somewhere i have never traveled e. e. cummings

Transcription

1 Love Poem John Frederick Nims My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases, At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring, Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen, And have no cunning with any soft thing Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people: The refugee uncertain at the door You make at home; deftly you steady The drunk clambering on his undulant floor. Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers terror, Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime Yet leaping before red apoplectic streetcars Misfit in any space. And never on time. A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only With words and people and love you move at ease. In traffic of wit expertly maneuver And keep us, all devotion, at your knees. Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel, Your lipstick grinning on our coat, So gaily in love s unbreakable heaven Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float. Be with me, darling, early and late, Smash glasses I will study wry music for your sake. For should our hands drop white and empty All the toys of the world would break. somewhere i have never traveled e. e. cummings somewhere i have never traveled, 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 skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose or if you 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 colour 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

2 Ode on a Grecian Urn John Keats Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thou express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. [The photo shows a replica of the Townley Vase, one of the inspirations for Keats's Grecian Urn. The original is in the British Museum; this antique replica is sold by Barbara Israel Garden Antiques. Photograph by Sharyn Peavey. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

3 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T. S. Eliot Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky, Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats, Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go, Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle upon the windowpanes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the windowpanes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go, Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-- (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin, (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse. For I have known them already, known them all- Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons, I know the voices dying with a dying fall, Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all- The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all, Arms that are braceleted and white and bare, (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie around a table, or wrap about a shawl. And how should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

4 And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep... tired... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet - and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worthwhile, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball, To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say, "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all," -- If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say, "That is not what I meant, at all." "That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worthwhile, After the sunsets and dooryards and sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-- And this, and so much more?-- It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worthwhile If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning towards the window, should say: "That is not it, at all, That is not what I meant, at all." No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous, Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves, Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, By sea-girls wreathed in seaweed, red and brown, Till human voices wake us, and we drown. General Review of the Sex Situation Dorothy Parker Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in novelty. Love is woman's moon and sun; Man has other forms of fun. Woman lives but in her lord; Count to ten, and man is bored. With this the gist and sum of it, What earthly good can come of it?

5 After Reading Forty Old Drafts A Conclusion Peggy Lin Duthie Let's be rid of so-called poems. There are too many scraps of friendship bracelets ravelling like sugar when rain descends, flowing too sweet like an old dull love song. I swear I do not comprehend why all the heartfelt verse literating teenzines are safe unrollercoaster rides across the smile of the happiest rainbow. Love is not a set of plastic stars to pepper a page like so much breakfast cereal. And fountains are hard to clean, and moons are tourist pearls, and pennies pay only gum or taxes-- I say, let's be original. It is an execrable waste to fritter life as a quote. I don't mean I'm set against coziness--my hair is full of silky ribbons. But you kiss the cranky child to sleep, not the china doll. To me, it's that simple: if it matters enough to drown your nights, you guard it, soothe it, put up with the freshness, the full unsanitary ripeness, the strange fragile clarity. I love you. It is not a phrase I say because you want to hear it. Not here, at any rate. Poems are not sachets or pies to dole out every hungry noon. Here "I love you" means just that: the letters, the songs, the choosing of words placed in rich, certain order. The ripples through the night I smile at, though you're far away. Here Bullet Brian Turner If a body is what you want, then here is bone and gristle and flesh. Here is the clavicle-snapped wish, the aorta s opened valves, the leap thought makes at the synaptic gap. Here is the adrenaline rush you crave, that inexorable flight, that insane puncture into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish what you ve started. Because here, Bullet, here is where I complete the word you bring hissing through the air, here is where I moan the barrel s cold esophagus, triggering my tongue s explosives for the rifling I have inside of me, each twist of the round spun deeper, because here, Bullet, here is where the world ends, every time INSTRUCTIONS: * You are to read all the poems each week. * Please look closely at the Schedule of Assignments to know when responses are due. * These responses should be a minimum of one typed page. Handwritten responses receive only ½ credit. * 100 points each; 10% of quarter grade. * REQUIRED: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock & Ode on a Grecian Urn. You may choose your other responses from the other poems included here.

6 THE FOG TOWN SCHOOL OF THOUGHT Maurice Manning They should have taught us birds and trees in school, they should have taught us beauty and weaving bees and had a class on listening and standing alone the children should have studied light reflected from a spider web, we should have learned the branches of streams spread out like fingers or the veins of a leaf we should have learned the sky is the tallest steeple, we should have known a hill is a voice inside the sky O, we should have had our school on top and stayed until the night for the fog to bloom in the hollows and rise like cotton spinning off a wheel we should have learned a dream a child's and even still a man's is made from fog and love, my word, you'd think with the book in front of us we should have learned how Fog Town got its name. Death by Basketball Frank X. Walker Before and after school he stood on a milk crate eyeballed the mirror and only saw wayne turner at tournament time a third grader just off the bus barely four feet off the ground he dropped his books sank a j from the top of the key and heard the crowd roar beat his man off the dribble with a break yaneck crossover and slammed himself on the cover of a box of wheaties he was out there every night under a street light fighting through double picks talking trash to imaginary body checks you can t hold me fool fake right this is my planet drive left is the camera on reverse lay-up that s butter baby finshing with a trey from downtown, swish! I m inna zone t night whogotnext? more than a little light in the ass hands so small the ball almost dribbled him he formed his own lay-up line in the bluegrass wildcat jersey hanging like a summer dress on a court made bald from daily use and instead of writing his spelling words he signed a contract he could barely read inked a commitment in big block letters to the NBA and NIKE and SPRITE scribbled superstar in cursive with a fat red pencil and practiced his million dollar smile not his multiplication table thinking of how many chocolate milks he could buy with his signing bonus or his all-star game appearance fee after recess another shooting another tragic death another little genius who will never test out of a dream that kills legitimate futures every night under street lights wherever these products are sold...