my english is in desperate need of a shot in the arm. so i am on the look-out for some good poems. preferably not in french. know of any gems? please send them my way.
Evenings I hear the workmen fire into the stiff magnolia leaves, routing the starlings gathered noisy and befouling there.
Their scissoring terror like glass coins spilling breaking the birds explode into mica sky raggedly fall to ground rigid in clench of cold.
The spared return, when the guns are through, to the spoiled trees like choiceless poor to a dangerous dwelling place, chitter and quarrel in the piercing dark about the killed.
- Robert Hayden, 1970
"After the Convention"
Life, hope, they conquer death, generally, always; and if the steamroller goes over the flower, the flower dies. Some are more solid earth; they stood in lines, blouse and helmet, a creamy de luxe sky blue -- their music, savage and ephemeral. . . . After five nights in Chicago: police and mob, I am so tired and had, cliches are wisdom, the cliches of paranoia. On this shore, the fall of the high tide waves is a straggling, joshing march of soldiers . . . on the march for me. . . . How slender and graceful, the double line of trees, how slender, graceful, irregular and underweight, the young in black folk-fire circles below the trees -- under their bodies, the green grass turns to hay.
- Robert Lowell, 1968
"A Little Language"
I know a little language of my cat, though Dante says that animals have no need of speech and Nature abhors the superfluous. My cat is fluent. He converses when he wants with me. To speak
is natural. And whales and wolves I’ve heard in choral soundings of the sea and air know harmony and have an eloquence that stirs my mind and heart-they touch the soul. Here
Dante’s religion that would set Man apart damns the effluence of our life from us to build therein its powerhouse.
It’s in his animal communication Man is true, immediate, and in immediacy, Man is all animal.
His senses quicken in the thick of the symphony, old circuits of animal rapture and alarm, attentions and arousals in which an identity rearrives. He hears particular voices among the concert, the slightest rustle in the undertones, rehearsing a nervous aptitude yet to prove his. He sees the flick of significant red within the rushing mass of ruddy wilderness and catches the glow of a green shirt to delite him in a glowing field of green -it speaks to him- and in the arc of the spectrum color speaks to color. The rainbow articulates a promise he remembers he but imitates in noises that he makes,
this speech in every sense the world surrounding him.
He picks up on the fugitive tang of mace amidst the savory mass, and taste in evolution is an everlasting key. There is a pun of scents in what makes sense.
Myrrh it may have been, the odor of the announcement that filld the house.
(Fisk Campus)
Evenings I hear
the workmen fire
into the stiff
magnolia leaves,
routing the starlings
gathered noisy and
befouling there.
Their scissoring
terror like glass
coins spilling breaking
the birds explode
into mica sky
raggedly fall
to ground rigid
in clench of cold.
The spared return,
when the guns are through,
to the spoiled trees
like choiceless poor
to a dangerous
dwelling place,
chitter and quarrel
in the piercing dark
about the killed.
- Robert Hayden, 1970
"After the Convention"
Life, hope, they conquer death, generally, always;
and if the steamroller goes over the flower, the flower dies.
Some are more solid earth; they stood in lines,
blouse and helmet, a creamy de luxe sky blue --
their music, savage and ephemeral. . . .
After five nights in Chicago: police and mob,
I am so tired and had, cliches are wisdom,
the cliches of paranoia. On this shore,
the fall of the high tide waves is a straggling, joshing
march of soldiers . . . on the march for me. . . .
How slender and graceful, the double line of trees,
how slender, graceful, irregular and underweight,
the young in black folk-fire circles below the trees --
under their bodies, the green grass turns to hay.
- Robert Lowell, 1968
"A Little Language"
I know a little language of my cat, though Dante says
that animals have no need of speech and Nature
abhors the superfluous. My cat is fluent. He
converses when he wants with me. To speak
is natural. And whales and wolves I’ve heard
in choral soundings of the sea and air
know harmony and have an eloquence that stirs
my mind and heart-they touch the soul. Here
Dante’s religion that would set Man apart
damns the effluence of our life from us
to build therein its powerhouse.
It’s in his animal communication Man is
true, immediate, and
in immediacy, Man is all animal.
His senses quicken in the thick of the symphony,
old circuits of animal rapture and alarm,
attentions and arousals in which an identity rearrives.
He hears
particular voices among
the concert, the slightest
rustle in the undertones,
rehearsing a nervous aptitude
yet to prove his. He sees the flick
of significant red within the rushing mass
of ruddy wilderness and catches the glow
of a green shirt
to delite him in a glowing field of green
-it speaks to him-
and in the arc of the spectrum color
speaks to color.
The rainbow articulates
a promise he remembers
he but imitates
in noises that he makes,
this speech in every sense
the world surrounding him.
He picks up on the fugitive tang of mace
amidst the savory mass,
and taste in evolution is an everlasting key.
There is a pun of scents in what makes sense.
Myrrh it may have been,
the odor of the announcement that filld the house.
He wakes from deepest sleep
upon a distant signal and waits
as if crouching, springs
to life.
- Robert Duncan, 1984
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