Batt[l]er

As she savours her strawberry cake,
she thought 'I must do this for my sake'.
So she decided to make a stake,
that she will finish her writing before dusk breaks!
 
Chopping words off the page,
frustrated over bad gauge.
Deadline dusk has broken,
and dinner not taken.

I'm left with no power,
so I need a shower.
Fly to my dream tower,
to smell some nice flower.

– Peofeur Morsin

From the Girl to the Girl

You came, you look and you went


Adored you, they were bent


Snow White, they claim you are


No shape or sight near or far.




Why did he touch you so


And dear and girl and not


Why did he call you so


And dear? and girl ? so, not!






They say you are the best


I think you were , they forget


I came, he looked and conquered


Now go to your room and rest


So what if you were his fad?


I think many would concur


That I am his girl


And now his world


So please, girl


You can stop your tail that swirl.

1/3

Dear all,
We are coming to the end of the Poetry module. Thanks for all your contributions both in class and on the blog. We are going past the one third mark. Do post your thoughts on the Poetry Module - questions, discussion points, lessons learnt etc. Any other links you may uncover or ideas you have on the teaching of poetry as you prepare your package etc.

D

The Rose  (Some say love) 


Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you its only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dyin'
that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been to long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong,
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun's love
in the spring becomes the rose.

Jason Mraz - Man Gave Names To All The Animals

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal that liked to growl
Big furry paws and he liked to howl
Great big furry back and furry hair
Ah, think I'll call it a bear

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal up on a hill
Chewing up so much grass until she was filled
He saw milk coming out but he didn't know how
Ah, think I'll call it a cow

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal that liked to snort
Horns on his head and they weren't too short
It looked like there wasn't nothing that he couldn't pull
Ah, think I'll call it a bull

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal leaving a muddy trail
Real dirty face and a curly tail
He wasn't too small and he wasn't too big
Ah, think I'll call it a pig

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

Next animal that he did meet
Had wool on his back and hooves on his feet
Eating grass on a mountainside so steep
Ah, think I'll call it a sheep
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal as smooth as glass
Slithering his way through the grass
Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake

(ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGjAjZ2TZKU. think a teacher uploaded it for some english lesson...)

The Pop List

Love Song for a Vampire (Annie Lennox)
Mexican Wire (Fountain of Wayne)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
You Found Me (The Fray)
Eric's Song (Vienna Teng)
2 + 2 = 5 (Radiohead)
Marching Bands of Manhattan (Deathcab for a Cutie)
Vincent (Don McLean)
Measure of a Man (Clay Aiken) - see as a response to The Woman Question
Out of Habit (Ani Difranco)
Me and the Moon (Something Corporate)
Best I Ever Had (Vertical Horizon)
What's This (Fall out Boy/Danny Elfman - Nightmare on Elm Street OST)
Secret (Missy Higgins)
I dreamed a dream (Elaine Paige)
Sing for Absolution (Muse)
Over You (Chris Daughtry)
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
Entwined (Jason Reeves)
Misunderstood (Dream Theatre)
Love is Hard (James Morrison)
Love Me (Colin Raye)
Scientist (Coldplay)
Hide and Seek (Imogen Heap)
Gabriel (Lamb)
If I kissed you (Corrinne May)
Lucky (Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat)
Sing for the Moment (Eminem)
I am a rock (Simon & Garfunkel)
Human (The Killers)
Mad World (Gary Jules / Tears for Fears)
Beautiful (Christina Aguilera)
The Voice Within (Christina Aguilera)
Five Loaves and Two Fishes (Corrinne May)
Fields of Gold (Sting/Eva Cassidy)
Like a Rose (A1)
Heal the World (Michael Jackson)
Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden)

Love Song For A Vampire by Annie Lennox

Come into these arms again
And lay your body down
The rhythm of this trembling heart
It's beating like a drum
It beats for you,it bleeds for you
It knows not how it sounds
For it is the drum of drums
It is the song of songs

Once I had the rarest rose
That ever deigned to bloom
Cruel winter chilled the bud
And stole my flower too soon
Oh loneliness
Oh hopelessness
To search the ends of time
For there is in all the world
No greater love than mine

Love O love O love
O love O love O love
O love still falls the rain
O love O love
O love O love O love
O love still falls the night
Love O love O love
O love O love O love
O love be mine forever (be mine forever)
Love O love O love
O love O love O love
O love O love O love
O love O love O love

Let me be the only one
To keep you from the cold
Now the floor of heav’n is laid
With stars of brightest gold
They shine for you
They shine for you
They burn for all to see
Come into these arms again
And set this spirit free





YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhG8zC4npsE

"Secret" - Missy Higgins

You were from the North, I was from the South
We were form opposite places, different towns
But I knew it was good and you knew it was too
So we moved together like a ball and chain
Minds becoming two halves of the same
It was real, but in shadows it grew

Cos you've got a secret don't ya babe?

I would've shouted loud and broken through
I would've given it all to belong to you
But there were different plans, different rules
You said "where I'm from there is a lock and key
If you'd be so kind as to follow me
I will show you the way to the rest of my sins"

Cos you've got a secret don't ya babe?
Yeah you, you got a secret don't ya babe?
And I should know
Yeah I should know

So this room was damp where your sins laid
There was that smell in the air of an old place
That hadn't seen much daylight in years
And you threw me down, said, "If ya don't mind
I'm gonna leave you here until night time
Then we can do what we want my baby out of the spotlight."

Cos you've got a secret don't ya babe?
Yeah you, you got a secret don't ya babe?
And I should know
Yeah I should know
For I'm your secret aren't I babe?
Yeah I'm your secret aren't I babe?
Aren't I babe? 

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plv_eQXlGWM

Dancing by Elisa

Time is gonna take my mind
and carry it far away where I can fly
The depth of life will dim my temptation to live for you
If I were to be alone silence would rock my tears
'cause it's all about love and I know better
How life is a waving feather

So I put my arms around you around you
And I know that I'll be leaving soon

My eyes are on you they're on you
And you see that I can't stop shaking
No, I won't step back but I'll look down to hide from your eyes
'cause what I feel is so sweet and I'm scared that even my own breath
Oh could burst it if it were a bubble
And I'd better dream if I have to struggle

So I put my arms around you around you
And I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you they're on you
And I hope that you won't hurt me

I'm dancing in the room as if I was in the woods with you
No need for anything but music
Music's the reason why I know time still exists
Time still exists
Time still exists
Time still exists

So I just put my arms around you around you
And I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you they're on you
And I hope that you won't hurt me
My arms around you they're around you and I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you they're on you
They're on you My eyes...

---
Youtube video of the dance that actually made this song famous.

"Marching Bands Of Manhattan" - Deathcab For a Cutie

If I could open my arms
And span the length of the isle of Manhattan,
I'd bring it to where you are
Making a lake of the East River and Hudson
If I could open my mouth
Wide enough for a marching band to march out
They would make your name sing
And bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings.

I wish we could open our eyes
To see in all directions at the same time
Oh what a beautiful view
If you were never aware of what was around you
And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in.

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate half empty or half full
It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown [4x]

Your love is gonna drown [4x]
Your love is gonna...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJiLNr3ZeXU

Portfolio #7

Ani Difranco - Out of Habit

The butter melts out of habit

You know the toast isn't even warm

And the waitress and the man in the plaid shirt

Play out a scene they've played

So many times before

And I am watching the sun stumble home in the morning

From a bar on the east side of town

And the coffee is just water dressed in brown

Well beautiful but boring

He visited me yesterday

And he noticed my fingers

And asked me if I would play

I didn't really care a lot

but I couldn't think of a reason why not

I said if you don't come any closer I don't mind if you stay

And oh my thighs have been involved in many accidents

And now I can't get insured

And I don't need to be lured by you

My cunt is built like a wound that won't heal

And now you don't have to ask

Because you know how I feel

Well now you know how I feel



Well you know art is why I get up in the morning

But my definition ends there

And it doesn't seem fair

That I'm living for something I can't even define

But there you are right there

In the meantime



I don't want to play for you anymore

Show me what you can do

Tell me what are you here for

I want my old friends

I want my old face

I want my old mind

Fuck this time and place



The butter melts out of habit

You know, the toast isn't even warm


P.S. Here's a link to her song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adPOiKWvQ-U

the clod and the pebble

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash —-
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

From The Frontier of Writing by Seamus Heaney

The tightness and the nilness round that space
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face

towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover

and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle motions and you move
with guarded unconcerned acceleration—

a little emptier, a little spent
as always by that quiver in the self,
subjugated, yes, and obedient.

So you drive on to the frontier of writing
where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating

data about you, waiting for the squawk
of clearance; the marksman training down
out of the sun upon you like a hawk.

And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed,
as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall
on the black current of a tarmac road

past armor-plated vehicles, out between
the posted soldiers flowing and receding
like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.

Cut by Sylvia Plath

for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to kill

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
Dirty girl,
Thumb stump.

Sick by Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay,
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is---Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

The Look by Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

The Daffodils

THE DAFFODILS

by: William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I wandered lonely as a cloud by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The Planners

The Planners by Boey Kim Cheng

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,
filled with permutations of possibilities.
The buildings are in alignment with the roads
which meet at desired points
linked by bridges all hang
in the grace of mathematics.
They build and will not stop.
Even the sea draws back
and the skies surrender.

They erase the flaws,
the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold.
The country wears perfect rows of shining teeth.
Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
They have the means
They have it all so it will not hurt,
so history is new again.
The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century.

But my heart would not bleed
poetry. Not a single drop
to stain the blueprint
of our past's tomorrow.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

1(a... (a leaf falls on loneliness)- e.e.cummings

1(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence)

The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence) by William Blake

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

The Dream Keeper

The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

The Grass has so little to do

The Grass has so little to do by Emily Dickinson

THE GRASS so little has to do,—
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes 5
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine,— 10
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep, 15
Or amulets of pine.

And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away,—
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were a hay!

I have dreamed so much of you by Robert Desnos

I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?

I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.

O scales of feeling.

I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.

I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.

Your Dog dies

YOUR DOG DIES by Raymond Carver

it gets run over by a van.
you find it at the side of the road
and bury it.
you feel bad about it.
you feel bad personally,
but you feel bad for your daughter
because it was her pet,
and she loved it so.
she used to croon to it
and let it sleep in her bed.
you write a poem about it.
you call it a poem for your daughter,
about the dog getting run over by a van
and how you looked after it,
took it out into the woods
and buried it deep, deep,
and that poem turns out so good
you're almost glad the little dog
was run over, or else you'd never
have written that good poem.
then you sit down to write
a poem about writing a poem
about the death of that dog,
but while you're writing you
hear a woman scream
your name, your first name,
both syllables,
and your heart stops.
after a minute, you continue writing.
she screams again.
you wonder how long this can go on.

Totem by Sylvia Plath

The engine is killing the track, the track is silver,
It stretches into the distance. It will be eaten nevertheless.

Its running is useless.
At nightfall there is the beauty of drowned fields,

Dawn gilds the farmers like pigs,
Swaying slightly in their thick suits,

White towers of Smithfield ahead,
Fat haunches and blood on their minds.

There is no mercy in the glitter of cleavers,
The butcher's guillotine that whispers: 'How's this, how's this?'

In the bowl the hare is aborted,
Its baby head out of the way, embalmed in spice,

Flayed of fur and humanity.
Let us eat it like Plato's afterbirth,

Let us eat it like Christ.
These are the people that were important ----

Their round eyes, their teeth, their grimaces
On a stick that rattles and clicks, a counterfeit snake.

Shall the hood of the cobra appall me ----
The loneliness of its eye, the eye of the mountains

Through which the sky eternally threads itself?
The world is blood-hot and personal

Dawn says, with its blood-flush.
There is no terminus, only suitcases

Out of which the same self unfolds like a suit
Bald and shiny, with pockets of wishes,

Notions and tickets, short circuits and folding mirrors.
I am mad, calls the spider, waving its many arms.

And in truth it is terrible,
Multiplied in the eyes of the flies.

They buzz like blue children
In nets of the infinite,

Roped in at the end by the one
Death with its many sticks.

who is Grace Ezequiel

AMANTE

A waterfall of hair
cascades
down your shoulders.

Silence breathes us,
butterflies
in our hands.

Our dinners
half eaten
packed for later.

A five star meal
relished
on our warm spines.

While we languish
on rented sheets.
No bickering moments,

dismal doubts,
or monotonous chores
shudder our cloistered moments.

Eternity is not
a diamond ring.
It is here.

Grace Ezequiel

When you are old

When You Are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And his his face amid a crowd of stars.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

Cinderella by Roald Dahl

I guess you think you know this story.
You don't. The real one's much more gory.
The phoney one, the one you know,
Was cooked up years and years ago,
And made to sound all soft and sappy
just to keep the children happy.
Mind you, they got the first bit right,
The bit where, in the dead of night,
The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all,
Departed for the Palace Ball,
While darling little Cinderella
Was locked up in a slimy cellar,
Where rats who wanted things to eat,
Began to nibble at her feet.

She bellowed 'Help!' and 'Let me out!
The Magic Fairy heard her shout.
Appearing in a blaze of light,
She said: 'My dear, are you all right?'
'All right?' cried Cindy .'Can't you see
'I feel as rotten as can be!'
She beat her fist against the wall,
And shouted, 'Get me to the Ball!
'There is a Disco at the Palace!
'The rest have gone and 1 am jalous!
'I want a dress! I want a coach!
'And earrings and a diamond brooch!
'And silver slippers, two of those!
'And lovely nylon panty hose!
'Done up like that I'll guarantee
'The handsome Prince will fall for me!'
The Fairy said, 'Hang on a tick.'
She gave her wand a mighty flick
And quickly, in no time at all,
Cindy was at the Palace Ball!

It made the Ugly Sisters wince
To see her dancing with the Prince.
She held him very tight and pressed
herself against his manly chest.
The Prince himself was turned to pulp,
All he could do was gasp and gulp.
Then midnight struck. She shouted,'Heck!
Ive got to run to save my neck!'
The Prince cried, 'No! Alas! Alack!'
He grabbed her dress to hold her back.
As Cindy shouted, 'Let me go!'
The dress was ripped from head to toe.

She ran out in her underwear,
And lost one slipper on the stair.
The Prince was on it like a dart,
He pressed it to his pounding heart,
'The girl this slipper fits,' he cried,
'Tomorrow morn shall be my bride!
I'll visit every house in town
'Until I've tracked the maiden down!'
Then rather carelessly, I fear,
He placed it on a crate of beer.

At once, one of the Ugly Sisters,
(The one whose face was blotched with blisters)
Sneaked up and grabbed the dainty shoe,
And quickly flushed it down the loo.
Then in its place she calmly put
The slipper from her own left foot.
Ah ha, you see, the plot grows thicker,
And Cindy's luck starts looking sicker.

Next day, the Prince went charging down
To knock on all the doors in town.
In every house, the tension grew.
Who was the owner of the shoe?
The shoe was long and very wide.
(A normal foot got lost inside.)
Also it smelled a wee bit icky.
(The owner's feet were hot and sticky.)
Thousands of eager people came
To try it on, but all in vain.
Now came the Ugly Sisters' go.
One tried it on. The Prince screamed, 'No!'
But she screamed, 'Yes! It fits! Whoopee!
'So now you've got to marry me!'
The Prince went white from ear to ear.
He muttered, 'Let me out of here.'
'Oh no you don't! You made a vow!
'There's no way you can back out now!'
'Off with her head!'The Prince roared back.
They chopped it off with one big whack.
This pleased the Prince. He smiled and said,
'She's prettier without her head.'
Then up came Sister Number Two,
Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!'
'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back.
He swung his trusty sword and smack
Her head went crashing to the ground.
It bounced a bit and rolled around.
In the kitchen, peeling spuds,
Cinderella heard the thuds
Of bouncing heads upon the floor,
And poked her own head round the door.
'What's all the racket? 'Cindy cried.
'Mind your own bizz,' the Prince replied.
Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds.
My Prince! she thought. He chops off heads!
How could I marry anyone
Who does that sort of thing for fun?

The Prince cried, 'Who's this dirty slut?
'Off with her nut! Off with her nut!'
Just then, all in a blaze of light,
The Magic Fairy hove in sight,
Her Magic Wand went swoosh and swish!
'Cindy! 'she cried, 'come make a wish!
'Wish anything and have no doubt
'That I will make it come about!'
Cindy answered, 'Oh kind Fairy,
'This time I shall be more wary.
'No more Princes, no more money.
'I have had my taste of honey.
I'm wishing for a decent man.
'They're hard to find. D'you think you can?'
Within a minute, Cinderella
Was married to a lovely feller,
A simple jam maker by trade,
Who sold good home-made marmalade.
Their house was filled with smiles and laughter
And they were happy ever after.

Because I could not stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible.
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Emily Dickinson

Death & Co. by Sylvia Plath

Two.Of Course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now⎯
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled, like Blake's,
Who exhibits

The Birthmarks that are his trademark⎯
The scald scar of water,
The nude
Verdigris of the condor
I am red meat. His beak

Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple

Frill at the neck,
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns,
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.

The other does that,
His hair long and plausive.
Bastard
Masturbating a glitter,
He wants to be loved.

I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star.
The dead bell,
The dead bell.

Somebody's done for.

the kiss

The Kiss

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.

Sara Teasdale

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

Mary Frye

"It is dangerous to read Newspapers"

It Is Dangerous to Read Newspapers by Margaret Atwood

While I was building neat
castles in the sandbox,
the hasty pits were
filling with bulldozed corpses

and as I walked to the school
washed and combed, my feet
stepping on the cracks in the cement
detonated the red bombs.

Now I am grownup
and literate, and I sit in my chair
as quietly as a fuse

and the jungles are flaming, the under-
brush is charged with soldiers,
the names on the difficult
maps go up in smoke.

I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical
toys, my body
is a deadly gadget,
I reach out in love, my hands are guns,
my good intentions are completely lethal.

Even my
passive eyes transmute
everything I look at to the pocked
black and white of a war photo,
how
can I stop myself

It is dangerous to read newspapers.

Each time I hit a key
on my electric typewriter,
speaking of peaceful trees

another village explodes.

The Prince to Snow White by Polly Peterson

(in response to Snow White and the Prince by Delia Sherman )


Did you think that I found you

by chance, Maiden?

Did you believe

I was drawn to your crystal casket,

like a hummingbird to its nectar,

by the allure of ruby lips,

the gaze of azure eyes?

The mirror told your mother,

at forty,

what she already knew,

not in her heart,

but in her spleen.

"Take her into the forest,"

she commanded,

"for her heartbeat plays

the music of my mortality,

and must be stopped."

Still the mirror

told her true.

She was the fading flower —

a fresh blossom

opened in you.

Ragged she came,

and gnarled and stooped,

hoping by this guise

to fool fate,

to quell the crone within.

Her apple froze you fast —

a talisman

to keep time

from touching her.

Alas, to no avail.

You shall have

your mother's love.

Indeed, you have it now,

even as you

usurp her place.

Did you think that I found you

by chance, Maiden?

You are beautiful, sublime,

yet not so lovely

as our daughter will be:

your mother's daughter's child —

her immortality.

The Hangman at Home

The Hangman at Home by Carl Sandburg

WHAT does the hangman think about
When he goes home at night from work?
When he sits down with his wife and
Children for a cup of coffee and a
Plate of ham and eggs, do they ask
Him if it was a good day’s work
And everything went well or do they
Stay off some topics and talk about
The weather, base ball, politics
And the comic strips in the papers
And the movies? Do they look at his
Hands when he reaches for the coffee
Or the ham and eggs? If the little
Ones say, Daddy, play horse, here’s
A rope—does he answer like a joke:
I seen enough rope for today?
Or does his face light up like a
Bonfire of joy and does he say:
It’s a good and dandy world we live
In. And if a white face moon looks
In through a window where a baby girl
Sleeps and the moon gleams mix with
Baby ears and baby hair—the hangman—
How does he act then? It must be easy
For him. Anything is easy for a hangman,
I guess.

petals

Petals

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Amy Lowell

Snow White to the Prince by Delia Sherman

I am beautiful you say, sublime,

Black and crystal as a winter's night,

With lips like rubies, cabochon,

My eyes deep blue as sapphires.

I cannot blame you for your praise:

You took me for my beauty, after all;

A jewel in a casket, still as death,

A lovely effigy, a prince's prize,

The fairest in the land.

But you woke me, or your horses did,

Stumbling as they bore me down the path,

Shaking the poisoned apple from my throat.

And now you say you love me, and would wed me

For my beauty's sake. My cursed beauty.

Will you hear now why I curse it?

It should have been my mother's — it had been,

Until I took it from her.

I was fourteen, a flower newly blown,

My mother's faithful shadow and her joy.

I remember combing her hair one day,

Playing for love her tire-woman's part,

Folding her thick hair strand over strand

Into an ebon braid, thick as my wrist,

And pinned it round and round her head

Into a living crown.

I looked up from my handiwork and saw

Our faces, hers and mine, caught in the mirror's eye.

Twin white ovals like repeated moons

Bright amid our midnight hair. Our eyes

Like heaven's bowl; our lips like autumn berries.

She frowned a little, lifted hand to throat.

urned her head this way and then the other.

Our eyes met in the glass.

I saw what she had seen: her hair white-threaded,

Her face and throat fine-lined, her eyes softened

Like a mirror that clouds and cracks with age;

While I was newly silvered, sharp and clear.

I hid my eyes, but could not hide my knowledge.

Forty may be fair; fourteen is fairer still.

She smiled at my reflection, cold as glass,

And then dismissed me thankless.

Not long after the huntsman came, bearing

A knife, a gun, a little box, to tell me

My mother no longer loved me. He spared me, though,

Unasked, because I was too beautiful to kill.

And the seven little men whose house

I kept that winter and the following year,

They loved me for my beauty's sake, my beauty

That cost me my mother's love.

Do you think I did not know her,

Ragged and gnarled and stooped like a wind-bent tree,

Her basket full of combs and pins and laces?

Of course I took her poisoned gifts. I wanted

To feel her hands combing out my hair,

To let her lace me up, to take an apple

From her hand, a smile from her lips,

As when I was a child.

Choice

Choice

I'd rather have the thought of you
To hold against my heart,
My spirit to be taught of you
With west winds blowing,
Than all the warm caresses
Of another love's bestowing,
Or all the glories of the world
In which you had no part.

I'd rather have the theme of you
To thread my nights and days,
I'd rather have the dream of you
With faint stars glowing,
I'd rather have the want of you,
The rich, elusive taunt of you
Forever and forever and forever unconfessed
Than claim the alien comfort
Of any other's breast.

O lover! O my lover,
That this should come to me!
I'd rather have the hope of you,
Ah, Love, I'd rather grope for you
Within the great abyss
Than claim another's kiss-
Alone I'd rather go my way
Throughout eternity.

Angela Morgan

Bond and Free by Robert Frost

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about—
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world’s embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius’ disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight,
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.

Blue Umbrellas

Blue Umbrellas by D. J. Enright


'The thing that makes a blue umbrella with its tail -
how do you call it?' you ask. Poorly and pale
Comes my answer. For all I can call it is peacock.

Now that you go to school, you will learn how we call all sorts of things;
How we mar great works by our mean recital.
You will learn, for instance, that Head Monster is not the gentleman's accepted title;
The blue-tailed eccentrics will be merely peacocks; the dead bird will no longer doze
Off till tomorrow's lark, for the latter has killed him.
The dictionary is opening, the gay umbrellas close.

Oh our mistaken teachers! -
It was not a proper respect for words that we need,
But a decent regard for things, those older creatures and more real.
Later you may even resort to writing verse
To prove the dishonesty of names and their black greed -
To confess your ignorance, to exiate your crime, seeking one spell to
life another curse.
Or you may, more commodiously, spy on your children, busy discoverers,
Without the dubious benefit of rhyme.

A WOMAN'S QUESTION

A WOMAN'S QUESTION

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the hand above?
A woman's heart, and a woman's life--
And a woman's wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win
With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Manlike, you have questioned me.
Now stand at the bars of my woman's soul
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart be as true as God's stars
And as pure as His heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,
I require a far greater thing;
A seamstress you're wanting for socks and shirts---
I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called Home,
And a man that his Maker, God,
Shall look upon as he did on the first
And say: "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade
From this soft young cheeck one day;
Will you love me then, 'mid the falling leaves
As you did 'mong the blossoms of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that a man should be;
If you give this all, I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot be this, a laundress and cook
You can hire and little to pay;
But a woman's heart and a woman's life
Are not to be won that way.

Sara Teasdale's I shall not care

When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough;
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes


The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin;
He'd a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!
And he rode with a jeweled twinkle--
His rapier hilt a-twinkle--
His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred,
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler listened--his face was white and peaked--
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter--
The landlord's black-eyed daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart; I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

He stood upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the sweet black waves of perfume came tumbling o'er his breast,
Then he kissed its waves in the moonlight
(O sweet black waves in the moonlight!),
And he tugged at his reins in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon.
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon over the purple moor,
The redcoat troops came marching--
Marching--marching--
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord; they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets by their side;
There was Death at every window,
And Hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had bound her up at attention, with many a sniggering jest!
They had tied a rifle beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say,
"Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it, she strove no more for the rest;
Up, she stood up at attention, with the barrel beneath her breast.
She would not risk their hearing, she would not strive again,
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight,
And the blood in her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love's refrain.

Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hooves, ringing clear;
Tlot tlot, tlot tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The redcoats looked to their priming! She stood up straight and still.

Tlot tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight--
Her musket shattered the moonlight--
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him--with her death.

He turned, he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the casement, drenched in her own red blood!
Not till the dawn did he hear it, and his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down in the highway,
Down like a dog in the highway,
And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,
The highwayman comes riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred,
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats its wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!

In My Country - Jackie Kay

walking by the waters,
down where an honest river
shakes hands with the sea,
a woman passed around me
in a slow, watchful circle,
as if I were a superstition;

or the worst dregs of her imagination,
so when she finally spoke
her words spliced into bars
of an old wheel. A segment of air.
Where do you come from?
'Here,' I said, 'Here. These parts.'

The poet is a Scottish Black woman who wrote about her frequent experiences of being perceived as a foreigner in her own country.

She Had More Friends - Joanne Burns

She had more friends
than you could fit
into the back of a truck

that's why she didn't mind
leaving them parked
on a cliff edge

while she went
for a stroll
with the brake in her pocket

Memento Mori - Samuel Menashe

This skull instructs
Me now to probe
The socket bone
Around my eyes
To test the nose
Bone underlies
To hold my breath
To make no bones
About the dead

Indian Princess Picks Out Lover From Gods - Ruth Padel

Thank God we cast
A spot of shadow in our lives,
 Said the Mahabharata bride,
Facing five versions of her groom -

Your man himself plus four male gods,
Four dead-spit images, self-xeroxed in his shape -
 Who recognised that heartbeat,
The man she'd have to part with

By the shadow at his heel. Gods don't go round
Casting shadow. Things we do and feel
 (As a leader in The Independent
Put it afterwards) are incomplete,
Imperfect, therefore real.

The Charge of The Light Brigade (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Ariel (by Sylvia Plath)

Stasis in darkness.

Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!--The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks----

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else

Hauls me through air----
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.

White
Godiva, I unpeel----
Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry

Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,

The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.

Let Me Not To The Marriage of True Minds (William Shakespeare)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Holy Sonnet XIV (John Donne)

XIV.


Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

To His Mistress Going To Bed (John Donne)

COME, madam, come, all rest my powers defy ;


Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,

Is tired with standing, though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,

That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.

Off with your wiry coronet, and show

The hairy diadems which on you do grow.

Off with your hose and shoes ; then softly tread

In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven's angels used to be

Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee

A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise ; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these angels from an evil sprite ;

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O, my America, my Newfoundland,

My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,

My mine of precious stones, my empery ;

How am I blest in thus discovering thee !

To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;

Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.

Full nakedness ! All joys are due to thee ;

As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views ;

That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,

His earthly soul might court that, not them.

Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made

For laymen, are all women thus array'd.

Themselves are only mystic books, which we

—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—

Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,

As liberally as to thy midwife show

Thyself ; cast all, yea, this white linen hence ;

There is no penance due to innocence :

To teach thee, I am naked first ; why then,

What needst thou have more covering than a man?

The Flea by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

because i love you)last night by E. E. Cummings

because i love you)last night




clothed in sealace

appeared to me

your mind drifting

with chuckling rubbish

of pearl weed coral and stones;



lifted,and(before my

eyes sinking)inward,fled;softly

your face smile breasts gargled

by death:drowned only



again carefully through deepness to rise

these your wrists

thighs feet hands



poising

to again utterly disappear;

rushing gently swiftly creeping

through my dreams last

night,all of your

body with its spirit floated

(clothed only in



the tide's acute weaving murmur

*I like this poem because of its sexy language, and Cummings' playfulness with the form and parenthesis.
Orry

We are Loving Guys

We are loving guys.

We wonder about the girls and our families.

We hear voices of ladies.

We see beautiful girls.

We want to get married.

We are loving guys.

We pretend to be fathers.

We feel important about getting married.

We touch the rings of our wives.

We worry if our wives will find another husband.

We cry if our children die.

We are loving guys.

We understand that marriage is a new life.

We say that our plans will be true.

We dream that we are having children.

We try to make our wives happy.

We hope to have a nice life with our family.

We are loving guys.

 Written by: Hazimin Mohd., Abdul Aziz Rabea Omar Lashram, & Ahmed Elfadilfathal R, Taha

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S: Another poem I will use to gain students' interest and to help them relate to poetry.

Sleep (by Darren Sim of SASS)

Into a different land I go,
Magical creatures here below.
Jack wants a beanstalk, seeds to sow.
I fly everywhere, high and low.

Such things happen every day.
When night comes I shout, 'hurray.'
Different adventures, day by day;
Never do I need to pay.

Magic like this is just pretend.
Before I go I must attend,
To the world I wish to defend.
Now my dreams come to an end...

------------------------------------

P.S.: I will use this to relate to the children when teaching poetry.

Digging (Seamus Heaney)

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Love Storm (D.H. Lawrence)

Many roses in the wind
Are tapping at the window-sash.
A hawk is in the sky; his wings
Slowly begin to plash.

The roses with the west wind rapping
Are torn away, and a splash
Of red goes down the billowing air.

Still hangs the hawk, with the whole sky moving
Past him--only a wing-beat proving
The will that holds him there.

The daisies in the grass are bending,
The hawk has dropped, the wind is spending
All the roses, and unending
Rustle of leaves washes out the rending
Cry of a bird.

A red rose goes on the wind.--Ascending
The hawk his wind-swept way is wending
Easily down the sky. The daisies, sending
Strange white signals, seem intending
To show the place whence the scream was heard.

But, oh, my heart, what birds are piping!
A silver wind is hastily wiping
The face of the youngest rose.

And oh, my heart, cease apprehending!
The hawk is gone, a rose is tapping
The window-sash as the west-wind blows.

Knock, knock, 'tis no more than a red rose rapping,
And fear is a plash of wings.
What, then, if a scarlet rose goes flapping
Down the bright-grey ruin of things!

The Flea (John Donne)

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
    Yet this enjoys before it woo,
    And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
    And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
    Though use make you apt to kill me,
    Let not to that self-murder added be,
    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Easter Wings (George Herbert)

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
        Though foolishly he lost the same,
              Decaying more and more,
                      Till he became
                        Most poore:

                        With Thee
                      O let me rise,
              As larks, harmoniously,
        And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
  And still with sicknesses and shame
        Thou didst so punish sinne,
                  That I became
                   Most thinne.

                    With Thee
                Let me combine,
      And feel this day Thy victorie;
    For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Words (Sylvia Plath)

Axes after whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes travelling
Off from the centre like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road______

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.

Edge (Sylvia Plath)

The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

The Mouse's Tale (by Lewis Carroll)

"Fury said to

a mouse, That

he met

in the

house,

'Let us

both go

to law:

I will

prosecute

you.—

Come, I'll

take no

denial;

We must

have a

trial:

For

really

this

morning

I've

nothing

to do.'

Said the

mouse to

the cur,

'Such a

trial,

dear sir,

With no

jury or

judge,

would be

wasting

our breath.'

'I'll be

judge,

I'll be

jury,'

Said

cunning

old Fury;

'I'll try

the whole

cause,

and

condemn

you

to

death.' "

The Second Coming (W.B. Yeats)

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?