En.Citatepedia^®.ro

My Groupie

I read last Saturday in the
redwoods outside of Santa Cruz
and I was about 3/4's finished
when I heard a long high scream
and a quite attractive
young girl came running toward me
long gown & divine eyes of fire
and she leaped up on the stage
and screamed: "I WANT YOU!
I WANT YOU! TAKE  ME! TAKE
ME!"
I told her, "look, get the hell
away from me."
but she kept tearing at my
clothing and throwing herself
at me.
"where were you," I
asked her, "when I was living
on one candy bar a day and
sending short stories to the
Atlantic Monthly?"
she grabbed my balls and almost
twisted them off. her kisses
tasted like shitsoup.
2 women jumped up on the stage
and
carried her off into the
woods.
I could still hear her screams
as I began the next poem.
mabye, I thought, I should have
taken her on stage in front
of all those eyes.
but one can never be sure
whether it's good poetry or
bad acid.

poem by Charles Bukowski
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The Inconsistent

I say, "She was as good as fair,"
   When standing by her mound;
"Such passing sweetness," I declare,
   "No longer treads the ground."
I say, "What living Love can catch
   Her bloom and bonhomie,
And what in newer maidens match
   Her olden warmth to me!"

- There stands within yon vestry-nook
   Where bonded lovers sign,
Her name upon a faded book
   With one that is not mine.
To him she breathed the tender vow
   She once had breathed to me,
But yet I say, "O love, even now
   Would I had died for thee!"

poem by Thomas Hardy
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Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, 182-.)

"No--not where I shall make my own;
   But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone -
   As near as he can lie -
After whose death he seemed to ail,
   Though none considered why.

"And when I also claim a nook,
   And your feet tread me in,
Bestow me, under my old name,
   Among my kith and kin,
That strangers gazing may not dream
   I did a husband win."

"Widow, your wish shall be obeyed;
   Though, thought I, certainly
You'd lay him where your folk are laid,
   And your grave, too, will be,
As custom hath it; you to right,
   And on the left hand he."

"Aye, sexton; such the Hintock rule,
   And none has said it nay;
But now it haps a native here
   Eschews that ancient way . . .
And it may be, some Christmas night,
   When angels walk, they'll say:

"'O strange interment! Civilized lands
   Afford few types thereof;
Here is a man who takes his rest
   Beside his very Love,
Beside the one who was his wife
   In our sight up above!'"

poem by Thomas Hardy
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The Tenant-For-Life

The sun said, watching my watering-pot
   "Some morn you'll pass away;
These flowers and plants I parch up hot -
   Who'll water them that day?

"Those banks and beds whose shape your eye
   Has planned in line so true,
New hands will change, unreasoning why
   Such shape seemed best to you.

"Within your house will strangers sit,
   And wonder how first it came;
They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,
   And will not mention your name.

"They'll care not how, or when, or at what
   You sighed, laughed, suffered here,
Though you feel more in an hour of the spot
   Than they will feel in a year

"As I look on at you here, now,
   Shall I look on at these;
But as to our old times, avow
   No knowledge--hold my peace! . . .

"O friend, it matters not, I say;
   Bethink ye, I have shined
On nobler ones than you, and they
   Are dead men out of mind!"

poem by Thomas Hardy
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Stains

The three ghosts on the lonesome road
   Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that stain about your mouth
   No lifted hand may cover?"
"From eating of forbidden fruit,
   Brother, my brother."

The three ghosts on the sunless road
   Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that red burn on your foot
   No dust nor ash may cover?"
"I stamped a neighbor's hearth-flame out,
   Brother, my brother."

The three ghosts on the windless road
   Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that blood upon your hand
   No other hand may cover?"
"From breaking of a woman's heart,
   Brother, my brother."

"Yet on the earth clean men we walked,
   Glutton and Thief and Lover;
White flesh and fair it hid our stains
   That no man might discover."
"Naked the soul goes up to God,
   Brother, my brother."

poem by Theodosia Garrison
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By the Earth's Corpse

I

   "O Lord, why grievest Thou? -
   Since Life has ceased to be
   Upon this globe, now cold
   As lunar land and sea,
And humankind, and fowl, and fur
   Are gone eternally,
All is the same to Thee as ere
   They knew mortality."

II

"O Time," replied the Lord,
   "Thou read'st me ill, I ween;
Were all THE SAME, I should not grieve
   At that late earthly scene,
Now blestly past--though planned by me
   With interest close and keen! -
Nay, nay: things now are NOT the same
   As they have earlier been.

III

   "Written indelibly
   On my eternal mind
   Are all the wrongs endured
   By Earth's poor patient kind,
Which my too oft unconscious hand
   Let enter undesigned.
No god can cancel deeds foredone,
   Or thy old coils unwind!

IV

   "As when, in Noe's days,
   I whelmed the plains with sea,
   So at this last, when flesh
   And herb but fossils be,
And, all extinct, their piteous dust
   Revolves obliviously,
That I made Earth, and life, and man,
   It still repenteth me!"

poem by Thomas Hardy
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Home

"Where shall we dwell?" say you.
   Wandering winds reply:
"In a temple with roof of blue
   -- Under the splendid sky."

Never a nobler home
   We'll find though an age we try
Than is arched by the azure dome
   Of the all-enfolding sky.

Here we are wed, and here
   We live under God's own eye.
"Where shall we dwell," my dear?
   Under the splendid sky.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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A Trembling Star

"There is my little trembling star," she said.
   I looked; once more
The tender sea had put the sun to bed,
   And heaven's floor
   Was grey.

And nowhere yet in all that young night sky
   Was any star,
But one that hung above the sea. Not high,
   Nor very far
   Away.

"I watch it every night," she said, and crept
   Within my arm.
"Soft little star, I wish the angels kept
   It safe from harm
   Alway.

"I know it is afraid," she said; her eyes
   Held a sweet tear.
"They send it all alone into the skies,
   No big stars near,
   To stay.

"They push it out before the sweet, kind moon
   Lights up the sea.
They laugh because it fears the dark. `Soon, soon,
   You'll braver be,'
   They say.

"One night I climbed far up that high white tree
   Beside the beach,
And tried to stretch my hand across the sea
   And tried to reach
   The grey.

"For something made me feel my heart would break
   Unless that night
I in my hand my trembling star could take
   And kiss its fright
   Away.

"There only blew a strange wind chillily,
   And clouds were swept.
The angels would not let my own star see
   That someone wept.
   I pray

"To Christ, who hears my little prayers each night,
   That He will seek
Through all His skies for that sweet, frightened light,
   And stoop His cheek
   And say

"`My angels must not send so frail a thing
   To light the West.
Lift up the little trembling star to cling
   About my breast
   Alway.'"

poem by Ethel Turner
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A Rhyme of Death's Inn

A rhyme of good Death's inn!
   My love came to that door;
And she had need of many things,
   The way had been so sore.

My love she lifted up her head,
   "And is there room?" said she;
"There was no room in Bethlehem's inn
   For Christ who died for me."

But said the keeper of the inn,
   "His name is on the door."
My love then straightway entered there:
   She hath come back no more.

poem by Lizette Woodworth Reese
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Under the Wattle

"Why should not wattle do
   For mistletoe?"
Asked one -- they were but two --
   Where wattles grow.

He was her lover, too,
   Who urged her so --
"Why should not wattle do
   For mistletoe?"

A rose-cheek rosier grew;
   Rose-lips breathed low;
"Since it is here, and YOU,
   I hardly know
Why wattle should not do."

poem by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen
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A Folk Song

I came to your town, my love,
   And you were away, away!
I said "She is with the Queen's maidens:
   They tarry long at their play.
They are stringing her words like pearls
To throw to the dukes and earls."
   But O, the pity!
I had but a morn of windy red
To come to the town where you were bred,
   And you were away, away!

I came to your town, my love,
   And you were away, away!
I said, "She is with the mountain elves
   And misty and fair as they.
They are spinning a diamond net
To cover her curls of jet."
   But O, the pity!
I had but a noon of searing heat
To come to your town, my love, my sweet,
   And you were away, away!

I came to your town, my love,
   And you were away, away!
I said, "She is with the pale white saints,
   And they tarry long to pray.
They give her a white lily-crown,
And I fear she will never come down."
   But O, the pity!
I had but an even grey and wan
To come to your town and plead as man,
   And you were away, away!

poem by Jessie Mackay
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The Levelled Churchyard

"O passenger, pray list and catch
   Our sighs and piteous groans,
Half stifled in this jumbled patch
   Of wrenched memorial stones!

"We late-lamented, resting here,
   Are mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaims in fear,
   'I know not which I am!'

"The wicked people have annexed
   The verses on the good;
A roaring drunkard sports the text
   Teetotal Tommy should!

"Where we are huddled none can trace,
   And if our names remain,
They pave some path or p-ing place
   Where we have never lain!

"There's not a modest maiden elf
   But dreads the final Trumpet,
Lest half of her should rise herself,
   And half some local strumpet!

"From restorations of Thy fane,
   From smoothings of Thy sward,
From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane
   Deliver us O Lord! Amen!"

poem by Thomas Hardy
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A Spot

In years defaced and lost,
   Two sat here, transport-tossed,
   Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:
   Scared momently
   By gaingivings,
   Then hoping things
   That could not be.

   Of love and us no trace
   Abides upon the place;
   The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal;
   Foul days and fair
   Here, too, prevail,
   And gust and gale
   As everywhere.

   But lonely shepherd souls
   Who bask amid these knolls
   May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noontides from the ground:
   "O not again
   Till Earth outwears
   Shall love like theirs
   Suffuse this glen!"

poem by Thomas Hardy
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Zeroing In

"I am a landscape," he said.
"a landscape and a person walking in that landscape.
There are daunting cliffs there,
And plains glad in their way
of brown monotony. But especially
there are sinkholes, places
of sudden terror, of small circumference
and malevolent depths."
"I know," she said. "When I set forth
to walk in myself, as it might be
on a fine afternoon, forgetting,
sooner or later I come to where sedge
and clumps of white flowers, rue perhaps,
mark the bogland, and I know
there are quagmires there that can pull you
down, and sink you in bubbling mud."
"We had an old dog," he told her, "when I was a boy,
a good dog, friendly. But there was an injured spot
on his head, if you happened
just to touch it he'd jump up yelping
and bite you. He bit a young child,
they had to take him down to the vet's and destroy him."
"No one knows where it is," she said,
"and even by accident no one touches it.
It's inside my landscape, and only I, making my way
preoccupied through my life, crossing my hills,
sleeping on green moss of my own woods,
I myself without warning touch it,
and leap up at myself -"
"- or flinch back
just in time."
     &nbs p;         ;      "Yes, we learn that.
It's not a terror, it's pain we're talking about:
those places in us, like your dog's bruised head,
that are bruised forever, that time
never assuages, never."

poem by Denise Levertov
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God-Forgotten

I towered far, and lo! I stood within
   The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
   Some answer to their cry.

   --"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race?
   By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
   Such world I fashioned not." -

   --"O Lord, forgive me when I say
   Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -
"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea!
   I dimly do recall

   "Some tiny sphere I built long back
   (Mid millions of such shapes of mine)
So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack
   Remaining, or a sign?

   "It lost my interest from the first,
   My aims therefor succeeding ill;
Haply it died of doing as it durst?" -
   "Lord, it existeth still." -

   "Dark, then, its life! For not a cry
   Of aught it bears do I now hear;
Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby
   Its plaints had reached mine ear.

   "It used to ask for gifts of good,
   Till came its severance self-entailed,
When sudden silence on that side ensued,
   And has till now prevailed.

   "All other orbs have kept in touch;
   Their voicings reach me speedily:
Thy people took upon them overmuch
   In sundering them from me!

   "And it is strange--though sad enough -
   Earth's race should think that one whose call
Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff
   Must heed their tainted ball! . . .

   "But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught,
   And strife, and silent suffering? -
Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought
   Even on so poor a thing!

   "Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend
   For Me could mean but Not to Know:
Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end
   To what men undergo." . . .

   Homing at dawn, I thought to see
   One of the Messengers standing by.
- Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me
   When trouble hovers nigh.

poem by Thomas Hardy
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People at Night

A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd.       & nbsp;  We won't
      &nbs p;         ;     look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
               & nbsp;     under movie signs,
      &nb sp;       &nbs p;     pictures made of a million lights,
      &n bsp;       &nb sp;     giants that move and again move
        ;              again, above a cloud of thick smells,
      &n bsp;       &nb sp;     franks, roasted nutmeats-

Or going up to some apartment, yours
      &nbs p;         ;     or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
       &n bsp;  But you won't see.

The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
      &nbs p;         ;     You  &nb sp;and   you and I   repeat
   &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;gestures that make do when speech
      &nb sp;       &nbs p;     has failed       & nbsp;  and talk
        ;              and talk, laughing, saying
      &nb sp;       &nbs p;     'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
       ;                 & nbsp;       No one.

poem by Denise Levertov
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A Parting Guest

What delightful hosts are they --
   Life and Love!
Lingeringly I turn away,
   This late hour, yet glad enough
They have not withheld from me
   Their high hospitality.
So, with face lit with delight
   And all gratitude, I stay
   Yet to press their hands and say,
"Thanks. -- So fine a time! Good night."

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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V.R. 1819-1901, A Reverie

Moments the mightiest pass uncalendared,
   And when the Absolute
   In backward Time outgave the deedful word
   Whereby all life is stirred:
"Let one be born and throned whose mould shall constitute
The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute,"
   No mortal knew or heard.
   But in due days the purposed Life outshone -
   Serene, sagacious, free;
   --Her waxing seasons bloomed with deeds well done,
   And the world's heart was won . . .
Yet may the deed of hers most bright in eyes to be
Lie hid from ours--as in the All-One's thought lay she -
   Till ripening years have run.

poem by Thomas Hardy
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Doom and She

I

   There dwells a mighty pair -
   Slow, statuesque, intense -
   Amid the vague Immense:
None can their chronicle declare,
   Nor why they be, nor whence.

,h II

   Mother of all things made,
   Matchless in artistry,
   Unlit with sight is she. -
And though her ever well-obeyed
   Vacant of feeling he.

III

   The Matron mildly asks -
   A throb in every word -
   "Our clay-made creatures, lord,
How fare they in their mortal tasks
   Upon Earth's bounded bord?

IV

   "The fate of those I bear,
   Dear lord, pray turn and view,
   And notify me true;
Shapings that eyelessly I dare
   Maybe I would undo.

V

   "Sometimes from lairs of life
   Methinks I catch a groan,
   Or multitudinous moan,
As though I had schemed a world of strife,
   Working by touch alone."

VI

   "World-weaver!&quo t; he replies,
   "I scan all thy domain;
   But since nor joy nor pain
Doth my clear substance recognize,
   I read thy realms in vain.

VII

   "World-weaver! what IS Grief?
   And what are Right, and Wrong,
   And Feeling, that belong
To creatures all who owe thee fief?
   What worse is Weak than Strong?" . . .

VIII

   --Unlightened, curious, meek,
   She broods in sad surmise . . .
   --Some say they have heard her sighs
On Alpine height or Polar peak
   When the night tempests rise.

poem by Thomas Hardy
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Superstites Rosae

The grass is green upon her grave,
   The west wind whispers low;
"The corn is changed, come forth, come forth,
   Ere all the blossoms go!"

In vain. Her laughing eyes are sealed,
   And cold her sunny brow;
Last year she smiled upon the flowers --
   They smile above her now!

poem by Richard Rowe
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The Night Ride

The red sun on the lonely lands
   Gazed, under clouds of rose,
As one who under knitted hands
   Takes one last look and goes.

Then Pain, with her white sister Fear,
   Crept nearer to my bed:
"The sands are running; dost thou hear
   Thy sobbing heart?" she said.

There came a rider to the gate,
   And stern and clear spake he:
"For meat or drink thou must not wait,
   But rise and ride with me."

I waited not for meat or drink,
   Or kiss, or farewell kind --
But oh! my heart was sore to think
   Of friends I left behind.

We rode o'er hills that seemed to sweep
   Skyward like swelling waves;
The living stirred not in their sleep,
   The dead slept in their graves.

And ever as we rode I heard
   A moan of anguish sore --
No voice of man or beast or bird,
   But all of these and more.

"Is it the moaning of the Earth?
   Dark Rider, answer me!"
"It is the cry of life at birth"
   He answered quietly:

"But thou canst turn a face of cheer
   To good days still in store;
Thou needst not care for Pain or Fear --
   They cannot harm thee more."

Yet I rode on with sullen heart,
   And said with breaking breath,
"If thou art he I think thou art,
   Then slay me now, O Death!"

The veil was from my eyesight drawn --
   "Thou knowest now," said he:
"I am the Angel of the Dawn!
   Ride back, and wait for me."

So I rode back at morning light,
   And there, beside my bed,
Fear had become a lily white
   And Pain a rose of red.

poem by Victor James Daley
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