The Duchess of Mecklenburg straightens her back,
surveys her fellow enthusiasts,
all digging in soft Salzkammergut rain.
She swaps her mattock for a favourite pick,
glances up at the Hallstatt peak
then, rested, tackles the grave again.
He’s close. She can smell him. With trembling hands,
she sorts bone splinters and pottery shards,
sets them aside with the Celtic coins.
She drops to her knees, forgetting her crew,
scrambles then gives a triumphant cry
as she touches his chest, his barbarian loins.
The Duchess of Mecklenburg, an eminent archaeologist, was one of those responsible for excavating the Celtic salt mines in Hallstatt, Austria, at the turn of this century.
(to Contents)
.
January 20th, 1798 by Dorothy Wordsworth
The green paths down the hillside are channels for streams. The young wheat is streaked by silver lines of water running between the ridges, the sheep are gathered together on the slopes.
After the wet dark days, the country seems more populous. It peoples itself in the sunbeams.
The garden, mimic of spring, is gay with flowers. The purple-starred hepatica spreads itself in the sun, and the clustering snow-drops put forth their white heads, at first upright, ribbed with green, and like a rose bud when completely opened, hanging their heads downwards, but slowly lengthening their slender stems.
The slanting woods of an unvarying brown, showing the light through the thin net-work of their upper boughs.
Upon the highest ridge of that round hill covered with planted oaks, the shafts of the trees show in the light like the columns of a ruin.
from the Alfoxden Journal (Note: all paragraph breaks are mine.)
(to Contents)
.
After the wet dark days, the country seems more populous. It peoples itself in the sunbeams.
The garden, mimic of spring, is gay with flowers. The purple-starred hepatica spreads itself in the sun, and the clustering snow-drops put forth their white heads, at first upright, ribbed with green, and like a rose bud when completely opened, hanging their heads downwards, but slowly lengthening their slender stems.
The slanting woods of an unvarying brown, showing the light through the thin net-work of their upper boughs.
Upon the highest ridge of that round hill covered with planted oaks, the shafts of the trees show in the light like the columns of a ruin.
from the Alfoxden Journal (Note: all paragraph breaks are mine.)
(to Contents)
.
A thought suggested by a view of Saddleback in Cumberland by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
On stern Blencartha's perilous height
The winds are tyrannous and strong;
And flashing forth unsteady light
From stern Blencartha's skiey height,
As loud the torrents throng!
Beneath the moon in gentle weather,
They bind earth and sky together.
But oh! the sky and all its forms, how quiet!
The things that seek the earth, how full of noise and riot!
(to Contents)
.
The winds are tyrannous and strong;
And flashing forth unsteady light
From stern Blencartha's skiey height,
As loud the torrents throng!
Beneath the moon in gentle weather,
They bind earth and sky together.
But oh! the sky and all its forms, how quiet!
The things that seek the earth, how full of noise and riot!
(to Contents)
.
Stars Sliding by Ivor Gurney
The stars are sliding wanton through the trees,
The sky is sliding steady over all.
Great bear to Gemini will lose his place
And Cygnus over world's brink slip and fall.
Follow-my-Leader's not so bad a game.
But were it leap-frog: O to see the shoots
And tracks of glory: Scorpions and Swans tame
And Argo swarmed with Bulls and other brutes.
(to Contents)
.
The sky is sliding steady over all.
Great bear to Gemini will lose his place
And Cygnus over world's brink slip and fall.
Follow-my-Leader's not so bad a game.
But were it leap-frog: O to see the shoots
And tracks of glory: Scorpions and Swans tame
And Argo swarmed with Bulls and other brutes.
(to Contents)
.
A Work for Poets by George Mackay Brown
To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk
Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read
Then not far from the stone
A well
Might open for wayfarers
Here is a work for poets -
Carve the runes
Then be content with silence
(to Contents)
.
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk
Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read
Then not far from the stone
A well
Might open for wayfarers
Here is a work for poets -
Carve the runes
Then be content with silence
(to Contents)
.
The Poet by George Mackay Brown
Therefore he no more troubled the pool of silence.
But put on mask and cloak,
Strung a guitar
And moved among the folk.
Dancing they cried,
'Ah, how our sober islands
Are gay again, since the blind lyrical tramp
Invaded the Fair!'
Under the last dead lamp
When all the dancers and masks had gone inside
His cold stare
Returned to its true task, interrogation of silence.
(to Contents)
.
But put on mask and cloak,
Strung a guitar
And moved among the folk.
Dancing they cried,
'Ah, how our sober islands
Are gay again, since the blind lyrical tramp
Invaded the Fair!'
Under the last dead lamp
When all the dancers and masks had gone inside
His cold stare
Returned to its true task, interrogation of silence.
(to Contents)
.
A Battle in Ulster by George Mackay Brown
Remarking, 'It is not my taste
To Wheeze on a white pillow
Nor to toil gravewards on a stick, murdered slowly
By avarice, envy, lust,'
Einar ran where the swords fell thickest.
An Irish axe
Struck the right shoulder of Sweyn the skald.
'In future,' said Sweyn,
'I will write my poems with the left hand.
I will sup a sinister broth.'
Near the end of the battle
Rolf returned to the ship, downcast.
'Gudrun,' he said, 'is a proud woman.
She will not bed with boys.
Hard wounds I sought
For thigh and chest and forehead today.
All I have got
Is a broken tooth, an eye as blue as an oyster,
And my pinkie scratched.
From now on, Gudrun,
I will court less particular girls.'
(to Contents)
.
To Wheeze on a white pillow
Nor to toil gravewards on a stick, murdered slowly
By avarice, envy, lust,'
Einar ran where the swords fell thickest.
An Irish axe
Struck the right shoulder of Sweyn the skald.
'In future,' said Sweyn,
'I will write my poems with the left hand.
I will sup a sinister broth.'
Near the end of the battle
Rolf returned to the ship, downcast.
'Gudrun,' he said, 'is a proud woman.
She will not bed with boys.
Hard wounds I sought
For thigh and chest and forehead today.
All I have got
Is a broken tooth, an eye as blue as an oyster,
And my pinkie scratched.
From now on, Gudrun,
I will court less particular girls.'
(to Contents)
.
Behaviour of Fish in an Egyptian Tea Garden by Keith Douglas
As a white stone draws down the fish
she on the seafloor of the afternoon
draws down men's glances and their cruel wish
for love. Slyly her red lip on the spoon
slips-in a morsel of ice-cream; her hands
white as a milky stone, white submarine
fronds, sink with spread fingers, lean
along the table, carmined at the ends.
A cotton magnate, an important fish
with great eyepouches and a golden mouth
through the frail reefs of furniture swims out
and idling, suspended, stays to watch.
A crustacean old man clamped to his chair
sits coldly near her and might see
her charms through fissures where the eyes should be
or else his teeth are parted in a stare.
Captain on leave, a lean dark mackerel
lies in the offing, turns himself and looks
through currents of sound. The flat-eyed flatfish sucks
on a straw, staring from its repose, laxly.
And gallants in shoals swim up and lag,
circling and passing near the white attraction;
sometimes pausing, opening a conversation:
fish pause so to nibble or tug.
Now the ice-cream is finished,
is paid for. The fish swim off on business:
and she sits alone at the table, a white stone
useless except to a collector, a rich man.
(to Contents)
.
she on the seafloor of the afternoon
draws down men's glances and their cruel wish
for love. Slyly her red lip on the spoon
slips-in a morsel of ice-cream; her hands
white as a milky stone, white submarine
fronds, sink with spread fingers, lean
along the table, carmined at the ends.
A cotton magnate, an important fish
with great eyepouches and a golden mouth
through the frail reefs of furniture swims out
and idling, suspended, stays to watch.
A crustacean old man clamped to his chair
sits coldly near her and might see
her charms through fissures where the eyes should be
or else his teeth are parted in a stare.
Captain on leave, a lean dark mackerel
lies in the offing, turns himself and looks
through currents of sound. The flat-eyed flatfish sucks
on a straw, staring from its repose, laxly.
And gallants in shoals swim up and lag,
circling and passing near the white attraction;
sometimes pausing, opening a conversation:
fish pause so to nibble or tug.
Now the ice-cream is finished,
is paid for. The fish swim off on business:
and she sits alone at the table, a white stone
useless except to a collector, a rich man.
(to Contents)
.
Postcard by Maragaret Atwood
I'm thinking of you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitos
& their tracks; birds, blue & elusive.
Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, its called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's a race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.
Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time i saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling and pounding, a kicked ear.
(to Contents)
.
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitos
& their tracks; birds, blue & elusive.
Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, its called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's a race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.
Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time i saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling and pounding, a kicked ear.
(to Contents)
.
The Jungle Husband by Stevie Smith
Dearest Evelyn, I often think of you
Out with the guns in the jungle stew
Yesterday I hittapotamus
I put the measurements down for you but they got lost in the fuss
It's not a good thing to drink out here
You know, I've practically given it up dear.
Tomorrow I am going alone a long way
Into the jungle. It is all grey
But green on top
Only sometimes when a tree has fallen
The sun comes down plop, it is quite appalling.
You never want to go in a jungle pool
In the hot sun, it would be the act of a fool
Because it's always full of anacondas, Evelyn, not looking ill-fed
I'll say. So no more now, from your loving husband Wilfred.
(to Contents)
.
Out with the guns in the jungle stew
Yesterday I hittapotamus
I put the measurements down for you but they got lost in the fuss
It's not a good thing to drink out here
You know, I've practically given it up dear.
Tomorrow I am going alone a long way
Into the jungle. It is all grey
But green on top
Only sometimes when a tree has fallen
The sun comes down plop, it is quite appalling.
You never want to go in a jungle pool
In the hot sun, it would be the act of a fool
Because it's always full of anacondas, Evelyn, not looking ill-fed
I'll say. So no more now, from your loving husband Wilfred.
(to Contents)
.
Poem 98 by Catullus (two translations)
Poem 98 – Catullus (trans. Peter Whigham)
The same can be said of you, Victius
as of any open mouthed bore
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxsuffering from halitosis.
With that tongue of yours one can actually credit
your licking, at will, besmeared boots and buttocks.
If you wish to prostrate the company –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxgape:
you will effectively accomplish your purpose.
***
To Vicitus the Stinkard - Catullus (trans. Richard Burton)
Rightly of thee may be said, an of any, (thou stinkingest Victius!)
Whatso wont we to say touching the praters and prigs.
Thou wi' that tongue o' thine own, if granted occasion availest
Brogues of the cowherds to kiss, also their . . . .
Wouldst thou undo us all with a thorough undoing (o Victius!)
Open thy gape -thereby all shall be wholly undone.
(to Contents)
.
The same can be said of you, Victius
as of any open mouthed bore
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxsuffering from halitosis.
With that tongue of yours one can actually credit
your licking, at will, besmeared boots and buttocks.
If you wish to prostrate the company –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxgape:
you will effectively accomplish your purpose.
***
To Vicitus the Stinkard - Catullus (trans. Richard Burton)
Rightly of thee may be said, an of any, (thou stinkingest Victius!)
Whatso wont we to say touching the praters and prigs.
Thou wi' that tongue o' thine own, if granted occasion availest
Brogues of the cowherds to kiss, also their . . . .
Wouldst thou undo us all with a thorough undoing (o Victius!)
Open thy gape -thereby all shall be wholly undone.
(to Contents)
.
A Cranefly in September by Ted Hughes
She is struggling through grass-mesh - not flying,
Her wide-winged, stiff, weightless basket-work of limbs
Rocking, like an antique wain, a top-heavy ceremonial cart
Across mountain summits
(Not planing over water, dipping her tail)
But blundering with long strides, long reachings, reelings
And ginger-glistening wings
From collision to collision.
Aimless in no particular direction,
Just exerting her last to escape out of the overwhelming
Of whatever it is, legs, grass,
The garden, the county, the country, the world -
Sometimes she rests long minutes in the grass forest
Like a fairytale hero, only a marvel can help her.
She cannot fathom the mystery of this forest
In which, for instance, this giant watches -
The giant who knows she cannot be helped in any way.
Her jointed bamboo fuselage,
Her lobster shoulders, and her face
Like a pinhead dragon, with its tender moustache,
And the simple colourless church windows of her wings
Will come to an end, in mid-search, quite soon.
Everything about her, every perfected vestment
Is already superfluous.
The monstrous excess of her legs and curly feet
Are a problem beyond her.
The calculus of glucose and chitin inadequate
To plot her through the infinities of the stems.
The frayed apple leaves, the grunting raven, the defunct tractor
Sunk in nettles, wait with their multiplications
Like other galaxies.
The sky’s Northward September procession, the vast
soft armistice,
Like an Empire on the move,
Abandons her, tinily embattled
With her cumbering limbs and cumbered brain.
(to Contents)
.
Her wide-winged, stiff, weightless basket-work of limbs
Rocking, like an antique wain, a top-heavy ceremonial cart
Across mountain summits
(Not planing over water, dipping her tail)
But blundering with long strides, long reachings, reelings
And ginger-glistening wings
From collision to collision.
Aimless in no particular direction,
Just exerting her last to escape out of the overwhelming
Of whatever it is, legs, grass,
The garden, the county, the country, the world -
Sometimes she rests long minutes in the grass forest
Like a fairytale hero, only a marvel can help her.
She cannot fathom the mystery of this forest
In which, for instance, this giant watches -
The giant who knows she cannot be helped in any way.
Her jointed bamboo fuselage,
Her lobster shoulders, and her face
Like a pinhead dragon, with its tender moustache,
And the simple colourless church windows of her wings
Will come to an end, in mid-search, quite soon.
Everything about her, every perfected vestment
Is already superfluous.
The monstrous excess of her legs and curly feet
Are a problem beyond her.
The calculus of glucose and chitin inadequate
To plot her through the infinities of the stems.
The frayed apple leaves, the grunting raven, the defunct tractor
Sunk in nettles, wait with their multiplications
Like other galaxies.
The sky’s Northward September procession, the vast
soft armistice,
Like an Empire on the move,
Abandons her, tinily embattled
With her cumbering limbs and cumbered brain.
(to Contents)
.
Inside Ayers Rock by Les Murray
Inside Ayers Rock is lit
with paired fluorescent lights
on steel pillars supporting the ceiling
of haze-blue marquee cloth
high above the non-slip pavers.
Curving around the cafeteria
throughout vast inner space
is a Milky way of plastic chairs
in foursomes around tables
all the way to the truck drivers' enclave.
Dusted coolabah trees grow to the ceiling,
TVs talk in gassy colours, and
round the walls are Outback shop fronts:
the Beehive Bookshop for brochures,
Casual Clobber, the bottled Country Kitchen
and the sheet-iron Dreamtime Experience
that is turned off at night.
A high bank of medal-ribbony
lolly jars preside over
island counters like opened crates,
one labelled White Mugs, and covered with them.
A two-dimensional policeman
discourages shoplifting of gifts
and near the entrance, where you pay
for fuel, there stands a tribal man
in rib-paint and pubic tassel.
It is all gentle and kind.
In beyond the children's playworld
there are fossils, like crumpled
old drawings of creatures in rock.
(to Contents)
.
with paired fluorescent lights
on steel pillars supporting the ceiling
of haze-blue marquee cloth
high above the non-slip pavers.
Curving around the cafeteria
throughout vast inner space
is a Milky way of plastic chairs
in foursomes around tables
all the way to the truck drivers' enclave.
Dusted coolabah trees grow to the ceiling,
TVs talk in gassy colours, and
round the walls are Outback shop fronts:
the Beehive Bookshop for brochures,
Casual Clobber, the bottled Country Kitchen
and the sheet-iron Dreamtime Experience
that is turned off at night.
A high bank of medal-ribbony
lolly jars preside over
island counters like opened crates,
one labelled White Mugs, and covered with them.
A two-dimensional policeman
discourages shoplifting of gifts
and near the entrance, where you pay
for fuel, there stands a tribal man
in rib-paint and pubic tassel.
It is all gentle and kind.
In beyond the children's playworld
there are fossils, like crumpled
old drawings of creatures in rock.
(to Contents)
.
A Divine Image by William Blake
Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress.
The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart is hungry Gorge.
(to Contents)
.
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress.
The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart is hungry Gorge.
(to Contents)
.
Bookworm by Norman MacCaig
I open the second volume
of a rose
and find it says, word for word,
the same as the first one.
The waves of the sea
annoy me, they bore me;
why aren't they divided
in paragraphs?
I look at the night
and make nothing of it -
those black pages
with no print.
But I love the gothic script
of pinetrees and
on the pond the light's
fancy italics.
And the cherry tree's petals -
they make
a sweet lyric, I appreciate
their dying fall.
But it's strange, girl, how I come back
from the library of everything
to stare and stare
at the closed book of you.
When will you open to me
and show me the meaning of all
the hard words
in the lexicon of love?
(to Contents)
.
of a rose
and find it says, word for word,
the same as the first one.
The waves of the sea
annoy me, they bore me;
why aren't they divided
in paragraphs?
I look at the night
and make nothing of it -
those black pages
with no print.
But I love the gothic script
of pinetrees and
on the pond the light's
fancy italics.
And the cherry tree's petals -
they make
a sweet lyric, I appreciate
their dying fall.
But it's strange, girl, how I come back
from the library of everything
to stare and stare
at the closed book of you.
When will you open to me
and show me the meaning of all
the hard words
in the lexicon of love?
(to Contents)
.
Horoscope by Norman MacCaig
I know there are words I don't understand
like apogee and azimuth.
I know there are diagrams that pretend to be
diagrams of the past and gossips
of the future.
It's my pretty Now I'm in love with
that won't stand still
to be measured. The past
has gone to a far country; and as for the future
there's no future in it.
But my pretty Now, I love her, I love her,
because she shows herself off to me
and will always be faithful.
(to Contents)
.
like apogee and azimuth.
I know there are diagrams that pretend to be
diagrams of the past and gossips
of the future.
It's my pretty Now I'm in love with
that won't stand still
to be measured. The past
has gone to a far country; and as for the future
there's no future in it.
But my pretty Now, I love her, I love her,
because she shows herself off to me
and will always be faithful.
(to Contents)
.
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