demonstrating, in my opinion, the only usefulness
of the poem form
you guess
Mya Calendar
Monks of the Years for Zodiacal Ears
Actuary, Fritillary, Mush
Mandrill, Mace, Jejeune
Jelly Aghast, Septic Ember
Oak Toner, Remember, Distemper
Device to Mesmerize the Monks
30 days hath septic ember
mandrill jejeune and remember
all the rest have 31 dyes
of different color:
Actuaray: puce Mush:
buff
Mace: rose
Jelly: lime
Aghast: jade
Oak Toner: rust
Distemper: slush
except Fritillary which howls
28 cold tones of dust
She Who continues.
She Who has a being
named She Who is a being
named She Who carries her own name.
She Who turns things over.
She Who marks her own way, gathering.
She Who makes her own difference.
She Who differs, gathering her own events.
She Who gathers, gaining
She Who carries her own ways,
gathering She Who waits,
bearing She Who cares for her
own name, carrying She Who
bears, gathering She Who cares
for She Who gathers her own ways
carrying
the names of She Who gather and gain,
singing: I am the woman, the woman
the woman - I am the first person.
and the first person is She Who is the first person to
She Who is the first person to no other. There is no
other first person.
She Who floods like a river and
like a river continues
She Who continues
Serious Concerns
'She is witty and unpretentious, which is both her strenth and her limitation.' (Robert O'Brien in the Spectator, 25.10.86)
I'm going to try and overcome my limitation--
Away with sloth!
Now should I work at being less witty? or more pretentious?
Or both?
'They (Roger McGough and Brian Patten) have something in common with her, in that they all write to amuse.' (Ibid.)
Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion!
I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.
An Argument With Wordsworth
'Poetry...takes its origin from emotion recalled in tranquility.' (Preface to the Lyrical Ballads)
People are always quoting that and all of them seem to agree
And it's probably most uwise to admit that it's different for me.
I have emotion--no one who knows me could fail to detect it--
But there's a serious shortage of tranquility in which to recollect it.
So this is my contribution to the theoretical debate:
Sometimes poetry is emotion recollected in a highly emotional state.
Variation on a Lennon and McCartney Song
Love, love, love,
Love, love, love,
Love, love, love,
Dooby doo dooby doo,
All you need is love,
Dooby dooby doo,
All you need is love,
Dooby dooby doo,
All you need is love, love,
Or, failing that, alchohol.
The Fancy Ball
As Morning you'd have me rise
On that shining world of art;
You forget: I have too much dark in my eyes--
And too much dark in my heart.
"Then go as the Night--in June;
Pass, dreamily, by the crowd,
With jewels to mock the stars and the moon,
And shadowy robes like cloud.
"Or as Spring, with a spray in your hair
Of blossoms as yet unblown;
It will suit you well, for our youth should wear
The bloom in the bud alone.
"Or drift from the outer gloom
With the sfot white silence of Snow:"
I should melt myself with the warm, close room--
Or my own life's burning. No.
"Then fly through the glitter and mirth
As a Bird of Paradise:"
Nay, the waters I drink have touch'd the earth;
I breathe no summer of spice.
"Then--" Hush: if I go at all,
(It will make them stare and shrink,
It will look so strange at a Fancy Ball),
I will go as--Myself, I think!
A Pique At Parting
Why, sir, as to that--I did not know it was time for the moon to rise,
(So, the longest day of them all can end, if we will have patience with
it.)
One woman can hardly care, I think, to remember another one's eyes,
And--the bats are beginning to flit.
...We hate one another? It may be true.
What else do you teach us to do?
Yes, verily, to love you.
My lords--and gentlemen--are you sure that after we love quite all
There is in your noble selves to be loved, no time on our hands will remain?
Why, an hour a day were enough for this. We may watch the wild leaves
fall
On the graves you forget...It is plain
That you were not pleased when she said--Just so;
Still, what do we want, after all, you know,
But room for a rose to grow?
You leave us the baby to kiss, perhaps; the bird in the cage to sing;
The flower on the window, the fire on the hearth (and the fires in the
heart) to tend.
When the wandering hand that would reach somewhere has become the Slave
of the Ring,
You give us--an image to mend;
Then shut the door with a careless smile, the door--
(There's dew or frost on the path before)
We are safe inside. What more?
If the baby should moan, or the bird sit hushed, or the flower fade out--what
then?
Ah? the old, old feud of mistress and maid would be left though
the sun went out?
You can number the stars and call them by names, and, as men, you can
wring from men
The world--for they own it, no doubt.
We, not being eagles are doves? Why, yes,
We must hide in the leaves, I guess,
And coo down our loneliness.
God meant us for saints? Yes--in Heaven. Well, I, for one,
am content
To trust him through darkenss and space to the end--if an end there shall
be;
But, as to His meanings, I fancy I never knew quite what He meant.
And--why, what were you saying to me
Of the saints--or that saint? It is late;
The lilies look weird by the gate.
...Ah, sir, as to that--we will wait.
Her Word of Reproach
We must not quarrel, whatever we do;
For if I was (but I was not!) wrong,
Here are the tears for it, here are the tears:--
What else has a woman to offer you?
Love might not last for a thousand years,
You know, though the stars should rise so long.
Oh you, you talk in a man's great way!--
So, love would last though the stars should fall?
Why, yes. If it last to the grave, indeed,
After the grave last on it may.
But--in the grave? Will its dust take heed
Of anything sweet--or the sweetest of all?
Ah, death is nothing! It may be so.
Yet, granting at least that death is death
(Pray, look at the rose, and hear the bird),
Whatever it is--we must die to know!
Sometimes we may long to say one word
Togather--and find we have no breath.
Ah, me, how divine you are growing again!--
How coldly sure that the Heavens are sure,
Whither too lightly you always fly
To hide from the passion of human pain.
Come, grieve that the earth is not secure,
For this one night--and forget the sky!
Her Blindness in Grief
What if my soul is left to me!
Oh! sweeter than my soul was he.
Its breast broods on a coffin lid;
Its empty eyes stare at the dust.
Tears follow tears for treasure hid
Forevermore from moth and rust.
The sky a shadow is; how much
I long for something I can touch!
God is a silence: could I hear
Him whisper once, "Poor child," to me!
God is a dream, a hope, a fear,
A vision--that the seraphs see.
"Woman, why weepest thou?" One said,
To His own mother, from the dead.
If He should come to mock me now,
Here in my utter loneliness,
And say to me, "Why weepest thou?"
I wonder would I weep the less.
Or, could I, though these endless tears,
Look high into the lovely spheres
And see him there--my little child--
Nursed tenderly at Mary's breast,
Would not my sorrow be as wild?
Christ help me. Who shall say the rest?
There is no comfort anywhere.
My baby's clothes, my baby's hair,
My baby's grave are all I know.
What would have hurt my baby? Why,
Why did he come; why did he go?
And shall I have him by and by?
Poor grave of mine, so strange, so small,
You cover all, you cover all!
The flush of every flower, the dew,
The bird's old song, the heart's old trust,
The star's fair light, the darkness, too,
Are hidden in your heavy dust.
Oh! but to kiss his little feet,
And say to them, "So sweet, so sweet,"
I would give up whatever pain
(What else is there to give, I say?)
This wide world holds. Again, again,
I yearn to follow him away.
My cry is but a human cry.
Who grieves for angels? Do they die?
Oh! precious hands, as still as snows,
How your white fingers hold my heart!
Yet keep your buried buds of rose
Though earth and Heaven are far apart.
The grief is bitter. Let me be.
He lies beneath that lonesome tree.
I've heard the fierce rain beating there.
Night covers it with cold moonshine.
Despair can only be despair.
God has his will. I have not mine.
Last modified: 08/23/08
First Posted: 08/00
© 1998-2009 Emily Ravenwood