The Star Splitter
`You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?'
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a lifelong curiosity
About our place among the infinities.
`What do you want with one of those blame things?'
I asked him well beforehand. `Don't you get one!'
`Don't call it blamed; there isn't anything
More blameless in the sense of being less
A weapon in our human fight,' he said.
`I'll have one if I sell my farm to buy it.'
There where he moved the rocks to plow the ground
And plowed between the rocks he couldn't move,
Few farms changed hands; so rather than spend years
Trying to sell his farm and then not selling,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And bought the telescope with what it came to.
He had been heard to say by several:
`The best thing that we're put here for's to see;
The strongest thing that's given us to see with's
A telescope. Someone in every town
Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one.
In Littleton it might as well be me.'
After such loose talk it was no surprise
When he did what he did and burned his house down.
Mean laughter went about the town that day
To let him know we weren't the least imposed on,
And he could wait---we'd see to him tomorrow.
But the first thing next morning we reflected
If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving.
Our thief, the one who does our stealing from us,
We don't cut off from coming to church suppers,
But what we miss we go to him and ask for.
He promptly gives it back, that is if still
Uneaten, unworn out, or undisposed of.
It wouldn't do to be too hard on Brad
About his telescope. Beyond the age
Of being given one for Christmas gift,
He had to take the best way he knew how
To find himself in one. Well, all we said was
He took a strange thing to be roguish over.
Some sympathy was wasted on the house,
A good old-timer dating back along;
But a house isn't sentient; the house
Didn't feel anything. And if it did,
Why not regard it as a sacrifice,
And an old-fashioned sacrifice by fire,
Instead of a new-fashioned one at auction?
Out of a house and so out of a farm
At one stroke (of a match), Brad had to turn
To earn a living on the Concord railroad,
As under-ticket-agent at a station
Where his job, when he wasn't selling tickets,
Was setting out, up track and down, not plants
As on a farm, but planets, evening stars
That varied in their hue from red to green.
He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.
His new job gave him leisure for stargazing.
Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as we spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things we ever said.
That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,
Because it didn't do a thing but split
A star in two or three, the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
With one stroke of your finger in the middle.
It's a star-splitter if there ever was one,
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood.
We've looked and looked, but after all where are we?
Do we know any better where we are,
And how it stands between the night tonight
And a man with a smoky lantern chimney?
How different from the way it ever stood?
poem by Robert Frost
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Related quotes
My Telescope
my hearts beating
noticably without warning
racing this tune
writing a poem
stuck in the underworld
forever starless night
light abandoned me
then I saw the stars in your eyes
you pulled me out
like a lifeguard
giving me back breath
awakening my soul
Now I see
A myriad of stars
I look up
I see you
Flashing and blinking
Your shooting
Across the night sky
In through
My telescope
My telescope
The universe
Has never looked so grand
In all my years now
Possibility floods in
Like molten lava
You branded me a new name
Now I see
A myriad of stars
I look up
I see you
Flashing and blinking
Your shooting
Across the night sky
In through
My telescope
My telescope
poem by Cokbod Lodwogo
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The Fear
A lantern light from deeper in the barn
Shone on a man and woman in the door
And threw their lurching shadows on a house
Near by, all dark in every glossy window.
A horse's hoof pawed once the hollow floor,
And the back of the gig they stood beside
Moved in a little. The man grasped a wheel,
The woman spoke out sharply, 'Whoa, stand still!'
'I saw it just as plain as a white plate,'
She said, 'as the light on the dashboard ran
Along the bushes at the roadside-a man's face.
You must have seen it too.'
'I didn't see it.
Are you sure--'
'Yes, I'm sure!'
'-it was a face?'
'Joel, I'll have to look. I can't go in,
I can't, and leave a thing like that unsettled.
Doors locked and curtains drawn will make no difference.
I always have felt strange when we came home
To the dark house after so long an absence,
And the key rattled loudly into place
Seemed to warn someone to be getting out
At one door as we entered at another.
What if I'm right, and someone all the time-
Don't hold my arm!'
'I say it's someone passing.'
'You speak as if this were a travelled road.
You forget where we are. What is beyond
That he'd be going to or coming from
At such an hour of night, and on foot too.
What was he standing still for in the bushes?'
'It's not so very late-it's only dark.
There's more in it than you're inclined to say.
Did he look like--?'
'He looked like anyone.
I'll never rest to-night unless I know.
Give me the lantern.'
'You don't want the lantern.'
She pushed past him and got it for herself.
'You're not to come,' she said. 'This is my business.
If the time's come to face it, I'm the one
To put it the right way. He'd never dare-
Listen! He kicked a stone. Hear that, hear that!
He's coming towards us. Joel, go in-please.
Hark!-I don't hear him now. But please go in.'
'In the first place you can't make me believe it's--'
'It is-or someone else he's sent to watch.
And now's the time to have it out with him
While we know definitely where he is.
Let him get off and he'll be everywhere
Around us, looking out of trees and bushes
Till I sha'n't dare to set a foot outdoors.
And I can't stand it. Joel, let me go!'
'But it's nonsense to think he'd care enough.'
'You mean you couldn't understand his caring.
Oh, but you see he hadn't had enough-
Joel, I won't-I won't-I promise you.
We mustn't say hard things. You mustn't either.'
'I'll be the one, if anybody goes!
But you give him the advantage with this light.
What couldn't he do to us standing here!
And if to see was what he wanted, why
He has seen all there was to see and gone.'
He appeared to forget to keep his hold,
But advanced with her as she crossed the grass.
'What do you want?' she cried to all the dark.
She stretched up tall to overlook the light
That hung in both hands hot against her skirt.
'There's no one; so you're wrong,' he said.
'There is.-
What do you want?' she cried, and then herself
Was startled when an answer really came.
'Nothing.' It came from well along the road.
She reached a hand to Joel for support:
The smell of scorching woollen made her faint.
'What are you doing round this house at night?'
'Nothing.' A pause: there seemed no more to say.
And then the voice again: 'You seem afraid.
I saw by the way you whipped up the horse.
I'll just come forward in the lantern light
And let you see.'
'Yes, do.-Joel, go back!'
She stood her ground against the noisy steps
That came on, but her body rocked a little.
'You see,' the voice said.
'Oh.' She looked and looked.
'You don't see-I've a child here by the hand.'
'What's a child doing at this time of night--?'
'Out walking. Every child should have the memory
Of at least one long-after-bedtime walk.
What, son?'
'Then I should think you'd try to find
Somewhere to walk--'
'The highway as it happens-
We're stopping for the fortnight down at Dean's.'
'But if that's all-Joel-you realize-
You won't think anything. You understand?
You understand that we have to be careful.
This is a very, very lonely place.
Joel!' She spoke as if she couldn't turn.
The swinging lantern lengthened to the ground,
It touched, it struck it, clattered and went out.
poem by Robert Frost
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Back Home Again
This song appears on fifteen albums, and was first released on the back home again album, and has also been released on the favourites, the greatest hits vol 2, voice of america, john denver (it
), the very best of john denver (double cd), the rocky mountain collection, the country roads collection and country classics albums. live versions appear on the live in london, the live at the
Y opera house, the wildlife concert and the best of john denver live albums. an updated studio version also appears on the love again and a celebration of life albums.
Theres a storm across the valley, clouds are rollin in
The afternoon is heavy on your shoulders
Theres a truck out on the four lane a mile or more away
The whinin of his wheels just makes it colder
Hes an hour away from ridin on your prayers up in the sky
And ten days on the road are barely gone
Theres a fire softly burnin, suppers on the stove
But its the light in your eyes that makes him warm
Hey its good to be back home again
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long-lost friend
Yes n hey, its good to be back home again
Theres all the news to tell him, howd you spend your time
Whats the latest thing the neighbors say
And your mother called last friday, sunshine made her cry
You felt the baby move just yesterday
Hey its good to be back home again - yes it is
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long-lost friend
Yes n hey, its good to be back home again
Oh the time that I can lay this tired old body down
Feel your fingers feather soft upon me
The kisses that I live for, the love that lights my way
The happiness that that livin with you brings me
Its the sweetest thing I know of, just spending time with you
Its the little things that make a house a home
Like a fire softly burnin supper on the stove
The light in your eyes that makes me warm
Hey its good to be back home again
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long-lost friend
Yes n hey, its good to be back home again
Hey its good to be back home again - you know it is
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long-lost friend
Hey, its good to be back home again
I said hey its good to be back home again
Words and music by john denver
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Old House Of My Grandfather
sometimes as i walk early morning
when the suns starts to climb up on the hill
i think of grandfather's house
old, and spacious on top of a hill
overlooking his farm where his carabaos graze
his goat and cows and ducks teem,
oh, those were the years of bounty
and there was no worry,
about what to eat what to do
where to go,
times changed, and now we are always on a race
taking much work, and buying lots of things
sometimes we regret, taking and throwing
going and then returning
apparently, for no purpose and without meaning,
we live in a new house now with glass windows
and iron grill and high and thick walls and fences
we speak less, we move more,
we laugh less, we discuss more,
the old house of grandfather was burned in 1968.
this new house burns all day, and there is no fireman coming.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Soldier's Song
Smoke was slowly rising as the night began to fade,
There were fires on the sky line from some distant born array,
I was riding out at 17 to join my first brigade,
Many years ago.
And I chanced upon a farm house where the woman took me in,
She gave me food and wine, she gave me shelter from the wind,
She delayed me from my regiment, and service of my King,
Many years ago.
She said "Soldier, before I lose you to the fight,
Oh my soldier, I'll make a man of you tonight"
She took me over, in the fading fire glow,
On that wild and misty night she was my woman.
When I rose next morning I was gone before she stirred,
Tore myself away from there and left without a word,
Sound of distant infantry was the only thing I heard,
On that morning.
And in that day I aged 10 years and died a thousand deaths,
I learned the feel of frozen steal and fear within my breast,
But the lesson I remember 'til they laided me to my rest,
Keeps returning.
She said "Soldier, before I lose you to the fight,
Oh my soldier, I'll make a man of you tonight"
She took me over, in the fading fire glow,
On that wild and misty night she was my woman.
And when the dice of war was thrown, and victory was won,
My drunken young compatriots went out to have their fun,
And there was no single house they did not burn or over run,
On that evening.
And I rode out to that place again as hard as I could ride,
but I found her by the trail on the lonely mountain side,
In the hands of those brave friends of mine she suffered and she died,
Many years ago.
"Soldier, before I lose you to the fight,
Oh my soldier, I'll make a man of you tonight"
She took me over, in the fading fire glow,
On that wild and misty night she was my woman.
song performed by by Hollies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Just Drove By
I always go the other way
But my car drove me down today
To a little house on the older side of town
Back when things were never hard
I used to play there in that yard
And I just drove by to see if things had changed
Cokes were just a nickel then
And across the street at the five and ten
A lot of things were cheap and square and strange
And the life we had might have been
But it was one we loved believing in
And I just drove by to see if things had changed
I wondered now
If love is still the way it was back then
I need to know
That life is still a place worth living in
There it is, just like it was
A house where there was always love
I just drove by to see if things had changed
In a world thats seen its better days
Its good to know some things remain
The same, though standing still is not times way
Take to heart while in its spring
That love is just a fragile thing
I just drove by to see if things had changed
song performed by by Wynonna Judd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Come Get Some
[Lil Jon]
We gon' start this thing off right (say what?)
We got the Dirty South in the house tonight
We gon' start this thing off right (say what?)
We got the ATL in the house tonight
We gon' start this thing off right (say what?)
We got some sexy ladies in the house tonight
We gon' start this thing off right (say what?)
We got TLC in the house tonight
Chorus:
Baby, if I drop it down to the ground
Then put it in your face, now what'chu gon' do?
Shorty, if I shake it then turn around
Then back it up on ya, what'chu gon' do?
If you want some, come get some
If you want some, come get some
If you want some, come get some
If you want some, shorty come
song performed by by TLC
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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White Rose From The Atlas
Now Paris
Is washing its eyes
With August rain
Paris is now
A woman
A Babylonian bride
Her wedding
Is set on Christmas
I hear youyous in Paris
And emigrants cheering
And applauding
To welcome
These eyes of marble
This is your day woman
You will hug
Another man
A Parisian
Black-feet
Who does not respect
The rain
In my little house
There are many essays
And poems
Some I do not feel I need
Some are not mine
They are still
Standing up
The way I left them
This morning
The fireplace is silent
Like a grandmother
Who knows when she should talk
Too many books
In different languages
Agitated
Like me
Even your journal
As you left it
It still keeping
Its preferred place,
Its blue color
And the smell of your burned desires
The first December snow
Is falling in a rebellious motions,
It is embracing the town’s big avenue
And dancing with the last falling leaves
Against its will
This is not very important
The town is not
My town
I am an emigrant too
Time in my house
Is yellowish
It creates its own dunes
Just to get lost
This is trouble my house’s door.
Before you left
This town
I drew a plan
To settle and colonized this town
I planned to build
Another Paris
A barbarian one
So you can take me
With your eyes of the Atlas
Through its streets of marble
And to our Andalusia’s house
Then we go
And visit mosques
Churches
And temples
To wash our souls
With the town’s walls
And gates.
Now
And after you left
I burned all the plans
The town’s saltiness is all that remains
And the smell of your burned desires.
poem by Atef Ayadi
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The Fire of Drift-wood
DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD.
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Haven't Seen A Star In Four Nights
Haven't seen a star in four nights
and the windows are pining for more than lamplight.
It's darker in than it is out, but suddenly
through the breaking clouds, hey, there's one
and I'm momentarily thrilled by the delight of a child
spotting her first firefly rising like a chimney-spark
above this ashen town on a cold, autumn night.
Small pleasures in the aftermath of great intensities,
the immaculate focus that burned eyeholes
in the sockets of my crystal deathmask
that left me feeling like wounded glass
thawing into the long slow tears I carried back
from the wishing well like the empty buckets
of a waterclock that acts like a volunteer fire brigade
that never put anything out before it was too late.
Wouldn't be the first house of the zodiac to burn down
and probably not the last, but, at least,
it's not a plague door to the past facing east.
It's not blood leaking out of the nostril of a bell,
but who knows? You can never really tell.
Anyone here ever go through a transformation,
emerged from a chrysalis of solitary despair
like a dragonfly with a retroactive message of hope
shining like Venus in the false dawn
of a real enlightenment experience? Do you see
how the light breathes on the darkness
and it's morning everywhere at midnight?
I'm off to the woods to listen to the laughter
of the falling leaves abandoning their dissertations
on the nature of perishing as if the answer
had always been a breeze of effortless effort.
Truth is just the sound we make for something
we're never going to stop looking for.
In the company of birches and the ghosts
of lake mist Druids it's easier to sit still long enough
to recognize it. Let the starmud settle in the puddle
as if a vapour of metal were silvering a mirror
like dew in the night, a silk cloak of auroral insight,
without trading your eyes in for a Zen telescope.
To a dead man, is it folly to hope?
To a live one, is it wisdom to despair?
poem by Patrick White
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Just a little poem about a house
A house made out of glass and bricks
That has seen some tricks
A house that has been here for years
This house has witnessed some happiness and some tears
This is house used to be my home,
Used to call it my dome
Now it doesn’t exist anymore
Glass and bricks are swept to the floor
Memories of the past, weren’t meant to last
The only thing that still stands, is the drawing in your hands.
poem by Oopsie Woopsie
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On Being Defrauded...
a poor worker
has overpriced me for his services
demolishing a house
that was burned
the fire that ate a son
and a house-help
the news that froze
almost to death
the whole city
many nights i could not sleep
i dream of robbers and
crocodiles
but then, (on the other hand)
it could simply be
history repeating itself
or just the usual
things that happen because
they are destined to be
got a mirror
see my face and
nod.
i can do the same thing to another next time.
no holds bar.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The House with Nobody in It
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
poem by Joyce Kilmer
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Sea Life
A seafarer’s life
I didn’t want to work in a factory and get my hands dirty,
be locked inside grey walls six days a week, as everyone
else in my street was, so I got a job selling books from
house to house; only I was so terrible shy.
The first doorbell I rang was also my last, the woman who
opened the door was kind enough but she didn’t want to
buy anything, I nearly cried, and didn’t have the courage
to press my finger on another doorbell.
Selling pictures of farms, taken from a helicopter, was
my next job, out all day taking the bus to the countryside
only the day I got there it was raining I had no umbrella
and the first farm I came to was also my last.
I took a course training to be a waiter, in white jacket
and golden epaulet I looked handsome, so my sister said.
I did well at the course and got a job at a posh restaurant;
but my hands shook I dropped plates and was fired
Finally I got a job on a tank-ship, in her galley hidden from
view, washing pots and pan, and hid from the world for
thirty years. Now, I write poetry about a sea I hardly saw
stuck inside a ship’s casing seven days a week.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Monroe Louisiana
On the green, green farm
In green, green Monroe Louisiana
So green, green
Wet-luscious green and alive
So green after the rain
So bright green and clean
Just passing through
On my way to tomorrow
But so green today and yesterday
It was on that stranger's green, green farm
And I didn't stay long
And I didn't expect someone
To fire that shotgun right next to me
The barrel pointed out the front door
Into that green, green world beyond.
There were hot springs
On the green, green farm
In green, green Monroe Louisiana
Back in 1973.
poem by M.L. Squier
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The House
For many years, the house
stood empty and forlorn.
The windows had been boarded
preventing the sunlight coming in.
No welcoming mat lay by the door;
laughter was a thing of the past
as spiders spun their webs
within the gloomy silence.
The house stood empty
abandoned by most living things
and there were those who said
spooky goings on went on
after night fell in there.
No one could prove it
because no one would stay there.
Only the fool hardy
would ever enter after dark.
The paintwork pealed
and the front door creaked
if someone dared to open it.
They say the house is haunted,
but no one knew
by what or who.
The house began to crumble
as each season came to pass.
The glory of its birth
lay somewhere in the past
and now the crumbling walls
would never reveal
any of the secrets that it knew.
Then a fire started
by a hand unseen
and the house finally died
within its own funeral pyre
15 March 2011
poem by David Harris
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Betsey and I Are Out
Draw up the papers, lawyer, and make 'em good and stout;
For things at home are crossways, and Betsey and I are out.
We, who have worked together so long as man and wife,
Must pull in single harness for the rest of our nat'ral life.
"What is the matter?" say you. I swan it's hard to tell!
Most of the years behind us we've passed by very well;
I have no other woman, she has no other man—
Only we've lived together as long as we ever can.
So I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with me,
And so we've agreed together that we can't never agree;
Not that we've catched each other in any terrible crime;
We've been a-gathering this for years, a little at a time.
There was a stock of temper we both had for a start,
Although we never suspected 'twould take us two apart;
I had my various failings, bred in the flesh and bone;
And Betsey, like all good women, had a temper of her own.
The first thing I remember whereon we disagreed
Was something concerning heaven—a difference in our creed;
We arg'ed the thing at breakfast, we arg'ed the thing at tea,
And the more we arg'ed the question the more we didn't agree.
And the next that I remember was when we lost a cow;
She had kicked the bucket for certain, the question was only—How?
I held my own opinion, and Betsey another had;
And when we were done a-talkin', we both of us was mad.
And the next that I remember, it started in a joke;
But full for a week it lasted, and neither of us spoke.
And the next was when I scolded because she broke a bowl;
And she said I was mean and stingy, and hadn't any soul.
And so that bowl kept pourin' dissensions in our cup;
And so that blamed cow-critter was always a-comin' up;
And so that heaven we arg'ed no nearer to us got,
But it gave us a taste of somethin' a thousand times as hot.
And so the thing kept workin', and all the self-same way;
Always somethin' to arg'e, and somethin' sharp to say;
And down on us came the neighbors, a couple dozen strong,
And lent their kindest sarvice for to help the thing along.
And there has been days together—and many a weary week—
We was both of us cross and spunky, and both too proud to speak;
And I have been thinkin' and thinkin', the whole of the winter and fall,
If I can't live kind with a woman, why, then, I won't at all.
And so I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with me,
And we have agreed together that we can't never agree;
And what is hers shall be hers, and what is mine shall be mine;
And I'll put it in the agreement, and take it to her to sign.
Write on the paper, lawyer—the very first paragraph—
Of all the farm and live-stock that she shall have her half;
For she has helped to earn it, through many a weary day,
And it's nothing more than justice that Betsey has her pay.
Give her the house and homestead—a man can thrive and roam;
But women are skeery critters, unless they have a home;
And I have always determined, and never failed to say,
That Betsey never should want a home if I was taken away.
There is a little hard money that's drawin' tol'rable pay:
A couple of hundred dollars laid by for a rainy day;
Safe in the hands of good men, and easy to get at;
Put in another clause there, and give her half of that.
Yes, I see you smile, Sir, at my givin' her so much;
Yes, divorce is cheap, Sir, but I take no stock in such!
True and fair I married her, when she was blithe and young;
And Betsey was al'ays good to me, exceptin' with her tongue.
Once, when I was young as you, and not so smart, perhaps,
For me she mittened a lawyer, and several other chaps;
And all of them was flustered, and fairly taken down,
And I for a time was counted the luckiest man in town.
Once when I had a fever—I won't forget it soon—
I was hot as a basted turkey and crazy as a loon;
Never an hour went by me when she was out of sight—
She nursed me true and tender, and stuck to me day and night.
And if ever a house was tidy, and ever a kitchen clean,
Her house and kitchen was tidy as any I ever seen;
And I don't complain of Betsey, or any of her acts,
Exceptin' when we've quarreled, and told each other facts.
So draw up the paper, lawyer, and I'll go home to-night,
And read the agreement to her, and see if it's all right;
And then, in the mornin', I'll sell to a tradin' man I know,
And kiss the child that was left to us, and out in the world I'll go.
And one thing put in the paper, that first to me didn't occur:
That when I am dead at last she'll bring me back to her;
And lay me under the maples I planted years ago,
When she and I was happy before we quarreled so.
And when she dies I wish that she would be laid by me,
And, lyin' together in silence, perhaps we will agree;
And, if ever we meet in heaven, I wouldn't think it queer
If we loved each other the better because we quarreled here.
poem by Will Carleton
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Chicago Fire
On October 8th at 9 pm a fire flared from O’Leary’s farm,
In the city of Chicago, fires from hell raged at 9: 40 am when someone pulled the alarm,
Firefighters were sent out to the left when the fires flared to the right,
One flame caught onto another where screams were heard from fright,
The fires spread to houses and sheds from superheated winds,
Winds so powerful it burned through human skin,
From the West of the Chicago River it burned down the local church,
The house of God lit up in flames that in rapid pace flared and lurched,
Until it swarmed southbound to the branch of the river,
Reality was hell on earth the devastation it delivered,
With firewood packed closely next to wooden buildings the storm never calmed,
From Sunday night through Monday morning hell raged fury in napalm,
The flame got bigger and spread across the land,
While the city burned hundreds fell into the fire that ran,
A catastrophe that will forever scar Chicago land,
Fires that grabbed hundreds of innocent lives from hells hand,
Embers from the fire flooded the city streets,
Burned down buildings, houses, and the grounds beneath,
Hell on Earth the fires burned everything in sight,
The sky burned above fires that lit the night,
Firefighters tried to wash it away but couldn’t,
A natural disaster from hell that could cease but wouldn’t,
For two days the Chicago land was lit in flames,
The Great Chicago fire that destroyed the city and took names,
It was until later Monday night that drizzles from the tears in sky calmed the storm,
The beautiful Chicago city to destruction and ruin was the aftermath of transform,
The causalities claimed about 300 lives,
Where fires caught the 300 in a natural disaster comprised,
Never will Chicago forget the flames the scourged the land,
A false tale of a cow kicking over a lantern from the barn that was a scam,
The lives that ate the superheated winds when they ran,
Never will Chicago forget when hell won over the 300 lives of man.
poem by Kurt Kacich
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Up On Heartbreak Hill At Night
Up on Heartbreak Hill at night
with a 2.4 inch,60 mm, refracting telescope,
a cat, and a journal of poems,
deciphering those immensities of sky
as if every star were the sacred syllable
of an inconceivable intelligence that explained
everything in light, and the light were singing.
Earth noises in the broom bushes and Douglas firs.
The air rife with the spirits of those
who had their necks broken here by a prison noose,
and had more of a right to be here than I did
who felt like an intrusive guest in their house
even though the darkness was common ground.
Eventually they learned to ignore me
as just another adolescent longing for eternal responses
to the expiry date on life and love,
and not one of them without a silent understanding
of what a star could mean through the bars
on the windows of their prison cells.
Up here on the hill I was a temple above
the imperial rhetoric of toppled garbage cans
expurgating on the fate of fallen empires
that took themselves way too personally in restrospect
than they did at the time, as if the wound,
even the children had to amend like a religion,
grew deeper and more volatile with age.
Up here, just the executed ghosts of perversity and rage.
The whisper of something beautiful
no one could smear, soil, smudge,
out of touch, though I caressed
the skin of the stars as if it were as smooth
as the lenses and mirrors I used
to watch the fragile radiance of how they danced
so intimately across the apertures
of my field of vision trembling before
their scintillation the way I used to make
some spiders vibrate in the morning
like sewing machines or the clappers on fire alarms
by simply touching their webs
as if all the strings on a Spanish guitar
were trip wires in a terrorist museum.
Light as the only liquid in a desert
for many dangerous miles around,
the stars were cool jewels of water to me.
I could almost taste them like the tartness
of wild blackberries on my lips, lemons,
the deadly nightshades of experimental girlfriends
testing out cartridges of new lipstick
the first time we kissed in the shadows
of the new moon behind the abandoned warehouse.
It's impossible to see a star as it is
until it's become part of your love life
or, at least, until you can learn to flirt with the light
like a firefly at the window
of this thirteenth house of solitude
where the homeless gather like an avalanche
of the misplaced cornerstones of condemned temples
that like the stars, are always updating their past
about things that shine, but don't last.
If the medium is the message, and it is and it isn't,
then seeing must be a kind of love as well.
I saw the stars through the eyes of the stars.
I felt the weight of the billions of years
there wasn't even a one-eyed sea to look back at them
for intimate insights into its own impersonality.
Hard stars in the winter, soft stars in the summer.
Stars can see further into the darkness of the human heart
when it's cold out for everyone and clarity
stops breathing on the mirror like evanescent nebulae
sensitizing the light to the chromatic aberrations
of the disappearing veils and crushed rainbows
synchronously aligned with my poetry at the time.
I could feel the passage of the stars
like migrating Canada geese in the autumn
the shamans read like rosaries in retrograde orbits,
an abacus of wandering planets, and one,
whose name was unknown
rooted in the ground of itself like a strange silence
that had whispered the world into its own ear
like the dark secret of light upon light
as everyone looked up like mirrors
with tears in their eyes as big as lenses
trying to overhear what was clearly not hidden
through the keyhole of a telescope up on Heartbreak Hill
when seeking wasn't a way of avoiding what was revealed.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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By The Seaside : The Fire Of Driftwood
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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