Favourite Pomes

[Soniaslut]

When My Mother Learns I Am A Lesbian
Julie Marie Wade

At first, silence, & then a thud of breath as if
her throat has slid through the chute of her lungs
& landed, heavy — like a stone — like a sword
lodged suddenly inside it.

“This explains why you don't wear make-up!” she wails.

A snap — a pulsing panic pulled back & lightly
camouflaged as fear: “What will I tell my friends?
How can I tell my friends? I can never tell my friends!”
Finally, fatigued & determined: “No one must know.”

I give her permission to lie — privilege she takes
as right. I promise her nothing has changed except
the second chromosome of the body resting next to me.

She asks, not wanting the answer: “I suppose you have
to sleep in the same bed?”

– No, in sleeping bags, Mom, cocooned on separate couches
still wrapped in our swaddling clothes. –

I could have said it, but I didn't.
No tolerance for the Absurd.
My mother's voice, all tissue paper & cellophane,
turns tearful, liquid in its pain: “Where did we go wrong?”

I want to tell her not to forgive me, plead through
the twisted wires that she will not waste her prayers.

“We raised you with God's laws,” she says.
“We told you to be pure.”

“You raised me to love,” I say.
“You told me to be happy.”

– But she didn't mean this way, didn't mean this way.
Dear God, she didn't mean this way. –

I watch out the window, sigh.
Already prayers are streaming up the sky.

[Tift]

Elizabeth Barrett's custom was to write alone and not show her work to anyone.
During the two years of her courtship with Robert Browning (1845-46) she wrote
a series of sonnets intended for her future husband's eyes alone.  One day in
early 1847, married and living in Florence, she appeared behind him, held him
by the shoulder to prevent his turning and at the same time pushed a packet of papers
into the pocket of his coat.  She told him to read that, and to tear it up if he did not like it;
and then she fled to her own room.   

Browning said “I dared not reserve to myself the finest sonnets written in any language
since Shakespeare's.”  Which is how her Sonnets From the Portuguese came about.

Sonnet 35

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors … another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more … as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

[Bambigurl]

The world is made of halves.There are things that hurt and things that heal. There is a person born and and a person dying in this second. Life is short and cruel and beautiful and complicated, but it's worth to be lived  …even if just for the better half…

Good Bones
By Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

[Soniaslut]

                          Nemesis
                        H. P. Lovecraft

    Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
          Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
    I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
          I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

    I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning,
          When the sky was a vaporous flame;
    I have seen the dark universe yawning,
          Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

    I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
          Under sinister grey-clouded skies
    That the many-fork’d lightning is rending,
          That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise.

    I have plung’d like a deer thro’ the arches
          Of the hoary primordial grove,
    Where the oaks feel the presence that marches
          And stalks on where no spirit dares rove;
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers thro’ dead branches above.

    I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
          That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
    I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
          That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things I care not to gaze on again.

    I have scann’d the vast ivy-clad palace,
          I have trod its untenanted hall,
    Where the moon writhing up from the valleys
          Shews the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, which I cannot endure to recall.

    I have peer’d from the casement in wonder
          At the mouldering meadows around,
    At the many-roof’d village laid under
          The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble I listen intently for sound.

    I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
          I have flown on the pinions of fear
    Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages,
          Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.

    I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
          The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
    I was old in those epochs uncounted
          When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.

    Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
          And great is the reach of its doom;
    Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
          Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.

    Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
          Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
    I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
          I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

[Stone]

[Bambigurl]

How to See Deer
Philip Booth

Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,

lonely and wanting. Or
stay and be early:
next to deep woods

inhabit old orchards.
All clearings promise.
Sunrise is good,

and fog before sun.
Expect nothing always;
find your luck slowly.

Wait out the windfall.
Take your good time
to learn to read ferns;

make like a turtle:
downhill toward slow water.
Instructed by heron,

drink the pure silence.
Be compassed by wind.
If you quiver like aspen

trust your quick nature:
let your ear teach you
which way to listen.

You've come to assume
protective color; now
colors reform to

new shapes in your eye.
You've learned by now
to wait without waiting;

as if it were dusk
look into light falling:
in deep relief

things even out. Be
careless of nothing. See
what you see.

[Soniaslut]

The Stone Troll
Samwise Gamgee(J. R. R. Tolkien

The Stone Troll is a poem composed by Samwise Gamgee and recorded in the Red Book of Westmarch. Sam recited this poem when Aragorn and the hobbits were resting in the shade of the trolls who had been turned into stone during Bilbo Baggins' adventure with the Dwarves.

Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.

Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: 'Pray, what is yon?
For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim.
As should be a-lyin' in the graveyard.
Caveyard! Paveyard!
This many a year has Tim been gone,
And I thought he were lyin' in the graveyard.'

'My lad,' said Troll, 'this bone I stole.
But what be bones that lie in a hole?
Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead,
Afore I found his shinbone.
Tinbone! Thinbone!
He can spare a share for a poor old troll,
For he don't need his shinbone.'

Said Tom: 'I don't see why the likes o' thee
Without axin' leave should go makin' free
With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin;
So hand the old bone over!
Rover! Trover!
Though dead he be, it belongs to he;
So hand the old bone over!'

'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins,
'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now.'

But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind
And gave him the boot to larn him.
Warn him! Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thought,
Would be the way to larn him.

But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
Peel it! Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,
And he knew his toes could feel it.

Tom's leg is game, since home he came,
And his bootless foot is lasting lame;
But Troll don't care, and he's still there
With the bone he boned from its owner.
Doner! Boner!
Troll's old seat is still the same,
And the bone he boned from its owner!

[Tift]

I love the small details of life and this is full of them

Rupert Brooke  These I Have Loved

These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such—
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
                  Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;—
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
——Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
            But the best I've known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
            Nothing remains.

O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, 'All these were lovely'; say, 'He loved.'

[Soniaslut]

Wimpy's Poem For The Sea Hag
By E. C. Segar

We slew our foes,
  My sweetheart and me
And streams of Corpuscles
  Flowed to the sea

All over the walls and on the floor
Were buckets and buckets and buckets of Gore

We stepped on their necks,
  On those slippery decks,
As my sweety and me went aft.
  And amid all this,
  She gave me a kiss,
And amid all this we laughed!

For she was the Hag of the Seven Seas,
  And I was her understudy,
And never a tremor ran through her knees,
  Though decks were befouled and ruddy.

In the depth of her eyes
  Was the Blue of the Skies
As well as the shadows of night.
  And I'll sing her love's song
E'en though she's all wrong
  For I, too, am not in the right.

[Soniaslut]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/WZm88yM.jpg?1[/img]

[Tift]

I love this for it's simplicty, the beauty of it's imagery.

Marianne Moore – “The Steeple-Jack”

Dürer would have seen a reason for living
in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
with waves as formal as the scales
on a fish.

One by one in two’s and three’s, the seagulls keep
flying back and forth over the town clock,
or sailing around the lighthouse without moving their wings —
rising steadily with a slight
quiver of the body — or flock
mewing where

a sea the purple of the peacock’s neck is
paled to greenish azure as Dürer changed
the pine green of the Tyrol to peacock blue and guinea
gray. You can see a twenty-five-
pound lobster; and fish nets arranged
to dry. The

whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt
marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the
star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so
much confusion. Disguised by what
might seem the opposite, the sea-
side flowers and

trees are favored by the fog so that you have
the tropics first hand: the trumpet-vine,
fox-glove, giant snap-dragon, a salpiglossis that has
spots and stripes; morning-glories, gourds,
or moon-vines trained on fishing-twine
at the back door;

cat-tails, flags, blueberries and spiderwort,
striped grass, lichens, sunflowers, asters, daisies —
yellow and crab-claw ragged sailors with green bracts — toad-plant,
petunias, ferns; pink lilies, blue
ones, tigers; poppies; black sweet-peas.
The climate

is not right for the banyan, frangipani, or
jack-fruit trees; or for exotic serpent
life. Ring lizard and snake-skin for the foot, if you see fit;
but here they’ve cats, not cobras, to
keep down the rats. The diffident
little newt

with white pin-dots on black horizontal spaced-
out bands lives here; yet there is nothing that
ambition can buy or take away. The college student
named Ambrose sits on the hillside
with his not-native books and hat
and sees boats

at sea progress white and rigid as if in
a groove. Liking an elegance of which
the sourch is not bravado, he knows by heart the antique
sugar-bowl shaped summer-house of
interlacing slats, and the pitch
of the church

spire, not true, from which a man in scarlet lets
down a rope as a spider spins a thread;
he might be part of a novel, but on the sidewalk a
sign says C. J. Poole, Steeple Jack,
in black and white; and one in red
and white says

Danger. The church portico has four fluted
columns, each a single piece of stone, made
modester by white-wash. Theis would be a fit haven for
waifs, children, animals, prisoners,
and presidents who have repaid
sin-driven

senators by not thinking about them. The
place has a school-house, a post-office in a
store, fish-houses, hen-houses, a three-masted schooner on
the stocks. The hero, the student,
the steeple-jack, each in his way,
is at home.

It could not be dangerous to be living
in a town like this, of simple people,
who have a steeple-jack placing danger signs by the church
while he is gilding the solid-
pointed star, which on a steeple
stands for hope.

[Tift]

Juan’s Song
By Louise Bogan

When beauty breaks and falls asunder 
I feel no grief for it, but wonder.
When love, like a frail shell, lies broken, 
I keep no chip of it for token.
I never had a man for friend
Who did not know that love must end. 
I never had a girl for lover
Who could discern when love was over. 
What the wise doubt, the fool believes—
Who is it, then, that love deceives?

[Stone]

[Soniaslut]

WITCH WIFE
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ’tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

[Tift]

The Cross of Snow
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
  A gentle face — the face of one long dead —
  Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
  The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
  Never through martyrdom of fire was led
  To its repose; nor can in books be read
  The legend of a life more benedight.        (blessed)
There is a mountain in the distant West
  That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
  Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
  These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
  And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

                ===============

(Longefellow's wife, Fanny died in 1861 when her
dress caught fire: he too was burned trying to
save her.  The poem was found in his portfolio
after his death in 1892)

[Author]

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