Written by
Yehuda Amichai |
Do not accept these rains that come too late.
Better to linger.
Make your pain
An image of the desert.
Say it's said
And do not look to the west.
Refuse
To surrender.
Try this year too
To live alone in the long summer,
Eat your drying bread, refrain
From tears.
And do not learn from
Experience.
Take as an example my youth,
My return late at night, what has been written
In the rain of yesteryear.
It makes no difference
Now.
See your events as my events.
Everything will be as before: Abraham will again
Be Abram.
Sarah will be Sarai.
trans.
Benjamin & Barbara Harshav
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
Why are you running so fast hither and thither
Chasing midges or butterflies?
Some of you are standing solemnly scratching for grubs;
Some of you are waiting for corn to be scattered.
This is life, is it?
Cock-a-doodle-do! Very well, Thomas Rhodes,
You are cock of the walk, no doubt.
But here comes Elliott Hawkins,
Gluck, Gluck, Gluck, attracting political followers.
Quah! quah! quah! why so poetical, Minerva,
This gray morning?
Kittie -- quah -- quah! for shame, Lucius Atherton,
The raucous squawk you evoked from the throat
Of Aner Clute will be taken up later
By Mrs.
Benjamin Pantier as a cry
Of votes for women: Ka dook -- dook!
What inspiration has come to you, Margaret Fuller Slack?
And why does your gooseberry eye
Flit so liquidly, Tennessee Claflin Shope?
Are you trying to fathom the esotericism of an egg?
Your voice is very metallic this morning, Hortense Robbins --
Almost like a guinea hen's!
Quah! That was a guttural sigh, Isaiah Beethoven;
Did you see the shadow of the hawk,
Or did you step upon the drumsticks
Which the cook threw out this morning?
Be chivalric, heroic, or aspiring,
Metaphysical, religious, or rebellious,
You shall never get out of the barnyard
Except by way of over the fence
Mixed with potato peelings and such into the trough!
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Written by
Barry Tebb |
Sorry, I almost forgot, but I don't think
Its worth the effort to become a Carcanet poet
With my mug-shot on art gloss paper
In your catalogue as big as Mont Blanc
Easier to imagine, as Benjamin Peret did,
A wind that would unscrew the mountain
Or stars like apricot tarts strolling
Aimlessly along the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
I know that he told how I snared his soul
With a snare which bled him to death.
And all the men loved him,
And most of the women pitied him.
But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes,
And loathe the smell of whisky and onions.
And the rhythm of Wordsworth's "Ode" runs in your ears,
While he goes about from morning till night
Repeating bits of that common thing;
"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"
And then, suppose:
You are a woman well endowed,
And the only man with whom the law and morality
Permit you to have the marital relation
Is the very man that fills you with disgust
Every time you think of it--while you think of it
Every time you see him?
That's why I drove him away from home
To live with his dog in a dingy room
Back of his office.
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Written by
Philip Freneau |
Thus, some tall tree that long hath stood
The glory of its native wood,
By storms destroyed, or length of years,
Demands the tribute of our tears.
The pile, that took long time to raise,
To dust returns by slow decays:
But, when its destined years are o'er,
We must regret the loss the more.
So long accustomed to your aid,
The world laments your exit made;
So long befriended by your art,
Philosopher, 'tis hard to part!--
When monarchs tumble to the ground,
Successors easily are found:
But, matchless FRANKLIN! what a few
Can hope to rival such as YOU,
Who seized from kings their sceptered pride,
And turned the lightning darts aside.
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
Together in this grave lie Benjamin Painter, attorney at law,
And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.
Down the grey road, friends, children, men and women,
Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was alone
With Nig for partner, bed fellow, comrade in drink.
In the morning of life I knew aspiration and saw glory.
Then she, who survives me, snared my soul
With a snare which bled me to death,
Till I, once strong of sill, lay broken, indifferent,
Living with Nig in a room back of a dingy office.
Under my jaw-bone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig--
Our story is lost in silence.
Go by, mad world!
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
Their spirits beat upon mine
Like the wings of a thousand butterflies.
I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.
I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes
Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes,
And when they turned their heads;
And when their garments clung to them,
Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies.
Their spirits watched my ecstasy
With wide looks of starry unconcern.
Their spirits looked upon my torture;
They drank it as it were the water of life;
With reddened cheeks, brightened eyes,
The rising flame of my soul made their spirits gilt,
Like the wings of a butterfly drifting suddenly into sunlight.
And they cried to me for life, life, life.
But in taking life for myself,
In seizing and crushing their souls,
As a child crushes grapes and drinks
From its palms the purple juice,
I came to this wingless void,
Where neither red, nor gold, nor wine,
Nor the rhythm of life are known.
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
If you in the village think that my work was a good one,
Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,
And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,
In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;
Why do you let the milliner's daughter Dora,
And the worthless son of Benjamin Pantier,
Nightly make my grave their unholy pillow?
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist,
What will result from compounding
Fluids or solids.
And who can tell
How men and women will interact
On each other, or what children will result?
There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife,
Good in themselves, but evil toward each other:
He oxygen, she hydrogen,
Their son, a devastating fire.
I Trainor, the druggist, a mixer of chemicals,
Killed while making an experiment,
Lived unwedded.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
Franklin fathered bastards fourteen,
(So I read in the New Yorker);
If it's true, in terms of courtin'
Benny must have been a corker.
To be prudent I've aspired,
And my passions I have mastered;
So that I have never sired
A single bastard.
One of course can never know;
But I think that if I had
It would give me quite a glow
When a kiddie called me 'Dad.
'
Watching toddlers at their play,
Parentage I'd gladly claim,
But their mothers smiling say:
'You're not to blame.
'
Ben founded the Satevepost,
And for that I much respect him;
But fourteen is quite a host
Paternally to elect him.
'Fatherhood is not a crime,'
Deemed fat Ben, 'there could be others .
.
.
Darlings, I had not the time
To wed your mothers.
'
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