch Me
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gun-metal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
Stanley Kunitz 1990
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Whenever it snows, I read these poems as private ritual before bed.
ALL out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.
Robert Frost
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less -
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
And this is a morning poem.
The margins of the forest are beautiful,
as if painted onto the green slopes.
I walk around, and sweet peace
rewards me for the thorns
in my heart, when the mind has grown
dark, for right from the start
art and thinking have caused it pain.
There are lovely pictures in the valley,
for example the gardens and trees,
and the narrow footbridge, and the brook,
hardly visible. How beautifully
the landscape shines, cheerfully distant,
like a splendid picture, where I come
to visit when the weather is mild.
A kindly divinity leads us on at first
with blue, then prepares clouds,
shaped like gray domes, with
searing lightning and rolling thunder,
then comes the loveliness of the fields,
and beauty wells forth from
the source of the primal image.
Friedrich Holderlin
And this.
You too wanted better things, but love
forces all of us down. Sorrow bends us more
forcefully, but the arc doesn't return to its
point of origin without a reason.
Upwards or downwards! In holy Night,
where mute Nature plans the coming days,
doesn't there reign in the most twisted Orcus
something straight and direct?
This I have learned. Never to my knowledge
did you, all-preserving gods, like mortal
masters, lead me providentially
along a straight path.
The gods say that man should test
everything, and that strongly nourished
he be thankful for everything, and understand
the freedom to set forth wherever he will.
Isn't my heart holy, more full of life's beauty,
since I fell in love? Why did you like me more
when I was prouder and wilder, more full
of words, yet emptier?
Well, the crowd likes whatever sells in the
marketplace; and no one but a slave
appreciates violent men. Only those who
are themselves godlike believe in the gods.
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If you copy and paste poems from another site, it won't work unless it's a new post.
In a not new case, make a new post, preview post, and copy from the preview. Then you can post it in a response or to add to an already previewed post.
That's science.
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This isn't a song I love,
but I got the book today
and this is the first poem in the book,
or was,
it's been ripped out.
I
Against the burly air I strode,
Where the tight ocean heaves its load,
Crying the miracles of God.
And first I brought the sea to bear
Upon the dead weight of the land;
And the waves flourished at my prayer,
The rivers spawned their sand.
And where the streams were salt and full,
The tough pig-headed salmon strove,
Curbing the ebb and the tide’s pull
To reach the steady hills above.
II
The second day I stood and saw
The osprey plunge with triggered claw,
Feathering blood along the shore,
To lay the living sinew bare.
III
And I renounced, on the fourth day,
This fierce and unregenerate clay,
Building as a huge myth for man
The watery Leviathan,
And made the glove-winged albatross
Scour the ashes of the sea
Where Capricorn and Zero cross,
A brooding immortality—
Such as the charméd phoenix has
In the unwithering tree.
IV
The phoenix burns as cold as frost;
And, like a legendary ghost
The phantom-bird goes wild and lost,
Upon pointless ocean tossed.
So, the fifth day, I turned again
To flesh and blood and the blood’s pain.
V
On the sixth day, as I rode
In haste about the works of God,
With spurs I plucked the horse’s blood.
By blood we live, the hot, the cold
To ravage and redeem the world:
There is no bloodless myth will hold.
And by Christ’s blood are men made free
Though in close shrouds their bodies lie
Under the rough pelt of the sea;
Though Earth has rolled beneath her weight
The bones that cannot bear the light.
I currently like playing this game of clashing highly intentionally learned and allusive poets like Geoffrey Hill and Jay Wright with no-less well-read, but exploding, spontaneous Romantic type poets like Victor Hugo and Friedrich Holderlin. Not types, peoples.
And I'm adding more Thomas Hardy to the mix. The cruel man.
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The Search Party
I wondered if the others felt
as heroic
and as safe: my unmangled family
slept while I slid uncertain feet ahead
behind my flashlight’s beam.
Stones, thick roots as twisted as
a ruined body,
what did I fear?
I hoped my batteries
had eight more lives
than the lost child.
I feared I’d find something.
Reader, by now you must be sure
you know just where we are,
deep in symbolic woods.
Irony, self-accusation,
someone else’s suffering.
The search is that of art.
You’re wrong, though it’s
an intelligent mistake.
There was a real lost child.
I don’t want to swaddle it
in metaphor.
I’m just a journalist
who can’t believe in objectivity.
I’m in these poems
because I’m in my life.
But I digress.
A man four volunteers
to the left of me
made the discovery.
We circled in like waves
returning to the parent shock.
You’ve read this far, you might as well
have been there too. Your eyes accuse
me of false chase. Come off it,
you’re the one who thought it wouldn’t
matter what we found.
Though we came with lights
and tongues thick in our heads,
the issue was a human life.
The child was still
alive. Admit you’re glad.
“The Search Party” Copyright © 1992 by William Matthews.
Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
"Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)" from A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems. Copyright 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
50-50
I’m all alone in this world, she said,
Ain’t got nobody to share my bed,
Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand—
The truth of the matter’s
I ain’t got no man.
Big Boy opened his mouth and said,
Trouble with you is
You ain’t got no head!
If you had a head and used your mind
You could have me with you
All the time.
She answered, Babe, what must I do?
He said, Share your bed—
And your money, too.
Langston Hughes
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Geoffrey Hill hated some of his earlier poems. I got his complete works up to 2012. I got it a used-book. One of the persons who owned it before me ripped out all of the poems Geoffrey Hill himself disliked. Don't you wish you had a fan like that?
I'm going to post a video of Robert Frost reading Birches. That is my favourite poem being read. I put the u in favorite to let you know I'm serious.
The post will be made. Under this one, separated by a line. I may have posted this before, but I don't base my life on memories.
I . . . never mind
The ape of thoth says something went wrong.
Oh there the video is.
Critics tend to dislike that line about girls throwing their hair out to dry in the sun.
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Geoffrey Hill's
Ovid in the Third Reich
non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
Amores, III, xiv
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.
I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.
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