Poseidonians

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1. Waiting For The Barbarians What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What laws can the senators make now? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did our […]...
2. ABOUT LOVE FOR BARBARIANS The opposite seeks the opposite And the drop of black Grows within white Until turning white into black And conversely the drop becomes white We all want the opposite Which incarnates in front of you Once in a while And brings its exotic religion its idea of the subject Its distractions its apparent cruelty The […]...
3. On An Italian Shore Kimos, son of Menedoros, a young Greek-Italian, Devotes his life to amusing himself, Like most young men in Greater Greece Brought up in the lap of luxury. But today, in spite of his nature, He is preoccupied, dejected. Near the shore He watched, deeply distressed, as they unload Ships with booty taken from the Peloponnese. […]...
4. Too scanty 'twas to die for you Too scanty ’twas to die for you, The merest Greek could that. The living, Sweet, is costlier I offer even that The Dying, is a trifle, past, But living, this include The dying multifold without The Respite to be dead....
5. Manuel Komninos One dreary September day Emperor Manuel Komninos Felt his death was near. The court astrologers – bribed, of course – went on babbling About how many years he still had to live. But while they were having their say, He remebered an old religious custom And ordered ecclesiastical vestments To be brought from a monastery, […]...
6. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
7. The Sentence And the stone word fell On my still-living breast. Never mind, I was ready. I will manage somehow. Today I have so much to do: I must kill memory once and for all, I must turn my soul to stone, I must learn to live again Unless. . . Summer’s ardent rustling Is like a […]...
8. Flying at Forty You call me Courageous, I who grew up Gnawing on books, As some kids Gnaw On bubble gum, Who married disastrously Not once But three times, Yet have a lovely daughter I would not undo For all the dope In California. Fear was my element, Fear my contagion. I swam in it Till I became […]...
9. John Hancock Otis As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born, Was second to none in Spoon River In my devotion to the cause of Liberty? While my contemporary, Anthony Findlay, Born in a shanty and beginning life As a water carrier to the […]...
10. Sonnet On Famous And Familiar Sonnets And Experiences (With much help from Robert Good, William Shakespeare, John Milton, and little Catherine Schwartz) Shall I compare her to a summer play? She is too clever, too devious, too subtle, too dark: Her lies are rare, but then she paves the way Beyond the summer’s sway, within the jejune park Where all souls’ aspiration to […]...
11. Ziyi Song Chang-an one slip of moon; In ten thousand houses, the sound of fulling mallets. Autumn winds keep on blowing, All things make me think of Jade Pass! When will they put down the barbarians And my good man come home from his far campaign?...
12. John Cabanis Neither spite, fellow citizens, Nor forgetfulness of the shiftlessness, And the lawlessness and waste Under democracy’s rule in Spoon River Made me desert the party of law and order And lead the liberal party. Fellow citizens! I saw as one with second sight That every man of the millions of men Who give themselves to […]...
13. Magna Carta I’ll tell of the Magna Charter As were signed at the Barons’ command On Runningmead Island in t’ middle of t’ Thames By King John, as were known as “Lack Land.” Some say it were wrong of the Barons Their will on the King so to thrust, But you’ll see if you look at both […]...
14. Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
15. To Mr James Scrymgeour, Dundee Success to James Scrymgeour, He’s a very good man, And to gainsay it, There’s few people can; Because he makes the hearts Of the poor o’erjoyed By trying to find work for them When they’re unemployed. And to their complaints He has always an attentive ear, And ever ready to help them When unto him […]...
16. Lawyer WHEN the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool decisions of the judge, There are points of high silence-twiddling of thumbs is at an end-bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco and wait-and the clock has a chance for its ticking […]...
17. TAME XENIA THE Epigrams bearing the title of XENIA were written By Goethe and Schiller together, having been first occasioned by Some violent attacks made on them by some insignificant writers. They are extremely numerous, but scarcely any of them could be translated Into English. Those here given are merely presented as a specimen. GOD gave to […]...
18. Nicholas Bindle Were you not ashamed, fellow citizens, When my estate was probated and everyone knew How small a fortune I left? You who hounded me in life, To give, give, give to the churches, to the poor, To the village! me who had already given much. And think you not I did not know That the […]...
19. In 200 B. C “Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians “ We can very well imagine That they were utterly indifferent in Sparta To this inscription. “Except the Lacedaemonians”, But naturally. The Spartans were not To be led and ordered about As precious servants. Besides A panhellenic campaign without A Spartan king as a leader […]...
20. Dream Song 48: He yelled at me in Greek He yelled at me in Greek, My God! —It’s not his language And I’m no good at—his Aramaic, Was—I am a monoglot of English (American version) and, say pieces from A baker’s dozen others: where’s the bread? But rising in the Second Gospel, pal: The seed goes down, god dies, A rising happens, Some crust, […]...
21. The Gardener XLV: To the Guests To the guests that must go bid God’s speed and brush away all traces Of their steps. Take to your bosom with a smile What is easy and simple and near. To-day is the festival of phantoms That know not when they die. Let your laughter be but a meaning- Less mirth like twinkles of […]...
22. Editor Whedon To be able to see every side of every question; To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long; To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose, To use great feelings and passions of the human family For base designs, for cunning ends, To wear a mask like the Greek actors […]...
23. Villanelle of Change Since Persia fell at Marathon, The yellow years have gathered fast: Long centuries have come and gone. And yet (they say) the place will don A phantom fury of the past, Since Persia fell at Marathon; And as of old, when Helicon Trembled and swayed with rapture vast (Long centuries have come and gone), This […]...
24. Term At the last minute a word is waiting Not heard that way before and not to be Repeated or ever be remembered One that always had been a household word Used in speaking of the ordinary Everyday recurrences of living Not newly chosen or long considered Or a matter for comment afterward Who would ever […]...
25. Anna Comnena In the prologue to her Alexiad, Anna Comnena laments her widowhood. Her soul is dizzy. “And with rivers Of tears,” she tells us “I wet My eyes… Alas for the waves” in her life, “alas for the revolts.” Pain burns her “to the the bones and the marrow and the cleaving of the soul.” But […]...
26. This Is A Poem I Wrote At Night, Before The Dawn This is a poem I wrote before I died and was reborn: – After the years of the apples ripening and the eagles soaring, After the festival here the small flowers gleamed like the first stars, And the horses cantered and romped away like the experience of skill; mastered and serene Power, grasped and governed […]...
27. Why do you strive for greatness, fool? Why do you strive for greatness, fool? Go pluck a bough and wear it. It is as sufficing. My Lord, there are certain barbarians Who tilt their noses As if the stars were flowers, And Thy servant is lost among their shoe-buckles. Fain would I have mine eyes even with their eyes. Fool, go pluck […]...
28. How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky. God and the angels, and the gleaming saints Had journeyed out into the stars to die. They had gone forth to win far citizens, Bought at great price, bring happiness for all: By such a harvest make a holier town […]...
29. Thermopylae Honor to those who in the life they lead Define and guard a Thermopylae. Never betraying what is right, Consistent and just in all they do But showing pity also, and compassion; Generous when they’re rich, and when they’re poor, Still generous in small ways, Still helping as much as they can; Always speaking the […]...
30. Neighbors ON Forty First Street Near Eighth Avenue A frame house wobbles. If houses went on crutches This house would be One of the cripples. A sign on the house: Church of the Living God And Rescue Home for Orphan Children. From a Greek coffee house Across the street A cabalistic jargon Jabbers back. And men […]...
31. The Persian Version Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon. As for the Greek theatrical tradition Which represents that summer’s expedition Not as a mere reconnaisance in force By three brigades of foot and one of horse (Their left flank covered by some obsolete Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet) But […]...
32. Testimony Regarding a Ghost THE ROSES slanted crimson sobs On the night sky hair of the women, And the long light-fingered men Spoke to the dark-haired women, “Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.” How could he sit there among us all Guzzling blood into his guts, Goblets, mugs, buckets- Leaning, toppling, laughing With a slobber on his mouth, A smear of […]...
33. Thinking of My Brothers in Shantung on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month Alone now in a strange country, Feeling myself a stranger, On this bright festival day I doubly pine for my kinsfolk. Far away, I know my brothers Will be climbing the heights With dogwood sprays in their jackets, And one man missing!...
34. To own the Art within the Soul To own the Art within the Soul The Soul to entertain With Silence as a Company And Festival maintain Is an unfurnished Circumstance Possession is to One As an Estate perpetual Or a reduceless Mine....
35. And They Obey SMASH down the cities. Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses And homes Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black Burnt wood: You are the soldiers and we command you. Build up the cities. Set up the walls again. Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, Warehouses and […]...
36. The Poets O ye dead Poets, who are living still Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, And ye, O living Poets, who are dead Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, With drops of anguish falling fast and red From the sharp crown of thorns […]...
37. Titian Would that such hills and cities round us sang, Such vistas of the actual earth and man As kindled Titian when his life began; Would that this latter Greek could put his gold, Wisdom and splendor in our brushes bold Till Greece and Venice, children of the sun, Become our every-day, and we aspire To […]...
38. Darius The poet Phernazis is composing The important part of his epic poem. How Darius, son of Hystaspes, Assumed the kingdom of the Persians. (From him Is descended our glorious king Mithridates, Dionysus and Eupator). But here Philosophy is needed; he must analyze The sentiments that Darius must have had: Maybe arrogance and drunkenness; but no […]...
39. So Much I Gazed So much I gazed on beauty, That my vision is replete with it. Contours of the body. Red lips. Voluptuous limbs. Hair as if taken from greek statues; Always beautiful, even when uncombed, And it falls, slightly, over white foreheads. Faces of love, as my poetry Wanted them…. in the nights of my youth, In […]...
40. My Triumph The autumn-time has come; On woods that dream of bloom, And over purpling vines, The low sun fainter shines. The aster-flower is failing, The hazel’s gold is paling; Yet overhead more near The eternal stars appear! And present gratitude Insures the future’s good, And for the things I see I trust the things to be; […]...