Slashdot Poetry Reading

March, 2006

Text of Poems


This page contains the text of the poems for the Slashdot Poetry Reading. This listing is not complete; poems have been omitted where it seemed pointless to include the text, or where the author requested that it not be posted. Posting on the Internet does count as publishing, so such a request is eminently reasonable; one hopes that it means that we will see those poems in print in the near future.





The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost
 [Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

olaf glad and big

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred) took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
-- e. e. cummings
 [Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

The Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,
Where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam
'Round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
Seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way
That he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold
It stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
Till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight
In our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead
Were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he,
"I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you
Won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no;
Then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold
Till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread
Of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
You'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed,
So I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn;
But God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
Of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all
That was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death,
And I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid,
Because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you
To cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid,
And the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,
In my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,
While the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows --
O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay
Seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent
And the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
But I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing,
And it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge,
And a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice
It was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
And I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry,
"Is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor,
And I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around,
And I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared --
Such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal,
And I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like
To hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,
And the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
Down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak
Went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow
I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about
Ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said:
"I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; . . .
Then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm,
In the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile,
And he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear
You'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,
It's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
-- Robert W. Service
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
-- William Carlos Williams
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

How Doth the Little Crocodile

How doth the little crocodile
       Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
       On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
       How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
       With gently smiling jaws!
-- Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Neglect

Is the scent of apple boughs smoking
in the woodstove what I will remember
of the Red Delicious I brought down, ashamed

that I could not convince its limbs to render fruit?
Too much neglect will do that, skew the sap's
passage, blacken leaves, dry the bark and heart.

I should have lopped the dead limbs early
and watched each branch with a goshawk's eye,
patching with medicinal pitch, offering water,

compost and mulch, but I was too enchanted
by pear saplings, flowers and the pasture,
too callow to believe that death's inevitable

for any living being unloved, untended.
What remains is this armload of applewood
now feeding the stove's smolder. Splendor

ripens a final time in the firebox, a scarlet
harvest headed, by dawn, to embers.
Two decades of shade and blossoms - tarts

and cider, bees dazzled by the pollen,
spare elegance in ice - but what goes is gone.
Smoke is all, through this lesson in winter

regret, I've been given to remember.
Smoke, and Red Delicious apples redder
than a passing cardinal's crest or cinders.
-- R. T. Smith
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

The Sea

The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round!
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me;
For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean-child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers, a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!
-- Barry Cornwall
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Ode to Spot

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
         an endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
         Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
         contribute to your hunting skills, and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
         a singular development of cat communications
         that obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
         for a rhythmic stroking of your fur, to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
         you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
         And when not being utilized to aide in locomotion,
         it often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behaviour you display
         connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
         And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
         I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
-- Data
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
         Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

         But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
         Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
         A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
         As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
         By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
         And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
         As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
         A mighty fountain momently was forced :
         Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
         Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
         Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
         And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
         It flung up momently the sacred river.
         Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
         Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
         Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
         And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
         And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
         Ancestral voices prophesying war !

         The shadow of the dome of pleasure
         Floated midway on the waves ;
         Where was heard the mingled measure
         From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
         A damsel with a dulcimer
         In a vision once I saw :
         It was an Abyssinian maid,
         And on her dulcimer she played,
         Singing of Mount Abora.
         Could I revive within me
         Her symphony and song,
         To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
     Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
     And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
     The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
     The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
     Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
     And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
     The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
     And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
     The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
     He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
     Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
     He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
     Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
     And the mome raths outgrabe.
-- Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

The Moab

White lines
flashing like a slow strobe
mesmerise me,
making a circular strip,
unwinding from the horizon ahead
then retreating in the rear-view
into the red-capped
flat-topped hills
that crumble and rain dust
onto the desert

For thousands of years
before I was born,
these strongholds stood.
Now, sluggishly tumbling down,
they are the hourglass of our era.
In my lifetime
a second hardly passes by
in this clock of the cosmos.

Bands of red, red-orange, and grey
radiate the inscape
few stop to enjoy.
The somber landscape
appears to lie in state
to every eye that only sees the sand--
but the desert lives!
The moss that builds
a mound of dirt in one hundred years
is here, remaking these mountains,
overturning the hourglass.
-- (original)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Serenade

So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime,
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love.
Within the valleys dim and brown,
And on the spectral mountain's crown,
The wearied light is dying down,
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list, - so soft and low
Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude
Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls - O God above!
In every deed shall mingle, love.
-- Edgar Allen Poe
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
-- William Butler Yeats
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Some Forebear of Mine

Some forebear of mine was a violinist,
A horseman and thief, moreover,
Isn't that where I got my wanderlust,
Why my hair smells of wind and weather?

Swarthy, guiding my hand, is it not really him
Stealing apricots from the fruit-cart?
Curly-haired, hook-nosed, is it not his whim
That my fate is all passion and hazard?

Admiring the tiller at his plough,
In his lips he twirled a sweet-brier.
He made a perfidious friend, but how
Dashing and tender a lover.

Of moon, pipe, and beads he was long a fan,
And of all female neighbours...
It seems to me he was a cowardly man,
My yellow-eyed, distant forebear.

That after he'd sold the devil his life
He'd not walk through the graveyard at midnight.
It occurs to me too, that he carried a knife
Hidden inside his bootflap.

That many a time from round some fence
He'd leap, a supple feline.
And somehow it was I came to sense
He didn't play his violin.

Like last year's snow in summer's days
All was child's play to him.
That's the kind of fiddler my forebear was.
That's the kind of poet I am.
-- Marina Tsvetayevna
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
-- Robert Frost
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

An Ode to VD

My woman gave me a VD
Now it just stings me when I pee
How could this happen to poor me
cause I just had sex latex-free

A VD, can you believe that?
I didn't wear my jimmy hat
my penis is swollen and flat
cause I nailed a slutty hell-cat

what she gave me I do not know
I should have settled for a blow
my member was once pure as snow
but now it hurts to wear speedos

there is a moral to this tale
take precaution when sluts you nail
or stick to chicks who are upscale
and diseases you will curtail.
-- (original)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Trees

When late in Winter's icy chill
And whistling wind comes high and shrill
With what majectisc trees do fill
The days as they pass by?

Do dreams of summers windless nights
Or thoughts of springs first dawning light
Or hope for autumns pretty sights
Through barren branches fly?

Perhaps they think like old, proud men
Of healthy youth in Spring, but then
Perhaps in Autumn's perfect ten
Of colors just passed by.

And do the trees fear what's to come
And think of drought or burning sun
Or do they live each day in fun
Just smiling at the sky?
-- (original)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orcahrd white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.
-- Robert Frost
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Part Three: Love

Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.

What fortitude the soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot,
The opening of a door!
-- Emily Dickinson
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

What Say Thee Moon

What say thee Moon? ask I, though thou art dumb.
     For thy orb reflects across the taut sea,
     As a pale finger of ancient Wisdom,
     Thrice cut by waves and pointed at me.

What say thee Moon? Oh shepard of the Stars.
     Thy reflection is crisp, closest to shore,
     For thou knowest the best my life before,
     And thou wert aloft ere each of mine scars.

What say thee Moon? Oh eternal of night.
         Scattered far and wide is thy reflection
         at sea, like thousands of a tiny light,
         Each mine future, though I knowest not which one.

What say thee Moon? Whose risings never cease.
     For thy light shines not betwixt the others,
     As mine life is now awash in druthers-
     Its perspective lost to the kelp's cross'd crease.

What say thee Moon? As thou watchest from high?
     Whilst thou soon see mine perspective free?
     Or to future light will thou seest me fly?
     I beseech thy Wisdom Moon- what say thee?
-- (original)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

In Winter in the Woods Alone

In winter in the woods alone
Against the trees I go.
I mark a maple for my own
And lay the maple low.

At four o'clock I shoulder axe
And in the afterglow
I link a line of shadowy tracks
Across the tinted snow.

I see for Nature no defeat
In one tree's overthrow
Or for myself in my retreat
For yet another blow.
-- Robert Frost
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Death be not Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
-- John Donne
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

The Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till hte moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world if full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whipsering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into hes breat,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters, and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.
-- William Butler Yeats
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Miracles

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
-- Walt Whitman
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

The Tiger

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
-- William Blake
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-- e. e. cummings
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Magnetic Poetry

Warm winter snow weather
Beneath butter melt this man
Make green grass almost bloom
Who lights a fire at a squirrel wedding?
Keep our love like Apple
Which popsicle costume would sizzle?
Birthday pumpkins shiver
We remember another year party.
-- Various Underappreciated Artists
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Beat of my Heart

It begins with a heartbeat,
A gentle pulse to be found,
A shuttered glance,
An indrawn breath,
A soft moan the only sound.

Then the rustling of satin sheet,
Exploration of each crease,
A rhythmic dance,
A little death,
Satisfaction and release.
-- (original)
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Beach Burial

Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs
The convoys of dead sailors come;
At night they sway and wander in the waters far under,
But morning rolls them in the foam.

Between the sob and clubbing of gunfire
Someone, it seems, has time for this,
To pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows
And tread the sand upon their nakedness;

And each cross, the driven stake of tidewood,
Bears the last signature of men,
Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity,
The words choke as they begin -

'Unknown seaman' - the ghostly pencil
Wavers and fades, the purple drips,
The breath of wet season has washed their inscriptions
As blue as drowned men's lips,

Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall,
Whether as enemies they fought,
Or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together,
Enlisted on the other front.
-- Kenneth Slessor
[Back to Poetry Reading main page] [Top of page]

Poems are copyright by their respective authors.
The remainder is copyright ©2006 by johndiii - Last Modified: 10 March 2006