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The Freedom of The Moon
by Robert FrostI’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I’ve pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.
.
.Cory Branan get you shifting in the kichin
Sea Unicorns and Land Unicorns
by Marianne MooreWith their respective lions —
” mighty monoceroses with immeasured tayles ” —
these are those very animals
described by the cartographers of 1539,
defiantly revolving
in such a way that the hard steel
the long keel of white exhibited in tumbling,
disperses giant weeds
and those sea snakes whose forms, looped in the foam, ” disquiet shippers. ”
Not ignorant of how a voyager obtained the horn of a sea unicorn
to give Queen Elizabeth,
who thought it worth a hundred thousand pounds,
they persevere in swimming where they like,
finding the place where lions live in herds,
strewn on the beach like stones with lesser stones —
and bears are white;
discovering Antarctica, its penguin kings and icy spires,
and Sir John Hawkins’ Florida
” abounding in land unicorns and lions;
since where the one is,
its arch enemy cannot be missing. ”
Thus personalities by nature much opposed,
can be combined in such a way
that when they do agree, their unanimity is great,
” in politics, in trade, law, sport, religion,
china-collecting, tennis, and church going. ”
You have remarked this fourfold combination of strange animals,
upon embroideries
enwrought with ” polished garlands ” of agreeing indifference —
thorns, ” myrtle rods, and shafts of bay, ”
” cobwebs, and knotts, and mulberries ”
of lapis-lazuli and pomegranate and malachite —
Britannia’s sea unicorn with its rebellious child
now ostentatiously indigenous to the new English coast;
and its land lion oddly tolerant of those pacific counterparts to it,
the water lions of the west.
This is a strange fraternity — these sea lions and land lions,
land unicorns and sea unicorns:
the lion civilly rampant,
tame and concessive like the long-tailed bear of Ecuador —
the lion standing up against this screen of woven air
which is the forest:
the unicorn also, on its hind legs in reciprocity.
A puzzle to the hunters, is this haughtiest of beasts,
to be distinguished from those born without a horn,
in use like Saint Jerome’s tame lion, as domestics;
rebelling proudly at the dogs
which are dismayed by the chain lightning
playing at them from its horn —
the dogs persistent in pursuit of it as if it could be caught,
” deriving agreeable terror ” from its ” moonbeam throat ”
on fire like its white coat and unconsumed as if of salamander’s skin.
So wary as to disappear for centuries and reappear,
yet never to be caught,
the unicorn has been preserved
by an unmatched device
wrought like the work of expert blacksmiths —
this animal of that one horn
with which nothing can compare –
throwing itself upon which head foremost from a cliff,
it walks away unharmed,
proficient in this feat, which like Herodotus,
I have not seen except in pictures.
Thus this strange animal with its miraculous elusiveness,
has come to be unique,
” impossible to take alive, ”
tamed only by a lady inoffensive like itself —
as curiously wild and gentle;
” as straight and slender as the crest,
or antlet of the one-beam’d beast. ”
Upon the printed page,
also by word of mouth,
we have a record of it all
and how, unfearful of deceit,
etched like an equine monster of an old celestial map,
beside a cloud or dress of Virgin-Mary blue,
improved ” all over slightly with snakes of Venice gold,
and silver, and some O’s, ”
the unicorn ” with pavon high, ” approaches eagerly;
until engrossed by what appears of this strange enemy,
upon the map, ” upon her lap, ”
Its ” mild wild head doth lie. ”
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*Marianne Moore altered her earlier poems numerous times
throughout her life – this is the original version first published in 1924 –
the words in quotation marks are taken from numerous sources
(the poet wrote about her use of quotes “I very nearly can’t
eat when I think of the good ones I had to omit”) one in particular
“cobwebs and knotts, and mulberries” is from a description of
Queen Elizabeth’s dresses “a forepart of white satten, embroidered
all over with pansies, little roses, knotts, and a border of mulberries,
pillars, and pomegranates, of Venice golde, sylver, and sylke of
sondrye colours One forepart of green satten embrodered all over
with sylver, like beasts, fowles and fishes” “A petticoat embrodered
all over slightly with snakes of Venice gold and silver and some O’s,
with a faire border embrodered like seas, cloudes and rainbowes.”If you’ve read this far then I will assume there was something
of interest and so not apologise for rambling on.When asked by a visitor why her poems did not rhyme, Marianne
Moore’s mother interrupted and said “don’t enlighten him”.A Bed of Forget-Me-Nots
Christina Georgina RossettiIs love so prone to change and rot
We are fain to rear forget-me-not
By measure in a garden plot? —I love its growth at large and free
By untrod path and unlopped tree,
Or nodding by the unpruned hedge,
Or on the water’s dangerous edge
Where flags and meadowsweet blow rank
With rushes on the quaking bank.Love is not taught in learning’s school,
Love is not parcelled out by rule;
Hath curb or call an answer got? —
So free must be forget-me-not.
Give me the flame no dampness dulls,
The passion of the instinctive pulse,
Love steadfast as a fixed star,
Tender as doves with nestlings are,
More large than time, more strong than death:
This all creation travails of —
She groans not for a passing breath —
This is forget-me-not and love.
Who are the other six ?
this is from my faves list
and the 2nd part of a trioIt’s in the band name
specially for a busy busy girlIgnore the eedjit who does the intro … so unnecessary
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thingTwo poems from Gwendolyn Brooks
The Crazy Woman
I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I’ll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.I’ll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I’ll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
“That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May.”Sadie and Maud
Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine toothed comb.She didn’t leave a tangle in
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chicks
In all the land.Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie left as heritage
Her fine-toothed comb.)Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.The Guy Fawkes plot came 2 years after Elizabeth I had died
and before November 5th the people celebrated September 7th
which was Elizabeth’s birthday. The celebrations were essentially
the parading around towns and villages an effigy of the pope which
was ultimately placed on top of a bonfire and burnt. Those canny
Stuarts had a ready replacement in Fawkes but I should like
to know how long the ordinary protestant people carried on
observing the September 7th parades and bonfires.Listen to this a coupla times and I dare you
to say Meh !The Little Willies – Love Me
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