A Ritual To Read To Each Other

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1. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
2. In Memory of Anyone Unknown to Me At this particular time I have no one Particular person to grieve for, though there must Be many, many unknown ones going to dust Slowly, not remembered for what they have done Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve Being impartial, unable to deceive. How they lived, or died, is quite unknown, And, […]...
3. Light Is More Important Than The Lantern Light is more important than the lantern, The poem more important than the notebook, And the kiss more important than the lips. My letters to you Are greater and more important than both of us. The are the only documents Where people will discover Your beauty And my madness....
4. Super Samson Simpson I am Super Samson Simpson, I’m superlatively strong, I like to carry elephants, I do it all day long, I pick up half a dozen And hoist them in the air, It’s really somewhat simple, For I have strength to spare. My muscles are enormous, They bulge from top to toe, And when I carry […]...
5. Awake, My Heart Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee: Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, Already they watch the path thy […]...
6. Has My Heart Gone To Sleep? Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams Stopped working, the waterwheel Of the mind run dry, Scoops turning empty, Only shadow inside? No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming- Its eyes are opened wide Watching distant signals, listening On the rim of […]...
7. Poetry I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine. Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise if it must, these things are important not because […]...
8. Lo! In Thine Honest Eyes I Read LO! in thine honest eyes I read The auspicious beacon that shall lead, After long sailing in deep seas, To quiet havens in June ease. Thy voice sings like an inland bird First by the seaworn sailor heard; And like road sheltered from life’s sea Thine honest heart is unto me....
9. Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person? I blame the soup:I’m a primordially Stirred person. Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings. The apparatus of his selves made an ab- Surd person. The sound I make is sympathy’s:sad dogs are tied afar. But howling I become an ever more un- […]...
10. The Bells Today the circus poster Is scabbing off the concrete wall And the children have forgotten If they knew at all. Father, do you remember? Only the sound remains, The distant thump of the good elephants, The voice of the ancient lions And how the bells Trembled for the flying man. I, laughing, Lifted to your […]...
11. Ballade of Unfortunate Mammals Love is sharper than stones or sticks; Lone as the sea, and deeper blue; Loud in the night as a clock that ticks; Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew. Show me a love was done and through, Tell me a kiss escaped its debt! Son, to your death you’ll pay your due- Women and elephants never […]...
12. A Child's Nightmare Through long nursery nights he stood By my bed unwearying, Loomed gigantic, formless, queer, Purring in my haunted ear That same hideous nightmare thing, Talking, as he lapped my blood, In a voice cruel and flat, Saying for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…” That one word was all he said, That one word through […]...
13. Turtle Now I see it It nudges with its bulldog head The slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble; And now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal Who is leading her soft children From one side of the pond to the other; she keeps Close to the edge And they […]...
14. Interview The ladies men admire, I’ve heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light; They’d rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints… So far, I’ve […]...
15. A Song Of A Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover Ancient Person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy, Long be it e’er thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient Person of my heart. On thy withered lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie, Brooding kisses I will pour, Shall thy youthful heart restore, Such kind […]...
16. A Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall Chorus. What sweeter music can we bring, Than a Carol, for to sing The Birth of this our heavenly King? Awake the Voice! Awake the String! Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing Awake! the while the active Finger Runs division with the Singer. From the Flourish they came to the Song. Voice 1: Dark […]...
17. Danny Deever “What are the bugles blowin’ for?” said Files-on-Parade. “To turn you out, to turn you out”, the Colour-Sergeant said. “What makes you look so white, so white?” said Files-on-Parade. “I’m dreadin’ what I’ve got to watch”, the Colour-Sergeant said. For they’re hangin’ Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, The regiment’s in ‘ollow […]...
18. The Charm Of 5:30 It’s too nice a day to read a novel set in England. We’re within inches of the perfect distance from the sun, The sky is blueberries and cream, And the wind is as warm as air from a tire. Even the headstones in the graveyard Seem to stand up and say “Hello! My name is…” […]...
19. What Kind Of A Person “What kind of a person are you,” I heard them say to me. I’m a person with a complex plumbing of the soul, Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century, But with an old body from ancient times And with a God even older than […]...
20. Read Your Fate A world’s disappearing. Little street, You were too narrow, Too much in the shade already. You had only one dog, One lone child. You hid your biggest mirror, Your undressed lovers. Someone carted them off In an open truck. They were still naked, travelling On their sofa Over a darkening plain, Some unknown Kansas or […]...
21. He Came To Read He came to read. Two or three books Are open; historians and poets. But he only read for ten minutes, And gave them up. He is dozing On the sofa. He is fully devoted to books But he is twenty-three years old, and he’s very handsome; And this afternoon love passed Through his ideal flesh, […]...
22. The Way I read a Letter's this The Way I read a Letter’s this ‘Tis first I lock the Door And push it with my fingers next For transport it be sure And then I go the furthest off To counteract a knock Then draw my little Letter forth And slowly pick the lock Then glancing narrow, at the Wall And narrow […]...
23. Myself can read the Telegrams Myself can read the Telegrams A Letter chief to me The Stock’s advance and Retrograde And what the Markets say The Weather how the Rains In Counties have begun. ‘Tis News as null as nothing, But sweeter so than none....
24. A Song From The Italian (LIMBERHAM: OR, THE KIND KEEPER) By a dismal cypress lying, Damon cried, all pale and dying, Kind is death that ends my pain, But cruel she I lov’d in vain. The mossy fountains Murmur my trouble, And hollow mountains My groans redouble: Ev’ry nymph mourns me, Thus while I languish; She only scorns me, Who […]...
25. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
26. Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last Yet read at last the story of my woe, The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, With my life’s sorrow interlined so, Smok’d with my sighs and blotted with my tears, The sad memorials of my miseries, Penn’d in the grief of mine afflicted ghost, My life’s complaint in doleful elegies, With so pure love […]...
27. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ In sober mornings, do not thou rehearse The holy incantation of a verse; But when that men have both well drunk, and fed, Let my enchantments then be sung or read. When laurel spirts i’ th’ fire, and when the hearth Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth; When up the Thyrse is […]...
28. When I read the Book WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]...
29. To read in the morning and at night Morgens und abends zu lesen Der, den ich liebe Hat mir gesagt DaЯ er mich braucht. Darum Gebe ich auf mich acht Sehe auf meinen Weg und Fürchte von jedem Regentropfen DaЯ er mich erschlagen könnte. [Translation] To read in the morning and at night My love Has told me That he needs me. That’s […]...
30. To Be Read In The Morning And At Night My love Has told me That he needs me. That’s why I take good care of myself Watch out where I’m going and Fear that any drop of rain Might kill me....
31. I read my sentence steadily I read my sentence steadily Reviewed it with my eyes, To see that I made no mistake In its extremest clause The Date, and manner, of the shame And then the Pious Form That “God have mercy” on the Soul The Jury voted Him I made my soul familiar with her extremity That at the […]...
32. Read Sweet how others strove Read Sweet how others strove Till we are stouter What they renounced Till we are less afraid How many times they bore the faithful witness Till we are helped As if a Kingdom cared! Read then of faith That shone above the fagot Clear strains of Hymn The River could not drown Brave names of […]...
33. The Rum Parade Now ye gallant Sydney boys, who have left your household joys To march across the sea in search of glory, I am very much afraid that you do not love parade, But the rum parade is quite another story. For the influenza came and to spoil its little game, They ordered us to drink a […]...
34. On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
35. The Room Through that window-all else being extinct Except itself and me-I saw the struggle Of darkness against darkness. Within the room It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw How order might-if chaos wished-become: And saw the darkness crush upon itself, Contracting powerfully; it was as if It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain. […]...
36. Miracles Each time that I switch on the light A Miracle it seems to me That I should rediscover sight And banish dark so utterly. One moment I am bleakly blind, The next exultant life I find. Below the sable of the sky My eyelids double darkness make. Sleep is divine, yet oh how I Am […]...
37. For My Lover, Returning To His Wife She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you And cast up from your childhood, Cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. She has always been there, my darling. She is, in fact, exquisite. Fireworks in the dull middle of February And as real as a cast-iron pot. Let’s face it, I […]...
38. Bavarian Gentians Not every man has gentians in his house In Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas. Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark Darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s gloom, Ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue Down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day Torch-flower […]...
39. Passport They did not recognize me in the shadows That suck away my color in this Passport And to them my wound was an exhibit For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs They did not recognize me, Ah. . . Don’t leave The palm of my hand without the sun Because the trees recognize me […]...
40. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...