Lui et Elle
She is large and matronly
And rather dirty,
A little sardonic-looking, as if domesticity had driven her to it.
Though what she does, except lay four eggs at random in the garden once a year
And put up with her husband,
I don't know.
She likes to eat.
She hurries up, striding reared on long uncanny legs
When food is going.
Oh yes, she can make haste when she likes.
She snaps the soft bread from my hand in great mouthfuls,
Opening her rather pretty wedge of an iron, pristine face
Into an enormously wide-beaked mouth
Like sudden curved scissors,
And gulping at more than she can swallow, and working her thick, soft tongue,
And having the bread hanging over her chin.
O Mistress, Mistress,
Reptile mistress,
Your eye is very dark, very bright,
And it never softens
Although you watch.
She knows,
She knows well enough to come for food,
Yet she sees me not;
Her bright eye sees, but not me, not anything,
Sightful, sightless, seeing and visionless,
Reptile mistress.
Taking bread in her curved, gaping, toothless mouth,
She has no qualm when she catches my finger in her steel overlapping gums,
But she hangs on, and my shout and my shrinking are nothing to her.
She does not even know she is nipping me with her curved beak.
Snake-like she draws at my finger, while I drag it in horror away.
Mistress, reptile mistress,
You are almost too large, I am almost frightened.
He is much smaller,
Dapper beside her,
And ridiculously small.
Her laconic eye has an earthy, materialistic look,
His, poor darling, is almost fiery.
His wimple, his blunt-prowed face,
His low forehead, his skinny neck, his long, scaled, striving legs,
So striving, striving,
Are all more delicate than she,
And he has a cruel scar on his shell.
Poor darling, biting at her feet,
Running beside her like a dog, biting her earthy, splay feet,
Nipping her ankles,
Which she drags apathetic away, though without retreating into her shell.
Agelessly silent,
And with a grim, reptile determination,
Cold, voiceless age-after-age behind him, serpents' long obstinacy
Of horizontal persistence.
Little old man
Scuffling beside her, bending down, catching his opportunity,
Parting his steel-trap face, so suddenly, and seizing her scaly ankle,
And hanging grimly on,
Letting go at last as she drags away,
And closing his steel-trap face.
His steel-trap, stoic, ageless, handsome face.
Alas, what a fool he looks in this scuffle.
And how he feels it!
The lonely rambler, the stoic, dignified stalker through chaos,
The immune, the animate,
Enveloped in isolation,
Fore-runner.
Now look at him!
Alas, the spear is through the side of his isolation.
His adolescence saw him crucified into sex,
Doomed, in the long crucifixion of desire, to seek his consummation beyond himself.
Divided into passionate duality,
He, so finished and immune, now broken into desirous fragmentariness,
Doomed to make an intolerable fool of himself
In his effort toward completion again.
Poor little earthy house-inhabiting Osiris,
The mysterious bull tore him at adolescence into pieces,
And he must struggle after reconstruction, ignominiously.
And so behold him following the tail
Of that mud-hovel of his slowly rambling spouse,
Like some unhappy bull at the tail of a cow,
But with more than bovine, grim, earth-dank persistence.
Suddenly seizing the ugly ankle as she stretches out to walk,
Roaming over the sods,
Or, if it happen to show, at her pointed, heavy tail
Beneath the low-dropping back-board of her shell.
Their two shells like domed boats bumping,
Hers huge, his small;
Their splay feet rambling and rowing like paddles,
And stumbling mixed up in one another,
In the race of love --
Two tortoises,
She huge, he small.
She seems earthily apathetic,
And he has a reptile's awful persistence.
I heard a woman pitying her, pitying the Mère Tortue.
While I, I pity Monsieur.
'He pesters her and torments her,' said the woman.
How much more is he pestered and tormented, say I.
What can he do?
He is dumb, he is visionless,
Conceptionless.
His black, sad-lidded eye sees but beholds not
As her earthen mound moves on,
But he catches the folds of vulnerable, leathery skin,
Nail-studded, that shake beneath her shell,
And drags at these with his beak,
Drags and drags and bites,
While she pulls herself free, and rows her dull mound along.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Related quotes
Tortoise Gallantry
Making his advances
He does not look at her, nor sniff at her,
No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.
Only he senses the vulnerable folds of skin
That work beneath her while she sprawls along
In her ungainly pace,
Her folds of skin that work and row
Beneath the earth-soiled hovel in which she moves.
And so he strains beneath her housey wall,
And catches her trouser-legs in his beak
Suddenly, or her skinny limb,
And strange and grimly drags at her
Like a dog,
Only agelessly silent, with a reptile's awful persistency.
Grim, gruesome gallantry, to which he is doomed.
Dragged out of an eternity of silent isolation
And doomed to partiality, partial being,
Ache, and want of being,
Want,
Self-exposure, hard humiliation, need to add himself on to her.
Born to walk alone,
Fore-runner,
Now suddenly distracted into this mazy side-track,
This awkward, harrowing pursuit,
This grim necessity from within.
Does she know
As she moves eternally slowly away?
Or is he driven against her with a bang, like a bird flying in the dark against a window,
All knowledgeless?
The awful concussion,
And the still more awful need to persist, to follow, follow, continue,
Driven, after aeons of pristine, fore-god-like singleness and oneness,
At the end of some mysterious, red-hot iron,
Driven away from himself into her tracks,
Forced to crash against her.
Stiff, gallant, irascible, crook-legged reptile,
Little gentleman,
Sorry plight,
We ought to look the other way.
Save that, having come with you so far,
We will go on to the end.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Baby Tortoise
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird,
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Tortoise Shout
I thought he was dumb,
I said he was dumb,
Yet I've heard him cry.
First faint scream,
Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,
Far, far off, far scream.
Tortoise in extremis.
Why were we crucified into sex?
Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
As we began,
As he certainly began, so perfectly alone?
A far, was-it-audible scream,
Or did it sound on the plasm direct?
Worse than the cry of the new-born,
A scream,
A yell,
A shout,
A pæan,
A death-agony,
A birth-cry,
A submission,
All tiny, tiny, far away, reptile under the first dawn.
War-cry, triumph, acute-delight, death-scream reptilian,
Why was the veil torn?
The silken shriek of the soul's torn membrane?
The male soul's membrane
Torn with a shriek half music, half horror.
Crucifixion.
Male tortoise, cleaving behind the hovel-wall of that dense female,
Mounted and tense, spread-eagle, out-reaching out of the shell
In tortoise-nakedness,
Long neck, and long vulnerable limbs extruded, spread-eagle over her house-roof,
And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved beneath her walls,
Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching anguish in uttermost tension
Till suddenly, in the spasm of coition, tupping like a jerking leap, and oh!
Opening its clenched face from his outstretched neck
And giving that fragile yell, that scream,
Super-audible,
From his pink, cleft, old-man's mouth,
Giving up the ghost,
Or screaming in Pentecost, receiving the ghost.
His scream, and his moment's subsidence,
The moment of eternal silence,
Yet unreleased, and after the moment, the sudden, startling jerk of coition, and at once
The inexpressible faint yell --
And so on, till the last plasm of my body was melted back
To the primeval rudiments of life, and the secret.
So he tups, and screams
Time after time that frail, torn scream
After each jerk, the longish interval,
The tortoise eternity,
Agelong, reptilian persistence,
Heart-throb, slow heart-throb, persistent for the next spasm.
I remember, when I was a boy,
I heard the scream of a frog, which was caught with his foot in the mouth of an up-starting snake;
I remember when I first heard bull-frogs break into sound in the spring;
I remember hearing a wild goose out of the throat of night
Cry loudly, beyond the lake of waters;
I remember the first time, out of a bush in the darkness, a nightingale's piercing cries and gurgles startled the depths of my soul;
I remember the scream of a rabbit as I went through a wood at midnight;
I remember the heifer in her heat, blorting and blorting through the hours, persistent and irrepressible;
I remember my first terror hearing the howl of weird, amorous cats;
I remember the scream of a terrified, injured horse, the sheet-lightning
And running away from the sound of a woman in labor, something like an owl whooing,
And listening inwardly to the first bleat of a lamb,
The first wail of an infant,
And my mother singing to herself,
And the first tenor singing of the passionate throat of a young collier, who has long since drunk himself to death,
The first elements of foreign speech
On wild dark lips.
And more than all these,
And less than all these,
This last,
Strange, faint coition yell
Of the male tortoise at extremity,
Tiny from under the very edge of the farthest far-off horizon of life.
The cross,
The wheel on which our silence first is broken,
Sex, which breaks up our integrity, our single inviolability, our deep silence
Tearing a cry from us.
Sex, which breaks us into voice, sets us calling across the deeps, calling, calling for the complement,
Singing, and calling, and singing again, being answered, having found.
Torn, to become whole again, after long seeking for what is lost,
The same cry from the tortoise as from Christ, the Osiris-cry of abandonment,
That which is whole, torn asunder,
That which is in part, finding its whole again throughout the universe.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Dunne Studying.
Dunne watches her mistress sleep.
There is the flickering of the eyelids
As if in dream. She gets out of bed
And with soft tread walks to her
Mistress’s bed side and looks down.
She holds her breath. She takes in
Each aspect of the face and neck
And how the hair is spread upon
The pillow. She wants to lean down
And kiss the lips, put flesh to flesh.
She hovers like some hawk waiting
To fly down and take her fine prey.
She breathes out slowly. She watches
The rise and fall of her mistress’s breast.
She moves out a hand to lay it there
But does not touch. She imagines so.
Imagines also climbing into the bed
And snuggling up close and kissing
The nape of neck. Her hand lingers
Over the breasts. Her eyes greedily
Study the soft cheek. She breathes
In deep. Her heart pounds within her
Breast. So near so near. She imagines
Lying within those arms and feeling
The hands caress her back. Her mistress
Stirs and she moves away. Walks back
To her own bed to await the light of day.
poem by Terry Collett
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Mouth
You gave me this
made me give
your silver grin
still sticking it in
you have soul machine
soul machine
the longest kiss
peeling furniture days
drift madly to you
pollute my heart drain
you have broken at me
broken me
all your mental armor drags me down
nothing hurts like your mouth
your loaded smiles
pretty just desserts
wish it all for you
so much it never hurts
you have soul machine
stone at me
all your mental armor drags me down
we can't breathe when you come around
all your mental armor drags me down
nothing hurts like your mouth mouth
mouth
your mouth mouth mouth
your mouth mouth mouth
we've been missing long before
never found our way home
we've been missing long before
where we'll find our way
you gave me this
made me give
you have soul machine
broken free
all your mental armor drags me down
we can't breathe when you come around
all your mental armor drags me down
nothing hurts like your mouth mouth
mouth
your mouth mouth mouth
your mouth mouth mouth
all your mental armor
all your mental armor
and your mouth
mouth
song performed by by Bush from Razorblade Suitcase
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our Lady Of Solitude
All summer long she touched me
She gathered in my soul
From many a thorn, from many thickets
Her fingers, like a weavers
Quick and cool
And the light came from her body
And the night went through her grace
All summer long she touched me
And I knew her, I knew her
Face to face
And her dress was blue and silver
And her words were few and small
She is the vessel of the whole wide world
Mistress, oh mistress, of us all
Dearly dead; queen of solitude
I thank you with my heart
For keeping me so close to thee
While so many, oh so many, stood apart
And the light came from her body
And the night went through her grace
All summer long she touched me
I knew her, I knew her
Face to face
song performed by by Leonard Cohen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Turtle
I want to get with your turtle.
Your turtle seems so at peace,
At a slow pace that really creeps.
Taking everything easy.
I want to chat with your turtle.
I want to ask if it has wishes to be free?
And if a turtle gets relief.
So thick its shell!
With skin so reptile-ish.
Does it ever want a hug or kiss?
And 'how' does it handle this?
So rich it smells!
In a pot cooked with mustard seed.
With carrots and celery leaves.
And a dash of sea salt spiced with peppers!
Does it know that its good to eat?
I want to get with your turtle.
Your turtle seems so at peace,
At a slow pace that really creeps.
Taking everything easy.
So thick its shell!
With skin so reptile-ish.
Does it ever want a hug or kiss?
And 'how' does it handle this?
I want to chat with your turtle.
I want to ask if it has wishes to be free?
And if a turtle gets any relief...
To be away and out of that shell!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Epilogue to Henry II.
Thus you the sad catastrophe have seen,
Occasioned by a mistress and a queen.
Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say;
But English manufacture got the day.
Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver;
Fair Rosamond was but her nom de guerre.
Now tell me, gallants, would you lead your life
With such a mistress, or with such a wife?
If one must be your choice, which d' ye approve,
The curtain lecture, or the curtain love?
Would ye be godly with perpetual strife,
Still drudging on with homely Joan, your wife,
Or take your pleasure in a wicked way,
Like honest whoring Harry in the play?
I guess your minds; the mistress would be taking,
And nauseous matrimony sent a packing.
The devil's in you all; mankind's a rogue;
You love the bride, but you detest the clog.
After a year, poor spouse is left i' the lurch,
And you, like Haynes, return to mother-church.
Or, if the name of church comes cross your mind,
Chapels-of-ease behind our scenes you find.
The playhouse is a kind of market-place;
One chaffers for a voice, another for a face;
Nay, some of you,—I dare not say how many,—
Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny.
E'en this poor face, which with my fan I hide,
Would make a shift my portion to provide,
With some small perquisites I have beside.
Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care,
I could not hate a man that bids me fair.
What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell;
But I was drenched to-day for loving well,
And fear the poison that would make me swell.
poem by John Dryden
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To His lady,
IMPLORING HER TO BE TRUE
MISTRESS of me, mistress of all the arts
And charms that sway men's hot ungoverned hearts,
Receive their tribute--smile at their defeat;
I do not ask that you should spare them, sweet.
Only I ask that in the secret shrine
No prayers be heard, no offering laid, but mine.
Each man who sees your eyes must needs lay down
Low at your feet the votive myrtle crown:
Let them bring crowns to die beneath your feet;
I, only I, must bring the crown you wear
Shadowing the sombre glory of your hair.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Kangaroo
Delicate mother Kangaroo
Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plump-weighted,
And lifting her beautiful slender face, oh! so much more
gently and finely lined than a rabbit's, or than a hare's,
Lifting her face to nibble at a round white peppermint drop
which she loves, sensitive mother Kangaroo.
Her sensitive, long, pure-bred face.
Her full antipodal eyes, so dark,
So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many
empty dawns in silent Australia.
Her little loose hands, and drooping Victorian shoulders.
And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly,
With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and
straggle of a long thin ear, like ribbon,
Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin
little dangle of an immature paw, and one thin ear.
Her belly, her big haunches
And, in addition, the great muscular python-stretch of her tail.
There, she shan't have any more peppermint drops.
So she wistfully, sensitively sniffs the air, and then turns,
goes off in slow sad leaps
On the long flat skis of her legs,
Steered and propelled by that steel-strong snake of a tail.
Stops again, half turns, inquisitive to look back.
While something stirs quickly in her belly, and a lean little
face comes out, as from a window,
Peaked and a bit dismayed,
Only to disappear again quickly away from the sight of the
world, to snuggle down in the warmth,
Leaving the trail of a different paw hanging out.
Still she watches with eternal, cocked wistfulness!
How full her eyes are, like the full, fathomless, shining
eyes of an Australian black-boy
Who has been lost so many centuries on the margins of
existence!
She watches with insatiable wistfulness.
Untold centuries of watching for something to come,
For a new signal from life, in that silent lost land of the
South.
Where nothing bites but insects and snakes and the sun,
small life.
Where no bull roared, no cow ever lowed, no stag cried,
no leopard screeched, no lion coughed, no dog barked,
But all was silent save for parrots occasionally, in the
haunted blue bush.
Wistfully watching, with wonderful liquid eyes.
And all her weight, all her blood, dropping sackwise down
towards the earth's centre,
And the live little-one taking in its paw at the door of her
belly.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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The Choice
PLAGUE take the dull and dusty town,
Its paved and sordid mazes,
Now Spring has trimmed her pretty gown
With buttercups and daisies!
With half my heart I long to lie
Among the flowered grasses,
And hear the loving leaves that sigh
As their sweet Mistress passes.
Through picture-shows I make my way
While flower-crowned maids go maying,
And all the cultured things I say
That cultured folk are saying.
For I renounce Spring's darling face,
With may-bloom fresh upon it:
My Mistress lives in Grosvenor-place
And wears a Bond-street bonnet!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Katie: The Cocker Spaniel
With her caramel fur, and long, floppy ears,
Seeing Katie go for her walk, brings me cheer.
Away from her mistress, she excitedly bolts;
Over neighbour’s fences, she effortlessly vaults.
Sniffing around, here and there, she loves to explore;
Despite having travelled this path, many times before.
Whether she’s out on a sunny day, or in a force ten gale,
She’s guaranteed to be happy, and have a very waggy tail.
Still only a few years old, she appears to have endless energy.
There are so many things in life, for her curious eyes to see.
Full of the joys of spring, she rushes around all over the place;
If dogs could smile, then she’d definitely have one on her face!
Let off of her lead, she darts off, and is, very soon, gone,
But she returns to her strolling mistress, to beckon her on.
She really loves to go for her twice daily walks;
To other dog owners, her mistress often talks.
At some people, she jumps up, as them, she loves to greet,
But, by doing so, she leaves an impression of her muddy feet!
That she lives her life to the full, there isn’t a single doubt;
Barking joyously, she runs and jumps and dances about.
Of a snarling, butch, muscular looking dog, I am really scared,
But, the presence of a playful, Cocker Spaniel, I will happily bear.
They pass my house, each and every day, whatever the weather.
Over the coming years, they will share many great times together.
poem by Angela Wybrow
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Cupid In Ambush
It oft to many has successful been
Upon his arm to let his mistress lean,
Or with her airy fan to cool her heat,
Or gently squeeze her knees, or press her feet.
All public sports to favour young desire,
With opportunities like this conspire.
E'en where his skill the gladiator shows,
With human blood where the Arena flows,
There oftentimes Love's quiver-bearing boy
Prepares his bow and arrows to destroy;
While the spectator gazes on the sight,
And sees them wound each other with delight;
While he his pretty mistress entertains,
And wagers with her who the conquest gains,
Slily the god takes aim, and hits his heart,
And in the wounds he sees he bears his part.
poem by Matthew Prior
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Mistress & Maid
(mccartney/macmanus)
She said, come in, my dear,
Youre looking tired tonight
Your bath is drawn, let me loosen your tie
And fix you your usual drink
He settles back
Takes a magazine
Kicks off his shoes
As he studies the form
Of every appealing soubrette
But where are the flowers that he used to bring?
Every endearing remark
Reminds her of passionate promises
That he only made in the dark
In her bed
She wants to shout at the back of his head
Look at me, look at me, look at me
Im afraid
See what its come to
Im just your mistress and maid
The wine is warm
But the dinner is cold
The look in his eye tells her it wont be long
Till the girls on the page come to life
And theyll get the flowers that he used to bring
With every endearing remark
And all of the passionate promises
Hell never fulfil in the dark
In their bed
She wants to shout at the back of his head
Look at me, look at me, now that Im not afraid.
See what its come to
Im not your mistress and maid
See what its come to
Im not your mistress and maid
song performed by by Elvis Costello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Jenny Greenteeth
There's a hag by the name of Jenny Greenteeth;
Of human life, she is a well-known thief.
She waits under the water of the Old Mill Pond,
For an unsuspecting victim to happen along.
She claims her victims at the dead of night,
When many folks' hearts are full of fright.
It is always under the light of the silvery moon
That her terrified victims meet their final doom.
The victim won't believe what they are seeing,
When, from the water, they spy a strange being.
The victim will think that it is all just a dream;
They will open their mouth and begin to scream.
She bursts forth from the water with staring eyes,
Filling her chosen victim with shocked surprise.
With her long, bony fingers, she grabs at limbs,
Then having taken a hold, she drags them on in.
Her skin is pale green, and her hair is long.
Her breath gives off the most dreadful pong.
Her teeth are pointed, like those of a shark.
Her eyes are large and, like coal, are dark.
Her reaching arms are as skinny as a rake,
But unwilling victims, these arms do take.
With hair like waterweed, and a very thin face,
Her appearance makes her victims' hearts race.
To the pond's edge, most will not venture near;
Of Jenny Greenteeth, there is a very great fear.
The young and the old should take special care
Not to venture too near to Jenny's watery lair.
With ferocity, like that of a mighty lion,
She grabs her victims with fists of iron.
Into the murky depths, she drags them down;
They breathe their last, and then they drown.
poem by Angela Wybrow
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Animal Rights (A Good Cat)
A cat is a good cat,
no matter what colour, white or black,
as long as it catches,
the naughty rats.
A cat is a good cat,
as long as it does not make any mess,
by peeing and poohing on my dress.
A cat is a good cat,
as long as it does not sleep on my mattress,
between me and my mistress.
as long as it does not make any distress,
during our loving act.
A cat is a good cat,
as long as it keeps our secret,
by not letting out of the bag.
poem by by unknown author
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Slow Nature
(an Incident of Froom Valley)
"THY husband--poor, poor Heart!--is dead--
Dead, out by Moreford Rise;
A bull escaped the barton-shed,
Gored him, and there he lies!"
--"Ha, ha--go away! 'Tis a tale, methink,
Thou joker Kit!" laughed she.
"I've known thee many a year, Kit Twink,
And ever hast thou fooled me!"
--"But, Mistress Damon--I can swear
Thy goodman John is dead!
And soon th'lt hear their feet who bear
His body to his bed."
So unwontedly sad was the merry man's face--
That face which had long deceived--
That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace
The truth there; and she believed.
She laid a hand on the dresser-ledge,
And scanned far Egdon-side;
And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge
And the rippling Froom; till she cried:
"O my chamber's untidied, unmade my bed,
Though the day has begun to wear!
'What a slovenly hussif!' it will be said,
When they all go up my stair!"
She disappeared; and the joker stood
Depressed by his neighbor's doom,
And amazed that a wife struck to widowhood
Thought first of her unkempt room.
But a fortnight thence she could take no food,
And she pined in a slow decay;
While Kit soon lost his mournful mood
And laughed in his ancient way.
poem by Thomas Hardy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fog Portrait
RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face … looking … looking.
Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail … and a woman’s steel face … looking … looking.
Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the storm’s vortex; miles of white horses plow through a stony beach; stars, clear sky, and everywhere free climbers calling; and a woman’s steel face … looking … looking …
poem by Carl Sandburg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mistress & Maid
She said
Come in my dear,
Youre looking tired tonight.
Your bath is drawn, let me loosen your tie
And fix you your usual drink.
He settles back,
Takes a magazine,
Kicks off his shoes, as he studies the form
Of every appealing soubrette.
But where are the flowers that he used to bring?
Every endearing remark
Reminds her of passionarte promises,
That he only made in the dark.
In her bed,
She wants to shout at the back of his head
Look at me, look at me, look at me Im afraid
See what its come to,
Im just your mistress and maid.
The wine is warm
But the dinner is cold.
The look in his eye tells her it wont be long
till the girls on the page come to life.
And theyll get the flowers that he used to bring
With every endearing remark,
And all of the passionate promises
Hell never fulfil in the dark.
In their bed,
She wants to shout at the back of his head
Look at me, look at me, now that Im not afraid.
See what its come to,
Im not your mistress and maid.
See what its come to,
Im not your mistress annf maid.
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I & I
Been so long since a strange woman has slept in my bed.
Look how sweet she sleeps, how free must be her dreams.
In another lifetime she must have owned the world, or been faithfully wed
To some righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams.
I and i
In creation where ones nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and i
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.
Think Ill go out and go for a walk,
Not much happenin here, nothin ever does.
Besides, if she wakes up now, shell just want me to talk
I got nothin to say, specially about whatever was.
I and i
In creation where ones nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and i
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.
Took an untrodden path once, where the swift dont win the race,
It goes to the worthy, who can divide the word of truth.
Took a stranger to teach me, to look into justices beautiful face
And to see an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
I and i
In creation where ones nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and i
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.
Outside of two men on a train platform theres nobody in sight,
Theyre waiting for spring to come, smoking down the track.
The world could come to an end tonight, but thats all right.
She should still be there sleepin when I get back.
I and i
In creation where ones nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and i
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.
Noontime, and Im still pushin myself along the road, the darkest part,
Into the narrow lanes, I cant stumble or stay put.
Someone else is speakin with my mouth, but Im listening only to my heart.
Ive made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot.
I and i
In creation where ones nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and i
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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