[1892–1950, American]
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
Source: Millay, ESV 1921, Second April, Harper.
Reprinted in Kellow, B & Krisak J (eds) 1983, Poetry and Language, London: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.
28 Jun 2009
The Hug -- Thom Gunn
[1929–2004, born in England, migrated to America in 1954]
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who’d showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.
Source: Gunn, T 2009, Selected Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who’d showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.
Source: Gunn, T 2009, Selected Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
25 Jun 2009
At Last the Secret is Out -- W.H. Auden
[1907–1973, born England, migrated to America]
At last the secret is out,
as it always must come in the end,
the delicious story is ripe to tell
to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square
the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear,
there’s never smoke without fire.
Behind the corpse in the reservoir,
behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances
and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue
the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story,
there is more than meets the eye.
For the clear voice suddenly singing,
high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes,
the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer,
the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret,
a private reason for this.
Source: Auden, WH 1995, As I Walked out One Evening: Songs, Ballads, Lullabies, Limericks, and Other Light Verse, Vintage, NY.
At last the secret is out,
as it always must come in the end,
the delicious story is ripe to tell
to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square
the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear,
there’s never smoke without fire.
Behind the corpse in the reservoir,
behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances
and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue
the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story,
there is more than meets the eye.
For the clear voice suddenly singing,
high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes,
the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer,
the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret,
a private reason for this.
Source: Auden, WH 1995, As I Walked out One Evening: Songs, Ballads, Lullabies, Limericks, and Other Light Verse, Vintage, NY.
Girlfriends -- Carol Ann Duffy
[1955–current, British]
That hot September night, we slept in a single bed,
naked, and on our frail bodies the sweat
cooled and renewed itself. I reached out my arms
and you, hands on my breasts, kissed me. Evening of amber.
Our nightgowns lay on the floor where you fell to your knees
and became ferocious, pressed your head to my stomach,
your mouth to the red gold, the pink shadows; except
I did not see it like this at the time, but arched
my back and squeezed water from the sultry air
with my fists. Also I remembered hearing, clearly
but distantly, a siren some streets away – de
da de da de da – which mingled with my own
absurd cries, so that I looked up, even then,
to see my fingers counting themselves, dancing.
Source: Duffy, CA 2010, Love Poems, 1st edn., Picador.
That hot September night, we slept in a single bed,
naked, and on our frail bodies the sweat
cooled and renewed itself. I reached out my arms
and you, hands on my breasts, kissed me. Evening of amber.
Our nightgowns lay on the floor where you fell to your knees
and became ferocious, pressed your head to my stomach,
your mouth to the red gold, the pink shadows; except
I did not see it like this at the time, but arched
my back and squeezed water from the sultry air
with my fists. Also I remembered hearing, clearly
but distantly, a siren some streets away – de
da de da de da – which mingled with my own
absurd cries, so that I looked up, even then,
to see my fingers counting themselves, dancing.
Source: Duffy, CA 2010, Love Poems, 1st edn., Picador.
22 Jun 2009
First Memory -- Louise Glïck
[1943–current, American]
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was –
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
Source: Glück, L 1990, Ararat, Ecco.
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was –
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
Source: Glück, L 1990, Ararat, Ecco.
Mrs. Hobson’s Choice -- Amla Denny
What shall a woman
Do with her ego,
Faced with the choice
That it go or he go?
Source: Goodwin, D 2002, 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life: An Anthology of Emotional First Aid, Harper.
* Hobson’s choice: an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative
Do with her ego,
Faced with the choice
That it go or he go?
Source: Goodwin, D 2002, 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life: An Anthology of Emotional First Aid, Harper.
* Hobson’s choice: an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative
What Comes After? -- Tracey Morrison
That search most difficult – the getting to know
Someone, collecting the pieces of
Them, finding shelves on which
To house them, energy with which to dust them off.
Only to wipe the shelf clean, sweeping the collected, not
Always collectable or desired fragments aside –
Until you’ve got what you started with
A bare slate –
The surface of the human soul
That is.
That world unknown –
Whose boundaries are unmarked
Unseen.
Sex is not intimacy
Lust is not love
And possibly none of the above
Will produce the territory we seek
So what are we all doing then?
It has been said that to read is to know that we are not alone.
Slessor thought poetry a pleasure out of hell;
Lorde the skeletal architecture of our lives.
Whiteley professed that mid creation we should see
Something before unseen –
And that life lives
The key to oneself, and the beginning
Of difficult pleasures.
Source: Unknown
Someone, collecting the pieces of
Them, finding shelves on which
To house them, energy with which to dust them off.
Only to wipe the shelf clean, sweeping the collected, not
Always collectable or desired fragments aside –
Until you’ve got what you started with
A bare slate –
The surface of the human soul
That is.
That world unknown –
Whose boundaries are unmarked
Unseen.
Sex is not intimacy
Lust is not love
And possibly none of the above
Will produce the territory we seek
So what are we all doing then?
It has been said that to read is to know that we are not alone.
Slessor thought poetry a pleasure out of hell;
Lorde the skeletal architecture of our lives.
Whiteley professed that mid creation we should see
Something before unseen –
And that life lives
The key to oneself, and the beginning
Of difficult pleasures.
Source: Unknown
The Flaw in Paganism -- Dorothy Parker
[1893–1967, American]
Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
Source: Parker, D 1931, Death and Taxes, The Viking Press, New York.
Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
Source: Parker, D 1931, Death and Taxes, The Viking Press, New York.
16 Jun 2009
The Sentence -- Anna Akhmatova
[1889–1966, Russian]
And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.
Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again –
Unless … Summer’s ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I’ve foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.
Source: Reeder, R (ed.), 1989, Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, Zephyr Press., p. 398. Poem first published 1939.
And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.
Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again –
Unless … Summer’s ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I’ve foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.
Source: Reeder, R (ed.), 1989, Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, Zephyr Press., p. 398. Poem first published 1939.
Counting the Beats -- Robert Graves
[1895–1985, English]
You, love, and I,
(He whispers) you and I,
And if no more than only you and I
What care you or I ?
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Cloudless day,
Night, and a cloudless day,
Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day
From a bitter sky.
Where shall we be,
(She whispers) where shall we be,
When death strikes home, O where then shall we be
Who were you and I ?
Not there but here,
(He whispers) only here,
As we are, here, together, now and here,
Always you and I.
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Source: Graves, R 1950, Good Housekeeping, vol. 130, no. 42, April.
You, love, and I,
(He whispers) you and I,
And if no more than only you and I
What care you or I ?
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Cloudless day,
Night, and a cloudless day,
Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day
From a bitter sky.
Where shall we be,
(She whispers) where shall we be,
When death strikes home, O where then shall we be
Who were you and I ?
Not there but here,
(He whispers) only here,
As we are, here, together, now and here,
Always you and I.
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Source: Graves, R 1950, Good Housekeeping, vol. 130, no. 42, April.
15 Jun 2009
Church Bells, Montreal -- Raymond Souster
[1921–current, Canadian]
Against the hard
clear ring of the bells
measure that quick
whispered tick of our lives
Source: Kellow, B & Krisak J (eds) 1983, Poetry and Language, London: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.
Against the hard
clear ring of the bells
measure that quick
whispered tick of our lives
Source: Kellow, B & Krisak J (eds) 1983, Poetry and Language, London: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.
Proverbs 17:1 -- David Curzon
[Born Australia, migrated to America]
Better is a dry morsel with quiet
and a key turning in a front lock,
a door that opens onto empty rooms,
a lonely mouth watering at the thought
of a kiss as it reads a trashy romance,
and a death undiscovered for several days,
and a funeral to which few come,
than a house full of feasting with strife
Source: Curson, D 1998, The view from Jacob’s Ladder, Jewish Publ., USA.
Better is a dry morsel with quiet
and a key turning in a front lock,
a door that opens onto empty rooms,
a lonely mouth watering at the thought
of a kiss as it reads a trashy romance,
and a death undiscovered for several days,
and a funeral to which few come,
than a house full of feasting with strife
Source: Curson, D 1998, The view from Jacob’s Ladder, Jewish Publ., USA.
In Progress -- Christina Rossetti
[1830–1894, English]
Ten years ago it seemed impossible
That she should ever grow so calm as this,
With self-remembrance in her warmest kiss
And dim dried eyes like an exhausted well.
Slow-speaking when she had some fact to tell,
Silent with long-unbroken silences,
Centered in self yet not unpleased to please,
Gravely monotonous like a passing bell.
Mindful of drudging daily common things,
Patient at pastime, patient at her work,
Wearied perhaps but strenuous certainly.
Sometimes I fancy we may one day see
Her head shoot forth seven stars from where they lurk
And her eyes lightnings and her shoulders wings.
Source: Rossetti, C 2008, ‘In Progress’ in S Humphries (ed.), Poems and Prose, Oxford University Press.
Ten years ago it seemed impossible
That she should ever grow so calm as this,
With self-remembrance in her warmest kiss
And dim dried eyes like an exhausted well.
Slow-speaking when she had some fact to tell,
Silent with long-unbroken silences,
Centered in self yet not unpleased to please,
Gravely monotonous like a passing bell.
Mindful of drudging daily common things,
Patient at pastime, patient at her work,
Wearied perhaps but strenuous certainly.
Sometimes I fancy we may one day see
Her head shoot forth seven stars from where they lurk
And her eyes lightnings and her shoulders wings.
Source: Rossetti, C 2008, ‘In Progress’ in S Humphries (ed.), Poems and Prose, Oxford University Press.
12 Jun 2009
After the Eulogy -- Kieren Carrol
Two days to prepare & three drinks
into the evening knowing what I missed.
The others must have before me is strange consolation.
Now she enters my head with simple reminders:
buying strawberries, Casablanca in the video store,
A quicksnap framed in my father’s bag while overseas.
Viewing the body, I think, only then did I gather
what it means to turn to dust (21 or 22 years after
Buying Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’) as if this was
the final torn moment of youthful protection –
& how next morning, the hearse would turn left
away from the church & with summer approaching
all would turn truly black; almost blacker than the news itself;
the peculiar opposite of the interim peace embalming brings.
Source: Unknown.
into the evening knowing what I missed.
The others must have before me is strange consolation.
Now she enters my head with simple reminders:
buying strawberries, Casablanca in the video store,
A quicksnap framed in my father’s bag while overseas.
Viewing the body, I think, only then did I gather
what it means to turn to dust (21 or 22 years after
Buying Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’) as if this was
the final torn moment of youthful protection –
& how next morning, the hearse would turn left
away from the church & with summer approaching
all would turn truly black; almost blacker than the news itself;
the peculiar opposite of the interim peace embalming brings.
Source: Unknown.
Suicide in the Trenches -- Siegfried Sassoon
[1886–1967, English]
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Source: Sassoon, S 1918, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, EP Dutton & Company, NY.
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Source: Sassoon, S 1918, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, EP Dutton & Company, NY.
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