Deteriorata

From the CD: National Lampoon Radio Dinner Album
A Parody of the poem Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.

Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three lefts do.

Wherever possible put people on "HOLD".
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
Remember the Pueblo.

Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle and mutilate.
Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you;
That lemon on your left for instance.

Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls,
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore; it will stick to your face.

Carefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan,
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
For a good time, call 606-4311.

Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog
Is finally getting enough cheese;
And reflect that whatever fortunes may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Sioux City.

You are a fluke of the Universe.
You have no right to be here, and whether you can hear it or not,
The Universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore make peace with your God whatever you conceive him to be,
Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin.

With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up.

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Desiderata

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Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)
From the Book: Desiderata : A Poem for a Way of Life
Spoken Word version on AM Gold: Mellow Hits

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

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The Curse of Minerva

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George Gordon, Lord Byron
From the book "Byron, Complete Poetical Works"

— ‘Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas
Immolat, et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.’ Aeneid, lib. xii.

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O’re the hush’d deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Aegina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer’d Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till , darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy wisest look’d his last,
How watch’d thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder’d sage’s latest day!
Not yet–not yet–Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seem’d to pour.
The land where Phoebus never frown’d before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron’s head,
The cup of woe was quaff’d–the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn’d to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The queen of night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form,
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the minaret:
The groves of olives scatter’d dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and sombre ‘mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that pass’d them heedless by.

Again the Aegean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his long waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mix’d with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
I mark’d the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turn’d to scan,
Sacred to gods but not secure from man,
The past return’d, the present seem’d to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

Hours roll’d along, and Dian’s orb on high
Had gain’d the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footstep trod
O’er the vain shrine of many a vanish’d god:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare,
Check’d by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O’er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When lo! a giant form before me strode,
And Pallas hail’d me in her own abode!

Yes, ’twas Minerva’s self; but ah! how changed,
Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appear’d from Phidias’ plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle aegis wore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seem’d weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
The olive branch, which still she deign’d to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch and wither’d in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm’d her large blue eye:
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourn’d his mistress with a shriek of woe!

‘Mortal!’–’twas thus she spake–‘that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of all the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour’d less by all, and least by me:
Chief of they foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek’st thou the cause of loathing?–look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive tyrannies expire.
‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn’d,
That Adrian rear’d when drooping Science mourn’d.
What more I owe let gratitude attest–
Know Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name–above, behold his deeds!

Be ever hail’d with equal honour here
the Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just and crimes are cross’d:
See here what Elgin won and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared to reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
‘Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! they plunderer was a Scot.
Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyle’s towers
Survey Boeotia;–Caledonia’s ours.
And well I know within that bastard land
Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows.
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.
Then thousands schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide:
Some east, some west, some everywhere but north,
In quest of lawless gain they issue forth.
And thus–accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may be her few the letter’d and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.’

‘Mortal!’ the blue-eyed maid resumed,
‘once more Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengence is yet mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas’s stern beehest;
Hear and believe for time will tell the rest.

‘First on the head of him and all his seed:
My curse shall light,–on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
Long of their patron’s gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is–to sell:
To sell and make–may shame record the day!–
The state receiver of his pilfer’d prey.
Meantime, the flattering feeble dotard, West,
Europe’s poor dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the bruisers cull’d from St. Giles’,
That art and nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his lordship’s "stone shop" there.
Round the throng’d gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims "These Greeks indeed were proper men!"
Draws slight conparisons of these with those,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swain like these!
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loath’d in life, nor pardon’d in dust,
May hate pursue his sacreligious lust!
Linked with that fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

‘So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix’d statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
Look to the Baltic–blazing from afar,
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which she herself had made;
Far from such councils from the faithless field
She fled–but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turn’d your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

‘Look to the East, where Ganges swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her gastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights forbade you to enslave.

‘Look on your Spain!–she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare few to fight and sometimes fly,
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?

‘Look last at home–ye love not to look there;
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
"Blest paper credit;" who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck’d each premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,–but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for ** ; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet the heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each resonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign "log",
Thus hail’d your rules their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose and onion for a god.

‘Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish’d power;
Gloss o’er the failure of of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that’s left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber’d shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the coming doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

‘ ‘Tis done, ’tis past, since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o’er the realm they wave their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains.
The banner’d pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet have taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench’d with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughter’d peasant and the ravished dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap’d field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask they bosom who deserves them most.
The law of heaven and earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.’

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Jabberwocky

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Lewis Carroll (1832-98)
From the Book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgabe
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought
And as in uffish though he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as he came!
One, two!, One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
And hast thou slain the Jabberwock!
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgabe.

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Poems of Dorothy Parker

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From the Book: Portable Dorothy Parker

Interview

The ladies men admire, I’ve heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They’d rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints.
So far, I have had no complaints.

One Perfect Rose

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

Portrait of the Artist

Oh, lead me to a quiet cell
Where never footfall rankles,
And bar the window passing well,
And gyve my wrists and ankles.

Oh, wrap my eyes with linen fair,
With hempen cord go bind me,
And, of your mercy, leave me there,
Nor tell them where to find me.

Oh, lock the portal as you go,
And see its bolts be double….
Come back in half an hour or so,
And I will be in trouble.

Resume

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Song of Perfect Propriety

Oh, I should like to ride the seas,
A roaring buccaneer;
A cutlass banging at my knees,
A dirk behind my ear.
And when my captives’ chains would clank
I’d howl with glee and drink,
And then fling out the quivering plank
And watch the beggars sink.

I’d like to straddle gory decks,
And dig in laden sands,
And know the feel of throbbing necks
Between my knotted hands.
Oh, I should like to strut and curse
Among my blackguard crew….
But I am writing little verse,
As little ladies do.

Oh, I should like to dance and laugh
And pose and preen and sway,
And rip the hearts of men in half,
And toss the bits away.
I’d like to view the reeling years
Through unastonished eyes,
And dip my finger-tips in tears,
And give my smiles for sighs.

I’d stroll beyond the ancient bounds,
And tap at fastened gates,
And hear the prettiest of sound-
The clink of shattered fates.
My slaves I’d like to bind with thongs
That cut and burn and chill….
But I am writing little songs,
As little ladies will.

Threnody

Lilacs blossom just as sweet
Now my heart is shattered.
If I bowled it down the street,
Who’s to say it mattered?
If there’s one that rode away
What would I be missing?
Lips that taste of tears, they say,
Are the best for kissing.

Eyes that watch the morning star
Seem a little brighter;
Arms held out to darkness are
Usually whiter.
Shall I bar the strolling guest,
Bind my brow with willow,
When, they say, the empty breast
Is the softer pillow?

That a heart falls tinkling down,
Never think it ceases.
Every likely lad in town
Gathers up the pieces.
If there’s one gone whistling by
Would I let it grieve me?
Let him wonder if I lie;
Let him half believe me.

Incurable

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what’s a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He’ll run the path the others went….
But you, my sweet, are different.

The Red Dress

I always saw, I always said
If I were grown and free,
I’d have a gown of reddest red
As fine as you could see,

To wear out walking, sleek and slow,
Upon a Summer day,
And there’d be one to see me so
And flip the world away.

And he would be a gallant one,
With stars behind his eyes,
And hair like metal in the sun,
And lips too warm for lies.

I always saw us, gay and good,
High honored in the town.
Now I am grown to womanhood….
I have the silly gown.

A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature

The Lives and Times of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron
Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Iyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn’t impair the poetical feats
    Of Byron and Shelley,
    Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats.

Oscar Wilde
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
The pure and worthy Mrs. Stowe
Is one we all are proud to know
As mother, wife, and authoress-
Thank God, I am content with less!

D. G. Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Buried all of his libretti,
Thought the matter over – then
Went and dug them up again.

Thomas Carlyle
Carlyle combined the lit’ry life
With throwing teacups at his wife,
Remarking, rather testily,
"Oh, stop your dodging, Mrs. C.!"

Charles Dickens
Who call him spurious and shoddy
Shall do it o’er my lifeless body.
I heartily invite such birds
To come outside and say those words!

Alexandre Dumas and His Son
Although I work, and seldom cease,
At Dumas pere and Dumas fils,
Alas, I cannot make me care
For Dumas fils and Dumas pere.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Should Heaven send me any son,
I hope he’s not like Tennyson.
I’d rather have him play a fiddle
Than rise and bow and speak an idyll.

George Gissing
When I admit neglect of Gissing,
They say I don’t know what I’m missing.
Until their arguments are subtler,
I think I’ll stick to Samuel Butler.

Walter Savage Landor
Upon the work of Walter Landor
I am unfit to write with candor.
If you can read it, well and good;
But as for me, I never could.

George Sand
What time the gifted lady took
Away from paper, pen, and book,
She spent in amorous dalliance
(They do those things so well in France).

Frustration

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

Dilemma

If I were mild, and I were sweet,
And laid my heart before your feet,
And took my dearest thoughts to you,
And hailed your easy lies as true;
Were I to murmur "Yes," and then
"How true, my dear," and "Yes," again,
And wear my eyes discreetly down,
And tremble whitely at your frown,
And keep my words unquestioning
My love, you’d run like anything!

Should I be frail, and I be mad,
And share my heart with every lad,
But beat my head against the floor
What times you wandered past my door;
Were I to doubt, and I to sneer,
And shriek "Farewell!" and still be here,
And break your joy, and quench your trust-
I should not see you for the dust!

Theory

Into love and out again,
    Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen-
    Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
    All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
    Some one dropped me on my head?

Superfluous Advice

Should they whisper false of you.
    Never trouble to deny;
Should the words they say be true,
    Weep and storm and swear they lie.

Coda

There’s little in taking or giving,
    There’s little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
    Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
    The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
    And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
    And rest’s for a clam in a shell,
So I’m thinking of throwing the battle-
    Would you kindly direct me to hell?

The Danger of Writing Defiant Verse

And now I have another lad!
No longer need you tell
How all my nights are slow and sad
For loving you too well.

His ways are not your wicked ways,
He’s not the like of you.
He treads his path of reckoned days,
A sober man, and true.

They’ll never see him in the town,
Another on his knee.
He’d cut his laden orchards down,
If that would pleasure me.

He’d give his blood to paint my lips
If I should wish them red.
He prays to touch my finger-tips
Or stroke my prideful head.

He never weaves a glinting lie,
Or brags the hearts he’ll keep.
I have forgotten how to sigh-
Remembered how to sleep.

He’s none to kiss away my mind-
A slower way is his.
Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find
A silly lot he is.

Sanctuary

My land is bare of chattering folk;
    The clouds are low along the ridges,
And sweet’s the air with curly smoke
    From all my burning bridges.

The Lady’s Reward

Lady, lady, never start
Conversation toward your heart;
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.
Show yourself, by word and look,
Swift and shallow as a brook.
Be as cool and quick to go
As a drop of April snow;
Be as delicate and gay
As a cherry flower in May.
Lady, lady, never speak
Of the tears that burn your cheek-
She will never win him, whose
Words had shown she feared to lose.
Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you-
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You’ll be the first it ever did.

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Lisa’s Dentistry Haiku

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from Lisa

I still completely love yoursite. I am sending the link to ALL my friends. To show you my appreciation, I’m sending you my dental haiku, completely original (who else would claim it LOL) and in honor of my visit to the dentist tomorrow morning. I’m a chicken about dentists in case you cannot tell. hehehehehe. I lveo sarcastic haiku. I cannot remember if I’m the one that sent them to you, or if I saw them on your site, but I think one of us showed them to the other….. anyway those computer error message haiku just crack me up!!!
xoxo
Lisa

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To His Coy Mistress

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Andrew Marvell
From the Book: The Complete Poems (Everyman’s Library Series)

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.
Two hundred to adore each breast:
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For lady, you deserve this state;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity:
And your quaint honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think , do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow chapped power
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball:
And tear our pleasures with rough strife,
Through the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

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The Lover’s Resolution

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George Wither
From the Book: A Book of Love Poetry, Jon Stallworthy, Editor

Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman’s fair?
Or my cheeks make pale with care
‘Cause another’s rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day
Or the flowery meads in May–
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?

Shall my foolish heart be pined
‘Cause I see a woman kind;
Or a well-disposed nature
Joined with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder than
Turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman’s virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her merits’ value known
Make me quite forget my own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may gain her name of Best;
If she seem not so to me,
What care I how good she be?

‘Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind
Where they want of riches find,
Think that with them they would do
Who without them dare to woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?

Great or good, or kind or fair,
I will ne’er the more despair;
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
But if she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?

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Interlude

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Amy Lowell
From the Book: Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell

When I have baked white cakes
And grated green almonds to spread on them;
When I have picked the green crowns from the strawberries
And piled them, cone-pointed, in a blue and yellow platter;
When I have smoothed the seam of the linen I have been working;
What then?
To-morrow it will be the same:
Cakes and strawberries,
And needles in and out of cloth
If the sun is beautiful on bricks and pewter,
How much more beautiful is the moon,
Slanting down the gauffered branches of a plum-tree;
The moon
Wavering across a bed of tulips;
The moon,
Still,
Upon your face.
You shine, Beloved,
You and the moon.
But which is the reflection?
The clock is striking eleven.
I think, when we have shut and barred the door,
The night will be dark
Outside.

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