Pantoum of the Great Depression

by Donald Justice

Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.

We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

Donald Justice, "Pantoum of the Great Depression" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2004 by Donald Justice.

Women

by May Swenson

Women                                 Or they
   should be                              should be
      pedestals                              little horses
         moving                                 those wooden
            pedestals                              sweet
               moving                                 oldfashioned
                  to the                                    painted
                     motions                                 rocking
                        of men                                  horses

                        the gladdest things in the toyroom

                           The                                       feelingly
                        pegs                                     and then
                     of their                                 unfeelingly
                  ears                                     To be
               so familiar                            joyfully
            and dear                               ridden
         to the trusting                      rockingly
      fists                                    ridden until
   To be chafed                        the restored

egos dismount and the legs stride away

Immobile                            willing
   sweetlipped                         to be set
      sturdy                                 into motion
         and smiling                         Women
            women                                 should be
               should always                        pedestals
                  be waiting                              to men

May Swenson, "Women" from New and Selected Things Taking Place (Boston: Atlantic/Little Brown, 1978). Copyright © 1978 by May Swenson. 

Furthermore

by Christina Davis

It was something to let him go.

          It was a having to believe, furthermore,

in the voyage
of the other, a Ulysses

without an Ithaca,

was to speak
of the sea
without speech
of the shore—

and to have for a body

the going away of the body, to have for eyes
the going away of the eyes. And for hearing,

a silence, where once
were people.

And for comfort, a dwelling
before each
steps into that weather
of which all
strangers speak.

Christina Davis, "Furthermore" from An Ethic. Copyright © 2013 by Christina Davis. 

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
      The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

Apology

by Joanna Klink

Lately, too much disturbed, you stay trailing in me
and I believe you. How could I not feel
you were misspent, there by books stacked clean on glass,
or outside the snow arriving as I am still arriving.
If the explanations amount to something, I will tell you.
It is enough, you say, that surfaces grow so distant.
Maybe you darken, already too much changed,
maybe in your house you would be content where
no incident emerges, but for smoke or glass or air,
such things held simply to be voiceless.
And if you mean me, I believe you.
Or if you should darken, this inwardness would be misspent,
and flinching I might pause, and add to these meager
incidents the words. Some books
should stay formal on the shelves.
So surely I heard you, in your complication aware,
snow holding where it might weightless rest,
and should you fold into me—trackless, misspent,
too much arranged—I might believe you
but swiftly shut, lines of smoke rising through snow,
here where it seems no good word emerges.
Though it is cold, I am aware such reluctance
could lose these blinking hours to simple safety.
Here is an inwardless purpose.
In these hours when snow shuts, it may be we empty,
amounting to something. How could I not
wait for those few words, which we might enter.

Joanna Klink, "Apology" from Circadian. Copyright © 2007 by Joanna Klink.

Ill-Advised Love Poem

by John Yau

Come live with me
And we will sit

Upon the rocks
By shallow rivers

Come live with me
And we will plant acorns

In each other's mouth
It would be our way

Of greeting the earth
Before it shoves us

Back into the snow
Our interior cavities

Brimming with
Disagreeable substances

Come live with me
Before winter stops

To use the only pillow
The sky ever sleeps on

Our interior cavities
Brimming with snow

Come live with me
Before spring

Swallows the air
And birds sing

John Yau, "Ill-Advised Love Poem" from Further Adventures in Monochrome. Copyright © 2012 by John Yau.

I Will Not Save The World

by Jerome Rothenberg

I like to cross
these borders. They take place
between the dead & dead.
I make my mind up
to be honest
only I fail to meet
their expectations.
I will not save the world.
The power in my blood
runs through my shoe.
I have never known fatigue
but know it now. I whistle
& the dog sits still
& ponders.
Nobody else is resting
or in love.
The taste of death is in my mouth.
I suck it like an arm
until it breaks me.
It is the fate of animals
& birds
the small lives left behind.
The children in the woods
run by like children.
I hide under a blanket
sick with counting.
Two & two are five
but two times two
is always four.
Call me tomorrow
—says the voice—
& I will call you back.
I am a net for all
voracious fish
& long for hell.

"I Will Not Save the World" By Jerome Rothenberg, from A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris, copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Jerome Rothenberg.