Poemunity — your poem community

This sonnet is your personal amulet To be worn in instance of need Or constantly held in the mind Occurring here and elsewhere at this moment This sonnet is sent without cunning To cull a particular phrase from your lips To enlist another protector In this age of malcontent benefactors Against an ironclad schooner Feudal kingdom Dismemberment by jubilant crowds Strangely indifferent faces Heat and dust besides Suicide implicating others

He is for a long time bleating the embassy collection: (water-resistant cot, a resurgent stretch of storefronts to dive into, compadre,col legno, funding the new permits, pleasing room, murderous rain. Near-spring night, stars on flat blackboards, essay estate questions passed person to person. The lottery window I turn red past, hyacinth-lanced dawn. In green tree talk the transcriber dons a dark robe, a mirror. The notebook discovered the parting sun, magnificent trough, blind hair on a head of state, streak-woods in the winding road atlas—stranded shore. Pose in flight covered by weeds, claw hair-rocks, Pullulation. Push-up. Push-up. Pestilentia reeds announce—trebly isolated, a closed trio, the trinity trick-fucked—in a.

The love we’ve defined for ourselves in privacy, in suffering, keeps both of us lonely as a fist, but does intimacy mean a happy ending? I’m afraid of marriage. Driving past them at night, the shadows on a drawn curtain hide terrible lives: a father stuck in a job, his daughter opening her blouse to strangers. And your hands, for example, like a warm liquid on my face don’t evaporate as you take them away. Nor are our betrayals silent, although we listen only in passing. We’re learning how to walk unlit streets, to see threats instead of trees, the right answer to a teenager opening his knife. The answer is yes. Always we couldn’t do otherwise.

For you are like their parent who is never pleased and they are like your parent who cannot stay angry For you are like a child For age after age they conceive you and despite the pain of birth they bring you forth For they call you perfect though your hands are missing and though your heart does not beat they give you a name For they remember you For they hold you blameless in their sorrow though they were surely happiest before you arrived For your identical twin they name Silence and when they feed Silence he grows For they love Silence as they would have loved you even more perhaps as old age comes and they forget the sound of your cry and where the exact spot was they spread your ashes and how those ashes tasted when the wind blew them into their mouths Father in their dreams they worry still perhaps it is you who lives among them and not Silence after all mistakes happen after all how would anyone know and the midwives forgive them forgive them were only human

A David psalm. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. In grass meadows He makes me lie down, by quiet waters guides me. My life He brings back. He leads me on pathways of justice for His name's sake. Though I walk in the vale of death's shadow, I fear no harm, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff— it is they that console me. You set out a table before me in the face of my foes. You moisten my head with oil, my cup overflows. Let but goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for many long days.

Thy mercy, Lord, Lord, now thy mercy show: On thee I lie; To thee I fly. Hide me, hive me, as thine own, Till these blasts be overblown, Which now do fiercely blow. To highest God I will erect my cry, Who quickly shall Dispatch this all. He shall down from heaven send From disgrace me to defend His love and verity. My soul encaged lies with lions’ brood, Villains whose hands Are fiery brands, Teeth more sharp than shaft or spear, Tongues far better edge do bear Than swords to shed my blood. As high as highest heav’n can give thee place, O Lord, ascend, And thence extend With most bright, most glorious show Over all the earth below, The sunbeams of thy face. Me to entangle every way I go Their trap and net Is ready set. Holes they dig but their own holes Pitfalls make for their own souls: So, Lord, oh, serve them so. My heart prepared, prepared is my heart To spread thy praise With tuned lays: Wake my tongue, my lute awake, Thou my harp the consort make, Myself will bear a part. Myself when first the morning shall appear, With voice and string So will thee sing: That this earthly globe, and all Treading on this earthly ball, My praising notes shall hear. For god, my only God, thy gracious love Is mounted far Above each star, Thy unchanged verity Heav’nly wings do lift as high As clouds have room to move. As high as highest heav’n can give thee place, O Lord, ascend And thence extend With most bright, most glorious show Over all the earth below, The sunbeams of thy face.

You squeezed its leash in your fist, It followed where you led: Tick, tock, tick, tock, Nodding its wooden head. Wagging a tail on a spring, Its wheels gearing lackety-clack, Dogging your heels the length of the house, Though you seldom glanced back. It didn’t mind being dragged When it toppled on its side Scraping its coat of primary colors: Love has no pride. But now that you run and climb And leap, it has no hope Of keeping up, so it sits, hunched At the end of its short rope And dreams of a rummage sale Where it’s snapped up for a song, And of somebody—somebody just like you— Stringing it along.

Heads were rolling down the highway in high slat trucks. I knew it was time to buy you and found you, The last sphere unscarred and undistorted in the store, Big as my own head. It was time too to leave you uncut and full-featured, Like the grandpa of twenty-five pumpkins in my past, Khrushchev-cheeked and dwelling on yourself, Great knee of my childhood. I plainly thought you would rot. I remembered the fetor of other pumpkins, Their blue populations coming out of hiding as if at the end Of some apocalypse. I devoted a day to reading up on minor cucurbits: I learned your dozen names in African And came home ready to raise or raze you, Positive of change. But so far—eternity. I think I would not like Eternity, after I had used my senses up, As I’ve tried with you—fingertips dragging over your world Pole to pole Till they go dead like explorers, nostril cilia Detecting your fragrance more delicate than they— And my patience. It’s Christmas, it’s a new year And I hear Of a family who’s kept you for four ... You endure like matter manufactured And indeed your stem seems punched into your orange gathers Like a button in a mattress. Shall I give you a room or a shrine? And shall I Purchase you a mate and family, When ours is so inadequate, fixed upon your window Deathbed as we are, Centered upon a time and birth, new holiday, new friends, New pumpkins, celebrating when all That has failed us has passed away. You have not failed.

Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu! Farewell soft mistrel of the early year! Ah! ’twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew, And pour thy music on the night’s dull ear. Whether on spring thy wandering flights await, Or whether silent in our groves you dwell, The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate, And still protect the song she loves so well. With cautious step the love-lorn youth shall glide Through the lone brake that shades thy mossy nest; And shepherd girls from eyes profane shall hide The gentle bird who sings of pity best: For still thy voice shall soft affections move, And still be dear to sorrow and to love!

This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing, That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table, To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside, and here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God? Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome him to this his new abode, Now while the heav'n, by the Sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? See how from far upon the eastern road The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet: O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel quire, From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire. It was the winter wild, While the Heav'n-born child, All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour. Only with speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw, Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities. But he, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace: She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. No war or battle's sound Was heard the world around; The idle spear and shield were high uphung; The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sate still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. The Stars with deep amaze Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence; And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence, But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. And though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlighten'd world no more should need: He saw a greater Sun appear Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear. The shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sate simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they than That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below: Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep; When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook, Divinely warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took: The air such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heav'nly close. Nature, that heard such sound Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the Airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: She knew such harmony alone Could hold all heav'n and earth in happier union. At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shame-fac'd Night array'd; The helmed Cherubim And sworded Seraphim Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes to Heav'n's new-born Heir. Such music (as 'tis said) Before was never made, But when of old the sons of morning sung, While the Creator great His constellations set, And the well-balanc'd world on hinges hung, And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep. Ring out ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears (If ye have power to touch our senses so) And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, And let the bass of Heav'n's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to th'angelic symphony. For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back and fetch the age of gold, And speckl'd Vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering Day. Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Thron'd in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissu'd clouds down steering; And Heav'n, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. But wisest Fate says no: This must not yet be so; The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss, So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang While the red fire and smould'ring clouds outbrake: The aged Earth, aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake, When at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day Th'old Dragon under ground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway, And, wrath to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. The Oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale Edg'd with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. Peor and Ba{:a}lim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heav'n's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue: In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue. The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest, Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud: In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded Infant's hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. So when the Sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to th'infernal jail, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze. But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest: Time is our tedious song should here have ending. Heav'n's youngest-teemed star, Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable, Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.