The world of dew Is a world of dew, and yet And yet POEM e. e. cummings (US, 1894-1962) 1(a 1e af fa 11 s) one 1 iness AUTUMN Rainer Maria Rilke (Bohemia-Austria, 1825-1926) (trans. Ernest Kroll) The leaves are falling, falling down the air As though the gardens of the heavens withered; Falling all with gestures of despair. And in the night the heavy earth is falling Past all the stars, down, down to loneliness. We are all falling. This hand falls through The loneliness with other things, now falling too. Yet there is one who holds this falling Gently in his hands, with endless gentleness. TO THE MAN I MARRIED Angela Manalang Gloria (1907-1995) You are my earth and all the earth implies: The gravity that ballasts me in space, The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries For food and shelter against devouring days. You are the earth whose orbit marks my way And sets my north and south, my east and west, You are the final, elemented clay The driven heart must turn to for its rest. If in your arms that hold me now so near I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun, You who are earth, O never doubt that I Need you no less because I need the sky! TREE WITHOUT LEAVES Lina Sagaral Reyes (Philippines, 1961- ) How your leaving unleafed me. Wide wide lakes of leaves, The crackle of breaking Underfoot. Memory became a bare crown Of boughs as taut as the dark-eyed Nipples of women Facing the honest mirror of fears. You have strength I cant name, Once you told me. Now you must Know: as winds churn The leaf-lakes below, I stand Rooting with the power You knew and named Nameless. On the rough nodes of my evening Fireflies nestle, Blooming.
I CAN WRITE THE SADDEST LINES TONIGHT
Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1904-1973) I can write the saddest lines tonight. Write for example: The night is fractured and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance The night wind turns in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest lines tonight. I loved her, sometimes she loved me too. On nights like these I held her in my arms. I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes. I can write the saddest lines tonight. To think I dont have her, to feel I have lost her. Hear the vast night, vaster without her. Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.
What does it matter that I couldnt keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me. That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off, my soul is not content to have lost her. As though to reach her, my sight looks for her. My heart looks for her: she is not with me The same night whitens, in the same branches. We, from that time, we are not the same. I dont love her, thats certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her. Anothers kisses on her, like my kisses. Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes. I dont love her, thats certain, but perhaps I love her. Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long. Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms, my soul is not content to have lost her. Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer, and these are the last lines I will write for her. YOU WHO NEVER ARRIVED Rainer Maria Rilke (Bohemia-Austria, 1875-1926) You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you. I have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment. All the immense images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected turns in the path, and those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods-all rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me. You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house-- , and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,-you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening...
SOUTHBOUND ON THE FREEWAY
May Swenson (US, 1913-1989) A tourist came in from Orbitville, parked in the air, and said: The creatures of this star are made of metal and glass. Through the transparent parts you can see their guts. Their feet are round and roll on diagramsor long measuring tapesdark with white lines. They have four eyes. The two in the back are red. Sometimes you can see a 5-eyed one, his red eye turning on the top of his head. he must be special the others respect him, and go slow, when he passes, winding among them from behind. They all hiss as they glide, like inches, down the marked tapes. Those soft shapes, shadowy inside the hard bodiesare they their guts or their brains? TONIGHT AT NOON Adrian Henri (UK, 1932-2000) Tonight at noon Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything Tonight at noon Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home Elephants will tell each other human jokes America will declare peace on Russia World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on November 11th The first daffodils of autumn will appear When the leaves fall upwards to the trees Tonight at noon Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights In front of the Black House And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein Girls in bikinis are moonbathing Folksongs are being sung by real folk Art galleries are closed to people over 21 Poets get their poems in the Top 20 Theres jobs for everybody and nobody wants them In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living and You will tell me you love me Tonight at noon VARIABLES OF GREEN Robert Graves (UK, 1895-1985) Grass-green and aspen green, Laurel-green and sea-green, Fine-emerald-green, And many another hue: As green commands the variables of green So love my loves of you. WE REAL COOL Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. From ROMEO AND JULIET William Shakespeare (England, 1564-1616) ROMEO [To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
The Poetry Of Radclyffe Hall - Volume 5 - Songs Of Three Counties and Other Poems: "Language is surely too small a vessel to contain these emotions of mind and body that have somehow awakened a response in the spirit."
The Poetry Of Rainer Maria Rilke: "Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers."