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1The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe
2
3Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
4Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
5    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
6As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
7“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
8            Only this and nothing more.”
9
10    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
11And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
12    Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
13    From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
14For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
15            Nameless here for evermore.
16
17    And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
18Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
19    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
20    “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
21Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
22            This it is and nothing more.”
23
24    Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
25“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
26    But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
27    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
28That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
29            Darkness there and nothing more.
30
31    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
32Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
33    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
34    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
35This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
36            Merely this and nothing more.
37
38    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
39Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
40    “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
41      Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
42Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
43            ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
44
45    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
46In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
47    Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
48    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
49Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
50            Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
51
52
53
54Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
55By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
56“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
57Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
58Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
59            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
60
61    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
62Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
63    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
64    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
65Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
66            With such name as “Nevermore.”
67
68    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
69That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
70    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
71    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
72On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
73            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
74
75    Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
76“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
77    Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
78    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
79Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
80            Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
81
82    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
83Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
84    Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
85    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
86What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
87            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
88
89    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
90To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
91    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
92    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
93But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
94            She shall press, ah, nevermore!
95
96    Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
97Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
98    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
99    Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
100Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
101            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
102
103    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
104Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
105    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
106    On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
107Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
108            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
109
110    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
111By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
112    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
113    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
114Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
115            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
116
117    “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
118“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
119    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
120    Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
121Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
122            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
123
124    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
125On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
126    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
127    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
128And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
129            Shall be lifted—nevermore!
130
131
132Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou
133
134You may write me down in history
135With your bitter, twisted lies,
136You may trod me in the very dirt
137But still, like dust, I'll rise.
138
139Does my sassiness upset you?
140Why are you beset with gloom?
141’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
142Pumping in my living room.
143
144Just like moons and like suns,
145With the certainty of tides,
146Just like hopes springing high,
147Still I'll rise.
148
149Did you want to see me broken?
150Bowed head and lowered eyes?
151Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
152Weakened by my soulful cries?
153
154Does my haughtiness offend you?
155Don't you take it awful hard
156’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
157Diggin’ in my own backyard.
158
159You may shoot me with your words,
160You may cut me with your eyes,
161You may kill me with your hatefulness,
162But still, like air, I’ll rise.
163
164Does my sexiness upset you?
165Does it come as a surprise
166That I dance like I've got diamonds
167At the meeting of my thighs?
168
169Out of the huts of history’s shame
170I rise
171Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
172I rise
173I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
174Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
175
176Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
177I rise
178Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
179I rise
180Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
181I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
182I rise
183I rise
184I rise.
185
186The Negro Speaks of Rivers, by Langston Hughes
187
188I’ve known rivers:
189I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
190
191My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
192
193I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
194I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
195I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
196I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
197
198I’ve known rivers:
199Ancient, dusky rivers.
200
201My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
202 
203The Second Coming, by William Butler Yeats
204
205Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
206The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
207Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
208Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
209The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
210The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
211The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
212Are full of passionate intensity.
213
214Surely some revelation is at hand;
215Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
216The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
217When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
218Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
219A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
220A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
221Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
222Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
223The darkness drops again; but now I know   
224That twenty centuries of stony sleep
225Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
226And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
227Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
228
229
230l(a, by e. e. cummings
231
232l(a
233
234le
235af
236fa
237
238ll
239
240s)
241one
242l
243
244iness
245 
246Daddy, by Sylvia Plath
247
248You do not do, you do not do   
249Any more, black shoe
250In which I have lived like a foot   
251For thirty years, poor and white,   
252Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
253
254Daddy, I have had to kill you.   
255You died before I had time——
256Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,   
257Ghastly statue with one gray toe   
258Big as a Frisco seal
259
260And a head in the freakish Atlantic   
261Where it pours bean green over blue   
262In the waters off beautiful Nauset.   
263I used to pray to recover you.
264Ach, du.
265
266In the German tongue, in the Polish town   
267Scraped flat by the roller
268Of wars, wars, wars.
269But the name of the town is common.   
270My Polack friend
271
272Says there are a dozen or two.   
273So I never could tell where you   
274Put your foot, your root,
275I never could talk to you.
276The tongue stuck in my jaw.
277
278It stuck in a barb wire snare.   
279Ich, ich, ich, ich,
280I could hardly speak.
281I thought every German was you.   
282And the language obscene
283
284An engine, an engine
285Chuffing me off like a Jew.
286A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.   
287I began to talk like a Jew.
288I think I may well be a Jew.
289
290The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna   
291Are not very pure or true.
292With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck   
293And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
294I may be a bit of a Jew.
295
296I have always been scared of you,
297With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.   
298And your neat mustache
299And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
300Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——
301
302Not God but a swastika
303So black no sky could squeak through.   
304Every woman adores a Fascist,   
305The boot in the face, the brute   
306Brute heart of a brute like you.
307
308You stand at the blackboard, daddy,   
309In the picture I have of you,
310A cleft in your chin instead of your foot   
311But no less a devil for that, no not   
312Any less the black man who
313
314Bit my pretty red heart in two.
315I was ten when they buried you.   
316At twenty I tried to die
317And get back, back, back to you.
318I thought even the bones would do.
319
320But they pulled me out of the sack,   
321And they stuck me together with glue.   
322And then I knew what to do.
323I made a model of you,
324A man in black with a Meinkampf look
325
326And a love of the rack and the screw.   
327And I said I do, I do.
328So daddy, I’m finally through.
329The black telephone’s off at the root,   
330The voices just can’t worm through.
331
332If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——
333The vampire who said he was you   
334And drank my blood for a year,
335Seven years, if you want to know.
336Daddy, you can lie back now.
337
338There’s a stake in your fat black heart   
339And the villagers never liked you.
340They are dancing and stamping on you.   
341They always knew it was you.
342Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
343
344
345Invictus, by William Ernest Henley
346
347Out of the night that covers me, 
348      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
349I thank whatever gods may be 
350      For my unconquerable soul. 
351
352In the fell clutch of circumstance 
353      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 
354Under the bludgeonings of chance 
355      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 
356
357Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
358      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
359And yet the menace of the years 
360      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 
361
362It matters not how strait the gate, 
363      How charged with punishments the scroll, 
364I am the master of my fate, 
365      I am the captain of my soul.
366
367
368
369The Nightmare: Oil on Canvas, Henry Fuseli, 1781, by Paul Tran
370
371Too hot to
372       rest, I toss
373               my arms off
374
375the bed. My night-
376        gown wet with
377               sweat. I feel you
378
379— a sack of
380        scavenged skulls
381               on my chest
382
383— sipping
384       the salt from
385              my breasts. Imp.
386
387Incubus. Im-
388       pulse. You and
389               me like a mare
390
391that must be
392       broken in
393              by breaking in-
394
395to. Tamed is
396       how fire is
397               by giving itself
398
399something to destroy:
400       it destroys it-
401              self. But who
402
403can deter-
404       mine what’s inside
405              another?
406
407What is risked
408       when we enter    ...    
409              Caliper. Forceps.
410
411Scalpel. Oculus.
412        Perhaps you’re
413                the wilderness
414
415that waits with-
416       in me. Perhaps an
417              other mystery, I
418
419open beneath
420       you. Yoked. Harnessed.
421               Paralyzed.
422
423At once a-
424       wake and a-
425              sleep. I nay.
426
427I knock
428       over the kerosene
429               lamp. Light of
430
431the rational
432       mind snuffed. Shadow
433              of shadows.
434
435Because I can’t
436        see, I sense.
437                Your thumb
438
439thrumming
440      my mouth. A
441             command. Arch-
442
443angel. Vision
444        of invasion.
445                Insemination.
446
447My horse
448        heart beating
449               with yours.
450
451
452Lady Lazarus, by Sylvia Plath
453
454I have done it again.   
455One year in every ten   
456I manage it——
457
458A sort of walking miracle, my skin   
459Bright as a Nazi lampshade,   
460My right foot
461
462A paperweight,
463My face a featureless, fine   
464Jew linen.
465
466Peel off the napkin   
467O my enemy.   
468Do I terrify?——
469
470The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?   
471The sour breath
472Will vanish in a day.
473
474Soon, soon the flesh
475The grave cave ate will be   
476At home on me
477
478And I a smiling woman.   
479I am only thirty.
480And like the cat I have nine times to die.
481
482This is Number Three.   
483What a trash
484To annihilate each decade.
485
486What a million filaments.   
487The peanut-crunching crowd   
488Shoves in to see
489
490Them unwrap me hand and foot——
491The big strip tease.   
492Gentlemen, ladies
493
494These are my hands   
495My knees.
496I may be skin and bone,
497
498Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.   
499The first time it happened I was ten.   
500It was an accident.
501
502The second time I meant
503To last it out and not come back at all.   
504I rocked shut
505
506As a seashell.
507They had to call and call
508And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
509
510Dying
511Is an art, like everything else.   
512I do it exceptionally well.
513
514I do it so it feels like hell.   
515I do it so it feels real.
516I guess you could say I’ve a call.
517
518It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
519It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.   
520It’s the theatrical
521
522Comeback in broad day
523To the same place, the same face, the same brute   
524Amused shout:
525
526‘A miracle!’
527That knocks me out.   
528There is a charge
529
530For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge   
531For the hearing of my heart——
532It really goes.
533
534And there is a charge, a very large charge   
535For a word or a touch   
536Or a bit of blood
537
538Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.   
539So, so, Herr Doktor.   
540So, Herr Enemy.
541
542I am your opus,
543I am your valuable,   
544The pure gold baby
545
546That melts to a shriek.   
547I turn and burn.
548Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
549
550Ash, ash—
551You poke and stir.
552Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
553
554A cake of soap,   
555A wedding ring,   
556A gold filling.
557
558Herr God, Herr Lucifer   
559Beware
560Beware.
561
562Out of the ash
563I rise with my red hair   
564And I eat men like air.
565
566i’m tired, by Tao Lin
567
568i'm tired
569
570i'm going to eat a lettuce
571
572it's stupid to make sense
573
574i don't want to make sense anymore
575
576just let me type something stupid and let it be good
577
578i'm tired
579
580i'm stupid
581
582i don't care
583
584sentences are too long
585
586go away
587
588i'm depressed
589
590come back
591
592i'm having a contest for feeling tired
593
594why am i having a contest
595
596i want to win
597
598or i'll kill everyone
599
600murder isn't bad
601
602i feel stupid
603
604i want to emanate murder
605
606people will die
607
608and i'll feel good
609
610i'm not trying to be cute
611
612it's too hard to smile
613
614i'm tired
615
616i want some lettuce
617
618go away
619
620i'm depressed
621
622we should do something
623
624pleasure is stupid
625
626let me kill you
627
628whatever i'm about to think will be stupid
629
630and make me tired
631
632a cow without wings flying in the sky
633
634is stupid and makes me unhappy
635
636happiness is stupid
637
638there isn't enough shit on my face
639
640come back and shit on my face again
641
642i'm tired
643
644of figurative language
645
646i don't understand
647
648figures of speech
649
650a piece of shit lettuce
651
652i just typed something stupid
653
654i want me to go away
655
656i can't stop being stupid
657
658grammar is stupid
659
660i'm going to kill grammar and symbolism
661
662thinking is stupid
663
664i'll kill thinking
665
666if i had a gun
667
668i could do things
669
670laws are stupid
671
672i hate you
673
674what's in front of my face
675
676come back
677
678i'm depressed
679
680murder isn't bad
681
682i'm tired
683
684words
685
686stupid
687
688words are stupid
689
690i’m depressed
691
692fuck
693
694shit
695
696fuck
697
698shit
699
700shit
701
702shit
703
704lettuce
705
706shit
707
708fucked
709
710i am fucked
711
712don't tell me i'm not fucked
713
714look at this poem
715
716i am embarrassed
717
718at how fucked i am
719
720i'll kill you
721
722shitface
723
724cowface
725
726motherfucker
727
728i'll kill you
729
730murder
731
732screaming head
733
734screaming cowhead unattached to body
735
736screaming
737
738killing
739
740shithead
741
742i'm tired
743
744piece of shit
745
746masterpiece
747
748shit
749
750pulitzer prize
751
752fuckhead
753
754a poem written by a bear, by Tao Lin
755
756Let me go eat some salmon
757
758why are there coke cans in the river
759
760what if i wore a bullet proof vest during hunting season
761
762i’m a bear; i walk in the forest and look at the river and the river is cold
763
764i saw campers today and they ran away and i was alone and i destroyed their tent
765
766let me go scratch my paw on a tree
767
768let me go eat a salmon
769
770last night i cried onto my salmon
771
772the salmon was sad but it still wanted to live
773
774it wanted to swim and be sad and i ate it under moonlight
775
776i saw a moose scream the other day
777
778it screamed quietly under a tree
779
780i felt embarrassed and sad and i thought, ‘oh, no; oh god, oh my god’
781
782sometimes i climb a tree and sit there and sing very quietly
783
784sometimes i want to go to a shopping mall and chase the humans and claw them
785
786i’ll ride the moose into the shopping mall and ram the humans
787
788the moose and i will ride the escalator and i will hug the moose and the moose and i will cry
789
790i will eat the moose
791
792i don’t care
793
794i will scream and throw the bubblegum machine from the second floor to the first floor
795
796i felt compassion for the salmon and now i don’t care anymore
797
798i’ll walk into a parking lot and chase a large human and hug the human and cry
799
800i’ll walk into a house at night and push the humans off the bed
801
802i’ll stare at the bed and i’ll feel fake
803
804
805
806
807
808Dreamland, by Edgar Allen Poe
809
810By a route obscure and lonely,   
811Haunted by ill angels only, 
812Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,   
813On a black throne reigns upright, 
814I have reached these lands but newly   
815From an ultimate dim Thule— 
816From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, 
817       Out of SPACE—Out of TIME. 
818
819Bottomless vales and boundless floods,   
820And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,   
821With forms that no man can discover   
822For the tears that drip all over;   
823Mountains toppling evermore   
824Into seas without a shore;   
825Seas that restlessly aspire,   
826Surging, unto skies of fire;   
827Lakes that endlessly outspread   
828Their lone waters—lone and dead,—   
829Their still waters—still and chilly   
830With the snows of the lolling lily. 
831
832By the lakes that thus outspread 
833Their lone waters, lone and dead,— 
834Their sad waters, sad and chilly 
835With the snows of the lolling lily,— 
836By the mountains—near the river   
837Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—   
838By the grey woods,—by the swamp   
839Where the toad and the newt encamp,—   
840By the dismal tarns and pools 
841   Where dwell the Ghouls,—   
842By each spot the most unholy—   
843In each nook most melancholy,—   
844There the traveller meets, aghast,   
845Sheeted Memories of the Past—   
846Shrouded forms that start and sigh   
847As they pass the wanderer by—   
848White-robed forms of friends long given,   
849In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven. 
850
851For the heart whose woes are legion   
852’T is a peaceful, soothing region—   
853For the spirit that walks in shadow   
854’T is—oh, ’t is an Eldorado! 
855But the traveller, travelling through it,   
856May not—dare not openly view it;   
857Never its mysteries are exposed   
858To the weak human eye unclosed;   
859So wills its King, who hath forbid   
860The uplifting of the fring'd lid;   
861And thus the sad Soul that here passes   
862Beholds it but through darkened glasses. 
863
864By a route obscure and lonely,   
865Haunted by ill angels only, 
866Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, 
867On a black throne reigns upright,   
868I have wandered home but newly   
869From this ultimate dim Thule.
870
871The Valley of Unrest, by Edgar Allen Poe
872
873Once it smiled a silent dell 
874Where the people did not dwell; 
875They had gone unto the wars, 
876Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, 
877Nightly, from their azure towers, 
878To keep watch above the flowers, 
879In the midst of which all day 
880The red sun-light lazily lay. 
881Now each visitor shall confess 
882The sad valley’s restlessness. 
883Nothing there is motionless— 
884Nothing save the airs that brood 
885Over the magic solitude. 
886Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees 
887That palpitate like the chill seas 
888Around the misty Hebrides! 
889Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven 
890That rustle through the unquiet Heaven 
891Uneasily, from morn till even, 
892Over the violets there that lie 
893In myriad types of the human eye— 
894Over the lilies there that wave 
895And weep above a nameless grave! 
896They wave:—from out their fragrant tops 
897External dews come down in drops. 
898They weep:—from off their delicate stems 
899Perennial tears descend in gems. 
900 
901The Listeners, by Walter de la Mare
902
903‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   
904   Knocking on the moonlit door; 
905And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   
906   Of the forest’s ferny floor: 
907And a bird flew up out of the turret,   
908   Above the Traveller’s head: 
909And he smote upon the door again a second time;   
910   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. 
911But no one descended to the Traveller;   
912   No head from the leaf-fringed sill 
913Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   
914   Where he stood perplexed and still. 
915But only a host of phantom listeners   
916   That dwelt in the lone house then 
917Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   
918   To that voice from the world of men: 
919Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   
920   That goes down to the empty hall, 
921Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   
922   By the lonely Traveller’s call. 
923And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   
924   Their stillness answering his cry, 
925While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   
926   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; 
927For he suddenly smote on the door, even   
928   Louder, and lifted his head:— 
929‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   
930   That I kept my word,’ he said. 
931Never the least stir made the listeners,   
932   Though every word he spake 
933Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   
934   From the one man left awake: 
935Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   
936   And the sound of iron on stone, 
937And how the silence surged softly backward,   
938   When the plunging hoofs were gone.
939
940
941
942Mametz Wood, by Owen Sheers
943
944For years afterwards the farmers found them -
945the wasted young, turning up under their plough blades
946as they tended the land back into itself.
947
948A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade,
949the relic of a finger, the blown
950and broken bird's egg of a skull,
951
952all mimicked now in flint, breaking blue in white
953across this field where they were told to walk, not run,
954towards the wood and its nesting machine guns.
955
956And even now the earth stands sentinel
957reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened
958like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.
959
960This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave,
961a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm,
962their skeletons paused mid dance-macabre
963
964in boots that outlasted them,
965their socketed heads tilted back at an angle
966and their jaws, those that have them, dropped open.
967
968As if the notes they had sung
969have only now, with this unearthing,
970slipped from their absent tongues.
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979Border Country, by Owen Sheers
980
981Nothing marks the car quarry now,
982just raised earth like the hummock of a grave,
983a headstone of trees, wind-written epitaphs
984running in their leaves.
985Filled in years ago,
986but still I can't help standing at its edge,
987where the ground once gave
988to an elephant's graveyard of cars,
989a motorway pile-up in the corner of the field.
990
991One of the places we came
992when we had tired of catching
993the commas and apostrophes
994of minnows and bullheads;
995or shooting at pumpkins in the field,
996shouldering the kick of your father's shotgun;
997or playing at war in the barn,
998dying again and again
999under its gap-toothed roof and broken beams.
1000
1001A place where we tested our voices,
1002young as the buzzards above us
1003striking their cries against a flint sky,
1004smashed black holes in the windows,
1005sat in the drivers' seats, going nowhere,
1006operated on engines,
1007dock-leaves and nettles running in their pistons
1008or just walked among them,
1009reading aloud from the names of the dead:
1010
1011Volvo, Ford, Vauxhall,
1012Their primary colours rusting to red.
1013Where we lost ourselves in the hours before dark,
1014year on year, until that day
1015when life put on the brakes
1016and pitched you, without notice,
1017through the windscreen of your youth.
1018Your father found at dawn ---
1019a poppy sown in the unripe corn.
1020
1021I came back once, to find the cars smaller
1022or the undergrowth grown,
1023whichever, the whole diminished to steel and stone.
1024Just cars in a quarry,
1025their dashboards undone and the needles
1026of the speedos settled at zero.
1027As I climbed back out I disturbed a buzzard
1028that flew from its branch like a rag
1029shaken out in the wind,
1030
1031before spiralling upwards
1032above the shuffling trees
1033and on over the fields ---
1034the spittle sheep, the ink-dot cows,
1035a tractor writing with its wheels,
1036and on over the lanes, where a boy
1037meandered between the hedges,
1038trailing a stick, kicking a stone,
1039trying once more to find his way home.
1040
1041Casualty, by Seamus Heaney
1042
1043                   I   
1044
1045He would drink by himself   
1046And raise a weathered thumb   
1047Towards the high shelf,   
1048Calling another rum   
1049And blackcurrant, without   
1050Having to raise his voice,   
1051Or order a quick stout   
1052By a lifting of the eyes   
1053And a discreet dumb-show   
1054Of pulling off the top;   
1055At closing time would go   
1056In waders and peaked cap   
1057Into the showery dark,   
1058A dole-kept breadwinner   
1059But a natural for work.   
1060I loved his whole manner,   
1061Sure-footed but too sly,   
1062His deadpan sidling tact,   
1063His fisherman’s quick eye   
1064And turned observant back.   
1065
1066Incomprehensible   
1067To him, my other life.   
1068Sometimes, on the high stool,   
1069Too busy with his knife   
1070At a tobacco plug   
1071And not meeting my eye,   
1072In the pause after a slug   
1073He mentioned poetry.   
1074We would be on our own   
1075And, always politic   
1076And shy of condescension,   
1077I would manage by some trick   
1078To switch the talk to eels   
1079Or lore of the horse and cart   
1080Or the Provisionals.   
1081
1082But my tentative art   
1083His turned back watches too:   
1084He was blown to bits   
1085Out drinking in a curfew   
1086Others obeyed, three nights   
1087After they shot dead   
1088The thirteen men in Derry.   
1089PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,   
1090BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday   
1091Everyone held   
1092His breath and trembled.   
1093
1094
1095                   II   
1096
1097It was a day of cold   
1098Raw silence, wind-blown   
1099surplice and soutane:   
1100Rained-on, flower-laden   
1101Coffin after coffin   
1102Seemed to float from the door   
1103Of the packed cathedral   
1104Like blossoms on slow water.   
1105The common funeral   
1106Unrolled its swaddling band,   
1107Lapping, tightening   
1108Till we were braced and bound   
1109Like brothers in a ring.   
1110
1111But he would not be held   
1112At home by his own crowd   
1113Whatever threats were phoned,   
1114Whatever black flags waved.   
1115I see him as he turned   
1116In that bombed offending place,   
1117Remorse fused with terror   
1118In his still knowable face,   
1119His cornered outfaced stare   
1120Blinding in the flash.   
1121
1122He had gone miles away   
1123For he drank like a fish   
1124Nightly, naturally   
1125Swimming towards the lure   
1126Of warm lit-up places,   
1127The blurred mesh and murmur   
1128Drifting among glasses   
1129In the gregarious smoke.   
1130How culpable was he   
1131That last night when he broke   
1132Our tribe’s complicity?   
1133‘Now, you’re supposed to be   
1134An educated man,’   
1135I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me   
1136The right answer to that one.’
1137
1138
1139                   III   
1140
1141I missed his funeral,   
1142Those quiet walkers   
1143And sideways talkers   
1144Shoaling out of his lane   
1145To the respectable   
1146Purring of the hearse...   
1147They move in equal pace   
1148With the habitual   
1149Slow consolation   
1150Of a dawdling engine,   
1151The line lifted, hand   
1152Over fist, cold sunshine   
1153On the water, the land   
1154Banked under fog: that morning   
1155I was taken in his boat,   
1156The Screw purling, turning   
1157Indolent fathoms white,   
1158I tasted freedom with him.   
1159To get out early, haul   
1160Steadily off the bottom,   
1161Dispraise the catch, and smile   
1162As you find a rhythm   
1163Working you, slow mile by mile,   
1164Into your proper haunt   
1165Somewhere, well out, beyond...   
1166
1167Dawn-sniffing revenant,   
1168Plodder through midnight rain,   
1169Question me again.
1170 
1171The City in the Sea, by Edgar Allen Poe
1172
1173Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
1174     In a strange city lying alone
1175     Far down within the dim West,
1176     Wherethe good and the bad and the worst and the best
1177     Have gone to their eternal rest.
1178     There shrines and palaces and towers
1179     (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
1180     Resemble nothing that is ours.
1181     Around, by lifting winds forgot,
1182     Resignedly beneath the sky
1183     The melancholy waters lie.
1184
1185     No rays from the holy heaven come down
1186     On the long night-time of that town;
1187     But light from out the lurid sea
1188     Streams up the turrets silently—
1189     Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
1190     Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
1191     Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
1192     Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
1193     Of scultured ivy and stone flowers—
1194     Up many and many a marvellous shrine
1195     Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
1196     The viol, the violet, and the vine.
1197
1198     Resignedly beneath the sky
1199     The melancholy waters lie.
1200     So blend the turrets and shadows there
1201     That all seem pendulous in air,
1202     While from a proud tower in the town
1203     Death looks gigantically down.
1204
1205     There open fanes and gaping graves
1206     Yawn level with the luminous waves;
1207     But not the riches there that lie
1208     In each idol’s diamond eye—
1209     Not the gaily-jewelled dead
1210     Tempt the waters from their bed;
1211     For no ripples curl, alas!
1212     Along that wilderness of glass—
1213     No swellings tell that winds may be
1214     Upon some far-off happier sea—
1215     No heavings hint that winds have been
1216     On seas less hideously serene.
1217
1218     But lo, a stir is in the air!
1219     The wave—there is a movement there!
1220     As if the towers had thrown aside,
1221     In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
1222     As if their tops had feebly given
1223     A void within the filmy Heaven.
1224     The waves have now a redder glow—
1225     The hours are breathing faint and low—
1226     And when, amid no earthly moans,
1227     Down, down that town shall settle hence,
1228     Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
1229     Shall do it reverence.
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235The Whitsun Weddings, by Philip Larkin
1236
1237That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
1238    Not till about
1239One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
1240Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
1241All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense   
1242Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
1243Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
1244Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence   
1245The river’s level drifting breadth began,
1246Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.
1247
1248All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept   
1249    For miles inland,
1250A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.   
1251Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and   
1252Canals with floatings of industrial froth;   
1253A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped   
1254And rose: and now and then a smell of grass   
1255Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth   
1256Until the next town, new and nondescript,   
1257Approached with acres of dismantled cars.
1258
1259At first, I didn’t notice what a noise
1260    The weddings made
1261Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys   
1262The interest of what’s happening in the shade,
1263And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls   
1264I took for porters larking with the mails,   
1265And went on reading. Once we started, though,   
1266We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls   
1267In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,   
1268All posed irresolutely, watching us go,
1269
1270As if out on the end of an event
1271    Waving goodbye
1272To something that survived it. Struck, I leant   
1273More promptly out next time, more curiously,   
1274And saw it all again in different terms:   
1275The fathers with broad belts under their suits   
1276And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;   
1277An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,   
1278The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes,   
1279The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that
1280
1281Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.   
1282    Yes, from cafés
1283And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed   
1284Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days   
1285Were coming to an end. All down the line
1286Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
1287The last confetti and advice were thrown,
1288And, as we moved, each face seemed to define   
1289Just what it saw departing: children frowned   
1290At something dull; fathers had never known
1291
1292Success so huge and wholly farcical;
1293    The women shared
1294The secret like a happy funeral;
1295While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared   
1296At a religious wounding. Free at last,
1297And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
1298We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.   
1299Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast   
1300Long shadows over major roads, and for
1301Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem
1302
1303Just long enough to settle hats and say
1304    I nearly died, 
1305A dozen marriages got under way.
1306They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
1307—An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,   
1308And someone running up to bowl—and none   
1309Thought of the others they would never meet   
1310Or how their lives would all contain this hour.   
1311I thought of London spread out in the sun,   
1312Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:
1313
1314There we were aimed. And as we raced across   
1315    Bright knots of rail
1316Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss   
1317Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail   
1318Travelling coincidence; and what it held   
1319Stood ready to be loosed with all the power   
1320That being changed can give. We slowed again,
1321And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
1322A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower   
1323Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.
1324
1325
1326The Haunted Palace, by Edgar Allen Poe
1327
1328In the greenest of our valleys 
1329By good angels tenanted, 
1330Once a fair and stately palace— 
1331Radiant palace—reared its head. 
1332In the monarch Thought’s dominion, 
1333It stood there! 
1334Never seraph spread a pinion 
1335Over fabric half so fair! 
1336
1337Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
1338On its roof did float and flow 
1339(This—all this—was in the olden 
1340Time long ago) 
1341And every gentle air that dallied, 
1342In that sweet day, 
1343Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 
1344A wingèd odor went away. 
1345
1346Wanderers in that happy valley, 
1347Through two luminous windows, saw 
1348Spirits moving musically 
1349To a lute’s well-tunèd law, 
1350Round about a throne where, sitting, 
1351Porphyrogene! 
1352In state his glory well befitting, 
1353The ruler of the realm was seen. 
1354
1355And all with pearl and ruby glowing 
1356Was the fair palace door, 
1357Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing 
1358And sparkling evermore, 
1359A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 
1360Was but to sing, 
1361In voices of surpassing beauty, 
1362The wit and wisdom of their king. 
1363
1364But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
1365Assailed the monarch’s high estate; 
1366(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow 
1367Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) 
1368And round about his home the glory 
1369That blushed and bloomed 
1370Is but a dim-remembered story 
1371Of the old time entombed. 
1372
1373And travellers, now, within that valley, 
1374Through the red-litten windows see 
1375Vast forms that move fantastically 
1376To a discordant melody; 
1377While, like a ghastly rapid river, 
1378Through the pale door 
1379A hideous throng rush out forever, 
1380And laugh—but smile no more. 
1381
1382The Hurt Locker, by Brian Turner
1383
1384Nothing but hurt left here.
1385Nothing but bullets and pain
1386and the bled-out slumping
1387and all the fucks and goddamns
1388and Jesus Christs of the wounded.
1389Nothing left here but the hurt.
1390 
1391Believe it when you see it.
1392Believe it when a twelve-year-old
1393rolls a grenade into the room.
1394Or when a sniper punches a hole
1395deep into someone’s skull.
1396Believe it when four men
1397step from a taxicab in Mosul
1398to shower the street in brass
1399and fire. Open the hurt locker
1400and see what there is of knives
1401and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn
1402how rough men come hunting for souls.
1403
1404Facing It, Yusef Komunyakaa
1405
1406My black face fades,   
1407hiding inside the black granite.   
1408I said I wouldn't  
1409dammit: No tears.   
1410I'm stone. I'm flesh.   
1411My clouded reflection eyes me   
1412like a bird of prey, the profile of night   
1413slanted against morning. I turn   
1414this way—the stone lets me go.   
1415I turn that way—I'm inside   
1416the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
1417again, depending on the light   
1418to make a difference.   
1419I go down the 58,022 names,   
1420half-expecting to find   
1421my own in letters like smoke.   
1422I touch the name Andrew Johnson;   
1423I see the booby trap's white flash.   
1424Names shimmer on a woman's blouse   
1425but when she walks away   
1426the names stay on the wall.   
1427Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's   
1428wings cutting across my stare.   
1429The sky. A plane in the sky.   
1430A white vet's image floats   
1431closer to me, then his pale eyes   
1432look through mine. I'm a window.   
1433He's lost his right arm   
1434inside the stone. In the black mirror   
1435a woman’s trying to erase names:   
1436No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
1437 
1438Holding Court, by Jacob Saenz
1439
1440Today I became King
1441of the Court w/out a diamond-
1442encrusted crown thrust upon 
1443my sweaty head. Instead
1444my markings of royalty
1445were the t-shirt draping 
1446my body like a robe soaked 
1447in champagne & the pain
1448in my right knee — a sign 
1449of a battle endured, my will 
1450tested & bested by none 
1451as the ball flew off my hands
1452as swift as an arrow toward
1453the heart of a target — my fingers 
1454ringless yet feeling like gold.
1455
1456Mental Cases
1457
1458Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
1459Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
1460Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
1461Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?
1462Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,
1463Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
1464Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
1465Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
1466Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
1467
1468— These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
1469Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
1470Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
1471Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
1472Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
1473Always they must see these things and hear them,
1474Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
1475Carnage incomparable and human squander
1476Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
1477
1478Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
1479Back into their brains, because on their sense
1480Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
1481Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh
1482— Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
1483Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
1484— Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
1485Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
1486Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
1487Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493To a Child Dancing upon the Shore, by W. B. Yeats – Modernist
1494
1495		I
1496
1497DANCE there upon the shore;
1498What need have you to care
1499For wind or water’s roar?
1500And tumble out your hair
1501That the salt drops have wet;
1502Being young you have not known
1503The fool’s triumph, nor yet
1504Love lost as soon as won,
1505Nor the best labourer dead
1506And all the sheaves to bind.
1507What need have you to dread
1508The monstrous crying of wind?
1509
1510		II
1511
1512Has no one said those daring
1513Kind eyes should be more learn’d?
1514Or warned you how despairing
1515The moths are when they are burned,
1516I could have warned you, but you are young,
1517So we speak a different tongue.
1518
1519O you will take whatever’s offered
1520And dream that all the world’s a friend,
1521Suffer as your mother suffered,
1522Be as broken in the end.
1523But I am old and you are young,
1524And I speak a barbarous tongue.
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532Difference, by Stephen Vincent Benét – Modernist
1533
1534My mind’s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it   
1535Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
1536Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs,   
1537And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs.   
1538“Here there be tygers.” “Here we buried Jim.”   
1539Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim   
1540About their buried idol, drowned so cold   
1541He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.   
1542A country like the dark side of the moon,   
1543A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,   
1544A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
1545A land of hungry sorcerers.
1546                                              Your mind?
1547
1548—Your mind is water through an April night,
1549A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its white,   
1550A lavender as fragrant as your words,   
1551A room where Peace and Honor talk like birds,   
1552Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth   
1553Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,   
1554Flutters and beats about those lovely things.   
1555You are the soul, enchanted with its wings,   
1556The single voice that raises up the dead   
1557To shake the pride of angels.
1558                                                 I have said.
1559
15609,19, 1939, by Robinson Jeffers – Modernist
1561
1562This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we hear his voice.
1563A man of genius: that is, of amazing
1564Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child's soul,
1565Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child
1566Wailing in Danzig; invoking destruction and wailing at it.
1567Here, the day was extremely hot; about noon
1568A south wind like a blast from hell's mouth spilled a slight rain
1569On the parched land, and at five a light earthquake
1570Danced the house, no harm done. Tonight I have been amusing myself
1571Watching the blood-red moon droop slowly
1572Into the black sea through bursts of dry lightning and distant thunder.
1573Well: the day is a poem: but too much
1574Like one of Jeffers's, crusted with blood and barbaric omens, 
1575Painful to excess, inhuman as a hawk's cry. 
1576
1577Green, by D. H. Lawrence – Modernist
1578
1579The dawn was apple-green,
1580The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
1581The moon was a golden petal between.
1582
1583She opened her eyes, and green
1584They shone, clear like flowers undone,
1585For the first time, now for the first time seen.
1586 
1587Tournez, Tournez, Bon Chevaux De Bois, by Edith Sitwell – Modernist
1588
1589Turn, turn again,
1590Ape’s blood in each vein!
1591The people that pass
1592Seem castles of glass,
1593The old and the good
1594Giraffes of the blue wood,
1595The soldier, the nurse,
1596Wooden-face and a curse,
1597Are shadowed with plumage
1598Like birds, by the gloomage.
1599Blond hair like a clown’s 
1600The music floats—drowns
1601The creaking of ropes,
1602The breaking of hopes,
1603The wheezing, the old,
1604Like harmoniums scold;
1605Go to Babylon, Rome,
1606The brain-cells called home,
1607The grave, new Jerusalem—
1608Wrinkled Methusalem!
1609From our floating hair 
1610Derived the first fair
1611And queer inspiration
1612Of music, the nation
1613Of bright-plumed trees
1614And harpy-shrill breeze . . .
1615     *  *  *  *
1616Turn, turn again,
1617Ape’s blood in each vein!
1618
1619Au Viex Jardin, by Richard Aldington – Modernist/Imagist
1620
1621I have sat here happy in the gardens, 
1622Watching the still pool and the reeds 
1623And the dark clouds 
1624Which the wind of the upper air 
1625Tore like the green leafy boughs 
1626Of the divers-hued trees of late summer; 
1627But though I greatly delight 
1628In these and the water-lilies, 
1629That which sets me nighest to weeping 
1630Is the rose and white color of the smooth flag-stones, 
1631And the pale yellow grasses 
1632Among them.
1633 
1634Mitrailliatrice, by Ernest Hemingway – Modernist
1635
1636The mills of the gods grind slowly
1637But this mill
1638Chatters in mechanical staccato.
1639Ugly short infantry of the mind,
1640Advancing over difficult terrain,
1641Make this Corona
1642Their mitrailluese.
1643
1644Oily Weather, by Ernest Hemingway – Modernist
1645
1646The sea desires deep hulls–
1647It swells and rolls.
1648The screw churns a throb–
1649Driving, throbbing, progressing.
1650The sea rolls with love,
1651Surging, caressing,
1652Undulating its great loving belly.
1653The sea is big and old–
1654Throbbing ships scorn it.
1655
1656No Images, by William Waring Cuney – Harlem Renaissance
1657
1658She does not know
1659her beauty,
1660she thinks her brown body
1661has no glory.
1662
1663If she could dance
1664naked
1665under palm trees
1666and see her image in the river,
1667she would know.
1668
1669But there are no palm trees
1670on the street,
1671and dish water gives back
1672no images.
1673
1674For My People, by Margaret Walker – Harlem Renaissance
1675
1676For my people everywhere singing their slave songs
1677     repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues
1678     and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an
1679     unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an
1680     unseen power;
1681
1682For my people lending their strength to the years, to the
1683    gone years and the now years and the maybe years,
1684    washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending
1685    hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching
1686    dragging along never gaining never reaping never
1687    knowing and never understanding;
1688
1689For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama
1690    backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor
1691    and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking
1692    and playhouse and concert and store and hair and
1693    Miss Choomby and company;
1694
1695For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn
1696    to know the reasons why and the answers to and the
1697    people who and the places where and the days when, in
1698    memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we
1699    were black and poor and small and different and nobody
1700    cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;
1701
1702For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to
1703    be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and
1704    play and drink their wine and religion and success, to
1705    marry their playmates and bear children and then die
1706    of consumption and anemia and lynching;
1707
1708For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox
1709    Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New
1710    Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy
1711    people filling the cabarets and taverns and other
1712    people’s pockets and needing bread and shoes and milk and
1713    land and money and something—something all our own;
1714
1715For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time
1716     being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when
1717     burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled
1718     and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures
1719     who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;
1720
1721For my people blundering and groping and floundering in
1722     the dark of churches and schools and clubs
1723     and societies, associations and councils and committees and
1724     conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and
1725     devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,
1726     preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by
1727     false prophet and holy believer;
1728
1729For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way
1730    from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,
1731    trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,
1732    all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;
1733
1734Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a
1735    bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second
1736    generation full of courage issue forth; let a people
1737    loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of
1738    healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing
1739    in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs
1740    be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now
1741    rise and take control.
1742
1743
1744The Song of Smoke, by W. E. B. du Bois – Harlem Renaissance
1745
1746I am the Smoke King
1747I am black!
1748I am swinging in the sky,
1749I am wringing worlds awry;
1750I am the thought of the throbbing mills,
1751I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,
1752Wraith of the ripple of trading rills;
1753Up I’m curling from the sod,
1754I am whirling home to God;
1755I am the Smoke King
1756I am black.
1757
1758I am the Smoke King,
1759I am black!
1760I am wreathing broken hearts,
1761I am sheathing love’s light darts;
1762Inspiration of iron times
1763Wedding the toil of toiling climes,
1764Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes—
1765Lurid lowering ’mid the blue,
1766Torrid towering toward the true,
1767I am the Smoke King,
1768I am black.
1769
1770I am the Smoke King,
1771I am black!
1772I am darkening with song,
1773I am hearkening to wrong!
1774I will be black as blackness can—
1775The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!
1776For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.
1777I am daubing God in night,
1778I am swabbing Hell in white:
1779I am the Smoke King
1780I am black.
1781
1782I am the Smoke King
1783I am black!
1784I am cursing ruddy morn,
1785I am hearsing hearts unborn:
1786Souls unto me are as stars in a night,
1787I whiten my black men—I blacken my white!
1788What’s the hue of a hide to a man in his might?
1789Hail! great, gritty, grimy hands—
1790Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!
1791I am the Smoke King
1792I am black.
1793 
1794Reapers, by Jean Toomer – Harlem Renaissance
1795
1796Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
1797Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones   
1798In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done,   
1799And start their silent swinging, one by one.   
1800Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,   
1801And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.   
1802His belly close to ground. I see the blade,   
1803Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
1804
1805Storm Ending, by Jean Toomer – Harlem Renaissance
1806
1807Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads,
1808Great, hollow, bell-like flowers,
1809Rumbling in the wind,
1810Stretching clappers to strike our ears . . .
1811Full-lipped flowers
1812Bitten by the sun
1813Bleeding rain
1814Dripping rain like golden honey—
1815And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.
1816
1817Georgia Dusk, by Jean Toomer – Harlem Renaissance
1818
1819The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
1820   The setting sun, too indolent to hold
1821   A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,   
1822Passively darkens for night’s barbecue,
1823
1824A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,   
1825   An orgy for some genius of the South
1826   With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,   
1827Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.
1828
1829The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,
1830   And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,
1831   Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill   
1832Their early promise of a bumper crop.
1833
1834Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile
1835   Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low   
1836   Where only chips and stumps are left to show   
1837The solid proof of former domicile.
1838
1839Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp,   
1840   Race memories of king and caravan,
1841   High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,
1842Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp.
1843
1844Their voices rise . . the pine trees are guitars,   
1845   Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain . .   
1846   Their voices rise . . the chorus of the cane
1847Is caroling a vesper to the stars . .
1848
1849O singers, resinous and soft your songs
1850   Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
1851   Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
1852Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.
1853
1854The Young Ones, by Sterling A. Brown – Harlem Renaissance
1855
1856With cotton to the doorstop
1857No place to play;
1858No time: what with chopping cotton
1859All the day.
1860
1861In the broken down care
1862They jounce up and down
1863Pretend to be steering
1864On the way to town.
1865
1866It’s as afar as they’ll get
1867For many a year;
1868Cotton brought them
1869And will keep them here.
1870
1871The spare-ribbed yard-dog
1872Has gone away;
1873The kids, just as hungry,
1874Have to stay.
1875
1876In the two-roomed shack
1877Their mammy is lying,
1878With a little new brother
1879On her arm, crying.
1880
1881Another mouth to feed
1882Another body to bed,
1883Another to grow up
1884Underfed.
1885
1886But their pappy’s happy
1887And they here him say:
1888“The good Lord giveth,
1889And taketh away.
1890
1891“It’s two more hands
1892For to carry a row;
1893Praise God from whom
1894All blessings flow.”
1895
1896
1897
1898The Heart of a Woman, by Georgia Douglas Johnson – Harlem Renaissance
1899
1900The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
1901As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
1902Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
1903In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
1904
1905The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
1906And enters some alien cage in its plight,
1907And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
1908While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
1909
1910Quest, by Georgia Douglas Johnson – Harlem Renaissance
1911
1912The phantom happiness I sought
1913   O’er every crag and moor;
1914I paused at every postern gate,
1915   And knocked at every door;
1916
1917In vain I searched the land and sea,
1918   E’en to the inmost core,
1919The curtains of eternal night
1920   Descend—my search is o’er.
1921
1922Smothered Fires, by Georgia Douglas Johnson – Harlem Renaissance
1923
1924A woman with a burning flame
1925   Deep covered through the years
1926With ashes.  Ah! she hid it deep,
1927   And smothered it with tears.
1928
1929Sometimes a baleful light would rise
1930   From out the dusky bed,
1931And then the woman hushed it quick
1932   To slumber on, as dead.
1933
1934At last the weary war was done
1935   The tapers were alight,
1936And with a sigh of victory
1937   She breathed a soft—good-night!
1938
1939The Measure, by Georgia Douglas Johnson – Harlem Renaissance
1940
1941Fierce is the conflict—the battle of eyes,
1942Sure and unerring, the wordless replies,
1943Challenges flash from their ambushing caves—
1944Men, by their glances, are masters or slaves.
1945
1946Foredoom, by Georgia Douglas Johnson – Harlem Renaissance
1947
1948Her life was dwarfed, and wed to blight,
1949Her very days were shades of night,
1950Her every dream was born entombed,
1951Her soul, a bud,—that never bloomed.
1952
1953(…I have drifted along this river…), by Richard Aldington – Imagist
1954
1955I have drifted along this river
1956Until I moored my boat
1957By these cross trunks.
1958
1959Here the mist moves
1960Over fragile leaves and rushes,
1961Colourless waters and brown, fading hills.
1962
1963You have come from beneath the trees
1964And move within the mist,
1965A floating leaf.
1966
1967O blue flower of the evening
1968You have touched my face
1969With your leaves of silver.
1970
1971Love me, for I must depart.
1972
1973The Shadow, by William Carlos Williams – Imagist
1974
1975Soft as the bed in the earth
1976Where a stone has lain–
1977So soft, so smooth and so cool,
1978Spring closes in
1979With her arms and her hands.
1980
1981Rich as the smell
1982Of new earth on a stone,
1983That has lain, breathing
1984The damp through its pores–
1985Spring closes me in
1986With her blossomy hair;
1987Brings dark to my eyes.
1988
1989Autumn, by T. E. Hulme – Imagist
1990
1991A touch of cold in the Autumn night— 
1992I walked abroad, 
1993And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge 
1994Like a red-faced farmer. 
1995I did not stop to speak, but nodded, 
1996And round about were the wistful stars 
1997With white faces like town children.
1998
1999The Embankment, by T. E. Hulme – Imagist
2000
2001(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night.)
2002
2003Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy, 
2004In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement. 
2005Now see I 
2006That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy. 
2007Oh, God, make small 
2008The old star-eaten blanket of the sky, 
2009That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.
2010 
20111930’s. by George Oppen– Objectivist
2012
2013		I
2014
2015Thus
2016Hides the
2017Parts–the prudery
2018of Frigidarie, of
2019Soda-jerking–
2020
2021Thus
2022above the
2023Plane of lunch, of wives,
2024Removes itself
2025
2026(As soda-jerking from
2027The private act
2028Of
2029Cracking eggs);
2030Big-Business.
2031
2032		II
2033
2034The knowledge not of sorrow, you were saying, but of
2035         boredom,
2036Is of–aside from reading speaking smoking–
2037Of what Maude Blessingbourne it was, wished to know
2038          when, having risen,
2039“Approached the window as if to see what really was going
2040           on”;
2041And saw rain falling, in the distance more slowly,
2042The road clear from her past the window glass–
2043Of the world, weather-swept, with which ones shares the
2044           century.
2045
2046Discrete Series, by George Oppen – Objectivist
2047
2048			I
2049
2050This room,
2051	      the circled wind
2052Straight air of dawn
2053		        low noon
2054The darkness. Not within
2055The mound of these
2056		        is anything
2057To fit the prying of your lips
2058Or feed their wide bright flowering.
2059
2060And yet will movement so exactly fit
2061Your limbs–
2062	         as snow
2063Fills the vague intricacies of the day, unlit;
2064So will your arms
2065		     fall in the space
2066Assigned to gesture
2067	(In the momentless air
2068	The distant adventurous snow.)
2069
2070			II
2071
2072When, having entered–
2073
2074Your coats slips smoothly from your shoulders to the waiter:
2075How, in the face of this, shall we remember,
2076Should you stand suddenly upon your head
2077
2078Your skirts would blossom downward
2079
2080Like an anemone.
2081
2082			III
2083
2084As I lift the flass to drink,
2085I smell the water: Suddenly,
2086The summer.
2087
2088When my socks will be thick in my shoes
2089
2090And the room’s noise will go dim behind me
2091As I lean out a high window,
2092
2093My hands on the stone.
2094
2095			IV Cat-Boat
2096
2097The mast
2098Inaudibly soars; bole-like, tapering,
2099Sail flattens from it beneath the wind.
2100The limp water holds the boat’s round sides.    Sun
2101Slants dry light on the deck.
2102			     Beneath us glide
2103Rocks, sand, and unrimmed holes.
2104
2105A Group of Verse, by Charles Reznikof – Objectivist
2106
2107			I
2108
2109All day the pavement had been black
2110With rain, but in our warm brightly-lit
2111Room, praise God,
2112I kept saying to myself,
2113And saying not a word,
2114Amen, you answered.
2115
2116			II
2117
2118From my window I could not see the moon,
2119And yet it was shining;
2120
2121The yard among the houses–
2122Snow upon it–
2123An oblong in the darkness.
2124
2125			III
2126
2127Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies
2128A girder, itself among the rubbish.
2129
2130			IV
2131
2132Rooted among roofs, their smoke among the clouds,
2133Factory chimneys–our cedars of Lebanon.
2134
2135			V
2136
2137What are you doing in our street among the automoibles,
2138Horse?
2139How are your cousins, the centaur and the unicorn?
2140
2141			VI
2142
2143Of our visitors–I do not know which I dislike the most:
2144The silent beetles or these noisy flies.
2145
2146
2147
2148Winter Sketches, by Charles Reznikoff – Objectivist
2149
2150			I
2151
2152Now that black ground and bushes–
2153saplings, trees,
2154each twig and limb–are suddenly white with snow,
2155and earth becomes brighter than the sky,
2156
2157that intricate shrub
2158of nerves, veins, arteries–
2159myself–uncurls
2160its knotted leaves
2161to the shining air.
2162Upon this wodded hillside,
2163pied with snow, I hear
2164only the melting snow
2165drop from the twigs.
2166
2167			II Subway
2168
2169In steel clouds
2170to the sound of thunder
2171like the ancient gods;
2172our sky, cement;
2173the earth, cement;
2174our trees, steel;
2175instead of sunshine,
2176a light that has no twilight,
2177neither morning nor evening,
2178only noon.
2179
2180Coming up the subway stairs, I thought the moon
2181only another street-light–
2182a little crooked.
2183
2184			III
2185
2186From the middle of the pool
2187in the concrete pavement a fountain
2188in neat jets; the wind scatters it
2189upon the water.    The untidy trees
2190drop their leaves upon the pavement.
2191
2192			IV
2193
2194Along the flat roofs beneath our window,
2195in the morning sunshine,
2196I read the signature of last nights rain.
2197
2198			V
2199
2200The squads, platoons, and regiments
2201of lighted windows,
2202ephemeral under the evening start–
2203
2204feast, you who cross the bridge
2205this cold twilight
2206on the honeycombs of light, the buildings of Manhattan.
2207
2208Taking this space to list favourite schools of poetry:
22091)	Beat
22102)	Objectivist
22113)	Imagist
22124)	Harlem Renaissance
22135)	Modernist
2214And a brief reminder of the core tenets of each school:
2215•	Imagists: favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. Called for return to more Classical values, e.g. directness of presentation and economy of language, and a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms i.e. free verse. Characteristic feature is its attempt to isolate a single image to reveal its essence.
2216•	Objectivists: treat the poem as an object, and to emphasize sincerity, intelligence, and the poet's ability to look clearly at the world.
2217•	Beat Generation: the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.
2218•	Confessionalists: poetry of the personal or "I", focusing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and personal trauma, including previously and occasionally still taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide
2219•	New York School: poetic subject matter was often light, violent, or observational, while their writing style was often described as cosmopolitan and world-traveled. Poets often wrote in an immediate and spontaneous manner reminiscent of stream of consciousness, often using vivid imagery. Inspired by Surrealism and the contemporary avant-garde art movements
2220•	Black Mountain: poetry of "open field" composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and utterance. The content was to consist of "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". One of the effects of narrowing the unit of structure in the poem down to what could fit within an utterance was that they developed a distinctive style of poetic diction (e.g. "yr" for "your").
2221•	Language: emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It played down expression, seeing the poem as a construction in and of language itself. Writing that challenged the "natural" presence of a speaker behind the text; writing that emphasized disjunction and the materiality of the signifier; and prose poetry
2222
2223Three Poems, by Lorine Niedecker – Objectivist
2224
2225		I
2226
2227River-marsh-drowse
2228and in flood
2229       moonlight
2230           gives sight
2231of no land.
2232
2233They fish, a man
2234takes his wife to town
2235with his rowboat’s 10-horse
2236       ships his voice
2237to the herons.
2238
2239Sure they drink
2240–full foamy folk–
2241      till asleep.
2242   The place is asleep
2243on one leg in the woods.
2244
2245		II
2246
2247Prosperity is poverty–
2248I’ve foreclosed.
2249I own again
2250
2251these walls thin
2252as the back
2253of my writing tablet.
2254
2255And more:
2256all who live here–
2257card table to eat on,
2258
2259broken bed–
2260sacrifice for less
2261than art.
2262
2263		III
2264
2265Now in one year
2266   a book published
2267       and plumbing–
2268took a lifetime
2269       to weep
2270          a deep
2271              trickle
2272 
2273Paraguay, by Carl Rakosi – Objectivist
2274
2275In the early hours the lovebirds
2276colonized the palm.
2277
2278We were looking for a totem.
2279Finding nothing
2280but the Indian smells,
2281we booked the next boat to Janeiro.
2282
2283On the east coast, where the sun deflect the falcons
2284from the sea-positions,
2285we found a blessed frère
2286with no cathedral
2287but the daisies in May,
2288living on milk and wafers,
2289with the cross in one hand
2290and the anatomy of sorrow in the other.
2291
2292Amulet, by Carl Rakosi – Objectivist
2293
2294But you are ideal,
2295O figurette,
2296and cool as camphor.
2297You wander formal
2298in an ice-green panelette
2299
2300The small blue eyes
2301are set in jadework.
2302And your hand stings
2303like a drop of witch-hazel.
2304
2305Bless the white throat
2306of this lady
2307drinking clabber milk
2308at a buffet lunch
2309
2310Of Dying Beauty, by Louis Zukofsky – Objectivist
2311
2312“Spare us of dying beauty,” cries out Youth,
2313“Of marbe gods that moulder into dust–
2314Wide-eyed and pensive with and ancient truth
2315That even gods will go as old things must.”
2316Where fading splendour grays to powdered earth,
2317And time’s slow movement darkens quiet skies,
2318Youth weeps the old, yet gives new beauty birth
2319And molds again, though the old beauty dies.
2320Time plays an ancient dirge amid old places
2321Where ruins are a sign of passing strength,
2322As is the weariness of aged faces
2323A token of a beauty gone at length.
2324Yet youth will always come self-willed and gay–
2325A sun-god in a temple of decay.
2326 
2327Song for Baby-O, Unborn, by Diane di Prima – Beat
2328
2329Sweetheart
2330when you break thru
2331you’ll find
2332a poet here
2333not quite what one would choose.
2334
2335I won’t promise
2336you’ll never go hungry
2337or that you won’t be sad
2338on this gutted
2339breaking
2340globe
2341
2342but I can show you
2343baby
2344enough to love
2345to break your heart
2346forever
2347
2348The Window, by Diane di Prima – Beat
2349
2350you are my bread
2351and the hairline
2352noise
2353of my bones
2354you are almost
2355the sea
2356
2357you are not stone
2358or molten sound
2359I think
2360you have no hands
2361
2362
2363
2364this kind of bird flies backward
2365and this love
2366breaks on a windowpane
2367where no light talks
2368
2369this is not time
2370for crossing tongues
2371(the sand here
2372never shifts)
2373
2374
2375
2376I think
2377tomorrow
2378turned you with his toe
2379and you will
2380shine
2381and shine
2382unspent and underground
2383
2384
2385First Snow, Kerhonkson, by Diane di Prima – Beat
2386
2387    for Alan
2388
2389This, then, is the gift the world has given me
2390(you have given me)
2391softly the snow
2392cupped in hollows
2393lying on the surface of the pond
2394matching my long white candles
2395which stand at the window
2396which will burn at dusk while the snow
2397fills up our valley
2398this hollow
2399no friend will wander down
2400no one arriving brown from Mexico
2401from the sunfields of California, bearing pot
2402they are scattered now, dead or silent
2403or blasted to madness
2404by the howling brightness of our once common vision
2405and this gift of yours—
2406white silence filling the contours of my life.
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412Buddhist New Year Song, by Diane di Prima – Beat
2413
2414I saw you in green velvet, wide full sleeves
2415seated in front of a fireplace, our house
2416made somehow more gracious, and you said
2417“There are stars in your hair”— it was truth I
2418brought down with me
2419
2420to this sullen and dingy place that we must make golden
2421make precious and mythical somehow, it is our nature,
2422and it is truth, that we came here, I told you,
2423from other planets
2424where we were lords, we were sent here,
2425for some purpose
2426
2427the golden mask I had seen before, that fitted
2428so beautifully over your face, did not return
2429nor did that face of a bull you had acquired
2430amid northern peoples, nomads, the Gobi desert
2431
2432I did not see those tents again, nor the wagons
2433infinitely slow on the infinitely windy plains,
2434so cold, every star in the sky was a different color
2435the sky itself a tangled tapestry, glowing
2436but almost, I could see the planet from which we had come
2437
2438I could not remember (then) what our purpose was
2439but remembered the name Mahakala, in the dawn
2440
2441in the dawn confronted Shiva, the cold light
2442revealed the “mindborn” worlds, as simply that,
2443I watched them propagated, flowing out,
2444or, more simply, one mirror reflecting another.
2445then broke the mirrors, you were no longer in sight
2446nor any purpose, stared at this new blackness
2447the mindborn worlds fled, and the mind turned off:
2448
2449a madness, or a beginning?
2450
2451An Exercise in Love, by Diane di Prima – Beat
2452
2453    for Jackson Allen
2454
2455My friend wears my scarf at his waist
2456I give him moonstones
2457He gives me shell & seaweeds
2458He comes from a distant city & I meet him
2459We will plant eggplants & celery together
2460He weaves me cloth
2461
2462                   Many have brought the gifts
2463                   I use for his pleasure
2464                   silk, & green hills
2465                   & heron the color of dawn
2466
2467My friend walks soft as a weaving on the wind
2468He backlights my dreams
2469He has built altars beside my bed
2470I awake in the smell of his hair & cannot remember
2471his name, or my own.
2472
2473Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Beat
2474 
2475Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons   
2476          walking their dogs
2477                      in Central Park West
2478    (or their cats on leashes—
2479       the cats themselves old highwire artists)   
2480The ballerinas
2481                leap and pirouette
2482                           through Columbus Circle   
2483         while winos on park benches
2484               (laid back like drunken Goudonovs)   
2485            hear the taxis trumpet together
2486               like horsemen of the apocalypse   
2487                               in the dusk of the gods   
2488It is the final witching hour
2489                when swains are full of swan songs   
2490    And all return through the dark dusk   
2491                to their bright cells
2492                                  in glass highrises
2493      or sit down to oval cigarettes and cakes   
2494                              in the Russian Tea Room   
2495    or climb four flights to back rooms
2496                                 in Westside brownstones   
2497               where faded playbill photos
2498                        fall peeling from their frames   
2499                            like last year’s autumn leaves
2500
2501People Getting Divorced, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Beat
2502
2503People getting divorced
2504          riding around with their clothes in the car   
2505   and wondering what happened
2506                      to everyone and everything   
2507                         including their other
2508                                                pair of shoes
2509         And if you spy one
2510             then who knows what happened
2511                                             to the other
2512                                           with tongue alack   
2513   and years later not even knowing
2514                               if the other ever
2515                                        found a mate
2516                                  without splitting the seams   
2517                                     or remained intact
2518                                                          unlaced   
2519    and the sole
2520                     ah the soul
2521                                     a curious conception   
2522         hanging on somehow
2523                                     to walk again
2524                                                   in the free air   
2525                            once the heel
2526                                                 has been replaced
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539Sometime During Eternity . . ., by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Beat
2540
2541Sometime during eternity
2542                                                       some guys show up   
2543and one of them
2544                      who shows up real late
2545                                                       is a kind of carpenter   
2546      from some square-type place
2547                                              like Galilee
2548          and he starts wailing
2549                                          and claiming he is hip
2550            to who made heaven
2551                                       and earth
2552                                                      and that the cat
2553                   who really laid it on us
2554                                                 is his Dad
2555
2556          And moreover
2557             he adds
2558                         It’s all writ down
2559                                              on some scroll-type parchments   
2560          which some henchmen
2561                  leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres   
2562                a long time ago
2563                                       and which you won’t even find   
2564         for a coupla thousand years or so
2565                                                 or at least for
2566      nineteen hundred and fortyseven
2567                                                      of them
2568                            to be exact
2569                                             and even then
2570         nobody really believes them
2571                                                   or me
2572                                                            for that matter
2573          You’re hot
2574                         they tell him
2575          And they cool him
2576
2577          They stretch him on the Tree to cool
2578
2579                         And everybody after that
2580                                                               is always making models   
2581                                          of this Tree
2582                                                          with Him hung up   
2583          and always crooning His name
2584                                     and calling Him to come down   
2585                                 and sit in
2586                                                 on their combo
2587                           as if he is the king cat
2588                                                            who’s got to blow   
2589                      or they can’t quite make it
2590
2591                      Only he don’t come down
2592                                                         from His Tree
2593          Him just hang there
2594                                       on His Tree
2595          looking real Petered out
2596                                          and real cool
2597                                                             and also
2598                   according to a roundup
2599                                                    of late world news   
2600             from the usual unreliable sources
2601                                                               real dead
2602 
2603In Goya’s Greatest Scene We Seem to See . . ., by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Beat
2604
2605In Goya’s greatest scenes we seem to see
2606                                           the people of the world   
2607       exactly at the moment when
2608             they first attained the title of
2609                                                             ‘suffering humanity’   
2610          They writhe upon the page
2611                                        in a veritable rage
2612                                                                of adversity   
2613          Heaped up
2614                     groaning with babies and bayonets
2615                                                       under cement skies   
2616            in an abstract landscape of blasted trees
2617                  bent statues bats wings and beaks
2618                               slippery gibbets
2619                  cadavers and carnivorous cocks
2620            and all the final hollering monsters
2621                  of the
2622                           ‘imagination of disaster’
2623            they are so bloody real
2624                                        it is as if they really still existed
2625
2626    And they do
2627
2628                  Only the landscape is changed
2629
2630They still are ranged along the roads   
2631          plagued by legionnaires
2632                     false windmills and demented roosters
2633They are the same people
2634                                     only further from home
2635      on freeways fifty lanes wide
2636                              on a concrete continent
2637                                        spaced with bland billboards   
2638                        illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness
2639
2640                       
2641                        The scene shows fewer tumbrils
2642                                                but more strung-out citizens
2643                                                                     in painted cars
2644                               and they have strange license plates   
2645                           and engines
2646                                           that devour America
2647 
2648Don’t Let That Horse . . ., by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Beat
2649
2650Don’t let that horse
2651                              eat that violin
2652
2653    cried Chagall’s mother
2654
2655                                     But he   
2656                      kept right on
2657                                     painting
2658
2659And became famous
2660
2661And kept on painting
2662                              The Horse With Violin In Mouth
2663
2664And when he finally finished it
2665he jumped up upon the horse
2666                                        and rode away   
2667          waving the violin
2668
2669And then with a low bow gave it
2670to the first naked nude he ran across
2671
2672
2673And there were no strings   
2674                                     attached
2675
2676Last Page of a Manuscript, by Kenneth Rexroth – Beat
2677
2678Light
2679Light
2680The sliver in the firmament
2681The Stiring horde
2682The rocking wave
2683The name breaks in the sky
2684Why stand we
2685Why go we nought
2686They broken seek the cleaving balance
2687The young men gone
2688Lux lucis*
2689The revolving company
2690The water flowing from the right side
2691Et fons luminis**
2692The ciborium of the abyss
2693The bread of light
2694The chalice of the byss
2695The wine of flaming light
2696The wheeling multitude
2697The rocking cry
2698The reverberant scalar song lifts up
2699The metric finger aeon by aeon
2700And the cloud of memory descends
2701The regnant fruitful vine
2702The exploding rock
2703The exploding mountain cry
2704Trios agios
2705The sapphire snow
2706Hryca hryca nazaza***
2707
2708*light of light
2709**and light source
2710***from a Goliardic love song, a mediaeval student’s equivalent of “hip, hip, hooray.
2711
2712
2713From “One Finger From the Season” by Jack Hirschman – Beat
2714
2715				1
2716
2717In the beginning I was soused with words, the page wasn’t wide
2718enough to hold my spillover, I ran and ran and the puns
2719and brashbandy flew out of my mouth slant-rhymed.
2720
2721In time I looked at her. The lines
2722broke. Look at mine. Look
2723at hers. And neither died of it.
2724
2725That Irishman, they say, sang best
2726at seventy-seven.
2727It isn’t easy to write
2728the word, love,
2729and mean it to be
2730spoken.
2731
2732				2
2733
2734			You move from a repose
2735			I am far behind,
2736			and vain.
2737
2738			The simple way you
2739			take things in
2740			that are, after all,
2741			trembling.
2742
2743			Two years ago I was
2744			a Lublinjuggler,
2745			a Dublingjew last year
2746			was I.
2747
2748			Since you have put
2749			your finger on me,
2750			I have no desire,
2751			no more water
2752
2753			in the bucket,
2754			no more moon
2755			in the water,
2756			only this snow
2757
2758			falling, this
2759			slow filling
2760			up of room.
2761
2762				3
2763
2764		I wanted a death that was
2765		simple, weightless, a profound
2766		rose thighs gather round
2767		in darkness.
2768
2769		You give me this endless vase
2770		and garden of your mouth,
2771		and still I count, sick
2772		ounce by ounce, my pollen
2773
2774		conscious of the little veins
2775		exploding on your eyelids,
2776		dying a lonely man
2777		one finger from the seasons.
2778
2779		Sleep, my lovely feather.
2780		You call my chest the sun.
2781		The difference is a matter
2782		of stone.
2783
2784				4
2785
2786		The tree outside the window,
2787		when I look again it’s spring,
2788		and this room of our in-fighting.
2789
2790		Meli meli’s Greek for the honey,
2791		your hair. It was bourbon
2792		in winter.
2793
2794		Changes, the laughing slip-
2795		ping out of things,
2796		and the way we spring in
2797
2798		each other then, lush and green,
2799		and later still with
2800		my finger on
2801
2802		the form of which
2803		the seasons are
2804		expressions like:
2805
2806		Are you done?
2807		I'm aching.
2808		Come here.
2809 
2810Circle Poems, by Lew Welch – Beat
2811
2812Whenever I have a day off, I write a new poem.
2813Does this mean you shouldn’t work, or that you
2814write best on your day off?
2815 
2816For example, this is the poem I wrote today.
2817 
2818 
2819                                     *
2820 
2821 
2822When he was 20, he understood some of the secrets of
2823life, and undertook to write them down so simply that
2824even an idiot could understand.
2825“For,” he reasoned, “if I can’t do that, I don’t
2826understand it myself.”
2827 
2828He proved himself right.
2829When he was 50, he didn’t understand it himself.
2830 
2831 
2832                                      *
2833 
2834 
2835“Why is it,” he said, “that no matter what you say,
2836a woman always takes it personally?”
2837 
2838“I never do,” she said.
2839 
2840 
2841                                      *
2842 
2843 
2844John said, “Then I met that short fat guy with the
2845neat little beard, with a name like dawn.”
2846 
2847“You mean George Abend?”
2848 
2849“Yeah.”
2850 
2851“Abend means evening.”
2852
2853 
2854                                     *
2855
2856A Terror is More Certain . . ., by Bob Kaufman – Beat
2857
2858A terror is more certain than all the rare desirable popular songs I
2859know, than even now when all of my myths have become . . . , & walk
2860around in black shiny galoshes & carry dirty laundry to & fro, & read
2861great books & don’t know criminals intimately, & publish fat books of
2862the month & have wifeys that are lousy in bed & never realize how
2863bad my writing is because i am poor & symbolize myself.
2864 
2865A certain desirable is more terror to me than all that’s rare. How
2866come they don’t give an academic award to all the movie stars that
2867die? they’re still acting, ain’t they? even if they are dead, it should
2868not be held against them, after all they still have the public on their
2869side, how would you like to be a dead movie star & have people sit-
2870ting on your grave?
2871 
2872A rare me is more certain than desirable, that’s all the terror, there
2873are too many basketball players in this world & too much progress
2874in the burial industry, lets have old fashioned funerals & stand
2875around & forgive & borrow wet handkerchiefs, & sneak out for
2876drinks & help load the guy into the wagon, & feel sad & make a
2877date with the widow & believe we don’t see all of the people sink-
2878ing into the subways going to basketball games & designing baby
2879sitters at Madison Square Garden.
2880 
2881A certain me is desirable, what is so rare as air in a Poem, why can’t
2882i write a foreign movie like all the other boys my age, I confess to all
2883the crimes committed during the month of April, but not to save
2884my own neck, which is adjustable, & telescopes into any size noose,
2885I’m doing it to save Gertrude Stein’s reputation, who is secretly
2886flying model airplanes for the underground railroad stern gang of
2887oz, & is the favorite in all the bouts . . . not officially opened yet
2888Holland tunnel is the one who writes untrue phone numbers.
2889 
2890A desirable poem is more rare than rare, & terror is certain, who
2891wants to be a poet & work a twenty four hour shift, they never ask
2892you first, who wants to listen to the radiator play string quartets all
2893night. I want to be allowed not to be, suppose a man wants to
2894swing on the kiddie swings, should people be allowed to stab him
2895with queer looks & drag him off to bed & its no fun on top of a
2896lady when her hair is full of shiny little machines & your ass
2897reflected in that television screen, who wants to be a poet if you
2898fuck on t.v. & all those cowboys watching.
2899
2900Believe, Believe, by Bob Kaufman – Beat
2901
2902Believe in this. Young apple seeds,
2903In blue skies, radiating young breast,
2904Not in blue-suited insects,
2905Infesting society’s garments.
2906 
2907Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz,
2908Tearing the night into intricate shreds,
2909Putting it back together again,
2910In cool logical patterns,
2911Not in the sick controllers,
2912Who created only the Bomb.
2913 
2914Let the voices of dead poets
2915Ring louder in your ears
2916Than the screechings mouthed
2917In mildewed editorials.
2918Listen to the music of centuries,
2919Rising above the mushroom time.
29202 for Theodore Roethe, by Michael McClure – Beat
2921
2922PREMONITION
2923
2924My bones ascend by arsenics of sight.
2925Where noise is all the sound there is to hear,
2926Beginning in the heart I work towards light.
2927
2928My toes are clutching at the Hawk and Kite,
2929My eyes are spiralled up and still so near
2930My bones ascend by arsenics of sight.
2931
2932Feet burn ot walk the mackerel sky at night
2933And run on ribs that in the clouds appear
2934Beginning in the heart, I work towards the light.
2935
2936Ears are aching for the Great Bird’s bite
2937What sings inside me climbs above my fear
2938My bones ascend by arsenics of sight.
2939
2940Premonition dazzles on the height.
2941Amazed, in blood and bone, a slaughtered steer,
2942Beginning in the heart, I work towards light.
2943
2944The skin and wingless skull I wear grow tight.
2945The echoes from the sky are never clear.
2946My bones ascend by arsenics of sight.
2947Beginning in the heart, I work towards light.
2948
29492.
2950This copse is earth’s cockade, this corpse my drum
2951To beat upon and play the mole a dance;
2952These hands are my defeat, these eyes my thumbs.
2953
2954Opposable, and in the way, so dumb
2955To poundings of the earth and waywards glance,
2956This copse is earth’s cockade, my corpse its drum.
2957
2958The burrower has moved aside a crumb
2959But let the boulder fall, a weighted trance.
2960These hands are my defeat, these eyes my thumb.
2961
2962Elysium is dwindled, burrowed, numb
2963Of rock and plant, of song and last romance.
2964This copse is earth’s cockade, this corpse my drum!
2965
2966These stocks of body build what they become.
2967No clump or fragment leaves itself askance.
2968These hands are my defeat, these eyes my thumb.
2969
2970The ouzel, undine, straightened on a plumb
2971Are past and future sense, not circumstance.
2972This copse is earth’s cockade, this corpse my drum.
2973These hands are my defeat, these eyes my thumb.
2974
2975The Mystery of the Hunt, by Michael McClure – Beat
2976
2977It’s the mystery of the hunt that intrigues me,
2978                   That drives us like lemmings, but cautiously—
2979The search for a bright square cloud—the scent of lemon verbena—
2980                    Or to learn rules for the game the sea otters
2981                                      Play in the surf.
2982 
2983                  It is these small things—and the secret behind them
2984                                    That fill the heart.
2985                        The pattern, the spirit, the fiery demon
2986                                That link them together
2987                      And pull their freedom into our senses,
2988 
2989             The smell of a shrub, a cloud, the action of animals
2990 
2991         —The rising, the exuberance, when the mystery is unveiled.
2992                                 It is these small things
2993 
2994                   That when brought into vision become an inferno.
2995
2996Written in My Dream By W. C. Williams, by Alen Ginsberg – Beat
2997
2998“As Is
2999you’re bearing
3000
3001a common
3002Truth
3003
3004Commonly known
3005as desire
3006
3007No need
3008to dress
3009
3010it up
3011as beauty
3012
3013No need
3014to distort
3015
3016what’s not
3017standard
3018
3019to be
3020understandable.
3021
3022Pick your
3023nose
3024
3025eyes ears
3026tongue
3027
3028sex and
3029brain
3030to show
3031the populace
3032
3033Take your
3034chances
3035
3036on
3037your accuracy
3038
3039Listen to
3040yourself
3041
3042talk to
3043yourself
3044
3045and others
3046will also
3047
3048gladly
3049relieved
3050
3051of the burden–
3052their own
3053
3054thought
3055and grief.
3056
3057What began
3058as desire
3059
3060will end
3061wiser.”
3062
3063Boading, China
3064November 23, 1984
3065 
3066A Supermarket in California, by Allen Ginsberg – Beat
3067
3068What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
3069         In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
3070         What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
3071
3072         I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
3073         I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
3074         I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
3075         We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
3076
3077         Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
3078         (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
3079         Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
3080         Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
3081         Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
3082 
3083Berkeley, 1955
3084 
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090America, by Allens Ginsberg – Beat
3091
3092America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
3093America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.   
3094I can’t stand my own mind.
3095America when will we end the human war?
3096Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
3097I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
3098I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
3099America when will you be angelic?
3100When will you take off your clothes?
3101When will you look at yourself through the grave?
3102When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
3103America why are your libraries full of tears?
3104America when will you send your eggs to India?
3105I’m sick of your insane demands.
3106When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
3107America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.   
3108Your machinery is too much for me.
3109You made me want to be a saint.
3110There must be some other way to settle this argument.   
3111Burroughs is in Tangiers I don’t think he’ll come back it’s sinister.   
3112Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?   
3113I’m trying to come to the point.
3114I refuse to give up my obsession.
3115America stop pushing I know what I’m doing.
3116America the plum blossoms are falling.
3117I haven’t read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.
3118America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
3119America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry.   
3120I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
3121I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.   
3122When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.   
3123My mind is made up there’s going to be trouble.
3124You should have seen me reading Marx.
3125My psychoanalyst thinks I’m perfectly right.
3126I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer.
3127I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
3128America I still haven’t told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.
3129I’m addressing you.
3130Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?   
3131I’m obsessed by Time Magazine.
3132I read it every week.
3133Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.   
3134I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
3135It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody’s serious but me.   
3136It occurs to me that I am America.
3137I am talking to myself again.
3138
3139Asia is rising against me.
3140I haven’t got a chinaman’s chance.
3141I’d better consider my national resources.
3142My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.
3143I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
3144I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
3145My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I’m a Catholic.
3146
3147America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
3148I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they’re all different sexes.
3149America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
3150America free Tom Mooney
3151America save the Spanish Loyalists
3152America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
3153America I am the Scottsboro boys.
3154America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers’ Ewig-Weibliche made me cry I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy.
3155America you don’t really want to go to war.
3156America its them bad Russians.
3157Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.   
3158The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages.
3159Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
3160That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.   
3161America this is quite serious.
3162America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.   
3163America is this correct?
3164I’d better get right down to the job.
3165It’s true I don’t want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I’m nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
3166America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
3167  
3168Berkeley, January 17, 1956
3169
31701959, by Gregory Corso – Beat
3171
3172Uncomprising year—I see no meaning to life.
3173Though this abled self is here nonetheless,
3174either in trade gold or grammaticness,
3175I drop the wheelwright’s simple principle—
3176Why weave the garland? Why ring the bell?
3177
3178Penurious butchery these notoriously human years,
3179these confident births these lucid deaths these years.
3180Dream’s flesh blood reals down life’s mystery—
3181there is no mystery.
3182Cold history knows no dynastic Atlantis.
3183The habitual myth has an eagerness to quit.
3184
3185No meaning to life can be found in this holy language
3186nor beyond the lyrical fabricator’s inescapable theme
3187be found the loathed find—there is nothing to find.
3188
3189Multitudinous deathplot! O this poor synod—
3190Hopers and seekers paroling meaning to meaning,
3191annexing what might be meaningful, what might be meaningless.
3192
3193Repeated nightmare, lachrymae lachrymae—
3194a fire behind a grotto, a thick fog, shredded masts,
3195the nets heaved—and the indescribable monster netted.
3196Who was it told that red flesh hose be still?
3197For one with smooth hands did with pincers
3198snip the snout—It died like a yawn.
3199And when the liver sack was yanked
3200I could not follow it to the pan.
3201
3202I could not follow it to the pan—
3203I woke to the reality of cars; Oh
3204the dreadful privilege of that vision!
3205Not one antique faction remained;
3206
3207Egypt, Rome, Greece,
3208and all such pedigree dreams fled.
3209Cars are real! Eternity is done.
3210The threat of Nothingness renews.
3211I touch the untouched.
3212I rank the rose militant.
3213Deny, I deny the tastes and habits of the age.
3214I am its punk debauche .... A fierce lampoon
3215seeking to inherit what is necessary to forfeit.
3216
3217Lies! Lies! Lies! I lie, you lie, we all lie!
3218There is no us, there is no world, there is no universe,
3219there is no life, no death, no nothing—all is meaningless,
3220and this too is a lie—O damned 1959!
3221Must I dry my inspiration in this sad concept?
3222Delineate my entire stratagem?
3223Must I settle into phantomness
3224and not say I understand things better than God?
3225
3226Wood, by Richard Brautigan – Beat
3227
3228We age in darkness like wood
3229and watch our phantoms change
3230       their clothes
3231of shingles and boards
3232for a purpose that can only be
3233       described as wood.
3234 
3235Snow, by Frederick Seidel – Confessionalist
3236
3237Snow is what it does.
3238It falls and it stays and it goes.
3239It melts and it is here somewhere.
3240We all will get there.
3241
3242Mount Street Gardens, by Frederick Seidel – Confessionalist
3243
3244I’m talking about Mount Street.
3245Jackhammers give it the staggers.
3246They’re tearing up dear Mount Street.
3247It’s got a torn-up face like Mick Jagger’s.
3248
3249I mean, this is Mount Street!
3250Scott’s restaurant, the choicest oysters, brilliant fish;
3251Purdey, the great shotgun maker—the street is complete
3252Posh plush and (except for Marc Jacobs) so English.
3253
3254Remember the old Mount Street,
3255The quiet that perfumed the air
3256Like a flowering tree and smelled sweet
3257As only money can smell, because after all this was Mayfair?
3258
3259One used to stay at the Connaught
3260Till they closed it for a makeover.
3261One was distraught
3262To see the dark wood brightened and sleekness take over.
3263
3264Designer grease
3265Will help guests slide right into the zone.
3266Prince Charles and his design police
3267Are tickled pink because it doesn’t threaten the throne.
3268
3269I exaggerate for effect—
3270But isn’t it grand, the stink of the stank,
3271That no sooner had the redone hotel just about got itself perfect
3272Than the local council decided: new street, new sidewalk, relocate the taxi rank!
3273
3274Turn away from your life—away from the noise!—
3275Leaving the Connaught and Carlos Place behind.
3276Hidden away behind those redbrick buildings across the street are serious joys:
3277Green grandeur on a small enough scale to soothe your mind,
3278
3279And birdsong as liquid as life was before you were born.
3280Whenever I’m in London I stop by this delightful garden to hear
3281The breeze in the palatial trees blow its shepherd’s horn.
3282I sit on a bench in Mount Street Gardens and London is nowhere near.
3283 
3284The State of New York, by Frederick Seidel – Confessionalist
3285
3286I like the part I play.
3287They’ve cast me as Pompeii
3288The day before the day.
3289It’s my brilliant performance as a luxury man because I act that way.
3290They say: Just wait, you’ll see, you’ll pay,
3291Pompeii.
3292
3293You’re a miracle in a whirlpool
3294In your blind date’s vagina
3295At your age. Nothin could be fina.
3296You eat off her bone china.
3297Don’t be a ghoul. Don’t be a fool,
3298You fool.
3299
3300In the lifelong month of May,
3301Racing joyously on his moto poeta to the grave,
3302He’s his own fabulous slave.
3303He rides his superbike faster and faster to save
3304His master from the coming lava from China, every day,
3305But especially today, because it’s on its way.
3306
3307Fred Astaire is about to explode
3308In his buff-colored kidskin gloves, revolving around
3309The gold knob of his walking stick, with the sound
3310Of Vesuvia playing,
3311And the slopes of Vesuvia saying
3312Her effluvia are in nearly overflowing mode.
3313
3314Freud had predicted Fred.
3315In The Future of an Illusion he said:
3316“Movies are, in other words, the future of God.”
3317Nothing expresses ordinary wishes more dysplastically than current
3318American politics do. Breast augmentation as a deterrent
3319To too much government is odd.
3320
3321Korean women in a shop on Madison give a pedicure to Pompeii.
3322Fred only knows that he’s not getting old.
3323Pompeii doesn’t know it’s the day before the day.
3324The governor of New York is legally blind, a metaphor for his state of mind.
3325He ought to resign, but he hasn’t resigned.
3326Good riddance, goodbye. The bell has tolled.
3327 
3328Who Steals My Good Name, by W. D. Snodgrass – Confessionalist
3329
3330For the person who obtained my debit card number and spent $11,000 in five days
3331
3332My pale stepdaughter, just off the school bus, 
3333Scowled, "Well, that's the last time I say my name's 
3334Snodgrass!" Just so, may that anonymous 
3335Mexican male who prodigally claims 
3336
3337My clan lines, identity and the sixteen 
3338Digits that unlock my bank account, 
3339Think twice. That less than proper name's been 
3340Taken by three ex-wives, each for an amount 
3341
3342Past all you've squandered, each more than pleased 
3343To change it back. That surname you affect 
3344May have more consequence than getting teased 
3345By dumb kids or tracked down by bank detectives. 
3346
3347Don't underrate its history: one of ours played 
3348Piano on his prison's weekly broadcast; 
3349One got rich on a scammed quiz show; one made 
3350A bungle costing the World Series. My own past 
3351
3352Could subject you to guilt by association: 
3353If you write anything more than false checks, 
3354Abandon all hope of large press publication 
3355Or prizes—critics shun the name like sex 
3356
3357Without a condom. Whoever steals my purse 
3358Helps chain me to my writing desk again 
3359For fun and profit. So take thanks with my curse: 
3360May your pen name help send you to your pen.
3361
3362Nightwatchman’s Song, by W. D. Snodgrass – Confessionalist
3363
3364After Heinrich I. F. Biber
3365
3366I 
3367
3368What’s unseen may not exist—   
3369Or so those secret powers insist   
3370            That prowl past nightfall,   
3371Enabled by the brain’s blacklist   
3372            To fester out of sight,   
3373
3374So we streak from bad to worse,   
3375Through an expanding universe   
3376            And see no evil.   
3377On my rounds like a night nurse   
3378            Or sentry on qui vive,   
3379
3380I make, through murkier hours, my way   
3381Where the sun patrolled all day   
3382            Toward stone-blind midnight   
3383To poke this flickering flashlamp’s ray   
3384            At what’s hushed up and hidden.   
3385
3386Lacking all leave or protocol,   
3387Things, one by one, hear my footfall,   
3388            Blank out their faces,   
3389Dodge between trees, find cracks in walls   
3390            Or lock down offices.   
3391
3392Still, though scuttling forces flee   
3393Just as far stars recede from me   
3394            To outmost boundaries,   
3395I stalk through ruins and debris,   
3396            Graveyard and underground.   
3397
3398Led by their helmetlantern’s light   
3399Miners inch through anthracite;   
3400            I’m the unblinking mole   
3401That sniffs out what gets lost or might   
3402            Slip down the world’s black hole.   
3403
3404II 
3405
3406(ending his rounds, the watchman, somewhat tipsy, returns) 
3407
3408What’s obscene?—just our obsessed,   
3409Incessant itch and interest   
3410      In things found frightful:   
3411In bestial tortures, rape, incest;   
3412      In ripe forbidden fruit   
3413
3414Dangling, lush, just out of reach;   
3415Dim cellars nailed up under each   
3416      Towering success,   
3417The loser’s envy that will teach   
3418      A fierce vindictiveness,   
3419
3420The victors’ high court that insures   
3421Pardon for winners and procures   
3422      Little that’s needed   
3423But all we lust for. What endures?—   
3424      Exponential greed   
3425
3426And trash containers overflowing   
3427With shredded memos, records showing   
3428      What, who, when, why   
3429’Til there’s no sure way of knowing   
3430      What’s clear to every eye:   
3431
3432The heart’s delight in hatred, runny   
3433As the gold drip from combs of honey;   
3434      The rectal intercourse   
3435Of power politics and money   
3436      That slimes both goal and source.   
3437
3438What’s obscured?—what’s abscessed.   
3439After inspection, I’d suggest   
3440      It’s time we got our head   
3441Rewired. I plan to just get pissed,   
3442      Shitfaced and brain-dead.
3443
3444
3445A White City, by James Schuyler – New York School
3446
3447My thoughts turn south
3448a white city
3449we will wake in one another’s arms.
3450I wake
3451and hear the steam pipe knock
3452like a metal heart
3453and find it has snowed.
3454
3455Santa Fe Trail, by Barbara Guest – New York School
3456
3457I go separately
3458The sweet knees of oxen have pressed a path for me   
3459ghosts with ingots have burned their bare hands   
3460it is the dungaree darkness with China stitched   
3461where the westerly winds
3462and the traveler’s checks
3463the evensong of salesmen
3464the glistening paraphernalia of twin suitcases   
3465where no one speaks English.
3466I go separately
3467It is the wind, the rubber wind
3468when we brush our teeth in the way station   
3469a climate to beard. What forks these roads?
3470Who clammers o’er the twain?
3471What murmurs and rustles in the distance
3472in the white branches where the light is whipped   
3473piercing at the crossing as into the dunes we simmer   
3474and toss ourselves awhile the motor pants like a forest   
3475where owls from their bandaged eyes send messages   
3476to the Indian couple. Peaks have you heard?   
3477I go separately
3478We have reached the arithmetics, are partially quenched   
3479while it growls and hints in the lost trapper’s voice   
3480She is coming toward us like a session of pines   
3481in the wild wooden air where rabbits are frozen,   
3482O mother of lakes and glaciers, save us gamblers   
3483whose wagon is perilously rapt.
3484
3485Poem for My Twentieth Birthday, by Kenneth Koch – New York School
3486
3487Passing the American graveyard, for my birthday
3488the crosses stuttering, white on tropical green,
3489the years’ quick focus of faces I do not remember . . .
3490
3491The palm trees stalking like deliberate giants
3492for my birthday, and all the hot adolescent memories
3493seen through a screen of water . . .
3494
3495For my birthday thrust into the adult and actual:
3496expected to perform the action, not to ponder
3497the reality beyond the fact,
3498the man standing upright in the dream.
3499
3500So, by Michael Lally – New York School, 2nd Generation
3501
3502I wait and wonder
3503what I’d do
3504                   if someone said pick your 60 best poems.
3505Pick all of them? Or any?
3506Maybe commit suicide, but everyone would say
3507“It’s because he’s really gay,” or maybe
3508“really not gay.”
3509
3510                                                               *
3511 
3512Read Anne Waldman and Terence Winch,
3513Bruce Andrews and Adrienne Rich, wonder what might happen
3514to me this summer if I go away, or stay here in Washington DC
3515where you can see Watergate live!
3516
3517                                                                                   *
3518 
3519If you want to know the truth today’s my birthday
3520and though I often feel older, and sometimes appear younger
3521I’m 31, and like everything else that too can be fun
3522or a bummer, a drain on the cosmic energy, depending on what?
3523If you know the answer you win the future;
3524if you don’t the future is ours to lose or—
3525whatever happened to the old way of construction?
3526Well, one line still follows another, and my voices moves
3527between each space, and when I think of you I sweat,
3528or maybe just imagine myself like a cartoon troublemaker
3529big beads of perspiration jumping out from my skin as I
3530cringe behind the fence that the bully is about to
3531throw a bomb over, or drop an anvil over, or just put his
3532meaty fist through and right on into my scared shitless grin,
3533the analogy resting on our mutual vulnerability—
3534that’s poetry isn’t it?
3535
3536                                                                                 *
3537 
3538Of course I don’t talk like this.
3539I talk like this.
3540
3541                                                               *
3542And now it’s time to go back to THE HISTORY OF ROCK’N’ROLL
3543which means it’s my night to cook dinner for “the house”—
3544collective—and it’s gonna be smoked sausage cooked in peppers
3545and mushrooms and carrots, maybe some onions, and beans
3546for protein, or something nutritional. I picked the sausage
3547because it seemed to be looking at me in the Safeway,
3548not exactly the way I was looking at one of the cashiers,
3549a young man with curly blonde hair and nice build
3550who seemed to have a down home kind of friendliness,
3551or the woman with the little girl the same sizes as Miles,
3552who is a little smaller than Caitlin, both of whom were
3553pulling on my pants leg for pennies for gumballs as I watched
3554the curve of the woman’s arm as she placed each
3555well thought over item on the counter behind my
3556vibrational buying and didn’t even notice how much I fell in love
3557with her arm and felt guilty for objectifying a part of her
3558although she might all be like her arm and then I might
3559fall in love with all of her, but that would cause problems,
3560she probably is already in love with at least one person, and
3561I’m already in love with about fourteen on a regular basis, and
3562that keeps causing all kinds of problems because people who are
3563attracted to my style don’t like my ways—that sounded like
3564a pretentious folk singing prodigy’s idea of an early Dylan line,
3565but what I meant would never be explained right in a poem like this,
3566or one like Anne Waldman’s either though I like to read hers
3567because they make me want to write, and in my world that’s what
3568“great” writers are supposed to do–make everyone else, or
3569at least me, feel like I can write too, and then make me feel,
3570like I will, and then I do.
3571 
3572                                                                                 *
3573 
3574After dinner we’ll eat the cake Atticus made for my birthday
3575there’ll be some presents from some of the people in the house, and
3576maybe Annie will stop over, or Matthew might call from work, or we
3577might all go down to watch him make salads at
3578                                               FOOD FOR THOUGHT,
3579and maybe eat some too, all along getting stoned on the house doobie,
3580which goes too fast these days but never fast enough, which is
3581about the way I feel on my birthday about my life, either that or
3582the way I’m easily satisfied but never feel I can get too much–
3583sometimes everything is enough, you know?
3584 
3585                                                                                  *
3586
3587HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME,
3588I THINK I JUST HEARD CHUCK COME IN, CAITLIN’S
3589ANGRY WITH ME AND THROWING A TANTRUM IN
3590HER ROOM, IT’S RAINING BUT I HEAR THE DISHES
3591BEING DONE FINALLY BY SOMEONE ELSE
3592HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
3593
3594                                                               *
3595Resolution: No more guilt trips
3596from outside or inside
3597going either direction
3598–is everybody happy?
3599
3600New Years Eve 1989, by Bill Zavatsky – New York School, 2nd Generation
3601
3602Up on the roof, waiting for the fireworks to begin
3603in warm winter rain, a moment ago I stepped
3604from the elevator into the black air
3605of an almost New Year
3606and need a minute to catch my breath
3607at the spread of city open to my eye.
3608I can't go to the edge; I never could.
3609The old fear of height still troubles me,
3610the sensation that nothing can be under me
3611if I am surrounded by mist and rain
3612and all of the dark night air we breathe.
3613Even a glimpse at the treetops in the park,
3614with its slick crisscrossing roads that plunge
3615into the jumbled panorama of East Side Manhattan,
3616hysterical tonight with its own incandescence,
3617gives me the willies. I feel as if
3618I were standing on the deck of a showboat of a cloud
3619as it drifts down some dark river, waiting for it
3620to bang into some other building's fifteenth floor.
3621How can these old people hunch the railing,
3622hoisting their plastic glasses of champagne
3623from under dripping umbrellas, as if
3624they drank the rain as they laugh
3625their analyses of the weather?
3626Maybe now, like me, they have nothing to lose.
3627I moved in three weeks ago; this is my first trip
3628to the roof. I don't want to die tonight,
3629the first fatality of 1990! There's too much of me
3630I left in pieces last year, oh, the whole last decade:
3631But I'm up here to distract myself, temporarily,
3632from what I don't want or can't have
3633in the way of love. . . . That must be
3634the Triborough Bridge, tied in its strings
3635of blue lights, and I can see in Central Park
3636the skating rink, like a scoured mirror below,
3637where some madman waves a red lantern; he
3638must be drunk. I have only sipped a speck of Drambuie,
3639which I didn't carry in my Coca-Cola glass
3640up to these festivities. This is the first New Year's
3641I've spent alone in twenty, twenty-two years.
3642I never could go to the edge; but I did.
3643Out there in the dark: my marriage, the woman
3644I loved badly, as she did me, or none too well;
3645the places we lived; the apartment I once half-owned;
3646the thousands of books I had to leave behind
3647(though I am to be granted library privileges)
3648and the black and white cat I really miss.
3649My wife's with her friends tonight somewhere in Brooklyn;
3650friends of mine out there, too, though I don't know
3651where. It's just like me to move in the middle
3652of a telephone company strike. Thus, no calls
3653from anyone—and I don't even have
3654a telephone yet, so who could call? Damp but trying
3655to smile, I eye the revelers. Two young men
3656and their enormous girlfriends have joined us,
3657really large women who carry balloons, all ready
3658to froth in merry champagne. We check
3659our watches to the screams from swarms
3660of apartment windows to the west
3661as the sky lights up with the first furious
3662bombardment of colored shells. I can see that
3663red lantern swinging toward the rockets—aha!
3664So it wasn't a drunk, but the fireworks engineer
3665preparing to blow the year's last sky
3666to smithereens for our delight!
3667I like to follow the tiny spurts of flame
3668from the launching pad in their heavenward trajectory
3669as much as I like the rockets' red glare,
3670the bombs bursting in air, which give proof
3671to the night that I am still here, hands
3672jammed in the pockets of my sodden raincoat,
3673face dripping with rain, hat soaked, wondering
3674if the skinny guy in the army jacket behind me
3675(who looks just like I did in the sixties)
3676is mumbling his way into a combat flashback
3677and ready to hurl me over the edge of the roof
3678and into kingdom come. I guess not yet. We've
3679survived the first blasts of spinning green,
3680corkscrews of spangled flame, buds of fireballs
3681spewed in arching gold sprays, the whistling fire-fish
3682that curl and howl as they flare, falling to ash.
3683Screaming its head off, the New York New Year enters.
3684I feel sad that beautiful things must die,
3685even shadows made of smoke and flame,
3686whatever I thought I had made out of my life—
3687music, poems, books, kisses, a little useless fame.
3688The army guy behind me grumbles at the haze
3689of rocket smoke that coils around the trees,
3690then tumbles up into the air toward Harlem.
3691That bump and thud and bump sound everywhere,
3692more clouds smacking each other head-on.
3693The flashes of the explosions are close enough
3694to touch if you wanted to burn your fingers
3695on the sky, and the glare rocks our shadows back
3696against the brick, as if chaos snapped
3697our pictures in the dark. I smile for my portrait,
3698curious at the New Year, smelling the acrid smoke
3699of the one we've just destroyed. Then I squeeze into
3700the tiny elevator car with the others, anonymous,
3701reconciled to be so, back to my little apartment
3702and the waiting glass of amber drink I'll raise,
3703only half in jest, to my new life.
3704
3705
3706
3707You Don’t Know What Love Is, by Bill Zavatsky – New York School, 2nd Generation
3708
3709For Rebecca Feldman and Brian Roessler
3710
3711That's what the first line says
3712of the song I've been playing all summer
3713at the keyboard—trying to get my hands
3714around its dark, melancholy chords,
3715its story line of a melody that twists
3716up like snakes from melodic minor scales
3717that I've also been trying to learn, though
3718I'm no great shakes as a practicer of scales.
3719
3720Come to think of it, neither am I much
3721when it comes to love—no great shakes, I mean.
3722Not that I haven't had my chances.
3723Twenty years married, I made a lousy husband,
3724half asleep, selfish, more like a big baby
3725than a grown man, the poet laureate
3726of the self-induced coma when it came to
3727doing anything for anybody but me.
3728"Now and then he took his thumb
3729out of his mouth to write an ode to
3730or a haiku about the thumb he sucked all day."
3731
3732That's what I imagined my ex-wife said
3733to our therapist near the end. She did say:
3734"It's all about Bill." She was right.
3735And suddenly it frightens me, remembering
3736how, at our wedding, our poet friends
3737read poems of (mostly) utter depression
3738to salute us. I wondered if their griefs in love
3739had double-crossed our union, if strange
3740snakes in the grass of our blissful Eden
3741had hissed at us, and now I worry,
3742on your wedding day, if I'm not
3743doing the same damned thing . . . .
3744
3745I haven't come to spring up and put my curse
3746on your bliss. Here's what I want to say:
3747You're young. You don’t know what love is.
3748And as the next line of the song goes, you won't
3749—"Until you know the meaning of the blues."
3750Darlings, the blues will come (though not
3751often, I hope) to raise their fiery swords
3752against your paradise. A little of that
3753you unwittingly got today, when it rained
3754and you couldn't be married outside under
3755the beautiful tree in Nan and Alan's yard.
3756But paradise doesn't have to be structured
3757so that we can never reenter it. After
3758you've kicked each other out of it
3759once or twice (I'm speaking metaphorically,
3760of course), teach yourself how to say
3761a few kind words to each other.
3762Don't stand there angry, stony.
3763Each of you let the other know
3764what you are feeling and thinking
3765
3766and then it may be possible
3767to return to each other smiling,
3768hand in hand. For arm in arm,
3769you are your best Eden. Remember
3770the advice the old poet sang to you
3771on the afternoon of August 4, 2001,
3772the day you got married.
3773May you enjoy a good laugh
3774thinking of him and his silver thumb
3775now that you've turned the key
3776into your new life in the beautiful
3777Massachusetts rain and—hey, now—sun!
3778
3779Where X Marks the Spot, by Bill Zavatsky – New York School, 2nd Generation
3780
3781Not long after you had told me, gently,
3782that you still grieved for your last love,
3783though that had ended almost a year before,
3784and that you could have no intimate relationship
3785with me, maybe not with anyone for a time,
3786I stopped my fork in the air with whatever hung
3787on the end of it that I was eating.
3788My throat wouldn't swallow.
3789I felt weak and sick, as if it were myself
3790that I devoured, piece by piece, as you talked away
3791the hopes that I had put in your lovely face.
3792It was the old story coming true for me once more,
3793though you were hardly mine. . . .
3794When we finished I walked you back to your car;
3795I don't remember having much to say.
3796Why would I? Buildings drifted by,
3797and cars, and faces. Then we arrived at the place
3798where, afterwards, I would never see you again,
3799at a parking lot near Times Square.
3800There I marked the sidewalk with X's
3801visible only to me: "At this place
3802I was lost again," they'd say to me
3803when I walked there in the future.
3804"Dig here and find what's left of me,
3805or what I left behind, where X marks the spot."
3806I felt like the death's-head and crossed bones
3807that surmount the treasure chest.
3808I only felt a little like gold coins and jewels.
3809I have signed the City with these sphinxes
3810—in parks, in streets, in bedrooms,
3811in my own apartments. And there we stood,
3812you and I, hemmed in by the stitches of X's
3813that could not hold you to me. But X's
3814mean kisses, I realized, as well as
3815what is lost: all the kisses I couldn't give you
3816chalked like symbols on the sidewalk.
3817After all, you yourself had been marked
3818by loss, even in your laughter that afternoon
3819at the show I had taken you to. Bright-eyed
3820and smiling in the seat beside me, you
3821stole my glances with your dark, dark eyes
3822and your long hair. I thought that I had not been
3823this happy in a long time with a woman
3824and was ready to become even more happy,
3825ready to do anything that you wanted
3826in order to please you, to see that smile come up,
3827not knowing what you were soon to say to me
3828as we dined. And when you spoke,
3829I felt life fall away from me. Again I felt
3830that I would never be happy. I felt the words
3831that I had wanted to say to you leaving me, rushing
3832out of my chest like dead air, until I had no more words
3833to say. I seemed to cut and swallow my food
3834as if it were me myself that stuck in pieces
3835on the end of the fork I had raised to my mouth.
3836Had I been chewing on my own flesh?
3837Self-Pity the Devourer took me by the hand
3838that held the fork, and once again I feasted
3839on all that was dark and hopeless in myself,
3840in lieu of all that was beautiful, desirable,
3841and unattainable in you. And then
3842I stood beside you in the lot where you
3843had parked your car, with the X's buzzing
3844in the air, sticking themselves to you
3845and me and the blacktop and the cars.
3846When you reached out to embrace me, I
3847moved to embrace you in return—and then came
3848the part that I don't want to remember,
3849the part I hate: I caught a glimpse of your
3850face as we put our arms around each other,
3851and your face said everything to me about
3852how you had wasted the afternoon, how eager
3853you were to speed away in your car, a mixture
3854of disgust and relief that the thing would soon
3855be over, that I would be crossed out forever
3856from your life—and everything that I hated
3857about myself, my stupid chin, my ugly nose,
3858my hopeless balded head, my stuck-out ears,
3859my wreck of a heart, crashed over me,
3860spinning me into the vortex of a palpable self-hate
3861that I have only ever let myself feel
3862a little bit at a time, though it is always there
3863
3864Clinical Thermometer Set with Moonstone, by Alice Notley – New York School, 2nd Generation
3865
3866I don’t have any sentiments
3867would somebodything thirst my quench
3868how about
3869about my mediocrity of character? I dance
3870with the dead divinely
3871                                 in my dreams
3872I’m stricken deaf when I mention it my babies
3873cry they want everything quick! here. un-
3874mentioned   
3875                  as character should be
3876      like the purpurine it needs must be carved in,
3877                        please
3878
3879Have you heard of the roguess elephant with the
3880brilliant diamond eyes? She is the puppet
3881of the dictionary
3882                           where is her beautiful orange
3883juice?   
3884            puppy foot!   
3885                                 When your father dies
3886he doesn’t let you swoon   
3887                                       into aventurine or spray
3888of lily (pearls) of the valley
3889you do not bifurcate
3890                               you may
3891supplicate      
3892                   play yourself to your camp heroine
3893self—play it Lady play
3894It      
3895       but delete no matter
3896       thank you for breakfast
3897       today we will visit with the ear syringe
3898       be the current density   
3899                                           honey flower
3900                                           ice egg
3901I love you as a fan loves air. oops it’s I
3902                vice-versa I
3903                                  told you about that
3904       character      
3905                           She is a bezel
3906                           awaiting the plop of a
3907                           ruby she must grow
3908                           chronically
3909
3910and I can’t end and I can’t lie
3911here         
3912               He held him in his own heart then
3913               may I in my eye now me
3914
3915The Goddess Who Created This World, by Alice Notley – New York School, 2nd Generation
3916
3917The Goddess who created this passing world
3918Said Let there be lightbulbs & liquefaction
3919Life spilled out onto the street, colors whirled
3920Cars & the variously shod feet were born
3921And the past & future & I born too
3922Light as airmail paper away she flew
3923To Annapurna or Mt. McKinley
3924Or both but instantly
3925Clarified, composed, forever was I
3926Meant by her to recognize a painting
3927As beautiful or a movie stunning
3928And to adore the finitude of words
3929And understand as surfaces my dreams
3930Know the eye the organ of affection
3931And depths to be inflections
3932Of her voice & wrist & smile
3933 
3934It Would, by Alice Notley – New York School, 2nd Generation
3935
3936it would be that
3937but only if I knew how
3938    again
3939            Could something like
3940      that get lost?    no only
3941         a little a little lost
3942
3943         
3944      but if only I remember
3945      how I mean she or I
3946         oh a freight train goes by
3947    & they always do & did
3948          do
3949             I mean a real one too
3950         that I’m not on & am it
3951                very seriously
3952
3953               
3954         in this serious love world
3955       that one
3956      where something oddly music
3957            will pass through your
3958          night
3959                  and it will be me
3960             sweet me
3961
396230th Birthday, by Alice Notley – New York School, 2nd Generation
3963
3964May I never be afraid
3965                     especially of myself   
3966                                                      but
3967Muhammed Ali are you telling
3968the truth?      
3969                     Well you’re being true aren’t you and
3970you talk so wonderfully in your body
3971                     that protects you with physique of voice
3972      raps within dance
3973                              May I never be afraid
3974
3975                     rocked and quaked         
3976                                                      the mantilla is lace
3977                                                      whose black is oak
3978But if I’m dark I’m strong
3979                                       as my own darkness
3980my strength the universe   
3981                                       whose blackness is air
3982                                       only starry
3983                                       lace
3984But if I’m alive I’m strong   
3985                                           as life
3986Strong as the violets
3987in Marlon Brando’s fist
3988                                  his dissemblance flourished into truth   
3989                                                                                              She
3990took them
3991I’d take me too   
3992                           I do
3993                  and my Ali I see you      
3994                                                   a hard bright speck of me
3995the savage formalist
3996                               authentic deed of gossip
3997                   a kind body
3998
3999Incidents of Travel in Poetry, by Frank Lima – New York School, 2nd Generation
4000
4001We went to all those places where they restore sadness and joy
4002and call it art. We were piloted by Auden who became
4003Unbearably acrimonious when we dropped off Senghor into the
4004steamy skies of his beloved West Africa. The termites and ants
4005were waiting for him to unearth the sun in Elissa. The clouds
4006were as cool as a dog’s nose pressed against our cheeks. I
4007notice your eggshell skin is as creamy as a lion’s armpit as we
4008cross the horizon on strands of Yeats’ silver hair. There is a
4009light coffee flame in his eyes guiding us like an old Irish house
4010cleaner holding a candle in a black and white English movie.
4011Yeats’ lips look like an angry Rimbaud illuminating poetry with
4012his youth and vigorous sunlight. He knew eternity would vanish
4013the sun at dusk. He caught it with a rainbow tied to his finger.
4014There was nothing left after that. We cross the equator
4015heading north following Emily Dickinson’s black bag containing
4016stems of her longer poems preserved in darkness and memory
4017like wild pearls thrown overboard to avoid capture by Spanish
4018pirates. The islands below float by like water hearts in a child’s
4019aquarium. We are candy wrappers being blown across the
4020waxed floors of poetry. We land on the Brooklyn Bridge.
4021Whitman’s past-port face is grinning at the nineteenth century
4022in the thorny arms of Gerard Manley Hopkins whose head was
4023set on fire by God’s little hands. The hands that circumcised
4024the world. Gertrude Stein is a match flaring on a young
4025woman’s pillow whose birthmarks have been stolen. We cross
4026the green Atlantic into World War One. We are met by Rilke
4027dressed in his Orpheus uniform wearing white sonnet gloves
4028that once belonged to a stone angel. Rilke offers us a glass of
4029amontillado made from Lorca’s private stock of gypsy tears.
4030The sherry is not quite as dry as Wallace Stevens’ lush mango
4031metaphors of familiar objects. Although Stevens’ poems are
4032fragrant, there is a lingering afterthought of Pound on the
4033tongue. Pound collected his misty feelings to make raindrops
4034into European and American poetry. Vagueness became as
4035sharp as a pencil. Our blue box is not allowed to attend
4036Apollinaire’s birthday party held by the august Académie
4037française on the Eiffel Tower. He is being awarded the “Golden
4038Frog Souffle Award” and a one-way ticket to the Greek and
4039Roman past to spend afternoons with Williams filling wheel-
4040barrows with the twentieth century. Both Apollinaire and
4041Williams could hail a cab on Madison Avenue in any country.
4042After the bash we toured Paris and London with D.H. Lawrence
4043who kept stopping to relieve himself of the great mysteries of
4044life whenever we went by a Bavarian gentian plant. He claimed
4045he was writing poetry for his new book: Acts of Attention for
4046Love Poems. Eliot was rebuilding London when we left. It
4047reminded him of Detroit or Cincinnati or Saint Louis. He was
4048removing despair from the weather. He thought it affected
4049people’s minds and did not want to overload Mayakovsky’s
4050emptiness with old English churches that pray for water heaters
4051and cloudless nights. Mayakovsky, on the other hand, insisted
4052there were bugs in Russia who could write poetry just as
4053interestingly as Eliot. The Russian winter is elegant cruelty
4054compared with the English milk-toast weather: “A man without
4055a cloud in his trousers is not a man.” Eliot thought this was the
4056most boring statement he had ever heard. Although
4057Cummings’ poems appear unintentional on the surface, he did
4058not act like a drunken amputee at the dinner table and always
4059said pleasant things that came out of nowhere. His
4060conversation was experimental but logical and he investigated
4061words, mixing them on paper with a pencil. Cummings was all
4062etcetera after a few drinks. We move the sun to South
4063America. Neruda had become an organic poet writing about
4064the fulcra of yes and no. He wasn’t home when we got there,
4065so we went over to Allen’s for some microbiotic poetry. As
4066usual, Allen was rolling incense and howling at America. Allen
4067was always mystical and beautiful when he walked on the
4068Lower East Side. When he stepped into the old Jewish
4069pavement, he mystified the habitués. David Shapiro, the Djinn
4070of subatomic poetry, asked Allen what was the future of poetry
4071in the borough of Queens? Allen placed the palm of his right
4072hand on David’s glistening forehead and said: “David, don’t you
4073know? The future has no future. It is very old and doesn’t
4074worry about its future anymore, because it has so little left of
4075it.” Allen made suicide exhilarating when he wrote Kaddish.
4076Finally, suicide could talk about the pain of living with
4077unbearable beauty. Beauty was Frank O’Hara talking to Second
4078Avenue with a diamond in his head. We were the personal
4079details in Frank’s harem of private lives when LeRoi insisted on
4080becoming black, abandoning us for a noble cause, according to
4081Frank, who loved Imamu Amiri Baraka. We were the details in
4082Frank’s poems and living one’s life was a detail in Frank’s life.
4083John Ashbery arrived from Paris on a plane made of expensive
4084suits, shirts, and ties. Like his poems, he was sparkling and
4085squeaky clean, dressed in elegant language. He is the
4086daydream that had become a poet. His subject is to have no
4087subject. Perhaps a casual reference to someone special. He is
4088a poet of the less obvious in life: the sestina made of clouds.
4089We crossed the equator on our way to a cocktail party for Gary
4090Snyder. There is no other life for his outdoor poems,
4091hitchhiking on hands-on love. Gary seems to have time to
4092write poems about the notes in his life. Kenneth, on the other
4093hand, has a paper cup full of wonderful poems. He can write a
4094poem about a cathedral living in a paper cup. Kenneth travels
4095everywhere with his paper cup. At a certain time of day,
4096Kenneth finds room in his paper cup for perfect days and
4097perfect moments:
4098Perfect moments when Frank spoke to us.
4099Perfect moments when Allen spoke to us.
4100And they sang to us
4101with human wings
4102upon which we sleep.
4103
4104Epicedium to Potter’s Field, by Frank Lima – New York School, 2nd Generation
4105
4106My father was
4107A blossom,
4108And I was his fragile
4109Epiphyte on his
4110Days off.
4111The purple
4112Dogs of years
4113Gone by
4114Watch him smile
4115At the horizon.
4116His feretory
4117Catches the
4118Rain from the
4119Smoldering sky.
4120These fields are
4121Fallow and dried
4122Gullies where gin
4123Sparkled
4124In the morning.
4125My father’s remains
4126Are smooth like the
4127Starlight that
4128Makes my life
4129Slightly yellow.
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134Juarez, by Frank Lima – New York School, 2nd Generation
4135
4136These empty words are so remote. They are stories someone wants
4137To believe at the end of the century. Everyone gathers their sea of telluric
4138Pain to greet the beginning of the new world.
4139
4140Cars stop and watch the deck chairs limp across the street to await
4141The coming of the new year. It is the end of summer and autumn and
4142Winters and springs, and panzer infatuation.
4143
4144After four hundred eighty-one years, I cannot pull out the Spanish arrow
4145In my eye. Suddenly everything I knew was inhuman:
4146The oceans, the tadpoles in their new cars. The clams became
4147Cheerleaders. The palm trees, strippers, and everyone forgot,
4148Deer are the shapes of God.
4149
4150His official language became Latin, when he ceased to be a Jew,
4151Biting his nails and collecting cans like a cheap minister with sunny gold teeth.
4152The tender years that once wore oysters would never speak to Him again.
4153
4154The female spider became a lesbian, devouring our new long legs,
4155That would never again climb the toy steps our fathers left us. Although
4156Our legs are hairy and the lilies of a theater, the gentle lips of
4157Our pyramids rest on our souls like a lover’s fingers.
4158
4159How many aspirins will we take to reach the surface of truth?
4160My existence is for sale. The dawn is learning English.
4161The waves of the sea are unionizing.
4162
4163The stones that were once our troubled hearts are eating chocolate.
4164I come to sell you fish, the bread in my blood and my existence.
4165
4166Byron, by Frank Lima
4167
4168I put my hand
4169Into the dream
4170That falls upon
4171The air. It
4172Touches me a little,
4173But I don’t complain.
4174I’m almost asleep
4175When I get there.
4176Where Byron
4177Lost the scent of his
4178Life, over there,
4179Where the dreams are.
4180It’s always
4181Hot, like
4182The eyes of the
4183Dream. Sometimes
4184The dream is
4185On the dunes
4186Watching the molten
4187Ocean burn the sun.
4188The dream scours the
4189Sand in your fish
4190Tank for the plastic
4191Mermaid who is gaining
4192weight. Nevertheless,
4193We go to the edge
4194To watch the dream
4195And the repetition being
4196Hurled ashore like
4197A drop of blue,
4198You wrote in a poem,
4199In a language
4200You alone
4201Understand
4202In the dream.
4203 
4204
4205Heckyll and Jeckyll, by Frank Lima – New York School, 2nd Generation
4206
4207Crows see us as another invention.
4208
4209Like summer and beauty,
4210
4211They shimmer at sunrise in their new cars,
4212Change their names and color when they see us.
4213
4214When they fly, they’re the bite marks on the sun,
4215And nail-scratches of black against the sky.
4216
4217
4218We matter little to them as we are.
4219They prefer hamburger, youth,
4220
4221Oxygen and mineral water.
4222And, of course, we sell our souls to a passing crow,
4223
4224Because we’re shiny things they take to heaven.
4225
4226Crows are always polite to humans.
4227They have lots of money
4228
4229And live at a party that never ends.
4230We’re the junk genes they left behind,
4231
4232That play Aztec football with our heads,
4233When we dream and lose.
4234
4235
4236Crows have relatives everywhere.
4237Human warfare moves across the sky
4238
4239Making more room for them to fly.
4240We’re just a meal in the next world.
4241
4242We’re the hole in the sky.
4243
4244Crows are legends and instructors of grace.
4245They are the dots in the fog,
4246
4247And the flight of the uterus.
4248
4249Crows are the printed warnings
4250Of a wasted life.
4251
4252They will never leave or abandon us.
4253
4254When we take our last breath,
4255Navigating through our mistakes and lies,
4256
4257The crows will take our last word.
4258
4259We are the last citizens of a pale race of crows,
4260Rearranging the furniture in the mind of God.
4261
4262
4263Crows turn the planet on its axis when we die,
4264And do nothing to the body we’ll remember.
4265
4266Our souls are their meal of the day.
4267
4268And the blue marble in its beak,
4269
4270As it flies away,
4271Is the world leaving you.
4272
4273The Love Cook, by Ron Padgett – New York School, 2nd Generation
4274
4275Let me cook you some dinner.   
4276Sit down and take off your shoes   
4277and socks and in fact the rest   
4278of your clothes, have a daquiri,   
4279turn on some music and dance   
4280around the house, inside and out,   
4281it’s night and the neighbors   
4282are sleeping, those dolts, and   
4283the stars are shining bright,   
4284and I’ve got the burners lit   
4285for you, you hungry thing.
4286
4287Poem, by Ron Padgett – New York School, 2nd Generation
4288
4289I’m in the house.
4290It’s nice out: warm
4291sun on cold snow.
4292First day of   spring
4293or last of   winter.
4294My legs run down
4295the stairs and out
4296the door, my top
4297half   here typing
4298
4299Appeal to the Grammarians, by Paul Violi – New York School, 2nd Generation
4300
4301We, the naturally hopeful,
4302Need a simple sign
4303For the myriad ways we’re capsized.
4304We who love precise language
4305Need a finer way to convey
4306Disappointment and perplexity.
4307For speechlessness and all its inflections,
4308For up-ended expectations,
4309For every time we’re ambushed
4310By trivial or stupefying irony,
4311For pure incredulity, we need
4312The inverted exclamation point.
4313For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,
4314For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift
4315Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,
4316Or felt love or pond ice
4317Give way underfoot, we deserve it.
4318We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,
4319The child whose ball doesn’t bounce back,
4320The flat tire at journey’s outset,
4321The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.
4322But mainly because I need it – here and now
4323As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
4324Staring at my espresso and cannoli
4325After this middle-aged couple
4326Came strolling by and he suddenly
4327Veered and sneezed all over my table
4328And she said to him, “See, that’s why
4329I don’t like to eat outside.”
4330
4331Counterman, by Paul Violi – New York School, 2nd Generation
4332
4333What’ll it be?
4334
4335Roast beef on rye, with tomato and mayo.
4336
4337Whaddaya want on it?
4338
4339A swipe of mayo.
4340Pepper but no salt.
4341
4342You got it. Roast beef on rye.
4343You want lettuce on that?
4344
4345No. Just tomato and mayo.
4346
4347Tomato and mayo. You got it.
4348…Salt and pepper?
4349
4350No salt, just a little pepper.
4351
4352You got it. No salt.
4353You want tomato.
4354
4355Yes. Tomato. No lettuce.
4356
4357No lettuce. You got it.
4358…No salt, right?
4359
4360Right. No salt.
4361
4362You got it. Pickle?
4363
4364No, no pickle. Just tomato and mayo.
4365And pepper.
4366
4367Pepper.
4368
4369Yes, a little pepper.
4370
4371Right. A little pepper.
4372No pickle.
4373
4374Right. No pickle.
4375
4376You got it.
4377Next!
4378
4379Roast beef on whole wheat, please,
4380With lettuce, mayonnaise and a center slice
4381Of beefsteak tomato.
4382The lettuce splayed, if you will,
4383In a Beaux Arts derivative of classical acanthus,
4384And the roast beef, thinly sliced, folded
4385In a multi-foil arrangement
4386That eschews Bragdonian pretensions
4387Or any idea of divine geometric projection
4388For that matter, but simply provides
4389A setting for the tomato
4390To form a medallion with a dab
4391Of mayonnaise as a fleuron.
4392And—as eclectic as this may sound—
4393If the mayonnaise can also be applied
4394Along the crust in a Vitruvian scroll
4395And as a festoon below the medallion,
4396That would be swell.
4397
4398You mean like in the Cathedral St. Pierre in Geneva?
4399
4400Yes, but the swag more like the one below the rosette
4401At the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.
4402
4403You got it.
4404Next!
4405
4406Tanka, by Pual Violi
4407
4408Where the blossoms fall
4409like snow on the dock
4410bring fifty thousand in cash
4411
4412or you’ll never see
4413your baby again
4414
4415Lines Written on a Splinter from Apollinaire’s Coffin, by Paul Violi – New York School, 2nd Generation
4416
4417Look at me now, I stand before you, a man
4418       whom life has made a gullible skeptic.
4419Life so obvious and strange,
4420            so full of marvels and dross
4421even in our sleep we create monuments
4422                even in our grave
4423
4424What more can we ask
4425than to never know what to expect
4426        Each day has a different emissary
4427Yesterday she was sharp-eyed
4428    She was calm and free
4429so calm I could hear the vines grow
4430              and the mad fluttering
4431        of tiger-swallowtails
4432fill the pink-blossomed tree
4433              outside her window
4434
4435The day before that
4436           she was an aloof odalisque
4437  from whose embrace I collapsed
4438trying to catch my breath
4439                                  alas
4440while she cracked her knuckles
4441
4442Whenever I walk in the woods
4443                           I’m side tracked
4444One day by fauns
4445    simple    nearly imperceptible
4446          as they shift into light and shade,
4447the next by a cool steady breath
4448               that led me
4449   to what I thought was a small cave
4450        which I entered
4451                 and found an immense cavern
4452 that lengthwise
4453                               toe to fingertip
4454revealed the exact shape of a giant
4455
4456There’s one for each of us
4457      to try and measure
4458                       an incalculable absence
4459formed by every marvelous thing
4460      we have seen or done
4461dripping down into earth
4462                     creating a mold
4463      we would normally attribute
4464to something more precise
4465      and instantaneous
4466                 gods’ weaponry
4467lightning or forgetfulness
4468
4469But no, it’s ours
4470huge, anatomically detailed, empty,
4471            its every crease and line
4472illumined by nothing more than
4473            our grateful selves,
4474  its magnitude compressed
4475          into the cool narrow song
4476our flurried life
4477                 welcomes as inspiration
4478
4479Though whistling a mere shadow tune
4480                                I emerged
4481         Height: 5'10"
4482         Weight: 172
4483         Shoe-size: 10 1/2 
4484         Wingspan: 26', at least in the morning
4485           that time of blessed isolation
4486before we have to ask
4487      Where does it go,
4488                             whatever we know?
4489Where can we go
4490    when our wings weigh more
4491                                   than the rest of us?
4492
4493Already weighed down with manual and atlas
4494      my bookshelf has begun to sag
4495into the perpetual smile of a dimwit
4496    I’ll prop it up
4497         with twelve oversized volumes
4498of The History of the Fierce
4499    I’ll stand and slowly spin
4500         in the center of great cities again
4501                folding and unfolding my map
4502        like a punctured accordion
4503
4504   Vanity and sweet knowledge
4505We had to dig through ashes
4506                            with a lead shovel
4507to reach this silence
4508     Wave your burning flags O stars
4509My heart’s on my sleeve
4510                             my money on Science
4511I’ll agree to banishment
4512                to a remote isle
4513as long as I’m allowed to bring
4514the book of my choice:
4515                 the dictionary
4516       A shadow isle the clouds of my choice
4517             cast on the luxurious sea
4518What more can I ask?
4519     For a wilder lie to make
4520                  the truth more real
4521                                                  and a voice
4522that will carry it to you
4523over the cavernous sky: Altocumulus
4524                                                  Stratovarious
4525
4526
4527The Distances, by Jim Carroll – New York School, 2nd Generation
4528
4529The accumulation of reefs
4530piling up one over the others
4531like thoughts of the sky increasing as the head rises
4532unto horizons of wet December days perforated
4533with idle motions of gulls . . . and our feelings.
4534 
4535I’ve been wondering about what you mean,
4536standing in the spray of shadows before an ocean
4537abandoned for winter, silent as a barque of blond hair.
4538 
4539and the way the clouds are bending, the way they “react”
4540to your position, where your hands close over your breasts
4541like an eyelid approving the opening of “an evening’s light.”
4542 
4543parasites attach themselves to the moss covering
4544your feet, blind Cubans tossing pearls across the jetty,
4545and the sound of blood fixes our eyes on the red waves.
4546 
4547                                                                              it is a shark!
4548 
4549and our love is that rusted bottle . . . pointing north,
4550the direction which we turn, conjuring up our silver knives
4551and spoons and erasing messages in the sand, where you wrote
4552 
4553“freezing in the arctic of our dreams,” and I said
4554“yes” delaying the cold medium for a time
4555while you continued to “cultivate our possessions”
4556 
4557as the moon probably “continued” to cradle.
4558tan below the slant of all those wasted trees
4559while the scent carried us back to where we were:
4560 
4561dancing like the children of great diplomats
4562with our lean bodies draped in bedsheets and
4563leather flags while the orchestra made sounds
4564 
4565which we thought was the sky, but was only a series
4566of words, dying in the thick falsetto of mist.
4567for what can anyone create from all these things:
4568 
4569the fancied tilt of stars, sordid doves
4570burning in the hollow brick oven, oceans
4571which generalize tears, it is known to us
4572 
4573in immediate gestures, like candle drippings
4574on a silk floor. what are we going to do with anything?
4575besides pick it up gently and lay it on the breath
4576 
4577of still another morning, mornings which are
4578always remaining behind for one thing or another
4579shivering in our faces of pride and blooming attitude.
4580 
4581in the draught of winter air my horse is screaming
4582you are welcoming the new day with your hair leaning
4583against the sand, feet dive like otters in the frost
4584 
4585and the sudden blue seems to abandon as you leap. O
4586to make everything summer! soldiers move along lines
4587like wet motions in the violent shade’s reappearance.
4588 
4589but what if your shadow no longer extends to my sleeping?
4590and your youth dissolves in my hand like a tongue, as
4591the squandered oceans and skies will dissolve into a single plane
4592 
4593(so I’ll move along that plane)                unnoticed and gray
4594as a drift of skulls over the cool Atlantic where I am
4595standing now, defining you in perhaps, the only word I can.
4596 
4597as other words are appearing, so cunningly, on the lips
4598of the many strips of light. like naked bodies
4599stretched out along the only beach that remained,
4600brown and perfect below the descending of tides.
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607Maybe I’m Amazed, by Jim Carroll – New York School, 2nd Generation
4608
4609Just because there is music
4610piped into the most false of revolutions
4611 
4612it cannot clean these senses
4613of slow wireless death crawling
4614from a slick mirror
46151/8th it’s normal size . . .
4616 
4617Marty was found dead by the man literally
4618blue 12 hours after falling out
4619at the foot of the Cloisters
4620with its millions in rare tapestry
4621and its clear view of the Hudson
4622 
4623and even testing your blue pills
4624over and over to reverse
4625my slow situations
4626I wind up stretched across the couch
4627still nodding with Sherlock Holmes
4628examining our crushed veins
4629 
4630Richard Brautigan,
4631I don’t care who you are fucking
4632in your clean California air
4633 
4634I just don’t care
4635 
4636though mine are more beautiful anyway
4637               (though more complex perhaps)
4638 
4639and we have white flowers too
4640right over our window on 10th St.
4641like hands that mark tiny x’s
4642across infinity day by day
4643 
4644but even this crumb of life
4645I eventually surface toward
4646continues to nod as if I see you all
4647thoughtlessly
4648through a carefully inverted piece
4649of tainted glass
4650 
4651shattered in heaven
4652and found on these streets
4653
4654Revolution, by Anne Waldman – New York School, 2nd Generation
4655
4656Spooky summer on the horizon I’m gazing at
4657from my window into the streets
4658That’s where it’s going to be where everyone is
4659walking around, looking around out in the open
4660suspecting each other’s heart to open fire
4661all over the streets
4662                              like streets you read about every day
4663who are the network we travel through on the way to the center
4664which is energy filling life
4665and bursting with joy all over the screen
4666                                                             I can’t sit still any longer!
4667
4668I want to go where I’m not feeling so bad
4669Get off this little island before the bridges break
4670(my heart is a sore thing too)
4671No I want to sit in the middle watching movies
4672then go to bed in my head
4673Someone is banging on it with a heavy stick like the enemy
4674who is he going to be turns into a face you can’t recognize
4675then vanishes behind a window behind a gun
4676Like the lonely hero stalking the main street
4677cries out Where are you? I just want to know
4678all the angles of death possible under the American sky!
4679
4680I can hardly see for all the buildings polluting the sky
4681until it changes into a barrage of bottles
4682then clears up for a second while you breathe
4683and you realize you[r]’e still as alive as ever and want to be
4684but would like to be somewhere else perhaps Africa
4685Start all over again as the race gets darker and darker
4686and the world goes on the way I always thought it would
4687For the winner is someone we recognize out of our collective past
4688which is turning over again in the grave
4689
4690                                    It is so important when one dies you replace her
4691                                    and never waste a minute
4692
4693Giant Night, by Anne Waldman – New York School, 2nd Generation
4694
4695Awake in a giant night
4696is where I am
4697                   There is a river where my soul,   
4698hungry as a horse drinks beside me
4699
4700An hour of immense possibility flies by   
4701and I do nothing but sit in the present   
4702which keeps changing moment to moment
4703
4704How can I tell you my mind is a blanket?
4705
4706It is an amazing story you won’t believe   
4707and a beautiful land
4708where something is always doing in the barns   
4709especially in autumn
4710                         Sliding down the hayrick!
4711
4712By March the sun is lingering and the land turns wet
4713
4714Brooks grow loud
4715The eddies fill with green scum   
4716Crocuses lift their heads to say hello
4717
4718Soon it is good to be planting
4719By then the woods are overflowing
4720with dogwood, redbud, hickory, red and white oaks,   
4721hazelnut bushes, violets, jacks-in-the-pulpit,   
4722skunk cabbages, pawpaws and May apples
4723whose names thrill you because you can name them!
4724
4725There are quail and rabbits too—but I go on too long
4726
4727Like the animal, I must stop by the water’s edge   
4728to have a drink and think things over
4729
4730*
4731
4732That was good. The drink I mean
4733I feel refreshed and ready for anything
4734Though I’m not in Vermont or Kentucky unfortunately   
4735but in New York City, the toughest place in the world
4736
4737And it’s December
4738
4739Here someone is always weeping, including me
4740though I tend to cry in monster waves then turn into a fish   
4741wallowing in my own salty
4742                         Puddle! Look out
4743If you aren’t wearing boots you’ll be sorry
4744and soggy too
4745
4746*
4747
4748This season’s cruelty hurts me
4749and others, I’m sure, who’d rather be elsewhere but can’t   
4750because of their jobs, families, friends, money
4751It’s rough anyway you look at it
4752
4753But what can you do?
4754
4755It’s worse elsewhere, I’m sure   
4756
4757Take Vietnam
4758
4759No thanks
4760
4761I think about Vietnam a lot, however   
4762and wonder if I’ll ever “see” it   
4763The way I’ve seen Europe, I mean
4764
4765Those pretty Dutch girls!   
4766They all ride bicycles
4767
4768In Venice you travel by boat or foot
4769
4770The metro and the underground register like the names   
4771in connection with them:
4772
4773Hugo, Stephen, Stuart, Larry, Lee, Harry, David, Maxine   
4774
4775What does it all mean?
4776I never ask that, being shy
4777
4778In this apartment in which I dwell these thoughts pass by   
4779
4780I hope you won’t mind the mess when you do too   
4781
4782*
4783
4784You just walk in up a flight and you’re in paradise
4785
4786A cup of coffee, an easy chair, a loving person waiting for you   
4787who’s washing the dishes, reading a book
4788
4789Outside someone’s worrying about love and not sitting down either
4790
4791He’s probably freezing his ass off right now!
4792And other vital parts which would feel great in the country,   
4793taking a walk, a hike, shoveling snow
4794
4795Though you can do that right here
4796
4797*
4798
4799The hub of the universe is where I am in a night whose promise   
4800grows with me, unlike the snow melting in the gutter
4801
4802Whatever I do, it is beside me
4803
4804I look out the window, there is night
4805I sit in this lighted room knowing this night   
4806Night! Night! I wish you’d go so I could go
4807to the post office, the bank, the supermarket
4808
4809Why aren’t they open at night? I wonder   
4810Then realize I’m not the only person who’s   
4811considered in the grand scope of daily living
4812
4813There are those fast asleep who want to be and would be horrified   
4814if the post office, the bank, and the supermarket
4815were only open at night
4816for you can’t be all there all the time
4817I myself am only here part of the time   
4818which is enough
4819                  For there are other places to run to
4820
4821Uptown, for example, where energy rushes you   
4822like some hideous but intriguing chemical
4823you can’t ignore
4824and you want to absorb the wisdom these buildings have
4825
4826How do they feel so high up like that?
4827
4828Pretty good, they seem to say in their absolute way   
4829But it’s the people inside who turn us on
4830
4831By then you are gone off in a cab   
4832and you are not alone
4833
4834                        I am beside you
4835
4836The streets are familiar from just traveling through   
4837We rarely stop and when we do there’s a reason
4838
4839Which is too bad
4840We miss a lot for this same reason
4841
4842*
4843
4844They’re probably feeding the chickens about this time   
4845The smell of chicken feed overwhelms me
4846The rooster crows on a 7th Street fire escape
4847Breakfast is ready
4848                         There is a forest by the river near the barn   
4849where things are happening,
4850a whole new world on the edge of dawn
4851
4852*
4853
4854My little world goes on St. Mark’s Place   
4855
4856To be not tired, but elated, I sing this song
4857
4858I think of The Beatles and The Beach Boys   
4859and the songs they sing
4860
4861It is a different thing to be behind the sound   
4862then leave it forever
4863and it goes on without them, needing only you and me
4864
4865Here I am, though you are asleep
4866
4867The morning of December 3rd dawns on me   
4868in the shape of a poem called “Giant Night”
4869
4870It must end before it is too late
4871
4872All over the world children will celebrate Christmas
4873And families will gather together to give and take this season
4874
4875Other religions and customs will prevail in their own separate ways   
4876having nothing to do with Christmas
4877
4878Soldiers will cease fire
4879
4880Some won’t know the difference but might be able to sense it   
4881    in the air
4882
4883The smell of holly, pine, eggnog
4884The friendly faces of Santa and his elves
4885
4886All these will add up to something and be gone forever   
4887
4888Just like what is here one minute and not the next.
4889
4890Scallop Song, by Anne Waldman – New York School, 2nd Generation
4891
4892I wore a garland of the briar that put me now in awe
4893
4894I wore a garland of the brain that was whole
4895
4896It commanded me, done babbling
4897
4898And I no more blabbed, spare no lie
4899
4900Tell womanhood she shake off pity
4901
4902Tell the man to give up tumult for the while
4903
4904To wonder at the sight of baby's beauty
4905
4906Ne let the monsters fray us with things that not be
4907
4908From a high tower poem issuing
4909
4910Everything run along in creation till I end the song
4911
4912Ne none fit for so wild beasts
4913
4914Ne none so joyous, ne none no give no lie
4915
4916Tell old woes to leave off here:
4917
4918I sing this into a scallop shell with face of a pearl
4919
4920& leave all sorrow bye & bye.
4921
49223 Pages, by Ted Berrigan – New York School, 2nd Generation
4923
4924For Jack Collom
4925
492610 Things I do Every Day
4927
4928                              play poker
4929                              drink beer
4930                              smoke pot
4931                              jack off
4932                   curse
4933
4934BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN
4935
4936                               flower
4937
4938      positive & negative
4939
4940go home
4941
4942          read   lunch   poems
4943
4944               hunker down
4945
4946    changes
4947
4948                  Life goes by
4949                                        quite merrily
4950                                                               blue
4951                        NO HELP WANTED
4952                                 
4953                                 Hunting For The Whale
4954
4955                   “and if the weather plays me fair
4956                               I’m happy every day.”
4957
4958                     The white that dries clear
4959                     the heart attack
4960                     the congressional medal of honor
4961                     A house in the country
4962
4963                     NOT ENOUGH
4964
4965Things To Do in New York (City), by Ted Berrigan – New York School, 2nd Generation
4966
4967  for Peter Schjeldahl
4968
4969                      Wake up high up
4970                              frame bent & turned on
4971                      Moving slowly
4972                              & by the numbers
4973                      light cigarette
4974                      Dress in basic black
4975                              & reading a lovely old man’s book:
4976 
4977                         BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN
4978 
4979                        change
4980 
4981                                      flashback
4982 
4983                play cribbage on the Williamsburg Bridge
4984                watching the boats sail by
4985                the sun, like a monument,
4986                move slowly up the sky
4987                above the bloody rush:
4988 
4989break yr legs & break yr heart
4990kiss the girls & make them cry
4991loving the gods & seeing them die
4992 
4993                                         celebrate your own
4994                                    & everyone else’s birth:
4995 
4996                                    Make friends forever
4997                                    & go away
4998
4999The Sonnets: III, by Ted Berrigan – New York School, 2nd Generation
5000
5001Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,
5002deep in whose reeds great elephants decay,
5003I, an island, sail, and my shoes toss
5004on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
5005bristling hate.
5006It’s true, I weep too much. Dawns break
5007slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
5008what other men sometimes have thought they’ve seen.
5009And since then I’ve been bathing in the poem
5010lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,
5011and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place
5012the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships
5013O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!
5014and fall on my knees then, womanly.
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019O Heart Uncovered, by Joseph Ceravolo – New York School, 2nd Generation
5020
5021We lived in province snow range
5022and something that we uncover
5023is like living
5024in one Arizona room
5025when we discover all we owe
5026to darkness
5027we never really know.
5028
5029Tomorrow is the national holiday for independence—
5030no more left.
5031For the first time
5032we see the mountains
5033with snow on them pulling away
5034from the mountains and clouds.
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057The Innocent Breasts, by Joel Oppenheimer – Black Mountain
5058
5059the innocenceof her
5060breasts. the way in
5061the soft morning, as
5062she leaned over him,
5063reaching to see the
5064time, they hung tender
5065and innocent.
5066		just
5067six hours earlier, as
5068in many other beds,
5069they had been hard
5070and passionate as
5071pomegranates, and a
5072few hours before
5073that, every man at
5074the party wanted them.
5075go further back: ten
5076months ago they had
5077been filled with
5078milk, and the boy
5079suckled, and the
5080man held back his
5081hands and lips—now
5082they were not his.
5083
5084we are all, we know
5085now, bone-pickers after
5086Darwin, rag-pickers after
5087marx, brain-pickers
5088after freud—we are
5089trying to reconstruct
5090our history. breasts
5091are a sexual attribute.
5092the chimpanzee’s flat
5093chest with long nipple
5094is more efficient for
5095feeding. the breast is
5096a sexual attribute. they
5097hang warm and innocent
5098in the morning.
5099		     four
5100hours later, at the
5101forum, fortunately or
5102not, those breasts took
5103over the conversation.
5104after all man is a
5105political animal also.
5106and can figure a way
5107to breasts even with
5108war. but she was embarrassed,
5109saying, they’re not
5110even that good. and he:
5111you didn’t think i’d
5112mention your ass, did you?
5113and the politics of
5114breasts leads men into
5115madness, tumbling over
5116each other in a
5117mad race for a
5118sight, touch, taste.
5119i won’t be blamed
5120for it—i unabashedly
5121stare though every
5122see-through blouse,
5123look down every low
5124neckline, peer carefully
5125through the right
5126kind of armhole. it
5127is nobody’s fault, we
5128are born to love them,
5129even though they are
5130difficult to make
5131love to.
5132	the buttocks
5133at least are truly
5134functional, allowing
5135man mobility, agility,
5136speed. the breasts hang
5137innocent in the morning
5138light. at night they
5139tighten in desire; in
5140the evening they peep
5141provocatively. the
5142young man asked plaintively
5143whether lenin had ever
5144wondered about the cup-sizes
5145of fellow revolutionaries.
5146i hope so—this is how
5147the revolution gets
5148made.
5149
5150         in the morning light
5151he ached to touch them,
5152catch the weight and the
5153softness in his hand, but
5154could not. some obscure
5155idea made him just watch,
5156while she thought him
5157still asleep. they were
5158too innocent in the
5159morning lights. he thought
5160it no time for the carnal,
5161though he laughed as he
5162thought that, he preferred
5163the thoughts he was
5164having, to the action—
5165not perversely, but as
5166a special delight.
5167		      besides,
5168after the forum, they
5169would nap, in the warm
5170afternoon, and the meat
5171of it, the true carnality,
5172would carry them. the
5173breasts hung innocent
5174in the morning light.
5175
5176
5177The Acts of Youth, by John Wieners – Black Mountain
5178
5179And with great fear I inhabit the middle of the night
5180What wrecks of the mind await me, what drugs
5181to dull the senses, what little I have left,
5182what more can be taken away?
5183
5184The fear of travelling, of the future without hope
5185or buoy. I must get away from this place and see
5186that there is no fear without me: that it is within
5187unless it be some sudden act or calamity
5188
5189to land me in the hospital, a total wreck, without
5190memory again; or worse still, behind bars. If
5191I could just get out of the country. Some place
5192where one can eat the lotus in peace.
5193
5194For in this country it is terror, poverty awaits; or
5195am I a marked man, my life to be a lesson
5196or experience to those young who would trod
5197the same path, without God
5198
5199unless he be one of justice, to wreak vengeance
5200on the acts committed while young under un-
5201due influence or circumstance. Oh I have
5202always seen my life as drama, patterned
5203
5204after those who met with disaster or doom.
5205Is my mind being taken away me.
5206I have been over the abyss before. What
5207is that ringing in my ears that tells me
5208
5209all is nigh, is naught but the roaring of the winter wind.
5210Woe to those homeless who are out on this night.
5211Woe to those crimes committed from which we
5212can walk away unharmed.
5213
5214So I turn on the light
5215And smoke rings rise in the air.
5216Do not think of the future; there is none.
5217But the formula all great art is made of.
5218
5219Pain and suffering. Give me the strength
5220to bear it, to enter those places where the
5221great animals are caged. And we can live
5222at peace by their side. A bride to the burden
5223
5224that no god imposes but knows we have the means
5225to sustain its force unto the end of our days.
5226For that is what we are made for; for that
5227we are created. Until the dark hours are done.
5228
5229And we rise again in the dawn.
5230Infinite particles of the divine sun, now
5231worshipped in the pitches of the night.
5232
5233A Poem for Record Players, by John Wieners – Black Mountain
5234
5235The scene changes
5236 
5237Five hours later and
5238I come into a room
5239where a clock ticks.
5240I find a pillow to
5241muffle the sounds I make.
5242I am engaged in taking away
5243from God his sound.
5244The pigeons somewhere
5245above me, the cough
5246a man makes down the hall,
5247the flap of wings
5248below me, the squeak
5249of sparrows in the alley.
5250The scratches I itch
5251on my scalp, the landing
5252of birds under the bay
5253window out my window.
5254All dull details
5255I can only describe to you,
5256but which are here and
5257I hear and shall never
5258give up again, shall carry
5259with me over the streets
5260of this seacoast city,
5261forever; oh clack your
5262metal wings, god, you are
5263mine now in the morning.
5264I have you by the ears
5265in the exhaust pipes of
5266a thousand cars gunning
5267their motors turning over
5268all over town.
5269 
52706.15.58
5271
5272A Poem For Vipers, by John Wieners – Black Mountain
5273
5274I sit in Lees. At 11:40 PM with
5275Jimmy the pusher. He teaches me
5276Ju Ju. Hot on the table before us
5277shrimp foo yong, rice and mushroom
5278chow yuke. Up the street under the wheels
5279of a strange car is his stash—The ritual.
5280We make it. And have made it.
5281For months now together after midnight.
5282Soon I know the fuzz will
5283interrupt, will arrest Jimmy and
5284I shall be placed on probation. The poem
5285does not lie to us. We lie under
5286its law, alive in the glamour of this hour
5287able to enter into the sacred places
5288of his dark people, who carry secrets
5289glassed in their eyes and hide words
5290under the coats of their tongue.
5291 
52926.16.58
5293
5294Xenophobia, by Rae Armantrout – Language
5295
52961
5297
5298“must represent the governess   
5299for, of course, the creature itself   
5300could not inspire such terror.”
5301
5302staring at me fixedly, no   
5303trace of recognition.
5304
5305“when the window opened of its own accord.   
5306In the big walnut tree
5307were six or seven wolves ...
5308
5309strained attention. They were white.”   
5310
5311(The fear of cloudy skies.)
5312
5313like strangers! After five years
5314
5315Misgiving. Misdoubt.
5316
5317
53182
5319
5320(The fear that one is dreaming.)
5321
5322The moon was shining, suddenly   
5323everything around me appeared   
5324(The fear of)
5325unfamiliar.
5326
5327Wild vista
5328inside or near the home.
5329
5330(Dread of bearing a monster.)
5331
5332If I failed to overlook the torn cushions,
5333
5334three teapots side by side,   
5335strewn towels, socks, papers—
5336
5337both foreign and stale.   
5338
5339
53403
5341
5342when I saw the frame was rotten,   
5343crumbling away from the glass,
5344in spots, in other places still attached   
5345with huge globs of putty.
5346
5347The doctor forced me to repeat the word.   
5348
5349Chimera. Cold feet.
5350
5351scared and unreal looking at buildings.   
5352The thin Victorians with scaly paint,   
5353their flimsy backporches linked
5354by skeletal stairways.
5355
5356
53574
5358
5359After five years
5360
5361(The fear that you are not at home.)
5362
5363I was sitting in the alcove where I never sit   
5364when I noticed a single eye,
5365
5366crudely drawn in pencil,   
5367in a corner near the floor.
5368
5369The paint was blistering—
5370beneath it I saw white.
5371
5372
53735
5374
5375Sparrows settle on the sagging wires.   
5376
5377(Fear of sights not turned to words.)
5378
5379Horrific. Grisly.   
5380“Rumplestiltskin!”
5381
5382Not my expression.
5383
5384Not my net of veins   
5385beneath thin skin.
5386
5387(A morbid dread of throbbing.)   
5388
5389Of its own accord
5390
5391Anti-Short Story, by Rae Armantrout – Language
5392
5393A girl is running. Don’t tell me   
5394“She’s running for her bus.”
5395
5396All that aside!
5397
5398Dusk, by Rae Armantrout – Language
5399
5400spider on the cold expanse
5401of glass, three stories high
5402rests intently
5403and so purely alone.
5404
5405I’m not like that!
5406 
5407Making a Living, by Ted Greenwald – Language
5408
5409its method
5410is men
5411the fact
5412and the game
5413disorder
5414grounded
5415expressed
5416real named
5417the facts of life
5418the planet
5419its field
5420 
5421the same day
5422vehicles
5423lived by the masses
5424become
5425contemplative
5426attitudes
5427powered by
5428the joys of this world
5429a glorious sign
5430propagated with
5431lightning speed
5432 
5433at the same time
5434its goal
5435the use of time
5436the speed of transport
5437the margin of life
5438the rational
5439journeys
5440by another path
5441none of it bad
5442 
5443the work
5444from his world
5445themselves
5446rediscovers nature
5447its essential green
5448easily seen through
5449like a window
5450but intimate
5451like a summer meadow
5452
5453as a result
5454cold dreams
5455draw misty truths
5456to the surface
5457official forgetfulness
5458looks back on
5459and chooses
5460to forget
5461the first half of
5462to focus discussion on
5463the second half
5464like "I'm fine"
5465as a journey
5466all to itself
5467and beautiful
5468to the voyager
5469particularly
5470
5471this service
5472its servants
5473our passage of time
5474vanishes quickly
5475like a leaf
5476its eulogy
5477a terrestrial paradise
5478the very spirit of
5479the renaissance
5480to act
5481on the basis of
5482
5483an obsession with death
5484
5485well,
5486death
5487
5488pronounce it
5489be-u-ti-full
5490slowly revealed
5491to eliminate
5492this lived time
5493men live in
5494sea turtles
5495to the laws
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500from Hinge Picture, by Susan Howe – Language
5501
5502“Crawl in,” said the witch, “and see if it’s hot enough to put the bread in.”
5503—Hansel and Gretel
5504
5505All roads lead to rooms. 
5506—Irish Proverb
5507a stark
5508                  Quake
5509
5510               a numb
5511                  Calm
5512
5513
5514                      *
5515
5516
5517               clutching my Crumbl
5518               ejumble
5519                  among
5520               Tombs and
5521               in Caves
5522                  my
5523                Dream
5524                Vision
5525
5526               Oarsman, oarsman,
5527                  Where have you been?
5528               I’ve been to Leafy,
5529               I’ve dismembered the Queen.
5530
5531               Oarsman, oarsman
5532                  What did you there?
5533               I hid in a cleft,
5534               I braided the air.
5535
5536
5537
5538hearing our oars where their freed goatsteps sped   
5539and are silent
5540by an extinct river
5541O Babylon when I lay down
5542alert for sliding cataracts
5543where in corridors the print of dancing feet   
5544beyond poise I am prey
5545posing in snow-light
5546being of human form
5547clothed in the scales of a fish
5548
5549
5550Count him a magician
5551he controls the storm
5552walked on the sea shouting   
5553that he is the Logos of God
5554that he is the Word original and first begotten
5555attended by power
5556upheld by his mother
5557(a very active gesturing baby)   
5558what if Simon Peter Jesus himself   
5559walked among the cold stone faces
5560shouting NIKA
5561emptyeyed blanksmiling
5562
5563
5564
5565                            Swiftness divination these false gods
5566                            their commerce is the cloud
5567                            so they can learn what is preparing in the sky   
5568                            Artificer of the universe
5569                            Magician who controls the storm
5570                            to see you in one spot
5571                            I count the clouds others count the seasons   
5572                            Dreaming of archipelagos and the desert   
5573                            I have lived through weeks of years
5574                            I have raked up fallen leaves for winter   
5575                            after winter across an empire of icy light
5576
5577
5578Light of our dark is the fruit of my womb
5579or night falling through the reign of splashes   
5580Liquid light that bathes the landscape in my figure   
5581Clairvoyant Ireland
5582eras and eras encircled by sea
5583the barrows of my ancestors have spilled their bones   
5584across the singing ear in hear or shell   
5585as wreck or wrack may be in daring   
5586There were giants on the earth in those days   
5587feasts then on hill and fort
5588All night the borders of my bed
5589carve paths across my face
5590and I always forget to leave my address   
5591frightened by the way that midnight
5592grips my palm and tells me that my lines   
5593are slipping out of question
5594
5595Divorce I manumission round
5596with a gentle blow the casting branch
5597my right hand My covenant
5598was garment concealed or mask or matron
5599Proceed with measured step   
5600the field and action of the law   
5601Like day the tables twelve   
5602whip torch and radiate halo   
5603Sky brewing coming storm   
5604Faraway over the hill
5605when Hell was harrowed
5606and earth was brought to heel   
5607how the hills spread away   
5608how the walls crumbled   
5609deathcolored frozen in time
5610Where was the senate   zone and horizon
5611Where are the people   mountain of light to the east   
5612Tell them I sail for the deep sea rest
5613a painless extraction a joyful day   
5614bird of passage over all I love   
5615Goodbye to all the little fir trees   
5616of the future
5617
5618               far   off    in    the    dread
5619               blindness    I   heard   light
5620               eagerly   I   struck   my foot
5621               against    a      stone      and
5622               raised    a    din    at    the
5623               sound    the   blessed    Paul
5624               shut   the   door   which   had
5625               been   open   and   bolted   it
5626
5627
5628
5629from Chanting at the Crystal Sea, by Susan Howe – Language
5630
5631All male Quincys are now dead, excepting one.
5632John Wheelwright, “Gestures to the Dead”
5633
56341
5635Vast oblong space
5636dwindled to one solitary rock.
5637
5638On
5639it I saw a heap of hay   
5640impressed with the form   
5641of a man.
5642
5643Beleaguered Captain Stork   
5644with his cane
5645
5646on some quixotic skirmish.
5647
5648Deserters arrived from Fort Necessity   
5649
5650All hope was gone.
5651
5652Howe carrying a white flag of truce   
5653went toward the water.
5654
5655
56562
5657An Apostle in white
5658stood on a pavement of scarlet
5659
5660Around him
5661stretched in deep sleep
5662
5663lay the dark forms of warriors.
5664
5665He was turned away   
5666gazing on a wide waste.
5667
5668His cry of alarm   
5669astonished everyone.
5670
5671
56723
5673A Council of War   
5674in battle array
5675after some siege.
5676
5677I ran to them   
5678shouting as I ran   
5679“Victory!”
5680
5681Night closed in   
5682weedy with flies.
5683
5684The Moon slid
5685between moaning pines   
5686and tangled vines.
5687
5688
56894
5690Neutrals collected bones
5691
5692or journeyed behind on foot
5693
5694shouting at invisible doors   
5695
5696to open.
5697
5698There were guards who approached   
5699
5700stealthy as linxes
5701
5702Always fresh footprints in the forest
5703
5704We closed a chasm
5705
5706then trod the ground firm
5707
5708I carried your name
5709
5710like a huge shield.
5711
5712
57135
5714Because dreams were oracles   
5715agile as wild-cats
5716we leapt on a raft of ice.
5717
5718Children began a wail of despair   
5719we carried them on our shoulders.
5720
5721A wave
5722thrust our raft of ice   
5723against a northern shore.
5724
5725An Indian trail
5726led through wood and thicket
5727
5728Light broke on the forest
5729
5730The hostile town   
5731was close at hand.
5732
5733We screamed our war-cry   
5734and rushed in.
5735
5736
57376
5738It was Him
5739Power of the Clouds   
5740Judge of the Dead
5741The sheep on his right   
5742The goats on his left   
5743And all the angels.
5744
5745But from the book
5746backward on their knees
5747crawled neolithic adventurers known only to themselves.   
5748They blazed with artifice
5749no pin, or kernel, or grain too small to pick up.
5750A baby with a broken face lay on the leaves
5751Hannibal—a rough looking man
5752rushed by with a bundle of sticks.
5753“Ah, this is fortunate,” cried Forebear
5754and helped himself to me.
5755
5756
57577
5758God is an animal figure   
5759Clearly headless.
5760He bewitches his quarry   
5761with ambiguous wounds   
5762The wolf or poor ass   
5763had only stolen straw.
5764
5765O sullen Silence
5766Nail two sticks together
5767and tell resurrection stories.
5768
5769
57708
5771There on the deck, child in her arms   
5772was the girl I had been before
5773
5774She waved
5775
5776then threw her child to me   
5777
5778and jumped
5779
5780But she missed the edge and swirled away.
5781
5782I left you in a group of grownup children and went in search   
5783wandered sandhills snowy nights   
5784calling “Mother, Father”
5785
5786A Dauphin sat down to dine on dust   
5787alone in his field of wheat
5788
5789One war-whoop toppled a State.
5790
5791I thought we were in the right country   
5792but the mountains were gone.
5793
5794We saw five or six people coming toward us   
5795
5796who were savages.
5797
5798Alhough my pen was leaky as a sieve   
5799I scribbled “Arm, Arm!”
5800
5801“Ear.” Barked the Moon.
5802
5803We paddled with hands, planks, and a pencil
5804
5805“Listen—The people surrender”
5806I don’t remember the rest but it was beautiful.
5807
5808We were led ashore by Captain Snow   
5809“I’ll meet you soon—” he said   
5810and vanished in the fog.
5811
5812
58139
5814We cooked trout and perch on forked sticks.   
5815Fire crackled in the forest stillness
5816Fire forms stood out against the gloom   
5817Ancient trunks with wens and deformities   
5818Moss bearded ancients—and thin saplings   
5819The strong, the weak, the old, the young—
5820
5821Now and then some sleeper would get up
5822Warm her hands at the fire
5823and listen to the whisper of a leaf   
5824or the footfall of an animal
5825I kept my gun-match burning when it rained—
5826
5827
582810
5829Holding hands with my skin   
5830I walked the wintry strand.   
5831“Tickle yourself with my stroke”
5832ticked the wiseacre clock.
5833
5834The river sang—
5835“Pelucid dark and deep my waters—
5836come and cross me alone.”
5837
5838The final ruins ahead
5839revealed two figures timidly engraved on one another.
5840
5841
584211
5843I built a house
5844that faced the east
5845I never ventured west   
5846for fear of murder.
5847
5848Eternity dawned.
5849
5850Solitary watcher   
5851of what rose
5852and set
5853I saw only   
5854a Golgotha   
5855of corpses.
5856
5857
585812
5859Experience teaches   
5860the savage revenge
5861an enemy always takes   
5862on forerunners
5863who follow.
5864
5865You were a little army   
5866of unarmed children—
5867A newborn infant
5868sat in the hollow
5869of my pillow.
5870
5871
587213
5873The house was a model of harmony.
5874
5875Children coiled like hedgehogs   
5876or lay on their backs.
5877
5878A doll uttered mysterious oracles   
5879“Put on the kettle.”   
5880“Get up and go home.”
5881
5882The clock was alive   
5883I asked what it ate.
5884
5885“A Cross large enough to crucify us all.”   
5886and so on.
5887
5888Blankets congealed   
5889into icicles
5890
5891We practiced
5892trips, falls, dives into snowdrifts.
5893
5894With a snowshoe for a shovel   
5895I opened the clock
5896
5897and we searched for peace in its deep and private present.   
5898
5899Outside, the world swarmed with sorcerers.
5900 
5901from Cabbage Gardens, by Susan Howe – Language
5902
5903The past
5904will overtake   
5905alien force   
5906our house   
5907formed
5908of my mind   
5909to enter
5910explorer
5911in a forest   
5912of myself
5913for all
5914my learning   
5915Solitude
5916quiet
5917and quieter   
5918fringe
5919of trees
5920by a river
5921bridges black   
5922on the deep   
5923the heaving sea   
5924a watcher stands
5925to see her ship   
5926winging away   
5927Thick noises
5928merge in moonlight   
5929dark ripples   
5930dissolving
5931and
5932defining
5933spheres
5934and
5935snares
5936
5937             Place of importance as in the old days
5938stood on the ramparts of the fort
5939                                                 the open sea outside   
5940alone with water-birds and cattle
5941                        knee-deep in a stream
5942grove of reeds
5943               herons watching from the bank
5944henges
5945      whole fields honeycombed with souterrains   
5946human
5947                        bones through the gloom
5948       whose sudden mouth
5949surrounded my face
5950                      a thread of blue around the coast   
5951                                                         feathery moon   
5952eternity swallows up time
5953                                     peaceable as foam
5954                        O cabbage gardens
5955summer’s elegy
5956                        sunset survived
5957
5958But It Says Nothing, by Clark Coolidge – Language
5959
5960But it says nothing. And one is as quiet
5961as if to say nothing moves me. Then
5962there is the chair. And one speaks of
5963the chair sitting at the table.
5964Scraping against surfaces, opening the mouth.
5965The object is a piece of thing before. One
5966shifts in a chair and opens the talk.
5967And the time it says nothing one moves.
5968The table is too long as the wall. Not
5969a thing but it stays and one opens
5970as a mouth will begin. Speaking of
5971the table, nothing but to avoid that of
5972the wall. One could return over and over
5973to the chair, the wall one is sitting at.
5974Least ways it says nothing. And the
5975thing is, it stays still before
5976speaking of. The object of nothing, even
5977speech.
5978
5979The Country Autumns, by Clark Coolidge – Language
5980
5981But it could not be brought to see what it
5982could be brought. And the leaves are
5983away again, teamed. A parent at the
5984last and a parent in the middle. And
5985as stones I thought it right.
5986
5987Two plates, and on the other side all the
5988forest pieces. The clock says stay.
5989The books lower the earth, and in gardens
5990flat stones spin. The volume was of waiting.
5991Today is today, until the preposition taken up.
5992Next to the tree sways.
5993 
5994The sky in pieces the leaves part the
5995leaves piece together. To and from a hand
5996given all directions. The bark comes from
5997below. Takes from the books of the moves under
5998the sky. Speaker holds up the talks held last.
5999Motors the dust and the yellow syllables.
6000A slant on which was never here or
6001only partly.
6002
6003The Fall Returns, by Clark Coolidge – Language
6004
6005the rooms are chosen, then they move on
6006the beads are wetted in the lime
6007the weedlot boils in the blood of one eye
6008the children first are cankered then they spin
6009 
6010
6011there are not routes, only dials
6012the rocks are spun together in one ball
6013the laundry is of rust, the pillow shrieks
6014pianos all blow northward and return
6015
6016 
6017must be a bath if  I could find it is a map
6018of all the ways that center intermission
6019skulls are simply caps for all compression
6020day’s light raising closets for its dark
6021
6022 
6023I put up the clothes and trail the keys
6024that onyx knob in vacuum turns the train
6025pressure on the pitches swaying back again
6026a world without a heartbeat but it stays
6027
6028Eclipse with Object, by Ann Lauterbach – Language
6029
6030There is a spectacle and something is added to history.
6031It has as its object an indiscretion: old age, a
6032gun, the prevention of sleep.
6033
6034I am placed in its stead
6035and the requisite shadow is yours.
6036It casts across me, a violent coat.
6037
6038It seems I fit into its sleeve.
6039So the body wanders.
6040Sometime it goes where light does not reach.
6041
6042You recall how they moved in the moon dust? Hop, hop.
6043What they said to us from that distance was stupid.
6044They did not say I love you for example.
6045
6046The spectacle has been placed in my room.
6047Can you hear its episode trailing,
6048pretending to be a thing with variegated wings?
6049
6050Do you know the name of this thing?
6051It is a rubbing from an image.
6052The subject of the image is that which trespasses.
6053
6054You are invited to watch. The body
6055in complete dark casting nothing back.
6056The thing turns and flicks and opens.
6057 
6058reception. theory., by P. Inman – Language
6059
6060for Diane Ward
6061
6062
6063              unemployment.      rate.
6064                                    too.      short.
6065                                  than.      any.
6066                            raccoon.      too. imagist.
6067                                 those.      any. synonyms.
6068
6069                                            *
6070
6071                             hornbl.
6072                               aleck.
6073                            paulist.       each.
6074                                road.       endless.   
6075                               from.        it.
6076                                  the.        same. irish.
6077                               from.        mudge. nerves.
6078                                  the.        wine. edges.   
6079                            behind.       a. verb.
6080
6081                                            *   
6082
6083                         she. was.        only. some.
6084                              drove.        herself.
6085                             trying.        to. convince.
6086                                  De.         Niro.
6087                              about.        which. atlantic.
6088                                                                         
6089
6090
6091
6092                                             *
6093                             
6094                            poverts.           
6095                                 nerv.
6096                               (saun.              ch.)
6097                               m’etc.
6098
6099                                                             
6100                                               *
6101                                    
6102                              where.              would.
6103                          snowfall.
6104                               about.              Goodman. Brown.
6105
6106
6107                                               *
6108                                       a.              calve.
6109                                      of.              river.
6110                                some.              carpark.
6111                                   any.              size.
6112                                      of.              limes.
6113lac[e]y, by P. Inman – Language
6114
6115for Tom Raworth
6116
6117
6118                 a.    taupe. wald.
6119
6120             less.    commas.
6121             into.    gelatin.
6122
6123                           *
6124
6125           “let’s.    call.
6126          this.”   
6127               my.    age.
6128       leaning.    into.
6129           some.    dream.
6130
6131                           *
6132
6133              the.    further. he.
6134        moves.    away.
6135              the.    more. surfaces.
6136              the.    longer.
6137            they.    end.
6138                as.    her. midst.
6139
6140                           *
6141
6142               my.    nose.
6143                 of.    all.
6144     recourse.    
6145      (shaped.   
6146       trouble.    upon.
6147                    .    siecle.)
6148
6149              my.    polk. m’edge.
6150
6151
6152from You, part I, by Ron Silliman – Language
6153
6154for Pat Silliman
6155
6156I
6157
6158
6159
6160Hard dreams. The moment at which you recognize that your own death lies
6161
6162in wait somewhere within your body. A lone ship defines the horizon. The
6163
6164rain is not safe to drink.
6165
6166
6167
6168In Grozny, in Bihac, the idea of history shudders with each new explosion.
6169
6170The rose lies unattended, wild thorns at the edge of a mass grave. Between
6171
6172classes, over strong coffee, young men argue the value of a pronoun.
6173
6174
6175
6176When this you see, remember. Note in a bottle bobs in a cartoon sea. The
6177
6178radio operator’s name is Sparks.
6179
6180
6181
6182Hand outlined in paint on a brick wall. Storm turns playground into a
6183
6184swamp. Finally we spot the wood duck on the middle lake.
6185
6186
6187
6188The dashboard of my car like the keyboard of a piano. Toy animals anywhere.
6189
6190
6191
6192Sun swells in the morning sky.
6193
6194
6195
6196Man with three pens clipped to the neck of his sweatshirt shuffles from one
6197
6198table to the next, seeking distance from the cold January air out the coffee
6199
6200house door, tall Styrofoam cup in one hand, Of Grammatology in the other.
6201
6202Outside, a dog is tied to any empty bench, bike chained to the No Parking
6203
6204sign.
6205
6206from You, part XII, by Ron Silliman – Language
6207
6208for Pat Silliman
6209
6210XII
6211
6212 
6213
6214A guide to the sky under full nondisclosure.
6215
6216 
6217
6218Dawn in the bare birch trees, the sun, swollen, throbs over the horizon. Hotel
6219
6220buffet doodah. Two dogs dancing, sniffing one another’s genitalia.
6221
6222 
6223
6224One can hear the electricity wired in the walls, water rushing through the
6225
6226pipes, the boards and joints of the old house groaning as they settle.
6227
6228 
6229
6230Map of morning. Winter light. One’s experience of the transfer point air-
6231
6232port as that of the city itself. Dear winter, it’s 5:15 AM. Shoes for Mickey
6233
6234Mouse.
6235
6236 
6237
6238Waste deep in the big muddy. The sound of rain around. The line (not visible)
6239
6240binds letters into words. People are drowning.
6241
6242 
6243
6244Moon, broken in the middle. What a watch watches. Song of the single en-
6245
6246gine Cessna, threading the pre-dawn sky. One bird, one bird, many.
6247
6248 
6249
6250Blades of grass brittle in the freeze. Spider’s corner of the bath room. One
6251
6252maple tree that will not return to life.
6253
6254“Although the wind...”, by Izumi Shikibu, tr. by Jane Hirshfield
6255
6256Although the wind
6257blows terribly here,
6258the moonlight also leaks
6259between the roof planks
6260of this ruined house.
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267I, Too, by Langston Hughes
6268
6269I, too, sing America.
6270
6271I am the darker brother.
6272They send me to eat in the kitchen
6273When company comes,
6274But I laugh,
6275And eat well,
6276And grow strong.
6277
6278Tomorrow,
6279I’ll be at the table
6280When company comes.
6281Nobody’ll dare
6282Say to me,
6283“Eat in the kitchen,”
6284Then.
6285
6286Besides,
6287They’ll see how beautiful I am
6288And be ashamed—
6289
6290I, too, am America.
6291
6292Mother to Son, by Langston Hughes
6293
6294Well, son, I’ll tell you:
6295Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
6296It’s had tacks in it,
6297And splinters,
6298And boards torn up,
6299And places with no carpet on the floor—
6300Bare.
6301But all the time
6302I’se been a-climbin’ on,
6303And reachin’ landin’s,
6304And turnin’ corners,
6305And sometimes goin’ in the dark
6306Where there ain’t been no light.
6307So boy, don’t you turn back.
6308Don’t you set down on the steps
6309’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
6310Don’t you fall now—
6311For I’se still goin’, honey,
6312I’se still climbin’,
6313And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.