Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems

Ballistics

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:53:20 +1000

Billy Collins (1941–)

When I came across the high-speed photograph
of a bullet that had just pierced a book-
the pages exploding with the velocity-

I forgot all about the marvels of photography
and began to wonder which book
the photographer had selected for the shot.

Many novels sparing to mind
including those of Raymond Chandler
where an extra bullet would hardly be noticed.

Nonfiction offered too many choices-
a history of Scottish lighthouses,
a biography of Joan of Arc and so forth.

Or it could be an anthology of medieval literature,
the bullet having just beheaded Sir Gawain
and scattered the band of assorted pilgrims.

but later, as I was drifting off to sleep,
I realized that the executed book
was a recent collection of poems written
by someone of whom I was not fond
and that the bullet must have passed through
his writing with little resistance

at twenty-eight hundred feet per second,
through the poems about his childhood
and the ones about the dreary state of the world,

and then through the author’s photograph,
through the beard, the round glasses,
and that special poet’s hat he loves to wear.

Warning to Children

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:16:58 +1000

Robert Graves (1895–1985)

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel -
Children, leave the string alone!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
With the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
he lives - he then unties the string.

Myth

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:23:14 +1000

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)

Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, “I want to ask one question.
Why didn't I recognize my mother?” “You gave the
wrong answer,” said the Sphinx. “But that was what
made everything possible,” said Oedipus. “No,” she said.
“When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man. You didn't say anything about woman.”
“When you say Man,” said Oedipus, “you include women
too. Everyone knows that.” She said, “That's what
you think.”

Dolor

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:32:06 +1000

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper-weight,
All the misery of manila folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

Last Answers

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:43:51 +1000

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)

I wrote a poem on the mist
And a woman asked me what I meant by it.
I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist,
how pearl and gray of it mix and reel,
And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening
into points of mystery quivering with color.

I answered:
The whole world was mist once long ago and some day
it will all go back to mist,
Our skulls and lungs are more water than bone and tissue
And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers
Go running back to dust and mist.

The Poems of Others

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:59:37 +1000

Billy Collins (1941–)

Is there no end to it the way they keep popping up in magazines then congregate in the drafty orphanage of a book?  You would think the elm would speak up, but like the dawn it only inspires --then more of them appear. Not even the government can put a stop to it.  Just this morning, one approached me like a possum, snout twitching, impossible to ignore. Another looked out of the water at me like an otter.  How can anyone dismiss them when they dangle from the eaves of houses and throw themselves in our paths?  Perhaps I am being harsh, even ridiculous, It could have been the day at the zoo that put me this way--all the children by the cages  as if only my poems had the right to exist and people would come down from the hills in the evening to view them in rooms of white marble.  So I will take the advice of the mentors and put this in a drawer for a week maybe even a year or two and then have a calmer look at it  but for now I am going to take a walk through this nearly silent neighborhood that is my winter resting place, my hibernaculum,  and get my mind off the poems of others even as they peer down from the trees or bark at my passing in the guise of local dogs.

Elephants Are Different to Different People

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:48:11 +1000

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)

Wilson and Pilcer and Snack stood before the zoo elephant.

Wilson said, “What is its name? Is it from Asia or Africa? Who feeds
it? Is it a he or a she? How old is it? Do they have twins? How much does
it cost to feed? How much does it weigh? If it dies, how much will another
one cost? If it dies, what will they use the bones, the fat, and the hide
for? What use is it besides to look at?”

Pilcer didn't have any questions; he was murmuring to himself, “It’s
a house by itself, walls and windows, the ears came from tall cornfields,
by God; the architect of those legs was a workman, by God; he stands like
a bridge out across the deep water; the face is sad and the eyes are kind;
I know elephants are good to babies.”

Snack looked up and down and at last said to himself, “He’s a tough
son-of-a-gun outside and I’ll bet he’s got a strong heart, I’ll bet he's
strong as a copper-riveted boiler inside.”

They didn't put up any arguments.
They didn't throw anything in each other's faces.
Three men saw the elephant three ways
And let it go at that.
They didn't spoil a sunny Sunday afternoon;

“Sunday comes only once a week,” they told each other.

Survivors

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:52:15 +1000

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're ‘longing to go out again,’
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Pantoum of the Great Depression

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:55:59 +1000

Donald Justice (1925–2004)

Our lives avoided tragedy Simply by going on and on, Without end and with little apparent meaning. Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on We managed. No need for the heroic. Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes. I don't remember all the particulars.

We managed. No need for the heroic. There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows. I don't remember all the particulars. Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows Thank god no one said anything in verse. The neighbors were our only chorus, And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse. It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us, And if we suffered we kept quiet about it. No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us. We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor. What audience would ever know our story? Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor. And time went by, drawn by slow horses. Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world. The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses. We did not ourselves know what the end was. The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog. We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was. People like us simply go on. We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues, But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

La Figlia Che Piange

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:11:41 +1000

TS Eliot (1888–1965)

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair -
Lean on a garden urn -
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair -
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained suprise -
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.