by William Wordsworth
These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital,—and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Dividend of the Social Opt Out
by Jennifer Moxley
How lovely it is not to go. To suddenly take ill.
Not seriously ill, just a little under the weather.
To feel slightly peaked, indisposed. Plagued by
a vague ache, or a slight inexplicable chill.
Perhaps such pleasures are denied
to those who never feel obliged. If there are such.
How pleasant to convey your regrets. To feel sincerely
sorry, but secretly pleased to send them on their way
without you. To entrust your good wishes to others.
To spare the equivocal its inevitable rise.
How nice not to hope that something will happen,
but to lie on the couch with a book, hoping that
nothing will. To hear the wood creak and to think.
It is lovely to stay without wanting to leave.
How delicious not to care how you look,
clean and uncombed in the sheets. To sip
brisk mineral water, to take small bites
off crisp Saltines. To leave some on the plate.
To fear no repercussions. Nor dodge
the unkind person you bug.
Even the caretaker has gone to the party.
If you want something you will have to
get it yourself. The blue of the room seduces.
The cars of the occupied sound the wet road.
You indulge in a moment of sadness, make
a frown at the notion you won't be missed.
This is what it is. You have opted to be
forgotten so that your thoughts might live.
Jennifer Moxley, "Dividend of the Social Opt Out" from The Open Secret. Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Moxley.
How lovely it is not to go. To suddenly take ill.
Not seriously ill, just a little under the weather.
To feel slightly peaked, indisposed. Plagued by
a vague ache, or a slight inexplicable chill.
Perhaps such pleasures are denied
to those who never feel obliged. If there are such.
How pleasant to convey your regrets. To feel sincerely
sorry, but secretly pleased to send them on their way
without you. To entrust your good wishes to others.
To spare the equivocal its inevitable rise.
How nice not to hope that something will happen,
but to lie on the couch with a book, hoping that
nothing will. To hear the wood creak and to think.
It is lovely to stay without wanting to leave.
How delicious not to care how you look,
clean and uncombed in the sheets. To sip
brisk mineral water, to take small bites
off crisp Saltines. To leave some on the plate.
To fear no repercussions. Nor dodge
the unkind person you bug.
Even the caretaker has gone to the party.
If you want something you will have to
get it yourself. The blue of the room seduces.
The cars of the occupied sound the wet road.
You indulge in a moment of sadness, make
a frown at the notion you won't be missed.
This is what it is. You have opted to be
forgotten so that your thoughts might live.
Jennifer Moxley, "Dividend of the Social Opt Out" from The Open Secret. Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Moxley.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Definitely
by Mary Jo Bang
What is desire
But the hardwire argument given
To the mind’s unstoppable mouth.
Inside the braincase, it’s I
Want that fills every blank. And then the hand
Reaches for the pleasure
The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes,
It will all be fine in some future soon.
Definitely. I’ve conjured a body
In the chair before me. Be yourself, I tell it.
Here memory makes you
Unchangeable: that shirt, those summer pants.
That beautiful face.
That tragic beautiful mind.
That mind’s ravenous mouth
That told you, This isn’t poison
At all but just what the machine needs. And then,
The mouth closes on its hunger.
The heart stops.
“Definitely” reprinted from Elegy by Mary Jo Bang. © 2007 by Mary Jo Bang.
What is desire
But the hardwire argument given
To the mind’s unstoppable mouth.
Inside the braincase, it’s I
Want that fills every blank. And then the hand
Reaches for the pleasure
The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes,
It will all be fine in some future soon.
Definitely. I’ve conjured a body
In the chair before me. Be yourself, I tell it.
Here memory makes you
Unchangeable: that shirt, those summer pants.
That beautiful face.
That tragic beautiful mind.
That mind’s ravenous mouth
That told you, This isn’t poison
At all but just what the machine needs. And then,
The mouth closes on its hunger.
The heart stops.
“Definitely” reprinted from Elegy by Mary Jo Bang. © 2007 by Mary Jo Bang.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Nothing Is Far
by Robert Francis
Though I have never caught the word
Of God from any calling bird,
I hear all that the ancients heard.
Though I have seen no deity
Enter or leave a twilit tree,
I see all that the seers see.
A common stone can still reveal
Something not stone, not seen, yet real.
What may a common stone conceal?
Nothing is far that once was near.
Nothing is hid that once was clear.
Nothing was God that is not here.
Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.
Here in the sun I sit alone
Between the known and the unknown.
Robert Francis, "Nothing Is Far" from Collected Poems, 1936-1976. Copyright © 1976 by Robert Francis.
Though I have never caught the word
Of God from any calling bird,
I hear all that the ancients heard.
Though I have seen no deity
Enter or leave a twilit tree,
I see all that the seers see.
A common stone can still reveal
Something not stone, not seen, yet real.
What may a common stone conceal?
Nothing is far that once was near.
Nothing is hid that once was clear.
Nothing was God that is not here.
Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.
Here in the sun I sit alone
Between the known and the unknown.
Robert Francis, "Nothing Is Far" from Collected Poems, 1936-1976. Copyright © 1976 by Robert Francis.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Domestic Violence
by Eavan Boland
1.
It was winter, lunar, wet. At dusk
Pewter seedlings became moonlight orphans.
Pleased to meet you meat to please you
said the butcher's sign in the window in the village.
Everything changed the year that we got married.
And after that we moved out to the suburbs.
How young we were, how ignorant, how ready
to think the only history was our own.
And there was a couple who quarreled into the night,
Their voices high, sharp:
nothing is ever entirely
right in the lives of those who love each other.
2.
In that season suddenly our island
Broke out its old sores for all to see.
We saw them too.
We stood there wondering how
the salt horizons and the Dublin hills,
the rivers, table mountains, Viking marshes
we thought we knew
had been made to shiver
into our ancient twelve by fifteen television
which gave them back as gray and grayer tears
and killings, killings, killings,
then moonlight-colored funerals:
nothing we said
not then, not later,
fathomed what it is
is wrong in the lives of those who hate each other.
3.
And if the provenance of memory is
only that—remember, not atone—
and if I can be safe in
the weak spring light in that kitchen, then
why is there another kitchen, spring light
always darkening in it and
a woman whispering to a man
over and over what else could we have done?
4.
We failed our moment or our moment failed us.
The times were grand in size and we were small.
Why do I write that
when I don't believe it?
We lived our lives, were happy, stayed as one.
Children were born and raised here
and are gone,
including ours.
As for that couple did we ever
find out who they were
and did we want to?
I think we know. I think we always knew.
“Domestic Violence” from Domestic Violence by Eavan Boland. Copyright ©2007 by Eavan Boland.
1.
It was winter, lunar, wet. At dusk
Pewter seedlings became moonlight orphans.
Pleased to meet you meat to please you
said the butcher's sign in the window in the village.
Everything changed the year that we got married.
And after that we moved out to the suburbs.
How young we were, how ignorant, how ready
to think the only history was our own.
And there was a couple who quarreled into the night,
Their voices high, sharp:
nothing is ever entirely
right in the lives of those who love each other.
2.
In that season suddenly our island
Broke out its old sores for all to see.
We saw them too.
We stood there wondering how
the salt horizons and the Dublin hills,
the rivers, table mountains, Viking marshes
we thought we knew
had been made to shiver
into our ancient twelve by fifteen television
which gave them back as gray and grayer tears
and killings, killings, killings,
then moonlight-colored funerals:
nothing we said
not then, not later,
fathomed what it is
is wrong in the lives of those who hate each other.
3.
And if the provenance of memory is
only that—remember, not atone—
and if I can be safe in
the weak spring light in that kitchen, then
why is there another kitchen, spring light
always darkening in it and
a woman whispering to a man
over and over what else could we have done?
4.
We failed our moment or our moment failed us.
The times were grand in size and we were small.
Why do I write that
when I don't believe it?
We lived our lives, were happy, stayed as one.
Children were born and raised here
and are gone,
including ours.
As for that couple did we ever
find out who they were
and did we want to?
I think we know. I think we always knew.
“Domestic Violence” from Domestic Violence by Eavan Boland. Copyright ©2007 by Eavan Boland.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Happening
by Andrew Shields
He stood up suddenly and threw
himself and his grey canvas sack
to the bus's floor, then, clutching
the sack's edges, he struck the floor
with it again, four or five times,
then stopped. No one moved, everyone
had moved for a moment, away
from him as he had struck the floor.
He sat looking at the contents
of the bag, now strewn all over.
Cassetts, broken cassette cases,
assorted papers, and pieces
of his old cassette recorder.
He sat quite still for a moment.
Whatever had been happening
wasn't happening anymore.
Nothing continued to happen,
then something began to happen
again. He began to pick up
his things, put them into the sack.
No one moved. They all looked at him,
or they all tried not to look at him.
He put his things into the sack
with steadily increasing speed.
Andrew Shields, "Happening" from Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong. Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Shields.
He stood up suddenly and threw
himself and his grey canvas sack
to the bus's floor, then, clutching
the sack's edges, he struck the floor
with it again, four or five times,
then stopped. No one moved, everyone
had moved for a moment, away
from him as he had struck the floor.
He sat looking at the contents
of the bag, now strewn all over.
Cassetts, broken cassette cases,
assorted papers, and pieces
of his old cassette recorder.
He sat quite still for a moment.
Whatever had been happening
wasn't happening anymore.
Nothing continued to happen,
then something began to happen
again. He began to pick up
his things, put them into the sack.
No one moved. They all looked at him,
or they all tried not to look at him.
He put his things into the sack
with steadily increasing speed.
Andrew Shields, "Happening" from Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong. Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Shields.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Equinox
by Elizabeth Alexander
Now is the time of year when bees are wild
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.
I have found their dried husks in my clothes.
They are dervishes because they are dying,
one last sting, a warm place to squeeze
a drop of venom or of honey.
After the stroke we thought would be her last
my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped
a nurse across the face. Then she stood up,
walked outside, and lay down in the snow.
Two years later there is no other way
to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light
as an empty hive, and she is breathing.
“Equinox” by Elizabeth Alexander. From Body of Life, published by Tia Chucha Press. Copyright 1996 Elizabeth Alexander.
Now is the time of year when bees are wild
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.
I have found their dried husks in my clothes.
They are dervishes because they are dying,
one last sting, a warm place to squeeze
a drop of venom or of honey.
After the stroke we thought would be her last
my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped
a nurse across the face. Then she stood up,
walked outside, and lay down in the snow.
Two years later there is no other way
to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light
as an empty hive, and she is breathing.
“Equinox” by Elizabeth Alexander. From Body of Life, published by Tia Chucha Press. Copyright 1996 Elizabeth Alexander.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)