Poemunity — your poem community

(excerpt) Hark! ’tis the twanging horn! o’er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks, News from all nations lumb’ring at his back. True to his charge, the close-pack’d load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destin’d inn: And having dropp’d th’ expected bag—pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some, To him indiff’rent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears, that trickled down the writer’s cheeks, Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charg’d with am’rous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all. But oh th’ important budget! usher’d in With such heart-shaking music, who can say What are its tidings? have our troops awak’d? Or do they still, as if with opium drugg’d, Snore to the murmurs of th’ Atlantic wave? Is India free? and does she wear her plum’d And jewell’d turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, And the loud laugh—I long to know them all; I burn to set th’ imprison’d wranglers free, And give them voice and utt’rance once again. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful ev’ning in. Not such his ev’ning, who with shining face Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeez’d And bor’d with elbow-points through both his sides, Out-scolds the ranting actor on the stage: Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb, And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen, all tranquility and smiles. This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not ev’n critics criticise; that holds Inquisitive attention, while I read, Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break; What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? . . . Oh Winter! ruler of th’ inverted year, Thy scatter’d hair with sleet like ashes fill’d, Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fring’d with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car, indebted to no wheels, But urg’d by storms along its slipp’ry way; I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st, And dreaded as thou art!  Thou hold’st the sun A pris’ner in the yet undawning East, Short’ning his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, Down to the rosy West; but kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering at short notice, in one group, The family dispers’d, and fixing thought, Not less dispers’d by day-light and its cares. I crown thee King of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb’d retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know. No ratt’ling wheels stop short before these gates; No powder’d pert proficient in the art Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors Till the street rings; no stationary steeds Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, The silent circle fan themselves, and quake: But here the needle plies its busy task, The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow’r, Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos’d, Follow the nimble finger of the fair; A wreath that cannot fade, or flow’rs that blow With most success when all besides decay. The poet’s or historian’s page, by one Made vocal for th’ amusement of the rest; The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out; And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, And in the charming strife triumphant still, Beguile the night, and set a keener edge On female industry; the threaded steel Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. The volume clos’d, the customary rites Of the last meal commence.  A Roman meal; Such as the mistress of the world once found Delicious, when her patriots of high note, Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors, And under an old oak’s domestic shade, Enjoy’d, spare feast! a radish and an egg. Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull, Nor such as with a frown forbids the play Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth: Nor do we madly, like an impious world, Who deem religion frenzy, and the God That made them an intruder on their joys, Start at his awful name, or deem his praise A jarring note.  Themes of a graver tone, Exciting oft our gratitude and love, While we retrace with mem’ry’s pointing wand, That calls the past to our exact review, The dangers we have ’scap’d, the broken snare, The disappointed foe, deliv’rance found Unlook’d for, life preserv’d and peace restor’d, Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. Oh ev’nings worthy of the Gods! exclaim’d The Sabine bard.  Oh ev’nings, I reply, More to be priz’d and coveted than yours, As more illumin’d, and with nobler truths, That I and mine, and those we love, enjoy.

(excerpt) ’Tis morning; and the sun with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the horizon: while the clouds That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more, Resemble most some city in a blaze, Seen through the leafless wood.  His slanting ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And tinging all with his own rosy hue, From ev’ry herb and ev’ry spiry blade Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field. Mine, spindling into longitude immense, In spite of gravity, and sage remark That I myself am but a fleeting shade, Provokes me to a smile.  With eye askance I view the muscular proportion’d limb Transform’d to a lean shank.  The shapeless pair, As they design’d to mock me, at my side Take step for step; and as I near approach The cottage, walk along the plaster’d wall, Prepost’rous sight! the legs without the man. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, And coarser grass upspearing o’er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And fledg’d with icy feathers, nod superb. The cattle mourn in corners where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness.  There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hung’ring man Fretful if unsupply’d, but silent, meek, And patient of the slow-pac’d swain’s delay. He from the stack carves out th’ accustom’d load, Deep-plunging, and again deep plunging oft His broad keen knife into the solid mass; Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanc’d weight. . . . ’Tis liberty alone that gives the flow’r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, And we are weeds without it.  All constraint, Except what wisdom lays on evil men, Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes Their progress in the road of science; blinds The eyesight of discov’ry, and begets, In those that suffer it, a sordid mind Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man’s noble form. Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art, With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez’d By public exigence till annual food Fails for the craving hunger of the state, Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free! My native nook of earth! . . . But there is yet a liberty unsung By poets, and by senators unprais’d, Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers Of earth and hell confed’rate take away. A liberty, which persecution, fraud, Oppression, prisons, have no pow’r to bind, Which whoso tastes can be enslav’d no more. ’Tis liberty of heart, deriv’d from heav’n, Bought with HIS blood who gave it to mankind, And seal’d with the same token.  It is held By charter, and that charter sanction’d sure By th’ unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God.  His other gifts All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his, And are august, but this transcends them all.

(excerpt) Thus heav’n-ward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restor’d. So God has greatly purpos’d; who would else In his dishonour’d works himself endure Dishonour, and be wrong’d without redress. Haste then, and wheel away a shatter’d world, Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see, (A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet) A world that does not dread and hate his laws, And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair The creature is that God pronounces good, How pleasant in itself what pleases him. Here ev’ry drop of honey hides a sting, Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow’rs, And ev’n the joy that haply some poor heart Derives from heav’n, pure as the fountain Is sully’d in the stream; taking a taint From touch of human lips, at best impure. Oh for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish! over which Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, That govern all things here, should’ring aside The meek and modest truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men: Where violence shall never lift the sword, Nor cunning justify the proud man’s wrong, Leaving the poor no remedy but tears: Where he that fills an office, shall esteem Th’ occasion it presents of doing good More than the perquisite: Where law shall speak Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts And equity; not jealous more to guard A worthless form, than to decide aright: Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse, Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace) With lean performance ape the work of love. . . . He is the happy man, whose life ev’n now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doom’d to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleas’d with it, and, were he free to chuse, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home. The world o’erlooks him in her busy search Of objects more illustrious in her view; And, occupy’d as earnestly as she, Though more sublimely, he o’erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has prov’d them vain. He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems Her honors, her emoluments, her joys. Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, Whose pow’r is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heav’n unseen, And shows him glories yet to be reveal’d. . . . So life glides smoothly and by stealth away, More golden than that age of fabled gold Renown’d in ancient song; not vex’d with care Or stain’d with guilt, beneficent, approv’d Of God and man, and peaceful in its end. So glide my life away! and so at last, My share of duties decently fulfill’d, May some disease, not tardy to perform Its destin’d office, yet with gentle stroke, Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat, Beneath a turf that I have often trod. It shall not grieve me, then, that once, when call’d To dress a Sofa with the flow’rs of verse, I play’d awhile, obedient to the fair, With that light task; but soon, to please her more Whom flow’rs alone I knew would little please, Let fall th’ unfinish’d wreath, and rov’d for fruit; Rov’d far, and gather’d much: some harsh, ’tis true, Pick’d from the thorns and briars of reproof, But wholesome, well-digested; grateful some To palates that can taste immortal truth, Insipid else, and sure to be despis’d. But all is in his hand whose praise I seek. In vain the poet sings, and the world hears, If he regard not, though divine the theme. ’Tis not in artful measures, in the chime And idle tinkling of a minstrel’s lyre, To charm his ear, whose eye is on the heart; Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whose approbation—prosper even mine.

Moved all the way here to watch television alone, swallowed by the grim news grinning. Fuck a five year plan, first one passes through Tiananmen the gate of heavenly peace, emptied public square finery in summer, purple cupping red azaleas Happy birth upon a time, Nation! Reveling in my love for him coquettish worried, approaching paranoia for the home country removed that June The cropped photo best dilated in our pockets black and white It was a long hard road continuously reading analysis metrics, my father knew a guy worked in sales, was there and saw them roll in like nothing else Black pillars to the effective dispersal I felt nothing pulling from the airport’s narrowing gate In the photo we still get perfectly centered Longview the idiot’s consumption guide, naturally then my love for was only

People can ... read Braille with their lips and their tongue ... — David J. Linden, The Kojo Nnamdi Show Whitman is a foot-long sub of grass-fed beef, Falstaff, a fat onion ring, Ophelia, a wailing wine. Judas Iscariot’s kiss turns my lips against themselves. Emily D makes my tongue want to fly a kite. The tongues of angels, I cannot swallow.

kiss upon kiss they grow into this they wish your shad roes hand sock hard rock cold toes will blow warm will blow cold they just raid your hash then like meat bees with your cash they give they take form like your fist over love

Some see a dove And think Pigeon Others see pigeons And think Dove Some know that all pigeons are doves Some angry as if pigeons were not doves But the city lover knows And I try to reconstruct The tattoo on one of your many branches The more arms the more power I think of you, O pale tattoo All pigeons, all doves You friendly cliff-dwellers

I’m counting cash in the backseat Of the Taurus. To Pop’s Repeated question, “Am I even Needed?” Mabel says, “I know the scene I want! Older cats are cool, Pop, I love you on those terms!” Toby thinks he owns The squeegee because his name Is on it, but he can’t Even hold a melody. Toby green Stupid shirt (and his embroidery Is shit). He strokes Mabel’s Neck, but she don’t want His Latin! Over plates of freezer- Burned cactus, Pop says, “Tomorrow I ink embarrassed koi, or at least The tiny stags!” “What is it,” Mother asks, “that will finally Relieve you of  this obsession?” After dinner I’m smashing Glass bottles, my hands vibrating — Exquisitely-timed palsy — Over beads that drop like hail Into the furnace where I round them For mother to arrange Into waterfall scenes on fabric. But she’s still in the H & M Filling her bags with beads so Venetian they cannot meet the eye. Meanwhile some teens Want to buy a glitter T with VISA. “Shit no plastic here!” I say. “How can I convince these kids To pay with cash?” “Not my problem, Bud!” Pop says from his desk Where he’s busy sketching Teams nutting in the orchard. Toby puts his beanie on, But it’s only August 3rd! Mabel’s tossing Gourds in fields destroyed By another mall, one big Meditation, soft, and already made.

Every bus ride is theater, giddy schoolgirls trying on the tawdry masks of women, flirting with my nephew, red and green lights, shop windows piled high, gold glistered skeletal mannequins in slips of iridescent silk. At night in the wind blowing over the Pont Marie I hear Camille Claudel crying from the walls of her studio, and two days before Christmas Elliot and I stand miraculously alone before La Gioconde, follow her eyes, cracked surface of her skin like softest sand before the deep water of her mouth, and later standing in the cold our Buddhist gardienne Nadine tells me in rapid-fire French that in all things she tries to remain neutral,neutre,neutre, neutre, the only word finally I understand in the barrage tumbling out of her mouth like a waterfall, but I can’t be neutral, passion welling up in my heart for the exhausted maids, dapper men in berets, the madwoman on the PC bus, screaming,Salope,salope, as she descends at the Pont d’Ivry and everyone on the bus looking at each other,Whore? Who’s the whore here? or the chic older woman, leather pants baggy on her skinny shanks, reading a battered paperback Rimbaud as we take the bus to see Pasolini’s Canterbury Tales, the master himself as Chaucer, spinning his ribald stories of human folly, each one a mirror, and when I see myself in bus windows or store glass, the shock never wears off, for I recognize myself and see a stranger at the same time, because the minutes are racing by at the speed of light, and I am saying goodbye to Paris, to everyone, myself most of all, watching her disappear down the rue Jeanne d’Arc, and what can she possibly be thinking as she walks to the movies in the middle of this afternoon of her life?

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay! Alas! I am very sorry to say That ninety lives have been taken away On the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember’d for a very long time. ’Twas about seven o’clock at night, And the wind it blew with all its might, And the rain came pouring down, And the dark clouds seem’d to frown, And the Demon of the air seem’d to say— “I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.” When the train left Edinburgh The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow, But Boreas blew a terrific gale, Which made their hearts for to quail, And many of the passengers with fear did say— “I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.” But when the train came near to Wormit Bay, Boreas he did loud and angry bray, And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay On the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember’d for a very long time. So the train sped on with all its might, And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight, And the passengers’ hearts felt light, Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year, With their friends at home they lov’d most dear, And wish them all a happy New Year. So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay, Until it was about midway, Then the central girders with a crash gave way, And down went the train and passengers into the Tay! The Storm Fiend did loudly bray, Because ninety lives had been taken away, On the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember’d for a very long time. As soon as the catastrophe came to be known The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown, And the cry rang out all o’er the town, Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down, And a passenger train from Edinburgh, Which fill’d all the people’ hearts with sorrow, And made them for to turn pale, Because none of the passengers were sav’d to tell the tale How the disaster happen’d on the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember’d for a very long time. It must have been an awful sight, To witness in the dusky moonlight, While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray, Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay, Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay, I must now conclude my lay By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay, That your central girders would not have given way, At least many sensible men do say, Had they been supported on each side with buttresses, At least many sensible men confesses, For the stronger we our houses do build, The less chance we have of being killed.