Today

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1. THE MUSE'S MIRROR EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment, Follow’d a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking. Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger. Yet the stream call’d mockingly after her, saying: “What, truly! Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in […]...
2. I Look Into My Glass I look into my glass, And view my wasting skin, And say, “Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin!” For then, I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity. But Time, to make me grieve, Part steals, lets part abide; And shakes […]...
3. The Survivor I am twenty-four Led to slaughter I survived. The following are empty synonyms: Man and beast Love and hate Friend and foe Darkness and light. The way of killing men and beasts is the same I’ve seen it: Truckfuls of chopped-up men Who will not be saved. Ideas are mere words: Virtue and crime Truth […]...
4. The White Room The obvious is difficult To prove. Many prefer The hidden. I did, too. I listened to the trees. They had a secret Which they were about to Make known to me And then didn’t. Summer came. Each tree On my street had its own Scheherazade. My nights Were a part of their wild Storytelling. We […]...
5. The Dead Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That […]...
6. The Missing All prevented Me The Missing All prevented Me From missing minor Things. If nothing larger than a World’s Departure from a Hinge Or Sun’s extinction, be observed ‘Twas not so large that I Could lift my Forehead from my work For Curiosity....
7. Oh To Be Odd! Hypochondriacs Spend the winter at the bottom of Florida and the summer on top of The Adirondriacs. You go to Paris and live on champagne wine and cognac If you’re dipsomognac. If you’re a manic-depressive You don’t go anywhere where you won’t be cheered up, and people say “There, there!” if your bills are excessive. […]...
8. A Culinary Puzzle In our dainty little kitchen, Where my aproned wife is queen Over all the tin-pan people, In a realm exceeding clean, Oft I like to loiter, watching While she mixes things for tea; And she tasks me, slyly smiling, “Now just guess what this will be!” Hidden in a big blue apron, Her dimpled arms […]...
9. TO LIDA THE only one whom, Lida, thou canst love, Thou claim’st, and rightly claim’st, for only thee; He too is wholly thine; since doomed to rove Far from thee, in life’s turmoils nought I see Save a thin veil, through which thy form I view, As though in clouds; with kindly smile and true, It cheers […]...
10. Every Time I laugh Aloud (An Ode to Short People) Every time I laugh aloud, who springs to mind but Johnnie Howard? Cathartic laughter eases stress which Johnnie causes in excess, So when I hum acerbic lines of Randy Newman’s quirky song ‘don’t want no short people ’round here’, I am reminded there are valid grounds for jeering men With little minds. Newman claim’s ‘they’re […]...
11. Days of the slow roll It was the days of the slow roll, Times when we dextrously dressed Our hand-rolled cigarettes With a dearth of fine-cut tobacco, Teased in frugal strands from A handsomely battered, Always near empty, 2oz tobacco tin. The thin rolls were patiently Mastered in a slow statement Of intense deliberation In a fold of rice paper […]...
12. We, The Living We, the living, buried deep in selfish grief Strive to comprehend the passing of your hour, Minds are numbed, aghast and grasping For some sense of revelation, Seeking analgesic succour in our weeping, Searching for respite from clamoured Conscience shattered in the shriek of desolation; Each bereaved is silenced, trance-like, Choking cries that chorus, welling […]...
13. Battle Hymn of the Republic Howe’s Final version Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: His Truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling […]...
14. Sonnet LXIX Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due, Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend. Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d; But those same tongues that give thee so thine own […]...
15. Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due, Utt’ring bare truth, even so as foes commend. Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned, But those same tongues that give thee so thine own […]...
16. Red-Tiled Roof Poets may praise a wattle thatch Doubtfully waterproof; Let me uplift my lowly latch Beneath a rose-tiled roof. Let it be gay and rich in hue, Soft bleached by burning days, Where skies ineffably are blue, And seas a golden glaze. But set me in the surly North Beneath a roof of slate, And as […]...
17. If democratically elected What is it with Hezbollah Representing barely 15% Of the Lebanese Parliament Living outside the government Immersed in an undeclared war, Sympathetic to Hamas and Al Fatah for The return of Palestinian refugees, Whose obscure and murky origins Are odious amalgamations of violent Shi’a extremist views, combined to express The crude and singular elimination of […]...
18. Pictured My work, I’m very careful about it, and I love it. But today I’m discouraged by how slowly it’s going. The day has affected my mood. It gets darker and darker. Endless wind and rain. I’m more in the mood for looking than for writing. In this picture, I’m now gazing at a handsome boy […]...
19. Thinking of an Afterlife When was the beginning, In the fertilising, in the flower, Or was it deeper, In the earth beneath? No end of wonderment Shall cease such a quest, Or know how it is unknowable. We gaze on our cosmos in the cusp of a bloom, To glimpse the mysterious, grasp at reality, Surrender a dearth of […]...
20. And you will claim And you will claim we need more births to keep Our population mix in check while nature’s truths Suggest there are too many of us yet? And you will make the claim with good intent, And wear the jeers precipitated by our peers, You’ll blame statistics for the deed no doubt, You’ll see the figures […]...
21. Dream Song 66: 'All virtues enter into this world:') ‘All virtues enter into this world:’) A Buddhist, doused in the street, serenely burned. The Secretary of State for War, Winking it over, screwed a redhaired whore. Monsignor Capovilla mourned. What a week. A journalism doggy took a leak Against absconding coon (‘but take one virtue, Without which a man can hardly hold his own’) […]...
22. The missing the way loss seeps Into neck hollows And curls at temples Sits between front teeth Cavity Empty and waiting For mourning to open The way mourning stays Forever shadowing vision Shaping lives with memory A drawer won’t close Sleep elusive Smile illusive The only real is grief Forever counting the days Minutes missing without knowing […]...
23. From "THE TALK OF FLOWERS&quot I do not know, whether the sun Accomplished it, The rain or wind – But I was missing so The whiteness and the snow. I listened to the rustling Of spring rain, Washing the reddish buds Of chestnut-trees, – And a tiny spring ran down Into the valley from the hill – And I was […]...
24. Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead Came the Darker Way Carriages Be Sure and Guests too But for Holiday ‘Tis more pitiful Endeavor Than did Loaded Sea O’er the Curls attempt to caper It had cast away Never Bride had such Assembling Never kinsmen kneeled To salute so fair a Forehead Garland be indeed […]...
25. Jehovah Jesus My song shall bless the Lord of all, My praise shall climb to His abode; Thee, Saviour, by that name I call, The great Supreme, the mighty God. Without beginning or decline, Object of faith and not of sense; Eternal ages saw Him shine, He shines eternal ages hence. As much when in the manger […]...
26. Song of Love XXIV I am the lover’s eyes, and the spirit’s Wine, and the heart’s nourishment. I am a rose. My heart opens at dawn and The virgin kisses me and places me Upon her breast. I am the house of true fortune, and the Origin of pleasure, and the beginning Of peace and tranquility. I am the […]...
27. THE MISANTHROPE AT first awhile sits he, With calm, unruffled brow; His features then I see, Distorted hideously, An owl’s they might be now. What is it, askest thou? Is’t love, or is’t ennui? ‘Tis both at once, I vow. 1767-9....
28. Sir Philip Sidney – Astrophel and Stella: XXIII The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness Bewray itself in my long-settl’d eyes, Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, With idle pains and missing aim do guess. Some, that know how my spring I did address, Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies; Others, because the prince my service tries, Think that I […]...
29. Sonnet XXIII: The Curious Wits The curious wits seeing dull pensiveness Bewray itself in my long settled eyes, Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess. Some that know how my spring I did address, Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies: Others, because the Prince my service tries, Think that […]...
30. The Hunt The hunt begins at a languid pace Belying hysteria building in place, biding its time To menace the peace in an orchard where mayhem’s Scant held on a leash. Abigail Belle’s the first into line, Although not their leader, her nose to the ground She’s checking for markers down leafy green rows, Round tree studded […]...
31. After the rain Resurgent greens and stronger hues Combined within the colours in-between Will spring again, the reddish brown Has nearly gone and all the silver Greys erased in darker shades That shine with slickly natured stains After the gentle, gentle rain. Clouded skies unite and demonize The dry and dusty plight of days of brutal Beating sun […]...
32. Who saw no Sunrise cannot say Who saw no Sunrise cannot say The Countenance ‘twould be. Who guess at seeing, guess at loss Of the Ability. The Emigrant of Light, it is Afflicted for the Day. The Blindness that beheld and blest And could not find its Eye....
33. Dream Song 29: There sat down, once, a thing There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart Só heavy, if he had a hundred years & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time Henry could not make good. Starts again always in Henry’s ears The little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. And there is another thing he has in mind Like […]...
34. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION I have taken advantage of the publication of a Second Edition Of my translation of the Poems of Goethe (originally published in 1853), to add to the Collection a version of the much admired classical Poem of Hermann and Dorothea, which was previously omitted by me In consequence of its length. Its universal popularity, however, […]...
35. Camping in a kitchen To say we’ve done it all before is not to bend The truth and though we’ve lost our youth The vision of the bright contemporary kitchen Draws us on, sustaining us beyond our strength. It’s all the donkey work that palls upon the weary joints, The stripping off of stubborn tiles, the cupboards With reviled […]...
36. Poor Kid Mumsie and Dad are raven dark And I am lily blonde. ”Tis strange,’ I once heard nurse remark, ‘You do not correspond.’ And yet they claim me as their own, Born of their flesh and bone. To doubt their parenthood I dread, But now to girlhood grown, The thought is haunting in my head That […]...
37. My prayers must meet a brazen heaven My prayers must meet a brazen heaven And fail and scatter all away. Unclean and seeming unforgiven My prayers I scarcely call to pray. I cannot buoy my heart above; Above I cannot entrance win. I reckon precedents of love, But feel the long success of sin. My heaven is brass and iron my earth: […]...
38. The Playground of Life XIX One hour devoted to the pursuit of Beauty And Love is worth a full century of glory Given by the frightened weak to the strong. From that hour comes man’s Truth; and During that century Truth sleeps between The restless arms of disturbing dreams. In that hour the soul sees for herself The Natural Law, […]...
39. A Vindication If heaven loved not the wine, A Wine Star would not be in heaven; If earth loved not the wine, The Wine Spring would not be on the earth. Since heaven and earth love the wine, Need a tippling mortal be ashamed? The transparent wine, I hear, Has the soothing virtue of a sage, While […]...
40. The watchers against their beliefs a blue spot came slowly Out of the green Nobody expected such a thing to occur On a thursday The watchers switched over from their electronic Eye to their notes The evidence undeniably placed thursday as the day Of the pink circle They recorded having seen another pink circle In a strange […]...